When the Boughs Break

The leering, lugubrious hill giant stood undaunted, his boastful laughter booming over the trees, scattering flocks of birds before him. He sneered with scabby lips stretched taught around yellowed teeth as the villagers groveled before him, his beady eyes filled with dark intent.

"FOOLY LITTLES, RUMBLEJAW TELL YOU
TWO OX AND TEN WHISKY BARRELS BRING
OR CATCH A LITTLE AND MAKE EM SING"

With another laugh, Rumblejaw's mighty hand began to close around Fair Maiden Daphne, who cried out "Please! Won't a hero come save us, in our hour of need?!"

And as the clouds appeared at their darkest, a wind blew true and parted way for the sun. The rays cast down, catching their light upon a figure cresting the hill. For a moment he sat upon his steed, taking command of the situation - a magnificent cataphract, clad in the very sun's own liquid radiance....

"What's a catatact?" Serril asked his sister Hana, breaking the scene as he clumsily tried to correct for the borrowed bonnet slipping from his mop of curly blonde hair. Behind him, a deer maintained an awkward pose with its head down, with the firbolg boy standing roughly between the antlers.


"Serril, you ruined it! And it's cataphract!" Hana sighed in frustration, her breath steaming in the late winter air as she put away a heavily-used storybook into her pack. "Down, Tut-Tut. Ombo, relax."

Tut-Tut, a giant badger, grunted and squatted prone, letting Hana slide off to the side. Ombo backed away, but not before chewing on Serril's hair.

"When do I get to be Sir Gadrey? Wait, Ombo, stop!"

"You can be Sir Gadrey, but you're getting rescued by Daphne the Fair, and I still get the sword." For emphasis, Hana brandished the well-whittled prop they had used for many such productions in the past.

"But why?"

"Cause I'm older and I'm bigger." Hana replied matter-of-factly, flourishing the wooden sword before resting the flat of the blade across her shoulders. "And I had to play Daphne when Tatva was playing Sir Gadrey, so you have to play Daphne with me. Whenever we get a new brother or sister, you can play the hero then."

It was a familiar refrain. Time and again, turned away on account of being the baby of the family. Serril sighed, and Hana retrieved her borrowed bonnet. In the distance, the low thrum of a horn sounded in the direction of the Grove. The call to supper.

"Okay Onbo, alright Tut-Tut, playtime's over." The two firbolg children each gave their animal playmates their due in the form of a few slices of sugar beet. Hana took Serril by the hand, and they began to beat the path back home.

Though the light in the Moonwood was waning, they could almost tell the way by feel, so sacred was the knowledge of places that children go to play. The pair crested a hill, and stood before a clearing dominated by two ancient live oaks, that had grown so massive that their canopies had long-since overlapped. In this space, dozens and dozens of lanterns held suspended with rope from branches with care, cast a comfortable illumination among a few dozen round lodges built of timber and mud thatch. Closer within, a crescent array of tables had begun to fill with other members of the Twinboughs Herd, filling the ambient sounds of evening with the pleasant sounds of greeting and conversation.

Serril ran ahead, now pulling his sister along behind as he carefully weaved between much larger aunts, third cousins, great grandparents, and the occasional no-relation. There were no assigned seats at the communal tables, so you never knew who you were going to be sitting with, but usually each household tried to eat together as a group. Serril and Hana paused as Gadroh Wannigan eased down to sit on the usual knotted root he tended to fancy, grunting as his knees protested all the way down to a sitting pose. Once there, the older Firbolg simply packed a heavy pipe and began to strum a banjo, which brought a few claps from all around.

"Always on time for supper call!" A familiar voice called from behind, as a hand scooped each child up with a brief yelp of surprise. That quickly turned to giggles, as Hana and Serril both wriggled around to face their father Guthir, who had wrangled his youngest children into an energetic hug.

"I'm sure you have plenty of tales of your thrilling heroics, but I'm afraid I have another heroic task for you. Have you seen your sisters?"

Hana and Serril shook their heads in unison. They'd been playing since helping with midday forage and their afternoon chores. That didn't completely stop Hana, however. She had a healthy fascination for gossip.

"Papa, I saw Jobi Ounay give Tatva a pretty scrimshaw antler. Does that make them boyfriend and girlfriend?"

Normally calm and unflappable, Guthir found his reply halting. Kids and the things they say.

"I think your mother might be the one to ask for that one." Guthir deflected with a laugh, depositing Hana into his wife Kam's waiting hands.

"Two out of four children found!" He grinned, draping a hefty arm around Serril, who was already squirming out of his grip to see what was on the table itself.

"Wash your hands, children-of-mine." Kam never raised her voice, but she had long perfected that eldritch art of saying words in just the right tone to cause children to behave. It worked more than it didn't, and with a grumble in unison, both Serril and Hana excused themselves for the wash basin. Before the parents could enjoy a moment of peace, the other missing part of the family arrived.

"Well there you two are." Guthir looked to Tatva with a glimmer of mischief. "So what's this I'm hearing about Jobi Ounay and a scrimshawed antler, eh?"

Pink flushed instantly on Tatva's long ears, broad nose, and cheeks. "Hana!" She reached for her younger sister, and was plunked back in her seat by Sibi, the eldest of the Indaiyu children.

"Heeyyyy, no fightin' at the supper table." Tall, athletic, and favoring her mother, Sibi Indaiyu reached for one of the large family-style dishes at the table, hoisting it up to dredge the ladle for a portion for her own bowl. A thick orange porridge plopped in with the thump of the wooden spoon. Not one to mince food and conversation, Sibi regarded each of her kin, then tucked in, propping elbows on the table to enable the efficient movement of spoon from bowl to mouth and back again.

"Acorn porridge again?" Serril watched the communal bowl filled again with a top-off, visibly disappointed.

"Be thankful, kind-eyed son." Kam finished a spoon of her own portion. "Not everyone living outside our community sees winter's end with enough food to eat. Remember, we all work together so that none go without."

It was the first thing Serril had learned in this world, and it was the lesson that never ventured far from his heart. Every member of the Herd knew the stories handed down, of the joining of the tribes to become one community - one people. Everything was shared - from food and water to possessions and stories. Especially stories.

"What about outside the Herd? If people are going without, shouldn't we help them?"

"We do. Well, we help each other." Guthir crumbled a sage leaf into his porridge, mixing with his spoon for a few moments before taking a tentative bite. "Thats why the caravans come."

Instantly, the three younger Indaiyu children's eyes sparkled.

"The caravan's coming?"

"Is the snow off the pass?"

"When will they be here?"

"Will they have new books?"

"What about chocolate?"

"Children, children, please!" Guthir was more tickled than annoyed by the enthusiasm. "These are all great questions. Maybe save them for your sister for when she's..."

Eyes turned to Sibi, who had now reached for a crusty round of acorn bread, ripping it in half to serve as an edible scoop for her porridge. She came up for air, mindful for a pass with a napkin before addressing the mob.

"Probably a week from now. Pass is open, and we've been watching the way."

Serril adored the ground that Sibi walked on, and hung onto every one of her laconic words. Sibi caught his eyes, reached for the ladle, and piled another spoon of porridge into Serril's bowl.

"Eat. You want to go on patrols like me? You have to eat."

That lit a fire. Serril took a heaping bite of the porridge, less bothered by the sameness of it.
"Why do they meet you far away from home?" Serril talked with his mouth full, then thought better of it. "I want to meet caravan people."

"It's not safe." Sibi tore into another bite of acorn bread, reaching for a carafe of water before continuing. "You don't know those people, Serril. Not like the way you know family or the Herd. You don't know what they do, where they're from, or who or what they serve."

His mother continued as she added some honey to acorn tea. "Outsiders often don't share our respect and our concord with this wild space. Most wish only to take and take and take, but never give back. We must all be careful who we allow to traverse the wood. We trade what we need, for what they need, but only those who respect that balance."

Guthir fussed with a pepper mill before setting it aside, satisfied for now. "Remember when I told you about the covenant the families made with the Mother of Waters?"

Serril nodded.

"Well, in return for a place to grow and sustain our people, we were given an important task. And that's to guard this wild place we all love. So that's what your sister's doing. That's what me and your mom did before. And one day, that task will fall to you."

"And one day, that task will fall to you..."

The nights were steadily growing shorter, but still cast their pall early on. Everyone pitched in to help clean up after supper, and the few who had chores remaining hurried to tend to the tasks. A few generous hearts occasionally helped their fellow herdmates to double-time the work, so everyone could have a bit of leisure time before bed. About the only one who hadn't stopped working was old Gadroh Wannigan, still busy serenading the grove by banjo, but now with softer and lower folk lullabies. Occasionally he'd pause to pack his pipe again or to take a glug out of the clay jug of scrumpy resting against his belly. From the resonant sploonk of the scant remaining liquid pitching to the bottom of the jug after the last sip, there probably weren't many songs left in the evening.

With the hut's flap closed, the music took an even softer note, becoming pleasingly woollen and ambient, the banjo's plucks and twangs weaving into the occasional pop and spit from the waning log on the fire in the center of the room, the sound wrapping around the drowsy family within in tandem with a faint orange glowing warmth.

Serril couldn't sleep. It wasn't entirely Hana's fault, but she was still in the violence hours of sleep where she wormed and squirmed and kicked covers, blankets, and brothers alike until she either reached comfort or fell asleep trying. No, Serril knew he wasn't sleepy, even if he wasn't getting half-pushed off their modest mattress. He followed the orange fire light as it caught in reflection off the well-honed spearhead affixed to Sibi's weapon, his eyes following the spear's robust haft, itself hewn from the ancient wood of one of the twin oaks.

"I know what you're thinking."

Serril startled slightly with an inhale. Sibi lay on the mattress next to his, her green eyes catching some of the firelight. Only shorter than father by a few inches, Sibi had hilariously outgrown the mattress she used, which was sized for outlanders. Her knees extended past the mattress at the bottom, with her heels resting on the ground. Everything from the shoulders up was supported by a mound of haphazard pillows. Unlike cover-hoarding Tatva, Sibi barely bothered with a thin blanket, and the dancing fire light traced along the contours of her muscles.

"You do?"

Sibi gave her younger brother a flat expression, then shifted her weight to the right, patting the scant free space on her mattress a few times. The wordless message was clear - come lay down over here and keep your voice down. (You had to understand Sibi like that, half the things she said were without words.) Serril quietly untangled gangly arms and legs with Hana, who finished pushing him the rest of the way off their mattress. Serril quietly lay down beside his oldest sister, and they both looked at the motes of fire dancing on the spearhead, as the shadows licked and danced on the wall behind.

"You're wondering if it has a name."

Serril's eyes were like saucers. Everyone knew a little magic, but Sibi always seemed to be able to look right into people. Father called it In Sight, which didn't make sense for a spell name.

"Like Sir Gadrey's sword?" he breathed out in reverent whisper, suddenly realizing he was about to become custodian to hidden knowledge. Sibi's normally stern face eased into a smile. She squeezed Serril in a one-armed hug.

"Like Shadowrend."

"You read Gallant Tales of Yesteryear?" Serril gawked.

"It was my book to begin with" Sibi swallowed a chuckle, so that no sound came out, only a shake at her middle, "why do think it looks so ratty?"

Serril until now hadn't given much thought to Sibi having previously been a little girl. In his mind, she simply entered existence as she was now - big and strong and big.

"So what's it called? It must have a great name. It was papa's spear before it was yours?"

"Yup."

Serril's impatience was reaching the limits of being baited, and he sat up slightly.

"Sibi!"

A chorus of "SHHHH's" emerged from family around the hut. Guthir snorted, recycling his snore pattern. Sibi put a finger over her lip, pressed two fingers of her other hand into a boop against Serril's nose, then pulled him back to lie down beside her.

"Promise not to tell?"

"Mother of Waters my witness, honest plus a hundred."

Sibi milked the suspense as much as she dared. She tilted her head to give a whisper for her brother's ears only. His wondrous expression soon curdled into confusion, then disapproval.

"Wait, it's just called 'spear'?"

Sibi turned her head back to look at the wall.

"Yep."

"That's a terrible name."

Sibi's middle shook with another quiet laugh.

"It is what it is. It hasn't earned a true name."

Serril nodded at that. Firbolgs had a strange relationship with names. Only in the last few generations did it become common to have names given for the purpose of being names, and mostly to accomodate Outlanders. Within the herd, everyone was just as comfortable with deed-names and memory-names as they were for the more structured Outlander kind. Some of the elder second generation nomads from the Feywild tribes didn't even have names in the proper sense. It didn't stop everyone from knowing everyone else.

Another thought crossed the boy's mind, and he frowned, brows knitting as he tussled to find the words.

"Have you ever..."

"No." She replied without hesitation, not needing for him to ask the rest of the question. Sibi's head turned away from regarding the spear to look at Serril again. His brown eyes caught some of the firelight, and he looked relieved.

"No one has, not for well over a century. Not even papa has."

"If you have to, you know...will you be sad?"

"Sad? I don't think so. Is a sow bear sad when she defends her cubs? What about Sir Gadrey rescuing Lady Daphne?"

Serril followed along with her logic, and Sibi continued. "Maybe sad that it happened? I wouldn't be sad to protect you, the rest of the family, or the herd, if that's what you mean."

Sibi placed her large, calloused hand over Serril's smaller one, curling around his palm to give a squeeze. A tussling sound caused them both to look to the left, as Hana completed the conquest of her own mattress, kicking the last knitted blanket off the side. Sibi sighed, then shifted over a few inches, offering Serril little more space.

