In Pursuit - Chapter 9 - Queerdinary (2024)

Chapter Text

There was something about the cold that stirred fascination in Jaina. The crisp lines of it splintering out in veils over tender shoots of grass and buds drew her attention, pulled at a deep rightness in her. Her grimoire only emphasized the feeling, offering her pages on balance and the rhythms of the natural world.
There was a time for growth. Spring and Summer had their bounty and abundance. There was a time too for The Harvest, the merry-making of Autumn. Jaina had sampled these in the wood. But the Sleeping? The waiting- the cool beauty of snow and frost? Jaina found it absurdly lovely, despite the strain it put upon her supplies.

While Jaina was wary of ever being as hungry as she had been- she still enjoyed the cold kiss of the wind on her cheeks, a contrast to the warmth of the bearskin on her back. She liked the piercing, clean slide of the winter air into her chest as she strode through the wood. The tactile sensation of it all should have been an affront after the heat of the summer she had endured by the lake.
But it reminded her, in a small way, of winters by the sea in Boralus. The cold brought an exhilarating sense of familiar, manageable difficulty. A sense of home.

The fascination with winter was encouraged by the fact that her fingers never seemed to grow too cold. Nor did her toes ever numb, for all she eschewed foot wrappings. She felt the sting of the cold, its burning bite- but it did not sink its teeth into her as it might have. Her toes and fingers did not pale, grow waxy, or black. Her ears and cheeks chapped, but never split or blistered. It was bracing to be sure- but not lethal. Not to me.

Even now, digging in half frozen soil at the roots of spring ramps under a small drift, Jaina’s fingers didn’t seize or stiffen.
She shook her head, murmured her gratitude to the soil, to the sky, and added the ramps to her collection. To think that I should welcome winter as a childhood friend.

She made her way back to the cabin, sliding the bear-skull mask off of her face, and hanging her fur up beside her staff as she entered.

“Is that so?” Jaina asked in response, half distracted as she considered what she should prepare for her evening’s meal.
“So ? Tell !” Pit crowed from the windowsill where she paced awkwardly, seeming to search for something in the wind that shook the trees. “So. Sew. Lady’s skills. So, sew, sow.”

Jaina tilted her head, “It is as you say, Pit.” Jaina watched the bird’s pacing, “How do you feel about ramp soup?”
“Rabbit?” Pit asked, abandoning the sill to prod hopefully at Jaina’s basket.
“No such luck, the snares were bare.”
“Luck,” Captain’s voice echoed down from the rafters. “Luck. Harvest. Rocks.”

The illustrated botany book she had brought with her was becoming less and less of a mystery. She recognized more flora now, thanks to her learnings from Ulfar’s book. More than that, there were plants that she’d only ever seen here, had only the names this book provided; there was no prior knowledge to mistake the information with. She was still slow, clumsy- and Friendly was fast to tease, just as Pit was quick to encourage. Mallet, recovering from her injuries and spending most of her time by the fire, had taken it upon herself to oversee Jaina’s self guided lessons. She was a generally silent companion, as Jaina labored to translate the botany book into Old Kul Tiran, and then into common. Mallet co*cked her head occasionally offering half verses and riddles, and repeated words for Jaina; corrections here and there.

Finished with her supper, Jaina carefully wiped her hands clean. She traced her fingers over an illustration; a heart shaped leaf, a pale, ghostly pink, veined with green. The illustration showed vines, not unlike ivy curling out from the base, covered in lacy pink blooms more akin to apple blossoms than it had any right to be.
“Al-orel.” Jaina said, sounding out the letters.
“ Alor’el.” Mallet corrected without turning her face from the fire

“ Alor’el.” Jaina repeated, watching to see if Mallet seemed satisfied. She didn’t correct her again, so Jaina took that as confirmation. She carefully copied the text into an empty accounts ledger she had found in a drawer of the old desk below the loft.

“Companion’s foliage? “ Jaina guessed aloud, “No, that can’t be right. Your tongue is too elegant for that.”
Mallet’s shoulder shrugged in short hand for humor and behind her Jaina heard Captain mutter something about ‘Ainsel’ and ‘rocks’.

“Hmm…” Jaina considered the shape and colour of the plant and revisited her earlier theme, “Lover’s leaf?”

“Clever Ainsel.” Friendly glided over, speaking around a beak full of potato that she offered to Mallet, who accepted. “Clever. Read. Clever more, other?”

Jaina looked up from her book. Observed the care with which Friendly preened and arranged the feathers regrowing on Mallet’s wings.

“Clever more?” Jaina asked.

“ More .” Friendly repeated in a long suffering way, “Cleverer.”

“Study.” Pit supplied, scratching at the latch of the trap door.

Jaina wasn’t a stranger to the library downstairs- she’d surveyed it once or twice- but there had been much to do- and then she’d been out retrieving Mallet- and well, that had been a consuming chain of events. But, if the Ravens thought there was something down there worth knowing- Jaina wasn’t going to object to spending time in a Library.

“Study what others?” Jaina rose, padded over, and lifted the hatch.

“Other- Study.” Pit said, rather testily, before dropping down into the dark below.

Friendly and Pit led Jaina around the large chamber below, directing her to a strange array of objects filed away under dust. A deck of cards with unfamiliar pictures and symbols; A curved wedge of wood that was far too small to be a bow but had notches that suggest something should be anchored; a palm length knife that was strangely heavy in Jaina’s grip, and last; a folded folio tied closed with a red length of suede.

It was an awkward armful to manage with up the long trip up the stairs, but Jaina made no comment. It was seldom the ravens were this specific with her, and she didn’t want to deter the behavior.

In more light on the main floor, it was apparent that the wood was meant to be an instrument of some kind, she could see the hollow indentations where pegs must have held cords under tension, and the faint demarcations where regular wear had given the wood a lighter shine. It looked in need of work. What sound it should make, how it should be tuned or repaired, Jaina hadn’t the first clue. There was no reason for it to be similar to the guitars and fiddles common to Kul Titan sailors, or the more appropriate harps Jaina had been directed towards. She set it aside.

The knife was also worn. A well used instrument. It felt solid in her hand, and unlike her other knives, this one was sharpened on both edges. A dagger, more than a knife? But why weight it? She lay it carefully with the instrument.

The cards at least were more straightforward. While she didn’t understand the symbols, it was clearly a deck of playing cards. She inferred stylized shapes must be numerals, and the unfamiliar markings suits in the corners, differentiated by colors- themed by seasons? - and then face cards depicting their lords and ladies of caste- though they were not what she knew. Jaina shuffled them, feeling at least certain in their use, and set those too aside.

She unwound the folio next, the red suede chord surprisingly supple for all the dust collected on the surface. Inside there was a collection of pages covered in curving grid maps, with markings of many colours scattered across them. Beneath the marks of varying size, type and color, there were penciled in comments- and alongside those in bolder, heavier script, flowed stylized words with accents above them that Jaina couldn’t parse.

Jaina frowned in concentration, delighted by the puzzle of it, and delicately pulled free one of the sheets. A cipher, some code?

She spread it out carefully on the hearth stone.
“Five sections at a time, divided into two parts. Sets?” Jaina reasoned out loud, trailing a finger over old ink. She almost asked Mallet, closest as she was- but remembered with embarrassment that Mal could not see. It was a surprisingly easy mistake, all things considered.

Instead, Jaina turned to Pit and Friendly, bent together scattering the playing cards with some glee across the tiled floor.

“Lady’s skills.” Friendly commented to Pit, and hopped over to resume her task of feeding potatoes to Mallet with varying success. “Tell.”

Pit regarded Jaina while she kept pushing cards, sending them cascading down on the stone. Then casually, she echoed the same words, “Lady’s skills.”

