Carry You

Dawn peeked through the curtains and Weiss shifted, rubbing her eyes. She had snuggled into the giant stuffed animal that she had gotten with Blake. It...definitely seemed to be helping with her sleep, though. She felt less stressed out and far more at ease in this still-unfamiliar environment. Still, she felt a lot better about it though. She was used to being alone in her room and sitting in silence, but with there being so many unknowns... She just didn't like to be left alone too much. She would've asked Dorosi to stay with her now that she knew he wasn't out to get her, but still... He had made it clear that he didn't want to be stuck inside all the time. She got dressed and looked at the clock. It was about twenty after six. She wondered if Lilyana was up yet or not. Well, there was on harm in checking. She woke Sayaka up and had the little bird help lead her down to the falconry area. The night crew was obviously coming in and switching shifts with the day crew. She saw caracaras stretching and owls swooping into mews. She heard more than one caracara call though the earring didn't translate. It was interesting to see the changing shifts like this. She really was interested to see more of it… It was about that time Lilyana came out with a bucket. "Well good morning, Weiss! Up bright and early, I see." The woman smiled broadly and Weiss smiled at her shyly. "Ready to help with morning feeding?" She nodded. "Yeah." She was really excited to learn more about falconry. Granted, the killing would be her words hangup. She didn't handle the quail so well, but she was doing her absolute best to try to get over it. Lilyana handed her a bucket and sent her on her way. Weiss found her way to the night crew's area and tossed some quail in their mews as she walked. A lot of the owls did look tired, but they were definitely grateful for the meal due to how they hopped down and started picking the birds apart. Despite how gruesome it could be, she smiled a bit. It wasn't like they quail had died for nothing. They were being used to keep the birds that guarded the manor alive. She saw nothing really indecent with it. For a while, she just walked quietly, not really talking as she gave the crews their meals. Eventually, though, she returned to the main area with an empty bucket where Lilyana met back up with her. "It's still pretty early and there's time left before you have to go to your main meal. So why don't you come inside and I can teach you a little bit?" Weiss' shoulders raised and she nodded. She was looking forward to anything Lilyana would teach her. They walked into her house and Lilyana sat Weiss down with a glove and a piece of rope. "This isn't the most exciting thing, but one thing you need to learn to do well is the falconer's knot. It can mean the difference between losing a bird and their safety." For the next little while, they focused on the knot which was a lot trickier than it looked. It was a knot that was simultaneously secure yet easy to slip off in the case of it needing to come off. She struggled with it a fair bit since she wasn't exactly one that was used to tying knots of any sort. The most she ever had to tie were lace-up boots. The shoes she had here were magically closed, so she didn't even have to worry about that much. Plus, doing it all one-handed was fairly difficult. Not helping was the fact that the glove was worn on the left hand and everything was tied with the right. Weiss was a lefty. Doing anything with her non-dominant hand was hard. After that, they did move on to a few other things, namely the basics of leatherworking. "If you're gonna be a falconer, you gotta know how to make your own gear. There are people that you can buy it from, but it's best to be able to know how to make your own if you're gonna be doing this for any length of time. Cheaper and if you need to do something in the field, you can do it there and not have to worry about emergencies." Weiss nodded at the woman's words and settled down. Unfortunately, the leather was pretty hard on her hands. She had never really worked with rough materials before. She was so used to everything being very soft and delicate. She wouldn't give up, though. She would learn to the best of her ability. Later, though, Lilyana looked at her. "It's about nine thirty, You should probably head inside for breakfast." Weiss frowned but nodded. "Okay. Thank you for the lessons." She offered a curtsy to Lilyana then headed back into the house with Sayaka's directions. She found her seat next to Blake and the other 'children' even if they didn't necessarily look like children. "Where were you?" Blake tilted her head a bit, ears twitching ever so slightly. There was no accusation or anything in her tone; it was merely curiosity. "I was with Lilyana learning a few basics like the falconer's knot and leatherworking." Her hands were a bit red and raw from the rough work she'd been put through. Though Lilyana had told her that was even the worst of what leatherworking would entail. Her unmarred hands were definitely going to get calloused and scuffed up with how hard the leatherworking pushed them. But she wasn't upset. She didn't want to come across as the type of person who couldn't do anything themselves...even if that was exactly who she was. She wanted to learn. She wanted to get better. She had grown up with a silver spoon in her mouth and continued to have one there while here in Koiria. She would never really get to the point of someone like Lilyana where she was mostly self-sufficient, but she wanted to pick up as many skills as possible. "Oh, that makes sense." Blake frowned a bit though. "Your hands are shaking. Here, show them to me." Weiss hesitated before nodding. They were definitely rubbed a bit raw from what she'd done. Blake took both of her hands in hers, then a soothing sensation washed over there. "I'm not a healer by trade, but I can handle simple things like abrasions and such. If it gets any worse than that, though, feel free to visit our healing wing. Sayaka can take you there." The little bird chirped affirmatively. "Honestly, you should probably do that after you have a session with Lilyana if you're doing leatherwork... You don't want to not be able to eat." That...was a fair point. Her hands hurt pretty terribly. Even holding the silverware equivalents would hurt pretty badly. "I'll keep it in mind." She hoped she'd get used to the pain in due time. Her hands would have to adapt with no choice in the matter. She wanted to be able to make her own furniture for birds if she did eventually get a bird of her own. She wanted to be as self-sufficient as possible... She could always ask Lilyana for help, but still... The better she got, the better it'd be for her. With all of that done, though, breakfast was served shortly and, once again, Weiss found herself locked completely out of the loop. She didn't know the first thing any of them were talking about. Religion seemed to be the topic of the day for them, though along with a little bit of courtly gossip about a marquis and his family. Weiss didn't really pay any attention. She had no desire to gossip about