Stories from RhyDin & The Rings

Late summer, 2013 C.E.

The hat-shaped stove pipe spitting pale smoke in the morning haze told Ettyn that the Wildling hovel offered what she was after: ale for trade, and if she was lucky, killing work to be had. She passed under the wary gaze of three horses, two of which whickered, and gave away her quiet approach to the door of knobby branches lashed together with sinew.

With a gloved hand she fingered the bone and antler charms dangling between the slats, and leaned in to smell the herbs in a hide sachet with a bear-like huff of her nostrils.

The bawdy, wheezy conversation within had died, but none moved to bar the entryway. The slayer jerked the door open, rattling the wards meant to keep her out, and met the narrowed, hateful eyes of the patrons with a bitter kind of fury that reminded them to be cautious.

The woman stirring the kettles and cauldrons met her black eyes warily, and jerked her head when she asked: "Whit seek ye, slayer? We've no sweet bridie of 'corn or bairn 'ere."

Ettyn bared a few teeth in a scowl and slapped her hands on the table. She looked askance at the man nursing his small beer there, and he spat and sulked away to the clay hearth, giving the slayer the wider berth she sought. The lean relieved the searing aches in her thigh and side, accursed reminders of old wounds, and her eyelids fluttered as she found enough steadiness to bear speaking to these people. "Rwy'n ceisio diod a gwaith," she growled the song-like words low, and at the sound of her voice, the sneering patrons hid in their drinks and turned away.

The brewster leaned forward to meet Ettyn's challenge, less afraid than the others. "We've baith some luck, slayer. A've wirk tae send ye awa' wi', 'n' a freish clay boattle sae ye'll nae titch mah cups nor linger under mah roof."

She tore parchment from an iron pin on the shack wall, slapped it down in front of Ettyn, and turned away to fill a bottle with a murky juniper brandy that smelled of gin gone wrong.

Ettyn flattened the clean paper under her fingers and used one to trace the words. "Pwy oedd y negesydd?" she asked, frowning as she put letters she knew to less familiar sounds.

"A wash cloak fae rhydin. Watchful Company o' Wardens, he said. Fairies teuk thair young wha kin bide, if they've nae fallen tae far under curse." The woman's eyes locked on Ettyn's, and the slayer rumbled deep in her throat under her judgment. "As saem dae."

The bottle was thrown instead of handed, and when the slayer palmed it, the brewster pointed the iron pin at her.

"Mynd that ye dinnae sloch thaim. They're wanted alive, oonlike saem."

Ettyn watched her for five full seconds, still as an asp until she struck. She nearly pierced her palm on the pin but caught it low between two fingers instead, spinning it to point at the brewster's chin. Patrons scrambled from their seats, one to grab a shillelagh, another a seax. The brewster had her hand halfway around a cleaver and scowled up at the slayer.

Ettyn's black eyes flickered over her foes, and she cracked a scar-stretching grin, utterly unimpressed. "Any live, I'll save them from their curse. None others deserve it..." Her eyes settled on the brewster. Her grin widened. "None that could bear it."

With a sweep of her hand she threw a few coins into the brewster's face, and tucked the pin into her bracer as she stalked out.

† † † † † † † † †

Dusk was hot and hazy five leagues west, where Ettyn strayed as close to the city of RhyDin as she ever had. She could not see it from here, as she had from across Kaiju Lake, but she could hear the distant drone of oil-burning machines and smell a chemical-infused fish-stink that spread into a far-reaching miasma in the late summer heat. In the meadow the contract had named, a mile north of the Lower Tiamori Liths, she set her eyes on the cleanest people she had ever seen -- and she'd laid her eyes on lords before.

There were a dozen humans, middle-aged, in patterned clothes with neat buttons, and buckles and laces on their shoes; another, the clean-cloaked Warden the brewster had spoken of, who had at least some mud on his boots and dirt and moss under his fingernails; and the oldest human the slayer had yet met. She had on a soft pink skirt and a white silk tank; her eyes were green and bright, but touched with the fraying sadness of someone who had seen death already and feared to see more.

The meadow was well and lately trampled, golden grass bent flat all over and stuck to earth rendered halfway to mud, and at the center stood the remains of a bonfire. Containers of soft, bright metal that smelled of fruit and barley drinks littered the ground around it, and among them light coats, shoes, and short stockings in a wide range of colors.

She lingered beyond the tall tussocks that remained upright at the treeline, and did not jerk but merely remained still and vigilant when she heard another body approach from behind. Another Warden, and her gloved hands smelled like death. She did not sense the slayer concealed in the underbrush, seeking instead the eyes of her colleague.

The message was grim and familiar. Ettyn knew it before she spoke. "We have found... six people," she said quietly, the murmured words reaching her sensitive ears. "My colleagues are taking them to our longhouse. I need you all to come with me, please... help us to identify them. Please."

Grief and anger burst from those who had still held hope only moments ago. Some wailed. Others had questions. Ettyn found herself tightening her jaw, and strained forward to listen as the Warden's comrade approached. "I'm sorry. Please -- we'll tell you everything we can at the longhouse." The request and raised hands seemed to stave off the questions, and she exchanged quiet words with the other Warden.

"Any sign of the fae?"

"Nothing. They scattered the bodies through circles. Danced to death for his amusement. Poor souls."

"And the Robertson girl?"

Both Wardens looked to the only three that had not gone off with the others -- a middle-aged couple and the older woman, the only ones who had not been addressed.

"If she's dead already, we haven't found her yet. We'll ride out tonight, but," the Warden shook her head ruefully. Ettyn knew what she was thinking. The fae were too quick; they would hear the Wardens coming; and when they failed to save her, this Robertson would be dead by dawn.

The slayer's eyes flickered and slipped away from the Wardens who'd given up hope, and settled on the old woman who still clung to it. Her green eyes were on the ground, and a trail of loose flowers and bright petals that had flown free from a chain. She stooped to collect the nearest one, closed shaky fingers around it, and pressed her eyes shut. "Oh, Howard," she whispered tremulously.

One Warden had left, and most of the others with her, when Ettyn broke from the treeline. The other Warden scowled at the sight of the blighted figure, resting a hand on his filigree sword, but the slayer ignored him. Her destination was the chain of flowers she knew as Gwawr Cymru. She closed her fingers around it and raised it to her nose and took in a deep, rumbling breath.

Fragrant. Sweet. Rose-like, but softer. And salt-bitten, like they had grown by the sea.

When she raised her eyes, the other three were staring back at her. The couple clung to each other, uncertain and afraid that this was the monster that had eaten their daughter, come to tell them her doom and doom them, too. But the old woman met her eyes, old enough to fear only the loss of a future beyond her.

Their gazes locked for a long enough moment that Ettyn knew this, though she did not understand it. Her kin had taught her to help them, and little enough to help herself, and then left her alone - one way or another.

But this woman would give anything for her granddaughter who remained in the forest. "Please," she said to Ettyn, softly and quietly, and the slayer could only nod.

"I've taken your mark," she growled at last, coming to her feet to face the Warden, and brandished the bounty at him and released it, letting it float to his feet. "I'll be back."

She tucked the flower chain into her breastplate and turned away, slinking back into the Wilds low and fast, after the bright, sweet trail she'd scented.

† † † † † † † † †

Ettyn's blacked out eyes looked everywhere, taking in the Wilds as they sped past her in her silent, swift-footed scurry. She grasped tree trunks and steadied saplings with hands she kept empty for the chase, though it meant another split-second unarmed if she came upon her quarry unexpectedly. She slowed not on the hills for the view but the dells for the scent that settled in the muggy and close forest air, nostrils flaring, huffing like a bear -- a beast best left alone by those that heard it.

