Hungry Yet? (Iris)

[Spiffy]

The smoke from the fire billowed lazily up to the cave roof. It didn't stay there long, some strange force pushing it p further and along, soon finding an escape in the cave entrance. Not the main entrance, too many people passing in and out of there. The fire blazed happily away in its little ring of rocks, gathered from the corners of the cave.

Something was cooking on the fire, roasting slowly, sizzling as the juices ran out and vaporised in the flames below. Bella poked it callously with a stick. She wasn't the best cook, not this kind of things anyway. She wasn't a butcher. Wasn't raised by butchers. Now, give her some flour, sugar, butter and egg and she could whip up a cracking cake, or flour yeast and water and stuff and bread it would become. Baker, that was what she was raised as. You wouldn't think it looking at her. But meat? That she was still learning.

You could tell, still, that she was unused to it, but she was improving, learning the ropes through trial and error. The various pieces of the mystery meat, hunted by Bellask and the leftovers chopped up and suspended over the fire on a contraption made of young saplings, weren't burned. Yet. But then they weren't exactly cooked quite yet either, so there was still time.

Bellask lounged beside her, bulging belly attesting to how well fed and uninterested in the cooked meat she was. She wasn't quite asleep though, lazily watching her handlers efforts with mild interest. Bellatrisk was prowling somewhere. Probably hunting for herself. Still. Bellask seemed to find the whole thing easier than her far larger sister. Something that Bellatrisk found extremely irritating. Bellask was smug.

[S'yal]

Iris had finally left the side of Widow's Veil, driven on by hunger despite how she'd wished to stay with 'her' egg. She'd traded away most of her pies, in exchange for tools that had made her life much more comfortable then most outlaws. She didn't like pie anyway. Iris wasn't fond of sweet things. They made her teeth ache.

She much preferred meat. So it was no surprise that when she smelled it, her stomach rumbled in response. The woman moved silently in the direction of the smell, blue eye falling upon the green where with some hesitation. Good warriors admitted to when they were worried about a threat. Iris recognized Bellask, and she would much rather tangle with Bellatrisk then the green. It was the angry, volatile ones that you had to watch out for. They could be... unpredictable.

"Bellatrix." Her voice was soft, eyes falling upon the goldhandler. Of course she knew her name. What outlaw didn't? "Trade?" Iris reached into a pack on her side, gently extracting one of the last pies. It was a bit smushed, but the way she'd packed it had prevented it from crumbling or anything.

Bellatrix was someone Iris wanted to be on the good side of, fast. Even when the dragons reached their full growth, the goldhandler would likely have a good deal of influence. She was a friend Iris needed to make, and fast.

Iris hated making friends.

[Spiffy]

Bella's hand immediately went to her knife when a figure appeared around a corner, instinct combined with a cave full of fellow psychos driving the movement. It didn't take her long to recognise The other woman, though she had no idea what her name was. She didn't speak all that much, she seemed to remember.

But Iris seemed to know Bella's name, and her full one at that. Congratulations, darling, she thought, but didn't relax her guard. Bellask too looked up and gave a half-hearted growl. The intruder wasn't that close, and if she moved Bellask was pretty sure she could be on her in a second. Unlikely, with a belly that full, but she wasn't thinking of that.

She'd known that the smell of cooking meat was likely to draw her some attention; she'd kept Bellask by her side to scare off any who might think to take it from her. Her meat, she wasn't gonna share it. They could have her leftovers, maybe, the burnt bits, if they paid.

But the last thing she'd been expecting was pie. Her face lit up as Iris revealed the object of trade, unbidden and unhidden from view. Oh sweet Faranth she hadn't seen a pie in weeks. Hadn't made on in over a turn either, and with the current food shortage her fingers were beginning to get itchy. She wanted to bake something, and then eat it all. All for herself.

Guess she'd just have to settle for eating.

She changed her gleeful look for a smile, hopefully winning, seeing as she wasn't thinking of murdering Iris at the time.

"Why, that sounds absolutely delightful! Here, come sit" she said, patting a spot on the ground by the fire, "Bellask won't hurt you, will you Sweetling?" The green settled her head back onto her forelegs, though she kept her eyes on Iris. Bella held out her skewer.

"Trade, pokey-stick for pie." Iris had better take it, or pretty soon the meat would be beyond eating.

"So, you know my name, but I find myself at a loss as to yours. Care to elaborate for us?" she asked, still smiling. Keep smiling, she has pie. That made her good, and Bella wanted good on her side.

[S'yal]

Iris's face stayed impassive, even as she looked at the wher. She shifted uncomfortably, though she did her best to keep any signs of fear out of her body language. While it was good that she feared and respected whers, it would probably be bad to let them know. Animals tended to react badly to that, Iris recalled of her time on a farm. That last thing Iris wanted was the green wher to view her as food.

Speaking of food...

