Journeys - 7 (Patreon)

Somehow, some way, the first five paragraphs of the second scene took longer than the entire rest of the chapter combined. Nothing worked to start it.

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"Clara, where the bloody hell did you go..." I grumbled as I rubbed at my tired eyes, hoping that the effort might make her easier to pick out. It didn't help that I'd barely slept last night after our conversation – I spent far too much of the night staring down at the gathered Thornspeakers from above, trying to discern which one amongst the late arrivals might be my erstwhile father.

Wondering what I should say to him, fighting with myself over what I even wanted to say, trying to decide if I even cared to hear him out and find out what excuse he had for leaving Mama...

In the end, the hours I wasted had come to nothing, I didn't have an answer to any of it. If it hadn't been for the deep pounding beat of the drums that had started with first light slinking across the sky, I might've overslept entirely; though, there was definitely a part of me that wished I had. At least for a little longer. There'd still been people trickling in from the further out camps, mingling and socialising, to show that I could've gotten myself a few more minutes of sleep when I first woke...

But that was before I'd wasted half an hour trying to find Clara amongst the crowd of all-to-all Kul Tirans that seemed disinclined towards the idea of people shorter than six foot existing. "Excuse me." I grumbled at another ruddy giant blocking my way. "I need to get through."

He blinked down at me bemusedly for a moment, then quickly pushed his neighbour aside to make room. "Sorry, didn't see you there." He rumbled apologetically. "Heading to the tree?"

"Yes." I sighed; at least they were polite when they noticed. "Thank you." I slipped past him to reach the tree and started scrabbling up it. I was several feet off the ground when I froze in place, feeling something under the bone-white bark. A link, a connection... a tether. Something nourished by the Life-bearing mist that rose from the Thornspeaker's enchanted spring that reached deep down, all the way to a yawning threshold that both was and wasn't beneath the soil.

Something that wasn't within the world we stood in.

Though I maintained my grip on the tree I was, for a moment, tempted to leap away from the aspen towards one of the pines that would hopefully not be a vessel to any Death magic. To be anywhere else than touching a conduit for a ritual that blended Life and Death magic together.

But, once again, it didn't feel wrong. There was no sickly rot, no crawling maggots, no infested ruin. Just... a cold inevitability being forestalled, a bridge between a spirit and Life as they went on a journey. Deciding not to make a scene, I suppressed a shudder and completed my climb; the crimson – blood red – leaves settled around me as I made myself as comfortable as I could on my perch.

I tried to keep an eye on the proceedings, to scan the crowd for Clara, but I couldn't help but focus on what was happening beneath the bark. The... calling home of the one who had gone elsewhere.

It was hard to understand what I saw and felt; I was unused to this form of magic. To any form of Death that wasn't actively malign, let alone this... blending of Life and Death where neither fought against the other. Where they... almost, possibly, complimented one another instead of contradicted.

Piecing together what was going on with the mists and deep down in the tangled roots of the aspen colony was like a far, far more unnerving, even terrifying, version of my time in Daralan. When I had to pick apart Arcane from the Astral to understand how Life factored into the magic, to give myself a way of rebuilding what they made with structure and order with connection and growth instead.

Somehow, nothing about what I saw, what I felt, not even the yawning inevitability of the threshold that felt like ice down my spine, evoked even a tenth of the disgust or nausea the Plague had. Or even lesser uses of necromancy.

No cloying stickiness that made me feel unclean, no wriggling rot trying to catch on my body, no stench that turned my stomach. The Death aspect of this ritual simply was. It existed. A certainty that would wait, patiently, for its moment.

No matter how long it took to come.

After a minute of examining everything I could, I let loose a breath I hadn't known I was holding, my white-knuckled grip on the tree loosening. "It's..." I was hesitant, uncertain, unwilling to ascribe anything positive to Death magic... Yet, I had seen enough to be able to describe what was happening. "Spiritwalking. A quest. Just, not to the Dream."

"Not just to the Dream." Clara said, startling me as she spoke from by my dangling feet. "Sorry, I meant to find you this morning... I... this is complicated." She clenched a fist, glaring down at it briefly before sighing and looking towards the enchanted spring. "Later. It won't be long now."