Twice she'd lost the scent and twice she'd found it, and now it had faded again. She crept to the edge of a slow rise, where runoff cut across a deer trail and the cuts in the underbrush forked three ways, and stopped to remember.

Her mind swam with pain, the curse that reminded her of three places where she had been clawed and the feeling of a hole opening in her hand where her aunt had stuck her. It was a bitter ache, hard-edged and hardening her heart, far from the pain she'd seen written on the faces in the meadow.

Soft, fragile like a flower, and easy for the cruel and careless to pluck and crush.

The courtly fae she'd met and heard tell of across this vast stretch of Wilds were a stripe of cruel all their own. They would not want their captive lost deep in the wilderness, bright rags and bones only found years after she had already been given up for dead. They would crush that hope in their hands while it yet bloomed.

And they would cultivate their captive's hope just the same, if they could.

She turned west at the fork, away from the fairy rings where the other bodies had been left, and into the wooded heights where the lights of RhyDin flickered into view beyond the trees.

† † † † † † † † †

"Wake up, girl," the fae princeling hissed through sharp canines, not deigning to touch the young woman bundled under dirty elvish silks; instead he flicked his slender fingers at the air, and the ethereal phantom knights that accompanied him and others of his station across the Veil grabbed hold of her blanket and rolled her out into the bed of wilting golden wildflowers. He allowed her to see her surroundings, to shrink from his servants, but silenced her with a command: "Look upon the city and dance your last for me."

Ettyn watched the young woman as she stumbled to her feet, limbs sluggish with uncomfortable rest and exhaustion; green eyes like her grandmother's moved against their will to the lights of New Haven, where the slayer reckoned her home must have been. The familiar flash of pain in her eyes went deeper than the aches of the body. Crushed petals of the Gwawr Cymru crowned her tangled hair.

The slayer's black eyes focused on the fae's long fingers, the way he clung to the air like it was solid and there were reins in his grasp. He drummed a staccato against his thigh, jangling his belt of milky agate stones with increasing agitation. Whatever hold he had on the phantoms, he could not call to them by hand, at least not while he held his last dancer under his charm. "Wyn! Aera!" he demanded, barking the Sylvan Elvish over his shoulder. "Aer nesh tel'qui. Sal hin nesh arali Dalsehan!"

Ettyn knew his words, those of the Grugach hunters but with a voice of sharpened silk. He would listen for the approach of rangers and their horses' hooves, while his phantoms made music for his amusement. Her gaze tracked their slow dispersal to the margins of the wildflower meadow, clattering cairn stones and drumming on an ash tree stump. Then she studied the man once more, the long silver sabre on his back, his lithe and agile shape, and decided how she would try to kill him.

She crept along the edge of the clearing, crouched low enough that she was bent nearly double. With each step she removed another arrow from her quiver until there were six in his grasp, and pushed a clay flask from the belt at her hip. She thumbed the cork and held the container low to the ground, spilling silvered oil over the barbed arrowheads.

She left the flask on the ground, unslung her bow, and found an angle on the three musical phantoms. The distance to the princeling was close, and he had settled into distraction. She picked her first target, nocked an arrow, and let fly.

† † † † † † † † †

The phantoms were shredded to wisps within seconds, shrieking as silvered steel ripped through their ethereal forms, and Ettyn burst from cover before the last arrow had struck. She dropped her bow as her long, loping strides collapsed the distance between herself and the reeling princeling, and a silver sword and her aunt's keen hunting axe filled her hands.

What he chose to do next would depend on cruelty or indignity, based on her experience with courtly fae here. She pressed into the latter, shouting in his face when he drew his sabre to make his choice:

"FLY FROM ME, YOU TRUFFLE-ASSED SWINEHERD!"

It did not inspire him to flee. Instead, he bared his sharp teeth and released the invisible reins that bound the young woman to his glamour, turning it on the slayer with a twist of his fingers. "Dance on the lake bottom, you motherless filth."

But keenly honed senses and awareness of her own mind made the slayer hard to befuddle. She laid into the princeling, her sword clashing and sliding along his sabre and slicing a deep wound across her thigh, and a half-pirouette embedded her axe in his opposite side. He cried out and crashed into her, overhand blows grazing her arm, cleaving through padding and cutting the straps on her breastplate. Each stagger moved her along his orbit, until she stood between him and the young woman released from her dance.

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw her drop to the ground, curled into a ball to make herself small, both hands covering her head.

The slayer hacked deeper into the fae's abdomen, blue blood spilling across enchanted steel, but his riposte flung her back before she could wrench it free. The sabre cut her from collarbone to rib and clove her breastplate nearly in two, wrenching a bloody wheeze from her throat. He advanced with a snarl, his sabre held high and pointed down at her heart, and his lips twisted into an ugly smirk when her sword hand braced low to catch him.

He knew what to do. She saw it in his eyes. He'd pin her weapon to the earth and claim her ugly head with his next blow, and find a fitting pit to toss it down.

The iron pin fell from her bracer into her empty hand and she flicked it into his eye.

He screamed. The impact was nearly soundless, but she could hear his face sizzling and peeling away from the cursed metal. He was the one reeling away from her now. She didn't let him.

She grabbed hold of his long hair, seized it in a bloody fist, and jerked him forward as she bucked her head to meet him. The skin of her hard brow split as it struck the broad head of the pin, driving the point the rest of the way into his brain.

He croaked unintelligibly, the sabre slipping from his grasp as he pawed at his ruined face with twitching fingers, tripped backwards over a cairn and fell to the ground, the stones half-burying him in an unhallowed grave.

The slayer wheezed out a ragged breath as she wrenched the ruined breastplate from her torso, and spat a glob of sluggish black blood while she waited for his life essence to seep into her flesh, stitching and mending the worst of her wounds with sharp spikes of pain.

† † † † † † † † †

Gwawr Cymru. As the smell of her own blood abated, the fragrance of the flowers filled Ettyn's nose, from the crown on the young woman's head and the chain that dangled around her own neck, free now from the breastplate. She watched her, still curled up and covering herself from her harm, as she chugged a flask of something viscous and gray from a green glass flask that quickened her healing. She recovered her weapons, sniffed at the princeling's sabre and kicked it away when she whiffed curse in its silver, and pocketed his rings and coin purse instead.

The young woman still had not risen. Or fled, which Ettyn had rather hoped for, to spare her from seeing her disgust; but staying small and under cover until she knew the danger had passed was the smartest course, she reasoned. She crouched in the tall grass beside her, slipped the flower chain from around her neck, and held it out to her. "This yours?" she said quietly, and watched her uncover her eyes. Their motions were erratic with shock and bewilderment, but she accepted it automatically. "I saw your kin. They're hale and whole. Can... take you back to the city, tell someone to send for them... if you want," she added uncertainly.

In answer, the young woman only nodded, and pressed into Ettyn's shoulder when the slayer scooped her up. They turned for the city lights, and the home that awaited her there.

† † † † † † † † †

Ettyn took her as far as a small field behind a line of houses in New Haven, as many as she'd ever seen in one place, so close together. The men living there had not gotten close, but they heard her explain who the young woman was, and sent word by some means she could not intuit to her family and the Watchful Company of Wardens. While they waited, the young woman held onto the slayer, leaning on an open hut of broad-planked wicker.

An older Warden arrived with the young woman's kin, and only now did she step away from the slayer to stumble over to her parents. Ettyn was paid in a heavy pouch of gold for the princeling's signet ring, but the Warden did not congratulate her or speak of future work. Something terrible had been done to earn her curse, and the people who warded this place made no effort to invite in one who would earn it.

She retreated into the pitch black treeline, at the edge of the range of the mechanical lights ensconced on the back of the house, and cast a parting look at the young woman and her family.

The grandmother looked back, once again meeting her green eyes without any fear for herself. She would have given anything, and now she had her granddaughter. They had completed an exchange, though understanding the price would take time to realize. She raised a pale hand, and the slayer rumbled and nodded minutely.