Jaina frowned, spread her hands wide, “Gambling, knife fighting, and riddles? Aid me.”
Mallet laughed again, head back as she swallowed the last chunk of food Friendly gave her. She bounced in her halting way, mindful of her wings, to the pages Jaina had spread out. Scraping her talons lightly over them as if to be sure of their place.
“Ainsel. Limbs, and legs, and tongue and teeth. Ainsel able, yes?”
“I am whole of flesh, yes.”Jaina lent back, bemused. “If parceled out after death.”

Mallet, in a sudden twitch, jerked forward and seized Jaina’s hand. She did not break skin, only held. Jaina, surprised, let Mallet pull her hand down to the paper. She pressed her palm against the sheet, waiting for Jaina’s response.
Jaina wasn’t sure what she was supposed to do, or what she was supposed to have intuited.

Overhead, Captain shuffled on the rafter, “Rocks. Rocks. Rocks.”

Embarrassed and unsure, Jaina thanked Mallet, and stowed the troublesome papers back in their housing.

So it went.
Jaina spent her days in the crystalline, liminal wood, suspended between winter and spring. She collected what she could to eat, and placed more seeds beneath the frozen earth. She hung what charms she made in places that felt correct- that felt thin somehow and in need of shoring up. She followed the thrum of the ley line that flowed from the arcanium as far from the cabin as she dared, and sang her way back with Gre’n through the snow.

When she returned home, she made dinner and progressed on the treasures the Ravens had brought up from the library for her.

The knife, as it turned out, was for throwing.
Captain had persistently pushed it off the counter at least ten times before Jaina noticed that it always landed exactly the same way. When she had finally got the hint and made a comment about it- Captain feigned a lunge at her, and Jaina, startled- threw the knife. She’d had no training, and little aim- but the knife sailed end over end through the air and landed point first in the arms of one of the chairs.

Gre’n calmly sniffed it, tail wagging with interest.

“Tr-ain.” Captain carried the knife back to Jaina, “Man-y man-y train. Now.”

So, Jaina added throwing knife practice to the list of her daily activities.

The curving instrument was some kind of harp, Jaina decided. After long evening hours of whittling and sanding, she had fashioned pegs to hold the strings on each end, and recreated the missing bridge where the pegs would anchor on top. She wasn’t ashamed of her efforts, but she wasn’t a woodworker. The harp was small, something handheld, and a far cry from the heavy, tall confections of wood and gold that were popular for Ladies to play in the courts of Stormwind. Jaina had learned those, but they had not come naturally to her, not the way her father’s fiddle had. With effort, trial and error, Jaina managed to use some of her spider silk to restring the instrument. It held twenty strings, instead of the 40, or even 60 she was familiar with, as far as harps went. However she had neither the tools or the knowledge to know how this one should sound, so she did not pitch it.

Somehow, Mallet always seemed to be around when Jaina was by the hearth, and that evening was no exception.
“Hold, Ainsel.”
It wasn’t uncommon for Mallet to ride her shoulder through the house, why should study be different? Jaina offered her wrist to the bird without looking up from the mess of charts
The raven’s feather’s fluffed, her healing wings spread wide in amused annoyance.
Jaina rolled her eyes, and went to scratch at the new growth for her- but Mallet’s beak prized around her thumb, and Jaina froze. She was keenly aware that Mallet could snap her thumb with her wicked beak. She did not need eyes for tha t. Instead, Mallet repeated her gesture from weeks before. Pressing Jaina’s hand flat over the paper.

“ Hands, Lady. Tell. Tell, Telll.” Mallet’s voice was oddly excited. Restrained. Like a parent trying to lead a child to an obvious conclusion, even through amusem*nt.

Jaina stared at the grids, blocked by her fingers.

She had two sets of five fingers-

Oh-
“Oh- this for the hand-harp?”
“ Li-ar”
Jaina’s face flushed. The implication sudden and uncalled for. In the woods, your word was your bond. Power. She did not understand why Mal’ should say that. Not until-

“ Lyre, lyre, lyre” Friendly hopped off the window sill where they’d been chasing the shadows of Jaina’s drying herbs in the last of the daylight, “ String and wood and sinew and lacquer. ”

Jaina exhaled. Of course. A cognate. That was all . A chance similarity. Why should music be written the same, why should the instruments have the same names? She shook herself of the momentary panic, and lay her hand out once more against the grids running vertically down the page.

“Lyre.” She repeated.
Mallet nodded, grazing her beak over Jaina’s knuckles.

“Five fingers, five sections. So, each section is for a hand?” She counted them, glanced over the lyre, and Mallet who bobbed her head impatiently, “the lines, the strings?”
“Clever-er” Pit said with something approaching approval. She had found a rat, and were happily investigating its stomach cavity, “Study. Fingers. Study count .”

Jaina was tending the fire, when Pit pulled at her braid.
“ Ainsel-play?”
“Play what, pretty bird?”
Captain called swiftly. “No-t. Part-ners.”
Jaina snorted, slipped into the forest tongue, as that was more often than not, how they spoke in the evenings, even if Jaina did not speak it beautifully, “What should we need partners for, Captain?”
“Play!” Pit tugged at her braid again, turning her head back towards the table where Jaina had spread out her selection of reading for the evening. Surely Pit doesn’t mean books. Jaina let Pit lead her to the cabinet, where on top, sat the playing cards. Jaina had almost forgotten about them.
Looking at them now, they were less strange than they had months ago- and the markings- those were numerals. She’d been learning those stylized characters in the music notation. Music was metered, nearly math in itself, but Jaina had been too cautious to assume that she’d been correct. That she’d actually been seeing numerals and not only their value. Holding the cards, she was reminded of her older brother. Teaching me to count, held in his lap at the table, while father balanced a ship’s ledger across from us.
Jaina’s lips twitched in a half smile. Leave it to a Kul Tiran to learn arithmetic from cards, instead of a school master. Her smile slipped, the memory fading, as Pit shifted her grip on Jaina’s shoulder.

Had the ravens staged this- plotted out lessons, waited for her to learn to read- to count- so that they could play with her? Jaina could not decide if she felt cherished or infantilised. Confused heat crept up her neck. If they could manipulate her so subtly for something so harmless, what could they do to her if they had ill intent?

Acting to cover her embarrassment, Jaina palmed the cards, musclememory already moving her fingers to shuffle the deck. She aimed for a deckhand dealer’s bravado.

“ What shall we play? Whist, All fours, Cribbage? I haven’t seen a board though.”
Friendly landed on her forearm, talons gentle on her skin as her beak pushed through the cards. She settled on a face card, and slipped that one under Jaina’s thumb.
A Lady’s face card, a lone woman wielding a sword on a winter battlefield, surrounded by white peonies on sharp black stems.

“Lady of Winter?”

Captain repeated her earlier appraisal dryly, “Not. Par-tner. Watch.”
Pit pulled Jaina’s hair once more, which Jaina took as a negative response.
Jaina tried again. Maybe the cards were similar to the ones from Kul Tiras afterall. Hearts, diamonds, clubs and spades these were not… but what was a sword, if not a spade ? A good place to start. Jaina didn’t have the words for it in the forest tongue. So common would have to do.
“Queen of Spades?” Jaina said, and then, feeling rather slow- remembered the Lady of the wood. Dark Lady-

“Ah- Black Lady, is that the name of the game?”
“Clever Ainsel,” Friendly rubbed her cheek against Jaina’s thumb. “Pit partner?”
Pit made an indignant squawking in protest, “Cheat. Trick.”
That would leave Mallet and Friendly, and they did seem to share a bond. Cheating indeed.
“Mallet and I will make one pair,”Jaina suggested, “And you and Friendly the other. Captain?”
The one eyed bird regarded Jaina suspiciously.
“Will you watch? Keep them from cheating?”
Captain’s gaze softened, even as she sharpened her beak on the rafter, “ Very .”