"Come on. Don't fidget. If you kick me, I'm kicking you out."

"Thank you, Apple." Serril whispered, using one of his sister's memory-names. The boy shifted inward as Sibi pulled her blanket over to cover him. She draped a long arm around his shoulder in a half-embrace, keeping him from falling off the other side.

"Mother of Waters, I pray for a proper bed next season." Sibi grumbled, eventually getting comfortable. The ambient sounds around them were now absent the sweet lullaby twangs of distant banjo chords. Apparently the scrumpy had run out, and so too had Old Gadroh.

"When I get big, I want to be like you." Serril leaned a cheek against Sibi's shoulder, his words thickening with drowsiness that was finally beginning to take hold.

"If you want to get big, that's easy. Eat. Work out. Get enough sleep." the last part she added pointedly.

"But *when* you get big, don't be Apple. You should be Climbs-a-Lot. You should be *yourself*."

Sibi looked at the ceiling, watching shadows weakly dance in the ember light.

"The World Beyond the Wild is cruel. Far more cruel than nature's wrath."

Her head pivoted on her pillow pile, catching Serril's eyes. "A beautiful light shines inside you, baby brother. When you get big, don't let the unkindness of others cover up that light.

Whatever else you need to know can be taught, but you already know how to be who you are. If anyone has a problem with that, they have a problem with me."

Serril smiled at that, his eyelids growing heavy. Sibi carefully portioned a few pillows from her stack, and eased his head from her shoulder. She watched him drift to sleep, and only when she was sure he was out did Sibi allow slumber to overtake.

Three days later...

Serril woke with a mission, getting dressed even before Pepper-Thief had cawed the sunrise. The rooster cocked his head in surprise, looking up from the meager scratchings outside the Indaiyu family hut.

"Shh. I know I'm early, no need to shout on my account." The boy quickly tossed a few hands of field corn on the ground, the noise bringing the hens from their insulated coop.

"Form a line, enough for everybody, I promise." Serril assured as the unusually well-mannered chickens did precisely that. He then wasted little time moving on to the next task, which Pepper-Thief decided he would abide no longer, sending up a premature screech into the purple-pink pre-dawn sky.

Serril went to the next task, then the next, and the next, and the one after that, settling chores in record time. By the time sunlight began creeping over the eastern trees, Serril had put away any mess from his previous chores, washed up, and headed to the closest communal table. He could already smell the familiar aromas of acorns being baked, boiled, and otherwise convinced into becoming breakfast by the dozen or so herdmates working around the central community hearth. Serril grabbed a wooden bowl and spoon, and sat down on the bench, his feet kicking back and forth with nervous energy.

Sibi unfurled her tall frame after passing through the flap of the family hut, standing well over 7 and a half feet tall. She looked down the tables to see any familiar early risers, pausing on someone she did not expect to see, and made a face.

"Never seen you up early. Are Amma and Laughs-Big baking a pie I don't know about?"

Sibi reached across the table, grabbing a bowl and spoon for herself, and plonked down on the bench opposite her brother. Propping on her elbows, she leaned almost over the table to Serril, meeting his eyes.

"I know you're not here for seconds of acorn porridge, so what's all this, then?"

Serril fidgeted in his seat, but didn't let his big sister intimidate him. Her face was a little mad-looking, but it was always a little mad-looking, even when she wasn't.

"You said if I finished my chores early that you'd teach me how to scout and stuff."

Sibi scoffed, then paused. Her long ears flicked back, and she narrowed her eyes, giving her kid brother a glance. Hands clean, clothes not clean but not grubby either.

"Fed the chickens?"

"Uh huh."

"Spread the compost?"

"Uh huh."

"Foraged north ridge?"

"Filled two baskets!"

"Really? What about milking Onawi?"

"It's Tatva's week to do it."

About that time, one of the kinfolk working the hearth approached, placing a heavy bowl of porridge and a basket of bread down, along with a steaming clay carafe. Sibi let Serril squirm a moment more before leaning back, trying not to smile as she caught sight of Serril deflate slightly with held breath. She plunged the ladle into the serving bowl, and filled her brother's bowl first - all the way to the top.

"That's two helpings of porridge. Eat." she commanded, gesturing with her spoon. She reached down the table and pulled the pepper mill and honey pot down, just as a few surprised kinfolk were about to sit as well.

"If you don't clean that bowl, you're not coming with me at all. If you manage that, you're going to *work*. The moment you start whining about being tired, or hungry, or anything like that, you're going back home."

Serril looked up at his sister with a serious face, gripping his spoon with a full fist. His nostrils flared and he looked at his extra-big portion of unloved acorn porridge. The pepper and the honey were there too, but Sibi didn't put any in hers so he wouldn't either. He met her eyes again, and with a stiff upper lip, he went to work, emulating Sibi's all-eating-no-talking method of meal management. With Serril's head hovering directly over his bowl, Sibi could allow herself a grin before she also began to quickly work down breakfast.

"You'd better keep up, little brother."

Sibi moved through the wild spaces of the Moonwood with long, confident, and quiet strides. To Serril's credit, he didn't falter, though he didn't have her grace. Serril also didn't have long legs like Sibi did, which meant he had to move at a more brisk pace. It wasn't so bad until they approached the Bramble - the boundary of the sacred grove to the north. Sibi was an experienced scout, and she barely slowed her pace. She deftly moved between gaps in the snarls of thorny brush, striding her long gait through without interference, and only slowing in places to part an impenetrable snarl with her spear.

Serril bumbled his way through, catching his ankles a few times on some dried thorny vines, which rustled with the disturbance.

"Ouch.' He grimaced, pulling free with a few tugs. When he righted to stand, Sibi was standing next to him again, this time with a stick in her free hand. It was nearly as long as Serril was tall, and he could immediately tell that it was a Good Stick, which was no small thing to find! It wasn't uncommon for a dozen kinfolk or more to gather around the hearth at night and show off any good sticks they found during the forage. With luck and care, they could last for years!

Sibi twirled the haft of her spear sharply and thrust the head down into the leaf-littered ground. She then gripped the good stick with both hands, and put it through its paces, twirling it around forcefully enough to make it whistle through the air. It bowed ever-so-slightly with the force of the movement, and quickly recovered at rest. Dense, resilient wood. Hardy enough. She tossed it to Serril, who nearly dropped the makeshift staff, but managed to clutch it awkwardly at the last moment.

"Watch where I step. Use that to part the way when you have to. Ready?"

Holding his Good Stick with a little more reassurance, Serril pushed a few rogue strands of hair from over his eyes and nodded. With that, Sibi was off again, barely making a sound as her over 7 foot tall frame negotiated every opening and gap within the growth. Serril paid close attention to where she moved and which brambles were a problem. He started moving with more assurance. When a path Sibi took didn't seem to be as passable for him, Serril found a different way, lower to the ground. The moment Sibi felt separation, she turned back, seeing no signs of Serril. Her long ears raised slightly, straining for signs of pursuit from behind. When she finally heard the brambles break, it was to her right instead. Sibi wheeled around...

"Oh." Sibi's mild surprise quickly turned studious, as she mentally traced the last 30 meters, realizing exactly where they diverged. She nodded, a half smile threatening her normally dour face.

"Clever boy. Good work. Maybe there's a little scout in there after all. Come on."

It didn't take too much farther before the snarls of thorned growth thinned and then dissipated entirely. Beyond lay the Wilds, the untamed expanse of the Moonwood. Towering trees stretched high above, taking most of the sunlight for themselves. The occasional spears of light to pierce the canopy illuminated the scapes below in a dreamlike fashion, alighting upon mosses, lichen, and fungi that stitched across the trunks' ancient bark. Eyes accustomed to the constant need of foraging quickly landed on a patch of bluewort growing nearby. Serril broke a thumb-sized piece off a tree trunk, split it in half, stuffed one half in his mouth and offered a piece to Sibi, who ate it as well. He then worked on breaking away a few more pieces to fill his pockets.

"Scout first, forage later. Come on."

Swallowing his treat, Serril followed along. Sibi pointed out a few signs along the way as they ranged the territory. Broad tracks tapering into claws. The bears were finished hibernating.

"We should keep our distance. This sow isn't in the mood." This was close enough to where Umba liked to winter in. While the knowledge of how to speak to animals and plants had been passed through family tradition forever ago, it still didn't mean that animals couldn't have bad attitudes, just like people. Umba was normally surly. With cubs, she'd be even meaner if unexpected company showed up.

"How many cubs?" Sibi tested Serril as they began to walk away. He squatted down on his haunches, staring intently at the disturbed patch of ground.

"Two, I think." He crouch-walked from one set of tracks to another, looking back and forth a few times.

"Almost, you missed that one over there." Sibi tapped Serril on the shoulder, beckoning him on. Once Umba had been given her space, they followed a swollen stream, the rush of the water covering the sounds of their footfalls completely.

"Snow pack is melting quickly."

Serril cupped hands into the stream, pulling up cold, clean water, which he gulped. Sibi also crouched down, taking a few handfuls for herself.

"Apple," Serril managed between gulps, "are we gonna find any Outlanders?"

"It's early, so probably not. Caravans are probably a few days out. But it's possible. There are as many kinds of outlanders as there are trees and beasts in the Wild. That's why we scout."

"What will we do if we find some?"

"Well, we will stay very quiet, and watch from a distance."

"Why?"

Sibi's lips pressed thin. "Because we won't know what kind of outlanders are visiting unless we watch them. It's safer than approaching and revealing ourselves."

Serril thought about that, standing up from the bank of the stream. He reached for his good stick again, thumping the end of it pleasantly on the ground.

"If they're good ones, can we meet them?" he asked, a little too eager, and he knew it. Sibi looked at him skeptically.

"Let's just see if we find any, and go from there, okay?"

It would be necessary to cross the surging stream in order to make it to the north pass. However, the water was too deep and rushing too fast to cross where they were, so Sibi began to hike the gentle grade that would eventually lead to the headwaters. But long before that happened, they came across a place where there were enough rocks and a gentle enough flow downstream where they could cross.

"Climb on my back."

Serril hesitated, looking at the stream in front of them. His grip tightened on his good stick.

"I can do it. I can make it across."

Sibi sank her spear into the riverbank, and picked her little brother up like a sack of potatoes.

"You'll have plenty of chances to impress me later. You get washed down the stream or get sick and die, mother will kill me. So get on my back, Climbs-a-Lot, or we're going home."

Serril did just that, throwing his arms around Sibi's neck, and holding on with his ankles at each side. Sibi picked up her spear and Serril's stick, and moved with ease, stepping confidently across a series of broken segments of shale, mindful of each step. She used both the haft of her spear and the good stick for support as she moved across, eventually finding the other side.

"Hard part's over. It's downhill to the pass from here."

Serril scampered down, and Sibi gave him his stick back. They began the walk back down the slope.

"Are you gonna teach me how to fight?"

Sibi paused, looking at her brother with raised eyebrows.

"You want to fight? My sweet brother?"

Serril blinked, stuffing his hands in his pockets as he shuffled his feet.

"No, but I wanna know how, in case I have to protect the Grove, like you do."

Sibi dropped down to eye-level with Serril. She reached to his arm, wrapping her entire hand around his bicep, and giving it a squeeze.

"You're pretty young, and pretty small to be a fighter just yet. Technically, you're not supposed to do learn to fight until your Enk-Skohba."

Sibi rose to her feet, gesturing with her head. "Come on."

Serril sighed. The age-old nemesis of children. You're too young. It always seemed that anything fun or interesting was sealed away by time itself. Old people liked to tell you that time passes you by before you know it, but every child knows full well that time takes FOREVER.

"It's not fair," the boy whinged, shuffling his feet a little. "Why does some party that I'm supposed to have in a few years decide what I can do or not?"

"Because then you'll be a man." Sibi replied plainly, watching a trio of buzzards circling a ways in the distance across the stream.

"What is that supposed to mean?"

Sibi chuckled. A rare sound. "I think you should be asking papa that question."

Serril huffed in frustration. Adults loved their riddles! His sister paused once more, and pivoted around.

"I tell you what. I'll show you four moves that you can use with that stick of yours."

Serril's eyes began to brighten. Sibi hoisted him up by his armpits, and held him at eye level, letting his feet dangle.

"This is for self defense only. If I find out you've used this on any kinfolk and especially Hana, me taking your stick away is going to be the least of your worries. Do you understand me?"

The boy gulped heavily, and nodded. With a hmph, Sibi dropped him back to his feet.

"Watch what I do."

Sibi's stance broadened and deepened, the skin at her knuckles creaking agains the spear's haft as her grift tightened. With a rush of expended breath through gritted teeth, she thrust forward at abdomen level.

"One."

Sharply withdrawing, Sibi whipped the butt of the spear around, the counterweight whistling lightly in the air with the velocity as it swung about where someone's head might be.

"Two."

Arresting the momentum, Sibi reversed herself, jamming the spear's butt down and back in a low sweep that would surely catch somebody behind the knees.

"Three."

From there, a swift upending of the spear, and Sibi jammed it into the earth at an angle, right about where someone's back might be after falling prone.

"Four."

Sibi looked back to Serril, whose eyes were as big as saucers.

"Heh. Want to see it all at once?"