Then she turned and stepped away into the cooling dark, away from the city and its powerful grasp, though the smell of sweet peas still clung to her clothes.

January 24, 2021

Someone grabbed her arm and pulled. Someone else did the same to her leg. Sweet Pea slid most of the way off the couch. She didn't hit the ground. Instead, she hung with half her body still on the cushions while the other half hung between two sets of hands like a hammock. The sound of laughter woke her when the motion hadn't.

"Wake. Up. Girl." Each word was punctuated by a jiggle of her feet.

She kicked enough to go tumbling to the floor, laughing. Last night's wine kept her from feeling where she hit it. The cursing of the girls, two she'd only met a few days ago, only made her laugh harder. Her head fell back as they hauled her to her feet.

"We gotta go. They don't want us here." Sweet Pea couldn't remember the name of the blonde who took her hand to lead her towards the door.

The brunette on her other side offered a little hope. "There's a new Inn. An old Inn, but it's got a new owner. We're going there."

She navigated the single step to the street on unsteady high heels. "Is it a party?" She asked.

"An opportunity." The cool voice that answered came from a tall man with white hair who already stood on the street next to a dark haired woman nearly his height.

Others filtered to the street behind her. The two who had retrieved her from the couch melted into the gathered bodies as the evening air pushed the fog from her head. She swiped a finger under each eye, and came up with it covered eyeliner that had smudged while she'd slept. She used her thumbs to keep wiping until they came up clean.

In the house behind them, music started. Neighbors picked up the cue. Before the troop made it more than three houses away, the entire street had woken. Doors were left open to allow the sounds inside to spill into the night. Yelling from inside punctuated the hushed conversations they passed outside.

Sweet Pea followed those who knew their destination. In Old Market, the scenery changed to shuttered shops. The river guided them to the empty waterfront Inn. All of its lights were on. A tender was still behind the long bar in the back of the lobby. No one manned the front desk.

Angel and Cherry led the way. Others she knew followed close behind. Sweet Pea lingered in the rear of the group, where the stragglers and newcomers prepared to be turned away. When no one told them they weren't welcome, they scattered. Some climbed the main staircase to disappear into rooms while others made friends with the bartender.

As Sweet Pea drifted in the wake of two others towards the bar, the spot between her shoulderblades tickled her. She obeyed the instinct that told her she was being watched to spin around, even if it meant knocking a hip against a bar height seat.

There on one of the overstuffed couches was the woman who had been watching her. It was difficult to tell with the blacked out eyes that appeared to be looking everywhere. They stood out in the heavily scarred face of sallow, grey skin. Still, Sweet Pea was certain that they'd lingered on her for a time before they'd turned on the small group gathering before the woman.

"Who's she?" Sweet Pea asked when her back bumped against the bar.

"New owner, I guess." She was surprised when a man's voice answered behind her. It was the tender. "The Inn goes to whoever wins in the sword fights. That's Ettyn. Seems it came over to her a few days ago."

Sweet Pea had grown up watching the fights on television with her dad. She knew about the baronies that changed hands with rapid regularity. The woman on the couch seemed like the right type for making a home with a fight.

Pea watched her friends arrange themselves on the furniture they claimed. The woman next to her piped up, her cheerful voice jingling through the stubborn wine headache that had worsened with the walk. "She says we don't work for her. We can just stay here. Something about it being too stuffy before."

"Is she new in the city?" Pea asked. The more she watched, the more she was certain there was something familiar in their newest sponsor. Maybe she'd seen her fight in the past, on one of the nights she remembered more for the way her dad cheered at the TV than for any match she'd watched.

"Less than a year," the tender answered. "You want a drink, sweetie? They're all covered."

"Sure, yeah, thanks. Uh. Could I get a cup of coffee and a whole lot of vodka, please?" Sweet Pea finally turned away to smile at the bartender. "Then I'm going to pick my room."

August 6th, 2021

Sweet Pea led the way through the market district, reaching back as often as possible to catch Ettyn's hand and guide her through the crowd. The fact that the crowd was already parting as it often did for Ettyn was being studiously ignored. There was a spring in her step even beyond her usual. Today, she'd chosen a short sundress covered in little purple flowers, a green jean jacket, and comfortable flats. She always found it too warm in the nursing home where her grandmother was receiving care.

The nursing home took almost an entire block of the market district. Four separate buildings for different levels of care surrounded an open central courtyard that looked like it was regularly tended to by professional gardeners. Sweet Pea was dragging Ettyn along to the main entrance of the foremost building. Out on the street, a whiff of clean, filtered air hit them every time the automatic doors slid open. There was none of the medical smell common to care facilities.

The rules regarding weapons in clinics, hospitals, nursing and care homes, and other facilities in RhyDin were often different from those on Earth. It depended on profession in this case: it turned out that a freelance monster hunter was permitted to carry one, which Ettyn had guessed. So she carried the noble dwarven weapon on her back, in the form of a master-crafted longsword slid into a sheath (and with sturdy cord wrapped and tied around a hook there and the hilt, in case of curious fingers). She wore no armor, and had selected a soft violet tunic and leggings of cool gray displacer-hide, and wore both of her rings openly on a necklace. She was striking a balance or attempting to, trying to look nice, dress in pretty clothes, while still signaling who she was and what she did -- without an air of menace, which meant no spurs on her boots.

Her eyes and scars did plenty.

Her larger hand closed around Sweet Pea's as she followed along after her, unable to help a grin at her energy. "Excited to see her?" she said as they made their way inside.

"Yes, I always like to visit her in the summer. That's when I used to see her the most so I miss her the most when it's warm." The receptionist at the desk recognized Sweet Pea and waved her through. The woman's eyes only lingered on Ettyn for a moment before the widened. It looked like she recognized her too. "You're famous!" Sweet Pea giggled. She already knew that.

"Grandma's room is right in the middle on the second floor so she can see the gardens." Her stride never slowed when she led Ettyn into a wide, well lit stairwell to climb the carpeted stairs, widened for unsteady feet.

"Slayers in cities do some flashy work -- turn heads," Ettyn half-rumbled, half-chuckled as she followed along. Once or twice she slowed to look, then saw Sweet Pea's pace and took quick, long strides to catch up again.

"She used to garden?"

"Yes, but she mostly grew food. I don't think she'd really seen gardens that people have just for the flowers until she got to the city. But she likes to look out the window. Where she was before her room looked over an alley. She likes to sit here and watch everyone." On the second floor, Sweet Pea stopped in front of the central door and knocked. There wasn't an answer from inside. "I guess she's alone. Usually one of the nurses will answer if they're in there."

She pulled a key from her small purse and the seashell she and Ettyn had collected at the Shack. She held the shell out to Ettyn with a smile. "You should give it to her. It was your idea."

"Mm. Food gardens the best kind," Ettyn opined, quietly, after a beat. Her expression had quieted at the news about the old alley view. Thoughtful. She took the shell from her hand, though, and nodded. Closed her fingers around it. "I will."

Sweet Pea smiled when Ettyn took the shell. Her first attempt at fitting the key into the lock failed. She did get it the second time. The lock clicked open and she pushed the door open. "Grandma? It's Pea. I brought a friend to meet you!"

Inside the room, a quiet voice answered. If it wasn't nearly silent in the hall, Sweet Pea might not have heard it. "Come in, Sweet Pea. By the window." Sweet Pea looked over her shoulder to Ettyn with an even bigger smile and bright eyes. She mouthed Good day at her before bouncing in through the door.

Ettyn rumbled quietly and nodded, and followed in Sweet Pea's wake. Black eyes flickered side to side, taking in the state of the room -- more signs of what she already knew, that Anya had ensured Whitedown's employees and their families were well taken care of.

