spring cleaning

The raid had been hard on her already tired body, but that didn't stop her from getting back to work where she could. Still confined within the rank set aside for the siblings she felt stuck. What did she want to do? Sparring wasn't her favorite thing to do in the world, but was she good at it? She had won both her spars in the raid against the armada so she was feeling pretty good about that, but was it what she really wanted to spend her days doing? No, it wasn't. Widow loved to learn and while that included fighting to an extent, it focused mostly on plants and the other uses they may have.

Her time spent away from Habari was short, but she felt accomplished in that time. Already the plants she had harvested were planted in her garden outside. She hadn't traveled very far really, so there wasn't much worry about the climate, though she supposed she would find out what survived the move and what didn't soon enough.

While she had spent a lot of her time on her trip thinking, it wasn't enough. She still hadn't decided what she wanted to do with her life in Habari besides wanting to be the best she could be. With the loss of Kali, she felt even more responsibility to step up and felt foolish for taking time away only to return home to a raid. She wished that she could have been there for her mother when Kali passed, to offer her strength. While she would never admit to particularly liking her, Widow would never admit it and certainly wouldn't stop it from consoling her mother. There was some guilt that she felt, from that and being absent when the pirates attacked, so her mind couldn't rest. She wanted to do more for Recluse, for Habari, but what could she do? Clearly she was better at fighting and protecting their home, but that would take time away from her learning. What would learning do for Habari anyway? She was probably better off joining the other warriors, even if it wasn't what she wanted. Could she even say that though if she didn't know what she wanted?

Cleaning was the only thing she could do when her mind was this focused on something else. The sun had set hours ago and while it wasn't exactly normal for the woman to be asleep, there usually wasn't a shadow moving quickly from room to room. The place was dusty however, but just like her brain bouncing back and forth between her guilt and her future, she bounced from room to room, dusting one thing and moving to another room to dust something else. Maybe it's already been dusted, though, she's not paying any real attention.

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"Speech!"

Art © Ulfeid3 & Code © Skelle 2022