At her reminder, my stomach churned for reasons entirely unrelated to the magic on display. "Later." I agreed, feeling the tugging pull of the ritual's magic just as I heard the increasing tempo of the drums.

The sun's light, which had steadily been creeping down the mountain above us, reached the ridge above the enchanted spring and its stone menhirs. Stepping out from the mist, from a place he hadn't been a moment before, came Athair. He stood resplendent, his coat glistening with reflected light, while from his antlers hung a guiding constellation – beckoning home a traveller from their journey.

Across the gathered Thornspeakers all the hushed whispers and quiet conversations fell away with his arrival, turning instead to a murmured chant and prayer matching the beat of the drums. Some began to clap their hands and stamp their feet, a few even began to mutter prayers and chants of their own.

Not directed to Athair, no, but towards the now brightly glowing sigil of the Guardian Bears. The focus of everything, even the gentle wind on which the fine mist drifted, turned towards the stone – which freely drank in the power.

Deep below, barely noticeable beneath all else that was happening – only because I was touching one of the trees that acted in part as an anchor – the tether faded. The bridge between the two realms vanished as something passed through, and the timeless threshold closed to await another moment. Morwin had returned from his spiritual journey.

Nothing further occurred for over a minute, the anticipation only building further as the sun's rays slid further down the stone menhirs until they touched first the waters of the pool, and then, at last, the glowing stone sigil.

At that moment, when the dawn reached the heart of the ritual, a wall of the cliff covered in vines and moss that I'd not thought out of place or at all strange split open, revealing a cave from which two figures emerged. The smaller, wearing a confident, if tired, smile, had to be Morwin.

But it was the larger, the literal giant, that walked beside him, that caught my attention. Caught it and held it – my eyes widened in shock as I took in his appearance, his size. A mossy green beard which reached down to his belt, sharp blue runic tattoos which covered his arms, shoulders, and much of his exposed torso. A cloak of leaves and vines fell behind him, trailing on the ground, still alive much like the trunk-like staff he carried in his hand.

"Keepers." I whispered, barely believing my eyes, but the pieces fell into place easily. "That's a vrykul." They weren't taught by our ancestors, they were our ancestors. Ones had never gone into Ymirjon's slumber. "The Drust are vrykul."

Clara slapped my leg, shooting me a stilling look as the two walked out in front of the spring. I clamped my mouth shut, but otherwise paid her little heed. Keepers, he had to be twice my height at least.

"Sons and daughters of Drustvar!" Ulfar spoke with deliberate care, without yelling or shouting, yet his voice projected powerfully. Even Darius, who knew how to make his words carry across a crowd, would struggle to match the speech of this giant. "On this day Thornspeaker Morwin is apprentice no longer. He hunted his quarry in the waking world, and then again through the Dream and across the Veil!" He slammed his staff into the ground for emphasis. "Learning what it means to bear the power of the forests!"

I leaned forward, as if a few more inches would give me more insight into what I was seeing. How old was he? The Drust as a culture were ancient history to the Thornspeakers, the war against them thousands of years old. I knew that from what Clara had told me. But that was hardly ancient in the way I considered things.

Ymirjon's clans had entered their slumber more than ten thousand years ago. The origin of humanity, those secreted away in Tirisfal by their parents against the king's order, as much as centuries before that. Could the High Thornspeaker possibly know what had happened back then? Was he the last descendant of the Drust or someone who had been blessed with long life by nature?

The age of his eyes, the weathering of his skin, the care with which he moved and spoke, said much for the ages he had lived. But vrykul were already longer lived than humans, and deeply seeped in Life as he was...

I didn't know. I wanted to know. To hear of the Drust, to hear all but first hand the teachings of our ancestors which had given rise to the first witches. I could trade stories of his kindred in Northrend, bound in magical slumber, or of those serving Odyn on the Broken Isles.

Or the keepers, nothing Clara had said mentioned the keepers. Had they been forgotten? The idea that one who followed Freya's path so closely might not know of her didn't sit well with me.