But she liked seeing it.

When her gaze settled on Sweet Pea's grandmother, the first thing she did was bow her head politely, thick shoulder-length hair swaying forward with the motion. The slayer's flicker of recognition was not mirrored.

"Grandma, this is Ettyn. She's a very good friend of mine. She owns the bath house my friends and I work at. When she told me about where she grew up, I thought it might be fun for you to hear some of her stories. It sounds like when you were little and the city wasn't what it is now. Ettyn, this is my grandmother, Barbara." Sweet Pea, for once, started to fade out when introductions were done. She was busying herself in the little kitchenette, putting on a pot of coffee.

Barbara waited patiently for Sweet Pea to finish. She was comfortably wrapped in a loosely crocheted blanket and tucked into a plush armchair angled to give the optimal view of the gardens and the river beyond the walls of the courtyard. When it seemed like she'd been introduced she smiled at Ettyn. One hand raised to wave her to another free seat. "Please, sit. Sweet Pea will keep talking whether you're comfortable or not."

Ettyn cracked a slow, toothy smile at Barbara, chuckling a s nodding at her words. "She will." She lowered into a seat, elbows resting on her knees, and shifted so that the sword on her back would not get caught.

"Glad to meet you, Barbara. Sweet Pea and I were at the beach together, and she talked about what she loved about it. Talked a lot about you," she emphasized, smile pulling a little wider, warmer. "Staying with you at the beach in the summer -- sleeping with the windows open, listening to the waves."

The older woman's smile also brightened. "Yes, Pea used to visit me for summer. It's how she got her nickname. I used to grow them and she used to pick them. I could barely keep up."

In the kitchenette, Sweet Pea laughed at the memory.

"Didn't know that." Ettyn cracked another warm, amused grin. "Thought it were because you had a sweet granddaughter," she added with a soft laugh.

She turned the shell over in her closed hand. "Know Twilight Isle? Realm a wizard made... years ago... where it's always twilight, and the elementals live."

"Oh she is sweet. I also didn't want to yell my own name. That's her father's fault." Sweet Pea returned with mugs of fresh coffee for the three of them. Her face was bright red at the speedy sharing of information. Barbara continued, "I do."

Ettyn gave another chuckle, at Barbara's explanation and at the color in Sweet Pea's cheeks. "We were at the beach there... found you a good shell so you can listen to the sea in it," she said, and opened her fingers to hold the smooth, faintly glimmering conch out to her. "Think about your beach, and those summers with your granddaughter."

Barbara's hands both came out from under the blanket to take the shell carefully. "Thank you. I used to grow the most lovely sweet peas at the beach. I could smell them when I opened the windows to hear the sea. Sweet Pea always loved to do that, too."

Sweet Pea looked at Ettyn then, quiet and still for a moment. She gave a small, barely there smile to her.

Ettyn's eyes flickered. She saw Sweet Pea. She nodded slowly to Barbara. "Sounds wonderful," she rumbled quietly. "I bet it smelled wonderful, too. Maybe we can bring you some."

Sweet Pea smiled at Ettyn. She spoke up again. "I grew up around here. That building there is where my dad works," she leaned across Ettyn to point out the window at a small, red roofed bank barely visible two blocks away. "And I went to school there. It's where a lot of the kids from the Whitedown family go now. They even have some of my old teachers!" She pointed again to a three story, whitewashed building on a large riverside campus.

Barbara's head turned to follow Sweet Pea's gesturing. She added her own quiet opinion. "It was a good school. You were happy there."

Ettyn leaned forward to look. Her hand rested on the window sill, and she was quiet and still for a moment. Thoughtful again. She leaned back and gave another grin to Barbara, nodding towards Sweet Pea. "I can see that. Easy to imagine her with a big, bright smile, hmm?" Her tone turned teasing, counting on being able to get exactly that out of Sweet Pea.

Sweet Pea did smile at that, standing up again to look at Ettyn with some giddy joy creeping back in. She looked over at Barbara, staring at her eyes as they focused down on the garden again. Still smiling, she looked back to Ettyn. "We shouldn't stay too long. Grandma usually takes a nap around now and the nurses get really mad if I keep her up for too long. We could go flower shopping? And I can come back tomorrow with some sweet peas if we find any?"

"Mm," Ettyn nodded slowly to Sweet Pea, and shifted to rise. There was one last thing, though. "The shell in your hand," she rumbled quietly to Barbara. "Can you hold it up to your ear? Want to make sure that it works -- that you can hear the sea." She watched her.

Barbara raised the shell obediently. She closed her eyes and tilted her head into it, a slow smile growing while she listened. She nodded carefully, not jarring the shell away from her ear. "I can hear it. Thank you."

Sweet Pea's smile nearly doubled at the confirmation. She bent to give her grandmother a gentle hug and stood quickly. "I'll come back tomorrow," she told her grandmother. "Maybe you can listen to it while you fall asleep."

Ettyn pressed her hands to her knees and pushed to her feet. "Happy to," she said simply to the thanks. "Good meeting you." She drifted towards Sweet Pea.

Sweet Pea linked her arm through Ettyn's and smiled up at her. "Good night, Grandma!" She was leading the way out the door as a nurse passed to make a check on the woman in the room. Behind them, Barbara sat quietly, listening to her shell.

Once they were out in the hallway, Sweet Pea spoke up again. "Thank you for coming. I know she likes visitors. I'm sorry if it was uncomfortable at all. She doesn't stay for long."

Ettyn shook her head. "It's okay. Not her fault. It made her happy... All of it does -- being here. Glad of that," she nodded, and let out a slow sigh. "This is a good place... School is, too. And workers' families get to go." She'd put it together.

"Yeah! I don't know the details, but I know they all ride the bus together. It must be less expensive that way. Or there were enough kids who wanted to go so they started sending one." Sweet Pea was leading the way down the stairs now and back towards the front door. "She really likes it here. They do community things and she's making friends again. I think it's making her healthier."

"Mm... think someone's covering it. But that's good," Ettyn nodded, and patted Sweet Pea's arm wound through hers. "And glad she likes it here, too... helping her be well." She glanced over at her. "Flowers are a good idea -- potted, something she can keep. Help her keep it in her mind -- Know her memories of summers with you are happy ones." She smiled warmly.

"Oh probably. That would make sense. Like a city grant or something. I know a great place to look. Maybe we can find someone for your bath too. It's dark down there. I like Pretzel, she seems nice. Maybe she'd like some flowers." Sweet Pea was chattering away happily while she led Ettyn out again through the lobby and back on to the street.

"I'll find out." Ettyn chuckled. "Hmm... think she likes having things in her habitat -- maybe some more mushrooms..."

((Taken from a scene written two years ago with Sweet Pea's player, with thanks!))

December 20th, 2021

Ettyn made her way across Dockside from her office at Whitedown Retreat, cutting across the canal by Kabuki Street and through Korea Town to make her way to the riverfront. The busier streets meant it was a slower paced walk, but in spite of the chill, she seemed to be enjoying being out in it. She was dressed a little more modern and fashionably than she usually was, in faded black jeans, boots with enough of a heel to push her over six feet, a soft gray top that draped and flattered her figure, and a puffy green jacket roomy enough for her large arms. She was wearing her planar silk again, void-black, cinched by her engraved signet ring. Her hair was worn loose, and was still in sore need of a trim, by her estimation, reaching past her shoulders for the first time in over a year.

The café was at an odd little fork in the road, a short dead end at a bend in the river. The building itself occupied most of this space, with the café on the ground floor, a bodega and small post office tucked in the back end, and cramped apartments and office space in the three upper stories. There was room between here and the water's edge, though, and Ettyn veered to that side to the table they'd told her via "letter" was ready for her. She gave her name to the host smoking out front, who grinned and had a server come out to put warm cushions and a tablecloth on the two chairs and table reserved for her -- taken from their spot by the hearth inside. Little braziers crackled merrily between the different tables, and the flood wall and nearby buildings did a good job of stopping cold wind.

