In the Margins

     She was in a cemetery, which for the Haunted Woods wasn't all that unusual. It looked pretty decrepit, like nobody had been taking care of it for a long time- the grass and creepers had mostly overgrown headstones, and the stones had gone crooked from the settling of the earth. Tavasz was sheltered under the overhanging entryway of a half-collapsed mausoleum.

     Then she caught sight of a white and pink tail dangling from the Mausoleum roof, a heart shaped spade on it's tip, and memory caught up with her; she and Cleo had come in here figuring the stone structure would be as good a shelter as any, and sunrise had seen to it that no ghosts or skeletons would be rising from any of the graves. Moving a little way out into the grass, Tavasz looked up onto the roof to see that Cleo was still asleep, curled up in a tight ball with one wing over her face to block out the sun.

     Tavasz huffed softly, turning away from her companion and walking out into the rows of headstones. They hadn't really spoken much the night before, past a few terse exchanges to agree to sleep in the cemetery. The Lutari had still been simmering with the sense that Cleo was being unjustly touchy over nothing, and hadn't wanted to open herself up to more attitude.

     But now, with the tall grass tickling at her fur and the quiet solitude that came of being the first person awake, she couldn't shake the sense that maybe, in this, Cleo had been entirely within her rights to be upset. Sure, the "idiot" comment hadn't been intended as a dig at her autism, or even a dig at her intelligence more broadly. Yet Tavasz could very easily imagine a scenario where others had used the term with every bit of the malice it implied for the intellectually disabled. Cleo might have had low support needs, but she still obviously struggled with social situations enough that Tavasz had noticed something was off within seconds of talking to her.

     The comment had been thoughtless and petty, but made in the heat of pain and panic at being crashed through every bush and branch while dangling painfully by her arms. What was eating at her now, though, was how instead of just apologising when she realised what she'd said, she'd gotten her hackles up and doubled down.

     Not like Cleo wasn't also being unreasonable last night, Tavasz thought waspishly. But the more rational part of her brain wasn't moved by this logic. Their disagreement over the faeries was a difficult one, to be sure, and probably they'd have to talk about that at some point, but it had basically nothing to do with Tavasz calling Cleo an idiot except in being the reason she'd already been in a bad mood.

     She grunted softly in frustration, sitting down on a nearby flat headstone. Strictly speaking, she supposed it was probably some sort of faux pas to do that, something-something respect for the departed, but she couldn't bring herself to care at that moment. Not when she was feeling guilty for being a jerk, prickly about having to feel guilty, and also still peeved about Cleo's stubborn refusal to acknowledge that maybe the darkness-aligned citizens of Neopia had a right to be salty about being second-class citizens.

     "A dubloon for your thoughts?" A soft voice remarked, and Tavasz looked up with a start. Standing across from her, leaning casually on another of the headstones, was a dark Purple Aisha with batlike wings.

     "Sorceress?" Tavasz said, blinking in surprise. Then she sighed, folding her arms. "You're still following me? I thought you didn't think this was our business."

     "Maybe I just don't want to see you hurt?" she suggested with a flutter of her eyelashes. Tavasz smirked.

     "Uh-huh. We both know you aren't that altruistic."

     She smiled back. "Pot, kettle."

     Tavasz made a face, folding her arms. "How is it not altruistic to want to prove Woodlanders can be heroes? That benefits all of us."

     "I think you'd find your little friend up there disagrees," the Aisha nudged her chin towards where Cleo was still dozing. Tavasz flinched, the fur on the back of her neck bristling.

     "You're changing the subject. Why are you following me?"

     The sorceress chuckled, but it was an oddly rueful sound. Cleo's brow pinched; she couldn't honestly remember if she'd ever heard the sorceress field an emotion that wasn't cool disinterest or knowing confidence. The Aisha shook back one of the long black sleeves of her robes, revealing a burn mark around her wrist.

     "I got a very personal taste of the power these interlopers are wielding not long after you spoke to the werelupes. I did not enjoy the flavour."

