After Cat healed everyone's hangover, I took him into Perkikish. He wanted to find a leatherworker. He spotted a case shop and it was the right place.

"Welladay, my… well, goodness," an older goblin blinked. "You must be the divine beast with the hunting party."

* Yes, I am. Since you make cases, we assume you know how to block out permanent leather shapes. Is this correct? *

"Yes, it is, my lady. Do you need to have a piece of leather shaped?"

"Yes, we do," Cat replied before I could. "I don't mean to be rude, but elves can't discern goblin gender unless the goblin is breeding. So, which set of pronouns should we use?"

"Bless you, young elf, I am a female goblin, and thank you for asking," she nodded. "We are used to people making gender mistakes if they are not goblins themselves so the effort is appreciated. Now, what is it that you need, young elf?"

"All of the elves in the wyvern expedition are related to one another. Our brother joined us yesterday. We use these masks to identify and distinguish ourselves. I'm the only one who needs to use a mask, but my kin who hunt with me decided that we would all wear a mask."

"What a lovely thing to do. So your brother who has just joined you needs a mask."

"Exactly, ma'am. Now our masks, as you can see, are black cat faces. Can you use my mask to make one for my brother that looks the same?"

"May I see your mask, please?"

Cat got off me, leaned his walking stick against the counter, lowered his hood, and untied his mask.

"That is one nasty scar," the leather crafter studied Cat's face. "I am surprised that you didn't lose your eye."

"I did lose it," Cat s replied, fishing another glass ball out of the special case he kept them in. "What you see here is glass. And here's one version of a glass eye that my cousin made me." He put his hand up to his face and swapped the glass balls. When he lifted his head, the dark of night occupied his left eye socket speckled with starlight.

The goblin laughed, "I bet you have a good time with that. You have more, don't you?"

"How's this?" Cat bowed his head quick to swap glass balls.

"Oh, masterful! The single candle flame. I would save that one up for siblings."

"I did," Cat grinned. The goblin laughed. "Now let's see," she picked up the mask and studied it. "Yes, I can do this. It will take two and a half to three hours but the dye will not completely cure until tomorrow. You won't be able to use it today or tonight. You must wait for the dye to set."

"I understand."

"Would you like to stay and watch?"

We did stay and watch, mostly because the leather crafter needed to use Cat's mask to copy it. It took her just under three hours. One of the last steps was the application of shoemaker's black. The goblin put on two coats of the dye but it looked streaky and thin. There were even some grey patches.

"I see that look on your face, lady divine beast. You are looking at the dye job, yes?"

I nodded.

"The mask must be put out into the sun. After the sunlight hits it and it warms up, it will become a deep black after a day," she put the mask into a box and added some black laces. "I used shoemaker's black which takes a day to fully develop. Since you are with the expedition, you will be leaving in the morning, which is before the color will completely cure. So this is an unfinished piece. Once the color comes in, take some of this on a rag and polish it up and it will look great." The leather crafter handed Cat a small bottle of an opaque pale yellow solution. "You rub it in, let it dry, and then take a second rag and wipe it off."

"What is it?" Cat asked.

"It's a suspension of very fine wax particles," she held the boxed mask up next to Cat's masked face. "Yes, yes, that will do. Only a leather crafter would see the differences."

"I can't see any," Cat protested. "It looks perfect to me,"

"Flatterer," she accused as pushed us toward the door.

"Wait, I need to pay you."

"It's not finished yet," the goblin said. "Pay me on your trip back."

"I don't know if we will return this way," Cat entered his stubborn zone. "What is the charge?"

"I'm a case maker, not a mask maker," she protested.

"How much are three hours of your time worth?"

"That's an interesting way to put it," She paused for a moment, "two silver."

We left the town behind us before the sun came up. Cloud Eye put the mask on the driver's seat next to him as he drove the coach. When he handed it to me at noon, it was deep black.

"Cat, you had to be thinking some deep thoughts to come up with a mask this fast. I know what kind of jerk Fox was to you and Owl in the sleeping rooms. I also know that Wren and Owl haven't let that stuff go. And yet, here you are, the kid he talked down and abused the most, taking the time to get him a matching mask. Kid, that's deep. Owl might not take it well."

"Yeah, I'm a little worried about it, but I think Owl will be alright. Have you listened to how Blue Fox is talking? That's why I think it will work out."

That snippet of conversation prompted me to pay attention to Blue Fox for the rest of the day. Then I saw what Cat had seen first and knew it would work out. How did someone only 16 get that wise? My boy was growing up fast.

Cat showed both Wren and Owl the mask for Fox. Wren railed at Cat when Fox left to pick up our dinner ration. When she ran out of steam, she stopped and asked: "Why? Why now? Why this? This will only give him a license to bully you more."

"It won't happen like that, Wren," Cat's voice was calm and reasonable. "That was then and this is now. Blue Fox is not the same person who left a year ago to adventuring. He needs a hand up right now, not a slap down."

"Look here, he's my nastiest brother. He's family. I know what he's like."

"I'm not so sure, Wren. I think you might be too close to see the change in him,"

"He hasn't changed one bit, Cat," she stamped her foot for emphasis. "The first day he was here, he was questioning what you did as your portion of work for our hunting party."

"That's a reasonable question, Wren, if he was trying to scope out our group and how we work together, in order to see where he might fit."

"I'm just trying to..."

"Wren," Cat held up a hand, "if I'm wrong about this, then I'm a fool and I'll be the first one to cast a sleep spell on him so we can tie him up over the rump of a horse and ship him home to Storm Eagle."

That line of reasoning registered with Wren. She agreed to give brother Blue Fox a chance.

While the two-footeds were eating around our campfire that evening, Cloud Eye nudged Blue Fox and passed him the box, "that's for you. You do need to make some effort to fit in better."

Blue Fox opened the box and looked at the mask. Then he looked up, "so the whole idea of the mask is to draw attention away from Cat Rider's burn scar."

"That's right," Owl replied.

"That's actually not a bad idea," he lifted the mask up. "That's good work and it's new work too. I didn't see any shops that would sell something like this in Perkikish."

"While everyone was recovering from our introduction to smeet," Cat swirled his tea, "I found a leather crafter who specialized in making leather cases. Since case makers need to shape leather as radically as mask makers do, I asked the one in Perkikish if she could make a copy of our masks for you. She said yes and let me watch."

"If we come back this way, Cat Rider, will you please take me to that shop so I can thank her," he blotted the side of his eye with his sleeve. "I don't know what else to say. I was a real jerk to some of you back home. I would like to think that sort of thing is behind me. I don't know why father ordered me to try to join your adventuring party. I thought he was nuts to suggest it. If he's got some deeper purpose, I haven't figured it out yet.

"I am touched by this gesture. I hope I can be of help to you. I'm not a great hunter like Wren. I might not know the best way to do things so please tell me if I'm doing something wrong. I am good at following orders. I'm not sure what a swordsman can do for hunting, but I'm sure we can find some way I can be useful to you."

"I'm going to shut up now before I say something stupid and get everybody mad at me."

So that's how Blue Fox joined our hunting party at the request of King Storm Eagle.