"Now, Morwin," Ulfar turned to his apprentice, an immense hand gesturing him towards the Guardian Stone, "it is time to take up the blessing of the forest. To shape the form you have claimed. Show us all what you will Become."

As much as I did want to see how the Thornspeakers gained their forms, how Morwin might become a bear when I'd not seen hide nor hear of a bear spirit, let alone Wild God, to guide them, it was a struggle to look away from Ulfar. He was a vrykul, an ancestor... The giddy feeling in my chest was sheer awe.

Morwin knelt before the stone sigil and reached into a large bag at his side, withdrawing piece by piece everything needed to make up an effigy like those that guarded this place. The greatest piece was the skull of a strange bear, with piercing fangs lunging forward and crest-like spurs of bone stretching wide. Woven wicker branches, reinforced with bone, made up the limbs, while a coat of brambles and thorns was laid out to be its fur and hide.

"Oh bear," he chanted, speaking in the old tongue, albeit in a manner unlike any I'd heard before, "beast so might, it is you I sought."

One by one he clad his arms and legs in the branches and bones, each creaking and stretching with suppleness neither material held as he moved on to the next. "Protector. Guardian."

"Hide of stone." He threw the coat over his shoulders, it fell like a cloak for a moment before moulding itself to his back. Slowly it began to creep along his skin, across his body and around his torso. "Hide of thorns. Against those who threaten balance, a wall unbroken."

Lifting the skull above his head with his paws, its eyes shone with an ethereal, deathly, green glow. "I embody you. I become you. Grant me this so I might protect the cycle in your stead."

"In defence of balance we stand. Against darkness encroaching." Ulfar intoned, a great number – but not all – of the Thornspeakers adding their voices to his. "Ever to protect the cycle. All things live. All things grow. All things die. All things fade." Holding out a hand, he drew out the power of the Guardian Stone, the power that held the essence of the Guardian Bears, and guided it into the skull. Gathered and concentrated Life enveloping and binding to a spirit of Death. "All to live again."

In one swift motion that lacked any hint of hesitation, Morwin lowered the skull to meet his own – yet when they should have touched, when bone should have met bone and collided, they instead melded. Two became one, but it was not a clean thing; a pained bellow ripped itself from the throat of something not quite human, not quite a bear.

I jolted at the sudden scream, reeling back reflexively. I kept my eyes on what was happening, deeply mixed feelings roiling in my chest as I watched the living man and the spirit of the deceased bear slowly become one. Making a bear of a man and a man of a bear.

Ulfar was the source of the Thornspeaker's usage of Death magic, wasn't he? Or the Drust were. They would hardly be the only ones of their kind to turn to a darker path.

There were going to be some uncomfortable questions I'd have to ask when it came time for us to talk. What he meant by the cycle – the word he used was close to reincarnation, but it wasn't – the encroaching darkness, and what he, and the Thornspeakers as a whole, considered to be balance. If I didn't like the answers... I was going to leave, warn others about the wielders of Death magic, and never look back.

"The first time is always the worst," Clara whispered as Morwin began to thrash, sharp wicker claws tearing up the ground, "your body not yet used to change. The bear is the worst of them all too, even after you prove yourself to them, they always make a fight of it."

As Morwin's rage grew, lashing out further and with growing power, Ulfar pressed a hand down on his back and held him down. A roar of untempered fury echoed up at him, as if two throats had unleashed the sound.

"He doesn't even have a heartbeat." I muttered, finding myself somewhere betwixt confusion and horror. He wasn't alive right now, not in the way a mortal was – not wholly. Animated, living, but not a creature of flesh and blood. "You don't become animals. You become... elementals."

Something in between a treant and a bear, a druid form that was more spirit than animal. Something saturated with the power of Life which gave it substance, yet also entwined with Death from the spirit that gave it form.

Abruptly, the roaring stopped. Only the exhausted heaving breaths of Morwin, now a bear with a head of bone, a hide of thorns, and limbs of wicker, remained. Ulfar slowly lifted his hand away, letting the transformed Thornspeaker hesitantly draw his limbs under himself and turn towards the gathering. His eyes, now glowing spectral orbs, scanned over the crowd.

