“Alright now, here’s what I’m gonna do,” Sarya said. “The fields are pretty empty, and these critters need to eat and rest. So… I’m gonna find a place with a hedge fence, and pull of by the side of the road, and if anybody needs to use the bathroom now’s the time to do it, but we oughta sleep in the wagon and keep moving at sunrise.”

“I hate this,” Gareth pulled his traveling cloak tighter around him, “God, how I hate this.”

“You’re shaking,” Orenda told him, “And I need you to stop.”

“It’s not all nerves,” he said, “Part of it is the cold. This place is always dreadfully cold, but the autumn and winter nights are the worst.”

Barbra Allen pulled open the back, and Orenda climbed out after Anilla.

The fields before her were huge.

They dwarfed the farmland she had passed back on the colony- there would have been no walking it. She could barely see where it ended, far in the distance, with a huge mansion that looked like the sort of place she had seen in storybooks. It was beautiful here. Stretching out in the direction she had come from was a tall stone fence that didn’t seem to have any sort of mortar, though she knew it had to- but it was beautifully and expertly arranged, a work of art with all different sorts and sizes of stone. Immediately in front of her was a hedge about the same size- and Orenda realized, as she Sarya came around from the front of the wagon, that earth elves probably weren’t able to see over those fences.

There was a fair bit of grass around, but still Sarya climbed into the back of the wagon and opened the new crate. Orenda watched her fill the feedbags with what had to be oats or some other grain.

“Be careful,” Orenda told her, “Don’t touch that staff. It burns people.”

“Oh,” Sarya said, “Thank ya. Good lookin out.”

Orenda’s back was sore and she stretched both arms over her head to hear the pop.

“What about water?” Gareth asked. “The horses need it and we need to refill our skeins.”

“Well,” Sarya said, “They say Thesis will provide.”

“Give me the buckets,” Gareth said, “There has to be a pump or a well or something somewhere.” He turned and held out his hand, “Everyone give me your water skeins.”

Orenda handed him hers and asked, “Should we come with you?”

“No, darling, I don’t mean to be rude but you don’t know nearly as much about breaking and entering as you should. It’s another way that I’ve failed you.”

“Then you should teach me,” Orenda told him.

“I will, when I’m more agreeable.” He promised.

“I’ll go with you,” Bella said, and Gareth handed her one of the horse’s buckets.

Orenda watched in amazement as they scaled the stone wall as if it was nothing. Gareth grabbed the top, pulled himself up, and rolled over the top; Bella paused in a crouch on the top, surveying the land, then hopped down herself.

Then they were gone.

Gareth was right, it was painfully cold. She pulled her cloak tighter and climbed back into the wagon. She lifted the box that Sarya and Barbra Allen were using as temporary storage for their traveling pack, pulled out another package of the pemmican and thought of how she had to be losing weight because everything she had eaten since she arrived in Uril had been close to inedible.

“The moon will be full tomorrow,” She said to Anilla as she climbed inside.

“Yes,” Anilla said. “But we’ll be at the Burrow by then, and Bella will be safe.”

“This place isn’t what I thought it would be,” Orenda said. “Not at all. I thought the earth continent, the heart of the empire, would be majestic, would be… like a fairy tale. I don’t know that I would hold a ball here.”

“Those houses are pretty big,” Anilla said.

“Yes, but the shops in town and on the docks were pathetic,” Orenda said.

“It’s… strange,” Anilla agreed.

Falsie pulled himself into the wagon and said, “Thank god we finally stopped. I had to piss like a horse.”

Orenda laughed and asked, “Are horses known for… ability to relieve themselves?”

“I don’t know many horses,” he admitted, “Just an expression I’d heard. Wanted to try it out. I guess they do. They’re big animals. Give me some of that stone nonsense these people think passes for food.”

“I think it’s just meant to keep you alive,” Anilla said, “Like blubber. It can’t be what they eat all the time. No one could live on it.”

“You can live on anything if you have to,” Falsie argued. “I guess this isn’t very cold to you, is it, little lady?”

“No,” Anilla said, “I know everyone keeps saying that, but it doesn’t really feel cold to me. I suppose I’m used to it.” She paused, looking out the back of the wagon, and didn’t look back until Orenda handed her a piece of the pemmican. When she did, she caught her eye and asked, “Dragons don’t seem to come near people in other places, do they?”

“No,” Orenda said, “Most animals are a bit afraid of people, I think. People hunt dragons, you know, their body parts are useful in a variety of medicines and many breeds are difficult to domesticate. It’s no wonder that they avoid us.”

“People hunt dragons?” Anilla asked.

“Yes,” Orenda said, “Oh… oh, darling, you didn’t know that? I’m so sorry! I shouldn’t have told you.”

“No,” Anilla said, “It’s… It’s the way of the world.”

The halfling will betray you, master; I have forseen it! Strike her down now, while you have the chance! The halfling will give you up to the one you fear!