     "You… you were banded?" Tavasz gasped. "How did you get it off?"

     "The hard way," she said grimly. Then she gave a self-deprecating laugh and admitted, "The stupid way; with brute force. I poured my magic into the thing until I managed to overload the spell on the band. I got it off, but it took all I had, and my power still hasn't recovered from the exertion. I can use the spell that lets me appear and vanish, but not much else, and not too often."

     "Hng," Tavasz winced. She'd burned her magic out only once, as a child, and it had been a deliberate training exercise with her grandmother to demonstrate just what the consequences of such a foolhardy action would be. It had taken her over a week to fully recover her energies, and the part of her soul where the magic lived had felt very raw and painful in the meantime. "So you're babysitting me instead?"

     "I don't mean it nearly so demeaningly, but yes, in the main," the sorceress agreed. "You're still at full strength, so you're far more capable of acting than I am currently. I figure if I can nudge you here and there, together we might stop whatever interloper is doing this."

     Tavasz folded her arms, tilting her head. "You haven't really done much nudging, though. You've only spoken to us once since then, and only to try and scare Cleo."

     She shrugged, her wingtips tilting upwards with the gesture. "I didn't trust her enough to speak plainly in her presence. For all I knew, she was the culprit, after all. Frankly, I still don't trust her, especially not after what happened last night."

     Tavasz frowned, looking away. "She was kind to the Fetcher."

     "That isn't what I meant by not trusting her," the sorceress clarified. "I can see now that she isn't the one behind the bands. There's no deception in her. But she's clearly still more loyal to Faerieland than she is to you."

     Tavasz flinched, her shoulders hunching. "Rub it in, why don't you?"

     "The truth may hurt, but you need to hear it," the Aisha replied, standing upright. "If it comes to a decision between the Woodlanders and the faeries, she will choose the faeries. Keep her close enough to be useful, but don't let your guard down too much."

     The Lutari covered her face with her hands, sighing heavily. "I know. But if it comes to that, I'll deal with it. I just need her to be an impartial witness when I stop who-or-whatever this is. Someone to speak to the idea that a Woodlander did something heroic. She doesn't have to like me or be loyal to me, she just has to be honest- and she's definitely that, in spades."

     "True enough," the sorceress conceded. "Very well then- I suppose if you're set in your course, there's nothing left for me to say except for that promised nudge."

     "Oh?" Tavasz lifted her face, ears pricking. "You have a lead?"

     "I think so," she agreed. "About three miles due north, there is a swampy area with a magical barrier around it. That shield seems new, and I'm suspicious of it."

     Tavasz frowned deeply. That did sound odd. "What was-"

     However, before she had finished asking the question, the sorceress' gaze flicked up towards the mausoleum. Then, in another blink, she was gone. Tavasz scowled and glanced around to see Cleo pushing herself up to stretch both her arms and her wings.

     Guilt pricked at her gut again, and she heaved a sigh. Here goes nothing.

     "Good to see you up," she called, standing and heading back through the glass towards the mausoleum. The draik glanced around, folding her wings against her back and sitting upright to face Tavasz- her expression as hard to read as ever, but the fact that she wasn't answering back gave off a distinctly guarded impression. Tavasz paused just close enough that Cleo could still see her from the roof and rubbed the back of her neck.

     "I'll get straight to it- I was being a brat last night. I shouldn't have called you an idiot, and I especially shouldn't have refused to back off when I realised why it upset you so much." The Lutari wrapped her tail around her legs self-consciously. "I've got a temper, and sometimes it runs away with me. I'm sorry."

     Cleo huffed softly, pushing herself over the edge of the roof and spreading her wings to glide down to the ground. "Listen- I get that it's an insult that's been normalised. That you weren't actually commenting on my autism when you said it. But what does it say about society that not having 'normal' intelligence is an insult? Are words like 'stupid' or 'moron' some of the first things people reach for when they want to be cruel? I may not be intellectually disabled like others on the spectrum, but that doesn't make the people who are worth less than me or more deserving of mockery."

