Moving out

	Viri rose from her few minutes ofsleep and yawned.  The flock had danced across the island the previous day.  The few remaining satyrs of the flock were still out cold from their exertions, protecting them all and leading the revels, but while the Duke’s troops still patrolled the edge of the island, they were as safe as could be.

	Quicksnow rolled uncomfortably in her sleep, then slowly settled back down.  Viri smiled fondly at her.  She had only just begun showing.  The rest of the flock was already preparing to celebrate the birth of the first new member since the return to their home.  Normally, a satyr knowing their father was the rarest of events, but given that there was now only one male satyr in the whole flock, Greenwater, it wasn’t hard to guess this time.

	That wasn’t optimal, actually.  They needed more of the satyr-kin in their flock.  Greenwater was a nice lad, and he certainly had no complaints about supping his fill of the females of the flock, but it wasn’t natural for an entire flock to have but a single satyr to serve its defense.  The lad could hardly be expected to drive off a Gorgon on his own, or direct them in battle.

	Viri ambled around the clearing in which they had made their camp while waiting for dawn, distantly noting a few others doing the same.  Even here, on their home island, they were vigilant, always vigilant, for the threats in the dark.

	As she found herself doing sometimes, Viri wondered about the Prime village, Conyberry.  She wondered about the strange people she had met there, and its defender.  She smiled wistfully as she thought of Linus, and Noble, and the scary, thrilling adventure they had had.

	Perhaps that wasn’t the life she wanted, but that didn’t mean she didn’t recall it fondly, after all.  Rimsi noted Viri’s meandering and beckoned her to join him and a few others on a night-time hunt, but she distractedly waved him off.  No, she was too unguided to focus on the hunt.

	The huge moons of the Feywild crept through the sky on their own dance, whiling away the hours of the night.  In Viri’s wandering, she found herself with some of the elders.  She watched as they spoke among themselves and sat about in stillness.  She wondered distantly when she would lose her dancing legs and join them, then sit there among the white-headed ones and think of important things, until the urge to wander off and rejoin the earth overtook her, too.

	Whimlosidra, the recent incumbent Flock Mother, noticed Viri looking idly in her direction.  “Do you need something, Viridian?” she asked.

	Viri surprised herself with her answer.  “I… do, actually,” she said.

	“What?”

	Viri hung her head and slowly walked over.  “I do not know.  I am restless and…I don’t know.”

	Whimlosidra patted the ground beside her.  Viri came and sat.  As a Flock Mother retiree, Whimlosidra’s voice carried weight with the elders disproportionate to her age.  She nursed her baby son on her breast as she spoke to the much younger girl.  “Speak then, dear, let me try to answer,” she said.

	Viri stayed silent for a moment, watching Ismecalope snacking from his mother.  She smiled faintly as the industrious look of focus on his tiny face as he drank.  “Oh… I know not, Flock… Whimlosidra.”

	“Whimlo, dear.  You are anxious.  What burdens you?” Whimlosidra pressed.

	Viri shrugged.  “I think we should recruit more satyrs.  I think we’re… oh, underdefended, perhaps?  Yet not!  There are the Duke’s men!” she added, pointing at the treeline.  Sure enough, they could see the faint shift in the starlight that announced a passing artillery boat on the river.  Severus was determined to lock down the portal, even if he wasn’t making much money on it.

	Whimlosidra grinned.  “Ah.  Perhaps the touch of a mighty satyr lad is what you need, Viri,” she said playfully.

	Viri snorted.  “Oh, not need, Whimlo,” she said.  “No, I suppose…”  She fell silent before throwing her hands up.  “Whimlo, I do not know!  I do not know what troubles me.  I suppose I just… I miss the Prime, but not enough to go back.  I miss Xuriis, but not enough to go work for the Countess.  Oh, I do not know what I want.”

	Whimlo shook her head.  “My dear girl, you want excitement.  That is all.  You miss having your friends and allies from before, because you miss the adventure you were having before.”

	“But it was so scary!  People died!  And we lost Gillint and the Countess Capricorn!” Viri protested.

	“Craving adventure isn’t always healthy, Viri, it’s true,” Whimlo said.  “No, it’s not safe.  It was scary.  But you enjoyed it, didn’t you?” she asked.  “You liked meeting that Linus fellow, and exploring a new place with friends.”

	“I did,” Viri said softly.  “But not enough to try again.  Is this my new world, then?  Struck by an all-present but… non-actionable level of longing?”

	Whimlo looked down at her son, who was done feasting and was now busily examining his leg fur.  “Longing, maybe.  You decide whether it is actionable.”

	“I suppose I do,” Viri said, suddenly cross.  “There isn’t an easy answer, is there?”

	“If you have to ask…” Whimlo said drily.  She snuggled back against a mossy rock and tucked her son down against her tummy.  He gurgled and looked around.  “Dear, I think you are longing for more than adventure.  I think you miss your friends in the way that friends do, too.”

