She had dismissed the slave around noon, letting him leave for his own chores after he had helped her with her home. The miserable creature had been most helpful with erecting the tarp awning over her domicile, keeping out both sun and rain from her living space. It was simply a matter of finding enough wax to coat the top of the cloth she had salvaged. It was a large awning that replaced the temporary one over her fortune telling room. The ceiling was just tilted enough to let the water slip off if it rained. It was enough for her, and she was sick of looking at the grey of her walls. The slave had secured the awnings with taught rope and nails into the still solid wall.

But she had had enough. Isabella slipped out of her home, ignoring the pot with silk soaking. The thing was stained badly, but she refused to give up on it. The sun was warm on her skin and she reveled in her light summer pelt and the thin skirt. It was green and yellow, different from her usual crimson. The yellow and green gradient when up and the very thin gauzy overskirt created a lacy shadow. She eyed it as she walked to the edge of the ruins, the evening breeze was billowing around her legs. Arms wrapped tight across her chest, the woman glanced at the sea.

The smell of grass and salt was thick on the air, and Isabella gazed to a familiar figure with an equally familiar scent. Isabella wave lightly at the woman, though was not sure if the ebony figure noticed the motion. She approached her, wondering what brought this broken woman to the edge of the world. "Eris, what brings you here?" she asked gently, smoothing her skirt's upper hem.

Isabella's hands clung to her upper arms, crossed across her chest as she peered away from the obsidian woman. Her fingers could wrap around her limbs if she had so wanted, thin as she was. But her curves were in the right places. The sea churned as she waited for the woman to reply, wondering what ran through the Auxiliary's mind. Life could not have been easy for her, and had not seemed to change much after her last encounter with the woman. Eventually, Eris answered and Isabella knew that all was not quite well with the woman. So many were eloquently inclined here that it was strange to hear someone so highly admired and exalted along the social ladder be so terribly mundane. Her sorrow was reasoned; children and mate gone to the Mother, it could not have been easy.

"To take some air, my Auxiliary," she said gently, using the honorific rank name to remind them both of their individual ranks - especially compared to one another. "I had a slave assist me in placing a waxed tarp roof over my home. I have too many things that can be ruined by rain and snow," she explained, eying the charcoal woman with cloudburst colored eyes. "You seem morose. Might I help?" asked the gypsy, tone calm though slightly worried. Her glimpses at the leadership had been few lately, but the last time she had seen Sirius he had been wounded. And Eris crumbling from the depression of loss.

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Oh yay! I'll definitely help with that I hope the pp of Eris turning was okay? can change if want

The Auxiliary was still depressed. Little seemed to have changed in the time between their talks, and it was not a good thing. Isabella was astounded how much love this woman had for her man and her children, but it was her inability to pull herself together that truly angered the gypsy woman. She had lost family, so what? Who hadn't in this world? Isabella had kissed her family goodbye and violated the trust between her mother and herself by theft and adultery. Her father had passed away, and for all she knew, so could have her brothers. But Isabella was not the one brooding on a cliff side.

Isabella turned to the woman, her maw lacking the gentle smile reserved for other creatures of the female gender. Her eyes were not peaceful, but more stormy. "Forgive me," she said, without any hint of remorse. Eris turned slightly and Isabella struck the higher ranking woman with an open palm. There was no resulting smack sound, though it could not have been a sweet kiss. "You are our Auxiliary. You have been down and out for far too long to be appropriate." Her words were harsh, and her tone matched. "Your mate and children died here? So be it, mourn them. But they went to a better place, without suffering. You focus on the negative of their passing. You should be praising the good in their lives!" Her hands were on her hips, tight in her displeasure.

"Are you not a woman? Do you not have the strength to bear and raise a child? Are you so weak a creature to forget the future?" Isabella sighed, her blood calming down. "You are a mother still, and the living descends will still need guidance, however old they may be. You are the Auxiliary, and your pack, your Family need you as well. Are you not our 'mother', too?"

Eris rebounded quickly from the strike, suddenly more full of life and passion than she had been in the time Isabella had spoken to her. A brief smug smile crossed her lips before it disappeared as the woman began her tirade. The fire in the woman's eyes was back, though it was directed at her with an angry passion. She worried for her well being in the pack, as she was upsetting someone so high ranking. But surely it was understood. Wouldn't anyone else understand where she had been coming from? Surely others were as tired of this worn-down woman as she had been.

Anger bubbled up in her heart, for this woman who screamed at her. Her points were invalid and they made no sense at all. "Lead? That would be true if it weren't quite so funny!" countered the woman with venom. Her accent slipped and the French lilt to her tones weakened. She had been born and raised in English Ontario and the Quebec had not affected her tones quite so much. It was all an act, though one she maintained quite often. "I bet you could not tell me the last thing you did that counted as leading?" She waved her hand dramatically toward the ruins. "Can anyone here say the same of you, Eris?"

Isabella ignored the desire to growl at the woman, choosing to cross her arms over her chest. "You may tell him. Feel free to. I fear no one when the truth comes from my lips." Secretly, her heart fluttered in fear. She was not sure how the King would respond to her slapping his second. He might not like that she called Eris a weak woman. "What are you afraid of, Eris? Death? Surely one like you walks hand in hand with the hand of death?"

Isabella's laugh was a sharp bark as she grinned her smile. She twisted her upper body away, toward the sea to disguise her smile. Granted, it was a terribly futile gesture. Her lilting laugh rang out over the waves and foam. She slipped a hand over her lips, turning back to the woman who was so deluded that it was no longer sad, but funny in a sick, twisted way. "Fish, Eris?" cooed the gypsy woman, tail flicking from side to side as she assessed this woman. "Fish? We are may eat them and they may be a good filler for us. It gives us a healthy coat, with a shine." Isabella rubbed at her arms, letting her deft fingers slip up her barren shoulders. The gem at her throat glistened in the light. "We feast on creatures of hoof and fur. Supping on fish is less natural, but we take what we get, don't we?"

Eris withdrew a bit from the gypsy woman, and Isabella knew that she was the winner of this round. "Your moroseness is rather depressing, Eris." She touched her own cheek, following the woman's motions and stepping away from the edge. "There is always something life has to offer." Cold eyes rose to the ebony woman's golden ones, her grin not matching her eyes. "Unless you are too weak and too cowardly to find it," she said with scorn, her voice harsh. Eris's denouncement of what Sirius told her they stood for, what they existed for and because of, made her shake her head. Where was this woman going? This slope was slippery, and lonely. "We have weakness, but we can hide them. Why do you insist on putting all your faults upon your sleeve?"