<div class="floatright">(https://mfiles.alphacoders.com/402/402340.jpg)</div>Just about to throw her arms around her compatriot, a thump on the head by Cerias sent Lesniya right back onto her ample bottom and rubbing the top of her bright red hair in confusion. They had survived, wasn’t that enough? Clearly not, from the swordsman’s tone. He almost sounded….angry they almost got hurt?<br/><br/>She was opening her mouth to ask just that question when his grunting growl of listening made her snap it shut again. The list of their wrong-doings was long, and she was afraid at some point he’d run out of fingers. Lesniya listened, however, even with a grumpy frown on her face as she crossed her legs beneath her in the dirt. The small sack of food landed with a surprise in her lap but her stomach refused to let her set it aside. It actually did a good job too of drowning out her anger at the man for berating them after surviving.<br/><br/>Something about THIS interaction was different than the lessons given by the tutors back with the Evenembers. Or even from her own family, the little of which she could remember from that. He didn’t care what he called them, how he said it, who their father was – none of that. Clearly something was on the line, but watching the consequences of being stuck in that mire with the gaseous rat queen had opened Lesniya’s eyes just enough.<br/><br/>She tore off a piece of hardtack with her teeth and chewed as Cerias called her a sorceress. Duh. It’s what her mother had been… and had been corrupted because of. She blinked when he called their swords “embarrassing,” exchanging a look with Sophie.<br/><br/>When he began drawing on the ground, she just had more questions than she did answers. It is what kept her quiet and thoughtfully chewing, watching the interaction now between her dark-haired partner and the warrior. She knew Soph’s pride had been more than wounded. She could feel it radiating off the woman. The indignity of it all. Lesniya was calmer, however. Maybe due to the food? Or simply the celebration in survival?<br/><br/>Regardless of why, she let Soph speak first when Cerias asked for questions, almost giggling behind her hand as she watched the girl’s sharp tongue start flaying. She had already come to the conclusion that Cerias wasn’t like their past tutors. He could barely be manipulated. Their poor tactics in the past aside, Les recognized that while he was a man with knowledge, sharing it though wasn’t something he particularly cared to do at any given time. Or had an absolutely stellar talent for.<br/><br/>So while Sophie’s jests got her cracking a smile, she quickly covered it with her hand at the last remark about boys. Her green eyes went wide, before she dropped her hand and hissed at the brunette. “<strong><em>SOPH. IE. QUITIT.</em></strong>He might be prickish and a grumpy dick right now – but he just pulled our big, dumb asses from that disgusting muck and saved them. You don’t gotta be a bitch.”<br/><br/>That gaze then turned back to Cerias. “<em><strong>THANK. YOU.</strong></em>For that, by the way.” Her tone was sincere, but it was growing equally as harsh. Maybe the trials of the day had taken their toll on her patience? “<strong>BUT SHES RIGHT.</strong>”<br/><br/>Gone was the mirth, curiosity, happiness. Now, the redhead’s gaze was just intense. “Clearly, we don’t know shit about shit with swords, but we have potential, or you would’ve left a long time ago. You gotta dial it down from 11, Sir Tank, if you want us to listen. Throwing us right into the deep end of the pool with an information dump isn’t gonna teach us to immediately swim.” She began gathering the bits of food left and stuffing them back in the sack, standing up. Reaching into her hip pouch, she pulled out the tails she’d collected and dropped them into Sophie’s lap, trusting her to sort and store them.<br/><br/>“I know how to cast spells,” she said through gritted teeth, moving between the two of them now, refusing to look at either, her boots crunching on the hard ground. “I just don’t like to.”<br/><br/>Lesniya kept walking. Away from the swamp, away from the people she had just fought alongside, away from that rancid stench, until she was out of earshot and could sit her plump rear back down in some soft, unsmelling, non-rat-infested grass and finish the rations she’d been given.