Jaina shuffled the cards again, paying more than the cursory attention she had last time. Now she was actually looking, counting and reading the numbers. The suits weren’t difficult to identify. Swords, cups, coins, and wands . Numbered one to ten- despite the rather distracting illustrations on each one- followed by three even more elaborate face cards. Jaina could manage. Surely.

It turned out Black Lady wasn’t entirely different from Whist. Instead of taking tricks, like Jaina would have guessed, it was about evasion. How not to get points scored on you, and how to set up the others for failure. How to employ the Black Lady to ruin your enemy and capture the wagered chips for your own. Jaina thought she might have been good at it, by the third round, until she realized that they were allowing her and Mallet to win. Probably an attempt to hustle us.

This was confirmed moments later when Captain dove down, scattering the cards, and the pile of dried cranberries being used as wagers.
“ Ca-rd. Shar-ks.” Captain snapped in a croaking hiss, knocking back the stand Jaina had rigged for Friendly ad Pit to prop their cards against. She revealed how advantageous their hand had been, though nether Pit nor Friendly seemed contritre.
“Cheat.” Captain said. Then, around a beak full of seized fruit, “ Tax .”
Captain helped herself to the fruit, while Pit laughed her strange laugh and trampled about the playing surface sending cards and fruit every which way.

Then, of an evening, the bear skin wrapped around her, Jaina finished the botany book. She hadn’t really considered ever finishing it. She had thought that perhaps like Ulfar’s Grimoir, and the journal she’d found, the book would go on endlessly.

“Well, I should return it then,” Jaina said, more to herself than to her friends, stretching to stand. Mallet took that as a tacit invitation and made her way over to Jaina’s shoulder.
Mallet’s flight was still halting, more of a glide. Nevertheless, Jaina was impressed. She patted Mal’s back, and made her way down the many steps to the library.

It was difficult to determine where Jaina should stow this book. Like the last library, this one too was organized in a way that must have once made intuitive sense to someone - but Jaina could eek little out of it.
Turning another corner, Jaina caught a glint out of the corner of her eye. She paused, bringing her hand up. There, on the shelf, hidden under dust, was a brass plate. She wiped at it eagerly, and then sighed. The writing was too time worn to discern, the brass too flowered with decay. Naturally. But,, now that Jaina was looking for them, many shelves seemed to have these plates, or the remnants of them. Brass tacks, the rotten edges splintered or metal corroded away. Perhaps, she would stumble upon one that was legible?
With that as her new objective, Jaina slipped the book among other more encyclopedic texts- one that seemed to be about architecture, the other a small pocket guide to brightly coloured birds. Neither of which looked to be as straightforwardly translatable. Not suitable for solo translation work. Not for a beginner at least.

She walked on, hunting for a legible marker, until Mallet perked up.
“Book. Shelf.” Strained, excited.
“Yes. Bookshelves.” Jaina paused. It was an obvious thing to say, in a library. Mallet more than all the Ravens, was deliberately well spoken, if still as vague.

Jaina glanced around the library. “Yes. We are in the fifth aisle, at the eighth self.”
Mallet hopped the length of Jaina’s arm, “ How many sides does a circle have?”
Annoyance bubbled on Jaina’s tongue. She had thought she was about to receive some revelation, not another child’s riddle.…. Ah,but that was a hint. Directions .
“Two.” Jaina answered confidently. She walked on, stopping at the tenth shelf.
Mallet remained silent as Jaina perused the array of objects. An old hunting bow, a few packets of what looked like bow flax, the decayed remains of feathers once for fletching. Jaina selected a leather tube- perhaps a spyglass? Only to find it held a ratty looking quill, and a bleached unreadable roll of fragile parchment. Finally she settled on a leather bound book, pulling it down.
“ Belore-adore” Jaina sounded out the gilded title embossed on the faded cover.
Mallet, practically vibrating, still made no comment.

Jaina brushed a layer of gathered age aside, and carefully opened the book.

It was not at first clear what the text was, though it was artfully illuminated and clearly a labor of some intense focus and skill. She thumbed a few pages, painfully aware of the intense attention Mallet had upon her.

It wasn’t a novel, not with line breaks and blank pages, coupled lines, and odd spacing-

Then, Jaina remembered Captain’s half threat before. Oh no-
“Is it poetry?”
Mallet bobbed her head expectantly. Jaina frowned.
“Mallet I can’t read poetry. I need something literal- I need a picture book. I can't read your forest language- ”
“ Thalassian. ” Mallet said firmly. “ Ainsel. Learn .”

Thalassian . A name for the forest dialect. Finally. Jaina tilted her head letting her chin rest against Mallet’s beak.

Mallet returned the gesture, then tapped the leather bound cover. She did not tell her to take the book, just as she had not told her where to go. Jaina considered the book, its well preserved pages. It would certainly be a challenge.

“Will you help me learn, Mallet?”
“ I will not stop you.”

So, Jaina began the process of reading, reciting and translating Thalassian poetry. She did not dislike it, but she could have done without the heckling the birds provided, even if they caused less mischief than normal.

Despite her efforts, after another month of strange, stalled spring with the poetry book as her only text, Jaina needed more variety. She ventured down once more to find an easier volume. Something to build back confidence. It wasn’t that she wasn’t making progress- it was that she was slow .
Jaina ached that it did not come naturally, the way the frost eddied and raced to her touch. The way the cold pooled at her fingertips on her noontime walks; shaping idle fractals in the powdered snow as she moved across the cold landscape... She had received no coaching in that- it had simply come, like breathing.

In comparison, choosing between literal and conceptual translation while struggling with vocabulary, her only glossary of terms consisting of riddles and half jokes- Thalassian poetry felt like a Sisyphean task. Jaina could not say three words together without correction, heckling, or snickering. Retreating down the hatch to the library was the only sane choice, really.

The bird book I saw before should suffice. There would be colours at least, and anatomy that would be familiar to her from Ulfar’s text. That, she thought, would not provoke criticism.

Only, Jaina couldn’t seem to find the book. It wasn’t where she remembered it- things had been moved. That alarmed her, sent her hair shivering to attention. Had someone else been down here? When, who?
And then, all at once Jaina didn’t mind, because she was distracted. Had discovered a section of sheet music. She must have glossed over it before, dismissed it because hadn’t understood what she was seeing. Now she knew what she was looking at, and felt a frisson of anticipation. She had become passably proficient with some of the songs from the folio upstairs, struggled terribly with others. Excitement urged her onward, scanning for a well preserved volume. Maybe there will be something I already know . After all, Mallet seemed to know almost every song Jaina cared to sing- why shouldn’t there be a song that Jaina already knew in the library? That would be half the battle won already . Working on a tune she already knew might even make her feel… feel at home? Feel normal? She wasn’t sure if ‘normal’ was the right word. Certainly ‘normal’ wasn’t an emotion .

“ There went three ravens,
Sat on a tree,

They were black as black might be-”

She inhaled sharply. Nearly dropped the page.
Jaina remembered Mallet’s sharp, possessive voice when asked about that ballad, ‘ Know? Mine.’ How was Jaina supposed to interpret that, other than as a claim of authorship? And now, she had possible proof of it in her hands. What was it doing here? It was hand inked, but that didn’t mean anything - everything down here was hand copied. The writing was tidy, familiar- but that is a scholar’s vanity I can't ‘ know’ that . Jaina shouldn’t jump to conclusions…. But then again, there were the same names carved into the rafters of both cabins she’d been to- why should this similarity be the outlier?

Jaina exhaled. She took a slow breath, and started from the top once more, studying the page itself.

