Eight and a half years earlier

Ro sat cross-legged on the riverside under an ancient tree, surrounded by its gnarled web of exposed roots and overlooking the evenly flowing water. The forest had been dying for years, decades. The sparse trees were a mix of many, but mostly birch, elm, and pine. Little underbrush smattered the wide spaces between the ancient trees. No new trees. No brambles, no berries anywhere. No beasts stirred the leaves of the forest floor, no birds sang in the branches. The forest was dead for no reason more than overhunting. As the travel increased over the last few centuries, the forest simply couldn't keep up. First the prey, then the predators, then the prey again and finally the plants. No new life bloomed.

Anyone looking at Ro would have no question as to her nature--she was a magical beast. Thick brown fur covered her with little exception. Her powerful arms, long feet, and short forehead featured red ribbons that fluttered magically as if on a wind. The golden mane stood tall off her head, sporting braids and dreadlocks, several of which featured beads of gold or bone, feathers, and red ribbon wrapped around or braided in. Ro's wide, brilliantly green eyes had an unnatural glow to them and featured black markings to the sides of her broad, flat nose. Her body was built heavy and strong, her chin was square, her ears were pointed. Her hands were small with short fingers, and they were resting on the leather-wrapped spear across her lap. At the moment, she was wearing a green woolen sarong, and her belt and pouch were deer leather and dark gray-blue drakeskin.

Born Aurora, she was twenty-one years old and had been adventuring for the past six years with her twin sister Eupa and the past five years with her companion and former lover Brotz. Prior to that, she had been The Seeker of her pride, a traditional role played by one chosen by the spirits of the world to guide them and help them keep their place in the natural order of things.

She had since become a Wild Hunt Rider, which more or less made her part of a supernatural faerie force of truth, calling her to the feywild randomly to chase and take down those that would lie or break the rules of hospitality. (She didn't care why she got to chase such dangerous prey as long as she got to do it.) 

Through a series of events that Ro found difficult to follow even in hindsight, the forest belonged to her as of six days ago. She was supposed to be keeping things from leaking through the loose spot in the feywild veil. The previous keeper had been ousted by Ro and her companions, and Queen Titania was punishing her for it. The Queen of the Summer Court had called Ro a fitting Queen of the Forest. Probably just making a joke about the lion-like appearance, but she had felt like she was the ruler of this woodland since she returned from the last Hunt. 

The task of bringing the forest back to life was self-given until she figured out what to do about the veil so that she could continue traveling. The Queen had 'suggested' that Ro give it to someone else in her more immediate court (as Ro did not answer to the Queen herself, and had been 'given' this land as a 'gift'.) and she was considering that very sincerely. She did not have anyone she knew she wanted to give it to, however, and as much as she was willing to play along with the Faeries, she didn't want to get dragged into anything by magical obligation. Mundane obligation was bad enough.

Ro was distracted from the forest. She missed her sister, for one. Eupa had vanished into the mountains to murder a monk for revenge after he beat the hells out of her. (She deserved it.) Ro was not certain that Eupa was not going to get herself killed, but Ro wouldn't have been any help to her sister, and Brotz needed to stop adventuring for a while, so they stayed in Tinian while she was gone.

For two, her feet seemed determined to carry her somewhere.

"What's going on?" she asked the spirits aloud. 

They lied when they indicated that nothing was going on. Ro was not sure how you could lie without words, but they were. She still slipped from her hiding place and started pacing along the water's edge.

"So, what's not going on?" Ro asked them as she walked. She was listening carefully to the sounds of nothing being alive. It was starting to hurt her feelings

Interesting, one of them indicated. Ro wasn't sure what that meant, but she trusted them not to get her killed and followed her feet. The spirit guiding them was good at their job. 

Her eyes landed on a spot on the water's edge and she knew that was where she was meant to look, but she didn't see anything. She kept moving toward it and looking around. 

There! 

I looked there. Trees. Dirt. Rocks. Trees. All the trees. There! Well, no, not nearly enough trees. Right there! Water. There is nothing right there. Water, rocks, water, trees…. 

Finally, Ro got to the river's edge and looked at the spot where her eyes kept going. "Well?" she asked aloud, but then she saw it. "Ooh." Well, she couldn't see it, but she saw the water displaced by something invisible, right at the edge. The mud underneath was pressed into a pattern of woven braids of some sort, not a shoeprint or anything... 

Ro knelt and touched lightly at the area, found the top of the invisible thing almost a foot off the ground, and instantly felt a rush from the spirits. They even appeared to her eyes as three wolf pups as they leapt and yapped excitedly, and her ribbons flapped straight up. She pet the rough mat with her fingers. Round. Soft. Basket? Woven. Wet. Fibers were made. Of. A plant from the plains. Well upriver. Tight weave. Waterproof?

Ro slowly ran her hands over the ball, dipping her hands into the water to scoop it out and place it on dry ground. It was soft and heavy for its size, maybe twenty pounds? She kept petting over it, now trying to find the opening, turning it over in her hands. The weight and flat bottom indicated 'right side up'. She failed so long to find an opening that she didn't think there was one. Ro dismissed using her knife on it, afraid she would damage what was inside…

Ro was used to knowing what something was just by being near it. This new thing was a curiosity. It was kind of lumpy, had a couple hard spots if she poked. No noises, the basket was tightly packed so that nothing rattled. The smell! She hadn't even realized it, she thought it was the water, but this basket didn't have a smell! Ro put her face closer to it, tried to sniff. The spirits whispered something about forgetting the smells and magic.

That was just cheating. Invisible, sure, but scentless? Making her mind forget smells before she can determine what they are?

Ro found a bump on the basket, a seam? A rise? It felt like a scar, a line of bump, the only uneven spot on the thing, and she ran her hand over it repeatedly, finally finding the ends of the knot and cutting it with a claw.

As if she'd broken a seal, Ro was overcome with a strange swimming sensation when the basket opened. It didn't get any worse, and she still hadn't detected anything actually dangerous, so she continued to nudge the basket open.

A crosshatch seam came slowly undone as Ro tugged the tying lace away. A slit in the air opened into a pocket of soft fabric. Ro pulled it open as much as she could, until she saw the little pink hand and stopped. She sniffed again. No decay? Not dead. Not dead?!

Ro looked around as if she'd see the source, as if she wouldn't have seen them on her way here, or heard them in the forest. How long had it been here? Did it wash up? Was someone stealing it? Keeping it safe? Ro looked around again as if she could have missed something the first time, and she scooped the basket up to place under her furry arm. She found herself unwilling to touch the hand, to finish withdrawing it, afraid to disrupt the magic and land herself with a wailing infant in the middle of the forest with no way to care for it.

Keep it! 

