Category: 6: Homecoming

Kaveri checked the last of the food hanging from the ceiling of Neoma’s house—she rather suspected that it was always going to be Neoma’s house to Kieran and the forest-spirits, which seemed appropriate enough, given that virtually everything in and about it had been crafted by her hands. There was little left of the dried meat and fish and herbs, as there had been of the roots and grains in their carefully clay-sealed pits nearby. That was all right, though: they wouldn’t be here much longer anyway. That thought filled her both with anticipation of new sights and new people,…

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“You have company,” Honeysuckle carolled. The beaver Kieran and Kaveri had been watching repair the winter-damaged dam started at the sudden sound and bolted into the water. “They cut it close for all three moons being full!” Kaveri said. That was certainly true: all were past their final moondark and waxing towards the shared full moon, Talir so recently that Kieran had yet to feel like it was worth the effort of changing to human. “Vetch and Chipmunk are showing them the way home,” Honeysuckle said. “Are you coming?” “Absolutely,” Kaveri said. “Tyrel will need to eat, the other two…

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Kieran’s nuzzling roused Kaveri; she yawned, stretched, and followed him outside into the late twilight. “There’s a pit on the far side of the hill from the spring that won’t contaminate the water,” Hickory told her. Kaveri thanked her and vanished briefly around the hill; Kieran sat by the firepit and watched Hickory spoon vegetable-herb-and-squirrel soup into one of Neoma’s pottery bowls. All shaped by Neoma’s hands, glazed green with wood-ash to make them non-porous, and burned black around the rim from being fired upside-down in an open pit—one more way she’d been determined to be as self-sufficient as possible.…

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Kieran tried his best not to fret and fuss at Kaveri to move more quickly. After all, they’d fled Galimont as soon as he was reasonably sure that Tyrel and Madoc had cleaning up well in hand and that Mirren was stable and adjusting well. Going so quickly to Sanur might have helped; that was something he’d have to remember. In his experience, those with strong ties to their human lives adapted much less successfully, but for all Mirren’s love of her city, other things mattered to her as well, and he hoped that would be enough. Had he seen…

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