It wasn’t of archival quality, and that gave Jaina’s curiosity tinder. As if it had been done for personal reasons, not for the preservation of a musician's work. She kept looking. A name, a signature or a maker's mark- some clue . She scoured the document. Nothing. Jaina held it up to a sconce of pale blue light for closer examination- there .
A shadow, something on the reverse side.
Jaina turned it over.

A flowing, faded, flowery scrawl. More ornamental than the music had been- as if this had been the real purpose for the document.

My Darling Shrike,

Meet me by the willows after last watch, and I will make you forget your name.
- your Boar

…Unexpected .
Jaina turned the paper over, compared the handwriting. Chewed on her cheek.
The handwriting matched.
Jaina stared a while longer, caught between disappointment, curiosity, and the feeling like a voyeur.
Carefully, Jaina put the page back right where she had found it. Took several deliberately slow breaths. Riddles on riddles.

Friendly?

More conflicted satisfaction frizzled in Jaina’s chest. All her consternation over what? Just storage… Jaina snorted. No wonder it had been impossible for her to catalog. It must be organized by Ownership not Object. However, the knowledge did little to tell her why those things had been left behind. Did little to tell her who or what the ravens were now. Only who they might have been before. Then who had that strange journal belonged to? It hadn’t seemed to belong- not like everything else.

So… So what?

All of the pieces fit. Jaina mounted the last step, and then turned to ease the heavy hatch back down into place. But fit into what? And what do I do with them?

Only as the heavy latch clicked into place, it occurred to Jaina that the brass plates might have had names on them.

The temptation to go back down, to scour each plate bare and see for herself what they might reveal, was strong. Strangely, she hesitated. What would she do with that knowledge? Why seek it out, what could the knowing grant her. Power. She admitted to herself. Names are power.

“Book?”
Jaina flinched, turning to the sound. Friendly was behind her, perched at eye level on the desk beneath the loft. She had not been there moments before.

Caught off guard, Jaina blinked. “Couldn’t find one that suited me.”
Friendly studied her for longer than Jaina felt comfortable with. For one wild moment, Jaina imagined that Friendly had followed her, stalked her in the library- a silent shadow, eyes in the dark. Ambiguous threat.
Friendly seemed to smile, eyes bright and pale in the dim evening light.
“More poetry?”
Jaina sighed. Resigned.

When she went to bed that night, she read the names on the rafters above with renewed interest. Fell asleep with them on her lips. Anya, Nara, Anthis, Clea, Cyndia, Alina, Velonara, Ariel, Imhadria, Kalira. Loralen, Lyana, Marrah,Vorel, Denyelle, Kitala, Tyala, Zanra, Sylvanas.

The spring slipped back into winter. Gradually, and then all at once.

Colder days, colder, longer nights. And then, it seemed only ever to be twilight, as if neither the sun nor the moon could commit to breach the horizon.

Just as slowly, Jaina’s snares lay bare more and more often. And then, she foraged all edibles within easy walking distance of her home.

Where once they had been so comfortable with her, they had grown standoffish, had slowed down. Kept to themselves near the fire, or up in the rafters- steered wide of her when she had strayed overlong in the twilight and snow foraging what little she could. They had grown quiet, even when she purposely mispronounced her Thalassian. Perhaps Jaina was only reading too much into it. Like most things in the winter, they only want their companions, and to rest. Maybe it was normal Raven behavior- Jaina did not know much about birds after all.
Jaina surprised herself with a laugh.
Just birds…

Her fear of starving was a heavy thing, and it ate her peace.

The ‘morning’, brought snow, more than Jaina would have thought. It was halfway up the windows when Jaina woke, and if she wanted to go anywhere, she would have to work to clear the dooryard first. She reached for her fur, but Friendly called out to her.
“Waiting. Longer yet.”
Jaina turned on her heel. Observed Friendly, perched on the tall chair by the fire.
Now is as good a time as any to state my intent.
She pointed to the bow on its hook. To her near empty pantry. She said her part as plainly as possible.
“I must hunt. I will not starve again.” She spread her hands wide, palms up, “I need help.”
“Wont starve.” The raven co*cked her head, all red and blue-black shadows in the fire light, “ Promise.”
Jaina did not press the matter. A promise wasn’t something said lightly. She could not recall receiving one from the ravens before. But she couldn’t abate her urgency.

“ Soon, Friendly?”
The raven nodded.
That was well and good, but it did nothing for Jaina’s need to move, to act. Did nothing to relieve the simmering frustration her fear of hunger had burned into her chest. It certainly did little to quell her anxiety about the turn the seasons were taking- she could find nothing in Ulfar’s text about it

Ultimately, Jaina reached for her staff, and a length of cloth. She wouldn’t leave, but she didn’t have to be still.
“ Captain, a round? It seems as though I am under house arrest, and I’ve grown weary of book learning.”

Pit’s bright voice answered her first though, her step loud on the floor as Jaina secured her blindfold.

“ You won't last a round little sapling.” Jaina heard the sound of a staff dragging along the tile, done deliberately to catch her attention, “ We’ve a score yet, Ainsel. No forgetting. Sneaky wood-whisperer.”

“ Ainsel asked me for lessons. You may attend. Wait your turn- you’ll have what’s left.”

The reinforcements didn’t come. Would never come. Fickle, fleeting- like leaves in the wind. She cursed their names, their bloodlines, begged their ghosts, and still they did not come. Despite their vows, despite the oaths they’d made to Silvermoon. That was the trouble with blood pacts- with humans. Fragile, diluted lines that burned hot, and fast. The burden always fell on the Quel'dorei to maintain the bond. Why should those humans hesitate to die fulfilling their oath, as they should, with honour and glory- instead of at home, on their islands in cowardice? Their lives were so short, the scale of it should matter more to them- they would die regardless. Why not answer?
Unlike the scourge- who had no trouble answering the will of their master; Unlike the blight that razed and raped her villages and hamlets- her people her soldiers. Unlike her people, sick with mana withdrawal, growing listless, growing feral answering their own base urges.
“You promised me Victory! What is this?”
“You triumphed over the scourge. That is what I promised.”
“This is not what I meant-”
“It is exactly what you asked for.”

If she could just open the gate, then the Sunwell would swell, would wash out in waves and flood Quel’Thalas with its magic once more. If she could open the gate, open the gate. Open the gate. Openthegate-
AINSEL OPEN THE GATE-

Jaina woke, hands clapped over her ears. The screaming did not stop with the waking. Dust splintered down from the ceiling. The cottage shook, wind shrieking through the timbers. Jaina was slick with sweat. Trembling. Crying. The hair on her arm stood on end. The screaming outside was the wind, had to be the wind. It was wild, violent- a vicious guttural howling. Nothing Jaina had ever read could have prepared her for it, or defined the why or how of it for her.
It’s only the wind. Jaina forced her fingers into her ears. It’s only the wind. Jaina could smell her own fear. It’s only-
But It couldn’t only be the wind, because it called to her- compelled her outside. Now. Jaina needed to join the song, now, lather in the rage of it, now, or be slaughtered by it.

Now.
She was out of bed, down the ladder. Striding to the door.
Then the ravens set upon her. Jaina tried pushing them away, desperately charging for the exit. They herded her, bit and clawed and beat her back with their wings. And they were making sounds too. Noise- there was so much noise. Jaina could hardly hear the wind try as she might- the terrible glut of vengeance in its voice- sharp and as honed as a bloodied knife. It was drowned out by the grinding of her own teeth and… song? Singing. Inside?
Strange noises rose around Jaina, strange melodies that crowded out all else.

And then Jaina could make out neither the wind, nor the voices. There was only the blood pounding in her ears. Only the rush of her pulse in her chest like the tide.
Something was pushed between her fingers. Carved wood. Her token.

Gre’n was in her lap, laving her face, her neck, her knees. The heavy weight of him on her chest forced her to the ground.