     Part of Tavasz instinctively bristled at being lectured this way, but she mentally stomped that impulse down. Whatever other disagreements they had, Cleo had a valid point about this. Getting defensive again would only make her look like more of a self-centred jerk than she'd already managed to make of herself.

     "I know," she said simply. "It was impulsive, and I wasn't thinking, but that just proves your point for you." She held up her clawed hands in a loose shrug. "I can't take back what I said. I can only say that I'm sorry."

     Cleo gave a slow nod of acknowledgement, some of the tension going out of her posture. "If that's settled, I suppose we should probably get going, then? The dark faeries won't stay in place much longer."

     "Breakfast first," Tavasz chided her partner gently, and Cleo winced.

     "Right. Food. I knew that."

     "You were totally going to forget again."

     "Oh shut up!"

     *

     Cleo listened in silence, munching on a roll, as Tavasz explained the sorceress's appearance and suggestion. The draik was wary of following advice from this Woodlander- something about her got Cleo's hackles up, even besides the fact that she'd been obviously trying to intimidate Cleo the only time they spoke. But she couldn't deny that they were short on time and badly needed some sort of direction. The Haunted Woods were vast, and wandering aimlessly wouldn't serve them here.

     Once they'd both eaten, Cleo determined which way was north- it was difficult with the usual cloud cover that kept the sun from being visible in the woods, but not impossible- and the duo struck out again. As on the previous day, they travelled in silence, the better not to draw unwanted attention. In spite of Tavasz's earlier apology, however, the silence still felt painfully awkward. Cleo had never been good at telling if or not someone was still upset with her when they apologised for a disagreement, and more than once had realised the person was still stewing in bitterness despite their words to the contrary.

     It was cursedly frustrating, not least of which because Cleo still felt like she hadn't really done anything wrong. She flicked her fingers rhythmically as she mulled over the conversation the day before, and the events that had preceded it. Yes, the residents of the Haunted Woods did a lot of things that were terrifying by Faerieland standards, but they did them because they had to in order to survive in this hostile environment. Some of them were considered unwelcome elsewhere because of circumstances they couldn't help. Tavasz, for example- she had dark magic, which was tolerated at best and feared at worst in most of Neopia.

     But it wasn't like the faeries were causing these stigmas on purpose, and it wasn't like they'd done anything to the residents of the Woods personally. They were a neutral party, Tavasz and the other Woodlanders just resented them for not intervening in a conflict that wasn't theirs to butt in on.

     Cleo shook her arms, rocking her head back and forth on her neck. The sensation felt nice, and it soothed her agitated nerves, if only by a little.

     The Draik was torn. If there was one thing that Cleo had learned over the years, it was that the best way to avoid conflict was to keep her head down and her mask up. Very few people listened to her opinions, and even fewer changed their minds because of something she said. But she also felt like she owed it to her protectors and teachers to defend them.

     She flapped her hands agitatedly, and Tavasz turned towards her with a sigh. "All right, you keep doing that. What's wrong?"

     Cleo flinched, refusing to meet Tavasz's eyes. "Nothing."

     "That's dung," the Lutari retorted, raising an eyebrow. "Is this about the argument last night? Before the zombies showed up?"

     The guess was so on mark that Cleo couldn't help snapping her gaze towards her companion. Tavasz smiled grimly. "Thought so."

     "I… feel like I want to apologise, just to get past the awkwardness," Cleo admitted brusquely. "But I still don't think I said anything wrong. You were being rude towards people I love and care about."

     The fur on Tavasz's shoulders bristled, and for a moment, Cleo fully expected her to start snarling again. Then, she pinched her forehead and took a long, slow breath in before letting it out.

     "Okay, look- you're right, I was being a sarcastic brat, and I did mostly start it. I didn't have to be as snide as I was being. But you have no idea how much real, palpable harm Fyora has done by bandying far and wide the idea that darkness always equals bad, and refusing to admit when she's wrong because it would bruise her image."