His jaw worked slowly and silently, with no flesh or blood nor tongue within, yet all the same, he spoke. "Brothers! I am Morwin Gladeheart, Thornspeaker!" He yelled, the deep voice of a man underlaid with the ethereal rumbling of a bear.

"Thornspeaker!" Came back an answering bellow, the drums resuming from where they had fallen silent. "Gladeheart! Brother bear!"

Half a dozen men and women surged forward, shedding their human forms and becoming bears themselves as they compared themselves to their newly appointed brother.

"He did well." Clara huffed, crossing her arms and smiling wryly. "Took me a week to learn how to talk while changed. Isn't as easy as it looks."

Despite myself, I felt a pang of envy at that. I'd not had any success in speaking as a fox, and what I could manage as a raven wasn't much more than a normal raven could manage – each word difficult, more singular than flowing sentences. It was enough, but it wasn't proper speech.

"The change is complete!" Ulfar tapped his staff against the hard ground, the gesture almost lazy and soft, yet striking with power that drew attention. "A new brother stands amongst us. A thing to be celebrated. Yet the business of this day is not concluded, the business of men is not concluded. Return, Thornspeaker Gladeheart, and be welcome as we greet lost kin from across the sea." He turned his old green eyes towards me. "Disciple of the wounded god, come before us and speak."

I met the old giant's gaze flatly and let out a disgruntled puff of air as I mulled over his oh-so-abrupt command. Speaking before all of the Thornspeakers fit my intended goals of linking them with the Order of Amber...

But had they changed with what I'd learned?

Ignoring the stares of the Thornspeakers who clearly expected an answer from me, I looked back at Morwin and the other elemental-bears. The transformed men and women who had not just taken on the form of an animal, but had gone a step further towards embodying the forces of nature itself.

"Ah." I blinked, my thoughts coalescing into a conclusion at last and my lips quirking into a wry smile. "Nature."

Letting out a giggle over how ignorant I'd been, I leapt from the tree and twisted. Midair I changed, hands giving way to paws and clothes to fur as I landed on the shoulders of one giant man to leap again onto the next. From one startled Thornspeaker to another, and even across the back of a bear, I bounded my way forward to land on the stones lining the enchanted spring.

I sat, curling my tail around me, and met Ulfar's eyes evenly. Nature, the cycle of nature, where the living take resources from the world and give them back, with interest, upon their deaths.

In the end, so much of it stems from the sun and stars, the nourishment cast down from above without care nor price, but from that came a complex web of life. All of which fed upon each other, from plants to herbivores to carnivores, and all returning to the soil just to start the cycle all over again.

That was the core of their philosophy, wasn't it? 'Natural' Death magic, rather than perversion of everything living that undeath was.

It would be a long time before I considered using such things myself, if I could ever bring myself to, but my concerns were... mitigated. The Thornspeaker's practices touched upon Death but they were no more necromancy than my Astral spells were restoration magic; it wasn't just Order, the Arcane, which had more than a single discipline of magic beneath its banner.

Snorting at my unintentional pun, I shifted once more and grasped my skirts to perform a formal curtsy towards Ulfar. "Thank you, High Thornspeaker, for this unexpected honour." I didn't bother masking the dryness of my voice. "If I'd known I was to have a speech, I might've bothered to prepare one."

"You are welcome." He replied, voice rumbling with half-suppressed laughter.

Shooting him an unimpressed look I turned to meet the gaze of the Thornspeakers. They were, beyond a few disgruntled looks from those I had used as stepping stones, attentive but unimpressed. I'd need to fix that. "I am Gwyneth Elwyn Arevin, a harvest witch of Gilneas blessed by both the Fox and Raven." I swept a hand through the air, trailing stars which sparkled freely for a moment before flying behind me, above the spring, to form into constellations taking the shape of Lord Renard and Rokkri. "Under the boughs of the Wild Home, the Great Tree Tal'Doren, I was present as the Order of Amber was formed and bear a token of the Blackwald's favour."

I drew out my amber pendant from beneath my blouse, channelling Life through it and setting it aglow with power. The mists of the spring surged, coalescing and shifting around the bead of Tal'Doren's amber, before flowing into a spectre of the tree that seemed to grow out of the spring itself. The familiar weight of the great tree's attention bore down on me, flickering with recognition and... contentment.

