"Shohowejaforalish?" Ruby asked through a mouthful of delicious meat pie, straight off an oven-cart-toting street vendor. They sat at a public table in the market square, in view of the tourney grounds. The sun had yet to cross the horizon, but the sky was turning blue regardless.

Blake stared at her, frown hidden by the bandages but belied by her eyes. She'd chosen to sequester herself under a different cloak than she'd worn (and been exposed in) during the tournament, this one being a dull dandelion hue. "Swallow, Red. Please."

Ruby obliged, though perhaps too eagerly, as she swallowed a mouthful that was much too large and insufficiently processed, ending with the food painfully pushing down her throat and nearly making her gag. After waving off Blake's concerned look and taking a few deep breaths, she reiterated. "How do you afford this? The room, the food, your stuff, I haven't seen you do anything but fight."

Blake shrugged. "That's it, I just fight. I live off bets and winnings."

"Oh," Ruby's eyebrows crawled up her forehead, her voice rising with concern, "then how—"

Blake interrupted her with a raised hand. "Don't worry about me, I've got a good chunk to myself. Losing one tourney isn't going to ruin me."

Ruby looked around them, just to make sure nobody was staring. "Well, you didn't really lose."

Blake gave her a look. "If I go back, they'll probably arrest me. I'm better off in the shadows, for now."

A grunt of frustration escaped from Ruby's throat. She spoke with hushed anger. "This is so stupid! So what if you're a fay, you haven't done anything wrong! You have a right to be here!"

Blake looked over her shoulder, then turned back to her new friend with a sigh and grim eyes. "Look, it's… not that simple."

Ruby returned a quizzical look and a cocked head. "Whashyamean?" She said through another mouthful of pie.

Blake, thankfully, ignored her lack of manners. "Remember when I said we generally don't cross realms, since our worlds and resources are essentially parallel?"

Ruby answered with a nod, mouth still full.

Blake's voice turned quiet and ashamed. "It hasn't always been like that. Humans were… we found your Realm when we were at our pinnacle— a united empire whose influence stretched unchallenged across the Shimmer. But then we found your realm— a world full of these bald apes with strong bodies and flexible, intelligent minds."

Ruby swallowed, but didn't take another bite. Her eyes were wide with interest.

"You were… a catalyst. Or a wedge, I suppose. Either way, the discovery of the human race polarized the people of the empire. Some wanted to exterminate you, some wanted to conquer and enslave, some wanted to coexist, and some… really wanted to coexist." Blake's gaze slid away from her friend, shame obvious in her eyes.

Ruby stared blankly, not fully understanding the last point but listening raptly nonetheless. She rolled her hand, encouraging Blake to continue.

"The empire split into factions, and each faction did with the humans what they pleased. The hostile factions allied before the others could, and freely crossed the planes to murder, kidnap, and enslave humans indiscriminately." Blake looked down at her hands, then continued, "The humans, understandably, didn't take well to that, so when the peaceful factions tried to parley, they only saw the same faces as those that murdered and kidnapped their families."

Ruby leaned forward. "Then what happened?"

Blake sighed. "Humans banded together, unified by the invading fay. Though they were primitive at the beginning, we had no clue how quickly you could adapt. You took our equipment, our weapons and armor, our technology— then bashed it with rocks and sticks until you somehow bloody understood it." Her hand came up to cover forehead. "I still don't know how you people could unravel millenia of fay development in a scant few centuries."

"Three hundred years!" Ruby blurted, getting a few peeved glances that made her blush and hide her face. "That's… a long war," she added.

"Hardly," Blake contested, "it was the shortest war the fay had ever conducted. It was also our worst."

"The fay… lost?"

Blake nodded. "By the time the war was ending, everything had turned to hell. Civil war tore much of the Shimmer apart, including our own capital. Once the humans figured out how to cross the realms themselves, it was all over. We had never faced anything but fay on our realm, and that…" She cast a wary glance at Ruby's cleaver, which she could barely see hidden under the girl's cloak, "cursed metal… ugh. I don't know how you stand it."

Ruby looked down at her side, where her side-slung cleaver hung under her cloak. "What's wrong with it?"

"Iron," Blake spat like the word was acid in her mouth, "Is completely foreign to my realm. As such, our armor was like parchment in its presence, and our weapons shattered on contact. It is a vile construct, and I'm supremely grateful that you have since discovered metallurgy."

"So… the war?"

"It ended, like all things do. We made massive concessions as reparation for the destruction we wrought in the beginning. That's how you humans have our dust— we seeded your world with it. Like iron, it's unique to our realm." Bitterly, she added, "But your world loves the damn stuff. Unfair…"

Ruby sat back in her chair, feeling like her head was swollen with information. "Concessions? Reper… repa…"

"We paid you for beating us." Blake explained, voice deadpan.

"That's hardly fair." Ruby remarked.

Blake shrugged. "We started it, and we committed atrocities that remain unmatched… at least until the end of the war."

Ruby watched her friends gaze turned dark. "What… happened?"

Blake's ensuing scowl visibly furrowed her bandages. "You don't want to know."

"I really do," the girl protested in return, "clearly, the fay weren't the only ones who acted monstrously."

Blake remained silent and crossed her sleeved arms tightly over herself.

"It happened at the end… and you said it ended when humans learned how to cross realms… but we can't do that on our own. You can, though. That means…" Ruby visibly put the pieces together in her head, and an unpleasant recognition crossed her features. Blake watched it fade as the girl tried to dismiss it, then got confused, then it came back with a vengeance. Ruby was more clever than her limited worldly knowledge belied, but it was clear she didn't fully understand the specific horror inflicted by the humans, and Blake wanted to keep it that way.

Blake's hands tightly gripped her arms. "I… I understand. It was war, and we started it. Horrors abound on both sides, so who am I to complain?" She barely sounded convinced of herself, and her internal conflict was visible in her eyes.

"Blake," Ruby leaned forward and extended a comforting hand to her friend, "what happened?"

Blake looked at the hand, then back at Ruby, amber eyes begging.

"Y-you don't have to tell me." Ruby amended when she saw her friend's pleading eyes. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to upset you."

Ruby began to pull her hand back, but found it grasped by Blake, her amber eyes meeting Ruby's silver with a spark of conviction. "I will tell you, I swear. Just… after the tournament, okay?"

Ruby gulped, the warm (even through the bandages) hand around hers paired with Blake's undeniably beautiful eyes to make her feel strange, her stomach and chest lifting and turning in a way she'd never felt before. She felt heat pool in her face. "Y-Yeah, okay."

Blake's eyes turned warm, like she was smiling. She relinquished Ruby's hand in favor of lifting her fork again. She scooped a piece of the delicious meat pie and pulled her bandages away from her mouth.

Ruby felt her heart pick up when she saw the girl pull the bandages away, and found herself sheepishly turning her gaze away.

"Gather, fighters!" A voice yelled, much too loud and much too close, making Blake jump and sending her scoop of hot pie into her lap. "Gather for the tourney! Gather, fighters, the tourney begins soon!"

Blake growled at her wasted food, then turned her gaze back to Ruby, who was blushing for some reason. "We should go."

Ruby, suddenly sheepish, nodded. "Yeah, we, uh, we probably should." She agreed with a nervous laugh.

Blake raised an eyebrow, but didn't say anything. She hoped that girl wasn't losing heart— she had a lot of money riding on this.

AN:with how things are going i kinda wish i had saved the 'awakenings' title for here lmao 'meat pie' will have to do i guess