"Yeah. Maybe?" Brighid replied with an expression of honest bewilderment. The erratic tune that had latched itself, unwarranted, to her mind now slunk away as quickly, leaving not a trace to remember it by. Now she was trying with all of her willpower not to burst out laughing at the absurdity of it.

She caught the movement of Trevor's foot out of the corner of her eye and joined him in grinning at Naku. "A draw sounds fair."

Naku didn't notice the missing die. He cast a suspicious glance between her and Trevor, though he couldn't put a reason to the strange end to their game. At length he just shook his head with a laugh. "Alright, sure. A draw this time."

Runadwynn was still staring in mute disbelief at the scatter of cards and coins on the ground while she wondered just how close she'd come to winning it all. She stooped to pick up some of the coins. Then a few more.

"Ey, don't be running off with our wagers, now," Naku warned her in a teasing tone.

"Don't get yer trousers in a bunch. I ain't goin' nowhere," Rune grumbled and flipped a few of his coins at him.

"Fookin'. Mangy. Cats."

A low mewling caught their attention. They looked nearly in unison to a feline shadow perched on one of the tables that held merchandise during the day, now bare except for a couple odd bottles of whatever alcohol they had on hand. A pair of reflective eyes glinted in the lamplight as they turned towards a bottle. Brighid didn't catch the smooth motion of one paw, only the subsequent downwards motion of a falling bottle and its glassy clank as it struck the packed earth.

Rune took the most offense and sprinted away after the hissing cat, dropping a few coins and yelling into the night about ending the remainder of its lives all at once.

"Well... I think I shall call it a night. It's been a very, uh, interesting game," Naku spoke once the dwarf was lost to sight. He quickly went about collecting his scattered money.

"Is Rune going to chase after that cat all night?" Brighid wondered aloud while she watched the dwarf's stout form grow smaller as it bounded through the moonlit fields on the other side of the road.

"Wouldn't be the first time," Naku replied matter-of-factly before turning to leave.

Brighid couldn't take it anymore. Her frame bent forward, wracked with a guffaw that took several moments to resolve itself. When at last she had regained some of her composure, she turned to her last remaining companion and showed him the last cards in her hand.

"I wasn't going to play this one but..." she trailed off as she displayed the card. It was Exploding Kittens.

@Trevor
 
Trevor joined the others in picking up a couple coins off the ground. Made sure it was a net loss, purses got reckless if they never leaked a coin or two – seemed unwise to allow one such to attach itself to him. Made sure to put the loaded die into the pouch too. If he told Rob the die was real unlucky, they'd both get a good laugh at that, and in a way – if he ever used it, it would be more than enough to pay off the coins he left on the ground, and those he was yet to spend.

As he came back up, the others had made their getaways. The girl had lost what was left of her composure. And then she showed him too... exploding kittens. And he lost it too. Far as exit strategies went, this was one of the funnier ones. The coughsmile avoided a wheeze, but it did have his eyes tear up. Couldn't make this shit up. Wasn't sure who made this game, but they were, more than likely, acquainted to a brewer of Dingleberry's caliber.

But the fun of it was shortlived. If he had any doubts as to her mitts on the whole thing... they were just about certain now.

„Did you mean for it...or did it just happen?“ He looked to where the cats, and their dwarven herder, had run off.

The only distinction his kind should care to measure. Some spillover was excusable even under the worst of circumstances, but once you actively chose shit – you started to bear responsibility for it.

Last time he had to have a serious talk with another of his kind, nearly got him killed. Hopefully Richgirl wasn't the jumpy kind.
 
Brighid had righted the table and begun collecting cards and coins on the top of it. She paused in the midst of her task at Trevor's question.

"Did I mean to what?" she asked before she slowly followed his gaze, and understanding dawned on her. She shook her head with a chuckle and tried to wrangle a wayward coin before it rolled off the table again. Maybe it was the heady, floating feeling from the wine she'd drunk a fair amount of earlier, but she was having a difficult time making sense of much of anything.

"That wasn't me. At least, I don't think so."

