Something to keep my mind off

you can throw me to the wolves

Ira

She remains very still as Morrocaw comes closer to sniff her hand, not wanting to startle the big cat and get a bite as a fear response or something. Carefully, she stretches out her fingers enough to touch the soft fur with her fingertips first, before reaching out a little bit further to be able to gently scratch a fluffy cheek. Her smile growing a bit and she takes the opportunity to sneak a closer peek at the jewelled collar.

She had looked back to the cheetah for a brief second after asking her question, but when he mentions Undunli her eyes snap back to him. The accent. The gemstones. She finally pieced it together and a soft huff leaves her in a sort of small chuckle. "I almost dared to guess. There's more than one of you around here then." A more playful smirk replaces the smile and she dares to lift her other hand to give scratches to both of Morrocaw's cheeks. Is this just going to be a thing for her now? Running into every Undunli person in the city?

"Well, nice to meet you. Even if you two gave me a bit of a surprise interruption." She nods towards where she had been digging. "Did you manage to get stuck here because of the lockdown, or have you been here a while and I have somehow never seen a guy walking around with a big cat until now?" Morrocaw receives some chin scratches before Ira stands again to walk over to the pile of dirt she had dug up to poke through it with her foot as if to check if anything was hiding in it.

tomorrow I will come back leader of the whole pack

Isanti

In the space between thought and wonder
Memory cannot pull you under

Morrocaw is very clearly enjoying the attention, tilting her head into Ira's hand for better access. Her eyes are half-lidded, not quite trusting the stranger but not expecting anything untoward to happen either.

"Oh?" he says, sort of automatically. He still feels tired and stupid, but he struggles to marshal his thoughts and actually understand what she's saying. He's met a few other of his kinspeople here, but the comment feels too personal. "You know someone?" He hides it fairly well, but it is with a certain amount of dread knotting in his stomach that he asks. He's gone from the golden child of his family to essentially being a disappointment, so he avoids them. What if this chance connection forces him to meet someone else from Desclef and their aspiring nobility is properly tarnished? So far he's tried to soothe his parents by telling them that no one here gives a shit about their situation.

He fights the urge to apologize again for startling her. "I arrived just before the lockdown," he says, looking down, first at Morrocaw, who is offended that some patch of dirt is more important than scratching her, and then at said patch of dirt. Together they follow Ira over to it, and the cheetah experimentally paws at it with her blunt claws. "I study and work up on the Plates, so I'm not.. I'm not down here much." He frowns into the disturbed and hard, dry soil. "What were you doing?"

In the moment between breath and dying
You’re free, fearless, you’re flying

you can throw me to the wolves

Ira

"Yeah, you could say that. He's dealing with gems too." She makes a small gesture at Morrocaw's collar. "Got all sort of kinds and from what I've understood, it's a bit of your thing? With the mines and all that?" Had she known his worries, she would have calmed him down with that Uldren probably is not some noble that knows Isanti's family and will spread any rumors to his family. At least she is very sure Uldren isn't a noble. If he is one in disguise, it is a very good disguise and she could go about questioning her judgement again when it comes to what company she keeps.

She nods as she kneels down by the dirt pile. She had met a few people by now stuck in the lockdown. Some of them coming to drown their sorrows and waste their savings at the bar. Morrocaw brings another small laugh out of her with the paw on the dirt. "Want to help out, huh? She mumbles quietly to the cheetah before turning some of her attention back to Isanti when he mentions the Plates.

It takes some hidden effort to not start judging too much. She can't really count him as a Plater since he is a visitor, but he's still dealing with things up there and she's often tempted to mess with Platers. However, she's already feeling sorry for how anxious he seems and so far, he doesn't appear to be some haughty asshole. So perhaps she should hold off on any fast judgements. She saves any further comments about it for now and focuses on the question.