He nodded enthusiastically. Sibi again dropped deep into a stance, drawing in a deep breath "SHHHH-OneTwoThreeFour" she exploded into a hurricane of speed and strength, moving with enough surety to whip the wind and cause the leaves to dance with her movement. When she ended with the spearhead piercing the ground and the haft quivering in place, the leaves fell from the hurricane like confetti.

"Wow" Serril whispered in awe.

Sibi pulled her spear free again, and found a tree to lean against. She made a small gesture to her brother.

"Well, go on then. On with it."

Serril stepped into the clearing, and did his earnest best to emulate his big sister in not only form, but intensity. He stomped his feet into an exaggerated broad stance, lowering his butt into a stance similar to Sibi's opening. He breathed really big, in and out, and One Two Three Four!

Well, he got to three, at least. Tripping over his own good stick, Serril tumbled into the leaves. "Oof." He sat back up, pulling leaves out of his hair. Sibi reached a big hand down to him, hoisting the boy back to his feet.

"Nobody's perfect the first time. That's why you practice. But not now."

She jerked a thumb back in the direction of their destination.

"We've still got work to do, so hop to."

Sibi descended the last half-eroded length of the switchback leading down to their destination. Behind her, Serril negotiated his way down, making full use of his good stick when the descending path became uneven. Crouching low, Sibi looked back to her brother, holding up a hand. He stopped where he was, and eased down as she did, waiting as Sibi negotiated the rest of the way by herself. Only when she was sure the way was clear did she beckon her brother to join. A few moments later, he emerged from the brush.

"Welcome to Mithral Pass." She gestured at the trail, cut between the teeth of a few snow-covered caps. From ground level, it didn't look like much. An ugly scar cut into the ground where nothing grew. A thousand ruts from a thousand wagon wheels, most seemingly-ancient, having been made from the last passing wagons taking the journey before last winter.

Stepping a bit further into the open, Serril looked down the length and scant breadth of the trail. To the east, it continued on through the Wild, until the shade below the canopy obscured it completely. To the west, the trailing remnants of mountains hid the destination from view.

"What is Mithral?"

"A metal, I think. Dwarves speak of such things. Caravans come from Mithral Hall, which is a city of Dwarves beneath the ground."

"They live in a cave? Like Umba?"

Sibi grimaced slightly, quickly reaching the limits of what she knew of the World Beyond the Wilds.

"The traders call it a mine."

"What's that?"

"You know how we forage? We look for food to share with the herd? Dwarves forage too. They dig and dig and dig some more. More than any of us have ever dug. More than Tut-Tut has dug. Only instead of food, they forage for ore."

"What's that?"

Sibi walked the pass, heading west towards the increasingly-jagged slopes of the mountains flanking to the north and south. "They're a kind of rock. If you get them very very hot, and hit them with a hammer over and over again, they become metal."

That was a word that Serril knew, and instantly lighted upon. "Like for your spear!"

"Shh!" Sibi rebuked him to keep his voice down. After a few moments of silence, she spoke low again, "Yes. That's how we get metal. We trade with the dwarves."

It was all beginning to make sense. "Thats why we get more food than we need?"

"So we can share with others, and they can share with us."

"And we give food to the Dwarves because they only forage metal and you can't eat metal."

"...sure."

Sibi's voice trailed off as she stared in the distance.

"Sibi?"

Ahead on the trail, past the remnants of an old rockslide, a copse of trees clung to an eroding outcropping. Against the vertical trunks, it was easy to spot three horizontally-aligned arrows breaking the profile. Once that was spotted, it wasn't difficult to spot the blood.

"Serril, do like you're taught. Hide."

The boy's eyes grew wide at his sister's words, and the sudden tension found in them. Then he saw the blood, and gasped.

"Nankantanta." Serril spoke a phrase in Giant that all Firbolgs learned from a very young age, and disappeared from sight with the slightest ripple of bent light where he once stood. With her own Nankantanta, Sibi was also gone with a faint pop. Serril moved away from the trail, finding a rock to hide behind where he could keep an eye on his sister...wherever she went. When the illusory magic concealing him had faded, he was safely hidden away. About that time, Sibi also appeared in sight again, standing next to the trees and the blood.

Serril dared not make a sound, but he watched Sibi inspect the scene. With a hefty tug, she wrenched one of the arrows free from a tree. The scout then canvassed the rocks around the tree, picking through the bloody leavings. There didn't seem to be much of anything left, from how long she remained there. When Sibi returned, she was wiping blood from her hands on a kerchief, and looked even more dour than usual.

"We're leaving."

"Sibi, what happened?"

The scout opened a pack, inspecting a few meager findings she was able to pick through. Finding no answers there, she cinched it tight, tying it back at her waist.

"I don't know. And that's enough reason to take you home. We're leaving."

The quiet urgency in Sibi's cadence and body language was starting to plant a quaver of fear in her brother's voice. Sibi took him by the hand, pulling him onward.

"Someone got hurt? Hurt bad? Maybe they need help?" Serril kept looking back as he was pulled along.

"You've seen death before, Serril. They're gone." Sibi said with certainty, suddenly glad that her back was to her brother so that he couldn't see the look on her face.

One Hour Later...

Traveling back the way they came with expediency, Sibi and Serril returned to the Grove late in the afternoon. Serril was visibly exhausted, pushing to keep pace with his big sister, who had pushed on the return without pause.

"I know you're tired, dirty, a little banged up and cut up. I need you to do one more thing. You can't mention you were there."

"Am I in trouble?" he asked with a tinge of worry. Sibi stopped in her tracks, dropping to eye level as she held him squarely by each shoulder.

"Absolutely not. I'm the one in trouble, if they find out I took you there, and you saw that."

Sibi bit at her lower lip, averting her eyes.

"I'm sorry."

They were approaching the break in the woods leading to the Grove itself. Just beyond, the sight of family huts could be seen arrayed before the giant twin oaks.

"Get washed up and get some new clothes. I'll be in the lodge house...explaining all this."

For the first time in as long as Serril could remember, Sibi seemed unsure; uneasy. Her hand kept kneading themselves, as if trying to rub dried blood away. She closed the hut's cover after seeing Serril inside, and headed for the lodge on the other side of the twin trees.

Serril did as he was told, drawing a bath in the family basin. Not wanting to take the time to prepare hot water, he braved through bathing in bracing cold, teeth chattering as he furiously scrubbed away dirt and tended tender thorn punctures. Finishing what had to be the fastest bath of his life, he toweled off next to the fire pit, letting the heat ease his chattering teeth until he was able to slip on a fresh jumper and pants. He had no intention of staying home. Not when Sibi needed him.

It turned out, that was the extent of Serril's plan. As he loitered near the community hearth on the other side of the lodge, Serril wasn't sure exactly what he was going to do. But Sibi was concerned about something, and he didn't intend on leaving her in the lurch. He'd think of something.

Just then, he figured it out. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Windra Broadleaf leaving the hearth and headed to the lodge. She was a part of the Moot, the assembly of the family elders of the Herd. Each family matriarch and patriarch was obliged to attend when matters concerning the Herd had to be discussed. As Windra approached the lodge door, she paused at the threshold, making conversation with another elder on the porch, leaving a small gap to pass through.

Serril got as close as he dared, even taking a few steps up to the lodge porch. Mrs. Broadleaf was talking to Old Gadroh Wannigan, who didn't talk much himself, only punctuating long periods of her dialogue with an introspective grunt or a nod. While their attention was focused on their adult conversation, Serril didn't think he could dare another step. With a dry mouth, he whispered Nankantanta, and vanished. By the time Mrs. Broadleaf turned at the sound of a creaking board, Serril was through the door and long gone.

The lodge itself wasn't a mystery. Serril had been in there lots of times. Everyone had. There weren't many secrets kept in the Herd, and anyone who wanted to listen to decisions being made was allowed to attend. Still, he didn't want Sibi to be cross with him, and she wouldn't be happy if she discovered him here. But there was no way that he was going to stay home for this, not if he could help. Somehow.

By the time Serril blinked back into sight, he had cleverly found himself underneath the long table that dominated the lodge interior. Clever may have been short-lived, however, as each chair began to lurch out with a wooden screech, and legs began to appear as one-by-one, each of the elders found their way in. Serril began to contort himself in creative ways to avoid shifting legs, twitching feet, and ever-sliding chairs. He heard the rich, jovial voice of his father carrying over the din as he arrived. In the dwindling moments of quiet, he could also hear his mother, who rarely needed to raise her voice to be heard. Other voices he recognized, and a few he could guess at.

"Who has called this moot?" that was Crazy-Mountain, from the nomad tribes.

"Kam of the Indaiyu." his mother's even-toned, proud cadence was unmistakeable. "The Eldest-of-Mine will speak of what she has found at Mithral Pass."

Murmurs rolled through the table above, and Serril strained to pick up anything...then cupped his ears as the sound of a heavy gavel hit its striker.

"We will witness her testimony."

In the distance, Serril heard the heavy doors creak open again.

"Sibi of the Indaiyu, this moot awaits to hear what you have to say."

Sibi hated speaking before the Moot. Individually, the Elders were pleasant - usually. All 24 of them, together in the same room and looking at you at once? It was the singularly most dreadful thing she ever had to do. Rather than trying to spend mental energy figuring out who she was supposed to look at when talking, Sibi picked a knot on a board halfway between Angry-Cloud and Mrs. Broadleaf.

"Meet my eyes, Eldest Daughter." Kam put an end to that, voice calm as a cup of water carried by a mailed fist. A mercy. Sibi nodded, a the barest of smiles the only gratitude she could afford, given the subject matter that lay ahead.

"I believe there's been a murder in Mithral Pass."

Murmurs roiled the table as the Elders tried to make sense of the news. Reshia - matriarch of the prime Ounay tribe, cleared her throat. The murmurs subsided as she spoke her turn. "That doesn't sound definitive. What leads you to this conclusion?"

Now with a clear person to talk to, Sibi locked on.

"On my patrol, I spotted heavy arrows - of the sort from a longbow, buried deep in the trees around Hangman's Copse. Fresh blood on the rocks, and quite a bit of it."

"Arrows and blood, and no body found? Hmmmmm. More likely the work of poachers." Angry-Cloud spoke in a slow and plodding pace befitting the eldest of the elders. The fey nomad's wrinkle-furrowed forehead seemed to sit lower on his face with the weight of his years, so that the wild brambles that were his eyebrows almost touched his cheeks, even when wide awake. He eased back into his chair with a gentle creak, indulging his fondness for Leaf, chewing in slow and exaggeration motion with the four teeth left in his mouth.

"Hmmmm..." The quintuple-centenarian paused mid-chew. Somewhere behind the bushes of his eyebrows, Sibi thought she could see his beady eyes looking about. "They arrive earlier each year. More brazen each time. Now they scarcely wait for the snows to thaw before they take and take. It may be time to take up the Old Ways once more."

That topic touched off a mild argument among the fey nomads, including an "Absolutely not." in zero uncertain terms from Kam and Guthir almost in unison. Sibi tried not to smile, but she was relieved to hear them come out against that idea.

"It served us once before." Crazy-Mountain shifted in her seat, a brightly-colored array of bone and glass bead earrings weighing down her ears jangling with her movement. As one of the last of the nomads to still have their horns, she always commanded attention. "We were no less the guardians of the land back then, even when we did not settle."

"Are we seriously talking about breaking the Concord?" Mrs. Broadleaf's voice raised slightly. Crazy-Mountain dipped her head very slightly in deference, the palisade of waxed blonde hair that sat between her shiny horns shaking slightly with the movement.

"I would not cheaply break that oath." Crazy-Mountain conceded. "Nor should any of us." She met Mrs. Broadleaf eye-to-eye, who seemed satisfied with the explanation, nodding her head.

Crazy-Mountain turned her attention back to Sibi.

"This talk of the Old Ways isn't helpful. Angry-Cloud says poachers. What say you?"

Sibi met Crazy-Mountain's eyes and nodded. Strong and taciturn, it was no surprise she was one of the elders Sibi identified with most often. "There was more than blood, but not by much. Remains. Not enough to identify, but I'd wager man of some sort over beast."

The temperature of the room seemed to chill a few degrees. Sibi reached into her pouch, pulling out a bloodstained note that had once been crumpled, then pressed again into a crude fold.

"I also found this."

She unfolded the paper, placing it in the center of the long table. As the Elders at each end of the table strained for a glimpse, the murmurs grew again - now tinged with worry and fear.

The unfolded note bore no words at all. Only a simple illustration of a forked branch, decorated and carved in a way that was instantly recognizable to anyone in the Moot.

"That can't be possible." Kam looked down at the paper, something akin to horror managing to break her staid countenance. "No Outlander should have any knowledge of this."

Kam reached for the note, drawing it under her nose as she closed her eyes, blocking out anything from her mind but the scent. A few short punctuated inhales and she opened her eyes, crushing the note into her fist.

"Gnolls."

Chairs began to shift and screech in rapid succession as elders took to their feet on each side of the table. The murmurs had grown into a handful of arguments and debates. Serril had a little more room to move about, and tried to make himself small as he scooted along the floor, eavesdropping along the way.

"Do we have enough scouts?"

"We don't even know how many gnolls there are. It could be one. It could be one hundred."

"The soonest we can convene a war party would be tomorrow. The foragers are out. We are too few."

"It's premature to even talk of war parties! We don't even know what we're fighting or even if we're fighting."

"If they know that much, why do you think they came here?"

"ENOUGH!"