people or talk about religion. She had grown up almost entirely irreverent toward religion, though she had been forced to sit through a sermon twice a month every other Tuesday of the year. Even worse was holidays when the sermons could go on for like three hours. "So what's Atlas' religion like?" Blake nudged Weiss. She spoke quietly, obviously trying not to interrupt the main conversation going on. Weiss blinked, snapped out of her stupor. She hadn't even heard Blake ask the question the first time if that was what she'd done. "Oh, uh... I honestly don't know a whole ton about it. It's monotheistic, though." She didn't know about other kingdoms' religions, though. She had never been privy to learn. Then again, it was probably just another case of President Jacques controlling her information. She really wasn't allowed to know about other kingdoms unless it was through an Atlassian tilt. All she knew about vale was that it was a horrible place where women were allowed to work outside of the home and generally didn't care about their children at all. It was a backwards society that devalued women and their place as homemakers and their natural nurturing instincts. Blake tilted her head. "Oh, that's interesting. I never knew religions could only have one god. Who is the lead god?" "The Holy Father, Agat." She frowned. "However, there is an opposing force that takes on death known as Melan. He reaps souls away from people before they're able to really reach their prime. He's an evil force that opposes the good order that Agat sets up for all of us to follow. Outside of that, I'm not entirely sure of all the ins and outs. I...never much paid attention during sermons when I was supposed to be listening." The Schnee family personal religious leader was about as crusty as they came. He sounded like a bag of dry bones rattling around in a dead, dusty box. He never had anything interesting to say so she tended to just zone out when he spoke. She could maintain the illusion of listening when nothing could've been further from the truth. Blake frowned at that. "Melan? Sounds like Melanthios... He's the force of death itself and reaps all souls to the afterlife." Weiss felt her face drain of color at that. "He's not a bad guy though. Fae fall into immortal after we hit our thousandth birthday, so we can talk to him when we want to. I obviously haven't talked to him yet, but from what everyone says, he's a pretty chill dude." "How can death be relaxed...?" That...didn't make any sense to her. A relaxed person being the force of death? Death was a force that everyone tried to avoid in Atlas. Nobody prayed to him. Few spoke the name of Melan because they believed that speaking it would invite him into their lives and cause premature death. She didn't want to die early, so she had never spoken his name herself. She wasn't sure if she really believed in any of this nonsense or not, but it was still all she had known belief wise her entire life. Blake nodded. "From what I've heard, yeah, he's generally pretty relaxed...unless you bring up dealing with multiple partners over extended lifetimes. Serlia has its fair share of pseudo-immortals on the planet and, apparently, things can get pretty sticky for them in the afterlife if they've had a ton of monogamous partners over their lifetimes." That...wasn't something Weiss wanted to deal with personally. She still wasn't entirely sure she'd take up the extended lifetime that the fae offered her through magic. "What about fae? Do you guys deal with multiple partners through a lifetime?" That...was an interesting question. Did they go through life with generally only one partner or did they have multiples? There was still so much that she didn't know about the fae. She would never truly fully understand either since she was human. If she did fall in love with a fae, then nothing much would come from that... She would die young by fae standards even if she lived a long lifetime by human standards. "Most fae are monogamous through their lifetime. Divorce is pretty uncommon here, but it can and does happen on occasion. But yeah, we're generally monogamous. Polyamory is a small minority of people, but it does happen on occasion and we don't judge for it." "Poly...amory?" She tilted her head. The term was entirely new for her. Poly obviously meant many but she wasn't sure about the rest of the word. "Many loves. People with multiple partners. It gets messy when it's multiple nobles, though... We have to watch our bloodlines closely to make sure that we don't intermarry too much." "Wait, people can have multiple partners? How does that even work?" She didn't understand. Marriage was supposed to be between one man, one woman... Oh, right. Nonbinary was a thing as were same-sex relationships. She was glad that she had the shielding ring on. Or else there would've been another kerfuffle about her thoughts and emotions. She was still learning. It wasn't like she'd been here very long. She still had yet to fully absorb the realities of this new, strange world to her. Blake nodded. "Yeah. It's uncommon but it does happen. But, for the most part, fae are pretty monogamous." That was good though... She couldn't imagine being in a relationship with more than one person. It just sounded...wrong to her. How could a person share their heart with more than one person? Then again, most of the marriages she was familiar with weren't exactly full of love. Sometimes she saw a happy couple together, but usually, the marriages were arranged for money or politics. There was no other reason for the relationships to exist. Women were literally just collateral to be sold off to the highest bidder. "That's...absolutely bizarre." She didn't want to get in trouble for saying that but she had no idea what else to say. It sounded so utterly outlandish to her for people to be able to have more than one partner. It felt so wrong. Marriages were only for love here... It was still so hard to wrap her mind around the idea that people didn't have arranged marriages here. She had seen the laws, though. They were so absolutely clear that nobody could ever arrange marriages. Blake shrugged. "It is what it is here. We don't have any poly friends personally, but we know of some people outside of our circles that are poly. There are some people in our religious services that are poly." Again, weird. Something like that wouldn't be allowed in Atlas in the slightest. Tradition made it clear what was acceptable and what wasn't. She still couldn't believe that same-sex couples were a thing even... She ahd so much to wrap her mind around here. With that done, though, Blake returned to the main conversation and left Weiss lone. She sighed and finished eating then was dismissed form the meal once everyone was done. She frowned a bit as she stood in the main hall. So what should she do today? There was the option of going to the library... She was still excited to have such unfettered access to so many books. So she looked at Sayaka and had the little bird lead her to the library. She skirted past the librarian and settled down, intent on going back to what she'd been studying before.