With her back against the cool tile, Jaina squeezed her eyes closed. Fingers tight in her dog's fur. The sound around her blurred into a high pitched whine, and then a white buzzing that filled the space where her thoughts of panic should have been. Only the dog, the wind hurling snow and ice at the windows, and the birds singing.
Jaina was afraid to fall back asleep, afraid to close her eyes though adrenaline had wrung her out like a wash rag. Would she lose what little control she’d gained if she slept - because Tides, what was that-?

She couldn’t dwell on it, or she’d be drawn in again.

She counted the lines in the pattern of the wood grain above her. The hairs across the bridge of Gre’n’s muzzle. The tiles across the floor between her shoulder blades.

At length, and for the first time in months, the sun rose.
Jaina didn’t recognize it for what it was at first, the strange, warmth-adjacent blue glow from the windows, until she realized that the snow covered the cottage entirely. This was what light could make it through. With a sigh, Jaina released her hound, and he huffed and stretched the way dogs do.

The ravens, clustered now on the mantle, did not object. Gingerly, Jaina herself stretched. She tried to pitch her voice confidently. Solidly. Tried to avoid fear.
“What was that?”
They did not answer.

“ Stay . No following.”
Jaina jerked her head to the side, struggling to focus on the bird, close as she was. She offered her wrist, and Friendly went willingly as Pit joined them. Jaina braced against the additional weight.
“Going. We go.” Pit added, without their usual lively charm.
“ Wait .” Friendly finally turned her eyes to Jaina’s, “Three days. Then back. Then hunt. No hungry. Promise.”

“ You promise?” Jaina asked, feeling like a child suddenly abandoned, and hating herself for it.
“ Promise.”
At once, and in tandem, Pit and Friendly took flight through the gap. Spiraling up, and then, north.

Jaina watched them go, until she could no longer discern them from the distant clouds.

“Well.” Jaina cleared her throat. “I don’t suppose either of you two will shovel with me?”
Captain angled her good eye towards her, “ Watch.”

“I thought as much.”

Jaina cleared the snow as best she could. She tried to ignore the way Mallet paced the mantle, and the way Captain brooded overhead. She tried to ignore their mounting unease. Jaina tried not to fixate on how little food she had left. She read her grimoire, she played her lyre and threw her knife. Even practiced reading poetry. She did anything she could to keep her mind occupied. It did not help.
Where had they gone- why? Why haven’t they returned? Are they hurt- are they trapped. What screamed in the night, did they go to heed it, to oppose it? And then there was the entirely physical distress of her hunger- a motivation far less altruistic. How long am I willing to wait for them before I disobey?

In the end, Jaina waited five days. Four nights.
The sixth morning, Jaina rose early, dressed warmly, and armed herself. She stood by the door, and braced herself for Captain’s and Pit’s disapproval.
“ It is like this, I think .” Jaina began in Thalassian, “ I am worried for our friends, and I am very hungry.”
Mallet angled towards her in surprise, but did not comment. Captain shuffled on the windowsill, pretending, rather unconvincingly, to be occupied by a dead spider. They seemed interested, Jaina thought, but needed more than a declaration of her pitiful condition.

She continued,
“ I won’t go, if you won’t come with me. We search together. Hunt together. We return before dusk, whether we find our friends, or game- or nothing. We return at dusk.” Jaina swallowed. She hoped she’d spoken properly, thought her understanding was improved, if flowery. That would be the poetry’s fault.
“I won’t stop you.” Mallet said at last, and made her way to the head of Jaina’s staff.
Captain joined a moment later, claws curling around the jawbone that made Jaina’s shoulder pauldron.
She offered the spider to Jaina, “Fav-or-ite?”
Jaina chuckled, took it without issue. Crunched as she preened Mallet, “Telling stories Mal’? And I thought you liked me.”
“Lady. Never. Tell.”
“As you say.” Jaina checked the quiver of arrows on her back, and the short bow slung alongside it. She made sure her rabbit totem was secure, and Gre’n’s carving within easy reach. Her skinning and throwing knife on her belt. She set off.

The landscape of winter was wonderfully familiar, and dazzling in the morning light. Jaina ought to have sunk down in the drifts, heavy as she was and deep as they were. Instead, even without snowshoes, she stayed well enough atop them to move with relative ease. Captain jumped up into the sky some time mid morning, with a brisk, “Looking,” and was soon a shadow above.

Jaina kept her eyes trained on the ground scanning for prints, despite not exactly knowing what she should be looking for. What kind of prints would not-raven-ravens leave? And how should Jaina know if a game trail was worth following? Despite knowing how to fish, and lay snares- Jaina had no experience of hunting outside of following the castles’ hounds to whatever unfortunate fox they’d scented. And even then, Jaina had been on a horse, and in a specifically limited, ornamental capacity. I was so different then.

Jaina had selected north by east as her route, and neither bird had given her correction. So she moved onward, vigilant for signs of her friends or food.

She found neither. Despite considerable effort.

The sun traced its path overhead, and then began to sink towards the horizon.
From overhead , Captain began her decent in sweeping spirals.

“Dusk soon,” she croaked, oddly flat, “return soon.”

Dutifully Jaina turned, south by west, and started back home.

And then Mallet whistled, once, and low- head darting off to the left as she raised her wings- forgetting for a moment she couldn’t take flight.

“ Rabbit.” Captain supplied, “Bow. String. Fast, Ainsel.”

Jaina obeyed, unsure how Mallet had caught the scent or sight of a rabbit when Jaina herself could sense nothing but the still, sleeping earth.

But she strung the bow, and allowed herself to be guided by subtle nudges and pricks of claws away from her path home, and into the ice bowered cathedral of deeper forests.

“ Too loud ,” Mallet hissed in Jaina’s ear, “ Thas’dorie, breathe quiet. ”

Crouched low in a clearing, Jaina had her eyes trained on the tangle of glazed brambles that chimed and clicked with the rabbit’s movement. To the west, the sun bled itself on the horizon, splashing gold and red across the diamond crusted snow. Jaina endeavored to breathe silently.

“ One shot. ” Captain prompted, “ One kill. ”

Jaina drew her arrow- but hesitated. The wood was ancient, and she felt… watched. She let her eyes scan the clearing once more. There was nothing out of place, except perhaps the abundance of tree stumps- too many to have been entirely wind blown- that ringed the clearing. An old logging site? The forest was old, and lumber would have likely been harvested.

“ Rabbit ! Ainsel- shoot!”

Jaina’s eyes snapped back to the briar to the rabbit loping away. She fired. Did not make a clean kill.

The rabbit screamed, her arrow burying itself in one of its back legs.

Captain hissed- and Mallet sprang after it.

But as it ran, bleeding and steaming its pain into the snow, Mallet gliding in pursuit, Jaina saw clearly what she could do.

She stretched out her hand. Flicked her wrist just so.

Snow swept aside and the ice beneath snapped upwards. Jaina had ment to cage the beast.

Jaina felt disoriented. Nearly drunk. Proud.
Until she saw what she’d done to the rabbit.

The ice had sharpened itself. It Impaled the rabbit as surely as it had been clamped in the jaws of a wolf.

The way it hung... It was somehow different than the violence of an arrow- different from other magic she’d done. Impersonal, distanced from the use of plants and bodies.

Mallet was saying something to Captain, their voices low like grinding metal, but all Jaina could do was stare at the rabbit. Its glowing white eyes. The way its paws still twitched. It had been easy, fast and cold… had she been that hungry? Shame carved a stinging into Jaina’s cheeks, and she lost her concentration.
The ice fell away, the rabbit landing on the ground lifelessly.
And the white blue of Jaina’s magic snapped out beneath the snow, pulled from her, and into the felled trees ringing the clearing.
They moved.