I need Brotz, she decided, and she flitted off to the city.

~

Brotz was an enormous red-haired half-dwarf-half-human man with enormous hands, a barrel chest, barrel belly, and barrel arms and barrel legs. Eupa often explained his appearance by saying he was built like a dwarf that was tall as a human. He wore cornrows and long braids down his back and his hawkish nose had been broken at least once. His dark-lashed narrow eyes held a darkness that could have been rage or sadness. 

He was also immortal, and Ro had never seen his match in strength nor stamina, neither magical nor mundane. He could stay awake for days, he regarded combat as a game, and Ro had personally watched him yank the feet out from under two titans at once so that Eupa could get at their throats.

She knew what tavern he was in. It had a green wood roof and was one of the low buildings close to the wall and the west gate, an adventurer's tavern called The Screaming Harpy with magically reinforced everything, smelled like beet soup and ginger, and… there it is…

She could teleport from roof to roof, to the window, then through the window. She found Brotz asleep in the bed. By the sweat, he had been there all night and so might have been hungover, but was okay to wake up. 

He was lying flat on his back, one hand placed across the broad chest and the other on the broader belly, both spanning his torso together. The constant food and drinking combined with the stationary living were beginning to show in a way that Ro liked. His big block head almost touched the headboard and his big block feet rested on the footboard. If you looked carefully, you could see where Eupa had cut one of his feet off at the ankle to watch it grow back while he was dead. His golden scale mail armor had been left carelessly on the floor next to his bed, along with his enormous steel-and-leather boots and spiked gauntlets. Those needed cleaning again. 

He had a single-bed room in the cheap tavern, furnished simply and effectively. The table on the wall with the door held a pitcher and wash basin and candlestick, a window on one side of the bed. Ro's light leather backpack was crumpled under Brotz's bed while Brotz's bigger, more padded, fuller backpack was next to it. His clothes were scattered and without Eupa to do the laundry, he had made efforts but the lack of practice showed. 

He currently wore a long shirt with rolled up sleeves to sleep in, and it looked like he'd shaved and done his hair within the last day or so--the skin was smooth and the cornrows were neatly done in a big-small pattern, with the big ones falling long. The yak-wool blanket of the rickety tavern bed was tangled in his legs and covered his feet but left the rest of him exposed.

Ro placed the partially opened basket on his legs, which was amusing when she stood back to realize that the mouth of the basket was the only visible part, and opened into a blue blanket. He opened his amber eyes and blinked blearily before he rolled his blocky head to look at her and blinked again. "Hey, Brotz," she called in a kind, gentle voice.

"Hey, Ro," he responded in matching tones, ironic in the chest-rumbling bass voice. It took him a few more moments to return to the world, rubbing sleep from his eyes with a massive thumb and forefinger. "What's got you indoors?" He glanced at the window, then sat up easily. The basket rose and fell with his legs and brought his attention to it. "What's this?"

He poked at the narrow slit of the basket with a broad fingertip before he pressed to ease it open gently, growing bolder as he went longer without being bitten or otherwise hurt. "Didn't bring me something to test out if it was gonna kill you, right?" he asked, giving her a momentary sidelong look before he continued his cautious exploration.

If Ro didn't have such a bad habit of doing exactly that, she'd be offended. "In fact, no, I know this will not kill anyone, but I thought it was better you be the one to withdraw the contents than me."

Ro had almost finished saying 'withdraw' when he saw the baby's hand and gasped sharply. "Holy shit, Ro!" He slid a hand into the basket, easing around the baby at the edge. "Where'd it come from, where'd you get it, what the hells?!" He took care not to injure the baby as he removed her, scooping a hand to cup it as he peeled it out of the basket, and he discarded the invisible vessel thoughtlessly. The round face was framed with curls and two blankets, green and blue, were tightly swaddling the baby. Brotz cradled her in his hands and stared at her, and Ro felt the spirits getting excited again.

"Why does it feel like that?" Brotz asked Ro, who shrugged. "Feels like…" He drifted off, lost in the sight of the sleeping infant.

"Feels like a net coming unwoven," Ro grunted unhappily. "I assume that's what a net feels like when it's being unwoven, anyway."

Brotz wasn't listening. He was cradling the baby in his hands and rocking subconsciously, almond-shaped eyes glazed over.

It hadn't occurred to Ro that he was going to do that. She knew, but she didn't think about it. Which was an odd oversight for her.

Brotz was lost for a while and he glanced up at Ro a couple of times to see her standing there, a little too still, also watching him and the baby. He couldn't be bothered to get self-conscious about it. 

Smells!

Ro tried to move smoothly forward and she snatched the basket away from Brotz to carry off and sniff. 

She played with the invisibility, turning it over and putting her hands inside, playing with the light and image. It looked like a hole in the air when she could see the mouth of the basket, but nothing past that could be seen. "This is very well done. Whoever did it was highly skilled. I want to say it was the baby's mother, but I'm not certain. They had strong magic," she reported. "The sigils inside are weaker, didn't have the dedication to the right spirits, I think they were even dedicated to a god, but the love for the baby helped."

He didn't seem to notice or care, so she continued unabated, removing the remaining two blankets inside. A couple of peaches fell to the bed at Brotz's ankles. "You lived somewhere that makes clothes mostly out of plants, right?" she asked, holding out a yellow and green blanket. "This is a plant I've never smelled. And the weave is like your sash, it's not like what I'm used to here."

"Yeah, they use plants for cloth where I was born. I know that symbol dyed into the middle of it," Brotz confirmed. "Family crest." He indicated the big green knifey-looking flowery thing that Eupa would have liked and made Brotz visibly uncomfortable. "Why's it here?" 

"I think it's a gift or souvenir," Ro mumbled, sniffing carefully. The baby's scent wasn't anywhere near it, and it had been folded at the very bottom of the basket. It had come into contact with lots of people, and had passed through many hands. The make of it was unusual, and it was made with colored fiber rather than dyed after the fact, but it smelled… commercial. "I don't even think this was connected to the baby, actually, was just for padding." She dropped it aside and picked up the next one.

Brotz rolled one of the peaches in his fingers to check it, gazing as if it held the secrets of the universe. It was perfectly ripe, the basket might have had a stasis spell on it. "They wanted her safe," Brotz mumbled to himself, lips barely moving. "And fed." His face fell when he looked back to the baby, and Ro saw his mouth twist with sympathy before he redirected back up to her. She gave him a glance to let him know she was listening, but she was busy examining the second blanket. "What'd they hide her from? Where'd you find her?" he asked.

Ro braced herself for his reaction when she said, "I found her in the river." Brotz sucked air through his teeth and clutched the baby to his chest. 