In spite of the outdoor seating, at this time of year, it managed to be warm and cozy.

She sat down with a low sigh, and let her eyes drift. A few minutes to meditate while she waited.

Sweet Pea was late, and she knew it. She arrived at the cafe fresh from her morning shift. Her hair was falling out of her ponytail, worked loose by the hairnet she normally wore behind the counter. Her white tennis shoes and kakhis stuck out from underneath a knee length green puffer jacket that hid all but the collar of her royal blue pole underneath. She had a purple and green gift bag in her right hand, stuffed to overflowing with white tissue paper. From down the street, as soon as she saw Ettyn, she started apologizing.

"Hi! I'm sorry! Jessica was late and it made me late. The holidays are so crazy. Everyone is trying to stay caffeinated for their last minute shopping or something I guess. But I'm here now! I missed you!"

By the time she'd gotten to the end of the apology, she was at the table, where she dropped the bag and held her arms out.

Ettyn cracked her eyes open, the trees of the Wilds dancing in her gaze now; she slipped her hands from her pockets with the soft crinkle of glossy ribbon and wrapping paper, grinning broadly when she saw Pea and she started talking, at a Pea-appropriate pace. She accepted the hug and gave a
hearty squeeze in kind. She kissed her when she let go, and shifted back to her seat.

"It's all right, Pea. And it is a mad rush. I tried to get it all done early, but--" She took a look around at foot traffic, and chuckled. "--Don't need to tell you plenty haven't," given her busy morning and all. "Missed you, too. You look well. Healthy. Pretty," she rumbled, black eyes flickering in their subtle way as she settled in. "How's school?"

"It's super interesting." Sweet Pea sat down across from Ettyn with a smile. "I like your new clothes. They're different from before, but they look good in you. You look more comfortable and less like you're planning to run back into the woods all the time.

"I'm sorry I haven't been around as much. I keep meaning to stop by and say hi to everyone and then I end up having an exam or a project or something. How is everyone? How are you?" She looked at the gift and then back at Ettyn, not interrupting the catch up for gift giving just yet.

Ettyn gave her a slow grin, gently amused and chuckling as the phrasing put her on her back foot. "Suppose I do look that way. Thank you, Pea."

A server came by to set down water and a little basket of warm scones. Ettyn ordered chai and picked up a scone for a bite.

"Everyone's well. Think you already knew, but -- Angel and Cherry got settled into their new place, across the square. Think not far from you. Cherry's got a dog now -- Tonkatsu. Lion of the house," she grinned. "Agrippa's well. He's started taking Jax home more -- he scares a few clients as much as Angel," she chuckled. "Place is all decorated for the holidays. Should see it -- but you've time. Keeping it up 'til Twelfth Night."

She took another bite of her scone, giving herself another moment to think, chewed and swallowed, then went on, "And I'm well. Was hunting too much... Got worn down and reckless. Hunt last Sunday ended bad for me... but, Anya and Angel brought me back. I took a week off... rested... did some reading... started working on -- writing, drawing what I've seen and learned in the Wilds. I'm all right," she stressed. "Went back out yesterday. Good hunt. Helped a lot of people and beasts in the Underdark. I'm taking a better pace now."

Sweet Pea nodded to most of the news, things she'd heard rumblings of or seen for herself. She was still on the group texts with the originals. "I'll come by soon. I promise. I finished my finals on Friday so I want to make sure I get over before everyone leaves to see their families."

She placed an order for black coffee with the server before turning back to Ettyn for the end of the rundown. "Is that why your eyes look different again? Does it happen after a big hunt?" She pointed to her own eyes when she asked the question, referencing the clear reflection of of Wilds that she saw in Ettyn's.

Ettyn nodded slowly. "Spoke to our father -- patron -- you've seen him, Farwolaeth. We deepened our oath. Our souls live in the Groves I've told you about, deep places in the Wilds that cross into the Shadow Realm. Where they'll always be." She paused for a beat. "...I feel it... when I stay out of the Wilds too long. But I've people here... people I care about." In a fond smile for Sweet Pea, her skin crinkled gently around her eyes -- the closest the slayers seemed to get to wrinkles, with the strange way they both aged and did not age. "So most of the time, most times, I'm here."

"It's a good thing you live where you do then!" Sweet Pea knew that their cottage backed up to the Wilds and offered a quick escape from the city if needed. "That way you can visit your Patron and the woods when you need to, but still be close!"

Their drinks arrived. Before she picked up her coffee, she slid the bag across the table. "I got you a few things."

Ettyn grinned. "Got you a couple. I can open mine first, though," she added as she took two small wrapped boxes, wrapped in plain blue paper with crinkly parchment-colored ribbon. She'd decorated both by drawing little snowflakes on them with a steady, consistent hand. "And it is good at that... lucky, as well -- wasn't me who bought Domus..." Her words drifted, distracted by opening the bag to remove the contents.

Inside was a mug with a knight fighting a dragon, damsel at its feet, an acknowledgement of the stories Pea liked Ettyn to tell. There was a bag of cinnamon stick coffee to make up for how few fancy drinks she had been making lately. Finally, at the bottom was a little white box with a key inside.

When Ettyn reached the key, Sweet Pea bounced on her seat. "I bought a house in New Haven! It's little but it has its own tiny yard and it's quiet. I used some of the money I saved living at Whitedown for the down payment. And I don't think you have anywhere over there, it seems like you're usually on this side of the river. I'm not saying you should move in or anything, but if you are on the other side and want to visit or need somewhere to, I don't know, heal or hide out or anything, I put my address in the box too." If this had the potential to be an awkward gift, Sweet Pea was completely oblivious to it. She took a break to sip her coffee and wait for reactions.

Ettyn cradled the key in the palm of her hand as she listened to Sweet Pea, running her thumb along its teeth. The way it had been cut, the tiny imperfections, all of it highlighted plainly in eyes meant to make her a more ruthless and efficient killer -- currently spent taking in the minute details of a gift from a mortal friend.

Pea had seen items vanish into Ettyn's planar silk before. She moved both the key and the address note up to it, currently fashioned as a scarf, and both vanished safely within. Then she leaned forward in her seat, beckoning Pea gently, and met her in a gentle kiss. Her large hand cradled the corner of her jaw, and she drew back from the kiss slowly and said, "Thank you." She grinned when she added: "And congratulations and well done -- got yourself a house."

Sweet Pea gave a little laugh and a bright smile after the kiss. "I did! It's small, but it's just me so, I don't need a big one. I'm barely there anyway and will be even less when I open the business. Which I think I can do in another year or two!" She sat back in her seat to look across the table at Ettyn. "Stop by any time, really."

"I will. Soon," Ettyn rumbled. "Just you -- no little beast, or plans for one yet?" she asked as she settled back into her seat. She finished her chai and started on a second scone. Heading herself off from any other questions for now, though, she looked to the two flat boxes she'd set out for Sweet Pea and nodded encouragingly.

"No one else yet, I want to get some more furniture and maybe a fence if I get a dog. But a cat would be nice." Sweet Pea admired the snowflakes first, and carefully preserved them as she peeled off the wrapping paper, refusing to rip any of it.

Within were two necklaces on delicate chains, each with a ceramic pendant. They were a mix of different colors, distinct from one another, but both would be recognizable as the colors of the sweet pea flowers commonly seen at a certain beach...

Ettyn had found the location and gone to see for herself.

There was a note in each box. For you, said one. For your grandmother, said the other.

"...So you can both think about good things. The beach house... each other," she said, eyes flickering between the necklaces and over Pea's face.