Even she had to admit it was the uncanniest of uncanny coincidences. She grew quiet for a few moments in hazy contemplation as she looked again at the cards on the table. Could it have been the game? No, she quickly decided that while it would have been amazing to come across some enchanted card game, that couldn't have been the case. They had played it a few times already without any undue chaos unleashing around them. The only thing that was distinctly different was...

She narrowed her eyes slightly at Trevor.

"It was you, wasn't it?" she asked with a faint smirk. She appreciated the flair, though she couldn't figure how he had gotten those cats involved. Maybe they were his cats? Seemed unlikely; he might have been some sort of criminal mastermind who used his skills to sabotage card games, sure, but he didn't really strike her as a cat person.

@Trevor
 
Grabbing up more tablecoins that'd never make it to the pouch, Trevor wasn't surprised. Perhaps he could eat... or, more likely, drink most of these. Doubted this middle of nowhere camp had anything worth remembering, but things were always more easily forgotten with a bit of booze. Shit booze wasn't any worse at getting the job done.

He looked at her for a long time before nodding. Spillover was believable. Actually, given her age, and how tame the whole thing was – perhaps he'd been wrong to worry in the first place. And if he taught her what it actually was and she did horrible shit with it...would that not be his responsibility? But...if she did strange shit by accident, that was on him too unless he told her. Felt like one of those silly wheels of cheese when the mice found it – and no matter where the little fuckers bit you, teeth were teeth.

„No...those weren't mine.“ His dreams sometimes took the shape of a cat, but the coat kept changing. Wondered what that was about. But he had bigger things to worry about. Tinyleg thoughts could wait.

„Word is you're looking for some treehuggers.“ He knocked on wood, wondering what happened to the druidpee. „There truth to it?“
 
She blinked, taken by surprise at the question. She thought she'd been quite subtle about her reasons for being on the road, mainly because she was convinced that secrets only went further into hiding when asked openly about. That, and in her experience people had a tendency to laugh at you when you said you were looking for old nature-revering sages in the woods.

The rather rude insinuation aside, perhaps this was a promising turn. He seemed to know about her self-imposed quest, so maybe he knew something that would be helpful in her search.

"Druids, you mean?" she asked with a touch of skepticism. "Why do you ask?"

@Trevor
 
„I'm sure they prefer your name for it.“ Judging by her face it wasn't a thing dangled in the open. Made sense – people would mock you for going after treehuggers...and rightfully so, maybe.

„And if you found them. Would you go home, Richgirl?“ He winced at the misstep, but it was bound to come out eventually. Shit didn't like being bottled up. Sooner or later, you had to uncork.
 
"Rich girl?" she repeated with a raised eyebrow, although it wasn't the title that that irked her. The warm haze of intoxication almost completely vanished as she was jolted to sobriety by Trevor's second question; or rather, what his line of questioning implicated. Her russet eyes gave him an appraising glance, lips curling into a brief frown before settling into an unimpressed expression.

"My father sent you, didn't he?" Despite outward appearances, she was actually somewhat impressed. This wasn't at all what she had expected from Father; this guy didn't fit the profile of an imperial boot-licker at all. By her estimations he seemed more like the kind of person who stomped home after a long day in muddy boots, grabbed a bottle of booze and settled into bed contentedly with both. The kind of person her father would call 'peasant' with a look of distaste on his face.

It occurred to her that such a down-to-earth person might have some insight into what she sought, even if his motives were obviously financial in nature.

"Yes, I suppose I would," she lied. Well, maybe not a total lie, but certainly not the complete truth.

@Trevor
 
Trevor pushed his lips left, then right, a lemonface of his own. Always had a knack for languages, just not the etiquette that accompanied them. It was wrong to put a foot in your own mouth, but if you were gonna munch on feet at one point, it was only a matter of time. So this wasn't really a wrong step, just one out of tune – and, far as excuses went, it was the best he could do. Pulled on the skin again, because while there was such a thing as too sober – no one was ever 'too drunk for this shit'.

„Your father, Brighid...“ That should've been her name, right? Really should've nicked Rob's notes too. „...Wouldn't spit on me if I was on fire.“ And it was probably smart to think so when it came to Trevor. Nothing could really be gained by getting involved, save for trouble. Come to think of it...Rob really should've known better.