     Cleo was tempted to scowl or sigh or something, but she only closed her eyes and mumbled, "Is this one of those 'Xandra was right' things?"

     "No, because Xandra's argument was that the faeries are a shadow council that rules the world behind the scenes but never steps in to help when they're needed," Tavasz replied. "My argument is that, while Fyora may not rule the world, she has a lot of respect and authority, and people listen to her. I don't want her swooping in on a white uni to save us from ourselves, but I do want her to examine her biases and admit when she's siding with light just because it's light."

     Cleo frowned, lifting her head. "I really don't-"

     "Let me give you an example of the problem," Tavasz said, turning and moving off into the forest again. As Cleo trotted to keep up, the Lutari said, "Have you read the Gallery of Heroes?"

     Cleo tilted her head, confused by the seeming change of topic, but answered, "Yes."

     "You know who Psellia is, then, I take it?" Tavasz prompted.

     "Psellia the Air Faerie, sure," Cleo agreed with a shrug. "She saved the knight Sir Jeran's life when General Kass knocked him over the side of Darigan Citadel during the Second Darigan-Merridel War. It was later learned that she was one of the founders of Altador, associated with the constellation 'The Dreamer'."

     Tavasz glanced at her sideways with a crooked smile. "I should have expected you to bring that up, and yet somehow I didn't. But yeah, that's the one. She was already in the Gallery of Heroes before her role in Altador's Council became common knowledge. All right, another line of questioning- have you heard the Tale of Woe?"

     "Who hasn't?" Cleo replied with surprise. "Sophie the Swamp Witch and her brother Bruno team up with Gilly the usul to save the town of Neovia from a curse."

     "And are any of them in the Gallery of Heroes?" Tavasz pressed.

     Cleo blinked, taken aback by the question. Her initial impulse was to reply that certainly the heroes of the Tale of Woe would be in the Gallery, but when she stopped to ponder the situation, she realised that she didn't remember. She could call to mind sketched images from the tome of Psellia, Lisha, Queen Nabile, and Gorix, but none of the Woodland heroes.

     "'Nothing comes out of the Haunted Woods but monsters, supervillains and con-artists,'" Tavasz quoted, her mouth twisted downwards. "That's what people say. Nobody believes we can do good in the world, so when we manage to, it isn't acknowledged."

     Cleo pinched her brow, wings fluttering. "That's… not fair."

     "It's how things have always been," Tavasz replied, and Cleo shook her head stubbornly.

     "A lot of things have been the way they are for a long time. They're still unfair. I…" she hissed, struggling to figure out how to word what she was feeling. "It's like you said, the Woodlanders do what they have to in order to survive this place. That isn't always pretty or glamorous, like… like digging up hundreds of graves. But it had to be done."

     Tavasz finally smiled and laughed softly. "Right. Exactly. There's this standard of goodness we can never, ever expect to live up to. And when we inevitably fail, the ones that set the standard blame us for not leaping the bar they deliberately placed well over our heads."

     "Well, it probably seems easy for a race with wings," Cleo deadpanned, and Tavasz cast a sharp look her way, squinting.

     "I can't tell if that's a joke or if you're just being very literal," she said finally. Cleo folded her arms.

     "Yes."

     "Yes to which?"

     "Yes."

     "Ugh!" Tavasz threw her hands in the air, but there was a twinkle in her eye as she looked back in Cleo's direction, and she was grinning.

     They lapsed into silence again, but Cleo felt a lot better for having spoken to Tavasz and aired their grievances like adults. It was a surprisingly rare thing for people to agree to, in Cleo's experience. When she tried to bring up something that someone was doing that upset her, they were far more likely to take offence than not. It made her want to scream sometimes that she had to tiptoe around other people's delicate sensibilities and fragile egos so much. "You said or did this thing, and it bothered me" was not a value judgement! It was not an insult! It was an invitation to compromise, like reasonable people should have been able to do.