Ro picked the new blanket back up and spun it on her hands. "I think the basket was made for it. Or they picked the basket for it." 

This second blanket was woven or knitted or something, handmade by a single person, soft animal fiber that Ro did not recognize but the spirits said was something like a horse with wool. It had been dyed blue, pink, and white in a ring pattern from the center. 

A few spaces in the stitching caught Ro's attention, but she couldn't figure out what they were until she found one she did recognize. There was a ward, at least three, woven into it. Once she recognized the one, she looked more closely at the other places with the gaps in the stitching, but she couldn't recognize any of those. They certainly smelled magical. One in particular wouldn't allow Ro to look directly at it, and when she touched it, her hand began to feel numb, and then to ache, and then finally it felt like a jolt of electricity up her arm and she dropped the blanket reflexively. "Oh, wow, that one's strong. I'm not even really Faerie."

"You're Faerie," Brotz argued airily, hardly bothering to look up at her. He was back to himself enough to tease her. She was going to pick on him in return, but when she looked, she saw him sitting rocked over the baby, almond-shaped amber eyes glazed over and a loose, vapid smile on his square face. 

"What're we gonna do with her?" Brotz asked suddenly. The expression when he looked up was stricken, and Ro felt bad even though she hadn't done anything. "You found her in the river, but what're we gonna do with her? Why'd you bring her to me?"

Ro realized as she opened her mouth that she didn't have a very good answer. She looked at her spear as if it was the spear's fault, and she felt a nagging tug that she was right, and that they were, too, in telling her to bring the baby here. "They said so," she finally said, wagging the spear. "The baby's aura makes my head swim." 

The bed creaked as Brotz rocked the baby subconsciously. "When do you think it's gonna wake up?" 

"I think the magic was on the basket?" She picked it up to look inside, took it to the sunlight to help. Blood sigils on the bottom and sides of the insides, familiar to the spirits and old. The basket was magicked in twenty different ways, including a tincture around the lip that Ro was pretty sure held the source of the sleepspell, at least three protective wards, the invisibility, and whatever had been done to remove the smells from the basket itself. Even the inside didn't have its own scent. 

Brotz finally put the baby into his lap and began to unwrap it, unfolding the blankets carefully. The swaddling was tight enough that the baby wouldn't have been able to move much at all if it had been awake. There were two blankets, blue and purple, both made with plant fibers from this continent, but not from anywhere Ro had been. Best guess was north of the mountains, but Ro couldn't be sure, and she waited somewhat impatiently for Brotz to finish with one so she could examine that. 

Brotz pulled the diaper cloth away and pointed between its legs and looked at Ro. "Her?" he asked curiously. 

Ro checked, then shrugged. "It's a girl," she said. "It happens like that sometimes." 

Brotz made a face at her, the one he usually made when Ro was being confusing. She didn't bother clarifying, not expecting him to understand at all, and she just looked back and waited for him to get over it and put a new diaper on so she could take the blue blanket. It smelled strongly of ink and paper, it was right on top of the baby and was special to the people that put it on her, she was already certain. 

He did, eventually, put the diaper back on. Ro caught him before he put the blue blanket, and she took it from him to sniff. "This is a good source, finally," she said, and she took it to the other side of the room. This one was old, handmade somewhere local, and had belonged to one of the baby's parents, the one that didn't make the other blanket. This one was a hand-down. The most recent smells, the ones at the same time as the baby, made Ro think of a library. Ink, paper, books, leather, stone, dust, old and magical, didn't smell like a Scribe Tower, not the right kind of magic….

"Is it human?" Brotz asked. "Completely?"

Ro tried not to get annoyed with him for asking, she was trying to sniff things. "As far as I can tell. There's still something strange about her, but she's human. Almost a year old, healthy, no injuries, no malformations, good fat, well-fed and well cared for. Her hair's even combed. This is closest to helping me find origins," she declared, holding up the dust-smelling blanket. "It's a library or a school or museum, maybe a Scribe Tower, somewhere with lots of ink and paper and people."

"Wizards?" he asked. "Would explain the magic all over everything. It's strong enough I can smell it."

He wrapped the baby back into the purple blanket. Ro sniffed it again and found it was commercial as the first and had come into light contact with several people and had lots of hair on it for some reason. Head hair of bipeds, not fur. She sniffed again and again, each time finding someone new on it, but no one slept on it. 

"The pattern on the edge is from the east coast," Brotz said. "Those smokey looking curls."

Ro grunted at him, not wanting to explain that the curls weren't helpful, as that wasn't where it was, just where it came from, and that phrase alone was going to be a discussion she didn't want to bother with. "Anyway," she huffed. She finally realized that she was all but sticking her nose onto the baby itself, trying to get the look at the blanket. "Um." She sat back on her feet on the foot of the bed. She hadn't even noticed that she'd climbed onto it. 

Brotz chortled and glanced at her, but he was already used to Ro. "So you gonna be able to find where she came from? He? It?"

"She. We can ask when she's older, and if she ever lets us know anything to the contrary, we'll swap to boy or whatever, okay?"

He grunted similarly to Ro as he brushed off the conversation. "So what're we gonna do with her?" Brotz asked again. "Are you gonna be able to find where she came from? I don't think we should take her back."

Ro cocked her head to a side, and he nodded at the basket. "She's in danger where she came from. Loved, fat, they even gave food for whoever found her. They knew they weren't getting her back, and they wanted her safe. Hid her that much. Powerful magic like that wasn't going to stop whatever was after them. It's all bad."

Ro nodded in agreement, and she frowned again. "Honestly, I don't know if I could do it without going upriver and sniffing every person that smelled like a library." She picked up the basket and got up to pace the room before she noticed that Brotz was still looking at her with an expecting curiosity on his face with his brows raised. "What?"

"Are you going to go sniff everyone that smells like a library upriver?"

Ro shook her head quickly. "No, no. I don't know what was going on, but you're right. There's definitely a threat, and I don't want any part of it. No one would throw their baby into the river because they wanted to."

Ro smelled acrid fear sweat suddenly, and she spun to make sure he was okay. Brotz's golden-bronze face had paled to a sickly yellow. He had picked the baby up to hold her to his chest tightly, huge hands clasped around the tightly wrapped bundle. 

"What?" she asked.

"Eupa," he breathed, and he looked up at Ro. The fear disappeared, and rage replaced it. He was threatening Ro with Eupa's death already. 

Eupa was a murderer. It was what she was, it was all she was ever meant to be. At best, she was a glorified serial killer who had no self-control and subsisted on death the way most people drank water. At her worst, she was a deadly shadow that only paused between murders to better savor them, consuming final moments to feed her addiction to death. She had a vicious temper, foul mouth, worse attitude, and was the worst person Brotz had ever met with little exception. He often regarded his love for her as a flaw, and his unwillingness to kill her as a personal failure. He could trust nothing about Eupa except that she was going to kill someone soon and she'd like it so much that she'd make him nauseous. He had made it a personal task to keep her busy with acceptable targets and keep those around her safe from her. 