	Viri blew out a huffy breath.  “Well, I need no nighttime revelation to know that.  Linus was a fine lad, and Xuriis was closer to me than I knew,” she said.  “If he had asked me to come with him to the court of the Duke, I might have even said yes.  Not a trothplight, perhaps, but, oh, who knows?”  She grumped to herself for a moment.  “Hmph.  I am simply torn.  I feel unfulfilled.”

	“And thus returns my proposal of an evening’s mad dickings, my dear,” Whimlo chuckled.  “I jest!  I jest,” she said, fending off Viri’s indignant glare.  “In all seriousness, though, there is iiterally nothing stopping you from visiting the Prime and seeing Linus again but your own hesitation.  You could even bring one of the satyresses with you for protection, if you wished.”

	Viri bit her lip.  “I… I suppose I could.”

	“Have you anything better to do?” Whimlo asked.

	“Well, no.”

	“Do you intend to go serve the armies of the Duke?”

	“No!”

	“Then what are you waiting for?”

	Viri stared at Whimlo’s neutral expression.  “I… won’t.  I won’t.”  She leaned over and nuzzled Whimlo submissively.  “Thank you, wise elder.”

	Whimlo laughed ruefully and swatted Viri away.  “Oh, no, don’t call me that!  It will catch on!”

	Viri giggled and rose.  She wondered which of the satyresses would be willing to come.  Lumira, perhaps, she was receiving little attention around the flock while Greenwater preferred Limbre and Quicksnow carried her baby…


	Linus glared out the rock window of the chapel at the crumbling town full of monsters.  “Torm’s fists, there’s a lot of the fuckers,” he grunted.  “I can lock the entrance down indefinitely, but there is simply no way I can break the horde.”  He hadn’t had enough time!  He had been intending to set up roosts of skirmishers on the top floors of the outer buildings.  Maple’s recon had spotted the approaching main force and sent them sprinting back to the House of Duty.  A hundred forty of them, she had said, terror in her voice.  Plus a few spellcasters.

	Mel twirled her weapon idly.  “Hmm.  I can use magic and acid bottles to slow them the hell down, but I can’t do it unprotected.”

	“Leave that to me,” a soldier spoke from the back row.  All of the adventurers assembled to defend the plateau had assembled in the main room of the House of Duty.  The snarling and howling of the monsters outside was getting louder as they pulled in their sentries.  They were getting ready to charge.

	The collection of adventurers had been laying down traps outside while Linus and his backup had been scouting.  Navigating the last few innocents on the plateau past them had been an ordeal, but it was clearly worth it.  The Jackalweres now had to stage a great distance from the building.

	Of course, if the people inside could still hear them at that distance, there had to be a lot of them…

	An archer by the main entrance had piled some broken furniture behind one of the windows, and was kneeling on it, peering out at the main road up to the temple.  He raised his hand and flashed three fingers in the air, and the room fell quiet.  “Scouts,” he murmured.  “Three, armed with slings, creeping up the road.”

	“Too obvious,” Melisander muttered.  “Have to be more coming from somewhere else.”

	Linus cast his Divine Sense out of the room and felt around.  “They have no planar beings in their midst, but there have to be over a hundred left,” he reported.  “The only way they can win is if they charge us all at once, though.  There are enough of us left to hold this place if they hold back.”

	“Right.”  The Deacon looked worriedly at the small wooden door at the back of the building.  The rectory was there, packed with the survivors of the plateau’s township.  “The doors in there are barricaded, but it won’t hold if the entire horde tries to force its way in through the back,” he said nervously.  “I should be back there.”

	“Then go, in Torm’s grace, Deacon, I’ll lead the pack up here,” Linus said at once.  Realistically, there was no way that Deacon Mordican would be able to help them much in a fight.  He had so very little combat experience that he was better off tending to the refugees.

	Mordican walked into the back room.  Nevemal and two of the other spellcasters Linus didn’t know took up positions beside the stained glass picture of the icons of Torm on the broad north wall of the building.  The outer wall bristled with the non-caster guards.

	Linus hefted his weapons and buckled them on.  “All right, folks.  To the walls, and may the Triad’s justice guide us.  If it looks like the beasts are going to scale the walls, call it out.  Spellcasters, run where you’re needed.”  There was a general chorus of assents, and everybody except the Deacon and Nevemal’s backup casters left their positions to head out to the walls.  Linus’ mind wandered as he moved through the routine steps of arming himself.  He thought about Jackalweres, about his brief stint in death, Kyria and Viri, and his estranged family.  He sighed softly as the room emptied out.

	The adventuring life lends itself to hanging threads.  He had known from the moment he had volunteered to move to Phandelin from Rassalantar and begin working in the field that it was very likely he would never reconcile his fractious home life with his job.  Even with all the money he had sunk into his home village over the years, he had still never quite gotten his family to set aside their pettiness.

	Oh well.  It was far too late to worry about that.  Linus grabbed his magic shield and walked out the door, leaving a pebble visible in the middle to prop the door open in case they needed to get in quickly later.  There was much to do.