Serril's eyes widened at the outburst as he hid. Crazy-Mountain banged the gavel down again, and the boy cupped his hands over his drooping ears to lessen the din.

Crazy-Mountain leaned fully over the table, the wood creaking as she bore her weight on her knuckles, looking at those around her.

"I am going."

She pushed off the table, and started striding to the door, pausing in front of Sibi. She spent a moment appraising the ranger, clasping a thick hand around one of her biceps.

"Hm, stronger since last I remember. Come with me."

"She is my daughter and mine to command." Kam interjected, walking up to the pair. It was clear that her intention was not to upbraid her fellow elder's lack of protocol, but rather to use it as an excuse to interject herself. Kam looked at Sibi in that way she always did, like her eyes were capable of seeing right through lies, omissions, flesh, and bone. She then turned back to Crazy-Mountain.

"I will come with you, and she with me."

Kam looked back to Guthir, who gave her a worried look, swallowed it down, and nodded in suport.

"This convenes the Moot. Until we return, speak none of this with the rest of the Herd."

Serril watched the procession of legs beginning to line up and file out of the lodge, the floorboards creaking as they passed. As quiet slowly ebbed back into the lodge, he exhaled a breath he didn't know he was holding.

"Nankatanta." he whispered, popping out of existence once more. A chair squeaked, moving by some unseen force as Serril scampered to his feet. He headed for the door...

"Oof."

...an unseen Serril ran headlong into an immovable nothing, repelling him to the floor in a tumble. He popped back into view two seconds before his mother did as well. She looked down at her son, not at all surprised to see him there.

"Kind-Eyed Son, you must think your mother as simple as milk. She too was once a mischievous child."

Kam reached down, pinching one of Serril's ears between thumb and forefinger as she used that leverage to persuade Serril to his feet.

"We will have a serious talk when I return. Go to your Father."

Serril's face wore his worry without guile.

"Don't go. I'm scared."

Kam dropped down to her son's level.

"Don't underestimate your mother a second time today, Son-of-Mine. I will return. Until I do, you should think about explaining what you were doing here."

Serril gulped, his eyes downturned. He didn't see his mother's kiss coming, planted right where his forehead met the curls of his hair. She drew him close into a hug, nose pressed against his hair, just breathing him in before separating.

Kam began to shift, her physical form transforming and bulking out into a massive grizzly bear. She again approached Serril, this time giving him a much messier kiss, dampening his hair.

"MooOOOoom!"

The bear snuffled and grunted, and began to head in the direction that Crazy-Mountain and Sibi had gone.

When Serril stepped out of the lodge, he saw his father waiting for him. A rare tightness of worry in Guthir's expression disappeared when aware of his son's presence, returning to his usual warm smile.

"Busted, huh?"

Tall, broad of shoulder, and increasingly round at the belly, Guthir loomed but not in an intimidating way. He pushed the broad mitt of one of his palms against Serril's errant damp locks, coaxing them back from the chaos his mother had wrought. He tilted Serril's head up with a finger, examining his work, but also the clear apprehension in his son's expression.

"I need your help with somethin." Guthir smiled, the gap in his front teeth peeking behind his lips.

That was his favorite way to help someone, was to ask for help in kind. Sometimes feeling needed could heal the soul. Of course, the technique wasn't perfect. His Wife-and-Children's-Mother had always seen through him, and she passed that ability on to Sibi, once she became a woman. Still, there were three other children who could find comfort in distraction - and that included his son.

"I've gotta convince the ladies to spare six eggs to meet the supper call. Ol' Pepper-Thief is in a mood today. Maybe you can convince him to cool off."

Serril nodded. As they returned to the family hut, they veered towards the basic coop built a dozen meters back in the direction of the treeline. True to form, Pepper-Thief squared to the boy the moment he approached like a martinet, the red of his comb and breast was contrasted by the salt and pepper of his outer plumage.

"Excuse me, Pepper-Thief, I'm helping my dad. We really need six eggs for supper tonight." Serril was careful to not look Pepper-Thief in the eye. The old rooster was famously pugnacious, and had on more than one occasion sent Hana crying and climbing up a tree - though she'd forever deny it.

"Bok." Severe. Imposing. Unimpressed. Pepper-Thief scratch-stomped twice with a martial cadence, pivoting his head sharply to try and catch the boy side-eyeing him. Serril maintained his discipline, finding a nearby rock to focus his eyes on.

"I know it's early, but you know we only ask for what we need."

Scratch-stomp. Scratch-stomp.

"Bok!" Pepper-Thief pecked at the barren earth. While it was easy to speak to the living things of the Wilds, it was sometimes hard to understand when they spoke back. Fortunately that wasn't the case here, as the rooster's message was clear.

"Oh! Okay, sure. Let's see..."

Serril took a few steps back to his father, showing him all the pieces of bluewort he had found on his trip to Mithral Pass.

"Ope!" Guthir's expression brightened. "That's a nice find!"

"Oof...Ghuh!" With a bit of effort, the rotund Firbolg eased down into a crouch, and whispered into a cupped hand around his son's ear.

"Okay, okay. Don't go and give all that away there. About half of what you got's a square deal if you wanna do that."

Serril nodded seriously, mentally filing away the understanding that a handful of bluewort was worth six chicken eggs. Armed with that knowledge, he returned to Pepper-Thief, who awaited Serril's offer - avaricious as a vendor in a Calimshite bazaar. Measuring out a handful of the cherished lichen, Serril spread the pieces along the ground in front of him, and stepped away.

Pepper-Thief haughtily stepped to the line, with a scratch-stomp for good measure. Three quick stabs of his beak made work of the nearest piece of lichen. The rooster paused, as if in thought, his comb quavering as his head jerked in quick precise motions. "A-ARRAAUUU!!" he screamed to the coop. From within, the sounds of stirring soon brought sight of six hens, each queuing for their turn at the foraged treat. They glanced up at Serril and Guthir as they entered the coop in their absence, but didn't pause gossiping among themselves.

"Nice thinkin." Guthir praised his son earnestly as he began to inspect the individual nesting nooks for any signs of eggs. "Sometimes the animals need a little extra, ya'know?"

Serril returned to his father with a brown & blue-speckled egg, which Guthir carefully retrieved. "Say, where'd you find bluewort like that? That's a good patch."

Normally, hearing that would make Serril's chest swell with pride. Now, those words rang with a sound of caution. Father knew the Wilds better than even Sibi did!

"By the Bramble." Serril replied while in the middle of fetching another egg. It wasn't a lie, but it was awful darn close, and he didn't want to look his dad in the eyes to see whether or not it had convinced him.

"Hmm." Guthir mused, placing the last of the needed eggs in the basket. "Bramble is pretty far for you."

Serril felt his father's scrutiny even with Guthir's back to him. Fortunately, the moment was brief, as father and son exited the coop. Pepper-Thief and the Ladies stood waiting for the larger creatures to be on their way. Their lichen treats were dispensed with, and they were much too busy to be bothered again. Returning to the Indaiyu home, Guthir parted the flap at the door to clear the way for Serril, then followed behind. Inside, Tatva was finishing placing items into the gathering basket.

"Papa, do we *have* to give pickles for the gathering? We only have two more jars!" The urgency was hard to miss. Tatva was an infamous sour-fiend. Sour cream, cloudberries, beet kvass, buttermilk, and especially pickles. Any time the gathering asked for a donation of her treasured jars, she whinged long and loud.

Guthir gently washed the eggs, and placed them in a small wicker carriage full of straw, tucking that into the much larger gathering basket. "Well, our lot's up to contribute, so we contribute. Ya'know how it always is. You can have what you want, but when ya take more than what ya need, you may miss it when it's gone down the line."

Serril got to work helping with the gathering, pulling handfuls of carrots and rutabagas from the root cellar. Guthir gestured for Tatva as he filled the basket with his part of the list.

"Hey, you think you can help me?" Sometimes requests for help were a way to help others. Sometimes they were a way to lighten your own load.

And in times like this, they were a diversion.

"I'm looking for Hana. I'd prefer for her to set the tables for supper. We don't need her foraging too far this close to sundown. Can you fetch her? Serril and I, we've got this from here."

Tatva shifted the weight on her feet, peering to catch a glimpse of Serril still finishing packing the basket. Guthir calculated that it wouldn't be too much longer before Tatva had him figured out too.

"Sure dad." She replied in the casual-yet-wary way of teenagers. This had all the makings of somebody being in trouble, but the usual suspect was still out in the grove somewhere. Hana was usually the recipient of these parental Special Talks. Serril seemed to have escaped the chaos that touched his youngest sister, but maybe that was due to change as he got older.

Tatva headed for the tent flap, but not before glancing back at Serril. Oh yeah. That was a trouble face. Serril seemed to sense it too, seeing in his sister's expression the kind of grim curiosity of a gawker at a public flogging. Serril gulped heavily as she drew the flap down behind her.

"Bluewort grows by the Bramble, but only on the lee of the ridge, to the north. If you picked it there, that means that you passed through the Bramble - something your mother and I have told you not to do."

Guthir didn't speak with anger or pointed accusation. He pulled the carafe of milk from the gathering basket, and poured a measure of it into a small ceramic mug, passing it to his son, who clutched it with both hands, not drinking. Guthir helped himself to a measure of milk as well, sitting down with a grunt beside the fire.

"You went with Sibi, didn't you? That's why you were listening in on the meeting."

Serril's lower lip began to tremble. Guthir reached down to his son's side, pulling back a sleeve of his shirt. A grimace betrayed Serril as the fabric brushed against one of the raw cuts he'd endured while passing through the Bramble. Serril's limpid brown eyes began to well with tears.

"I'm sorry! I just wanted to learn how to be a scout, like you and mama and Sibi and Tatva. I...I don't want Sibi to be in trouble!"

"Whoa there, easy. Easy." Guthir took a sip of milk, and nodded for Serril to do the same. They shared a few seconds of not talking, just listening to the crackling fire. Guthir traced a pattern in the air with his fingertips, which picked up motes of divine energy. As he touched Serril's back, that energy transferred, a warming feeling of renewal surging from the points of contact outward. The small cuts and bruises over Serril's body began to knit together and dissipate in turn.

"Nobody is in trouble. Right now, all I care about is making sure that my children are safe."

More silence. Serril sipped his milk. "What's a Gnoll?"

Sibi led her mother and Crazy-Mountain towards Mithral Pass, taking a different route through the Bramble than the last journey. Eldath forbid that her mother's current ursine form pick up Serril's scent where he shouldn't have been. The journey was quiet, save for Mother-Bear's occasional huffing and grunting as she pushed through the briar patch. Crazy-Mountain made even less conversation, simply making her presence known by looming. The matriarch always carried a countenance of quiet intensity. Her wild, wide eyes rarely seemed to blink as she pushed aside brush and saplings with her heavy war club.

"Are you going to answer my question?"

How long had it been since she asked? A minute? Five? Sibi glanced back as she cleared the last snarls of the Bramble, awaiting Crazy-Mountain carrying the rear. She emerged with a grunt, pulling away a strand of briars that had found her flesh.

"You are likely going into battle soon, and you should understand your enemy. Unless your mother wishes to explain."

The bear huffed succinctly. No objections.

"Gnolls came to this place long ago, from a plane far away, like our ancestors once did. But they are not of the Fey. They come from the Abyss, the realm of Demons. They serve their masters with a simple purpose - to kill and devour all."

Sibi made a grim face. "That explains the lack of bodies."

"Mm."

They were making quick time out of the Bramble, taking a longer route, but one that avoided the river.

"Have you ever fought one?"

"Mm."

Sibi had hoped that her elder might be a bit more forthcoming.

"And?"

Crazy-Mountain sized Sibi up, looking through her and around her and at her at once.

"I wasn't much older than you are now. Our scouts found a raiding party that had just ambushed pilgrim druids on their way to the Sacred Fountain. There were no survivors. That is their way."

Her mother's gait came to a halt. Her snout snuffled at the well-trodden trail that fed into the Mithral Pass itself. A deeper huff, and a growl of affirmation.

"She has their scent." Sibi's voice quickened, her grip tightening on her spear.

The trio broke through the last stands of trees before the main wagon trail. Mother-Bear sniffed intently over the path, fixating on a distinct set of digitigrade footprints pressed into the dense mud. She growled, looking back pointedly to Crazy-Mountain. The huge woman eased into a crouch, pinching a bit of the earth between her thick fingers, grinding it back and forth as she held it beneath her nose. There was a sudden derisive snort, and she threw the muck aside, spitting across the tracks.

"Brimstone and rot. It's them. Fresh. No more than a day."

Sibi could already see Mother-Bear meandering off the trail and headed north. Following, it was clear that she was still on the trail. Sibi continued along, taking from the earth as Crazy-Mountain had. She wanted to commit the smell to memory. Sure enough, the acrid combination of sulphur and decay easily broke through. The ground they now trod was off any trail, so Sibi kept mindful vigil of her surroundings. With her voice low, she spoke again, "When you faced them last time, what did you do?"

Crazy-Mountain and Mother-Bear both paused at a soft cackling off in the distance.

"We listened for laughter. That is their way."

The horned matriarch began looking for cover along their elevated path. Mother-Bear was well ahead of that idea, moving at a shallow ascent up the ridge line.

"You and your mother, you both came after the Old Ways. Are you prepared to kill?"

Sibi stiffened with a resolute expression. "If I have to."

Crazy-Mountain laughed quietly, a single gruff sound. "You will have to."