„But he did employ an old...friend of mine.“ Were they friends? They were both still alive, knew what the other did and weren't actively looking to kill each other. A win in Trevor's book. „And when Rob couldn't find your ass, he called in his favor with me.“

„Those two seem convinced that if you find the fernlovers, you'll head right home...“ Another swig. „Which, I think is bullshit... but that's none of my business.“

„The only favor I owe is helping you find the fuckers.“ The skin was getting empty. Not a good omen. „And if once you hug an oak you decide you don't want to hug your pa...that too is your business.“

Corked the skin, satcheled it away.

„And, as you can see, everyone can be found.“
 
Brighid's expression remained carefully impassive throughout Trevor's explanation. Of course she should have expected that her recent ramblings wouldn't be without repercussion; not when she still held some value in the eyes of the patron of House Kovingar. The thought gave her a small shudder of disgust, because she knew full well what that value was.

She had to hide a smile at Trevor's quite correct assessment. It was entirely bullshit, and to his credit he didn't seem to care one way or another. She remained quiet while he drank and she considered.

"Hmm, so it seems. I suppose next time I will have to cut off all my hair and find a good wooden leg to hobble around on," she said at length with a smirk. She half-turned away, taking on a nonchalant demeanor.

"All right. You seem a capable enough tracker, so let's see what you can do. Meet me back here tomorrow, and you can help me find some druids. Real druids, not just people rolling up various plants and smoking them in the woods."

The play of moonlight across the still fields was taking on the tell-tale bluer tones of the late night. Now that the night's excitement had died away, Brighid felt the weight of weariness dragging against every motion of her limbs. She turned back to the table and collected up what remained of her money, which she noticed was a bit smaller than it had been when they'd started playing.

@Trevor
 
„Don't feel bad... was a decent effort. Took me eleven days.“ He lied, with a measure of respect. But twelve was harder to swallow. The truth of it was that he would've found her even if she grew a second head and decided to weigh twenty stone. Sometimes you found people before you realized they were who you were searching for...because stuff didn't like staying hidden. World was funny like that.

He wondered if people who followed actual tracks looked at the foot size and the depth of it. Maybe they counted the toes and the claws and made some real good guesses. Trevor was always bad at guessing unless he cheated. And it was his best guess that even if they failed to find the druids, he'd know who to ask...provided she didn't still want his head. But he did hear she'd gone more...nuts, in recent times. So perhaps she would no longer remember the slight. Not like it was against her anyway. Sometimes people just got bruised on the road, like that one peach, edge of crate.

She went to bed, he guessed. And he needed to find more drink. Rob's coin wasn't gonna spend itself. If it refused to be lost gambling, it would have to invested into forgetting things. Returns were always promising with those gambles. You either forgot you had coin or you forgot whatever it was you were trying to run from. A win-win, really.


*​


Morning found him in the small tap of invisible fingers midforehead. The dew had soaked up into some of his clothes and his right shoe apparently had a hole he couldn't see. Soggy toes were always a bad time. He unfurled the heavy limbs and clicked his hips knees and shoulders in an awkward stretch.

There was rumble, somewhere behind his eyes. Lucky that he woke up before the local bird started complaining about the coming day. Rumblings would've turned thunder real quick.

He climbed atop a wagon that particularly birdlike and watched for the crowing asshole. Every place had one. He found a pigeon instead. And as he and the skyrat looked at each other confused, stuck between a coo and a who, they were greeted by a COCKADUDLEDOOO from another tarp.

The pressure in his head got worse with the alarm and the bustle that followed. So she was fucking with him. Very well.

That was life, sometimes you got a wink, and sometimes the finger.

Maybe he still had time to get buzzed...wasn't like rich folk to get up early anyway.
 
Brighid slept fitfully that night. Her overactive mind had become riled up by the fact that her father had sent bloody mercenaries after her, and no amount of exhaustion could completely dampen the mixture of fear and anger she felt.

At one point she awakened with the unpleasant sense that she was being watched. Her groggy vision caught a pair of dark gems hovering at the far end of her little tent, enlaid into a deep patch of shadow. The two orbs gleamed faintly, curiously sentient, in the soft dispersed moonlight shining through the canvas walls.

