Private Finished A Breather in the Brush

Ebbie seemed to know what she was doing as she moved to clean the cigarettes. Picking up some nearby trash, she listened to her newfound friend speak, occasionally nodding to suggest she was listening without interrupting her.

"I've only been here for a few months, but recycling's pretty easy, for the most part. Instead of, like, throwing things away, you reuse them. Cardboard, paper, plastic, glass, batteries, and metals are stuff you would recycle. I don't think I'll keep any of this stuff," she jiggled her half-filled bag of recycled material, "so I'll throw it into a recycling bin later." That may not have been the best explanation, but it felt like an accurate enough summary.

Remi followed Ebbie as she continued to move through the forest. Once in a while, she would divert away to pick up some trash she smelled. There was a slice of molding pizza she had to trash that nearly sent her gagging from the sight. Why throw away pizza in the middle of the forest? Aside from how disgusting it was, it was not hard to find a trashcan to dump it in. After every encounter with trash Remi would find—which, thankfully, was sparse—she would return to Ebbie to continue enjoying her company.

Ebbie had a sense of humor too. It took Remi a few moments to catch on, but when she did, she promptly made a, "Oh!" before giggling. The joke was nothing special, but the time it took for Remi to grasp it was what made it funnier to her, even if she was a little embarrassed.

It was rare for Remi to just have a friend to accompany her through the woods. More often than not, if she was with someone, it was to hunt with them. Being able to just walk and talk, or even just walk in silence, was a nice change of pace. The ground was still wet and mushy and the cool air smelled of rain, just like Remi liked it. She would miss that when summer came along and she would need to put her cold charm to use. Already she could feel it warming up, but it was not yet at a point where she had to worry about her safety.

Remi snapped out of her thoughts when Ebbie spoke up. At first, she had not registered Ebbie's question. It was so off topic to what they were doing, Remi swore she misheard. After about three seconds of silence, Remi knew that what she heard was correct and quickly made a response. "Family for us is... It's very communal too. Most of us live in large families with fifteen to twenty people, more or less. Parents, siblings, cousins, grandparents, aunts or uncles, and friends will live in the same house. Not that that matters much. We're a small species and we're all cared for by the island, so it's like we're all family."

She worried the way she explained came off as her trying to play her culture off as better than Ebbie's. It was a nice way of living, but the obvious downside of living with fifteen to twenty people all the time was the lack of privacy. There was no way you could keep secrets when everyone could hear your every step or smell you before you entered the room. Just living with her two moms and little sibling felt suffocating enough.

Remi continued on with her explanation, adding in some more detail that she thought of as a "fun fact." "Actually, the markings on my face," she pointed to the orange circles below her eyes and the crescent moon on her forehead, "identify which family or, uh, house I belong to. This is for the Afolabi-Soies."

Remi must have still been on the right track so far, judging by Ebbie's reaction. Discussing family always made Remi tense up a bit. Her family was quite chaotic, to say the least. It was the reason they were sent to this island, so they could learn to control themselves. Béatrice was the one who needed to learn control, but back home, her current behavior put her in danger.

It was easier to focus on the lighter aspects of her family and her culture as a whole. Criticizing it made her feel less connected to her relatives, and by extension, her species. Hearing Ebbie's explanation of her family comforted Remi. It was interesting seeing how others set up their families and societies in general. Just listening to Ebbie speak sparked a boost in energy within her.

"Keeping ourselves close helps for when we need information to travel fast. I wouldn't be surprised if everyone back home knows I have a human charm and a human boyfriend by now." Hopefully they would not take that as a sign of Remi betraying her species in an attempt to be human. In her heart, she was an oricenta, and nothing would change that. She lived to serve the elements, even when she took on the form of an abnormal human and dated one too.

Ebbie mentioning other oricenta living on the island made Remi giggle. Not from finding what she said funny, but from nervousness. "O-Oh, yeah. Well, there's the Meis. We haven't combined our families yet and changed our markings, but they are family. They're Earth oricenta, and the ones I would've shown you to heal the plants here. There've also been some visitors here who come and go, but another family moved here. The Kaliinés. They're..." She bit the bottom of her lip, trying to remember their faces and what they were. "Air and Fire. Right, that's what they are, yeah.