She squared to face Sibi, her drooping, milky left eye staring with no less intensity than her good one.

"You want to know what I did, the last time? I survived. They did not. You must find that instinct, or you will die."

Four gnolls moved in single file along a gulch running muddy with snowmelt. The mud stuck in their fur, making spiky mats all the way up to their necks, chafing their hides and draining heat from their bodies. The one in the lead was the smallest of the company, hunched low with a narrow frame and striped fur rather than spotted, marking her as a forest gnoll. The three plains gnolls behind her, lumbering beasts accustomed to chasing down prey to exhaustion over leagues of open ground, found themselves tripped by snaking roots, scraped by low-hanging branches, scratched by passing briars, making their already foul moods immeasrably worse.

"Admit it, Eshket, you've lost the trail," the largest snarled in Abyssal. His savage face was a lattice of scars such that there was hardly any fur left beyond his tawny, tangled mane. About his neck he wore the hide of a young bison, and its bleached skull and horns rested on his right shoulder for a pauldron. He grasped an elven-made glaive, ancient and pitted with rust spots, its haft muddy from his using it as a walking stick.

"I've lost nothing, Barrdu," the guide spat back. She was lean, scarcely half the big male's size, but nearly as tall when she drew up to her full height. Her fur was gray with rippling stripes of brown, better suited to blend in with their wooded surroundings, and her face was painted with swirls of white and black to confuse its shape from a distance. A brutish shortbow hung from her hip with a quiver of black-fletched arrows. "It is not one trail we are following. The cow-men vary their steps."

Eshket turned and pulled back half of a gorsebush, revealing a footprint smearing as its maker slipped into the gully. "But we are finding where they converge."

Barrdu sniffed and scowled at the print. "It don't look like a cow-man. Too small."

"It's a calf," Eshket replied, letting the bush go. "Means we are close. Their young do not range far."

They trudged onward in silence, aside from a few yipped curses as the plains gnolls stumbled in the mud. And then Eshket held up a paw, sniffed the air, and gave a short, sharp hiss. The other three fell flat, while Eshket crouched and listened.

"Wharrisit?" whispered Barrdu.

"Bear," Eshket whispered back.

"Good! I'm starvin'."

"Kratak!" Eshket showed him all her teeth. "She is not alone..."

Herd-kin who had taken the Enk-Shohba learned to range the entirety of the Wild, and there was hardly a patch of brush in their domain with which they were unacquainted. There was nowhere the intruders could hide that was unknown to the Herd.

When Mother-Bear moved to crest the ridge from the south, both Sibi and Crazy-Mountain moved wordlessly just below the ridgeline, headed northwest. If the Gnolls pursued bait, they could flank them and cut off their way out. If the Gnolls balked, they could still fight from the ridgeline.

"Stay here." Crazy-Mountain peered from behind a gnarled tree, finally laying eyes on the intruders. The matriarch muttered nakatanta vanishing into seeming nothingness. Even knowing what to listen for, Sibi couldn't trace the big woman's steps.

As this happened, Mother-Bear stepped into the ravine clearing, rising up on her haunches to bellow a roar that shook the birds above from their roosts. She postured as a sow defending her cubs. It wasn't a deception.

As Sibi peered behind a fallen log, her grip tightened on the haft of her spear.

"Senja na wahei oncha natiti oma ba...natiti oma ba...natiti oma ba..."

Green motes of light sparkled at the corners of her eyes, illuminating against the rough smears of blue war-woad on the rest of her face. One of the large Gnolls in the back of the column suddenly found themselves sought out by a creeper of honeysuckle, blooms growing through their fur that resisted any attempt to pluck them.

For now, Sibi held her ground, keeping her focus on her marked prey. It was difficult to do that, and to pretend that she wasn't scared right now. But she tightened her grip on her spear and resolutely prepared for the sign she knew was coming.

Eshket's ears pinned back as she cowered from the bear, like a skittish animal sensing a trap. She quickly glanced about the slopes that surrounded them, looking for likely routes of escape, and likely points of ambush. Barrdu, seeing their guide's fear, pulled back his lips. "She's in the open! Let's take her!"

"And what isn't in the open?" Eshket hissed back.

"Whatever it is, we'll flush it out," Barrdu said. "Churr'k!"

The gnoll behind him, with dark fur wrapped in mismatched scraps of cloth and hide, eyes unfocused with a spark of madness in them, split his muzzle in a manic grin and began shaking. "Eh heh heh heh. Ha ha ha!" He threw back his head, jaws open wide, and peals of barking, screaming laughter echoed across the trees, a fiendish cackle straight from the many maws of the Abyss. Small woodland creatures, their minds overwhelmed with terror, fled their nests and burrows in a panic, as an aura of madness and fear spread as far as his demented voice could be heard.

Not content to wait for his foes to reveal themselves, Barrdu charged down the ravine with a roar, swinging his glaive in a wide arc as he bore down on the posturing bear. Eshket nocked an arrow to her bow, still scanning the ridges for unseen threats, while the fourth gnoll turned to guard their rear, swatting at the incorporeal blooms suddenly tangled in his fur.

The sound that Gnoll made defied any attempt by her mind to make it familiar. It was a bark, a howl, a cackle, laughter in pantomime, shrieking in a way no living thing of the Wild should shriek. The breath caught in Sibi's chest at the precise moment of attack. Fear stitched on her face - she couldn't get any closer to that...that thing! When Sibi's breath did return, it was rapid and short, and she reluctantly slung her spear aside to favor her longbow. The creak of the yew sounded with strength and confidence, but even as Sibi sighted down the arrow shaft, her heart was screaming at her to run away from this place.

She gasped as her arrow loosed, and Sibi clutched the tree she hid behind, unwilling to look back to see if her arrow found its mark. However, she didn't need to see it to hear the meaty impact and pained yelp of a timbre altogether different from the horrible cackling from a moment before.

Out of Sibi's sight, the arrow she'd aimed true sprouted a twisting branch that terminated into a drooping belladonna bloom, as tendrils of decay pushed their way beneath the skin.

At the same time, Mother-Bear met the cackling vanguard in a violent tussle. She groaned in pain as the glaive landed heavily twice across the shoulder. Shrugging him off, the bear leveraged her weight to catch the haft of the glaive and pin it to the ground long enough to rake a vicious swipe across the gnoll's chest. Kam lunged, but Barrdu was already backing out of the way of her muzzle with a gurgling cackle, and she bit through only air.

Crazy-Mountain chose that time to attack, walking over the ridgeline as if she was doing anything other than fighting to the death. She squared up to the creature responsible for the horrible cackling, and roared back in its face, veins bulging against her taut skin as her body began to bulk, shift, and grow. In an instant, the already-large matriarch had turned truly massive, her broad feet pressing deeply into the earth. The war club in her grasp hummed with some kind of pent-up energy as she brought it down across Churrr'k's face, each strike releasing a thunderous blast of force. With a growl through gritted teeth, the massive Firbolg scooped Churrr'k up by his legs with a swipe of one hand, then hurled him at Eshket with force.

Eshket, upon hearing the twang of Sibi's bow, spun in place and loosed her own arrow - but Sibi had already ducked out of sight. She was putting another arrow to the string when Crazy-Mountain approached, grew to a terrifying size, and hurtled the cackling Churr'k straight at her. With a yelp of dismay she dove clear and tumbled to a kneel before she loosed her second arrow at Crazy-Mountain. The arrow struck true, but garnered only a disinterested glance from the enormous firbolg, and Eshket's nerve failed her. "Barrdu!" she cried, already backpedaling up the slope. "We need to go!"

If Barrdu heard, he gave no indication. Snarling through bloodied teeth, he struck at Mother-Bear two more times with his glaive. The first struck her a glancing blow, while the second was pinned effortlessly to the side of a tree by her massive paw.

Churr'k picked himself up out of the mud, still cackling madly. He charged on all fours toward Crazy-Mountain and leapt on top of her, and as he raised one paw, his claws writhed with dark corruption. He raked them across her collarbone, and the veins of her neck bulged with black poison.

The fourth gnoll yammered in pain, but left Sibi's arrow protruding from his ribcage. He shook out a vicious chained flail and charged at the tree Sibi had ducked behind, swinging wildly. The spiked head of the flail bit into the tree inches from Sibi's head, and the gnoll followed, slavering at her. His jaws found her shoulder and tore savagely.

"YeeaAAAAGH!!" Sibi grimaced in pain, dropping her bow as the Gnoll set upon her. She could feel her control over her spell beginning to unspool but she focused at the last minute, and the honeysuckle curling around her attacker redoubled. She reached for her spear on the ground, bringing the spearhead lethally to bear. It was a good thrust. Sibi felt resistance, then felt it instantly give way as her spear sundered the Gnoll's living thread. Warmth welled between her fingertips gripped against the haft closest to the Gnoll's belly, and Sibi felt the sudden burden of dead weight shifting against her spear, threatening to pin her. She growl-screamed, shrugging the dead weight off her shoulder as she wrenched her blood-slicked spear free with a squelch. The honeysuckle that clung to the dead Gnoll turned to belladonna, then the leaves withered and blackened into ash.

At the same time, Mother-Bear doggedly engaged Barrdu, each one bloodied and pacing the other. At once she burst forward, knocking him to the ground with a savage paw. Barrdu barely had time to roll out of the way of the following jugular bite which came up empty, causing both combatants to reset.


Roaring in froth-mouthed fury, Crazy-Mountain lurched left and right as she tried to force Churr'k from her back. Swinging her club behind her proved ineffective, so she tried to simply wrench the Gnoll free and throw him into the air but he impossibly dug in, forcing the giant Firbolg to stomp and snarl as she struggled with this cackling annoyance.

With a growl, Mother-Bear tore her attention free from Barrdu, and watched as Eshket began to turn tail and flee to the north. The bear bounded after, hobbling momentarily as Barrdu's glaive thrust into her back. The flesh gave way, withdrawing, reforming into another Firbolg who barely broke her stride, sprinting up the length of the ravine.

"Do not let that one flee, Daughter!" Kam chanted as her eyes began to roll back. The sounds of new growth pushing through earth rippled in the direction of fleeing Eshket as cords of sinewy vines coiled around each of her appendages, binding her fast.

Sibi looked at the bound-up Eshket with wild eyes as the ribbons of her blood coursed down from her shoulder, mingling with the blood on her forearm of the beast she'd slain.

"Senja na wahei oncha natiti oma ba...natiti oma ba...natiti oma ba..."

Eshket began to feel the creeping of honeysuckle taking hold in her fur.

Eshket howled in terror as the vine snaked around her legs and arms, pitching her to the turf. Her bow fell from her claws, which dug furrows in the forest soil as she was dragged inexorably backwards toward Kam.

Churr'k cackled in manic glee as he evaded Crazy-Mountain's every effort to dislodge him, until some distant sound seemed to catch his ear, and he tilted his head and listened, muzzle still twisted in a rictus grin. With a sigh, he gave himself to the smoky black tendrils of chaos. Crazy-Mountain felt the burden lift from her shoulders as he simply vanished into mist...

And his feet landed in the spot where Sibi's slain gnoll had fallen. Not wasting a moment, he bounded swiftly up behind Sibi and seized her around the waist and shoulders, closing one massive paw across her throat. His claws dug in just enough to draw a bead of blood, and they once more writhed with necrotic smoke. He chuckled into her ear, and his mad eyes darted between Kam and Crazy-Mountain.

Barrdu, seeing the bargaining chit his ally had just seized, loped forward with his glaive leveled at Kam. "Atvash mo krall, idasta ha ra kreegta." He pointed his weapon at Eshket, and then at Sibi. His meaning was clear.

Eshket's chest rose and fell with rapid, panicked breaths, eyes white all the way around her dark pupils, clutching at the vines but not daring to move. Barrdu shook his glaive and snarled, "ATVASH!" Churr'k tightened his grip on Sibi's throat.

In that moment, staring down at the body of the Gnoll she had killed, Sibi felt the wave of fear pass, only to have her tormentor aperate behind her, catching her in a clawed embrace. Wide-eyed, she dared not move, looking back at her mother. Crazy-Mountain loomed behind, snorting and growling as the last of Churr'k's necrotic influence subsided. She backed the play of Kam, as it was her daughter's life to wager.

Kam clasped her hands at her middle and began to whisper soft words. She blinked, and cool light spilled from her eyes. As she spread her hands, the vine that had bound Eshket slackened and yielded, falling softly to the ground and becoming ephemera. As the Gnolls cackled in triumph, the air became heavy and still, light receding beyond the canopy through suddenly-thickening clouds.

Sibi could feel the hairs beginning to stand straight on her ears. She knew what came next. Her mother was trusting her.

"Nakatanta!"

The moment Sibi slipped from sight was enough confusion for her to push away before the coming storm. She felt the air whistle behind at the pass of raking claws, but was already descending on Eshket with the blunt end of her spear, striking her across the back of the head at the same time as the forest erupted into a flash of blue-white light. KA-THOOOM!! The crack of lightning speared through the branches, severing a few in a spray of sparks before it found its true destination - Churr'k. Even through the deafening thunder, the Gnoll's death yelp pierced through.

Just as the ringing in the ears began to subside, the earth thumped with impact as Crazy-Mountain closed distance with Barrdu. She leveled a broad fist across his snout, then tried to cinch him up in an embrace, which the Gnoll managed to wrangle out of. In retaliation, the elder Firbolg cracked him across his back with her club, knocking the fight out of him. Barrdu fell into a twitching heap, which she stepped over to reach Eshket.