"Eupa's gotta get handled. We gotta take care of this before Eupa comes back or we've got to… I don't know, but I'll kill her for this one. Anything like hurting this one, I'll kill her." His voice started normal, but it became a low rumble before the end, deep enough to shake the bed, and he put his feet down hard on the floor. The lobby noise below hiccuped. 

"I know, I know," Ro said quickly. She was torn between running from him to get a better attacking range and moving toward him to try and calm him. "You've tried to kill her for babies you didn't even meet, I know. Doesn't help you're in love with this one." She smirked a little. "What do you mean 'take care of this one'? Do you honestly think you could give her to anyone else?"

That killed the rage at least. Ro had been watching him bond with the sleeping thing for the last several minutes, and Brotz was prone to easy attachment and protective by nature. His face was amusingly puzzled as he returned his gaze to Ro, who laughed. He was prone to hope, too. "What…?" he asked eventually. "What's that mean?"

Ro heaved a sigh. He played dumb when he was hopeful, too, he wanted someone to tell him what he wanted to hear. "They've been yelling at me since I found her. I've been trying to figure out where she's from so I know what we're dealing with, but they've indicated that we need to keep the baby. And asking them for an alternative has gotten me nothing but a bunch of… I can't explain it, but imagine if a dog bit your pants leg and dragged you backwards, but it's my spiritworld leg. They won't tell me any other options. They keep telling me how to care for her, and for you." It wasn't quite literal, she couldn't explain the guidance they gave her, but when her thoughts cast into the wrong direction, they'd nudge her back to the market so she could buy vegetables.

Brotz continued staring like that, obviously confused, and he held the baby out in his hands to look at her. His eyes watered fleetingly, until his face hardened and his eyes narrowed. He looked up at Ro and put the baby back to his chest. "You really saying I can keep her?" 

Ro breathed in a long sigh, and she breathed it back out. "Yeah." She couldn't keep the disappointment out of her voice. "I don't get it. But yeah. That's what we're doing."

"Then I'm gonna kill Eupa," Brotz rumbled, standing up. He was ready to fight, breathing deep and heart starting to pound, Ro couldn't have missed it if she was asleep. "I'm gonna have to, there's not gonna be any way to stop her, she's gonna kill the baby and call it saving me from myself, I already know."

Ro reminded herself that Brotz was at least temporarily stoppable, and she glanced out the window for a good place to teleport to just in case he got himself worked up and she said something wrong. "Eupa likes babies," she objected softly, but she knew that was the wrong thing to say already. 

"She likes babies 'cos they're soft on her knives!" he roared. His voice alone was going to get through the baby's enchantment. Brotz paced heavily around the bed, but he moved away from Ro, holding the baby to his chest firmly. "She's scum, and she's got to get handled."

Ro moved closer to the window to get the street below within view. "I know she's scum, but she respects you enough--"

That was the wrong thing, too. He wasn't about to hurt her, but he was trying to scare her. He hopped over the bed at Ro, landed smoothly and kept walking, pounding steps thundered as she stepped back, in part to let him intimidate and in part genuinely intimidated. He put his face inches from hers, she couldn't even see him anymore, but she could smell that he had a cheesy vegetable stew for dinner last night and there was a girl that was trying to get his attention, guessing by the scent all over his right side. The baby was confusing again, and being so close to it made Ro feel like she was going to float off the floor.

After the show of stomping at her, Brotz just stood there and didn't say anything. He just stood menacingly, breathing fire and glaring lightning, teeth bared as though he were werekin. 

"You're threatening the wrong person," Ro said, easing sideways. "You know that," she added, seeing him relax slowly and then tense again. "She'll be back in about ten days. At least six, but that temple was six days away, and if she finishes him and leaves, she'll be back, but I don't think it's going to be that easy. I'm not sure I expect her to win. She might get wounded and run."

Brotz grunted and growled. "If we're lucky, she'll still be wounded when she gets back."

"Can we at least talk to --"

Brotz rounded on her again and Ro braced herself this time, meeting his attempt to intimidate with her feet set and her posture firm. "Stop it," she barked, and he didn't say anything, but he did stop trying to bear down on her. "She's scum. I'm not saying she isn't. I'm not even saying she wouldn't hurt the baby--actually, I am going to say that, she would never cause a baby pain, but--"

"I've watched her do it!" Brotz roared. The lobby went quiet again.

Ro tapped her foot impatiently and resisted the urge to cross her arms. "She didn't hurt it, she killed it. And you beat her so badly that she's never let you see her do it since," Ro argued. "Even the times you suspected she did, you beat her. You've done it without fail, every time. You've tried to kill her for things you didn't even--"

"I saw enough," Brotz growled viciously. "Those acts alone have stained me, and I am not going to let her near this one." His eyes watered, and Ro remembered that the rage was coming from fear. Brotz angry was terrifying, Brotz frightened was lethal, and not in good ways.

"I understand. I really do. I'll even help you find her if she--"

"I'll crush her!" Brotz roared. "If she looks too much like she's thinking about acting like she's about to pretend to kill the baby, I'll. Crush. Her." He stepped back and began to pace the room, huge agitated steps thumping firmly, rattling the windows. "And if she hurts the baby, I'm gonna kill her. I'm going to break her hands and feet and I'm going to kick her to death while she tries to crawl away!" 

The rant was helping him vent, but Ro didn't like the mental image at all, and she couldn't really argue that Eupa didn't already deserve it. If she was stupid enough to go messing with any baby under Brotz's protection, let alone his own baby, that was on Eupa, too. 

"And if she kkch--" Brotz's voice tightened and choked. He had to stop and swallow, and when he continued, his voice was a low growl, as quiet as he had been loud a moment ago. "Kills her?" He stopped pacing to take the baby from his shoulder and cradle her in his hands. "I'm not gonna kill her. I'm gonna take her out into the… I don't even know. That mountain range we hate, find that ruin where we found those damn spider machine things, and I'm gonna break her back and I'm gonna break her hips, and I'm gonna break her feet and her hands, and I'm gonna leave her."

The rant had done its work, and he was calm again, gazing at the baby and rocking between his feet. He was quiet, lovingly admiring the little bundle, but the fury burned visibly in his flushed face.

"Okay," Ro finally said, not sure if it was safe but wanting to continue. "Do you feel better, now?"