Something old and hungry a great many miles away moved too.
Jaina stood, torn between fascination and horror as snow and ice fell away.
She’d read about them in her grimoire- elder guardians, ancient sentinels. Treants.

“Ainsel,” Captain’s voice was steady, reassuring despite her message, “Flee.”
If Captain did not think Jaina would win the fight, Jaina would not disobey. She turned, took several slow steps. Was not followed. Broke into a run. She expected to hear Captain and Mallet with her, feel their claws on her shoulders. She didn’t.
They’re not coming .
And then, some few yards later, Jaina wasn’t leaving. She could not take another step- each raise of her heel was a knife in her navel- each footfall a twist in her gut. Retreat was impossible- physically painful.
Her own words echoed mockingly in her ears, she’d said them often enough now, without knowing their weight. ‘ I am here to fulfill a promise ’. At least she had some shape now, as to who that promise had been made to.

Of course the ravens were a part of what bargain she’d been entangled in.

Ice spat and creaked behind her, snow crushed under many feet- and Jaina pivoted back to it.
The relief was instantaneous.

Then relief seeped into elation as she crossed back into the ring of corrupted treants, bringing her staff up to join the fight. She did not need to see, to fight wood after all. She could hear just fine.
Jaina felt a rough grip on her shoulder, someone dragging her back, and then she was back to broad back with Captain and Mallet.

Wordlessly, Jaina shrugged her bow off, quiver too, discarding them behind her. She heard them taken up. So she unsheathed her hunting knife, and offered that as well.
The reprieve did not last long, there were too many enemies.
Bleached and twisted and burnt and bent. Jaina allowed herself glimpses when she was sure her ravens were behind her. The treants were furious, and starving, and each moment that passed, Jaina was sure they were calling out to something larger than themselves.

One of them raised a gnarled twist of a hand, and sent ice hurling through the air at Jaina’s torso- If she hadn’t been looking it might have killed her.
Jaina had never considered magic used that way, bending it as if it was a weapon a projectile. Had only thought of it like an environmental hazard, as she had hoped to cage the rabbit.
And the treants weren’t like the rabbit at all- and they were fighting back.

Jaina swung her staff- intercepting the ice lance aimed at her heart. Then, she used her staff to direct her magic as one would use a bow to direct an arrow.
It was exhilarating. Amazing, the hot pulse and cool release of man translated in a ray of frost. The manna surged thorough the wood as it burned blue along her carvings and rippled out- pinning those vicious roots and grasping ironbark claws.

She heard something behind her, angled her head to see through the bear skull's eye sockets. The sun’s last stand on the horizon cast elongated shadows, plunging the clearing in early twilight. Still, Jaina saw the long twisting shadows her friends cast against the glow of the treants - saw one shadow stagger under the weight of a blow.

An awkward repost, a hunched defender favoring one side.
As if she had noticed Jaina’s attention, Captain’s voice cut through the clearing,
“ We will cover your retreat. This is beyond you Ainsel, go .”

Jaina did not go.
She had eyes only now for the treants, the way they had been woven and shaped and reformed. So alike, and unlike Sef Iwin. These things had not been made- they had been born. Existed to tend and nurture and protect their groves and forest. And yet here they were, all hard and brutal lines, withered and harsh edged. Malicious wefts of gnarled roots and discontent.
Jaina liked little the purpose they’d been put to. Sentinels it seemed to her, watch dogs- she could see, could feel the race and pulse of blue-white fire flickering in the runes carved deep into their bark. See the way their forearms, and crude weapons had been branded.

And then, the one closest to Jaina, she could feel the parts of it that had been constructed. Reedy wicker, and malicious willow boughs woven to house something inside- the blue flame of an animal’s death and a near human malice.
Like a Drust construct.
Jaina’s fear grew with her interest.
If I know how they were made, I can unmake them.

“Captain,” She finally answered, “We will retreat together.”

The fighting was too thick for much debate.

Jaina saw a beech tree. Smooth and silvered with golden leaves twice the palm of her hand. She gathered its name, cradled it, and pressed it back into the scarred pit where it out to have fit.
Whitebark, sleep. Sleep and dream of better times.

And then, dazed, Jaina was on the other side of the combat, the treants moving past her as if she did not exist. As if she were only a slender trunked birch in their undergrowth. They’d been burned to stop undead. Betrayed... And then had turned to some kind of pact- some kind of corruption. Jaina shook her head, anxious to have her thoughts only her own- and then the knife was back in her stomach, twisting taut.

There was no one now to guard her ravens’ back if Jaina could not hold enemy attention.

Jaina ran, ducking through the shambling forms, doing her best not to look at the ravens, but she needed to know where they were to reach them-

A yew treant had angled in on Captain’s blind side- separating her from Mallet who was limping- Jaina looked at the snow, the shadows- one arm hanging awkwardly. There was little Jaina could do without staring, but move.

So she did, the furious spear of yew- the treant’s sharpened arm- hit Jaina’s staff with a crack. Its weight and force sliding it up, and up. The treant’s spear sheathed itself in Jaina’s shoulder.

It hurt, but Jaina found herself smiling. Her blood along its bark glowed faintly, and Jaina saw that there was another way. It was combat after all- in a way she hadn’t experienced. And they were not rabbits. Not like other creatures she had met. There was no shame in this. In protecting her friends.

Around her, the other constructs halted. Burning blue eyes, once more centered on Jaina as she methodically unmade the creature the treant had become. Jaina exhaled, unaccountably panting as the spear in her shoulder crumbled to ash on the snow. Her breath steamed, lit by the glow of their many eyes, and the magic in her hands. And then the ground shook, like someone snapping a table cloth.
In the far distance, the pressure changed. An awareness, as if something heavy had been dropped in a lake’s opposite shore, and the first ripples only now touching Jaina’s toes.
Still, she raised her un-injured arm.
In unison, the treants raised their arms too.
Beside her, Jaina heard a surprised hiss, an aggrieved sound. Mallet’s hand was tender on her wounded shoulder. Her voice, horror mixed with gratitude. “Ainsel, what have you done?”

“ Captain take Mallet, leave me. Get to safety.” She didn’t make it a command, but the shape of it was there.

“ If you die, I will wear no ribbons,” Mal’s voice, a soft sing-song in her ear, “ I will wear only your braided tendons as a crown.”

It should have chilled her, to be spoken to so. Instead, Jaina tightened her grip on her staff, hid her smile beneath her bear skull mask, “And you would be a vision of loveliness.”

On Jaina’s right, Captain started to speak- cut herself off. Started again.
“ Run. Ainsel. Run as soon as you can.”

Then it was just Jaina and the corrupted treants. She moved left, they mirrored. Moved right, they followed. It would be a difficult thing to weave into their number, one at a time to lay on hands, but Jaina thought she could do it. Thought they deserved that much respect.
That was until her foot broke through the crust of ice, and her skintouched the soil.

The power that animated the treants was death . Cold and hungry and endless. The rabbit’s passing had woken them, whetted them, and now as they moved and fought- they passed over the soil, wringing what life they could from beneath the snow to animate their bodies. The small deaths sang out to Jaina- the eusocial insects in their deep colonies died, the sleeping grass and the seeds buried below, died- the mycelium between the lattices of roots- they died, the soil died.

As soon as Jaina understood, the pressure she’d experienced before increased. Doubled, then worsened. Tugged on the leashes she’d made to the treants and tested their strength. With a sinking realization, Jaina knew that it had never been the treants that had concerned the ravens.
The Lord of The Grove.

Stupid, fool hardy. Captain was right- this is far beyond me, so far beyond me. Fear licked up her spine as, in her panic, she momentarily lost control of one of the ent-constructs. It struck her, nearly cost her the control of all the others, before she wrestle it back, and unmade that one too.
The remaining stared at her, still and seething. She did not want to touch them, but it seemed it was the only way- the fastest way to retreat entirely, would be to advance upon them.

