The days flew by as Uma threw herself into studying — albeit a lot slower than she would have liked.
Turns out determination and a strong will were only half the battle.
Aggh, this sucks.
Uma, currently surrounded by books arranged in a loose circle around her like she was conducting some kind of ritual, threw herself flat on the floor.
I can't understand any of it.
She pouted at the ceiling for a moment. The forge work wasn't going much better either — the number of times she'd thrown up near molten metal was more than she'd like to admit. Her muscles cried for forgiveness on a daily basis. On the plus side she was getting bigger. On the minus side it hurt to sit down.
She sighed and flipped onto her back — and a shadow fell over her.
Looking up, she found Vivi standing above her, hands clasped behind her back, wearing a smile that suggested she had absolutely no intention of just watching Uma read in peace.
She'd been coming down more often lately — mostly to fawn over Serosa, but she also arrived regularly with rubs and oils that she applied to Uma whether Uma consented to it or not, on account of the fact that Uma couldn't walk most days.
Uma sighed and wrote on her board.
HI VIBI
Vivi looked at it, smiled, erased the B, and replaced it with a V.
Uma sighed, threw the board aside, then immediately got up to retrieve it because she needed it to talk.
"Hi!!!" Vivi said, waving at Uma like she wasn't three feet away.
It's gonna be a long day.
Uma erased the board and wrote:
Werts Up?
"Wanna hang out!"
It sounded more like a statement than a question but hey.
Uma had managed to upgrade her grasp of the dialect recently — mostly by sitting in the middle of the market looking awkward while Serosa took an unreasonable amount of time doing errands — so she was fairly confident she'd heard correctly.
What do you wanna do?
"Dirt!"
Uma paused mid-write.
I — what.
She couldn't tell if it was a dialect thing or just a Vivi thing. She turned the board around slowly.
Dirt?
Vivi nodded like dirt was a completely reasonable answer to any question ever asked.
Uma went to write something but couldn't figure out what that something was.
She didn't have much time to dwell on it. Vivi grabbed her hand and started pulling her toward the door.
This is my life now, I guess.
The door swung open before they reached it. Serosa stood in the frame holding a new ring, which Uma clocked immediately.
Gift from sugar daddy Hamaron. She hid her smug smile poorly.
"Hi, Lady Serosa!" Vivi's eyes lit up with that same unhinged devotion.
"Hi Vivi." Serosa looked over at Uma with the expression of someone who could tell exactly how voluntary this outing was. "Where are you two off to?"
"Dirt!" Vivi announced.
Serosa stared at her. Went through the full thought process. Arrived at the same place Uma had.
"How… fun."
Vivi nodded enthusiastically. Serosa turned her attention to Uma and looked her up and down.
"Not ruining that dress."
That's literally all you have in this house, Uma thought, shrugging in a what-else-is-there way.
"One moment, love." Serosa pried Uma from Vivi's grip and took her upstairs.
She came back down in a leather top and trousers.
Uma did a small twirl. Mostly for herself.
Now this I can get behind.
Vivi's mouth fell open.
"So pretty!"
Uma felt her face go warm and waved her off. Stop, it's too much. Though she was smiling in spite of herself.
Then Vivi grabbed her hand again and dragged her back out the door.
"Bye, Lady Serosa!"
Bye, Mom, Uma thought, waving over her shoulder.
Vivi didn't stop dragging her, and eventually Uma just let herself be dragged.
The houses disappeared quickly as Vivi pulled her over a bridge and into a forest. The smell hit Uma immediately — clean and green and nothing like the corporate smog her lungs had grown up in. She made a point of actually breathing it in properly.
The plants were a beautiful shade of green. If there was one thing Uma genuinely appreciated about this world it was the color. Everything here looked like someone had turned the saturation up.
She was dragged into a relatively large clearing that had the evidence of previous digging scattered across it — shallow holes, overturned earth, the general look of someone's ongoing project.
What are we doing?!
Uma tapped Vivi's shoulder. Vivi turned around with a manic smile.
"Dirt!"
I still don't know what that—
Mud hit her in the face.
Vivi had already dropped to her knees and started digging with her bare hands, completely unbothered.
Ah. I see. Dirt.
After a moment Vivi sat back and held something up. A flower — similar to the one she'd given Uma, but this one was a deep, vivid blue.
They both stared at it.
"It looks like the sky!" Vivi's voice had gone soft with genuine wonder. "This is the first time it's been blue — look, it's so pretty."
Uma raised an eyebrow and wrote on her board.
Different colors?
Vivi nodded vigorously and helped Uma up, then walked her around the clearing pointing to each hole and listing off the colors she'd found there previously.
Uma pulled the small notebook Serosa had given her from her waistband and started writing everything down. This only sent Vivi further into overdrive — she launched into what sounded like medical facts and properties and a string of terminology Uma couldn't begin to decode yet.
Vivi moved over to a fresh patch of undisturbed earth and started digging again.
Feels like she just brought me here to watch her work, Uma thought. She looked around, shrugged, and got down to help.
Vivi lit up like Uma had just told her the best news of her life. She immediately flung a celebratory scoop of dirt over both of them. They both laughed — one loud, one silent, shoulders shaking.
Neither of them noticed or more over couldn't notice the sound coming from the trees.
Slow. Steady. Shuffling.