Sweet Pea's eyes welled up with tears when she reached in to run a finger along the pendants. "Thank you, Ettyn. They're gorgeous. I'll bring one to her on Christmas Eve when I visit." She took the necklace indicated for her out of the box and fastened it around her neck. It was the only jewelry she wore. Blinking rapidly, she looked up to Ettyn and smiled again. "Thank you so much."

Ettyn rumbled warmly as she watched her, and wiped her fingers clean of scone crumbs as she finished eating. "Welcome. Glad you like it... sure she will, too." Nothing else was offered, for now. She laid her arm flat on the table, hand out for Sweet Pea's, to run her thumb along her knuckles and just watch her for a moment.

"Come on, it's cold out!" Sweet Pea stood up and pulled. There was really no chance at all that she would be getting Ettyn to move if the other woman didn't want to. She gave it a valiant try anyway. "I'm on winter break and it's been forever since I had a good long soak. You can show me Whitedown's decorations."

Ettyn chuckled, making a playful show of coming along when tugged a second time. Once she was sure that they had everything, she left behind a couple of gold coins and left her hand in Sweet Pea's, steering back the way she'd come. "Might know a private bath or two," she rumbled, scars stretching as her smile turned sly, gently bumping her with her hip. "Can show you the downstairs tree. Well -- 'tree.' Agrippa's proud of it -- mushroom stalk from the Underdark, all lit up..."

Their voices were lost easily as they melted into the crowd of holiday shoppers.

((Likewise cowritten a couple of years ago.))

December 29th, 2022

By the time Ettyn and Sweet Pea arrived at Barbara's suite in Seaside, the rest of her family had gathered. Richard was positioned closest to the bed, holding his mother's hand while he spoke quietly to her about plans for the future. The renovations planned for the family beach house, Sweet Pea's cafe in New Haven, and eventual grandchildren. Barbara watched him, with little recognition in her cloudy green eyes. All the same, the talk of the future set a gentle smile on the old woman's lips. It was nice to hear of plans from those who still had time to make them.

The winter light filtering in through the garden-facing windows silhouetted the pair as they came in side-by-side, an eerie match to the shadows cast by emergency light at the edge of the forest nearly ten years ago, the first time that Barbara had seen Ettyn. Speaking as much of then as now, and of the promise of flowers by the seaside that had given Barbara's granddaughter her nickname, Ettyn said, "Barbara. Brought you back your Sweet Pea."

Her expression was gentle, but her presence was the death knell for Barbara, a bell that had added its quiet tolling to the last ten years of her life. Her hand settled on the small of Sweet Pea's back, not quite pushing but encouraging.

Pea stepped forward with the pressure. She eased into the seat next to her father, left empty for her arrival. Her mother, seated behind her, leaned forward to place a hand on Pea's shoulder as the younger woman rattled off a falsely chipper greeting and update on her life. It was a conversation she'd had before, never with much of a response.

Barbara kept her eyes in the door. Ettyn's arrival confirmed a feeling that nestled deep in her brain and her bones. It coaxed out a flicker of recognition that carried as she turned her head to look again at her family. Her hand tightened on son's before releasing it to take hold of Pea's.

"You'll do well." Her voice wasn't as strong as it had been months before, but it was steady. She looked again to Ettyn and when she did, Sweet Pea's head turned too. The younger of the two was the first to glance away, back to her grandmother. Barbara gave a single nod before returning her attention to her family.

When Sweet Pea looked away again, her grandmother was reflected in Ettyn's black eyes like starlight on dark water -- destined to drift smoothly across the sea, at long last untroubled by its currents. She was an old woman in her gaze, but not only old: every preceding year was a part of her, from the beginning, a thousand thousand thousand moments in one person at once. It would take some effort to pull her to her feet; but when Ettyn stepped forward to do so, strong hand outstretched, her family did not look.

"Ble hoffech chi fynd?" The language Ettyn used for her lilting words was unfamiliar to Barbara, and yet the meaning of the words were effortlessly understood: Where would you like to go?

"I'd like to see the beach again," Barbara answered as a part of her reached to take the offered hand. Another part of her closed her eyes and leaned back against the pillows piled on the bed.

Ettyn's fingers closed around Barbara's hand, and with a muscle still new and tender to the reaper -- once slayer -- she pulled her to her feet and guided her from the room, step by step. "I was grown and more already, first I laid eyes on the sea... What was it like for you?" she asked.

The first tug was met with instinctual resistance that didn't last beyond the initial pressure. Barbara accepted the help. "I was born near it. It's always been home."

They were walking past the friends she had made here, from inside to outside, through the garden which bloomed full of life as it had in summer. The smell of Barbara's favorite flowers came from the end of a small path she had not noticed before, one tinged by salt in the air. Although they were passing people she'd known, she didn't longer long on any. Her family was behind her and she was looking ahead, always ahead.

A girl's footprints crisscrossed the sandy patches in the garden path. The smell of the sea, and the sound of the waves, was growing stronger. But their pace was easy, their steps and words alike meted out slowly.

"It's people that make a place like that sweeter... I know Sweet Pea was there with you, often. Who else did you see there?" Ettyn's smile could be felt more than seen, gentle encouragement for Barbara to share the treasured parts of her memories. The fog that had long obscured them was lifting.

"Oh, everyone." It wasn't the clearest answer, but after a long life, Barbara's family was easier described as everyone. "My mother and father, brothers, sisters, their children and grandchildren, Richard and my Howard. He was gone by the time we had any grandchildren of our own." Her eyes, cleared now, searched for the sea she could hear. "There were parties all summer, even as we began to lose people."

Ettyn could not see them as clearly as Barbara, but still, ever more footprints crossed their path. "People fill a place like this... even after they go." As they began to crest the dunes, they met what appeared to be one of the vigilant but friendly-faced people who'd helped keep this beach safe and quiet when it was still a part of RhyDin's frontier. Someone stoutly built, familiar enough to be a little of everyone Barbara had once seen in this protective role. He was taking a break, playing Solitaire on a fence railing before they reached the beach. He smiled like he'd been expecting them, swept up his cards, tipped his hat and moved aside, back to the old wooden lifeguard tower.

The reaper went as far as the gate and no further. Beyond it the footprints were clearer, and voices and laughter echoed when conversation and company were sought -- even of those who would not arrive yet, though only those lost could be seen now.

A peek of gray hair could be seen under a bucket hat, lounging in an aluminum-framed beach chair next to an empty one. He didn't look back, but patted the empty seat in the first five notes of 'shave and a haircut.' Another familiar habit.

A lifetime of memories lived at this beach, and it had taken every bit of Ettyn's strength to bring them this far. She let out a quiet breath and leaned in the place the sentinel had just vacated. The final steps would have to be Barbara's. More than the other side, the reaper watched her eyes instead.

At the gate, they paused. Barbara stared across the last piece of sand separating her from the beach on the other side. She saw the lifeguard, and the old man in his chair. She saw the waves and the gentle sway of the beach grasses in the ocean breeze that sent grains of sand rolling against eachother.

Before she went across that threshold, she turned. Her green eyes, familiar to Ettyn for the way they'd passed on to her granddaughter, were clear. There was no sign of tears on her lashes. Instead, there was a gentle smile and a light there that reflected the sun. Though she was shorter than Ettyn by well over a foot, Barbara did her best to bundle the younger woman into a hug.

"Thank you for walking with me, dear. I think I'll go tell Howard about all he missed now."

Ettyn's arms squeezed back reflexively. The doting kindness was a reminder that she was still young, in spite of her role guiding people from the end of their long years.

There was no hesitation in Barbara's steps as she turned away and stepped across the thin divide.