"Do you speak common words?" In this form, Crazy-Mountain's already low and slow way of talking came out like treacle, though it would be unwise to mistake her cadence with stupidity. She snorted, tightening her grip on her blood-slicked club as the sky rumbled overhead once again.

When the sky itself poured out its wrath against her allies, Eshket let loose a pure animal cry of despair. As Churr'k and Barrdu's corpses slumped into the mud, she eyed the younger female at her back, considering how she might be unbalanced with a frenzied bite, allowing a bold gnoll to flee over the ridge behind her. And then the sky rumbled again, and Eshket considered the speed of a lightning bolt.

She turned back to meet the giant firbolg, her head low and submissive, and lifted her empty paws above her. "M... Mer... cy," she panted. And then she gestured to the dead gnolls lying all around them. "These... Not my clan. See, my fur. Different. Captive. Forced to serve."

She pressed her wrists together in a pantomime of manacles, her eyes bright and doleful beneath the stormy sky.

Crazy-Mountain looked down at the plaintive Gnoll, even after her enormous figure shifted back to her normal 'merely-large' stature. She grunted slightly as she wrenched Eshket's arrow out of her own chest, turning the missile over in her broad hands idly as she talked.

"We are creatures of the Wild. We kill only when necessary. That is the only mercy I give you."

A glance to Sibi, and the Herd Elder spoke in Giant tongue - a clear order to bind both Eshket and Barrdu. The younger scout got to work, cinching hempen rope tightly around Eshket.

"Why have you come here?"

As Sibi moved on Eshket with the rope, the gnoll jerked away with a yelping snarl, unwilling to simply submit to being bound. But between Kam's strong grip and a well-placed tap from Crazy-Mountain's club, Sibi was able to wrestle her into the coils of rope and secure her wrists behind her back. The gnoll lay panting and whining. Kam shook her bodily into silence, and Crazy-Mountain asked her question again.

Eshket's eyes rolled up toward Crazy-Mountain, showing the whites. "Hun... ting," she rasped out.

"Mm."

Crazy-Mountain's good eye panned around, fixing on any potential signs of quarry.

"There is quarry here for those who hunt." her gravelly voice drawled as she squatted down to eye level with the captive Eshket.

"I can read the signs, little Gnoll. Better than you by far."

The elder continued playing with the arrow that had previously been lodged in her chest.

"You hunt dangerous game. Why?" Crazy-Mountain peered up, her good eye staring hard at Eshket for her answer.



Meanwhile, Kam swept the perimeter with her daughter. In the midst of taking care of Barrdu's bindings, the Indaiyu matriarch noticed a track where she shouldn't be seeing one.

Eshket turned her head so she could look up at Crazy-Mountain with both her eyes. Her short brush tail tucked inward, clinging to one leg as she lay bound in the mud.

"They will kill me," she whined, and her eyes flickered toward Barrdu. "I... say what I know. I run from your lands. I never come back, pain of Yeenoghu's lash."

"Speak.

I will decide the weight of your words. Fail, and by the Oak Father, I will tell the beasts of the Wild to hunt you as their quarry and take from you everything. You will never leave this place, and your Demon Prince won't find enough of you left to torment."

Crazy-Mountain's focus momentarily shifted, noting Kam spotting something of interest in the background, before shifting back to her captive.

"You were responsible for the killing of the Outlanders at Mithral Pass?"

The elder used the arrowhead of her new prize to pick the grime from beneath one of her fingernails, never wavering her attention from Eshket.

"Maybe?"

Eshket quailed when she saw the firbolg's eyes harden at the perceived non-answer. "What I mean... Many die in pass. And... many gnolls in war party. Cannot say which corpses you find."

"Hm."

Crazy-Mountain dismissed Eshket's explanation, looking back to Sibi.

"Wake the other one."

Sibi tore her attention away from where her mother was glancing, and back to Crazy-Mountain, and Barrdu bound before her. Her shoulder ached something fierce from the mauling she took, but this was no time to go quavering over a flesh wound. She brusquely prodded Barrdu at his shoulder with the butt of her spear.

"Do you understand me? Wake up!"

Kam returned from her search, eyes fixed on her daughter with a stern expression yet unseen. That relented only slightly as she tended to Sibi's injury, causing the younger Firbolg to glance back. At that moment, the hand that was at one moment channeling healing energy into Sibi's shoulder then pinched the tender flesh after it knit back together. Not enough to cause her to cry out, but enough pain to quietly get Sibi's attention, as Kam sharply whispered close by "Eldest-Daughter, we have *much* to talk about."

Sibi in that moment saw the hard look of anger in her mother's eyes, and realized where they were standing. The tell of that realization was all over her face, and Sibi didn't even meet her mother's eyes.

"I know."

As that happened, Crazy-Mountain approached the waking Barrdu, pulling Eshket along with her. She looked disappointed, if anything, as she knelt down to him.

"Are you going to tell me why you are here?"

Eshket yelped as she was bodily dragged down the slope to where Barrdu lay, her feet kicking impotently at the mud. She twisted her neck to look back over her shoulder to where Sibi was prodding Barrdu awake. "He does not speak the city-tongue," she rasped. "He will say nothing but threats!"

Barrdu did not jolt as Eshket had. His lips peeled back in a silent snarl, and his brawny arms flexed against the ropes binding him, which creaked with the strain. One bloodshot eye rolled back to challenge Crazy-Mountain, burning with defiance. "Chovok ash mogh. Mogh pash Tanar'ri!"

Eshket nodded her muzzle toward him, as if in confirming what she had just said. "He says you will all die when the demon comes. See! Stupid threats. You should kill him."

The horned matriarch stood with a grunt.

"Take this one."

She pushed Eshket towards Sibi, then snatched Barrdu up by his mohawk-like mane, ramming his head against a tree trunk until the skull gave way like a melon. Tossing aside the twitching body, Crazy-Mountain wiped a smear of the Gnoll's blood from the bridge of her nose, turning her attention to Kam.

"We are going. Leave no trace."

Sibi began to trace a somatic pattern into the air, chanting as the group seemed to merge into the shadows of the deep wood, as Kam spoke aloud to the creatures around her.

"Beasts of the Wilds, we leave these dead things as an offering and a sign of our covenant. Take all of them."

The sounds around them came in all directions, approaching growls and howls and screeches from carrion birds above.

Sibi drew a duck cloth sack tight around Eshket's muzzle, and the four disappeared into the wood, minutes before the first of the wolves began to approach for their share.

Back at the Grove...

Supper came and went, with no sign of either mama or Sibi. It left Serril without much appetite. He gave Tatva the pickle that came with his supper, and spent most of the night pushing acorn porridge around in his bowl, his head turning here and there to try and catch sight of his missing family members. When supper ended, Serril helped Tatva with cleanup, carrying trays laden with empty wooden dishes back to the community kitchen. Normally, cleanup duty was drawn by lots just like all of the work done around the Grove, but parents always reserved the right to pile extra chores onto naughty children.

"Mama and Apple missed supper. When are they coming back?"

"I don't know. They're out awful late for a patrol." Tatva frowned, scouring another plate in the basin before rinsing and adding to the clean stack. "Say, what was everything going on with you and Papa?"

"I'm not supposed to talk about it." Serril replied sullenly, scraping acorn porridge off a ladle as he sighed. Most people liked having a secret to keep. Serril hated it. It felt like somebody standing on his chest, making it hard to breathe. Worse still, it was a terrible secret.

Tatva looked down at her baby brother with a raised brow and a flicking ear. "Never known you to be one for secrets. It's alright." She raised her suds-covered hands with a grin. "Keep your secret. I don't want to get you in any more trouble."

"How'd you know I was in trouble?" Serril took a half step back, ears askew with a wary look on his face.

"Did he pour you a glass of milk?"

"Uh huh."

"That's a trouble talk."

"Oh."

Serril carried a stack of pots and pans precariously over to the basin, setting them down to the side with a clatter.

"Is your trouble a secret too?"

Tatva grimaced, glad she was looking into a cookpot and not at Serril at the time.

"Oh, um, yeah. Yep."

"Is this about the sugar beets you hid in the hollow tree with Jobi Ounay?"

Tatva's expression turned slightly dumbfounded. "What?"

"Ya know the other day, I saw you and Jobi go hand-in-hand, and you said you wanted some sugar, then you both went in the tree. I went over there later to get some too, but there weren't any m-"

The cream patches on Tatva's face turned a shade of strawberry, and she placed a soap-covered hand over Serril's mouth before he could say any more.

"If you never say that to anyone ever again, I just so happen to know that Laughs-Big put half a pecan pie in the pantry. She won't miss a few slices, once we're finished up."

Serril spit out a few bubbles, making an icky face, but his ears perked up immediately at pecan pie, then immediately lowered.

"We're not supposed to eat from the kitchen after supper's done, though." Serril said it wholly without conviction, his appetite coaxed back by the promise of sweets.

"You're a criminal now, Climbs-a-Lot. It's time to embrace a life of crime. Little crimes, like extra pie." Tatva winked, and Serril laughed.


The work passed in better spirits, even after Gadroh Wannigan had packed up his banjo. Finally, there was pie. The two Indaiyu kids found seats at a small table, and had their late night pie.

"So are you and Jobi Ounay boyfriend and girlfriend?"

Tatva speared a bite of pie, narrowing her eyes at her inquisitive little brother.

"Do you even know what that means?"

"Sure. You're a girl, he's a boy, and you're friends." Serril crunched a pecan.

"There's a bit more to it than that."

Serril leaned back, crossing his arms. "This is one of those grown up things, isn't it?"

"Kind of."

The younger firbolg kicked his feet back and forth in his seat slightly as he disassembled the pecans from the top of the pie one at a time before working on the custard level.

"You've gone on patrols past the Bramble like Sibi does, right?"

"I don't usually go in the direction of the Bramble, but I have before. Why?"

"Have you ever seen anything bad?"

Tatva's brow furrowed. "What do you mean, bad?"

Serril twisted the tines of his fork into pie custard, his mouth turned into a slight frown. "I dunno. Monsters and stuff?"

"Well, I've seen a few. Sometimes they drift into the Wild from beyond. We usually just scare them away."

Serril said nothing. He had a strange look on his face. Tatva was about to say something, when she noticed a light through the nearest window, in the direction of the lodge.

"That's weird. Why's a light on at the lodge at this hour?"

Serril grabbed his pie crust and headed to the window, munching it as he watched the dim light in the distance. A shadow passed in front of the light, then another. The light snuffed out, then the doors creaked open.

"That's Sibi and m-" Tatva's hand clamped over Serril's mouth, pulling him away from the window.

"Keep it down!" She hissed "I know you're new to getting in trouble, but the lesson you're supposed to learn is how *not* to get caught."

They listened from within the kitchen as sounds of conversation came from outside....

Eshket was a good deal sorer now than when their journey had begun. If it wasn't bad enough knocking into roots and stumps she couldn't properly see with a burlap bag over her muzzle, she'd been made to crawl through a seemingly endless patch of twisting briars with dagger-like thorns in every direction. Despite her thick fur, her hide was now covered in dozens of tiny punctures and tears that stung no matter how she moved.

And once they're left the briars, she'd been blindfolded, and a few miles after that she was made to lie down on a tarp and wrapped up to be slung over Crazy-Mountain's back like a deer freshly taken from the hunting tracks. She'd whimpered at first, sure she was to be weighted down with stones and sunk in a river, but a harsh whisper from the horned firbolg convinced her to suffer in silence.

And then she began to hear chattering voices, scattered footsteps, the clucking of chickens. And she smelled even more: sweat, wood smoke, leather and lumber, the tantalizing savor of cooked food, though not, she noted with disappointment, the tang of roasted meat. She knew she had been brought to their settlement. And now her terror renewed, as she was certain they would not let her leave alive.

A door creaked, and the bustle of the village was muffled away as she passed into some sort of room. There was conversation she did not understand, and a sharp poke that made her yelp through her muzzle. At last she was dumped onto a hard-packed earthen floor, and the tarp was pulled away, leaving her blinking in the dim torchlight as tall creatures gathered around her with varying expressions of horror and wrath. She rasped pathetically until her muzzle was removed. She worked her stiffened jaws and spat out foamy flecks of dried drool.

"Wa... waaaaaa... terrrrr," she begged.

One of the prime elders reached for a clay carafe, pouring some lukewarm water into a simple drinking vessel, which was passed to the Gnoll. Beyond, elders from both prime and nomad families were murmuring. It wasn't a full moot, with a quarter of the elders in the room.

"They speak common words." Crazy-Mountain assured the other elders. She'd come with her war club, though she was mindful enough to clean the blood and gore on the return. It would do no good to return home with such a grisly display.

"We encountered four, east of the pass, north of the Bramble. This one claims they are the prisoner of the others and used as a guide. There may be merit to it. The others look unlike gnolls we have seen in the Wild before.

As for those, we left them slain for the beasts."

The murmurs intensified. Mrs. Broadleaf spoke up. "There will have to be penance. The covenant..."

"I am aware of debts to pay. We each took a life. There will be time for penance for each of us."

Crazy-Mountain gestured at Eshket slightly with her club.

"This demands more of our time. Agree?"

Mrs. Broadleaf looked to her larger nomad counterpart, nodding. "I know that you wouldn't have done it if it wasn't necessary. The need is urgent." She turned, giving Eshket a scrutinizing eye, crossing her arms over her chest.

