She only had eyes for the bounty of food by the fire.<br/><br/>Weak, so terribly week from months of malnourishment and not just lack of food but lack of the right kinds of food had taken its toll.  Vesta could taste the raspberries in her mouth, the sweetly tart tang of them and it made her jaws ache with a fierce clenching sting that brought saliva to flood her mouth.  Aica wouldn't notice the hand she put over her stomach, a maternal gesture older than time herself as she imagined the new life inside of her stirring happily for the promise of a meal that it would strip from her blood and body to build its own.  Aica's kiss, that loving gesture in a desperate moment further made Vesta's head spin and she too rose, then dropped the knife he'd pressed into her hand.  Gathering her skirts like a girl she ran, stumbling and falling once then scrabbling the rest of the way on her hands and knees until she fetched up at almost eye level to the pile the sprite had so laboriously gathered.<br/><br/>Taste exploded in her mouth as she bit into two raspberries, just two.  It wasn't willpower that restrained her but clumsy, shaking fingers that sent the rest of them scattering.  Crying, her brown eyes shut and tears streaking tracks in the dirt on her face, she who had been a princess of the East knew a joy that gold and gems and power could never have brought her as she knelt in rags, a bastard in her belly, and the sweet taste of late summer raspberries in her mouth.<br/><br/>Crying openly, Vesta sat back on her heels and turned to look back at Aica but the tears blurred her vision.  Brushing at them with the backs of her hands she saw clearly enough to wave at him.  "Aica!" she shouted, not caring, not even thinking about being found.  "Aica, there's..."  Squealing she caught sight of something and pushed to her feet, taking a few stumbling steps before bending down and picking something from the leaf mold.  It was a helmet, rusted and with a dent but still intact.  As she lifted it a skull minus its jaw rolled out of it and bounced at her feet, leering upside down at her from its new grave on the ground.  It should have been horrible, something she'd have stepped around but all she could think of was what a wonderful pot it would make.  A pot to cook the onions and mushrooms and the rabbit and the rich, rich marrow of the bones and how she and her baby and her husband would be able to survive that much longer.<br/><br/>Waving it over her head, she laughed past her tears.  "Aica!  It's a pot!  We can make a stew!"<br/><br/>Why wasn't he coming to her?