table of contents – (spoilers)
Peep and Choke walked back towards Diya and Gorgeous Boy on the path by the side of Gotthilf’s cottage. Once again, when they got five meters from her, Diya raised her hand to bring them to a halt.
“I am glad you decided to stay, Peep. We have much to discuss,” Diya said. She then tossed Gorgeous Boy’s reins over his saddle and gave his muzzle a stroke.
The horse bobbed his head with a nicker and walked over to Peep. As she took the reins, she was pleased to confirm that the hide roll with the four bows they had just bought was tied down behind the saddle.
“My gift to you, Peep, as a gesture of my goodwill.”
“Thank ye, Diya. I appreciate it,” Peep said.
“You are welcome. Now, if ye would indulge me just a little further, I believe yar hostage will be arriving shortly. If you wish, Peep, ye may ride back to your men and collect your bows. I don’t mind ye having them along, and I’m sure ye’ll be more comfortable having them with you. Lieutenant Pekot can return with ye, or stay with me. I aint particular in that regard.”
Peep looked at Choke to see what he wanted to do. He nodded his assent for her to leave him alone with Diya. Peep swung herself up into the saddle and trotted back towards Knuckle, Pinch, and Dom with the horses.
Diya turned to Choke:
“Mild weather we’re having this spring, isn’t it? We could do with a bit more rain, but it has been quite lovely,” she said, her tone as pleasant as can be.
“Ahm. Yes. Seems that way, ma’am,” Choke said.
“So, yar a Tribesman, are ye? I’ve never met a person of yar type before. Seen some from afar, though. When I was out over the great plains, on the wing. Didn’t seem that they were folk I’d get along with. Or, rather, that they’d get along with me. But ye don’t seem much like them. Suppose that’s down to yar being raised by the black robes out in Pekot, huh?”
“Yes. I’ve never met a Tribesman either. So, ma’am, you are a druid. A shapeshifter,” Choke said, doing his best to keep his tone neutral.
“Yeah, I can take animal form when it suits me. As ye saw. Didn’t seem like now’s the time to be cute about trying to hide it. May as well lay our cards on the table.”
“You aren’t worried about confirming our suspicions about you?” Choke asked.
“No,” Diya laughed. “Why would I be?”
Peep returned on Gorgeous Boy then and spared Choke having to come up with a response. As Peep dismounted, Diya spoke to her:
“I’m glad that Brother Barrelmender returned safely from Spitzer. So that we could speak here today, I mean. He wasn’t too tired from his journey to take over watching your men?”
“He’s fine,” Peep snapped, glaring hard.
“That’s excellent. He seems to have much improved since you came here. I wonder what you did to motivate him so?”
“What can I say? The spirit of Stron moved him,” Peep smiled coldly at Diya.
“Seems so. Ah! Here comes your hostage,” Diya said, turning her ear upwards.
Neither Peep nor Choke could hear anything. However, after a few seconds, the sound of Nester yacking approached from the trail to Bristlenook. Soon, a very irritated Thad Swallowtail came stomping out of the woods with Nester swooping around his head.
“Nester! My dood! You are such a colossal bummer, man!” Thad yelled as he waved his arms around in an attempt to ward off the raucous magpie. It was another moment before Thad noticed Diya, Choke, and Peep standing together in the clearing. “Woah!” he exclaimed, stopping dead in his tracks.
“Thad! Thank you for coming! Please, come and join us!” Diya called over to him.
Nester gave Thad one more torrent of abuse before wheeling off and heading back towards Bristlenook. Thad took a moment to make sure the bird was really gone before ambling over to Diya’s side. He looked almost as magnificent as ever, but was on the disheveled side that morning.
“Diya, you know I’m all about peace and love, my dood. We’re all creatures of love in Altas’ light. But that bird is a heavy bummer man! Alright? Yeah! He was pecking me on the head the whole way here! I’m bleeding man!” Thad exclaimed indignantly as he drew his fingers through his currently wild locks of hair to massage his scalp. He held up a bloody finger as evidence.
“I am sorry, Thad. He just doesn’t like you,” Diya said, not looking sorry at all.
