After sorting out the situation and a few of the specific details Arya showed me around the village as Kavir had other official duties to attend to. Arya couldn't tell me about or show me around the Yin side much as she hadn't visited it frequently, sticking mostly to the Yang side as her condition apparently caused some of the more sensitive Yin siders to feel uneasy. I got the feeling that many of the Yang siders viewed me the same way but left me alone since I was with Arya.
The Yang side was lively and everyone seemed to be in good spirits as they went about their day. We stopped by a few shops, including a carpenter and fletcher who was impressed by the bow I'd made for Arya and asked if I would show him how I made it. I didn't mind as it would be a good chance to learn how the Elves did things, but it would probably be impossible for him to replicate my enchanting method. However, I planned to have Arya show me around, but I'd be around for at least a month so I'd take a day to visit at least.
The two of us walked around until about sunset before she took me to her house. Since she was still quite young by Elven standards she lived with her parents. I had never heard about her mother so I was interested to hear about her, but Arya said she didn't actually know her mother that well.
Just as there were two sides to the city, so too were there two leaders. Her father was obviously the Yang leader and took care of matters during the day, while at night, her mother took over as the Yin leader. As such Arya had spent the most time with her father, due to her belonging to the Yang side, and the few times she interacted with her mother was usually just before dusk when she would wake up and take over for Kavir.
It felt like a strange system, but it wasn't like I didn't understand, it was the same way in the Eldur family. Despite having lived there for five years, I could easily recall the amount of times I'd dealt with Alcrem outside of his official duties, something that didn't happen often. I imagined that Arya's mother was either the same way, or perhaps she didn't place as much importance on the younger years since she had such a long time to get to know each other, longer than a human's entire lifespan.
Arya's family home was just like the other homes around it, a part of the walkways and bridges grew into the shape of a home, making it difficult to tell that the two leaders of the village resided there. Humans were known to flaunt both wealth and position, but apparently Elves didn't attach too much importance to either, so the only way to really distinguish position was by knowing it. Just as back in the Elven dorm I'd stayed at during my first year at school, it had the same feeling of the eastern country in Velen's world and rather than a swinging door that required hinges, the doors either slid open or were animated branches that would part when someone approached. The interior of the house was just as interesting as not only the structure, but most of the furniture and decorations were all part of the house, grown from the home itself, just as the home was grown from the walkway.
It seemed that Arya's mother had already departed so neither of us were able to see her, nor inform her of the situation, but I imagined that part of switching the shifts between her and Kavir would be a brief rundown of any important things, which I assumed would include me and Arya. We spent some time unpacking, even though there wasn't actually that much to do as most of our items stayed in the carriage as they were things that needed to be set up and rebuilt, or nonperishable supplies that weren't necessary for in-town living. Despite the fact that there was a single guest room, Arya and I were planning to share a room. We'd been doing it for so long that it would feel strange to suddenly stop while we were in the same place.
To that end I replaced the bedding of her old bed as while it was good, Elven fabric was slightly inferior to the silk I could produce and weave. That said, it wasn't like I had made a brand new set, I had simply brought the bedding from our school residence, I wasn't about to let some random student sleep in the bedding that me and Arya had done so much in after all.
The two of us spent some time talking and just generally enjoying just hanging out together, something we actually hadn't done a lot of, as it felt like during the school year there was always something going on. In fact, now that I thought about it, I couldn't remember a time at school that we'd actually just sat around and enjoyed each other's company as even the times we had planned to do so, were interrupted by another event. Such was the case with my birthday not too far in the past, we had just spent time together, but then I began to molt, worrying everybody. According to Seshat's Library it was possible for me to molt every year so long as I had been staying healthy enough, something I doubted I would have issues with.
At some point we must have dozed off as I suddenly found myself awakening to the sound of birdcalls and the smell of what I assumed was going to be breakfast. As usual Arya was clinging to me closely and it took me quite a bit of work to wake her. There were a few things I wanted to do today, the most important being to bring out the white lioness from Sekhmet's Vengeance and ask her about the token I'd received from Gabriel. I wanted it to be harmless, and a show of sisterly affection, nothing more. If that wasn't the case or if the lioness was unable to tell me anything about it it wasn't like it could hurt to just carry it around me so that I could get a proper explanation from Gabriel if that was how it was.
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