Dissolution

	Slicce swung her hooves off the edge of the log where she had taken a break to eat.  She munched the handful of fruit she had snagged from a tree, wondering what she would do first.  Home!  She was going home, back to the Island, where she and the flock could relax and have fun in the glade once more, free of worry.  An army of the Duke stood on the other side of the shore, the Flock Mother was fine again.

	The young satyress yawned and chucked her apple core off into the woods.  All this marching was boring.

	Greenwater sidled up to her with an odd look on his face.  “Slicce, do you have a moment?”

	Slicce snorted.  “I don't have anything but moments, Greenwater.”

	“Right... Lord Gillint wanted to speak with you,” Greenwater said.  “He had an interesting idea.”

	“Huh?”  Slicce looked over to see Gillint speaking earnestly with another satyr who looked rather charmed by what Gillint had to say.  “Well... sure.”

	Slicce followed Greenwater over to where Gillint was talking.  “My friends, hello,” Gillint said.

	Before he could finish his rhyme, Greenwater raised his hand.  “I think this is everybody,” he said.

	“Where’s Xuriis?” somebody asked.

	Slicce laughed.  “Off flirting with some Eladrin soldier girl.”

	A few others chuckled.  “We can fill him in later,” Greenwater said.  “Sir, what were you saying before?”

	Gillint cleared his throat.  “My friends, every one of us is a satyr, this you know.  I ask you: if we find our way home, through this silly hole, why should we go?  This plane is great, and so very safe; no longer under rules shall we chafe.  We can do as we please, do as we want.  This forest here shall be our haunt.”

	Slicce tilted her head as the others muttered.  “But... wouldn't that leave the flock... undefended?” she asked, though she had to remember her thoughts of a moment before.  Tumnal's army could keep them safe.

	“Certainly not, Slicce my dear, for Tumnal can safely now steer our faun friends in their real home, and leave us here to roam.”  He gestured lewdly at himself.  “No more rules and no more ordered restraint, never for our species shall we attaint!  We can lie with whom we desire, our revelry shall soar higher!  The Countess has given her blessing!”  He smirked.  “Any more worries for my addressing?”

	Slicce licked her lips as the thought of casting off her yoke and doing as she pleased played through her mind.  There was no denying that living with the flock was stultifying sometimes.  If she had no Flock Mother to chasten her, maybe she could openly sample some of those 'civilized' places she had been exploring in the dead of night.

	“Are you sure this is alright, Dance Lord?” Greenwater asked.  He looked uncomfortably back at the rest of the flock, which was now gone into the distance.

	“Greenwater, have I not earned your trust?  Here, it's safe to indulge our lust,” Gillint chuckled.

	“And the local village?” Greenwater pressed.

	“Who cares about those human hicks?  Their boredom, we can solve for kicks,” Gillint laughed, and several others laughed along.  “Every night, we'll be the life of these backwaters, and take time deflowering their sons and daughters.  Within a month, they'll sing our praise, and set their feeble hearts ablaze!”

	Slicce smiled.  “We'll teach them revels, and the way to dance... and, uh... they'll love us all at first glance.”

	“Hah!  That's my girl,” Gillint said, rubbing her head indulgently; she laughed and shoved his hand away.  “Now, my friends, I know that some wish to leave, and know that your absence, I'll deeply grieve.  I force nobody to join my revel, my request here is just on the level.”  As he said it, he let his charms, the ancient weapon of the satyr, bleed out into the clearing.  Some were strong enough to not even notice.  Most felt it but didn’t know it for what it was, writing it off with a shiver or a wrinkled nose.

	Slicce felt something dark and hungry enter her mind, and she liked it.  She idly rubbed her tummy as Gillint spoke.  It did make sense.

	Gillint spread his arms wide.  “Let us build a new home, my friends, and let the fauns find their own ends.”

	Greenwater looked unconvinced, he noted, as did a few of the younger females, but the majority seemed to be nodding along.  “Regardless, now is not the time to choose,” he said soothingly.  “Let us travel, we've still got time to lose.”

	The other satyrs fell in as he walked off in the wake of the flock.  Some were still quiet, while others looked around at the Neverwinter Forest with new appreciation.

	What none noticed, in their mixture of excitement and introspection, was Xuriis, his back to a tree, not twenty feet away, holding his stomach and mouth.  His brown eyes were wide and shaking, his stomach roiled, and his hands shook.

	No.  That had been a coincidence, surely.  That impulse to obey, that surge of desire and longing, it had to have been coincidence, it had to.  It could not have been anything else.

	There was no way it could be anything else.

	Xuriis muffled his mouth harder as he wailed in shock he didn't understand.  Why?  Why did Gillint use his powers on the others?  He didn't need to!  He was trying to get FEY to follow their INSTINCTS!  That was like convincing water to be wet!  And why had he...

	Why did he care?  Xuriis slowly pulled his hands away from his mouth.  Why did he care?  Yes, Viri had made the case that the flock was important to him... but why did he care if Gillint was hurting other satyrs if he was going to leave the flock behind?  Why did he hurt inside?

