Silence. Avis' gaze fluttered between the doors, still bored, but now tense. She swung her legs over the edge of the table.

"We thought you were dead."

The kenku paused, and let out a small sigh before she looked over to Blaze. "What?"

"We - Reign and I thought you must have died," she was speaking in rough, harsh and jealous tones.

Avis shrugged, "I didn't. I just moved."

"Where on Althanas have you been?"

Avis paused for a moment, "Living in Vitruvion's mansion. In the city." She looked away from her and at the ground her feet swung above. "Only there."

Blaze's eyes seemed to glow with fire as she watched the kenku look away. She shook her head with disgust. "What did you promise him for all of this? Are you pregnant or something?"

With that suggestion, Avis looked back up to her, alarmed. "Pregnant? Of course not! My race cannot reproduce with another for a start. And you know he has ways of preventing anything like that!"

It was a truth not very commonly discussed. Every 'host' or 'brother' in the Hollow had a responsibility to ensure no reproduction was taking place in the Hollow.

Blaze continued to stare. "Well you might have been. You might have persuaded him with whatever wiles you use."

"I did nothing of the kind," Avis spat back. "You know exactly why he took me away from here. I told you everything that he told me. And then you got carried away in your jealousy and-" she looked away again. "The only thing that has changed, Blaze is that I am not here anymore. He uses me for a different purpose. He still controls my fucking life."

"I doubt that very much," Blaze responded with a bitter laugh. "You are clothed! And not even bound in any way!"

The kenku looked over to her, studying the ropes that held her there. Blaze seemed to take the situation with a calm relaxation, not seeming in discomfort in any way. Avis blinked slowly, her chest rising up and down and in that moment she considered telling Blaze everything. About what Vitruvion considered about her power. That she might be magical beyond the norms. That at her wrist was a device through which Vitruvion could see her, hear her, speak to her ...

"What?" Blaze testily said, "Why are you looking at me like that?"

With a slow intake of breath Avis sat up taller, her shoulders rolling back. "I'm not looking at you like anything. Trust me, you would know if I was."

There was a silence then as Blaze's brow creased. A curiosity came into her eyes. "You were in here, with the door unlocked. Does Vitruvion trust you now?"

A short, bitter sounding laugh. "Not quite," Avis said quietly, the conversation now more gentle in tone. She looked back down at her feet. "He's very likely never going to."

Silence came between them. Blaze pursed her lips and looked away, seeming to think other things. The anger in her eyes was beginning to die away.

"So," she said softly, after a long pause. "What do you do for him now?"

"Nothing much at the moment," Avis replied, black eyes also dimming from the agitation she had felt. "Just not sex." Though that was partly a lie. It had just been that night that he had taken her, her consent entirely there.

"Then what has he got you out there for?" She said, eyes large, gesturing to the ceiling with her head, to 'up there', to the surface.

"It's better to ask him," Avis said, a sigh on her beak edge. "Because sometimes I have no idea."

Blaze frowned slightly, but she took the statement as an answer. "Then what is it like? To be up there, free to do as you want?"

"When did I say I was allowed to do as I want?" Avis murmured in reply.

Just as the door opened. Just as he stepped in, Brer and one man Avis had not seen in a long time. Raevin. Vitruvion's captain of the guard in this horried hell-hole.