Orenda was getting better at ignoring the staff. When it said something she disliked, she treated it the same way she did the thoughts she had that she disliked- by achnowlegeing in her mind that she did hear it, and then paying it no further attention. From where she stood, she trusted Anilla much more than the staff, because at the very least Anilla could actually cast a spell.

The presence of the staff dimmed in her mind as if it had been hurt by that line of thought, and Orenda felt that it was being mopey. She was becoming accustomed to having an enchanted weapon, and as it couldn’t really do much of anything, being, as it was, an inanimate object, she wasn’t particularly worried about its opinions.

“We found a well,” Gareth said and began to throw the full skeins at people, “And a great many other things but we didn’t have much ability to carry them. Here.” He pulled two pears from each pocket and tossed three of them to his fellow travelers, then moved as Bella shoved her way inside and offered everyone a second pear.

“At least it tastes of something,” Gareth said as he bit into it.

“How long do horses need to rest?” Bella asked.

“Darling, I’m sure we’ll get there in plenty of time,” Gareth assured her. “It’s a whole fluffle of shifters. You’ll be perfectly safe.”

But she wasn’t.

The next day was as dull as the one before it, and Orenda thought they were making decently good time. During the day, the songs drifted over from the fields, and she was sure that the wagon looked very much like a traveling songstress and her personal slave going toward the capital, in an attempt to make their way in the world. Sometimes Sarya’s voice rose to join the people in the fields. Of course she knew all the tunes.

Orenda was concerned. It seemed that neither of her new companions had any combat experience at all- neither of them seemed to have the slightest idea how to work any kind of magic, and neither of them wore even a single earth crystal. They had to be inconspicuous, because they were a liability. She imagined that was why they weren’t meant to take them the whole way. They would have met someone else, someone with actual knowledge of combat in Basilglen, someone to take them to the Burrow. But it was what it was, and there was no use in dwelling on possibilities that could not come to fruition.

But as the sky changed slowly from blue to orange, they were not yet at the Burrow, and Orenda didn’t even know what it looked like, what they were looking for. Bella watched the sky with panic in her eye, then ripped off the patch in frustration and shoved it into her bag.

“Can you see it?” She asked Sarya.

“Yeah, honey, we’re just about there,” Sarya told her, “We’ll get there tonight, I reckon. I don’t rightly know which of these plantations it is. This is a big ol area.”

“It’s the Langil Textile Plantation and Orchard,” Bella told her, “They specialize in textile crops like cotton, wool, and angora!”

“It’ll just be a couple more hours,” Sarya said.

“I don’t have a couple more hours!” Bella barked, “The sun is setting!”

She stood as best she could and unclipped her cloak, then began to strip out of her clothes.

“Oh lord she’s done gone stir crazy!” Barbra Allen stood as well and put her hands on both of Bella’s shoulders to try to force her back down, “We’re gonna have to hold her till it passes.”

“Darlin’, she ain’t got no cramped sickness, she’s afeared of the moons,” Sarya reminded her.

“Can’t no moonlight get in here, honey,” Barbra Allen assured her, “We’ll seal it up real tight.”

“That isn’t how it works!” Bella barked. “Get out of my way! I have to get out of here!” She knocked Barbra Allen’s hands away and tugged her shirt off, then pulled off her boots.

“In front of the men folk, god and everybody,” Barbra Allen said with as much disapproval as someone could feel about a thing, “You ain’t gettin buck-ass naked in my wagon. Put your clothes back on! You are a lady!”

“I’m a goddamn monster and if I leave them on I’ll destroy them!” Bella snapped as she tugged her pants down, shoved them into her bag, rolled up her boots and stuck them in as well, then zigged past Barbra Allen and lept, naked as they day she was born and full of madness from the back of the wagon and into plain sight.

“Shit!” Gareth stood, ran, and jumped after her.

“What the hell!?” Orenda grabbed Bella’s cloak and ran to look out the opening they had gone through.

“Go without us!” Gareth yelled as the moons crested the horizon and Bella fell to her knees. “We’ll meet you there! Keep that cloak safe! It was a gift from her mother!”

Orenda nodded, rolled the cloak up, and stuck it into her bag.

Gareth picked up the bag that Bella had tossed on the road and threw it over his shoulder as the woman clawed at the ground, and Orenda watched Barbra Allen watching in horror as the moons rose over the fields, and the woman became the creature.

“Darling please,” Gareth grabbed at her fur and pleaded, “Please be quiet! Please, they’ll hear us!”

But Bella threw back her head and let out a long, mournful howl that was full of a kind of pain and anguish that Orenda didn’t understand. Then she lifted Gareth as easily as she had before, set him on her back where he clung for dear life, and in one bound cleared the stone fence on the side of the road and headed into the plantation on the other side while Gareth begged with every breath for his situation to be different, for the thing that was happening not to happen.

But it was what it was, and there was no use in dwelling on possibilities that could not come to fruition.