I’ll return them, or unmake them. I’ll dance them to me, that will be fastest. That’ll buy me time.
In the end, it was not so different than avoiding unwanted advances at a ball. Jaina had always been a good dancer.

So she moved between and around them in the snow, whittled them down from twenty, to ten. And while that was an accomplishment, Jaina was trembling with effort. Then from ten, to five. Breathless. Nearly too much. But she thought she could outrun five. Would try to.
She maneuvered herself back to back with them. She would run south by east while they ran north by west. By the time her control snapped, she would be well on her way.
She ran.
Heavy crashing foot falls had her sinking in the drifts this time, trudging on with heedless speed, slicing her shins on the crust of it.
It came echoing through the tethers then, through her feet on frozen earth. The reckless death that propelled the constrcuts bidden by her command through the woods. A family of foxes in their den, a wide swath of burrowed cicadas- she felt their deaths, as the constructs charged over them. She was repulsed. That couldn’t be right- couldn’t be the correct thing to do, regardless of her fear or encroaching dread. So Jaina willed herself to stop, hardly losing momentum as she slipped on ice. She held the last five tethers, and ripped them back towards her like so many hangnails. Cut them down.
Predictably- stupid stupid, stupid- all of that death flooded back towards her.

She reeled. It hurt, Tides, like her chest had been hollowed. She must have done something wrong.
Of course I did it wrong, I don't know what I’m doing. I’m frightened, bleeding and hungry and stuipid and alone.

She stumbled, tried to crawl. The ice dug into her palms, served to ground her, to concentrate her addled mind. It was little use though. Her ears were ringing, vision distorted and tunneled by her mask. Her body didn’t want to move, it wanted to vomit, curl in on itself- protect itself from the claws of unjust death. It wanted to lay still, and be covered in moss, sink to the bottom of a bog and be held, preserved and protected from the rot-
No. I am not alone.
Jaina reached for her dog's totem, and in an instant Gre’n was howling and snarling. His teeth nipped at her, goading her up, spurring her to motion.

It worked for a time, she covered ground. Perhaps a mile, maybe two. Not far enough. She was sick, her guts full of death and rot- but it did not still. It roiled and festered but did not compost, it consumed and chewed and did not excrete, it- She couldn’t stomach it any longer. She fell to her knees, vomiting, all while the terrible pressure crushed in on her ears as if she were fathoms below. Steady, heavily from the north.

She could see precious little.

Her vision was cloudy, unfocused. That would be blood loss. It had begun to snow, and the wind stung her eyes as it whipped the flakes into flurries. Jaina had the indistinct impression of two tall figures, and could hear the muted click of metal. See the suggestion of hooded cloaks, shrouded dark leather and blackened steel. She dropped her eyes, more out of exhaustion than any sense of decorum.
She swallowed thickly, and managed to speak in her best Thalassian, “ Kill me quick, if you must Kill at all, Lords. Something approaches and you should be away before it makes a meal of me.”

She closed her eyes, waiting. Beside her, Gre’n whined. Her grip on her staff was weak. Slick with blood from her oozing shoulder wound. She ignored Gre’n and his insistent nipping and bids for motion. Running was impossible, and would do her little good.

One of the strangers laughed, a exasperated sound. I know that voice-

“As if Our Lady would permit such waste,” quick brave words then more urgently, “ Thornspeaker, you must get up. ”

Jaina shifted- confused. Surely that was Friendly’s voice.

Then Pit’s voice too, and her gloved finger’s cautiously on her shoulder.

“ Ainsel- walk. Get up, we can’t carry you now- “

‘“ -Now. Up. ”
Gre’n whined as the wind picked up. Raised his voice to a warning howl.

“A wild shape Ainsel .” Friendly crouched beside her, creaking snow and leathers, as Jaina squeezed her eyes shut, “ Try, for me? We couldn’t hold him back- we must run. ”

Jaina fumbled for her rabbit skull at her waist. Smaller, easier to manage than the bear- but her hands shook and she couldn’t - couldn’t do it right at least.

She shuddered, fingers slick with sweat and blood. She pushed the rabbit skull over her eyes anyway.

She managed something in-between.

It hurt, her legs were too long, her teeth too sharp cutting her tongue and cheeks- but she was moving. She could feel the ravens anchored on to her spine- clawed feet wrapped around protruding vertebrae as her form cracked and shifted into something other . She ran, headlong and directionless. The ravens pinched and pecked and gouged to drive her, to steer her through the frozen scar.

She moved as fast as she could through the snowdrifts- bounding and stumbling. But she was drowning. Gasping. The whole landscape suffocating her under its death- her little charms were useless, foolish. Next to insulting . The scale of suffering unimaginable, the toll of what had been lost, what had been taken…And that was just the earth of it. There was nothing that Jaina could possibly do in the face of such reckless indifference to life. She might as well lay down and die too-

She fell through her boundary, tripping over the roots of her northernmost Cardinal Oak. She collapsed, went sprawling. Her skin shedding- shredding bark and fur like dandelion fluff as she curled into herself. Sobbed her relief into her hands.

Inside her boundaries- she could see the bright blue pulse of her wards, the soothing sense of safety woven in by the trees, by the little seeds waiting underground. She could hear insects slowly moving in the hollows of trees, feel the isopods in the soil, sleeping through the cold.

This was reality. She choked a few, shallow breaths. She was safe.

This was safe.

That helpless, heady loss hadn’t been hers - but she couldn’t shed it so easily.

Nor the awareness, the sensitivity to death.

She could feel all the ravens nearby.

Voices woke, her low and raised in disagreement. She was still on the stairs, stretched out, seated on the first, her head resting on the fifth. Light danced upon the ceiling. The fire had been lit, but the ornate grate had been pulled across- allowing heat, but minimal light. Jaina rolled her head. Snow slashed at the windows one more and piled high on the sil. She was not sure if she was waking or dreaming. The wind rattled the glass. A distant screaming called to her…

She blinked, pushed herself to sit, elbows on her knees. She blinked.

Four figures ranged about the hearth; one seated in the regal wingback chair, one standing behind, one leaning on the arm, and the other seated languidly on the hearth stone. Jaina didn’t look too closely- her eyes hurt- her head throbbed.

“Ainsel,” Captain’s voice was cool and hard from the chair. “ Report.”

Jaina passed a hand over her face- then hunched forward, head in her hands staring down at her dirty, ragged feet. Studying her feet was easier than straining her eyes, and her curiosity.

“Upon what, Captain?”

A low warning growl from ahead of her, vibrated Jaina’s teeth.
Jaina didn’t know what to say to that.. .I’m afraid of them. She worked to steady her breathing, reminding herself that these were her friends. She touched her hand to her shoulder and to her surprise, discovered tidy stitches.

“You could not wait?” Pit’s voice, from the hearth. Soft, accusatory. Hurt .
“What would it have accomplished,” Jaina asked tiredly, feeling as worn as her feet looked, “ All the waiting?”
“What would your death have accomplished?” This time it was Friendly, from behind the chair, “I would not have let you starve. I promised .”

There was truth there, real concern and care- but Jaina was not willing to bet entirely upon it. Not with the weight of Captain’s attention still trained on her. She could feel Captain’s eye on her like a weight on her chest. It shouldn’t have stung, the disappointment of some mercurial dead bird. But it did.

“ You told me three days Friendly. To wait three days. I waited six-“

“ You do not know the meaning of waiting. Of patience.” Friendly’s voice was tight. “We had almost returned.”

“ What if you hadn’t? You cant keep a promise if you’re dead. We went to look for you. Did you want me to leave you out there-“

“Yes.” Pit shifted on the stones, her words clipped and hard “ Yes. Yes, one hundred times, yes.”

