Guinevere nodded at Lily. She pondered the comment on the pocket for a moment, trying to think of whatever mischief she could get into with it. The only thing that jumped to mind would require her to be the lead in a dance and for the pocket to be open at the bottom. She internally thought of this idea for a moment, going over its merits before dismissing it. There were far easier ways to get into that kind of mischief around a campus like Vytal. Then again, she had never read about Faunus extensively. Did they go into heat like the animal aspects they held, or were they more like humans in that fashion? Probably a little too personal of a question to ask. Having put up with the issues of the female human side of things and knowing how animals operate, that would have to be maddening. She could embarrass Taupe with the question later. That poor bear.

Snapping pack to reality, she noticed Lily being perhaps a little antsy. “It’s fine if you stay – no issue at all.” She took a look at the dress, noting something. “One thing I noticed was that this dress was a few years old and you may have grown on is a bit – I think you expanded the seams well where necessary, but if you took the waist out a bit further than you intended while working on the top and hips….” She grabbed a piece of black lace about the same pattern as the transparent portions of the dress’s ruffles and a darker gray swatch of color. She looked up to Lily’s eyes in grabbing the grey, trying to find one that would complement them well. A few whip stitches later, she had a quickly thrown together belt/sash about three feet in length. “You may want something to bring down the waist a little.” She handed the sash over – a gift. “If you need to use it, it’s a lot easier than having to redo a seam or two, and you can change the color of the sash to match other accessories rather easily.” She nodded towards the bow in lily’s hair, and grabbed a piece to match that if she wanted to swap out the background color.

“Consider this more a gift than anything. If you don’t want to want to or need to wear it, you’re perfectly fine – it also gives you some fabric to work with in case you want to test your skills on some spare fabric.” She pondered a moment, giving Lily a little time to respond if she desired. Then she struck up a point of conversation that she had been wondering about the girl for the past half hour or so of their interaction. “…So, what brought you to Vytal?

What was Lily getting? She didn’t really need to repay Guinevere for anything. And to be honest, whatever it was, it probably wouldn’t go over too well with her. There were honestly very few things she really liked for repayment, and she didn’t take Lily to be that much of a cook.

And she stood corrected.

That was venison. Now, normally, a good steak or something would do her in, but venison had a special place in her heart. She had done enough comparisons between the minds of Grimm and animals that she had picked up a few things here and there, and response to game meat was one of them. She refrained from drooling. Hesitantly, she reached out and grabbed the bag in the most restrained fashion she could. She slowly opened the bag and picked up a piece to try out of courtesy. Up until this point, her slow actions might have had Lily questioning how well she had accepted the gift – perhaps Guinevere was reluctant to take it and stranged out by it.

Not after her first bite. She beamed. “This is wonderful.” She sunk down into her chair a little more. Munching away on the piece she had grabbed – she guessed it was rabbit, though she couldn’t be sure given her blissful state. A little tougher than she liked it, but then again, she also ate her steaks on the bleu side of rare.

Shaking her head slightly and coming out of her haze, she listened to Lily talking about why she came to Vytal. So, she had been saved by a huntress and wanted to become like that sort of a person. Were she a teacher right now, Guinevere would have probably retorted with ‘not good enough’ or some variant. The reason itself was hollow. Since she had been saved she wanted to save others? Then again, it was by and large the reason most of the Freshmen had for staying at Vytal after their years as an underclassman. After the steep drop-out rate the first couple years, students got a better idea of their bearings.

“I see,” came her reply, nodding slightly. Despite her mental criticisms, she still had half a strip of venison in her hand that she promptly took another chomp out of. She would give Lily the time to ask her something – for example, if she wanted to bounce the same question her way. She had told the girl that she was a Sophomore, so she did have a year more to think about it. And after that Will appearing a couple months ago, she had her reason.

Guinevere finished chomping on the last little bit she had in her mouth and took a big swallow of the venison. She had a little difficulty swallowing this, and held up her left index finger to pardon her delayed response. With that extended finger, she brought it up to her hairclips, first touching the one with red roses. Some of the red dust from the device moved up her finger to produce a light sheen. She then dabbed her finger to the second clip with the sky blue flowers. A bite sized piece of ice formed over the red coated part of her finger. She then brought it to her mouth, and with a soft crunch, broke off the ice and the red dust.