She blinked and grunted something incoherently, too tired to deal with one of her fanciful episodes tonight, and turned over. The phantasm persisted by softly patting her nose. And again an odd tune played itself, a ghost opera tuning its instruments through the corridors of her half-dreaming mind. The purring struck her as the oddest.

--------------

Azalea found himself caught somewhere between curiosity and his usual frustrations regarding the awkward, two-legged mumble beasts. Their abiliy to listen and understand was rudimentary at best, and he had never actually known one to speak. This one very nearly seemed to be able to do the latter. At least, it had been enough to derail his victory over that lowlife Mr. Mittens.

With a little coaxing, he wondered...

"Maow?" He nudged her nose again with one paw, receiving only a groan in response. No use. The mumble beast was out cold. There was no knowing if his subconscious attempts at communication had been received or not.

The mumble beast did something unexpected in response to his purring (which hadn't been part of the experiment -- he was still just very full and content after eating that fat field mouse): she hummed something. Merely a few notes, but at least they were the right ones. Then she turned over and started sleeping on her face in a most undignified manner.

The experiment could wait, he supposed, unless that interminable Mr. Mittens showed his ugly collar around here again.With a small decisive sneeze, Azalea decided he would take up his experiment another night.
-------

Indeed Brighid was a late riser the next morning, missing even the crowing of the neighborhood rooster in her feeble attempts to snatch as much sleep as possible. She eventually managed packed her things and drag herself out of camp with a cup of steaming tea in hand.

She looked around the bustling camp for her guide, though she was fairly certain she smelled him before she ever saw him. The chap seemed to have a permanent cloud of alcohol hovering around him. She secretly wondered how safe it was for him to ever stand near a brazier.

"G'morning," she managed with a surprising amount of cheer despite feeling like she was swimming through molasses.

@Trevor
 
That-Which-Was-Destined-For-Soup did not stick around to recount its many, loud victories. Soon as the job was done, the twitchy featherfucker blended into the background and wouldn't be seen again until it was time for its next crime. Over time, a working theory had developed – that countryfolk only really got up early to beat the evil chicken to the punch. You were still up at the crack of dawn. Still miserable. But at least the bird didn't win. And there was a good way to start the day right there. Small victories.

The hours following smushed together like the oatmeal he ate. Popped one by one and disappeared like the weak froth atop weaker ale. Wasn't in him to remain sober for long stretches, but stuff like this barely counted. In a way, it was like getting everything except your feet under the covers – always too hot or too cold – never quite enough either way. But when attempting to maintain a buzz, some bzzzz was better than clarity that came from its absence. And sometimes not enough was a lot better than nothing at all.

Coulda sworn he heard a cat singing. But that sounded nuts. Perhaps there were hidden qualities to this ale beyond what he could readily feel. Could be the place wouldn't be completely forgettable after all. Maybe they had a brewer's brand he could revisit in one of the bigger towns along the road. Any brew worth anything eventually found its way to a big enough market for guys like Trevor to sample on.

„Morning...“ Was three hours ago. „...Good morning.“ Slept through the bird then. That was good. People who slept easily were easier to trust. Likely didn't have as big a reason to be jumpy.

„Won't you tell me about your fern...“ Squinted, eyeing the weak ale than the budding luckthief. Nah – no reason to be bitter with first light. „..Druids. Whatever it is you need...there may be easier ways to get it done.“ Ones that didn't involve asking around fucking Garth.
 
Brighid's face brightened considerably at Trevor's request. She wanted nothing more than to share all of the information she'd been slowly gathering from every passing bookseller, scribe, historian and bard she'd come across with academic eagerness. Taking stock of the scene before her, she quickly realized that it might sound less crazy if she took a mellower tone, so she took a moment to compose herself in the guise of taking a long sip of her tea.

"Druidry is one of the mystery religions, so they are... well... mysterious. Purposely hard to join, and therefore hard to find. Many scholars don't believe they exist at all, or at least not in any structured sense. But there are stories. Clues, if you will. Supposedly some of the wisest advisors to the queens and kings of past eras were druids, but they disappeared when nations turned to greed and chaos."