“He’s an abusive drunk, man! Alright? Two days ago he dropped another big shit into our wildflower snuggle puddle! It was completely ruined! We had the most transcendent vibration going through our fourth vector daisy chain, and he swooped in and shit all over it! Literally! Not cool, man!”
“That is something for the two of you to work out, Thad,” Diya chided with an amused smile.
“Yeah, well, whatever, man. I can’t reason with him. He’s an asshole, dood. I’m sorry to get all harsh and toasted on this, but that really went too far. Kizzy was just about to have a breakthrough. All that work. The colon cleansings. The deep tissue relaxation massages. A whole jar of oil! All that, ruined! He hit her right in the face, man! She’s as uptight now as the first day we met!” Thad moaned, his voice quavering as though he might actually cry.
“Thad, if the two of you can’t get along, then I don’t know what to tell you. Can’t you see we have company?” Diya said, still quite entertained.
“Well, yeah. But did ye have to send Nester to get me? Send someone else next time!” Thad whined.
“I wanted you to know it was urgent.”
“Yeah, whatever, dood. This triangle is getting cliched, man. He’s an abusive drunk, and ye let him do whatever he wants. That bird is expressing something from your shadow side, Diya, and it isn’t healthy. You should come by and we do some shrooms and have a sweat and get so buttery and smooth and work it out. Just the two of us. Get to the bottom of this hostility that Nester is expressing for you. Alright? Alright! Yeah!” Thad cheered up as he fully invested in this new fantasy of his.
“No. Shut up, now. We have guests.”
“Okay there, boss queen! Haven’t touched on any nerves, right? Not at all! Control is a drug, and it is a heavy trip, dood. Alright? Alright! But, yeah! These two are here now! Woah! Little Wolf! How are your vibration these days, little dood? Heavy, huh? I can tell just by looking at you that you haven’t had near enough of the medicine I laid on you last time we met. Right? Alright! Yeah! Pop them fungi, Little Wolf! Smooth out your wrinkles! Yeah! And then there’s uhhhh…” Thad’s brow furrowed in confusion as he looked Choke over. “Where’s your black robes, my dood? You look like you’re all in the army now! Lieutenant?”
“Yes. That’s right.”
“Righteous, my dood. Rightous,” Thad said, his head bobbing up and down with a beautiful happy grin on his gorgeous face. “So, what are we doing today, my lovely people? Pop some buttons and go for a mud bath? Slipping and sliding like piggies in bliss. That would really smooth out some of the tension I’m feeling here. Alright? Alright! Yeah!”
“No. I am going to have tea with Peep. Alone,” Diya said.
“Far out.”
“However, with the tensions you talked about, her men are not going to be happy letting her go off alone with me.”
“No doubt? Heavy, dood.”
“Yes. So, while Peep and I go to the lilac grove for tea, you are going to stay here with Lieutenant Pekot and the other men. Do you understand?” Diya asked Thad.
His face spasmed as he thought this over.
“Woah, my dood. So, like, I’m a hostage? Like, what my grandpa was, and everything?”
“Exactly.”
“Yeah, sure thing, my boss queen. And please tell me again that there aren’t some unresolved harsh vibrations resonating in you towards me. It’s like, woah!” Thad stretched both his hands out towards Diya with his fingers outstretched, his eyes wide in horror. “There’s a heavy darkness around you, my dood. Unresolved vibrations building a harmonic, man! Alright? It’s amplifying!”
“Yes, visions of imminent hordes of goblins consuming the world will do that to a person, Thad. This has nothing to do with you,” Diya said, her genuine fatigue with him finally breaking through.
“So is that all I am to you now? Some game piece on a board for you and these heavy cats to push around like some kind of people playing a game? On a board? Is that really what’s happening right now?”
“Yes. Go with Lieutenant Pekot. We can discuss the rest later.”
“Oh, yes, your highness, my queen! Woah! Here I go! Queen’s bishop to King’s knight! Gambit! Yeah, army dood! Let’s go! Before she calls Nester to peck us into order!” Thad railed as he stomped past Choke and down the path towards Knuckle, Pinch, and Dom.
