- 𝐁𝐀𝐒𝐓𝐈𝐀𝐍 𝐑𝐈𝐕𝐀𝐒
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
. western gathererxxxxxlocation; western gardens xxxxxmentions; tagsxxxxxtags; aviana, erice
- “Oh, to be a flying pig,” Bash sighed pensively, eyeing the fluffy white clouds once again. The way they pacifically drifted across the sky was so peaceful, so comforting. Not a care in the world. Not that they had feelings, of course, as they were just clouds after all, but it was nice to see something move at their own indolent velocity when things down below felt so rushed all the time. Bash tried to be the cloud in the group; he liked taking his time, doing things at his own pace, and ensuring the others they could do the same. Being a gatherer resulted in a lot less stress, too. He couldn’t imagine how Aviana handled her job. She was great at it. She was great in general, though. He couldn't target just one thing.
He turned his attention back onto her, observing the way she was carefully raising the cup to her lips. She seemed to put thought into every little thing she did. It came naturally, though Bastian wondered how exhausted she got from having a busy mind. “You, of course,” he responded somewhat cheekily to her question regarding his smile, before gesturing to the tree tops above. “It’s just a nice day out. I have a good feeling about it.” Even he didn’t know exactly what that meant, but neither things said were a lie. Sometimes he simply got a bad feeling when he woke up. Today was not one of those days.
He shifted his gaze towards the garden as she motioned to one of the nearby sprouts. “I think it’s primrose,” he told her. Hand still holding hers, he brought it up so that they were angled towards the sprout, hopefully making it easier to pinpoint the little form of life he was talking about. “See the two little leaves? Almost like a two-leaf clover? That’s what that is.” He smiled, mostly to himself. “They’re so delicate. Precious little things.” He knew chatting about something like a plant likely sounded ridiculous, but they were one of the few things that proliferated joy within him. “Your plans sound much more enjoyable. I was going to stand here all day. Maybe if I cross my arms – ” he did just that to put on a show - “I’ll appear intimidating and they won’t bother me with some horrible chore. Kidding,” he added a second later, partially to verbally assure himself he was only joking, “I’m with you. Just waiting. Watching. Trying not resist the temptation to go back to bed.”
Bash shielded his eyes with one of his hands as his dark eyes skimmed around the visible part of their camp. Despite having dark eyes, the sun always bothered his vision; he had made it very clear that he did not enjoy working afternoons. As a loyal gatherer, though, he obviously would go through with whatever it was he was told to do, whenever that was, but most of his tribe members were aware of his light complaining if he had to do something when the sun was at its brightest. It looked like most people were hanging around; a few had mugs in their hands, one was yawning, another had perched themselves on one of the fallen trees. Where was Connall? Bastian found it unusual that the mighty leader had yet to assign a list of things to do to people, although deeper down, he certainly wasn’t complaining about this extra free time with Aviana. Bash loved hanging out with her, lingering romantic feelings aside. While he wasn’t always the most productive worker (thank you, distractions!), he did often feel a bit of guilt when deciding to lean towards a casual conversation instead of doing work that needed to be done. Now, clearly, was not the case. Maybe it’ll be like this all day. Even leaders had their off days, after all.
He was soon able to spot Erice, not so discretely eyeing Avi from afar. “Did you make a deal with the devil?” he jokingly asked Aviana, nodding his head towards Erice to give his friend an idea of where those words had just sprouted from. “Don’t stop me from going to her. Or better yet!” He paused, and as if a signal from his silent, subconscious brain went out, Erice’s converser Analise had drifted elsewhere, leaving the tracker by her lonesome. “Erice! Come join!” He raised his arm, beckoning her over with a flourishing sweep of his hand. “There’s plenty of room for you, darling.” The nickname was almost spoken mockingly, despite the fact that Bash had a tendency to call everyone that. That or “dear.” He supposed it only came across differently because it was Erice, who was known to tease him. Or to assure Aviana it didn’t mean anything more than just a spoken word. “We were just discussing... plants.”