Even if I couldn't see him behind me, I knew Athair was standing taller and grander as he embraced the connection I had formed between the spring and Tal'Doren.

"Though I came to Kul Tiras as one step upon a journey to see Gilneas returned to the fold of the Alliance I could not, knowing of your existence on the isles as I did, let the chance to reconnect our shared traditions pass me by." I said, noting the almost sorrowful gaze Ulfar directed towards the misty visage of Tal'Doren. "Following the advice of Lord Waycrest I sought out the Heart of the Forest, and heeding the words of Athair and Athainne, I come here before you."

Beyond just Ulfar, there were greatly varied reactions to my theatrics. Many were, unsurprisingly, staring with rapt attention at Athair as he communed with Tal'Doren. Most interesting to me, however, were those who were fixed on the stellar mimicries of Lord Renard and Rokkri, surprise and confusion written on their faces.

It made me realise that though I had seen plenty of the Thornspeaker's odd mingling of Life and Death magic, I hadn't seen any signs of Astral magic amongst them. Nor much in the way of elementalism. A useful bargaining chip, if nothing else.

"Sadly, much has been lost over the millennia, and much more has changed." Spinning up a new batch of starlight, I shaped these ones into dozens of the runes Mathis had taught me. "We remember our ancestors, we remember their tongue, and keep to the ways they taught us, but much of what they left behind was destroyed by the ignorant in the throes of religious fervor. Only recently has it been safe for my kin to come out of hiding – to openly aid the people we have served in secret since our ancestors walked the land."

I glanced at Ulfar; perhaps it would be more accurate to say mainland now.

In my pause a bear – Burton – released his form and crossed his arms as he stared at me. "Your Order serve the cityfolk?" He barked scornfully. "The same cityfolk who'd foul the rivers and clearcut the forests if we let them?"

Unfortunately, his disdain for the idea wasn't his alone, and I could see quite a few nodding along with his words. "To protect our people from the ravages of natre, and nature from the foolishness of our people." I replied evenly. The Thornspeakers were people who, even at their most civilised, might rank amongst the wildest of witches; it wasn't hard to see why the idea of being subordinate to cityfolk wouldn't sit well with them. "But that is our path, not yours."

"A bridge between the wilds and civilisation." Ulfar rumbled thoughtfully, stifling any further contention. "Something we often lack. Birchgrove?"

"Aye!" A greying man answered. "Wonder sometimes if the rest of you forgot we're not alone on the islands. If I weren't friends with Dorian and got her to vouch for us, what'd've happened when the townsfolk got spooked over necromancy?" He scoffed loudly. "Nearly had the Proudmoores set on us!"

"Superstitious idiots." Burton spat.

"Perhaps." Ulfar mused, then waved a hand dismissively. "Yet such foolishness makes Birchgrove's friendship more valuable, not less."

Clearing my throat loudly I interrupted their tangent. "Though we hold a shared connection with nature and have a common heritage, our circumstances and lands have seen our peoples diverge and walk along different paths. Our skills and knowledge have developed differently, taking different forms," I gestured to the elemental-bears and then back to constellations behind me, "but that is not to our detriment. No! I do not propose that we throw aside our differences and become one, nor do I propose that we give up the paths we have chosen.

" just as I seek to reunite Gilneas with the Alliance and make us all stronger for it, I see that the Thornspeakers and the Order of Amber could learn from one another. Our ties, our shared connections, our shared heritage, can only make us stronger together than we are apart."

With my speech finished, what I wished to be said done with, I clasped my hands behind my back and dipped my head to Ulfar.

He took a moment to tear his gaze away from Tal'Doren, blinking his enormous eyes to push something away as he looked down at me. "A fair speech. Whether it is a fair proposal is yet to be decided – we have much to learn," He chuckled, "before we can know what there is to learn from one another. Harvest Witch Gwyneth, will you answer the questions of the Thornspeakers?"

"Of course." I answered easily. "So long as it is not a secret of the Order I am glad to answer, just as my questions have been welcomed and answered during my time here." Reciprocating was only fair, and if it made them more inclined to agree to my proposal, all the better.

