S a l e t é I I

XIV - Mains - Quatorze

"How much did you tell Cassia about where we're going?" Uliana asked Monet once the three of them were making their way down the first alley, skipping ahead in order to walk at the older girl's side. Cassia followed close behind, Uliana's energy still quite catching.

"Not a great deal. The arrangements there will become self-explanatory once we arrive, so you needn't be worried." Monet replied, looking back at Cassia as they went, her gaze carrying that sense of disinterest.

It wasn't so much disinterest, not really. It was more as if nothing in her vicinity mattered, and yet Cassia knew that this wasn't the case. So, why the blank look?

Was it some sort of image? A front?

"You can't just tell her nothing."

"She will experience things for herself very soon."

"Alright then, I'll explain stuff."

Uliana dropped back now, walking at Cassia's side instead as the three of them entered the real scope of the maze that made up the old industrial hub. She was thankful for her willingness to fill her in on things, and the girl sounded as if she was enjoying such a role, which left Cassia with no qualms when it came to listening.

"Uliana."

"Huh?"

Monet had addressed her, again without looking back.

"Cassia will learn things on her own. The point I am trying to make is that she will not always have others to explain things to her at every minute of every day. I am sure that she is more than capable of figuring things out."

"Fine..."

Uliana looked a little disheartened. Cassia gave her a reassuring look, appreciating both Monet's confidence in her and the reasoning behind her choices.

If she really was going to be useful to the group, then she would need good initiative, wouldn't she? It was like back home, where she'd done things to help without asking, such as tidying up; if she saw that something needed doing then she would do it, if possible, and she might have been able to pick up on a few things down here too.

As they turned each corner, the warehouses around them standing as forever silent witnesses to their passage, Cassia still didn't feel confident in remembering the route to take in order to get and from their own hidden base. At first, she always felt as if she could recall the first few turns, but it never took long before she would begin to get muddled - Monet would lead them one way when she was sure they'd been about to take another - leading her to think that she might have been getting things mixed up.

It must have taken the other girls ages to get the hang of this... At this point, she was sure she'd absolutely have to write some sort of reminder in her book.

"Hey, Cassia?"

"Hmm?"

Uliana had been the one to break the near silence, and she dropped back to walking at her side again, from where she'd been ever so slightly ahead.

"At your place, do you have to go out like this? You'd just have normal shops, right?"

"Oh, we have a high street where there's a bunch of shops, yeah. Anything else we still need we can get from the city." Cassia explained, and for a brief moment she actually felt guilty; such arrangements were pitifully simple compared to the ones she'd seen around her in Lower Merveille.

Uliana didn't seem bothered in any way, her own inquisitive side in full swing.

"Sounds handy. So, what, you can just head out to the high street at like, any time?"