Iris moved forward slowly, her movements uncharacteristically stiff. Social settings where she wasn't seducing a man? She was an idiot at it. But she sat anyway, glancing towards the goldhandler. "Trade." Iris agreed, a smirk on her face as she too the skewer. Meat, glorious meat! She was thankfully willing to let it cool down, or she'd have burned her mouth. Silly Iris.

"You can call me Ribbon." Iris offered, her face flat. Her real name was a secret that she was trained to keep. Even when she didn't need to. "I prefer it to my real one."

"I got those during the egg theft." Iris offered, feeling like it wasn't polite to just trade for pie and not tell someone where she got it from. Er, was that impolite? Iris didn't know.

[Spiffy]

Bella watched Iris critically as she approached. Bit weird this one, she concluded. All stiff and wooden, she had no grace to her. If she'd known what robotic was then she would probably have said that too. That and her apparent lack of communication. Maybe she'd open up with a bit of pushing.

But oh look, a smirk! An expression! Bella could have clapped. She didn't though. At least the strange woman seemed as glad of the change in diet as Bella was. A good trade for both parties then. She all but snatched the pie from Iris once her second hand was free, and at the last moment self control kicked in before she stuffed a handful of sweet sticky berry-licious pastry into her mouth. She settled for a smaller handful, having nothing like cutlery to eat it with. It was hands or nothing.

She quirked an eyebrow when Iris announced her name, a fleck of pastry clinging to her lip, which she licked off as she did so. Ribbon? Strange name... she nodded though, as Ribbon provided an explanation. Fair enough, not everyone liked their names. Though she didn't seem to Bella the type who really would care...

But hey, she brought pie, Bella was willing to suspend belief for a second in her favour. "Really?" she asked, not really expecting an answer but she wouldn't complain if one came, at the same time wondering how on Pern someone would stumble upon a pie in the middle of a jungle which had already proved itself to be somewhat lacing in luxuries by starving them all.

But then she'd found something unexpected too, so again, suspended belief comin' into play.

"I found some shiny new boots! Aren't they just gorgeous?" she said, sticking out her leg and waving it demonstratively in the firelight. Hell yeah she was wearing them! New boots for wandering the caverns, old ones for trudging around in the much outside. She'd even boobie-trapped her cave to ensure that nobody stole them while she was out and about. Bella loved her boots. And the knew knife (which she didn't love quite so much because she already had several) but boots!

[S'yal]

At least she hadn't questioned the alias that Iris used. She'd run into many people who had informed her the name was 'stupid'. She didn't think it was stupid, but she'd chosen it. Iris had to resist the urge to check if her ribbon was in place, seeing as the pink fabric was gone now.

She hated the prison so much.

Well, someone seemed to like the pie. Iris, for her part, definitely enjoyed the meat. She'd always leaned more on the carnivore side then vegetarian. Licking pale lips, a slightly disturbing gesture when coupled with her expressionless face, Iris glanced to Bella as she spoke. "Someone left a bag of them." She explained, glancing towards the pie. They'd been a bit squished, but that one had fared the best during the egg theft. Iris almost felt bad that it was cool, seeing as Bellatrix had traded food for it. Iris liked trades.

As the boots were mentioned, Iris nodded "Enviable." She agreed. Iris had a feeling that there probably would have been attempts to steal them if Bellatrix didn't have a pair of deadly whers at her back. But it seemed none of the outlaws wanted to mess with Bellatrisk. Iris's eyes trailed to Bellask, wondering how big the gold was if the green was already so large.

Whers were scary.

"How big is the gold?" Iris couldn't resist her curiosity. Besides, if she knew how big the gold was, it'd help her estimate the sizes of the other whers. Or something. If a dragon didn't choose her, she'd probably try for one of Bellatrisk's eggs. Iris continued to regard Bellask thoughtfully. Maybe I can trap a green later... wherhide might be useful for clothing.

Maybe she could get Bellatrix to help her.

[Spiffy]

Bella nodded at the explanation, accepting it without question.

She practically beamed back at Iris when she responded about the bots. Bella loved her boots, very much. If anyone tried to steal them, she'd hunt them down, with two bloodthirsty whers at her back which had been restraining their anger for just too long. Not a good idea.

But giving Bella pie? Complementing her boots? Even asking about her whers in tones not of hatred or outright fear? Very good. Smartie points to Iris. Bella likes you now. You're in a very good position.

"Bellatisk? She's... just over seven feet tall now, though I think she's still got a couple inches more to go. So she's a fair bit bigger than Bellask here," she said, reaching out to give the green a quick scratch on her eyeridge. She crooned in response, eyelids flickering, held open only by force of will and suspicion.

Retracting the hand, Bella took one more mouthful of pie before gently setting the rest of the pie on the little stick rack that she'd originally been roasting the mystery meat on. She needed an oven, really. Heating it only from below would probably only heat the bottom, leaving the top and the filling colder. But warm pie, even if unevenly warm pie, was even better than cold pie.

She glanced back to Iris eating the meat. "Do you have any idea what it is? Bellask didn't know," she asked, genuinely curious about what it was that she'd so nearly tucked into.