     It was still troublesome to think of things the way Tavasz was describing. It was easy to baulk against an accusation that the faeries were causing intentional harm, because she knew in her heart that she could never believe that. But hurting others unintentionally, because they assumed the worst and wouldn't be swayed?

     Faeries lived a long time, and saw a lot of bad things. It was easy to see how they might develop biases based on what they'd seen. It was even easier to imagine them assuming they were wiser than Neopets just because they were older. Not in a superior way, but in the loving way a parent just implicitly assumes they know more than a child and have to gently correct them when they're being stubborn or irrational.

     Or the way people tended to assume they were better equipped to tell the disabled how to live their lives. Those maddeningly patronising attempts to "help" were unnecessary at best and counterproductive at worst. The way people tended to exalt the disabled for how brave it was to live in literally the only way they'd ever known. How when a disabled person asked for something that would actually be helpful, but require those in power to put themselves out a little, suddenly they were asking for the moon.

     The simmering resentment that boiled up in Cleo at the memories of all the times exactly that had happened to her made her keenly realize just why Tavasz felt the way she did.

      She flicked her fingers absently, eyes skimming the forest for signs of anything or anyone else nearby. That was something that was nice about the Woodlanders, at least the ones she'd met so far. They didn't condemn her for struggling with empathy; they explained things so that she could reason through it. They didn't demand that she couch what she wanted to say in bubble wrap to make it palatable. Tavasz seemed, if anything, to find her forthrightness funny, once she'd gotten used to it.

     Then again, if they're used to the sort of veiled condescension I got growing up, someone coming right out and asking them to explain themselves might be a nice change of pace.

     Cleo noticed something shimmer in the distance, and she froze, squinting. Tavasz noticed her stop and glanced around with a frown. "What is it?"

     Cleo held up a finger to her mouth to signal for Tavasz to be silent, and hopped up into the tree branches. Granted, she'd need to be careful not to tread on any more sentient trees, but up high would give her the best vantage point to get a closer look at whatever she'd spotted.

     There! A faint ripple of light, like a glint of sunlight off of something metallic. But there was nothing metal that she could see; it seemed to be reflecting off the air itself. When she skimmed the trees in both directions, she realised that the disturbance went both left and right for as far as she could make out through the forest.

     "Tavasz, I think we've found that shield the Sorceress mentioned."

     Below her, she heard the Lutari mutter crossly, then hissed, "All right- get down here, we'll need to get closer. But carefully and quietly!"

     "Go on, lecture me more about how we need to be quiet so we aren't noticed," Cleo mused, jumping down and buffeting Tavasz with a wing. "I'm sure you can teach me a thing or two about that, Boss."

     The Lutari blinked, then laughed softly. "Right. Yeah. We need to trust each other's judgment and abilities. Okay, you lead the way then. Just remember the ground is going to start getting marshy soon, so be ready for that."

     Cleo nodded once, then slowly started to slink forward. As she neared the wall, she realised she could smell the sour, wet smell of a swamp, and pinched her nostrils shut impulsively. The last thing she needed was the distraction of a foul smell. The barrier was about forty feet away, and though she was sure Tavasz was probably getting impatient with the slow progress, the Lutari didn't object to how cautiously Cleo was leading their approach.

     A low, rumbling growl suddenly sounded from near their feet to the right, and Cleo snapped her head around. She didn't see anything, and despite fanning her ear frills she didn't hear anything either. No footsteps, no rustling in the dense brush, nothing.

     Then, a loud, furious hiss echoed from somewhere just ahead, and a wisplike figure as ephemeral as mist surged towards the two neopets. It was silvery, transparent, and left trails of its mass behind as it moved- but it was big, standing as high as their knees and nearly twice as long as they were tall.

     "Ghost crocalu!" Tavasz yelped, as both of them jumped backwards just in time to evade the reptilian Petpet's charge. "How'd it get so big?"

     "Worry about that later." Cleo retorted. "How do we fight a ghost?"

