SUNRISE AT CALVARY.
on day three, the unsmiling faces persist. it's starting to get to her. she's not expecting them to cheer at the sight of her or anything, but was it unreasonable to hope for even a bit of gratitude? a ' thank you ' or at least some advice and insight into what would do the best job of helping to prevent a disaster like this the next time around? she'd like to believe there was value in helping others help you. wasn't there?
the blank — and sometimes frosty, at worst — faces that stare back at her say otherwise.
it makes her hands, her efforts feel useless. she'd spent days before this in the library between classes and meals studying up on mountain lowland rural architecture, on roads infrastructure, local climate patterns, material and labor costs. she'd been ready to help make sure that the people who lived here wouldn't have to be locked-in again, the main thoroughfare to and from town to the nearest cities and suppliers swept out by another passing storm front.
it's not that she feels stung — just. just.
"you're pandreo, right? do you have a minute?"
out of habit, she approaches the man fearlessly, the fact that he was academy faculty an afterthought to his analogous age and — dared she say it? — disheveled appearance. she's not thinking about either of these now, but she can't deny that in her mind over the last three days she's seen him as more of a peer than an authority, the fact that they hadn't said more than a few sentences to each other since arriving in remire notwithstanding. they weren't the only two on the team sent to help with repairs and restructuring, but at this exact moment he was the closest at hand.
and there was something else about him, maybe, that she couldn't put her finger on — that made him feel like the best person to bring this up with.
under the cloud-thickened afternoon sky that couldn't seem to fully let go of the threat of yet more rain, intermittent light blotted the landscape of remire in alternatingly irregular patches of brilliance and shadow, as though half the village at any given time was in daylight while the other half experienced night. it'd been like this ever since they'd arrived. caeldori temporarily unloads her most recent drawn-up blueprints onto a nearby fieldstone wall; they had a few minutes before the surveyor came back with measurements and they had their next meeting with the villagers.
she lowers her voice: "i've been thinking, and i was hoping to find someone to talk with about this... have you noticed anything strange about the villagers? i can't help but feel like — even though we were asked to come and help, they don't look like they actually want us here. it's not just me, is it?"
♡ // @revelale
