"I'm hungry!" Yvie woke up with a rumbling stomach, filled with energy. She hadn't slept this long and properly for what felt like ages. At home she had always been on guard ever since she learned how to change. On her travels, she felt herself not being fully able to relax as well. The only place she had been able to sleep somehow properly was in the poisoned gate, and that couldn't really have been healthy.
Phoenix had slept well too. It felt like it's head was clearer, but once Yvie mentioned food, it couldn't help but feel the same way.
"I am hungry too?" Phoenix asked in a weird voice, as it had never actually been hungry. As Yvie could attest to, there was not any food in the cave. Phoenix knew it had never eaten before. Not in the past, and not since following Yvie. In fact, it hadn't even thought about food. So why the sudden new feeling?
"Can't you just fly out and catch some fish?" Yvie asked as if it was the obvious course of direction, however, Phoenix felt a bit differently about this. It still didn't feel fully in control of it's flying, and after the way it awkwardly grabbed Yvie the day before, it didn't feel much for making a fool out of itself, trying to grab fish.
"Actually, that's okay. I don't think I'd be able to eat fish anyway" Yvie concluded, as she thought about Aqua, being half fish.
'I wouldn't like it if Aqua ate snake' She told herself, not realizing that Aqua didn't have much other choice than fish, if she had to eat. The current conclusion, however, made perfect sense to Yvie and she immediately started to think about what she should eat instead.
The sun was once again high, the sand, once again red. Yvie couldn't go much outside of the shadow provided by the tree. This limited their food-hunting to Phoenix being in charge of collecting, and Yvie being in charge of shouting out orders.
A delegation of jobs that Yvie liked as much as Phoenix loathed it. Yvie did feel a bit bad for making Phoenix fly around too much directly in the sun, but she also felt bad about leaving her stomach alone, after having neglected it for so long.
'It's partly your own fault when you don't say anything' she told her rumbling tummy, as she continued to look around. She had checked the tree she was under two times already, with nothing there.
"Can't you fly high up and see if there is a town close-by?" She yelled at Phoenix, who hadn't been flying too high up. After it's realization about being stuck with Yvie, it felt it hard to leave her with too much of a distance between them. It felt wrong somehow, but Phoenix couldn't pinpoint it, nor did it bother to try. For now it was just annoyed at the constant bickering from a bossy, lazy little girl.
"What about you doing something other than yelling at me?" Phoenix shouted back, as it just spouted whatever was on it's mind.
"I already checked the tree! TWICE!" Yvie yelled back, quite annoyed at Phoenix. She thought the poor bird would finally be somewhat useful now, but she had turned up her expectations too high, it seemed. Even as a big and mighty bird, it was still as useless as ever.
'I would like to find something if I could' Yvie told herself as she started digging in the sand out of a tiny amount of aggression.
'Like finding berries' She thought, as she imagined the delicious redness, the sweet tinge of sourness and just a tiny amount of crunch from the seeds. She used to eat a lot of them when she went out in snake form, as her parents would tell her that only animals would eat things with their hands, and directly from the plants no less.
"Hm?" In her dreamy world of berries, Yvie had kept digging.
"EH?" Yvie said out loud as a little squishy sound made itself known as she once again dug deeper. Looking down at her hands, bright red had mixed with her pale skin, looking like blood splatter. However, it was much weirder and lighter than blood.
"Phoenix! I found berries! In the sand!" Yvie yelled, as she looked at the bush she had dug up from the sand. Something new once again didn't make sense to her. She knew these berries tended to grow close to the beach, but they were always on top of the sand. Not beneath it.
'How do they get any sun? How is there space for them to grow?' Yvie asked as she inspected one of the berries that she had accidentally ruined a bit with her hands. It looked exactly like the ones she had only just dreamed of, but somehow they felt a bit wrong.
"Phoenix, try this!" Yvie suggested as she held a little handful of her discovery out to the bird, who had flied over to her. It looked suspiciously at them, looked at Yvie, and then carefully nibbled at them.
"Oh right. Poison might not work on you…" Yvie, who didn't know if the berries were safe to eat, thought it was a good idea to see how Phoenix reacted to them first. However, the little detail of it maybe being immune hadn't struck her until she saw it eating happily, and she gave a little sigh.
��You used me as a poison tester?!" Phoenix asked, feeling deeply violated and taken advantage of, and rightfully so.
"But you say you're immune, so it's fine, right?" Yvie asked innocently as her hunger was starting to mess with her brain and rationality.
"But I-!" Phoenix started but stopped itself. It still wasn't exactly sure if it really WAS immune, nor of why the poison at that time hadn't worked. It was better to leave it at this for now, not admitting to not knowing something too often.
However, not admitting it in this case could have been a matter of life or death. Something Phoenix carefully noted to itself as it angrily ate the rest of the berries.
Yvie, who had decided the berries must be fine, started to partake, and both were surprised at the fullness it gave them rather quickly.
"Like I thought, it isn't exactly like those berries I used to have" Yvie mumbled, as she ate another one, not wanting to worry too much, as getting nutrients was the current main objective.