     "We don't, unless you have some salt handy," Tavasz said, gritting her teeth and flinching as the Crocalu, spun towards her and thunked its jaws warningly. "Or a light mote. You can imbue physical weapons with a light mote and hurt ghosts that way. But it's just an animal defending its territory- if we back away, it should leave us be."

     Cleo realised that this was a pretty obvious answer, and felt a bit foolish for not thinking of it herself. Yes, this was a ghost, but it was the ghost of a Petpet. Its intelligence and instincts should be the same as when it was alive.

     She slowly backed up, away from the crocalu and the barrier. Tavasz did likewise, though her fur was bristling in a way that indicated she was probably far from as calm as she was acting for the Petpet's sake. Mercifully, though it hissed once more, the crocalu did not pursue, settling from its defensive stance.

     Then, to Cleo's surprise, she heard an unfamiliar peal of laughter from somewhere behind the Petpet.

     "Well! Not what I was expecting my intruders to do, what with all the unpleasantness that's been happening in the woods lately. Then again, I also wasn't expecting one of you to be such a familiar face."

     Tavasz's ears shot up, and her eyes flew wide open. "Wait, is that-"

     There was another laugh, and a Halloween Bori stepped into view from beyond the barrier. She was wearing a red hooded robe, with a wreath of white roses around her neck and a single rose pinned to the knot of a sash around her waist. Her crimson tail tuft was twitching, and beneath the skull helmet she was grinning broadly.

     "Hello, Tav," she said cheerily. "Long time, no see."

     "Kahlfu?" Tavasz said, taking a hesitant step towards the Bori. "Kreludor's light, is that really you? You're still actually alive, after all this time?"

     "Hey, rude," The Bori objected, planting one hand on her hip and reaching down to scratch the crocalu's head with the other. To Cleo's surprise, her claws actually seemed to touch the ghost, which leaned into the caress. "You oughta know that I'm heaps more competent at survival than you, Princess Pink."

     Cleo stiffened, but instead of getting annoyed at the insult, Tavasz laughed. "Yup, that's my Kahlfu, all right. Still as mean as Drackonak. That's your barrier, then?"

     "It is," the Bori confirmed, striding forwards and pulling Tavasz into a back-beating hug, one that the Lutari returned. "Didn't much care for the light rings I've seen lately, and wanted to keep my children safe from them. But Tav, I think your friend there is confused."

     The Lutari winced and turned to Cleo. "Ah, right. Kahlfu, this is Cleo; she's a ranger from Faerieland, who they set to keep anything hostile from coming at them out of the Woods. Cleo, Kahlfu is from the village where I was born. We grew up together. But she left six years ago to study necromancy, and none of us has seen her since."

     "Necromancy?" Cleo echoed, flicking her fingers anxiously. "So the ghost is yours?"

     "She is," Kahlfu confirmed. "I put her to keep watch at the barrier, to discourage anyone snooping. I was expecting enemies, though, not old friends."

     "Friends. Uh-huh," Tavasz replied, smirking. "Play it coy."

     "Not looking to make anyone here jealous," Kahlfu said breezily. "After all, we'd ended that even before I left."

     Cleo frowned, squinting at the Bori. "Ended what? And why would I be jealo- oh!"

     Her face went hot, and the Bori gave another peal of laughter. Tavasz elbowed Kahlfu. "All right, stop making fun. Cleo and I are investigating the rings, so if you've seen them around, maybe you can tell us something no one else has been able to."

     "I might, at that," the Bori mused, tapping a claw against her chin. "Tell you what- come back with me to my cottage. Better to have this conversation within the privacy of my shields, and I imagine you all wouldn't mind sitting on some actual chairs for a bit."

     *

     Of all the people Tavasz might have expected to run into in the Deep Woods, she couldn't say Kahlfu had been high on that list. It made sense; there was certainly plenty of fodder for a necromancer in such a dangerous place. But well, it was dangerous, and Kahl was no Sophie. She wasn't an anti-social hermit who flinched away from the company of other people and was likely to retreat to these woods to avoid Neopian contact.