He nodded slowly, then scowled and his lip curled into a snarl. "No, not really," he rumbled. "I'm gonna--"

As much as Ro understood, she was doing the same as him and thinking too much about it, and it was painfully easy to remember the few times Brotz had actually tried to kill her sister. Eupa had always managed to save herself by killing him first and hiding for a few days, but both of them always worried about what would happen if he got to where he couldn't drink it off. "As much as I admire your capacity for colorful threats, you're never going to match her, and when it comes down to it, neither one of you does anything but the same thing every time. Please stop." 

"'Kay, well, still gonna crush her," he muttered grumpily. 

Ro waited for a few more moments, then sat back down on the bed and laid across the foot of it with her head hanging off. "Well. Eupa's the problem. I'll go to market and see if they can help me with what humans eat, their digestive systems are weak." She closed her eyes. "Ugh. Gods. This one is. Almost one year, they said, and she'll be walking soon? What?" Ro sat up quickly. "Do human babies take a year to walk?"

Brotz shrugged. "Think so?"

Ro's face did something that made Brotz laugh, but she couldn't figure out why outrage would be funny. "Why do they take that long, though?" she demanded. "What the hells? Fuck, I--why doesn't it need milk if it can't walk?" Ro stared as if in outrage at the little wad of blankets in Brotz's arms. "It's that big, why can't it walk?"

Brotz laughed again. "When do you guys walk?" 

Ro put a palm to her head and tried to focus on the real matter, but the question needed answering. "If we're not walking by our third seasons, we start making sure nothing's wrong!" Ro groaned. "What the hells! If you're not crawling by your second, we start checking on you, too! We need milk for longer, I guess, but…" Ro's unfocused gaze settled in the baby's back and her face slowly fell to blank again. "I guess I need to do some human-studying."

Brotz had stopped listening. He was pacing, dancing lightly on his toes and heels, slowing as Ro watched him get sucked back into the overwhelming cute of sleeping infant in his arms. He started to threaten repeatedly, but stopped each time. "Been a while since I got to hold a baby," he said softly. "They used to let me when I was popular in the arena, celebrity stuff. Forget how small they start, especially human ones."

Eupa had been at The Monastery of the Lotus for five days and traveling at a leisurely pace for six, but her broken ribs only felt marginally better. That was her own fault, of course, but it was still irritating as hell and she wished they'd stop. It was putting her in a bad mood, which wasn't good, and it was making her hesitate to get active. It saved the lives of no less than four travellers, but didn't manage to save the fifth. That idiot deserved it. Healing potions cost more gold than the cumulative amount Eupa had on her, and more than she could effectively steal and carry without other magic shit, and she wasn't about to bother with all that, and so the six day trip back to her family just ached really bad. 

Eupa was as fur-covered as her sister, but hers was thinner and black. She wore her traveling gear of dark blue leather armor and bracers, as well as her usual scarlet cloak and cowl. Her weapons, three daggers and a wickedly sharp scimitar, hung from two belts on her narrow waist and hips, secured to her strong thighs. Her long bestial feet were wrapped in black leather straps, and her small, stubby hand featured fingerless gloves.

She was still in a fairly good mood when she reached Tinian, pain or not. Wasn't an entirely burnt run. Tinian was alright and easy enough to get into, they let her into the east gate and no one bothered her between that and The Screaming Harpy tavern that she'd left Brotz in so long ago.

The lobby went quiet when she came in, and she went to the bar to see if he remembered her. She wasn't sure it would need to be the same key as last time, but she knew he knew she was with Brotz. It was hard to forget either one, let alone both.

He remembered. He backed slowly to the door to the kitchens and tried to find the right one without looking away from her. She watched his trembling hands count pegs until he found the right one, and he barely glanced to make sure before he tossed it onto the countertop in front of her. She picked it up, thumped a silver piece into the air, and made sure she wasn't anywhere close to where he was looking when he stopped looking at the coin.

At the foot of the stairs, Eupa heard a baby giggle. That was suspicious. This was an adventuring tavern. The only reason a baby should be in an adventuring tavern was because they'd been magically age-regressed and there was no excuse (Money, actually) to not be getting that fixed.

And now that she knew where she was going, matching the key label to the symbols on the door, she was disconcertingly positive that the giggling was coming from the room that contained her companions.

And now that she was unlocking the door, she was absolutely certain. Her ribs stabbed with pain as she sucked in a sharp breath, and she closed her eyes and braced herself for the worst. She could only hope that Brotz had been age-regressed and not Ro. 

Worse. Of fucking course.

Brotz was sitting on the bed where he had the table pulled next to the window, and he had his massive left shoulder blocking her view, but there was no mistaking that happy grunting and slapping that he was certainly not doing. 

Ro stood tall and firm in the space between the wall and the foot of the bed, eyes glowing all mystical and ribbons enthusiastically dancing. Her spear was in her spearhead, and point up. Ro was ready to fight. She was even wearing some of her armor, a hardened leather skirted vest, and her bracers. She was ready to fight Eupa. 

"The fuck is that?" Eupa demanded, already way too sure of what was going on. This had better be good. It hurt to shout like that, but she was getting angry enough to dismiss the pain, now.

The high pitched yowl made Brotz's arm hair stand on end, and he puffed up instantly, already breathing for a fight. Eupa could practically hear his heart pounding, she knew the position of his left arm was used for snatching up anyone attempting to get past him. Escaping that grip was impossible, and Eupa knew better than to try. He was ready to fuck her up and she hadn't even been here a few seconds. Her own fur rose in response, and she looked back to Ro to see her standing too tall and confident.

They didn't answer. They both were frozen. Brotz was ready to fight, and that was that. Ro looked uncertain of herself and Eupa fucking hated when that happened, especially when she looked determined and uncertain at the same time. 

And they still weren't answering.

"The fuck. Is that?!" Eupa repeated. If Brotz didn't stop spooking her, she was going to kill him on principle, and then again just to keep him down longer. 

He kept spooking her, too, just sitting with his back turned to her. He wasn't even looking, he was just waiting. He'd fuck her up, she knew he could, and he'd do it the whole time he was bleeding out all over both of them. He'd done it before. That was also over a baby, actually. Or three. Or maybe all the babies before those ones and those ones. There had been a few before that, and a few since.

Ro took far too long, but eventually, she answered with, "It's a baby." She moved and startled Eupa a few steps back. Even Eupa hadn't realized she was that jumpy.

"Okay, fuck you, I can see that," Eupa snapped, and she drew her knife and put it away in the same motion, not wanting Brotz to see it in her hand until she was ready to plant it in someone.

"You're going to have to ask a better question, then, because I don't know what to tell you more than that," Ro said. 

Eupa narrowly resisted the urge to bite her twin's throat. "The fuck is it in here for?!"

"I found it," Ro said. Oh, now she was trying to be a pain in the ass. 