Choke nodded deeply to Diya before turning to follow Thad.
Diya sighed and gave Peep a chagrined look. “Men. As useful as they can be, at times, I hardly think it’s worth it. Shall we go have a tea?”
***
The small lilac grove around the spring pool was just as lovely as Diya had said it would be. As well, it was only a few minutes’ walk from Gotthilf’s cottage. There was a small firepit, with comfortable and cleverly fashioned wicker furniture arranged around it, including a small shelving unit housing cookware and boxes.
Diya quickly stacked up some logs in the firepit and got them lit by sticking her fingers underneath them to produce an intense flame. She filled up an iron kettle from the pool, dropped in a handful of herbs from a birchbark box, and stuck the kettle directly on the merrily-burning logs, tamping them down a little as she did.
Peep tied Gorgeous Boy up to a nearby tree and stood by, shortbow in hand, watching Diya intently.
“So, ye can touch iron, huh?” Peep said, gesturing to the kettle.
“Absolutely. I aint fey. When I talk about people of iron, I mean more about your whole mindset. I may not love iron, but I’ll still deal with it if it’s the best thing for the job. Disagreeable things can always be tolerated if they serve enough of a utility. You understand that very well, I expect. From what I understand, yar about as practical a woman as ever there was. Please, have a seat.”
Peep did so, leaning her shortbow against her leg, and carefully arranging her shortsword for a quickdraw as she did. Diya smiled indulgently at this as she took her seat next to Peep’s.
“Now, Peep, I will tell ye: as a druid, I could totally feed ye poison that I am immune to. So, if ye don’t wanna partake of this tea, I understand. I just hope ye understand that if I wanted ye dead, I coulda just killed ye already. A good number of times over.”
“Seems that way. Why didn’t ye?”
“I’ve had no good reason to. And while I aint worried about that raven yar working for in town, with the kinda shit I been hearing about you and yar so-called blessing, I expect that if I were to off the lot of ye, the black robes would send some different ravens. They would be more than I could manage, I am sure. So, I’ve been laying in the cut, waiting to see what yar all about.”
“Sounds wise. So, what’s changed now? Why reach out?” Peep asked.
“Good question. For one, ye came here heavy to muscle Gotthilf. And he’s a member of this community of ours. A community I protect. Couldn’t let that pass without giving yar knuckles a rap.”
“Suppose not. Fair enough. So ye’ve seen us coming and going this whole time, huh? Got yar snitches out there in the woods, the birds and whatever, watching our every move.”
“I aint quite the way ye think, calling them snitches as ye do. Yar type always assumes there is some coercion to what we do with nature’s creatures. Like the only way to get what we want from them is to force it, as ye would a snitch. Is it so strange to imagine that the birds, in particular, would be more than happy to tell me whatever I want to know about ye? They see ye coming, they tell their friends, others overhear, word spreads, and someone flits by to warble in my ear. That’s how they are, ye know; birds. The most degenerate gossips ye can imagine! Anyone with a birdfeeder might learn much from their grateful feathered friends if they only knew how to speak to them.”
“Okay. And what’s Nester to ye if not a snitch?” Peep asked.
“Well, that’s a bit more complicated. And not something I’m gonna get into. Suffice to say, he’s loyal to me for his own reasons. And I help him out as best I can. But Thad aint exactly wrong; Nester is a drunken asshole, in general. It aint always easy,” Diya chuckled to herself.
At this point, the kettle began to boil energetically. Diya leaned forward and stuck her hand right into the fire to pull the kettle out. She set in on a flat rock next to the firepit. Peep could not help but take note, leaning forward to check Diya’s hand as she let the scalding kettle go.
“No burn,” Diya said, holding her palm up towards Peep. “Perk of the trade, if ye will. Normal fire and cold can’t harm me. Now, I’m sure that the fire yar sporting in yar hands would be another matter. But, I do have spells of protection against that sort of fire as well. And ye’d best believe I got those on board before I swooped in to talk to ye today.”
“Okay… good to know. Call that info another gift.”