     …Then again, her childhood friend had always been something of a thrill seeker, so maybe it was just that. Danger for its own sake, just to prove she was its equal. She wouldn't be the first Woodlander to attempt such a thing, though she'd be among a depressingly small number to prove herself equal to the challenge.

     Her cottage proved to be in the middle of a patch of murky water, which probably helped keep her safe from anything that couldn't swim or fly. It was also high up on wooden trunks that had probably once been cypress trees, but now formed thick pillars to hoist her home out of the water by fully ten feet. A good precaution, as marshes tended to flood, and the higher the cottage was, the safer it would be if the water started to rise.

     A wispy Ghost Altabriss was waiting at the shore, a bridle that glowed golden on its face that was in turn strung up to a canoe resting in the water. Cleo gave a small noise of recognition.

     "Tavasz said you could make a weapon affect ghosts by imbuing it with a light mote- is that what you did to the bridle?"

     "It is," Kahlfu confirmed, sounding pleased. "My children help me out with any number of little chores and tasks around the place. Once we're across, I'll turn Chip there loose, and if I need him agai,n he knows to listen for my whistle."

     The girls sat in the canoe, and Tavasz watched with interest as the altabriss fluttered across the water, tugging the boat along behind him. "Seems your necromancy studies are coming right along."

     The Bori chuckled. "Which is good, because it meant I was able to muscle out the last idiot who set up shop in this area. He preferred zombies to ghosts, and some of his old brutes are still shambling around."

     "We've met them," Cleo muttered grimly, and Kahlfu winced.

     "Zombies are good for exactly one thing, and that's being attack dogs," she said grimly. "You turn 'em loose in a place, and they'll go after anything living. No intelligence, no ability to obey commands, just raw aggression. Skeletons, at least, will follow commands if you have the skill, but they're fragile and also not very bright. Why I prefer ghosts. They're as smart as they were living, and while it takes a very powerful and fairly malicious necromancer to force obedience from them, anybody can talk them around to being helpful."

     They reached the dock on the other side of the water, and Chip pulled the canoe alongside it. As Tavasz and Cleo stepped gingerly out onto the wooden planks, Kahlfu tied up the canoe and then removed the bridle from the altabriss. "All right, lovely, you can go along now."

     The Petpet gave an echoing, spectral neigh, and then soared off into the trees. Another ghost, this one a droolik, looked down at them from the raised porch high above, and then shoved a rope ladder over the edge towards them.

     "Thank you, Ears," Kahlfu called, and the droolik gave a happy boof in reply. The three girls climbed the ladder and made their way inside Kahlfu's cottage.

     It was a cosy little place. One room, with a table that had two chairs, a long, slightly threadbare old sofa, and a boiler to both heat the space and cook on. A narrow stair led up to a loft, and Tavasz could just make out a wide, squashy mattress wedged in the harrow space.

     "So," Tavasz said, plopping down on the couch as Cleo gingerly sat on the edge of one of the chairs at the table. "Much though I would love to catch up with an old friend, Cleo and I are on a pretty tight timetable."

     Kahlfu tilted her head, picking up a kettle and filling it with water from a cistern on her roof. "Oh? And why is that, if I might ask?"

     "Because the monsters-" Cleo stopped, then cleared her throat, and to Tavasz's astonishment amended, "The Woodlanders that keep getting caught in these traps are fleeing the woods, and a lot of them are headed towards Faerieland."

     "Aaaah," Kahlfu winced, putting the kettle on top of the boiler. "And if they're in pain and angry, they won't be in a neighbourly mood when they get there and are met with the business end of your comrade's blades."

     "We convinced some of the dark faeries to keep the runners busy," Tavasz explained, though she couldn't help glancing at Cleo out of the corner of her eye as she spoke. "Promised them a favour from Queen Fyora if they helped out. But they'll only be there until dawn tomorrow."