-oOoOo-

"That went better than I expected it to." I mumbled softly, standing up from my stone seat and stretching to get the kinks of my back from sitting on a rock for so long. It was well past noon now, and with the curiosity of most of the Thornspeakers satisfied they had steadily drifted off to join in on the celebrations of Morwin's success that were happening further down the slope. "I would've preferred more warning, however."

Still, lack of warning or not, the reaction of the Thornspeakers to my impromptu speech and question and answer session had been good. There was some scepticism, mostly from those like Burton who viewed our work with the 'cityfolk' and our decision to reveal ourselves publicly to Gilneas as foolish, but it never ventured into outright hostility.

Part of that was Ulfar and Athair's clear approval of my presence. Another part likely the still lingering visage of Tal'Doren looming at my back and the glowing bead of amber dangling from my neck.

But there had been plenty who displayed genuine interest in their own right, asking questions that ranged all the way from insightful questions of our faith and connection with nature all the way done to the most banal aspects of our way of life. A few had even returned with their own stories of aiding locals, farmers and hunters, to counter points raised by Burton's lot – support that I definitely appreciated.

At this point I was certain that, though it hadn't been decided yet, it wouldn't be long before someone would be sent to Gilneas to make contact and establish communications between our groups. The question was whether it would blossom into something greater than that.

I hoped it would, but that would depend as much on Celestine and her reaction to their Death magic as it would the Thornspeakers themselves. Keepers knew if I was in her position I'd struggle to give them a chance.

Ulfar waved a hand bigger than my head dismissively at my complaint. "One must be prepared to act when given the chance or one may not have the chance to act at all." Slowly he rose to his feet. "I would invite you to join me in my den this evening. You have... questions of me, as I have of you."

"Mmm, I do." I replied, meeting the Drust vrykul's emerald gaze. Some of my awe at his presence had faded over the last few hours; he was a vrykul, but he was Drust in culture. Treating him like a piece of ancient history was both unfair and inaccurate.

He nodded tiredly. "I will look forward to it. Now, we have kept you young ones for long enough. Go and join the celebrations while this old man takes a chance to rest."

As he trudged away I turned to Clara. "Well, I'm hungry. So why not?" The smell of roast boar in the air had been annoying me for the last half hour. Skipping breakfast hadn't been an intentional choice but now it was rearing it's ugly head. "I suppose I should offer Morwin my congratulations too." Achieving a form was definitely a noteworthy accomplishment.

"If you can pull him away from the other bramblebears." Clara snorted, taking my hand to pull herself up – and nearly pulling me down in the process. "Sorry. We mostly keep to ourselves, uh, by our forms I mean, at Becomings. My own for the falcon didn't have anyone who wasn't one, not even my ma'." She shrugged as I looked at the large gathering of Thornspeakers we were moving towards. "More come to the bear's because they happen here and Ulfar often selects a new apprentice or two at them."

I hummed thoughtfully, did they have more forms than that? Stag or doe would make sense. "You've falcon but not bear then. Any others?" I asked, then caught myself. "If that isn't rude to ask."

"Hah!" She snorted and shook her head. "It's not rude, most of us brag about who has more. wirefalcon and thornclaw for me, and I've thought about taking the bramblebear's trials at times. Runestag's need Athair's blessing," she looked at the stag who was follow Ulfar into his den, "and I've never had that."

"Fox and raven for me, as you know." Thornclaw would be their... cat form, if I was to guess based on what I knew of druids from before. "The only two we have, both of which require the blessing of their respective god."

We kept up the conversation as we walked, Clara bemoaning the month she spent in Greenstalker's den to become a thornclaw while I told her of the trial Rokkri had set for me to take up her form. Even with her being involved with a spirit, this Greenstalker, to gain one of her forms, it was so much less... personal. The way she described it, she could feel the effigy she had forged within herself, but nothing greater.

I felt Lord Renard in the very core of my being, that spark of his essence that he'd gifted me so that I could take his form. Rokkri, though she hadn't given it as a gift, had still given it to me as well; I felt her too. Clara had no such connection to the Wild Gods.