A light exhale later, some steam escaped her nostrils as she swallowed. “Sorry about that – needed some water. I tend not to carry the stuff on me so I need to improvise.” Tracing back to Lily’s comments, she made a list of the things she needed to address. “I would love to come by – do you have a camp in the woods around campus?” She knew a few of the students did for some reason or another – so it wouldn’t come as any surprise to her if Lily did.

She gave her a little time to make a response to that comment before addressing the other comment she was asked. She decided to start the response in the blunt sense. “Three months ago, one of the Wills attacked Vytal.” Lily had probably picked up on this if she even half listened to the gossip going about. There were probably even some seniors audacious enough to boast they had fought the thing. No, only one person really did that, and she was gone now.

“Some of us were upset about Rift, but the amount of sorrow shouldn’t have been enough to draw it here.” If Lily knew a bit about Grimm, she would probably have read accounts of communities that went through a bit more than civil unrest before even the lowliest of Grimm risked entering the city. “I am here because I want to understand Grimm. For things that don’t need to eat, and exclusively attack those with Aura for some sort of macabre ‘fun,’ for things that have been around since the dawn of Man, we only know that much about them.” She crossed her arms.

“I want to learn as much as I can about them because I want to know how we can ultimately help Mankind. Is there a way to drive them away without having to fight? Can we command them to turn away? Is there a way to make them fight each other? Is there a way to control them?” She knew the answer for this one for dead Grimm, and was glad that it appeared Lily had not caught up on who she was or her reputation at the school. “Then with this, I want to teach. Getting the information would be useless if I kept it to myself. For that reason, I won’t graduate until one to three years after you. You’ve probably noticed that the huntsmen of the school are all ‘Doctor’ or ‘Professor.’ That’s what I’m working towards.”

She leaned more over the table, elbows resting on the top. “Though most people don’t know about that part.” She had started work on her Thesis a little earlier than most, so she would probably be out shortly after Azure, but it was still something she did on top of her schoolwork and didn’t talk about a whole lot. She liked the idea of teaching and guiding, though she quite disliked the attention directed towards it. Particularly in her chosen field – Grimm Studies.

Guinevere eyed Lily’s reaction. Not the best relationship with Grimm, she could assume. Putting some of the earlier information into context, she assumed that the reason her mother never taught her to sew was because she never had the opportunity to do so due to Grimm intervention. The camping and venison made sense as well in this context – she was from beyond the protectorates. Why, anyone would freely elect to do so she still couldn’t fathom. Even the lawless areas of Pinnacle and Setek were under protection from Grimm without any fees.

She sighed though – the table had nothing wrong. Its placement made it ideal for Guinevere’s sewing as well – between a couple buildings and under a tree, but not quite off the beaten path of the courtyard made it ideal for splaying out all her wares. Her verbal response was curious though. Only those who fought Grimm were worth the title of Huntsman? She internally scoffed at this. “Not all huntsmen fight Grimm.” She said firmly. She wanted to nip this one in the bud. “We are trained to, should the need arise, but our jobs are first and foremost to the people of the world. I’ve seen huntsmen helping in the fields of Setek, and have talked with Legion Specialists. Wherever our skills best fit the need is where huntsmen go. There is no need to unnecessarily risk a life for some offensive measure when strength can be found and built within.”

She sat back a little bit. She knew she was probably digging into Lily a bit, but the prepositions she was making were still incredibly off-key. “To that end, though Grimm may appear to be our enemies, mankind’s greatest enemy is born out of our greatest strength - each other. Together, we are strong – and it is together that we were able to make the few footholds of civilization we have. However, if you sow discord like what has been happening between Legion and Rift,” she paused for emphasis. “Then you divide us, and turn us on one another. It’s from these seeds of chaos that draw Grimm. It is in those moments where we can lose. The Will’s attack was a good reminder of that. Disharmony makes us easier to defeat. And if someone wanted to reap humanity for their own, it would only take a couple of those seeds to undo everything we have worked so long and hard for.”

She had not intended for this to turn into a lecture on ‘the true enemy,’ but this was one of the things she had learned at Cela and embraced in the carnivals of Pinnacle. Individuality and division were both strengths and weaknesses, and though they were to be embraced, they were also something to be wary of.