She winced inwardly at the thought, herself being a citizen of the Empire that still sought to sublimate the Free States. She glanced into the soft steam rising from her cup, mentally tidying what would have been years of notes before looking back at Trevor.

"One scholar claims they've been allowed to live among a druid order and document their rituals, though of course no one's been able to track down this group. The only thing anyone knows for sure is that they venerate the elements and forces of nature, and may even be led by powerful Shroudweavers. I suspect they might gather at certain sacred monuments or natural wonders. Stone circles and the like."

She thought it best to leave out some of the more fantastical accounts of human sacrifice, wild orgies and otherwordly beings. Those were just silly. And, if she was honest with herself about the nature of the world, they would be a more popular religion if they advertised such things.

"I don't suppose you know of any stone circles or natural wonders nearby?" she asked, though her hopes couldn't find any purchase in this backdrop of such a quaint agricultural community.

@Trevor
 
Had to scratch at the jaw to keep his brow down. But it did stay down. It all sounded like a crock of shit to him, but she believed. Believers were never receptive to truths unlike their own. Nations had always been driven by a greed to have and be more – to take more. To be bigger than your neighbor. Winning didn't care for the measure, so long as your grass was greener, your stack higher. If there really was such a thing as druids, then going off into the green where no one could find them might've been the first clever thing they'd done. Because people always wanted more. You gave a finger and they got your fist. Proverbs may have ended there, but bitemarks went high as the elbow.

The ale turned sour in his mouth as she mentioned the stone circles. He'd seen such a thing but once. They didn't leave anyone alive to tell of it. But it wasn't a group – it was one guy who needed to be dealt with. He still remembered how a mad branch caved in Benny's head like it kept a grudge. Benny had a mother he couldn't remember. Might've spoken of a younger brother too. He never really listened until the guy was gone. Everyone thought the job was too good to be true, until they started dropping. That was one tough fucker to hunt. But hunters needed to be lucky once. When you ran, you had to keep your fortunes up at all times. Trevor had once made his bread on fortune finding him when it forgot others. He wouldn't call it bread now. But it kept him alive.

Suppose everyone had cousins and brothers, neighbors and colleagues. There was always a cost to the work somewhere else. To someone else. Always someone left to remember the job once it was done. Maybe that's who she sought, people who knew the guy in life. He chewed on the liquid in his mouth like it'd grown solid. He looked to the Sun instead, gauging east.

„There's a stone circle...“ He looked from the sky, over his shoulder. „Northwest of here. Should be about two days ride from Gullet. More south than east.“ Only he couldn't rightly tell where Gullet was from where he sat. Find what you were looking for often enough, and your feet forgot the way.

The landscape around him lacked clear landmarks. Could've been a place he passed before. But locales like these were little more than crusted mud between caravans. Whether you rubbed your hands together in the cold, or coins over dice – memory wore off all the same.

„Was a guy there who tried to fight us with a forest. Guy's gone now. Stone's probably all still there.“
 
She had to hand it to Trevor - if he was mocking her, at least he was doing it in inscrutable silence. That was decidedly more agreeable than the reception she'd been given by her 'friends' back in Brighthearth. Still, what had seemed a such brilliant idea in the alcoholic haze of last evening now gave her pause.

The world was dangerous even in peaceful times, and there were whispers that times were changing. So far she had found safety by always being with or near groups of other travellers, especially when leaving the well-patrolled roads belonging to the Empire for the Free States, but she had noticed that the Empire's military was curiously farther afield than she'd expected. She had seen signs of growing tension; farmhouses being boarded up as she passed, sideways glares from locals in inns, townspeople avoiding anyone who even looked like they had a military air about them. If she simply disappeared into the woods with some stranger, never to be seen again, who would be the wiser?

She swallowed that fear with a mouthful of honeyed tea and sighed. She should at least assume that if her family had hired a mercenary to bring her back, he would have to bring her back in one piece. And the location he'd mentioned wasn't that far; if this was another dead end, she probably could rejoin this caravan before they left.

"He tried to fight you with a forest? Meow -- er, how?" she asked. She had to admit she was intrigued by the idea.

@Trevor
 
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