     Kahlfu made a considering noise, reaching down to pet the droolik as it rubbed against her leg. "I see. Can't imagine Fyora will be especially pleased with you, but I suppose that's on your head." She flashed a grin, and Tavasz rolled her eyes.

     "Frankly, I think it'll be good for her," the Lutari said primly. "Having to admit the dark faeries did her a favour when she's given them nothing but bad press."

     Cleo flicked her fingers in that rhythmic thumb-to-pinky-then-back-to-thumb way she was fond of doing, but neither commented nor made any other indication of displeasure. Kahlfu sighed, getting out some teacups and dumping tea leaves into each of them. "I'll be honest- I figured this was probably some new monster hunter trick. Maybe some ploy of the Ghoul Catchers or Corbin and Kell. That's why I just put the barrier up and ignored it, to protect my ghosts from overzealous idiots who can't tell a friendly spook from a threatening one."

     "If that was the case, they wouldn't just be snaring the Woodlanders and not picking them up afterwards," Cleo pointed out. "Corbin and Kell have a catch and release policy, but I don't think that usually involves releasing them with a painful device clamped to their foot, near a populated area."

     "I'm beginning to realise that as well," the Bori admitted. "I hadn't seen what happens to anybody caught in the traps, just the traps before they'd been triggered. This definitely bodes ill, especially if Faerieland takes it into their heads to blame the Woodlanders more generally for it. It would have to look pretty shifty for not just one type of Woodlander, but many to be flooding into their lands."

     Tavasz winced. That hadn't occurred to her, but it was an ominous point. Granted, it was unlikely the faerieland soldiers would do any harm to civilians, but the collateral damage of them invading the Woods to discover the source of their aggressors would still be no small thing.

     Her thoughts were interrupted when the teakettle started whistling. Cleo jumped, pressing her hands to her ears and hitching her shoulders up. Tavasz lurched to her feet and snatched the kettle off the boiler to silence it. Unfortunately, lacking a pot holder, oven mitt, or even a rag, the hot metal scalded her skin so that she immediately dropped it again, hissing with pain and sending the boiling hot liquid sloshing all across the floor.

     "Smooth move, genius," Kahlfu said dryly, quirking an eyebrow. "What'd you do that for? Now I'll have to mop this up and start a fresh pot of water."

     Cleo's ear frills drooped, and she coughed. "I ah. Have issues with loud noises. I think Tavasz was trying to help."

     "Oh-ho?" Kahlfu said, her eyes crinkling with mirth. "How selfless of you, brave one."

     Tavasz felt heat rushing to her face, and she glanced away with a wince. Kahlfu stepped over the scalding puddle and patted her on the shoulder. "No, seriously, valiant impulse, but next time I think she'd appreciate the gesture more if you took the second or two to grab a pot holder."

     "I wasn't thinking," Tavasz admitted sheepishly.

     "You, who're always scheming, didn't think?" Kahlfu exclaimed, side-eyeing Cleo. "The Faerielander must be special."

     Cleo's head snapped up, but a heartbeat later she shook her wings and huffed. "Nah. She just needs me because she's about as much use in a straight fight as a puppyblew."

     "Oy-oy!" Tavasz retorted, some of the pain in her burned paw receding as she smirked in Cleo's direction. "Says the one who wouldn't eat if I didn't make her! I'd invite you to a candlelight dinner, and you'd hesitate to decide if you were hungry or not!"

     "And I'd ask you to go stargazing, and you wouldn't know a single constellation," Cleo deadpanned. "You'd probably see other planets reflecting sunlight and not even know they weren't stars."

     "Ladies, please." Kahlfu moved between them and put her hands up, but she was obviously stifling laughter. "You can recite each other's many myriad quirks later. For now, Cleo, you can grab the mop in the corner and sop up the water, and Tavasz, you can sit down and let me fix your paw. Then I'll boil some water in a saucepan this time, so it doesn't make noise. And once we all have some nice hot tea, we can make a plan- because, yes, I think I do have a way I can help you two."

To be continued…