Eupa had to put the knife back down again. "Okay, and why the fuck did you give Brotz a baby?! You knew what would happen! Look at him! He's already in love with it! He's already puffy just having me here!" Eupa started to gesture, but the pain in her side stopped her. Ro saw that and instantly calmed down. Asshole. "The fuck is wrong with you, why would you do that?!"

Eupa hadn't seen the baby, yet, but the brown curls were visible over Brotz's shoulder. She watched for the baby's head to come into view.

"Don't," Ro whispered. Brotz's posture changed slightly, and he got a better angle to watch Eupa, still holding the baby on his lap and out of view. Eupa couldn't even see the curls anymore.

"Don't what?!' Eupa bellowed. "The fuck are you thinking!? You lost us Brotz! You gave him a fucking baby! Is it yours?!"

"If it was mine, we wouldn't have to be afraid of you killing it," Ro said softly. "And I didn't lose us Brotz. They said we're staying with them, too."

Eupa felt her eyes focus harder and she lost sight of everything except Ro's carotid artery in her thick-ass fuzzy neck. Her knife was in her hand again, and she didn't use it only because she didn't want to lose Brotz and Ro at once. 

"We can't keep a baby!" she shrieked. "We can hardly take care of ourselves! We've almost gotten ourselves killed twice a year for the last five years! What're we gonna do, get it its own armor and knife, teach it to poke shit in the eye? Shove it in a backpack with the bedroll and tent, let it eat all of Brotz's matches?"

"We try to get ourselves killed. We do that on purpose." Ro let the spear to the wall and crossed her arms. "We needed to wait for you to come back so we could talk about this, but we're going to settle for a while."

Eupa was so loud that the lobby below went quiet when she yowled, "Fuck you!"

But that was all she said, and she didn't move for several long moments. It hurt to get that loud. Eupa stood frozen and so did Ro. "You're serious?" Eupa demanded, glancing at Brotz again. Her fur raised just looking at him, he was positively murderous. It was a good look for him, but Eupa wanted it directed elsewhere. "You're not, you're not about to settle anywhere, you're losing your shit just being in this room, you can't settle! We can't settle! We lost Brotz, that's all the fuck you've done, you've given Brotz to an infant to have for the next forever!"

Ro sucked in a breath and she hesitated, eyes shifting around the room and mouth twitching nervously. When the tawny werekin finally met Eupa's eyes, she figured out what her twin was going to say.

"Don't you fucking dare," Eupa spat. Her voice was low and quiet, she didn't trust herself to shout right now. Her throat got tight and her eyes watered even at the thought, and here this fucking faerie was about to fucking say it.

"I'm staying with Brotz. You can decide what you're going to do."

Eupa didn't respond. Brotz peeked over his shoulder again, worried that Ro had been killed. He was never sure if Eupa was the type but it wouldn't surprise him. 

Ro stood and hadn't moved. Brotz's eyes slid off Eupa twice, she was so still. Brina was standing on his lap and trying to investigate the noise, but he couldn't let Eupa see where to aim. Her knives wouldn't get all the way through his body to the baby and she would rather have her arm cut off than throw her sword. 

"It's human, too, isn't it. I fucking know it, it's a fucking human, and it's fresh human, too, and you jackasses forgot I still age like a normal person, those things take forever to grow up, I'm gonna be ancient by the time we get back on the road! Gonna limp like Aunt Stormy and have my sword arm out every other fight! And--"

Eupa stopped mid-sentence. Brotz realized with horror that Brina had managed to get her head over his shoulder, and Eupa had seen the eye. He clutched the baby to his chest. He knew he should've grabbed Ro and planted the baby there and told her to run, but he couldn't help the reflex. He covered her with one hand and tried to decide if he should run or kill Eupa.

"No!" Eupa bellowed. "No, no, no, no, no, fuck all of that, you two are bad e-fucking-nough, I'm not having anymore magic, no more fucking magic!" The baby squawked excitedly and hit Brotz in the chest with a tiny hand. "The fuck is in that eye, I can smell it! I can't smell magic! That's not even magic anymore! That's just trouble!"

"Eupa, please," sighed Ro. "Sit down. And disarm yourself, Brotz'll calm down if you just take the knives off."

"Oh, no," Eupa responded sharply. "Not doing that."

"Yes, you are," Brotz rumbled from across the room. "And you're gonna do it now, or I'm gonna go ahead and thump you and do it myself."

"You thump me and you will come back to life without a damn limb," Eupa spat. "I will hack it off so many times it won't grow back, even while you're dead!"

"You can't, we've tried that," Brotz growled. "Take the blades off."

"You are the threat here!" Eupa bellowed. "I--"

Ro's snort of laughter and the baby's giggling squeal stopped her and she glared at both of them. "I'll fucking leave," she growled, but she didn't. "I'll leave you two to your fucking house game and settlement shit and I'll go murder people for fun and profit around the world, and I'll come back and tell you what a great fucking time I'm having and watch you two get fat and I'm only sorry I'm not gonna get to see the looks on your faces when you both--"

"Eupa, shut up," sighed Ro. She sat heavily on the bed next to Brotz, apparently having decided the threat was past. Brotz could've killed her for that, but as spiky as Eupa was being, she wasn't moving much, and she hadn't gone for the blades. When he took the time to look, he could see her keeping her left arm close and her breathing was short. She really was injured.

Eupa glared at them both, and Brotz dared turn to where he could see her again. The baby continued grabbing and scratching at his neck and face, wriggling against his hands and fingers to try and get a better look at the noises. 

"Disarm yourself," Brotz rumbled again. "So we can sit down and talk like at least one of us isn't a raging lunatic."

"Oh, I see, we're playing pretend games already," Eupa purred viciously. "That's so fucking cute. The fuck are you going to do with that? It fits in your fucking palm. You live off beer and stale bread, jerky, carrots, and onions. The fuck are you going to feed it?"

"She seems to like peaches," Ro supplied helpfully. "And Brotz isn't hopeless with her. I didn't even have to show him half what I expected. I'm impressed with the intuition."

Eupa sneered and turned away from them and, finally, started to take off her traveling gear. "Where'd you find it? Fuckin' faerie like you are, you probably stole the fucking thing, right?"

"I found her in a basket in the river," Ro said gently, and she passed Eupa the now-visible vessel for inspection. "The last of the invisibility spell wore off yesterday. Brotz reckons her parents were in danger and wanted to keep her safe, and this was the only way they could come up with."

Eupa turned the basket over in her hands, and her sneer grew less derisive and more disgusted. "Fucking shit, good craftsmanship," she muttered, holding it to the window for the light. "You in love with it, too?" she asked, giving Ro a hard sidelong look. "I know he is, that shit is dripping everywhere. I'm surprised my feet aren't getting stuck to shit."