"But anyways, do you have any family here? You mentioned partners." Remi had to be careful to not only focus on her half of the conversation.

Remi's cheeks turned a light shade of orange when Ebbie focused on the boyfriend part. Of course that was the part she focused on. She attempted to hide her panic from embarrassment behind a neutral expression and spoke with a half-succeeding monotone.

"A-Ah, yeah. His name is Koda. He's not a normal human, but those are pretty rare around here. But he has beautiful white hair and eyes that reflect the sky during different times of days. He's very—" Before she could let herself ramble any longer, she covered her mouth, then proceeded to cover her face as her blushing grew more intense. The way she was acting was shameful. Sure, she was barely an adult to her species, essentially being a teenager, but here, she managed to pass herself off as an adult. As much as she could when most of her friends were teens, her boyfriend was a teen, and she could blend in with a crowd of high schoolers here.

With a harsh sigh, she managed to resume her neutral expression, despite the blush remaining. "Anrong would know how to take care of plants better, but Henghai's also a botanist. And yes, we're all Air, Earth, Fire, Water, or combinations of two of those four. Like, I'm Mud, so Earth and Water. But, like, I take more from my Earth side, really." Which was apparent based on her color scheme. Her horns and eyes gave off the optical illusion of gentle waves taking a long time to move within a gemstone, but that was the most Water she looked. The only other ways to know other than sight was by touching her cold skin or seeing her cry and sweat excessively.

Finally, Remi fell silent at the last part of Ebbie's response. Partially because she felt like she misspoke and stepped out of line, partially because she was unsure how to respond to Ebbie's sadness. Remi's need to make sure her friends were okay prevented her from just staying silent, however. As an older sister and regular babysitter, she had the instinctual need to take care of anyone who looked to be in pain.

"I didn't mean to offend you. I find it hard to think of this island as a waste of time. There's just... so much to learn and do. Being able to learn about other species and cultures from books is fine and all, but actually being there to experience them firsthand is much more rewarding. But, uh, I hope I can be some sort of companion to you. A friend, I mean, since you're here alone."

She wanted to bite her fingers off with how much she stumbled over her words and rambled on, but it was the best she could think of. Although she already felt like Ebbie was a close friend, Remi knew it was because she was an elemental and that she knew barely anything about her. It was hard to treat someone as a close friend when you only knew the most basic of information about them.

As Ebbie talked, Remi's face softened, her body loosened, and she moved slightly slower than before. It felt like ice was encompassing her heart while Ebbie spoke. It was nice. It was relaxing. In her short time with Ebbie, Remi already knew she was a great choice for a friend, even disregarding the magic that made her trust any elementalist that came by. If there were any warning signs, she would have noticed them by now.

"You're right. I'm just used to hiding my feelings most of the time." Funny, coming from royalty of a species who values the transparency of emotions above all else. It just goes to show that Remi would fit much better with humans than her own people. Or maybe that was just a byproduct of the unorthodox way she was raised.

Was she still blushing still? Remi was more focused on Ebbie's story about her partner to care too much, though she figured her cheeks would have lightened up a bit. The trailing off of the story worried Remi, but overall, it sent butterflies fluttering around in her stomach. A hopeless romantic like her had trouble not swooning over stories like these.

"She sounds lovely. I guess it's just me being new to all of this. This island and," she made a vague gesture with her hands, "all the cultures clashing. Always something to catch me off guard. My friends here have made it much easier. You're making it easier right now. I appreciate having you here with me. I, uh, don't have enough elemental friends here to connect with." Ebbie managed to get a laugh out of Remi. She was careful about touching others here, knowing how clingy her species could be, but she allowed herself to lightly touch Ebbie on the should back.

"And don't worry. One of my family is Fire and Earth, but he's, like, the second oldest in the family and knows how to control himself. His powers are all about making plants grow anyways. He's more Earth than Fire, really. If you want, I can explain how to tell which element an oricenta is. There's only a few of us on the island, but I know some of us visit once in a while. Helps to let you know which ones to be careful around." It was easy for the most part. All you had to do was look at the eyes or horns if the colors of their body did not make their element clear.