“It is. You’re welcome. Now, while that tea simmers down, I’ll get into a couple more reasons why I invited ye here to chat today, instead of just rapping yar knuckles and sending ye on yar way. First of all, I wasn’t joking, what I said to Thad back there. These goblin dreams have been getting to me. And before ye start in on whatever Stronian bullshit they’ve filled yar ignorant head up with, the likes of me and mine aint any friend of goblins. Gobos are the fuckin worst. They despoil everything in the worst ways, and I do not tolerate them.”
“Yeah, that makes sense. Goblins suck,” Peep said.
“Yeah. Then, finally, we all had a couple visitors from down south, right? Well, the one, Hargarl, he came and gave me an earful about ye. And I aint putting on any airs here. I aint the one he came up here to see. He just did me the courtesy of popping in on his way to his destination, from one practitioner to another.”
“Oh, is that so? Where was he heading?”
“Ye know where. Further on into the Moondark. To see the elders of the Blood Circle there. And before ye push me on that, I’ll tell ye straight up: I aint got shit to do with them. I’d sooner go to that Stronian hell of yars that set foot in the Moondark. They are twisted as granite cliff oaks in there. And ye might think ye have a notion or two of it, but ye don’t know the half.”
“And Hargarl and Aoelric rode on in there? They got some balls, huh?”
Diya shook her head. “No. They didn’t. Hargarl flew on in as a vulture. This Aoelric? That’s the slick pretty boy that thinks he’s a woodsman, right? They extracted him from my place.”
“Extracted? What does that mean?”
“Teleported. Ye know what that means? Right. He set up a circle in my yard, and some southern wizard teleported in, grabbed yar guy, and teleported him right back out. Slick operation. Must be some real money behind it. Can’t imagine it. Never even seen something like it. And just so ye know who it was ye were dealing with: Hargarl aint got no concerns going in to see the Blood Circle. He’s their type. He’s got that sort of reputation himself, out in his neck of the woods. It’s said he likes to grow vines up around and into people, to hold them fast. Then he changes into that big turkey vulture he favors, and eats the liver right outta them. Alive. I mean, there are worse ways to go. He aint flaying them slow like the Blood Circle do. But, still. It’s got a certain style to it.”
“Sounds about right. And this is the sort that come to pay ye a call.”
“We had business, yeah,” Diya said, ignoring the jab. “He knew I’m the one out here that’ll be the first one of us ye’d be butting up against. On account of yar Outfit pricks have been basing themselves outta here. He needed to make sure I understood what’s going on in the bigger picture sense. And before ye ask: I aint telling ye. It’s probably best for ye that ye don’t know. Just know that we got bigger problems coming than each other. Real soon.”
“Okay, then. But, about those Outfit pricks. I was hoping to have a word with ye about them. On account of them, like ye say, basing themselves outta yar joint here. How d’ye suppose that’s supposed to sit with us?” Peep asked, glaring hard at Diya.
Diya shrugged. “Aint my concern how anything in this world sits with ye, Peep. And we can get into them bad boys. And we will. But first, we got something more important to get to.”
“And what would that be?”
“Don’t be stupid now. Them brands of yars. I need to see them now. Don’t fuck me around,” Diya said, sharply.
Peep nodded. “Alright, then. Here ye go.”
Peep held up both her palms towards Diya. Like Hargarl, Diya did not flinch from them. Unlike him, she seemed to get no thrill from them, though. After staring at them both for a while, she sighed and leaned back in her chair. Diya stared out at the beautiful spring pool for a while, lost in thought. Finally she leaned forward and got two wooden mugs from the shelving unit.
“Tea?” she asked Peep.
“Sure. What the fuck. I like living dangerously.”
Diya snorted. “I do not. But, I think that preference will be flying by the wayside.”
Diya poured them each a mug of herbal tea and offered Peep a choice of the two mugs.
“Thank ye. Cheers. To whatever the fuck we’re doing right now, I suppose,” Peep said, holding her mug out towards Diya.
“Indeed. Let’s get some work done,” Diya said as she clicked her mug into Peep’s.
Muse Vassal 