Jaina heard Mallet stand- it had to be her. The slight limp, an awkward drag and slid on the tile. Jaina risked watching the light change on the tile, imagined where each person was in the two dimensional tableau of shadow. Mallet cleared her throat.

“ What cannot die, cannot grow old .” A shake of the head, “ Ainsel- does the river birch need your blood for water? Does it not have deep roots?”

Perhaps it was a clue? Captain was seated after all, had some authority over the others, and often exerted it. And When Jaina had glimpsed Friendly and Pit’s approach perhaps she hadn't imagined their appearance… The flowing script of each of the cabins flashed before her eyes- An indwelling of Ranger Lords. Perhaps Captain was one of those Lords. And that followed that Captain might actually be a Captain…
“ I am not one of your Rangers, Captain.” Jaina said slowly in her borrowed tongue, “ But I did try to obey you. ”

“ Try ?” Captain’s query was dry. “ You Failed. Disobeyed .”

There was a shifting, quiet murmuring, fast and hushed. It did not seem that Jaina was expected to answer. And beside, Captain had also ordered her to run, as soon as she could. And Jaina had obeyed then.
The shadows writhed across the floor and Jaina kept her eyes down.

Strange.
Captain had not denied that was what they were. Rangers. A military structure. Maybe? ..With the Dark Lady as General? Of course …. There seemed to be a consensus reached, and Mallet took a halting step towards Jaina, her voice low and rhythmic, returning to the song half sung before

“ What never dies, it can’t get old,

Listen loud, listen bold
What never comes can’t be foretold,
Listen hot, listen cold .”

Jaina felt the hair on her neck rise, the skin on her arms breaking into goose flesh. Felt words forming on her lips, an answer she’d read in Ulfar’s book. A poem about lichen and its properties. She raised her chin and said,

Mallet’s shoulders rolled back, and based on the blurred shadow, Jaina suspected that Mallet was satisfied,
“ I told you. Ainsel can do it. She is--”
“Ainsel is human.” Captain cut her off, said the word like it burned her tongue. “ With that comes inherent risk, regardless of what we may want to believe. Ainsel, tell me little lichen, what happened in the clearing?”

Jaina didn’t have the vocabulary, the grace, to continue in Thalassian. To her embarrassment deferred to Common,
“There were corrupted treants. I unmade them.”
“Before that?”
“We fought the corrupted treants.”
“Before that, Ainsel.”
“I killed a rabbit.”
“And how did you kill that rabbit, Ainsel? Was it with blade, or bow, or snare?”
Apprehension whetted Jaina’s tongue. “No I killed it with magic-”
“Who taught you that magic?”
“No one, Captain.I -”
“Did any text of Ulfar’s direct you to such things?”
“No, I only-”
“You only what Ansiel?”

Jaina had been backed into a corner. Disliked the way it made her want to bear her teeth. She felt that Captain wanted her off balance, was furious- But not only at me. At something I must remind her of. Jaina licked her lips, pressed her fingers against the bridge of her nose. She hadn't even meant to kill the rabbit with the ice. She'd only meant to stop its escape. She did not think that mattered.

“I was hungry.” Jaina said slowly, calmly, “My arrow failed to bring it down. I brought it down with magic.”

“How did you know to kill it with frost?”

Jaina swallowed hard. Decided to at least make use of the poetry she’d been made to read. Captain had been so fond of it as a punitive measure afterall.

“ How does the shrike know to spear? The hawk to strike from above? ” Jaina recited, her tone even, dutiful. “ How does She-the-Sun- know to shine bright enough not to burn?”

Uncomfortable Silence followed her words.

And then the pebble dropped in the muddy waters of Jaina’s thoughts.
Oh.
They are afraid of me too.
Captain was afraid of her.

It made Jaina at once proud, ashamed, and disgusted. The hypocrisy of it . Hadn’t Jaina lived in detached wariness of them all for nearly two years? Hadn’t Jaina endured- learned their strange ways and affectations? Hadn’t she come to care for them as best she could, even at her own expense? Had she not displayed that she could be trusted?
And now because she was able to kill a rabbit with a skill they hadn’t schooled her in, she was being rebuked?

Not rebuked… something else …. My own agency- my ability- is a threat. Whatever skills I have, are all tacit threats if they cannot control me. We are near equals, if not is skill- in force. That imbalance- the ballance of it- made them fearful. They need me.

“I believe you did not obey me. I ordered your retreat.”
Jaina remebered the terrible twist, the pain, the lack of her own mobility- the inability to move further away. She had not been allowed to leave them… so it followed,
“I could not. I am not yours to command, Captain.”
“And yet you would command me?” Her voice rang like steel and Jaina flinched.

Like so many others. She did not say it, but it hung there.

The fire crackled and hissed. Popped. Burned.

Gloved fingers prodded at her shoulder, pulled the wide collar of her shirt aside to examine it. It was the opposite side from where the silver bullet had struck her, and the new symmetry made Jaina smile ruefully.

“It should heal well.” Friendly pronounced, “Lucky you- I don’t seem to grow weary of stitching you together.”

“What?” Jaina asked, surprised.
“First that silver stone, and now splintered yew.” Friendly tapped each side in turn, “not to mention your leg. Such bites and puss. What a varied diet I’ve had. ”
Jaina didn’t know what to say to that. Other than,

“Thank you, Friendly.”

“Friendly has always been clever with her hands,” Mallet said drolly, her voice coming from where she leaned against the mantle, “It's getting her to stop that’s the trick.”

“And the hawthorn thorns, don't forget that.” Captain said, gruff, but not to be outdone, “Those would have festered too- deep vicious punctures.”
“Yes yes, you’re both wonderful healers,” Pit sniped, “But did you lay out the bones? Did you sharpen the knives, tan the hides? Tailor her clothes, fashion her bags? No.”
That had Jaina nearly turning her head, eyebrows rising in surprise.

“Thank you, Pit I-”
“We don’t ask for your thanks Ainsel-” Captain started-
Pit interrupted pointedly, “ -But they are appreciated. Offerings gladly accepted .”
Jaina stifled a chuckle. Then held herself carefully still as she felt contact along her side, Pit, seated on the hearth leaned against her. Head under her hand, Jaina felt the cool smoothness of straight hair. Did not look. Would not.

But the word choice again- offerings .
Jaina co*cked her head and kept her eyes fixed firmly on the flagstone beneath her. Then, she allowed herself the vanity of stroking Pit’s hair- it seemed to be what she wanted. She did not recoil when she heard something like a purr.
“ What other offerings might you appreciate? ”

Jaina hadn’t expected the silence that followed. The increased tension.

They can't say. Interesting.
“You have accepted thanks.” Jaina stated, though it was a question. She remembered the way Friendly had eaten the bullet, and Captain the thorns. Pit taking the eye of the rabbit she’d killed still bright with her own magic, and Mallet in her own way, eating the insects that had feasted on Jaina. She’d shared her food with all of them… She said her thoughts out loud.
“ In flesh, blood, stone and wood .”

Another long pause.

The wind rattled the glass, the hale tapping its many fingers against the pane.

“Cycles, Ainsel. Study.” Pit said it softly, haltingly.

That was right, gift giving was cyclical- generosity begot good will, begot generosity… strengthened relationships, certainly. And then a thought occurred to her: bright and sharp.

Strengthening the ravens.

Each time they’d exchanged words, or gestures or gifts- hadn’t their speech improved? Hadn’t their personalities developed? Didn’t more Ravens come.

And it followed that their Lady benefited much the same… Everything in the wood was hungry. So Jaina added,

“And in magic.”

“Yes.” Mallet’s voice was low, like the crackle of fire in the great. “And in magic.”