"That'd be vomit, anyway," Ro chuckled. "I think I might be. I'm not very happy about this."

Eupa rolled her whole head. "You're both full of shit. I'm gonna be fuckin' ancient by the time the damn thing can even feed itself! Humans take forever! What is it, six moons? Two seasons?"

"I'm pretty sure it'll be one year in a couple of no-moons," Ro admitted softly. "She's got a third of her teeth, she's crawling and she can pull up and stand alone."

Eupa glared at Ro hatefully. "And is there a reason you haven't gone to find its parents?"

"Brotz pointed out that if anyone tossed their child into a river to save its life, they are hopefully dead, because alive would probably be worse," Ro said simply. "Would you like to tell us about your adventure? So that we can stop talking about the baby long enough to get your fur to lie back down?"

Eupa's dark gray nose went black, and she looked away quickly. "Not really." Her voice had quieted significantly.

Brotz turned to see Eupa shuffling in place as she finished removing the last of her gear, the drakeskin leather armor. He looked to Ro to see her puzzled expression become glee.

"Eupa, you didn't! I knew I knew that smell!"

"Oh, fuck you, you knew what that smell was from the moment you knew I was in Tinian!" Eupa cried. "And shut up!"

"What?" Brotz asked. "She didn't kill the monk? She spared him?"

"She had sex with him!" Ro laughed, rocking back and forth and laughing wildly. "I never thought you would! I never!"

"Shut the fuck up!" Eupa cried, blushing so much that her ears turned black, too. "Oh fucking shit, you two have fucked someone in every godsdamn territory from here to the fucking Forstford, you can shut the fuck up!"

"Oh, gods, how the hells did that happen?!" cackled Ro, and Eupa threw a bracer hard enough into Ro's chest she yelped.

"I don't know, okay? It was really. Really. Really weird. I liked it, but it was weird."

"You didn't have sex with his corpse, right?" Brotz asked uneasily. "Or kill him right after? Or during?"

"Ew." Eupa raised a lip in disgust and threw her other bracer at him. "Gods, fuck, give me some credit. Why would I do that when I can sneak up behind him and cut his throat that way?"

"'Cos he dodged," Ro chuckled. "We saw him move."

Eupa blushed again and turned away from them. "Yeah, actually, he did. Was fucking impressive," she admitted softly. She sighed again and collapsed to sitting in the corner, folding her legs up and resting her elbows on them. "Dodged after I cut him. Because I cut him, because that was how he figured out where to dodge to. It was impressive."

Brotz and Ro exchanged a look and wry smiles, and Ro nudged Brotz's arm with hers. 

Eupa wasn't paying attention to them anymore, and her belts and all their weapons were on the bed next to Ro. Brotz slowly eased around to let Brina see Eupa, but Brina was only sort of interested and had gotten sidetracked by one of Ro's dreadlocks, upon which she was attempting to chew. 

Eupa released a long, exasperated sigh. Her fur was indeed lying back down. "So where were you thinking about living? We've been everywhere, I'm sure you've got an idea already. I'm surprised you're not denning in here." 

"Denning?" Brotz echoed curiously. Her tones were much calmer, so he could trust that she wasn't going to kill him for asking.

"Term we use for when someone's about to have a baby and you start preparing for it," Ro explained. "Reinforcing and insulating hut walls, hoarding food. The nomads would actually go find a den, which is why it's called that. Lots of people would use the same dens for each of their cubs, would start collecting things to put into it or keep a collection. Making a den. Denning."

Brotz considered the idea and found it amusing. He had been 'denning' in his head, making lists of what he needed for childrearing. "I dunno. Ro said around here'll be good, I can't really disagree with her."

"Winter's gonna suck," Eupa muttered. "Why do you wanna stay here?"

Ro gave another sigh. "You're going to start yelling again," she moaned, and she fell back against the bed next to Brotz. She almost crushed the baby, and Brina fell onto her butt when Ro jarred her. She didn't seem to mind, and she bounced merrily and crawled onto Ro to play with her beads again. 

"Okay, fine. Why do you wanna stay here?"

"The forest is mine."

"What?" The tone was disbelief, rather than anger, at least.

"The forest was given to me after we ousted Lady Shee," Ro pressed. "As a 'gift' because Queen Titania has a sick sense of humor and was probably trying to teach me a lesson about fucking with her court."

Eupa did not start yelling again. In fact, she smirked. "Shit, I don't even mind. You get to tell the fucking Summer Queen thing to kiss your ass and do something she didn't think you were gonna do? Oh that shit's funny. You get to fuck with Faerie royalty?"

"You make that sound like an opportunity," Ro complained, but Eupa and Brotz both saw Ro's lips twitching into something of a smirk. "I mean, it's funny, I agree. But it's not a good idea." She blew an irritated breath through pursed lips. "The veil is loose there, and if I stay here, it's going to be my job to make sure it's kept safe."

Eupa sneered and started to say something and stopped. The baby squealed again from where it was sitting on Ro's belly, and Eupa glared at it. "Seriously, where the fuck did you find it?"

"I told you, the river."

"And you're sure we can't put it back?"

Brotz's glare at Eupa was cutting, and Eupa leaned away. "I was kidding, shit."

"You were the fuck not," Brotz rumbled. "And if you make that joke again, I'm going to crush your head in my fist."

Eupa rocked away from him but didn't say anything, merely snarling at him once he looked away again. 

The baby looked at Eupa, and Eupa got stuck staring into the purple eye for a while before she could shake herself loose from it, and she growled. "I fucking hate all of you."

Brina made a squeaky sound from Ro's armored belly and flapped her chubby arms, apparently very much liking Eupa and all her noise and motion. 

"You, too, I hate you, you're not special," Eupa snapped, pointing firmly at the infant. Brina simply squawked again and continued to flap her little arms happily.

It was convenient for Ro to have an excuse to keep the forest, have a means by which to protect it (Brotz and Eupa) and a way to leave it alone without having to mess with it all at once. 

Not to say that she hadn't wanted to stay with Brotz and help him raise the baby (she didn't like doing it), but it was still very fortunate that things played out that way. To the extent that Ro was half-sure fate was fucking with her again. 

It was quickly decided that the forest would be a good place to live, they could use the stones from a nearby demolished tower to make a house for the three of them. After years of travel and little to spend on, they had quite a stash of gold. Brotz even seemed to enjoy talking to builders and merchants, and they made a sling for the baby so she could sit on his upper chest in her "pocket" and watch him while he bargained for furniture and gardening supplies. 

Eupa was not allowed near the baby. She was fine with this, and didn't want the baby near her, either. 

