“Looks like she is going to sandbag. Great…”

The words were muttered darkly while Samantha carefully checked about. Finding a few dead branches she broke them into more manageable chunks and checked a dead tree. A sigh left her lips, “Won't need too much more, also shouldn't give away there's someone around here…”

She pulled a knife from its sheath and in a lazy twirl reversed grip to stick the point where the branch met trunk. Sawing the blade back and forth she gently pried the branch off the tree and sighed dragging it back to her cave. Sliding the smaller sticks under she carefully went before the larger branch and dragged it under, no longer caring if twigs broke. She wiped some sweat from her brow and caught her breath when she smelled the food.

It reminded her of growing up in Berevar, where simple dishes were spruced up with a handful of spice traded from others. She smiled smelling it and spoke, “That smells nice, don't suppose you have extra? I have hard tack, but I'd rather not empty my water-skin trying to make that halfway edible.”

“I do.” Scarlet gestured to a neatly folded linen napkin with a golden brown piece of thickly cut bread, atop it glistened a golden creamy substance littered with flecks of green, and ontop that, the unmistakable pink of cured beef. “You provide light and warmth, and I food.” She paused and offered Samantha a smirk. “What, you think I was going to sit here and do nothing?”

“I won't lie, I have had watchers do just that. Jeb in a few cases made my job harder just to make sure I could do it,” Samantha replied, “I don't know you Lady Scarlet, so I have to take each action on its own for now.”

She felt like she was walking on eggshells, trying not to trample them flat. She was sure Aerith would have reprimanded her choice of words, but applauded the sentiment. Sam didn't have Aerith’s word play, she couldn't turn a phrase and bend words to her whim. Instead she had being blunt, and acting genuine. It got her through much of her training with Jeb, he didn't get nearly as annoyed when she spat out what she was trying to say, rather than dancing around it.

“Can you blame them? Their job is to watch. Personally, I’d find that boring.”

Samantha shrugged, “I can accept a certain level of that attitude. Some of them took it to an extreme that was frustrating. Still, I'm not going to look a gift horse in the mouth, thank you for the food.” She added wood to the fire to make the cave comfortable and sat grabbing her parcel of food. She took a bite of the toasted bread and stopped, looking at it in disbelief.

“I haven't had something this good since the Night,” She mused. She looked over at Scarlet and lifted the toast, “Compliments to the chef.” She went back to the food, a soft smile on her face. She felt a bit more relaxed, and was grateful of the chance to let her hair down so to speak. She ate in comfortable silence before she asked, “So, you are Master Ulroke's right hand girl? When I met him he seemed a bit of a hard ass. How do you put up with that?”

Scarlet turned from Samantha and stared into the fire. She was quiet, a contemplative look on her face, as though she were trying to word the question correctly. Sam didn’t think it was that hard.

“He’s a cruel and vindictive man, but he and I have a mutual and beneficial relationship. He makes me stronger, and in turn, I won’t run him through.”

“Sounds like Jeb, except I can't stand Jeb. He trained me as the Warden, difference is if I thought killing him would stick, I'd have done it a long time ago…” Sam replied the heat of anger rising her cheeks. She shook her head, “Just gotta stay this course. Once Cassandra is a god I should be able to go, it's not like my father is a threat at that point.”

“Is that what you really think? You think they’ll let you go? They won’t.” Scarlet said rather bluntly.

“I know,” Sam replied quietly. She took a bite of the meat as she looked into the fire, “I'm their prize, they couldn't let me go, not anymore. The hope is what keeps me going when it gets too much though. Even if they don't let me go, I hope they'll just, forget I exist. Let me do my job in peace while they go fuck themselves.”

“Look. Samantha, I don’t think your little….” Scarlet waved her arm as she tried to find the right words. “Predicament….is very good. Course, I’d be hypocritical if I were to try and talk you out of it. People try to talk me out of shit all the time, tell me its for ‘my own good’ but that fuckin’ pisses me off. So I won’t do the same to you. Instead, I’ll offer you a piece of advice, from my own experiences. Don’t rely on hope, rely on yourself. They beat you down because they know you can be a threat.”

She looked into the fire for a bit before she shook her head and said softly, “You don't need to hear my sob story. Everyone has a sad tale,” she seemed to be telling herself that more than Scarlet and pressed on, “Let's just talk about something other than the Hand and the Cult. Just seems to bog us down in trite shit that ultimately means nothing.”