Eudora

Despite the long hours of gruelling labour, spirits were relatively high among the seven women. Eudora could only attribute this to the hope that grew among them with every completed step. The plan, as far as they could see, was working.

Kali’s below-belt humour may also have helped somewhat; although, Eudora did not always understand the punchlines. Lowri most likely did not either, but she smiled all the same, grateful to be included. Blaire definitely found her amusing, Eudora could tell. Perhaps it was a relief for her to not be solely relied upon to create the group’s entertainment.

Eudora had been marking off the days against a soft patch of wall behind a waist-high rock so as not to lose count. She now had six strikes in the dirt, and they still had a large section to complete.

Although their meals were rationed strictly, they had not felt the shortage of food too greatly yet as they had consumed all of their sundries collected from the bottoms of their packs first and were now on a diet that consisted purely of meat. It filled them suitably for their physically demanding days. Matilde’s body had coped well with the transition to two meals a day of undiluted protein, if anything… she seemed to be growing larger and more muscular. Magali’s had not. The other five women were not feeling their best but did not complain, grateful at least that they were not suffering the painful stomach cramping and nausea that Magali was.

Eudora paused to take a deep breath, as she found herself on the verge of panting. The work had not gotten easier each day; instead, her hands were blistered and sore when she awoke and only got progressively more painful as the day wore on. She had developed callouses on her hands over the years from wielding her bow, but they were not protecting her from the pain her dagger handle inflicted upon her as she dug with its small blade.

Dani was knelt on the step itself and already cutting into the wall above to begin the next indent; she did not speak but occasionally Eudora earned a very slight smile or a nod in response to her attempts at small talk. The only sound the short woman made came from the thunks and scrapes of her dagger. From Eudora’s position, carving into the wall at a forty-five degree angle, she faced their camp.

Magali and Matilde sat at opposite sides of the small fire pit, eating their supper and rolling out their limbs in an attempt to shift the tightness from their shift of digging. Kali was sat at the edge of their rest area, where Blaire and Lowri had been sleeping for an hour or so already, chattering away in her usual laid-back style. As a member of Blaire and Lowri’s group, she should really be getting some rest, but Eudora did not feel it appropriate for her to advise the southerner on how to care for herself. She was led by Matilde and it was Matilde’s place to say something if she felt it was necessary.

They were all sporting identical double-braid hairstyles, courtesy of Blaire, to keep their already dirty and greasy hair free from any further ruin. It felt incredibly unnatural to Eudora to see so much of Magali’s forehead for the first time in the year she had been riding as a member of their group. Her full bangs usually hid her pale skin from view. Lowri had opted against braids for her own hair, as she feared she did not have enough hair for it to be braided without pain. Her frohawk would live on in its misshapen form. Dani had her longer chunk of black hair usually tied in a top-knot woven into a single plait that lay stiffly against the nape of her neck. Although she had not so much as agreed to it as… not disagreed. Blaire had offered, and Dani had not replied. Dani got braided.

“Where are you from?” the slim southerner asked of Magali. Always asking questions, always curious, always interested in everything. Or rather, looking for something to poke at and tease.

Magali chewed her meat slowly and swallowed quietly before answering. “Mesial.”

“People do not come from Mesial,” Kali corrected her.“They journey there as adults. A pilgrimage of knowledge.”

“My mother is a highly-respected scholar,” Magali answered, not without a slight layer of conceit coating her words. “She could not leave her research or her students, so she birthed and raised me in the city.”

“How old were you when you first met a fellow child?” Kali asked, without any attempt to hide her amusement.

Eudora had never thought about it too deeply, but she supposed the thought of a child being raised in Mesial was rather strange. It was a hub of scholars and nobility with their eyes firmly set on the goal of knowledge and invention. She wondered what kind of childhood could be had in such a place.

“I met other children,” Magali snapped, her plump lips drawn down, accentuating her cupid’s bow.

Kali was not to be silenced by Magali’s irritated reply though. “This answers so many of my questions about you,” she said instead. Her lazy grin held its usual place, and Eudora wondered if she deliberately smiled with such an uncaring expression in order to further fuel Magali’s annoyance.

“Such as?”

“Why you are incapable of being childish, or enjoying anything that does not result in a productive end.”

“I do not think it is strange that I do not enjoy the wasting of time.”

It had not gone unnoticed, at least not by Eudora, that Kali seemed eager to engage Magali in small bouts of bickering or teasing such as this. Matilde never intervened, whether because she could not or would not, Eudora had not yet decided.

“Fine.” Kali clapped her hands together. “New question: what will be the first thing you do once we are free of this place?”

“I will eat so much bread,” Magali groaned, closing her eyes and scrunching her mouth. Eudora was sure there were fictitious loaves roaming past her eyes beneath the lids, taunting the poor woman. Kali only laughed at her with an unladylike snort thrown in.

“And you, Dora?”

Eudora did not miss the sharp look Matilde shot Kali at the pet name, but she ignored it all the same. She considered the question for a moment, pausing the movement of her digging dagger. Her eyes drifted from the blade to her mud-caked hands and lower arms, her tattoos almost entirely concealed under the dirt.

“I should like to visit a bath house,” she decided finally. “The expensive kind, with scented soaps that are carved into pretty designs and flower petals floating atop the water.” It had been far too long since she had experienced a real wash, with water that was warm and where you could cleanse yourself in private. In their small cavern, they had been scooping water out of the central pool and carrying it away to wash with in the far corner so as not to contaminate the main body of water that they were also using to drink from. Despite her best efforts, Eudora never felt truly clean when washing from a pot.

She broke out of her thoughts of floral scents and skin-softening oils to continue stabbing at the mud beside her. The quicker she worked, the quicker she could sink into a blissful bath.

Kali hummed in agreement, a soft smile on her lips. “That sounds wonderful,” she said, raising her grubby palms to eye-level and inspecting them with raised brows, as though expecting the mud to melt from her tanned skin with the heat of her gaze.

“And what about you, Kali?” Eudora puffed out, slightly winded from a few particularly stubborn chunks of dirt that would not shift without her full strength.

“You know, Dora,” Kali said slowly. “I have yet to decide, but thank you for asking.”

Matilde glared over her bowl, held close to her mouth. “Perhaps you should spend less time talking and more resting. It will not be long before it will be your group’s shift to dig again.”

Kali rolled her eyes and then her body, tumbling into the messy pile of bedding beneath their wonky shelter. There was a rumble of slurred complaint that sounded most likely to be Blaire, but it was followed smoothly by soft snores so Eudora could only assume Kali had managed not to wake either of her women.

Matilde’s hazel eyes slid from the bedding pile to Eudora and then away quickly to stare into the depths of the pool ahead of her. She did not meet Eudora’s eyes again for the entirety of her digging shift, despite how many times she glanced back at the older woman herself.

Dani’s diligent digging sounds filled the silence, though, and it gave Eudora plenty of time to float among her thoughts.