The house they made was a single den with a fireplace, then expanded into two bedrooms, then a third for the nursery (Why do you keep the baby in its own room?) and a pantry to fill in the back corner off Eupa's and Brotz's rooms. The room built for Eupa was very small, barely as big as a standard bed in the taverns, and Brotz left her to her own devices as far as furnishing. The window was big enough for her to climb in and out of. He let her work with the windows and shutters until she got the security she wanted. It annoyed her that he wasn't giving her excuses to be angry at him, and really was being as accommodating as he could possibly be. 

She was even grumpier when she noticed that she liked having her own room and denned it to her liking with no ado, filling it with an expensive down mattress pad on top of a pile of old furs. A couple of shelves over the back half of the room and a wall-mounted stand for her armor and weapons, Eupa was home in days. 

Tinian was good for a professional assassin. There were enough people that hated other people and enough money to go around, Eupa didn't even have to try that hard to find the crime rings and professional gigs. The Draconic "Church" that ran half the town was satisfyingly corrupt, and there were arguably only a few people even close to her skill level, so it was easy to find paying work.

Brotz settled into the homelife easily. He got a bed made and a garden put down with Ro's help, he made a few friends at The Screaming Harpy and found another pub to try and meet locals. He had always been civilized, so domesticity was familiar to him. 

So it surprised Ro to visit the cottage and find him sitting in the brown livingchair he commissioned, staring at the baby with the look of a sad puppy. Brina sat on his lap in a diaper cloth, enjoying the jingling sound the buckles on Eupa's bracer made when she shook it. He looked outright despondent, watering amber eyes fixed forward without seeing and big square jaw loose. His nose and cheeks were flushed as well.

"I knew men could get The Sadness, but I've never seen it happen with adoption," Ro said from the birch wood doorway. He didn't move to look at her, but she saw his ears prick up a little. 

"The Sadness?" he repeated. His voice wasn't so bad, he did sound sad but not monotonous or far away. 

"Sense of despair when faced with the prospect of raising a child," Ro said simply. "Ranges from a sense of inadequacy to genuine homicidal madness, but one adopting a child usually has prepared themselves enough to avoid it." She couldn't help the 'smile' in her ears, and her hand flapped a small wave to Brina, who was watching her. Brina flapped a chubby arm clumsily and gave a sweet monosyllabic cheer of greeting.

Brotz grunted, huge body shifting with the sound, but Ro didn't think he was listening. Now he'd fallen in too far. Ro paced into the house, admiring the ease with which they'd apparently settled--there was clutter on all of the numerous available surfaces they'd created--and she plucked the baby from his lap. Brotz picked his head up to watch as Ro tossed the squealing baby overhead. Brina giggled wildly as Ro spun in place and smiled at her, touching their noses together, if only to give Brotz a good example of how to do this. She knew she was going to have to teach him eventually. Needs were easy, but real rearing needed work. "Yeah?" she teased as the baby grabbed her lower lip. "Yeah? Got my face?" The little fingernails were sharp in the meat of Ro's lip, but she didn't mind. "Get it," she teased. "Get the face. When you're older, I'll teach you how to go for the eyes for real."

Brina flailed and kicked happily and Brotz watched with that same hopeless distance in his gaze. Ro let Brina to the floor, and she immediately turned toward Brotz and flapped an arm at him. Ro took the little hand and gave a tug, letting the baby waddle unsteadily after her as she guided them outside. As soon as they got to the door, Brina stopped and looked to Brotz and called, "Da!"

"Da?" echoed Ro. "Is that your da?"

"Da! Da!" responded Brina happily, and she began to bounce until she fell on her butt. "Da-da-da-da-da-da!" she chanted, crawling quickly to Brotz, little hands slapping the floor stones. Ro vowed to hunt down something big enough to carpet the den with, at least to center Brotz's chair on. 

The wobbly smile on Brotz's face was sickening, and Ro felt like melting just watching Brina use his leg to stand up and slap his knee. "Da!" she repeated. "Da!" She bounced, big smile and mismatched eyes fixed to Brotz, and she continued to slap his leg. 

Ro gestured playfully outside. "Come on, bring her outside with me. We need to let the sun on her before her fur comes in."

Brotz was surprised at how hard it was to get to his feet. Brina let go of his leg and stumbled unsteadily toward Ro. "Fur comes in?" 

Ro's nose turned a reddish auburn. "Well, yes," she huffed. "It was what we used to say in the village. The principle remains the same, children should get sunlight on their skin, it's important for them to grow up healthy."

Brotz's mouth twisted again and he huffed through his nose as he watched Brina work one arm like a wing, toddling clumsily to the door. "Da!" she called without looking at him. "Da dababa da bada!" 

"Oh, really?" Ro asked with a bright smile. "Are you telling me about a game you want to play outside?"

Brina stopped walking to look up at Ro with wide eyes and flapped her arms. "Ba baba ba!" she cried, and Ro giggled. Brotz was flushing once more, and had stopped where he stood in front of his chair, apparently overwhelmed.

"You're going to choke," Ro laughed. Brina followed Ro's gaze to look up at him, too, and she giggled wildly.

"I think I might," he laughed with her. "Gods. I dunno. This might be a terrible idea." Brotz's face wouldn't do anything but smile like that now. "I love Brina. More than life already, I'd give up the immortality, but I. Can't help it. I'm gonna mess up. Eupa's gonna mess this up. Something's going to go wrong." He breathed long and slow as he wiped his eyes before they had a chance to properly water. He had been going in circles with himself the whole time, thinking of every way this could go badly. 

Ro couldn't help the weak smile on her face. She knew that feeling. "Take the good luck while you've got it?" she suggested, and she knelt to hold a hand out to Brina. "Come here! Come see your Ro!"

Brina toddled toward Ro with the arm working as a wing. She stumbled, but she never fell. Ro cheered as she lifted Brina over her head and spun again. "That was wonderful! Well done!" She gave Brina a hug and checked to make sure Brotz was watching. Brina looked, too, and flapped an arm and said, "Daaa!" Ro gave the best smile she could and Brina leaned away. "I'm sorry, Brina, I forget that I'm scary."

Brina apparently also forgot as she began to pat Ro on the head harshly, and grabbed a dreadlock to stick in her mouth. Ro eased it away from her. "You know, your Da is worried about you," she said as though the baby understood. "He's forgetting the most important part, though. Everything he can't do, he can get help with, as long as he's got the love he needs to get him to do it." Ro smiled at Brina again for real, this time, and Brina gestured at Brotz again. "Daaa!"

"Yeah? Your Da?"

"Da!" Brina agreed, and she leaned away from Ro and toward the ground. Ro let her down and watched the baby toddle clumsily back to Brotz.