"Digging... Obviously, uh. But yeah, digging around for anything really. People can drop all sorts of things out here and I find it fun to go search for it every now and then. It can be quite relaxing too. Just drift around, scratch through the dirt here and there and just let your mind wander. While she speaks, she sticks her fingers into another crack and turns the dirt around to sift through it.

tomorrow I will come back leader of the whole pack

Isanti

In the space between thought and wonder
Memory cannot pull you under

Gems? He thinks back to the man he met at Tinta's Awakening, and the fraudulent stall owner there. It's not like Isanti is specifically into gems, and he's never been in the trade - he was always the kept pet, he's realized. He just knows a lot about them, and out of tradition, they're his decoration of choice. "Yeah," he says at first, still kind of- distant, like he's still struggling to catch up to the present. "Yeah. It's just, easy to get into, I suppose. And living in a mining town, among traders and gemologists and miners, well- you pick up on quite a few things."

Morrocaw, meanwhile, decides that all this conversation is too many words and not enough digging. Dramatically she flops down around his feet.

He has to admit that he cannot see the appeal in just .. digging. Digging. But, he does not judge her for it: doesn't he know the allure of doing something outdoors, something physical, and just letting your mind wander? A form of relaxation, or meditation? Digging just wouldn't be his chosen activity.

"Ever find anything interesting?" he asks, looking at the rather mesmerizing dark tide of earth slipping between her fingers. What sorts of odds and ends could one find in a place like this?

In the moment between breath and dying
You’re free, fearless, you’re flying

you can throw me to the wolves

Ira

She listens to him as he speaks, throwing glances his way in between running her fingers through the dry soils she digs loose. The idea of exploring around in mines still holds some sort of curiosity, same as when Uldren had mentioned them. She'd probably do it too if she was living near one. However, she will have to make do with piles of random stuff gathered up by the floods and dried dirt. Both things mostly holding junk or nothing but soil and roots. Not that either were always useless.

"Sometimes I do, but not too often. Sometimes a lost lasti or two, other times just something that could make a fun personal decoration. A few times I have found something worthy enough to pawn off." She shrugs and shifts some dry plants around before turning more soil around with her hands. "Or maybe a key to some cool mystery place. That'd be fun."

"But, this here is like..." She pauses to gesture out over the fields. "I'd say Good Luck finding anything to myself, but sometimes I just search around to tune my mind out without just sitting still. Workers do drop things from time to time, or the flood drags things out here and buries it in the ground. Just need to conveniently wander right over the spot where." She flashes him a grin and goes back to searching through soil and wilted stalks.

tomorrow I will come back leader of the whole pack

Isanti

In the space between thought and wonder
Memory cannot pull you under

He's not surprised at what she lists off having found. While he admits there is a certain allure to the possibility - no matter how slim - of finding something grand and truly priceless, an ancient artefact from their lost history, he also - like the true magic and art nerd he is - thinks he'd rather spend his time practicing his magic. While that's probably never lead him to grand riches either it is his hobby.

Which isn't to say that he judges Ira for hers, or looks down on her for it, he just thinks - hmm, interesting, but probably not for me.

She's almost being too nice to him, considering his cat startled her. Said cat is still dramatically sprawled on the warming earth. And her words.. make him homesick in a way he hasn't experienced before.

"Yeah..." he says quietly, looking away at the brightening horizon. "I miss home, in that sense. I'd take Morrocaw and we'd walk for hours and hours. Just us and the silence and the world around us. No thoughts, just the sky, the wind..." Guiltily, he feels like this conversation is less exciting than finding things, but he can't stop himself. He's too stressed and tired to filter his thoughts and emotions. "Here it's all- buildings and guards and the fucking sun." And he blushes at his own crude words and vitriol. How you have fallen, kept child of your aspiring parents.

In the moment between breath and dying
You’re free, fearless, you’re flying

you can throw me to the wolves

Ira

Even if Isanti judged her, she probably wouldn't care in the way that would make her stop. She has plenty of judgement to throw around herself sometimes when it comes to certain types of people. Had he shown any sort of disapproval for what she is doing, there is a chance she would just dig herself down into the soil even more out of spite just to make him more disturbed. Luckily for both of them, neither seem to be interested in making the interaction take a sour turn.

