It's off to work we go {Bea}

[Evangeline Dawson]

The tinkering of miners was not quiet work. Throwing a pick axe into graphite and rock was not easy. Hauling chunks of the export was far from simple. And yet everyday, Evan was underground doing those things as if it were the most uncomplicated work there was. Adjusting her head lamp, she swung her pick axe back, and into the wall of rock in front of her, with a loud thud. She repeated the action until a hefty piece of graphite came loose. She hooked bare fingers around it, her gloves abandoned somewhere close by, and pulled it out.

Dropping it into a full bin, she called for an empty bin, and the full one was taken away. Her boots crunched over the ground as she made her way to her father. She didn't understand why he was still working down here, knowing the noise had started to bother him a few months back. She poked at his shoulder until he turned around, and motioned she was taking her break. While there was no actual way to keep track of time while in the tunnels, after working in them for a considerable amount of time, you developed the knack at being able to tell it.

She stood on her toes, and kissed his cheek before walking off into one of the more open areas workers usually took their break in. She peeled her long sleeves off, in attempt to cool down a little. Sweat dampened the fabric of the shirt she wore underneath in between her collar bones. Evan wiped at her forehead, nodding to a few people she knew, and went to sit by herself. Sitting, she glanced around. Spotting a few of the people she had first talked to about her suspicions. The whispers she had sent were spreading like wildfire, no one really knowing where they had come from. if someone was clever enough, they could trace them back to her, but no one really had the time.

Evan leaned against the stone behind her and closed her eyes briefly. No, Evan would never admit that the work tired her beyond belief. That she was only down there to bring a little bit of peace to her fathers mind.

[Beatrice Kavanagh]

Working in a Graphite mine was not clean work, nor was it particularly entertaining. However, a job was a job, and there were limited alternatives in a place like this. She'd started young and it had never occurred to her that she should be discontented with it. It was not very exciting, but Beatrice considered herself fairly good at it, as such things went, and it helped her to support her family. It was fairly solitary work as well, which suited her admirably. If the constant thud of picks against graphite and rock got almost deafening at times, it was a small price to pay.

The young woman trudged through the mine, pick axe slung carelessly over one shoulder as she worked her way away from the seam she had been working at all morning. Her boots were gray with the dust that coated almost everything, scuffed and dark from wear, and nearly as beaten as the jacket hanging loosely from her shoulders. She emerged from the tunnel into the open area where workers took their breaks, raking a hand through her short curls and scanning the gathered people indifferently. Taking off her helmet and tucking it under her free arm, she ambled towards an empty corner but stopped short, turning slowly to eye another girl, about her own age, leaning against the stone with her eyes closed.

The whispers had started a while back, and it had gotten to the point where you couldn't work down here without hearing of them. People murmured them in the darkness in the lull between work, in the muted chatter of the break area. Most people never stopped to question where they came from, but Beatrice was not most people. She couldn't help but listen to things, and if you listened hard enough, you could figure things out. It didn't take skill in her opinion, just determination, but if there was one thing Bea was good at it was listening. She had no evidence the girl (Evangeline, she thought) was connected, but if she were careful enough, perhaps she could figure out where her sympathies lay.

Beatrice hesitated a moment, and then wandered casually towards the girl, propping herself against the stone just a little ways away, and leaned her pick up beside her with a stiff smile, as if it wasn't accustomed to being used.
"So," she remarked nonchalantly, "You're Evangeline, yes?"

[Evangeline Dawson]

Evan was looking forward to her break, by herself. No company. As usual, but apparently the other miners still had the urge to bother her. Never mind the last time, when she had yelled at one of the oldest workers, nearly sending the poor man into a fit. And Evan had walked off to do her job afterwards, as if the old man hadn't been hyperventilating and staring at her as if she were about to bite him. People knew Evangeline, and normal people didn't bother her.

"You would think." Evan started, not opening her eyes. "That after the ruckus I've caused, all of you would know better than to call me that." She lifted her head up and stared at the girl, annoyance clear. "I'm Evan, yes." Evan shifted her legs so she could rest her arms on top of her knees. Her brown eyes held an intensity that could seemingly pierce through steel. She always held the look, weather she was smiling or not. It was something about the air of her, she was a difficult person. Far from unfriendly, just.....difficult.

"Whatever you've come to pester me with, it better be important.' She said clearly. Shuffling her boot across the ground, small chips of stone scattered. Whatever sound they made swallowed by the hammering of daily work. She stuck her tongue in her cheek, and just looked at the girl. Evan had seen her around the mines, but never spoke with her before now. She must have worked in one of the many other tunnels. While Evan and her father always kept pounding away in the same one, Evan still knew faces and people. This girls, she did not. Her sleuthing skills must seriously be lacking in the mines then. She would have to make it a point to start walking them more often than she did. Go a little deeper than she usually did.