Though I didn't say it, I couldn't help but feel there was something sad about that. Something missing even if their way let so many more of them take up animal forms.

Another difference amongst many; just like the way the Thornspeakers celebrated. The drums had returned in force and a pair of harps had joined them, but where we would have men and women pairing off to dance at a Mingling... here they were squaring up against one another, alternatively showing off their moves and wrestling. We walked past right as a woman a head taller than Clara threw her opponent into the dirt and held up a muscled arm to a chorus of cheers.

Even some of the bramblebears were going at it, swiping and biting each other in mock combat. It wasn't clean, leaving bloody rents in each other's hide, but by the shouting and betting it wasn't unusual either.

And, since I saw an older Thornspeaker woman tending to the bruises and scratches other combatants had accumulated I had to assume that they had things well in hand. Magical healing, especially when performed with skill, allowed for far more than a mundane spar would.

Taking a bite out of my stick of roast boar I mused over that. Could one call any battle between a pair of bears made bones, thorns, and wicker branches mundane?

"–Talloren were right!" A man's voice caught my attention amongst the din of the party. "Might've heard it wrong, but a great tree like Gol Inath? Tal'Doren? Saw it with my own eyes and none of you believed me!"

"It were a tall tale, Gun'."

I pushed through the crowd, elbowing people aside to get through. There was only one person here who could've known the great tree by the name Talloren.

"You know I ain't no liar, Balos. And here's the proof of it, coming right up to the pier to prove it! A witch just like the ones I told you about, though a bit one the stronger side for them." He crowed eagerly at those he was talking to, as if he had the right to brag about me. About any of us. "You're just mad you didn't go looking like I told you to, I was busy –"

Bursting out from beneath two Thornspeakers I got my first look at the man who was my father. The amber eyes which were a reflection of my own, the dark brown hair that had changed my from the light brown of Mama's, the nose which matched mine so well... I hated that I could see myself in his face.

"Talloren and the witches you met, is it." I said flatly, my emotions roiling so hard they felt like they were going to boil over – no, they were boiling over. I could feel it in the wind, the brewing storm around the mountain. "You must be Gunther. I've heard about you, you know. I don't suppose you remember an Irwen Arevin, do you?"

"What?" Gunther stared back at me, shocked by my sudden interruption.

"She's my mother. I look a lot like her when she was my age, same height and almost the same hair and face." I waved a hand at myself. Mama wasn't older than I was now when it had happened, and clearly the resemblence was enough, as I could see the gears working in his head. "You see, a man named Gunther came to a meeting she was at, wooed her, and led her away... in the end she got me when he left her behind."

I growled the last, anger taking the fore before falling away to a strange desire for him to like me. To want me. What would it have been like to grow up amongst the Thornspeakers...? To learn about the cycle from his knee...?

"Ah."

The sound he made was so small it seemed completely insufficient for the realisation it had to be, his hand reaching slowly towards me as if to caress my face and examine my features more closely. It was utterly wrong, so calm, for the realisation of what he'd done to Mama...!

"Gwen, where did you–" Clara broke through the crowd after me as I stared down Gunther with too many conflicting emotions. "Oh, oh no." She choked. "Why? Why did you have to show up so late?! I was looking for you all morning! I wanted to give you a chance, to let you explain yourself, but no!"

"Clara–" Gunther croaked, his voice failing him. "You know? She's my daughter, you sister? I've another child?" His hand fell onto my shoulder and I stared at it blankly. "How long have you known?"

"Damn it all, dad! That's not what–" Clara snapped at him, pulling my attention away from his hand as I registered what she... what my half-sister had said. "Yes, I met her yesterday, the sister I have because you betrayed your oaths to ma' when you went on your trip!" She gesticulated wildly. "Did they mean nothing? What is Amberley going to think? What's Lorena going to think?! Tides forbid Oswin grows up thinking it's acceptable!"

Half-sister. My older half-sister. Because Gunther, the adulterous bastard had been married when he led Mama on and set her on her self-destructive path. I was never going to forgive him.