"How many were with your band that came into the Wild? Tell me of your leader."

Eshket gripped the earthen mug as well as she could with her paws still bound and half-numb, and rather than trying to tilt the vessel into her muzzle, which she knew would splatter most of it across her chest, she sent out her long, pink tongue to lap at it until her throat was less parched. She hunched submissively as she listened to the cow-men deliberate in their strange, airy language. And then she lifted her head when Mrs. Boadleaf addressed her.

The first question gave her some trouble, in one part because she did not know where the cow-men's concept of the Wild began, and in another because she did not typically need to count so high. She did not know the names for such numbers.

"The hunting band you found was one of many," she said, haltingly. "There are many more back at camp, beyond pass. Not yet in your Wild, but coming."

She spent a moment in silence ticking her fingers while mouthing the count in Abyssal, four fingers to each paw. Then she looked up at each member of the assembly and ticked off eight fingers again... and again... and again...

At last she held up her paws, fingers all raised. "This many... twice... for each of you in this room. Not one tribe. Best warriors from six, maybe seven tribes. Together under Tanar'ri. Demon of flesh and fire."

She shuddered, eyes wide to show the whites at both the top and the bottom. "Everywhere Tanar'ri goes, she demands tribute of strongest, fastest gnolls. Tribes send what they have, even if none left to hunt for winter. Those who do not send..."

Eshket looked up, her eyes shining in the torchlight. "...My tribe... burned. Taken by force."

More murmuring spread through the half dozen elders. This was an invasion.

Windra Broadleaf looked back to Crazy-Mountain, who shook her head. She wasn't familiar with the name, either. Demon required no translation, however. Her expression was hard and serious, milky eye glinting in the torchlight.

"What can you tell me about Tanar'ri?" Windra asked. How do so many Gnolls owe fealty to one?"

The gnoll swallowed hard, faltering under that milk-eyed stare. The word fealty was not in her modest vocabulary, but she felt she could make sense of the question.

"She is... small, but powerful," she said. "Smooth skin, like those who tunnel under mountain. Eyes like fire. Hair like blood. And magic... fierce magic. Flames bend to her will. Devour everything in her path."

Eshket's eyes flicked from Mrs. Broadleaf to Crazy-Mountain. "They believe she is chosen by Yeenoghu. To them, her power will be their power, if they follow. Those who do not believe are afraid. I am afraid. You should be, too."

Sibi sat heavily into her seat at the back of the lodge room, Eshket's words landing like a cudgel. If what she was saying was true, a hundred or more Gnoll raiders were on their way. The three they fought were more than enough! Sibi massaged her sore shoulder, the flesh still pink from where the bite she'd sustained had been freshly healed. All she could see when she closed her eyes, however, was that one bloody moment, watching the life ebb out of the Gnoll's eyes as it died with her spear in its belly. She grimaced, unable to get the thought out of her head, like picking at a wound and perpetually delaying its healing. She blinked hard once she felt the warmth of her mother's hand on her shoulder. Sibi looked up to see her mother.

"Eldest-Daughter, I know your heart. I know your pain, because it is mine also." There was the faintest crack in Kam's voice as she spoke softly, only for her daughter. Sadness creased here expression, even if reserved. "We can't show that here. There will be time for that. Soon."

Sibi traced a finger up, finding a tear she didn't know she'd spilled. Discretely, she blotted the moisture away.

"Mama, I'm scared."

Kam considered Sibi's admission, and nodded.

"Me too. We can't show that here, either."

Kam's hand reached down, lacing her fingers with her daughter's own. They held hands, then Kam parted, looking back briefly to Sibi as she returned to the interrogation.

"Your Tanar'ri has raised an army. Why? What does she want?"

Again, Eshket did not answer immediately, but this time it was not for a lack of understanding. She stared at the dirt floor, and her panting breath quickened into soft, nervous yips, what smooth-skins took for laughter, but among gnolls could mean a hundred different things. Right now, it meant terror.

"I don't know," she said. She looked up into Kam's eyes, trembling. "I don't know. Maybe your warriors. Maybe your food. Maybe there is some treasure you have that she desires. Whatever it is, you must give it to her. Or she will burn all you have and take it anyway. You are just one step on the path to her."

Mrs. Broadleaf looked back to Kam, who nodded.

"Show her."

Windra approached Eshket, and knelt in front of the Gnoll, unfolding the crumpled, slightly-bloodied note with a sketch of a carved, forked branch on it.

"Have you seen this before?"

Eshket's heavy brows crimped together as she focused her eyes on the scrap of parchment. She squinted, tilted her head, then sniffed prodigiously. Only that last action brought any recognition, and a baring of fangs - her first show of any kind of aggression since entering the lodge.

"This was carried by an elf," she said. "An elf in green clothing was found sneaking about our camp four nights ago. I tracked its scent into the pass. This scent." She nodded at the scrap. "Our warriors killed it."

She glanced at the scrap again. "I have not seen this thing, nor the thing marked upon it."

Elves were the most common outlanders in the Moonwood. Some weren't even outlanders at all - there were a few bands of Moon Elves to the south who were good neighbors and fellow stewards of the Wilds. Silverymoon was close enough to the south that the Elves of the Silvery March would occasionally visit.

Windra frowned. The Gnoll didn't seem to be deceptive or misleading so far, but it seemed like she understood her questions only in a literal manner.

"This elf in your camp, did you see what they were doing before they were found out? Did they get close to this Tanar'ri?"

Crazy-Mountain had by now eased into a chair, which she sat hunched over in, propping herself with her club.

"What did you find on the body of this elf when the warriors killed them?"

Eshket swallowed hard again as her eyes darted from one firbolg to another. "I do not know what it was doing. As soon as it was discovered, it ran. We found..." She sucked her teeth as she racked her panicking brain. "Leather armor. Dagger. Pouch with coin. Necklace shaped like green stag. We would have taken the body, but I heard movement in the woods. So we fled with what we had taken."

Her stomach growled. She had not eaten since the previous night, and she doubted she would be allowed to eat anytime soon. She licked her chops dolefully.

At that, Kam's breath caught. She looked to Sibi, who averted her eyes. The momentary shock was brought under control, and she turned her attention to Eshket again.

"You're a scout. Are you able to read a map? If we drew a map of the Moonwood, would you be able to show us the location of Tanar'ri's camp on it?"

Movement could be heard from the other side of the lodge. Kam's ears pricked at the sound, noticing Mr. Ounay grabbing a roll of paper and a lump of charcoal.

Eshket watched hungrily as Kam began sketching out a map using a charcoal stump. At first she was lost in the shapes and lines, until she realized the dark, winding snake in the middle was the river Surbrin spilling down from the World's Spine and carving his path through the Moonwood, and those lumpy shapes represented the Frost Hills to the West, where the great dwarven stronghold of Mithral Hall delved deep into the roots of the earth. Between those hills and the edge of the Moonwood ran the Mithral Pass, choked by glacial ice and snow during the winter. Eshket's eyes devoured the map as she compared it to the one she carried in her own head.

She shuffled forward toward the paper on the floor, and held out one of her paws, still bound at the wrist to its partner. Once Kam had pressed the charcoal stub into her paw, she moved it to the map and began adding broad strokes. A narrow valley nestled within the Frost Hills, tucked away from the paths that ran between Mithral Hall and Settlestone. She added squiggly lines for streams fed by snowmelt which tumbled down steep crags to provide fresh running water. From such a valley, one could easily climb the cliffs and watch the whole length of the pass with impunity, or trek out through any number of canyon passageways into the pass and across into the Moonwood itself. Once she had sketched this valley, she placed a heavy, dark mark in the center of it and laid the charcoal down.

The elders and Sibi had begun to gather close in a semicircle around Eshket, watching intently where she placed her marks.

"Well-chosen ground." Crazy-Mountain conceded. "Plenty of open ground between the Frost Hills to the Wilds, and command of it all from where she sits. Difficult to scout, and with the melt in the pass, she could send war bands north of Menzoberranzan, or south through the Silver Marches."

"I'm familiar with the area." Windra knelt in front of the map, tracing a path along the Frost Hills with the tip of her dagger. "I was last there six seasons ago, but there's a path the bighorn take to graze to the south. It was barely fit for single file movement, but it should have enough concealment to get a few scouts close enough - if it still exists, that is. There's no telling where Dwarves will delve."

Windra paused.

"I'll leave at first light, and take a look myself."

Mr. Ounay cleared his throat. "Jobi is suited for this. He will join you."

Windra nodded, and returned her attention to Crazy-Mountain, "Before I go, we need to make arrangements for our guest. Storage room in the back should do. We'll also have to feed her."

"I can find some carrion." Sibi volunteered, trying to be helpful in a situation that was more and more escalating out of her control. "Barring that, I can kill to sustain her, Mother of Waters willing."

"In the morning." Kam replied adamantly. "We should not send anyone beyond the Grove at night unless necessary."

"Wise." Crazy-Mountain nodded. "They are skillful in the night. Better to face them on even terms."

The massive elder looked to the Gnoll again, and sighed.

"This must not leave the Moot, save for those who already know."

Kam spoke up, "My children will do what is asked of them." Which was sufficient for the horned matriarch, who nodded. She returned her attention to Eshket, drawing a simple knife. Crazy-Mountain gestured to Eshket's bonds, respecting her captive's distance and waiting for her to submit before cutting the bonds.

"My people call me Crazy-Mountain. What are you called?"

Eshket bowed her head and stared, unfocused, as the moot descended into speech unknown to her. She could only guess at what they were planning. She had to pray that, by some miracle, they could repel the coming storm, because Eshket had thoroughly betrayed her former captors now, and could expect nothing better than bloody disembowelment if they overran the Grove. And that was if the firbolgs saw fit to let her live, and did not kill her for a confirmed traitor lest she betray them, too.

Her eyes snapped to the knife in Kam's hands, and she whined piteously until she realized the matron was pointing at her bonds and not her throat. She sunk her head low and extended her long, shaggy arms.

"Eshket," she replied. "In our tongue, it means Sparrow."

A back-handed compliment, for her first kill as a cub. An expenditure of effort, patience, and skill for a pitiful reward. The elders of her tribe said that names were prophetic. She had never believed that until now.

"Very well, Eshket." Crazy-Mountain shifted her weight, causing the wooden chair to creak slightly.

"You are our guest for now. We will protect you as any other creature under our covenant. You will remain here until the danger has been dealt with."

The horned matriarch looked around the room at the other elders. "If anyone disagrees, let them speak now."

Only silence followed, and Crazy-Mountain nodded at the unspoken affirmation.

"Then we know what to do."

Windra nodded.

"Mother of Waters, preserve us."

The elders and Sibi began to file out of the lodge, until only Crazy-Mountain and Mr. Ounay remained to keep vigil.

Sibi's attention stayed fixed on the Gnoll as most of the elders filed past her on the way out of the lodge. No outlander had set foot in Home Grove in her lifetime - maybe even her parents' lifetimes. Even their Moon Elf neighbors were kept at a polite distance. Now, they were taking prisoners they called guests. Now, they were killing people. She couldn't do what her mother asked. She couldn't pretend this wasn't tearing her apart.

She looked down at her hands. Long, broad fingers, well-calloused. She could still feel the treacle-like cling of drying blood in the creases of her knuckles and palms, even though she could see nothing there. The lodge suddenly felt small and stifling. Sibi pivoted sharply on a heel, desperate to get out into the open air. She brushed past Five-Elks, passing between the twin trunks of the giant live oaks, veering off sharply towards the Herd's kitchen before doubling over to vomit. Letting the last few heaves out, Sibi wiped her mouth and stood up to see her mother a few paces away.

"Daughter."

Away from the Moot, away from the rest of the family, Kam's face was a reflection of her daughter's, pain pushed to the surface.

"I'm sorry!" Sibi's eyes were swollen with tears.

"Why?! Why did you bring him with you?" Anger was raw in Kam's voice. "My only son! My youngest!"

Sibi tried to form words, but they caught in her mouth.

"Who's tracks do you think they were following? He's still a child! No matter what we expect him to become, it will take time for that to happen! But that won't happen if we're careless with his life, and lead..."

Kam's voice immediately silenced, as she was aware of their surroundings. She looked back at her oldest daughter. Angry. Sad. Scared.

"To say nothing of everything else that happened, and we should certainly say nothing here."

Mother and daughter spent a few moments in silence. Kam broke it at last.

"I have not been kind to you, Eldest Daughter. It isn't because I didn't want to. I had to be your mother. You want to be his friend, but he needs you to be an example."

"I thought I knew how to do that." Sibi's reply came weakly, her eyes downcast.

"There is always time to learn, Eldest. Even for me."

Kam reached for Sibi, who eagerly reciprocated the embrace.


Meanwhile in the kitchen, Serril sat against the wall nearest the window, his knees tucked up to his chest. He kept his hand over his mouth, just like Tatva told him. His middle sister chanced a glance out the window, catching sight of her mother and Sibi returning home.

"They're gone now." she whispered, easing back down to sit next to her little brother. Even in the dim light, she could see the reflection of tears, leading down his cheeks to his hand. They'd both overheard the argument. The raised voices. Tatva didn't know what to make of it, but Serril seemed to understand something.

"What's wrong, Climbs-a-Lot?" Concern formed in Tatva's eyes. Cautiously, Serril eased his hand from his mouth, and sniffed his runny nose.