As for being nice, perhaps she just has not found any reason yet not to be. She might also have started to slip towards work-mode, especially when Isanti started talking about missing home. She listen a lot to people more or less daily. People at the diner talked, complained and shared their concerns and people at the bar did so even more. And she listens, offers some encouraging or consoling words here and there together with sweet smiles. And offers them another drink. If anything, it sometimes makes people share things they perhaps shouldn't, but once they start ranting after a few glasses any filter seems to be gone.

She can't offer Isanti a drink or two at the moment, however. But she can listen and the sympathetic look and smile she offers him instead are actually genuine.

"I can only imagine how it's like to be stuck here without knowing when they'll lift all the restrictions. Don't think any of us realised it would go on for this long." She says softly as she temporarily pauses her digging again to turn her attention to him. His comment about the guards and the sun has her chuckle. "I do like the buildings. Could do without the guards and the sun is alright when it isn't Kivan. Those walks sounds nice, though. Not sure you could really escape noises completely here, even if you walked all the way out to the border." Not that she really knew, nor was going to try it. Especially not now with all the extra security around.

tomorrow I will come back leader of the whole pack

Ira finds an ornate, but a bit scuffed, hairpin! With some love and care it can be restored to its original condition. It has no magical properties.

Isanti

In the space between thought and wonder
Memory cannot pull you under

"No..." he agrees, subdued, thoughtful: he thinks of his conversation with Cian. Would they truly be capable of pinning this on an innocent, just to have it over and done with? There, at the festival, bright and joyous, he would not have thought them capable of it. But now, here, under the sweltering sun as the lockdown drags and drags and supplies run even lower. It's crowded, and some days it feels like everyone has settled into this new way of living, and then some days when everyone remembers how it was before and it feels like another bomb is about to go off.

Morrocaw begins to doze off at his feet. The warmth is still oppressive, but it's not scorching hot. As Ira mentions liking the buildings, Isanti turn to look over his shoulder. The Plates loom like some sort of engineering monstrosity, the Drench a parasite clinging to its legs- and sprouting up like stalagmites. Perhaps it is a marvel of creation and the human tenacity, but to Isanti it is ugly, foreboding. A cage.

"I don't think so either," he agrees, somewhat sadly. Even now there's the noise of traffic, of elevators and trams, pumps.. "I've not dared to try." It would probably not come as a surprise, seeing how anxious he is in general. "And I can't let her off the leash anywhere."

In the moment between breath and dying
You’re free, fearless, you’re flying

you can throw me to the wolves

Ira

She unfolds her legs and pulls her knees up a bit to rest her arms on while she keeps her focus on Isanti for a while longer. Her gaze drifting over towards the city as well. To the shaded Drench and up to the Plates far above. Perhaps it is because she is born in the Drench. Or because she's got this stupid pride about being able to keep living there, surviving the harsh conditions that made her unable to dislike it too much. Sure, there are a lot of things she can complain about when it came to the Drench, but at lot of it she could point towards being the fault of the Plates and its nobles and not the actual Drench itself.

"You can't let her run around out in the Dust Fields or something when there's no flood? If she comes when you call, there shouldn't be a problem, no?" Unless he had been told by some stuckup authority that Morrocaw wasn't allowed to be off leash. She can partially understand it, having been wary about the cheetah at first as well. She gives the big cat a smile. It looks quite comfortable snoozing like that in the rising sun and she almost wants to move over to run her hands through the very soft looking belly fur.

To keep herself from actually doing it and being all invasive, she folds her legs in under her to once again sit on her knees and sticks her hands deep into the soil once more. Just as she is about to start thinking of giving it up, or move on to another spot, her fingers touch something too cold to be a buried stick or a root. Keeping her fingers against the object to not lose track of it, she uses her other hand to dig loose dirt around it until she can get a hold and wriggle it out.

She holds up the hairpin and looks it over with an equal surprised and curious expression on her face, and carefully starts picking away at the clumps of soil encapsulating it. "Huh, look at that. Didn't actually expect to find anything... Thought I had run out of luck for the rest of the year." Seeing how extremely unlucky she had been with some certain things recently, but she isn't about to talk about that.

tomorrow I will come back leader of the whole pack