Alternate Realities

Prompt: Reconciliation

The second cook staff had moved on to the next camp earlier in the day. Company 231 received their orders to proceed to the mess earlier, at 11:30. Mare hated the idea of eating with the rest of the camp. They had shared the 1:00 mess with just four other companies and after the first few days, they all stopped staring at her. Now she had seventeen companies of craning necks to look forward to. As if that weren't bad enough, it also meant being forced into the same space as Cal and the many silver companies the Guard avoided.

Mare had only seen Cal a few times in passing since her company arrived at the camp. Every time a dozen faces waited for a brutal emotional response as entertainment. But as far as she knew, Cal didn't even know she was assigned to Company 231 or where they had been bunked in the tent city. The future king of Norta likely didn't care. Of course, she preferred to pretend that the months since their break-up had stoppered the bleeding and even started the healing.

With confidence faked on her stoic face, Mare mustered her best act infront of all those waiting for her response. Cal Calore–Tiberius Calore–would have no effect on her. The unfamiliar faces behind the pots nervously glanced at her and then to the departing line of Silver soldiers in front of her. She inferred Cal's triangulated position by how those eyes followed him through the tables behind her.

Mare and Kilorn clambered onto wooden crates that lined the area, the only seats left for their almost too-late-for-food company. And even though she tried not to, her eyes found Cal taking his seat among the soldiers. The fates seemed to cruelly enjoy the potential as much as the on-lookers. Cal and his silvers sat two tables away from Mare on the crates. Once spotted, Mare willed her eyes to stay on her bowl of stew, but they broke up and out again and again. Surely, it didn't hurt to look, the lack of pain was a sure sign she had gotten over him.

Cal seemed to be dressing-down one of the soldiers a few seats down and across from him. His eyes narrowed and he pointed at the man with his spoon punctuating his words. The man, adjusted the light armor that hung on his shoulders and nodded before begining his meal. Mare craved to hear Cal's authoritative tenner and exactly how he managed his men, kept them in line but never crossed to cause them to become disheartened or disloyal. She wondered if he and Farley had similar approaches, if that was why they'd maintained an easy friendship despite what he'd done to her before—.

Mare's focus shifted to Kilorn for a moment as he told a new joke to those closest to them. She missed the start and when she figured she was too lost to catch up, she turned back to observing Cal–his head snapping away from her and back to the table. She flushed, knowing he'd caught her, and she'd caught him, and that shouldn't have felt as warm and tingly as it did. Rather than rip her eyes away, she would keep her's on his if only to further prove how little sway he had on her.

After months underground eating what ever Kilorn and Ferrah brought back, Mare had thought the pickiness had been crushed out of them. However, Cal–armor clad and between his soldiers–crinkled his nose and looked at the red-sauce stew then at the door. He pushed back from the table and glanced side to side, giving up his plan when he caught Mare's eye. He looked back to the bowl and tentatively dipped just the tip bringing a small drop of liquid to his tongue. He looked almost green. As he rose, looking directly at her, he seemed to be apologizing before taking his ration of bread and leaving. The bowl was quickly divided among those at the table, nothing went to waste in the mess.

Mare's irritation flared when that first though–whether he could sustain on bread alone–came through her mind. She shouldn't care if Cal ate or not. And he certainly shouldn't care if she saw him turning his nose up at perfectly good food. Caring what each other thought had been abandoned, first by him and then by her. And yet, Mare left her own slices of bread untouched. And then she wrapped them in paper.