	Xuriis detached from the tree.  “What in the world is happening to me?” he muttered to the air.  “What am I doing?”  He slowly walked off to the clearing with the Rupture, his mind spinning.  “Why do I feel like this?”

	He paused, resting his hand one trunk.  He slowly unclenched his teeth.  “I need... I need to ask Flock Mother or Capricorn about this,” he finally said.  He took off again, faster now, hoping he could overtake his grandfather.


	Flock Mother and Capricorn were, at that moment, sitting at the edge of the clearing, surrounded by the flock and Tumnal's men.  “I do say, this is amazing,” Capricorn said, watching the construction.  A great wooden walkway ran down the interior of the blasted hole, with a platform at the edge.  The Knight Commander stood in the center of the platform, waving a Sending Stone about.

	Tumnal was watching a few Eladrin with Circlets of Water Breathing walk through the Rupture and vanish as he did so.  The Knight Commander spotted the two women watching and nodded politely to them, then returned to his work.

	Flock Mother sighed anxiously.  “So close.”  Long fingers of bright green light reached down between the branches overhead at the edge of the clearing, but where they sat, all the trees had been blown to flinders.

	“I know, dear,” Capricorn said.  “As soon as they find a way to build over the water... oh look,” she said.  The entire flock was visible now, through the wall of trees to the south.  “It seems the flock has arrived... Xuriis?”

	Both women stared as Xuriis skidded to a halt beside them, panting and sweating.  He doubled over, gasping for air.  “Xuriis, lad, whatever is wrong?” Flock Mother asked.

	“It's... Gillint,” Xuriis managed.  “He's splintering the flock!”

	Flock Mother started.  “He what?”

	“He used... his magic, he charmed the other satyrs,” Xuriis panted.  “He wants to stay here, make an all-satyr flock.”

	Flock Mother scowled, but Capricorn just looked off into the distance.  “Xuriis, my lad, your concern is noted,” Capricorn said, “but if he does stay here, that's not so bad.”  She smiled.  “You shall make an excellent Dance Lord in his place.”

	Xuriis slowly straightened up, eyes wide.  “I... Dance Lord?” he asked.

	“Indeed.  Why not?” Capricorn asked.  It was growing a bit harder to think as the rest of the flock walked near, for some reason, but this was easy enough.  “You are young and strong, the flock likes you, and you have shown that you can interact with others well, thanks to Linus.”

	“Have you found yourself finding it hard to abandon or harm people?” Flock Mother asked.

	Xuriis shivered.  “Yes...”

	“Then fate has aligned your heart with the flock already, young man, for that is what Gillint felt long ago, as all Dance Lords do.”  Flock Mother patted his shoulder.  “When you signed your binding contract to serve the flock, you bound it with your Oath, did you not?”

	That was true.  Oaths are things of utmost importance to all fey, regardless of species.  Then the obvious rejoinder appeared.  “Wait, wait, what about Gillint?” Xuriis demanded.  “What about his Oath?  Him splitting the flock is not protecting it!”

	The rest of the flock made it past the perimeter guards and started walking over, and Capricorn's gentle smile turned into something more vacant.  “Oh, you needn't worry,” she said indirectly.  “Gillint, Flindra, hello, hello,” she said to the satyr and faun who reached her first.  “We are but hours from home!”

	“So it is, Countess,” Flindra said.  He bowed to Castinuve, who had walked up from Tumnal.  “Knight Castinuve, Flock Mother.  Are all assembled?”

	Gillint cleared his throat.  “My friends of satyr-kin have reached conclave, we've decided to form our own enclave.  The Feywild, though a home, is not for us, a new start here we all should now discuss.”

	“Out of the question,” Castinuve said flatly.  All eyes turned to the Knight as he planted his hands on his hips.  “We have not summoned an army, survived a Gorgon and a plague, and forged a friendship with locals simply to splinter now, on our very dooorstep!”

	Capricorn's cheek twitched as Gillint assumed control of her.  “Dear Knight, we are not so vulnerable that this will harm the flock,” she said.  “Here, young Xuriis has already begun to assume the mantle of the Dance Lord.”  She took his hand and raised it to show Castinuve.  “The flock can be safe without us.”

	Castinuve scowled, but then looked up sharply at his Countess.  “Wait.  'Us?'“

	“Well, this is not my flock, Knight, nor yours,” Capricorn reminded him, which made him look away.  “Our home is in the Court of the Duke.  Flock Mother rules the flock; our arrangement has always been temporary.  Do you recall?”

	The Knight glared at the dirt.  “This feels... odd.  Gillint, why stay?  Do you not want to go home?”

	“Of the great Feywild, I grow weary, I want to make this place more cheery.”  Gillint spread his arms wide.  “Our Feywild home has many satyrs among the flocks.  The locals,” he chuckled, as did several others, “they'll find my pleasures more unorthodox.  The Feywild's great green lawns are both warm and pretty, and I admit, this place is more grim and gritty... but the very air back home can kill, but here the forest air is still.”