I sucked in a sharp breath through my teeth, forcing myself to hold on to my temper. The wind was already blowing strongly and I could feel the storm brewing as the elements reacted to my emotions; the first raindrops were just starting to fall.

This was not the impression I wanted to make. I was angry at him, absolutely livid, and just looking at him made me hate him, but I wasn't a child throwing a tantrum.

Not this time.

"Clara! What's important is that she's family." Gunther hissed at her. "Had I known for a moment I would have gone to fetch her, bring her home and raise her properly." He squeezed my shoulder, his touch now burning. "Lorena will be angry, yes, but she would–"

Flooding my arm with power I slapped his hand away, my skin stinging from the force of the blow. "What right do you have to call me family?" I growled.

He reeled back, not from pain, but with confusion. "You are family. My daughter. I can see it – you have my eyes, Gweneth... I should've been there for you. I'm sorry." He reached out again. "But I'm here now, for whatever–"

I slapped his hand away again. "I have a family. My mother, her sister in all but blood, my cousins and more. The family I grew up with and know. You?" I scoffed at him. "You ran. You took my mother, toyed with her heart, lured her away from her apprenticeship under Speaker Grims–" I threw my arm out towards Ulfar's den, "–effectively from her apprenticeship to High Ulfar, and dragged her across the country until she thought you loved her back! Then you fucked her till she got pregnant, and left her behind!"

"Greenstalker's thorny balls, Gun'." One of the other Thornspeakers mumbled. "I get liking a pretty face, but you don't mess with an apprenticeship."

"It was her choice." Gunther snapped back sharply. "The whole thing was her choice! She picked me at their Mingling and followed me when I left, I'm not to blame for anything that happened to her."

"Not to blame?" I growled angrily. "Did you even stop to consider how she would feel when you–"

Clara stormed past me, stepping right up into Gunther's face with arms tense and straining. "Is that supposed to make it better?" She spat. "You're the one who taught me our oaths are sacred, that a promise carved into bone is carved into our souls!" As he stood dumbstruck she lashed out, snatching something from around his neck and tearing it free. "Tell me this matters! Tell me it matters, dad!" She shook the bone necklace in front of him before throwing it to the ground, into the spilled ale, and stomped it into the cold dirt. "You can't. Because it was a lie."

A moment of silence fell, Gunther gaping at her silently as he tried and failed to find a response, before Clara let out a choked sob and turned and fled.

I caught a glimpse of her eyes as she left. They were filled with tears.

"Fitting." I chuckled at him. "You destroyed my mother. Broke her confidence along with her heart so badly she still hasn't recovered. I'm not glad Clara was hurt by this... but you?" My lips twitched into a vicious grin. "You seem to care about family... it's only fitting that your punishment is them coming to hate you."

There was a part of me, not a small part, that want to make him feel the pain Mama did. To make him hurt more than he already was. I didn't like that part of me much, the petty cruelty I felt, and this was not the place for it.

It took more effort than was reasonable to do so, but I crushed it, and turned to leave. I knew now he wasn't worth shit.

"Gweneth–" He started, a footstep telling me he was following after me, but it was only one. "Let me go!"

"Nope." Someone rumbled grimly. "Not a chance, Gun'. She's a guest and you've pooped the deck enough as is. Oi, Harvest Witch, don't go blaming Clara, you hear? Ain't her fault this happened."

"I know that." I grumbled under my breath. I didn't blame her, I didn't... she was my sister. I... liked her well enough, had liked her before I knew, should that change things?

No, no it shouldn't.

Looking up at the sky it was still too early to go speak with Ulfar, he wanted me to meet him in the evening. The thought of chasing after Clara, my sister, flickered through my head for a moment... but I'd known her two days. I wasn't the right person to comfort her, she was amongst her people and all I'd be doing was intruding.

Letting out an explosive sigh I looked at the parting crowd of Thornspeakers before me, dozens upon dozens of witnesses to what just happened. There were questions there.

Sod. That. With a twist I changed into a raven, croaking grumpily as I took to the air – I'd find somewhere to wait until Ulfar was ready to talk. Once we were done... I'd head back to the boat early. I was glad to have found the Thornspeakers, but I no longer wanted to stay overlong.