You never know, but you live and learn

"Can you not?" Karaza covered her nape with her hand, looking back at Roxanne , who's still looking.

The parasite simply kept looking, no response.

An eyebrow rose at that, but the human walks up to the shiny spot, digging a hole or rather kicking the sand with her foot.

"You sure you don't wanna snatch this for yourself?" She challenged cheekily, waving with the frame.

"Hmm, no. I wanna see what you do with it." The slight drop of theatrics and high pitched voice was more confusing than alarming.

"You weren't suspicious until you said that."

"You brought it up! what ever girl, improve your conversation skills with the bowl. I have all day."

The toned down response still nonchalant, still bit playful but much less performative. Sitting legs crossed on the sand, watching attentively as the human threw the frame in the hold and kicked sand over it.

"You know kiddo, I respect you."

"Buttering me up?"

"I really do. You try despite knowing every flaw in you and every hurdle in the way not many can do that. It's making me curious, how far you gonna reach."

Karaza looked at her, she realized that they didn't look eye to eye that many times before, even when they fought near the Karabora.

Looking at someone and looking into someone don't distill down to the same thing. And the human didn't know if this was what's underneath the façade or simply another layer of it.

"Don't have hope in me, you won't like it."

She turned back abruptly to the shiny spot, which wasn't glowing anymore. A bowl filled with lemon fruits placed on the sand, where the frame was buried.

Both snapped out of the conversation, the lemons opened their eyes slowly, only to widen in fear of the human standing above them.

"I thought it was a lemon bowl...like a bowl with lemon decorations or something."

"Well this is a bowl of lemon, do y'all taste like normal lemons?"

Their pupils shakes in fear upon the parasite sentence.

"I thought I would be smashing an empty bowl..."

' I wanna see what you would do with it..' The human remembered the words from earlier.

'Did she knew about this..?' She glanced over her for a millisecond.

'She thinks I knew about this.' Roxanne stood there, no elaboration.

'I love to confuse people.'

"Come on! Claim your social skills, Awkward gal!" The theatrics were back in business.

The lemons were full on shaking, eyes teary, closing their eyes, unable to move by their own nature.

-That's it... we gonna be smashed again..-

The voice ran in their heads. Karaza looked at her axe, back to the lemons only to step even closer to them.

In the midst of the shaking and tears the axe disappear.

They open their teary eyes as Karaza bends down to pick the bowl up.

"That must've sucked." She blinked some wetness in her eyes away.

In tubrus ad mare the night was about to end, faint light touched the sky before the sun was anywhere to be found.

"That was a long night." Karaza said, Her shirt wrapped around the bowl of lemons she held near her chest.

Wind blew by, Roxy threw her blazer on her.

"Please don't walk topless between humans."

"Ah! You didn't tell me how to make my dagger hard and beautiful again!"

"...That's what she said."

They walked more meters before the parasite registered it.

"Must you!?"

"Yup, you've got a long way with the translation thing."

She laughed, the kind of laughter that keeps going even if there isn't air left in ones lunges.

And the sun started to rise.