Dawn peered at the collection of roots and greens arrayed on the centre stump - she could only guess it was some sort of buffet. It didn’t look like a particularly<i>tasty</i>buffet, though. In the Vale, when the town’s few farmers had had a particularly good crop, they’d hosted a huge feast at the end of the season with all the meats and vegetables she could imagine. What they couldn’t grow or raise, they’d traded for with people like Lucian. Even now, she could still remember the smell of all that food, warm and spicy in the air.<br/><br/>Still, it couldn’t hurt to try the food, even if it wasn’t the same. It had to be better than old bread and trail mix, at least. She picked up one of the wooden plates and spun it slightly in her hand before loading it up with a fairly random selection. She didn’t really know what half of the roots or berries were, but she recognised a few that she’d found in the forest. Traveller’s root, elfroot, bitterroot, blueberries, fay bells... those were all safe, at least, so it wasn’t like the Aviari were trying to poison her.<br/><br/>Verita had apparently taken a pretty big bite of bitterroot, not expecting it to be... a bitter root. She smiled for a moment, but then eyed the vegetables on her plate warily. Hopefully most of them were less like bitterroot and more like traveller’s root - it had a muted, comforting taste, and was very filling. “Might want to take that one slowly,” she said, although she meant it kindly, not sarcastically.<br/><br/>Dawn took her seat near Verita, her legs folded beneath her, and began to munch thoughtfully from her plate. Thankfully, she didn’t get any real surprises, although apparently she hadn’t picked anything all that tasty, either. She looked at from Kali to Y’vaste as each spoke in turn, her mouth still full of root. The two elves were remarkably different, and she wondered how it was that they weren’t at each other’s throats. At least she could<i>understand</i>Kali; Y’vaste’s words washed over like a song, and it was hard to grasp anything other than the gist of what she was saying. She wanted to know where... Darion was? Dawn blinked. She didn’t know. Or why she wanted to know, really. She wanted to skin him alive, for all she knew.<br/><br/>“The snake woman one, then. If Ashy wants to hear it, I will, too.” She knew very well that<i>Ashy</i>wasn’t Y’vaste’s name, but that hardly mattered. Her grey eyes turned to Verita. “It sounds like the more interesting story, too,” she added. Maybe it would help Verita forget all of the craziness she’d been through in the past day.<div class="messageTextEndMarker"> </div>