† † † † † † † † †

The gathering of spirits at the beach house had faded from her senses by the time the old sentinel finished shuffling his cards and returned to his post. He found the new reaper at the base of an old tree, the hill overlooking a cluster of cozy beach houses on a beach that stood cold and empty in the dead of winter. Large arms were folded over her knees and the long scythe balanced there, and a steady, silent stream of tears dampened her sleeves.

He'd brought a peace offering of a kind, RC Cola from the styrofoam cooler he kept under his lifeguard tower, next to the one for his catches. He pried the cap off of the bottle and tapped it against the side of her hand to get her to grab it. "Save the stronger stuff for the right company. Quiet company," he advised before he let it go.

Ettyn never looked at his face. She only nodded once to acknowledge, took a grounding drink, and watched the bleak gray water while she waited for the traces of ghosts to fade from her eyes.

((Another scene adapted from older play!))

September 22nd, 2023 - the Last Day of Summer

Often it was in the early morning that Sweet Pea and Ettyn found a couple of hours to spend together at her bungalow, the lady of the house just waking when the hunter had already been up since before dawn.

She had checked the trails, found a few signs and a fat rabbit, and traded its skin and city news to homesteaders for word from across the Wilds and their sausage-making. It was not long after sunrise, the glow of the city lights dimming under the gold-orange blaze that crowned the treetops and washed over Kaiju Lake, and she paused in a clearing with a broken cairn to watch the change from one time to another.

(The bones were long gone, food for foxes, bears, and even deer.)

She stopped to stack them anew, another sign for travelers that the trail forked and people were close. Each settled with a quiet clack, barely heard among the cacophony of woodland creatures, and when she was done, she turned south for New Haven.

Brightwood was the nearest point to wilderness, nearer even than Adderwood, and Ettyn arrived at the back fence of Sweet Pea's bungalow with a bow over one shoulder and a chain of sausage links over the other. She checked the druid marks and other wards left on the property line, sniffed the earth and vegetation, and was satisfied. She crossed the yard, drawing up to the back door that led to the utility room, and knocked three times with the back of her fist.

"It's unlocked!" a voice too bright for the hour called to the knocking. The smell of coffee that leaked through the gaps between the door and the frame explained why.

Leaving doors unlocked in RhyDin was usually a risk. But Brightwood was different, and safe, and Sweet Pea usually unlatched the back door when she knew Ettyn was on her way for breakfast. Inside, she was walking back and forth through the little house. She wasn't pacing. She was simply executing her morning routine which involved frequent trips to the kitchen, bathroom, and bedroom to reclaim what she'd set down and forgotten. Toast (the cat-sized drake who lived w ith her) remained in the kitchen where he was working on new breakfast sandwiches. Eggs nestled in the frying pan next to think slices of bread, all coated in a layer of the bacon grease he reserved for this purpose. A block of cheese was next to him on the counter, being thinly sliced by a knife-wielding mage talon of invisible force.

"Sorry, I'm running behind. I stayed up way too late watching a documentary on how no one really knows anything about wine. It was super interesting, all about how you should just drink whatever you like. Which seems smart to me. How was your hunt?"

"Good. Caught a rabbit," Ettyn said, "and sign of yuan-ti using common caches -- taking and leaving. Bodes well for peace between them and the homesteaders." She tore loose a small sausage ball, already lightly cooked over a fire at a cabin a few miles away, and said, "Compliments to the chef." She winked at Toast when he took it from between her knuckles to prepare for his own meal later.

The drake added sausage to the pan. Sausage frying in bacon grease. The fat in them popped immediately when they hit the hot surface. He lashed his tail back and forth with a happy hiss that echoed the sizzle of the food.

"How do you mean that, with the wine? Like what makes good and bad wine?" Ettyn said as she claimed her usual seat. Her cloak and weapons were hung on the back of her chair.

"Yeah. It was saying that most of the people who think they know what wine is expensive are just making it up and stuff like that. Like how if you take labels off, it's all just grape juice, you know?" Sweet Pea dropped into the seat across from Ettyn. Her hands were never still, now busy raking fingers through her hair as she worked to gather it into a high ponytail. "What's a yuan-ti? If I've met one, I don't think they called themselves that."

"Mm. Can see the sense of that -- little beyond sour, sweet, peppery," Ettyn waved a hand side to side as she sprawled in her chair, then removed her gloves and dropped them in her lap. "Serpent kin," she said, meaning yuan-ti. "Most of them look close to humans or half-elves, but others are snakes from the waist down, snake-headed, snake-limbed... Religious thing for them, taking on serpent shapes. They're pretty secretive, they don't much trust other people, and most other people don't much trust them. A village finds a yuan-ti spy among them, they expect the worst... even if the spy's there just to see if they know where the yuan-ti live and they need to flee. But some branches of their cult, they do evil things to outsiders -- just like any peoples might. And it turns suspicion on all of them."

She grinned, then, leaning forward in her chair and gesturing again. "But a settlement east of here in the Wilds, they're using the common food stores other Wildlings set out... and leaving good food and medicine for them in turn... and they all seem happy with it. So I've some hope that they'll look out for each other. A yuan-ti village knowing peace within a day's journey of outsiders is a rare, precious thing. Glad I could get them talking to each other -- even just a little."

"Oh, right. The ones that you talked to a while ago. Well that's good that they're still getting along. Maybe they'll tell their friends to stop fighting eachother too." The cup of coffee in front of Sweet Pea was already halfway gone. She wrapped her hands around it the instant they came down from her hair to drink again. "Do you think they'd ever come into the city? It must be scary living so close to somewhere you feel like you can't go. Or like the people there would hurt you."

Toast's mage talon completed the assembly of two very cheesy egg and sausage sandwiches on the thick sliced, crusty toast. He added enough greens from a nearby arugula pot for it to pass as healthy by a bare margin. He crowed at Sweet Pea.

The kitchen was small. Sweet Pea leaned back in her chair to retrieve the plates from the counter. Leaning over, she placed one in front of Ettyn and kept the other for herself.

Ettyn saluted Toast with her sandwich and took a big bite. She complimented the work with a short "mmh" and a few nods. "Some do. I don't let on when I see or smell it. Long as you're not taking on someone else's face to do them harm..." Her shoulders rose and fell slowly. "I remind myself wariness can be unkind. Many have been wary of me. And I remember that fear -- being close but... never coming into the city. Was sure for a long time everyone would fear and hurt me."

Black eyes settled on Sweet Pea's green, a mirror of her grandmother's.

"Still took some time after I saw that wasn't true for all."

Sweet Pea, who had grown up human in a place built by humans and claimed by the mundane, nodded. "I think there are a lot of people who had to be the first ones. But then maybe it makes it easier for the ones who come next."

Her own sandwich was getting picked at more than eaten. The priority appeared to be the coffee that she'd nearly finished.

"I think so," Ettyn said, smiling a little, and took another bite. Only now did she slide the coffee closer, enjoying the aroma before the flavor. "Aught on your mind?" she asked, black eyes flickering between the nibbled meal and her face.

Sweet Pea shrugged and smiled at Ettyn. "I feel bad for the people who don't feel like they can be safe here. And sometimes I feel bad that I was born here and it's always been sort of whatever I wanted it to be. My whole family was always there for me, and then you were to make sure I was safe and got through school and everything. And sometimes I wonder what's next if I have a house and I own my café."

The longer she'd spoken, the closer her eyebrows had gotten to each other until she looked at Ettyn over the coffee cup. "You always seem like you're where you should be. How do you know what to do next?"

While Sweet Pea's eyebrows drew down together? Ettyn's went up and spread apart. She rumbled thoughtfully. "I have to work hard at being at peace with myself. But in that peace, I can hear my heart. I heed it -- what I want for me, for others, what aches to see them having or lacking, and I think on why. And I don't, mm... differentiate. If I'm doing something for myself, a loved one, a stranger, or a lost spirit, I'm heeding my heart."