"I'm not supposed to say." Serril offered, but finding no solace in the secret. Tears began to well again.

"I think I did something bad."

Even if Hana wasn't kicking and turning on their shared mattress, Serril knew he couldn't sleep. Guilt and fear ebbed and flowed like the tides, and intrusive thoughts broke any attempt at finding slumber. Sounds beyond the familial hut that he once found comforting and innocent now came to his ears muffled into the unknown. Every errant noise pregnant with inky malice. Each branch rustling in a passing breeze held the potential of a Gnoll stalking at the periphery of the Grove.

Untangling himself from Hana's arms and legs, Serril turned on his side towards where Sibi overflowed on her own mattress. He frowned upon seeing his big sister's back turned to him. She wouldn't want to talk to him anyway, after what happened. Serril sniffed his nose, looking at the blank spot on the wall where Sibi's spear usually rested. Not tonight. Serril's brow knit as he considered reasons why, liking none of them.

"I'm sorry." he whispered, watching his big sister's back rise and fall slightly with her breath in the firelight. She didn't budge.

The first sign that Serril had fallen asleep is that he was somewhere else. The Wilds beyond the Bramble. The scant light from the quarter moon above only relinquished enough light to add a highlight of dark purple to the depthless shadows. He could see his breath as he turned around in every direction, hearing movement in the trees beyond, circling him. His heart quickening into his throat, Serril bolted, running as fast as he could go. Something pursued him, evident by a heavy staccato footfall bounding along the detritus of the forest floor. Serril could feel the faint warmth of breath not far behind him, and he was too scared to dare look behind him. The trail he followed now took a few familiar bends. Hope quickened Serril's step as he ran up the final hill, seeing the warmth of home's light just over the crest. The pursuing beast was nearly on him, but he was almost here.

But as Serril crested that hill, that feeling of safety turned to ashes in front of him. The glow beyond the hill wasn't the comforting lanterns of home. It was the sacred oaks roiling in a conflagration. It was ruin.

And Serril had brought it with him.

Morning came without incident. No monsters, no gnolls, and no signs of anything malign in the grove. Sibi and Mama had already left the hut when he was awake, and they weren't anywhere in sight on the grounds. That probably meant patrol. The thought never worried Serril before. Now, the uncertainty gnawed at his insides.

Serril went about his chores by rote, his mind far away. Already, decorations were beginning to show up for the Festival of Blooms - some of the older kids were already creating flower braids through druidcraft which would be used to decorate the maypole. It was one of Serril's favorite times of the year. Now? It seemed jarring. About the only person in the family who seemed eager for it was Hana, and she energetically let everyone in the hut know how many days away the festival way, first thing in the morning.

"Come on Baby-Brother, there's only five more days till Festival Day!" Hana pulled Serril along by the hand, practically dragging him with her to help at the maypole. Bethri Ounay was the oldest kid who hadn't yet had their Enk-Skohba, so she was the boss - for another year anyway. She moved from station to station, making sure that the druids-in-training were creating the right kinds of flowers and in the right order. For the younger kids like Serril and Hana without any druid training yet, they could still help by stringing the braided blooms into the large floral streamers that would later be tethered to the top of the maypole.

"Bethri can we help with the flower braids?" Hana asked breathlessly, still pulling her little brother by the hand. Bethri was well into her growth spurt and already almost as tall as Tatva. Her curly, fire-red hair spilled down in ringlets, framing her pudgy, freckled-face. She paused from poring over a checklist with a nub of charcoal.

"Great, we can always use helpers! Okay, you and Serril can help Ibbe and Talks-to-Birds. Make sure you're braiding in at the white and purple blooms. It should go white to pink to red to blue to purple. Got it?"

"Got it!" Hana beamed. Serril said nothing, but Hana was being enthusiastic for the both of them.

Some discord within the production caught Bethri's attention, and her bright smile evaporated. Her fuzzy ears flicked, upsetting the nest of curly red hair they hid within.

"No, not like that Emphe, the stems are crimped. The flowers will wilt by the time the festival comes. Hang on, put it down, I'm coming over!"

As quick as Bethri approached, she vanished, off to put out yet another fire. Hana quickly went to work, finding a couple of finished flower braids and splicing them together to make a longer length. Serril likewise got a few braids, and they went to sit on a mossy rock to put their lengths together.

"Were you up when mama and Sibi left?" Serril found the repetition of braiding lengths of flowers calming in this situation, even if he wasn't in a festive spirit.

"Nope." Hana kicked her feet back and forth as they dangled over the rock, her fingers working supple flower stems to splice between others, then carefully tying them together so as not to bruise the stems.

He said nothing, continuing to work. Hana found the silence annoying, so she was determined to fill it.

"Why are you acting so weird, huh?" She blurted after three minutes of silence was too much.

"I'm not acting weird!" Serril defended himself, though his voice squeaked a little in his uncertainty.

"Uh huh! Ever since yesterday, you didn't come out to play, you were acting weird at supper, and you didn't even come to bed at bed time. And this morning, you're all...blaaaaah"

Hana mimed an extremely dour and grumpy series of facial expressions and sighs, finishing by blowing a strand of hair out of her face. Serril gave her a look, but couldn't argue against the caricature.

"I guess I have been a little weird." he conceded, focusing on connecting the next length of flower braid. "I got in trouble. I'm not really supposed to talk about it."

"YOU got in TROUBLE?!" Hana gaped, as did half the kids working on the flower braids. Serril gulped, feeling eyes on him.

"Sorry." Hana smoothed it over as best she could. The kids soon returned to their work, their short attention spans exhausted.

"Everything feels different this year." Serril tried to articulate his unease, even as he worked without a hitch. "I had a bad dream last night. I was alone, deep in the Wilds. Something started chasing me. I could tell it was bad, so I ran away as fast as I could. But then I came home, and everything was on fire."

It was a dark enough image to cause Hana's smile to ebb. She thought about it, then perked up.

"It's just a dream. I had a dream one time that Tut-Tut dug and found a candy treasure underground. The next day, I asked him to bring me what he found in the ground. It was grubs." Hana made a universal expression for yuck. "Not candy. Dreams can be silly and not make any sense. They aren't always supposed to."

He wanted to believe her. After all, he'd definitely had some strange dreams before. "Maybe. But it still didn't feel good."

"Well, think how good the Festival treats will be! Rosewater cream! Rhubarb pie! Honey tarts!"

Serril's ears perked, and at last a little smile peeked through the clouds.

"I do like honey tarts."

"And singing aaall the soooongs....then all the daaaancing around the maaaypole...and then the puppet shoooow..."

Serril was slowly being coaxed into good spirits by Hana's brute force method, letting the small hopeful smile linger a bit.

"Aunt Myrta's strawberry cake. I want strawberry cake."

Warm memories came back in rose-tinted recollection of Festivals of Blooms since past. From ritually chasing Auril away for another year to all of the food and merriment, it was the way the Herd marked the transition into spring. Sometimes it required a little druidic magic to encourage the growth if the spring days proved too chilly, but the day had already lost its chill early on. Serril indulged in fond memories of sitting on his papa's shoulders, trying to count all the lanterns hung from the oak boughs. There was the time when Gadroh Wannigan played a stage, accompanied by a full band! Sibi always made sure to get him a caramel apple before the bigger kids got them all. It was everything that made their community special, but brought together with even more generosity than usual. It was nice to remember, if only to be sure not to take it for granted.

"I should've known you two would be here." Tatva approached the arts and crafts station, wearing the blue woad of a herd scout.

"Of course, it's almost Festival time!" Hana made a face like only an idiot would expect them to be anywhere else, and her older sister laughed a little.

"Right, silly me," the older sister deadpanned, "You haven't happened to see Jobi around, have you?"

"Nuh-uh." Serril replied in negative, finishing securing another strand of flowers. He carefully began to work his completed section into a loose coil, mindful not to harm the stems or the petals.

"That goldbrick." She sighed, "We're supposed to be going on patrol together."

"You're going on patrol?" Interest quickened Serril's voice, and he paused working outright, looking up at Tatva. Now with his attention on her, he could clearly see a full quiver and a bow. Concern crept back onto his face.

"Don't worry, Climbs-a-Lot, just a once-around, and up to the Eyrie and back," Tatva reassured, then muttered "at least if Jobi shows up on time."

She caught sight of the fast-moving blur of red hair that was Bethri Ounay, and waved her down. "Hey, where's your brother? We were supposed to head for the Eyrie at the fifth cock's crow, and I can't find him."

Bethri rubbed a bit of charcoal off her cheek as she tucked her list away momentarily. "Oh, my da said Jobi to be up at first crow. Something about a special patrol with Miss Windra."

Tatva sighed, letting her arms audibly flop down at her sides, scoffing.

"What am I, chopped turnips? Ugh! Did he say who was replacing Jobi on the run?"

"Nuh-uh." Bethri was gone as soon as she said it. She didn't have time for whatever this was. She had flowers and a deadline!

"Great." Tatva replied sarcastically to nobody. "All dressed up for the ball and dancing alone. Guess I'd better go figure this out."

As she trudged off leaving her younger siblings weaving flowers, they looked at each other, and giggled.

"Tatva and Jobi sitting in a tree, K-I-S-S-I-N-G!"

Earlier that day...



The sun hadn't even started pushing the purple sky of early morning away, and all Jobi Ounay could think was that it was already a strange day. Only some of that was internal bellyaching on account of the early hour. Missus Broadleaf had asked for him to join her on a patrol. Didn't say where to, just said to pack light. She didn't say much of anything else for that matter, even in the morning when he'd quietly slipped out of the Ounay family hut to join her by the Home Oaks. She simply led at a brisk pace, and expected him to keep up. And whatever was happening here, Jobi wasn't going to look like some kind of soft-foot in front of Windra Broadleaf. Still, they were well-past the Bramble and she'd barely said seven words! Jobi just kept his hood up and his head down. Maybe this was just how actual adventurers work. Quiet, mysterious and brooding.

Secrets were a rare commodity among the Twinboughs. Eleven score of kin, next-to-kin, and a few no-relations, almost all who had lived their entire lives within the Wilds and Home Grove didn't tend to have much in the sense of privacy. Windra Broadleaf, however, was one of the few herdsfolk who'd actually spent some time living beyond the Wilds and away from the Herd. Practically every kid in the herd had asked her a thousand questions each about the World-Beyond-the-Wild. About all that she would say is that she was an adventurer, and she traveled a lot. Between that scant explanation and the handful of hand-me-down books they had from the World-Beyond-the-Wild, there lay a vacuum that five dozen kids with over-active imaginations were eager to fill. More than a few forages had been filled with speculation over exactly what Windra used to do. Tatva's guess was the boring Oghma's Razor choice of being a Greenwarden of the Emerald Enclave. Jobi couldn't quit his dark horse theory - she must be a former Zhentarim agent on the run from her past.

Windra's pace began to slow as they made the descent towards Mithral Pass. She held back a few hundred meters up the slope, looking to a steeper path west.

"Have you ever patrolled beyond the Wilds?" Windra glanced back at Jobi then up the mountain, like she was calculating something in her head.

"Just up the Eyrie, ma'am." Jobi grimaced. Total soft-foot answer.

Windra's ears flicked and she smirked. "Above isn't the same as beyond, but that at least proves you can climb, and we've got a lot of that ahead of us."

A heavy leather pouch landed at Jobi's feet with the clink of something metal within.

"Climbing gear. We're going west, but giving the pass a miss."

Jobi stooped down to secure the gear, adding it to his own. "We're leaving the Wilds, Missus Broadleaf?"

The gravel crunched beneath Windra's moccasins as she came to a stop, pivoted, and walked back to her younger scouting companion. She placed her right hand on his shoulder, causing the segments of her chitinous armor sleeve to creak slightly.

"Jobi," Windra spoke with slight smile and a soft tone, "We're leaving the Wilds. We're going into danger. We may have to defend ourselves."

Her grip tightened on Jobi's shoulder, almost to a point of discomfort, and she dispensed with the niceties, raising the index finger of her other hand for emphasis.

"Stop with the Missus Broadleaf. It's Windra."

"Yes Ms-um, Windra." The scout's eyes were the size of saucers.

She let go of Jobi's shoulder and gave it a curt smack with her armored fist. Jobi took it, biting his lower lip and keeping what he hoped was a stoic face.

"I picked you for this mission because you're quiet and careful. We're going a good distance away, and where we are going, we can't be seen."

The leather of Windra's sword grip creaked audibly as she closed her hand around the grip for effect.

"Are you prepared to do what it takes if you are seen?"

Jobi's eyes were still wide, but he didn't shrink from the demand. He gave a small nod.

"Fall in, and stay close. Make it back in one piece, and who knows, maybe I'll teach you the secret Zhentarim handshake."

The tension that had previously filled Jobi's posture now changed as his eyes lit up. Tymora's bounties, he was right! That look of surprise lasted about two seconds before Windra squashed it with a look.

"I've heard them all, but that's the most ridiculous one so far."

Windra walked away, up the mountain, forcing Jobi to catch up after her. Wrong guesses aside, going on an adventure outside of the Wilds with Windra Broadleaf was the most aces thing he had ever done in his entire life. Tatva was gonna be so jealous.

Oh beans.

Jobi's pace flagged a few steps as he realized that he hadn't told Tatva about where he was going. They were supposed to be climbing the Eyrie today. Forget jealous - Tatva was going to kill him.

He just had to survive, first.