She closed her fingers around the rim of her mug, slowly, gently. "What's your heart want?" She brought it up again for a sip.

"I did want all of this. I still do," Sweet Pea hurried to clarify. "But I don't think I want things to stay this way forever. I feel like I'm still twenty-six and spending every day with my friends, but I think I want to grow up."

Toast was alert to his friend's habits and needs. The empty coffee cup floated away to be refilled and returned. Sweet Pea smiled her thanks at him before her eyes returned to Ettyn's face. "Do you ever want that? To settle down somewhere and get married again?"

Ettyn put a hand halfway up, not to stop but to reassure. That she had legally been married and divorced made her chuckle. "Happened a strange way the first time, so it'd be like new if I did." Her expression softened, and she admitted, "I don't know. I think I do -- one day, I'd like to try. But there may be hundreds or thousands of years of living for me to do. I know I need to learn more of what that means, before I choose to spend a long span of time partnered to one person and living together. Like growing up, I reckon."

She nodded across the table, then: "Sounds like it's something you're ready for."

"I think so," Sweet Pea answered, quieter than before. "And I don't have centuries. I think I want to have kids too. At least three." She looked away from Ettyn to take in the tiny interior of the house meant for one. "We could probably add on to here for it. I don't want to leave my house."

Her gaze returned to Ettyn. "That's the type of thing that worries me about it. I have things I've wanted for a long time. What if I'm no good at sharing them? But that's the growing up part, right? The sharing."

Ettyn rumbled quietly, leaned back in her chair, and cast a long look around, following in the wake of Pea's gaze at a slower pace. "There's room. A few places what don't need all the light they have. And I think you know a good builder, too," she added, scratching a long scar where it met her jaw. "You've shared and taught me much. Sharing your hopes and dreams, too, and showing how someone can want and grow to meet their wants. You'll learn more of the shape of sharing," she nodded, and reached for her hands to close hers around them. "If you have kids, however big a gaggle of Robertsons," she grinned, "I know you'll be a good mother."

Ettyn knowing exactly who Sweet Pea meant wasn't a surprise. It did make it easier for her to have the conversation without having to go into the specifics of it all. She smiled down at their hands where Ettyn's covered hers. "Not too big. But more than one. I didn't like being an only child."
Her face turned up to look across the table again. "Who would it be for you, if you had to pick now?"

Ettyn didn't have to think about it for long. She murmured the name -- it wasn't meant for the drakes' grapevine of gossip, and she knew how nosy Toast could be. "Think we ken each other well," she explained, "and have much the same way about life and death." She smiled a bit. "Happy with things as they are now. But if time comes it's what my heart wants, I'll broach it then."

Sweet Pea, in on the game, leaned in to whisper her reply and more besides. She was nodding her agreement, though, before she finally took a bite of her sandwich.

Toast had settled on the countertop where he was busily munching through a miniature version of their sandwiches. He turned his head towards the table on certain key comments, straining to hear the quieter words.

"Do you think everyone ended up happy?" Sweet Pea asked as she leaned back again.

"I think so," Ettyn rumbled in reply. "Ivan wrote me back -- he started a troupe out in the wastes and just got back to Cadentia. And those what stayed, they're doing well, too. Cherry's more at peace each passing season. Angel's getting to do more of what he loves. Hrofjna had her first concert -- she played for many dragons in our big new baths. Hard to tell with her, but the next day, I saw her almost smile." She grinned broadly, and after a moment, her expression softened.

"Been not a straight trail to get here. I got to know many by seeking comfort and pleasure. But I try to do right by all what have come through the Cardinal or Whitedown, stay or move on as they like, and try to... get them to what their hearts are set on."

"I think you have." Even with her appetite back, Sweet Pea only made it through half the sandwich before she placed it down on the plate to focus again on her coffee.

"I was lucky. I was never trapped. But some of us were and once we got to the Cardinal, it didn't feel like that anymore. I remember there were people working there and eventually Whitedown who really didn't want to be in that life. But until someone told us we could leave, they didn't really believe it." Her finger tapped against the side of her coffee mug. The rings she wore on her right pinkie and left thumb clicked on the ceramic. "It was the first place a lot of us had felt safe, had been safe really, sometimes in our whole lives."

Ettyn was quiet for a long moment after Pea spoke. Head bowed, she pressed her fingers around her coffee mug again. "Safe matters. Didn't feel safe, either, 'til Domus. Then I got the Cardinal and thought..." Her tongue ran over her back teeth. Then she took another drink. "Thought I could do the same."

"You did. You saved a lot of us, more than once." Sweet Pea smiled at Ettyn again. "I know it took a while for you to feel like you could be in the city and be yourself without people hating you. But you were always nice to us, and we'll always remember it. You've always been nice to me. I have a lot to thank you for. You've helped me feel like I can have plans and want more for myself."

"Good," Ettyn sniffed quietly, nodding along to her words. Whatever else she thought to say, she sniffed again and felt hot tears catching in her scars to run across her face. She brought her hands over her eyes and shook her shoulders through the next few breaths. "What I wanted for you," she mumbled, and sniffed again.

Toast made a concerned little chitter noise from his spot at the same time Pea sat up straighter. "Wait, no, I didn't want to make you cry! It's good. I know it's sad too, because things are changing..." she gave a weak smile. "But it is what I want, really. And you helped me get here."

Ettyn bubbled out a laugh, then, and shook her head and sniffed again. "No... they're happy tears." She wiped her eyes with the backs of her hands. "Not grieving the changes... but to hear what it's meant for you... for others... it's more than I'd hoped for."

She breathed a deep sigh and composed herself again. "That... the night we met," she said, "the first time, I wanted to do one good thing. Not for myself, but for you and your kin. What you've done since is incredible... and will be yet, with what you and Luke will build. That's why I cry -- to see and know the goodness now and to come."

"Sometimes I wish I'd taken that first opportunity and made something of it right away. But I also think I met a lot of really great people and learned a lot that I wouldn't have if I'd just gone back to my parents and my grandma and started college like I'd planned. I think it happened the way it was supposed to." Sweet Pea shook her head, her hair brushing over her shoulders in slow waves when she did. She stilled and smiled. "Besides, Luke hasn't even asked yet. I think he will."

Toast grumbled on the counter, the sound of a weak threat of what might happen if he didn't.

"I think he will," Ettyn echoed in agreement, and winked at Toast. Black eyes settled on Pea. "You're wise, and clever, to think of it like that."

She finished her coffee and stood, looking over her shoulder to collect her weapons. With practiced ease, she buckled a strap over her chest and settled the sheathed silver sword across her back.

When Ettyn stood, Pea abandoned the notion of additional breakfast. About half of the sandwich had been eaten. She'd have Toast make another at work if needed. "Do you want to walk to work with me?" They weren't near the bridges across the city to Dockside and Old Temple. The café was in the other direction from the nearest road south. "I'll make you a latte when we get there."

Ettyn settled her bow and quiver, scooped up the unfinished sandwich from her plate, and gestured with it. "Be glad for the company, Sweet Pea. And yours, Ewoirkar," she grinned at Toast with the Draconic title for master chef and offered her arm for him to climb aboard for the walk over.

A canvas bag, stuffed with all the things Pea sometimes needed and rarely forgot, waited by the door. She tossed it over her shoulder before pulling the door open to let Ettyn and Toast out into New Haven. "I think I figured out the cinnamon latte. I had to add vanilla to it. Which doesn't make sense right away but trust me, it makes it a lot better."

Once the other two left, she shut the door, jiggling the handle a few times to be sure it was locked. This corner of this city was safer than others by far. Old habits still died hard.

As Sweet Pea collected her things, the hunter looked over her shoulder -- north, towards the vast canopy of the Wilds -- then turned and followed her friend into the city.

((Co-written with Sweet Pea, with thanks!))