Learning to Fall

A hoof caught on a trunk branch and Lin cursed. This particular pronghorn must have been spawned in the cold, wet hells below. Even in death, it just wouldn't stop making her life difficult.

Her shot had taken it well enough. A good, clean hit. That was the extent of her luck.

The cursed thing managed to get out of sight and tumble into a ravine before dropping dead. The coppered huntress had been banking around after her strike and didn't see where it fell and, without a partner, she had to spend an embarrassingly long time searching for the kill.

When she finally found the carcass, she'd discovered that the shaft of her arrow - lodged between the ribs to pierce the heart in what ought to have been an instant kill - had shattered as the pronghorn collapsed. It had been one of her favorites, too. Straight and just the right weight for her bow. The iron broadhead was fine, of course, but her sister Suuie could forge those almost as fast as a huntress could loose them.

"Stupid. Gods. Damn. Animal. Let. Go!" With each word she jerked the rope tied around its back legs. Finally, with a snap, the bone broke and the pronghorn corpse practically flew upwards, spattering Lin in with a handful of small, crimson droplets of blood. One even got into her eye.

She swore as she tied off the knot securing the carcass, then made her way over to her pack and pulled out a scrap of cloth. As she scrubbed away the blood, she cursed and muttered to herself. "Naulk-damned leather bag of shit and red gunk. Screw you. Oh, I am going to enjoy eating you tonight." A thought occurred and her eyes narrowed. "Except with my luck you'll give me the runs for a week. Because of course you would."

With a little more enthusiasm than normal, Lin drew her knife and ran it across the pronghorn's throat. More blood dribbled down to soak the ground below. It wouldn't take too long until it was well bled, then she could get started on the butchering.

As long as she was in this little copse of trees, she might as well start looking for a replacement for her broken arrow. Most of the trees that grew on the savannah were gnarled and riddled with knots. Near constant wind and the lack of rain kept most species stunted or out of the region entirely. Still, she might get lucky.

Who was she kidding? Of course she wouldn't.

Sure enough, her unlucky streak continued. There were a few thin branches that were about the right shape, but not a single one met her standards. They were all too green or unyielding or light or brittle with dry rot.

'The gods cursed me. That has to be it. Probably Naulk for this hunt to have gone so wrong, but I can't think of why.' She had brought the goddess four coyote pelts at her ceremony the previous autumn. It was a fine offering by any standard. And while she wasn't particularly devout, no huntress ever deliberately broke the goddess's edicts.

Something, though, must have offended her. Lin resolved to make an offering of some sort to try and assuage the divine displeasure. Something gathered by her own hands, of course. Maybe a small bowl of the needlefruit syrup she had helped to collect the previous year? That might work.

The surrounding trees blocked the sight and sound of approaching dragonettes, but Lin perked up as she heard voices coming from where she had hung her kill. "Figures you would show up after I did all the work!" she called out.

The voices went silent so they obviously heard her, but no response came. That was... odd. Normally one of the other huntresses would have a wisecrack at the ready. At the very least they would have called out greetings of their own.

'We haven't had any trouble since... well, not for the last six - or was it seven? Six or seven years, at least!' Still, there had been quite a bit of chaos in the kingdom since the visit by her brother's kidnappers. She let one hand fall to the hunting knife on her right hip and drew it, all the while cursing her past self for leaving her bow with the kill.

Moving with more care than before, Lin skirted around her original path, reaching the treeline a couple of wingspans to the side of where her unknown visitors would probably be expecting.

There were two of them, watching the woods exactly where she would have emerged. The further of the pair, likely a male by his small stature, was mostly blocked from sight by his companion.

Lin was certain that she had never seen the nearer of the two before. She was dressed practically, if a bit oddly. About as tall as Lin, with curving horns that had a net of leather strips and ornamentation criss-crossing between them. It wasn't a fashion the huntress was at all familiar with. Same went for the tight-fitting necklace and bracelets of polished beads. The rest of her clothes used quite a bit more fur than any inhabitant of Luffin Keep would normally wear, and covered too much skin to be comfortable when it got truly hot.

She seemed to have some woodcraft as well because Lin only had a few heartbeats unobserved before the stranger's gaze shifted and they locked eyes. After a moment, she gave a friendly smile and then whispered a few words to her companion.

He stepped around her, turning and almost immediately spotting the hidden huntress.

Lin's knife fell to the ground.

This dragonette... this one she recognized. It took longer than it should have. A few heartbeats. But that was understandable. She hadn't seen him in years, after all.

His clothes were sturdy, but cut with more than just practicality in mind. He wore a linen undershirt with a fur-lined blue vest. His horns lacked the ornamentation of his companion, but he did have a bracelet of wooden beads and some sort of red crystal on a leather thong around his neck.

She nearly choked when she saw the scars. Thin white lines across his half-furled wings. They weren't a surprise, but seeing them...

"Aytin?" Her voice came out almost in a whisper, as if he was some sort of magical illusion and the wrong word might break the spell.

He smiled. "Hey Lin." Her brother stepped forward with a confident stride. "You, uh, dropped your knife. Do you want to borrow mine?"

Aytin held out his own blade. Bronze tarnished by both age and use, it had been through even more than he had. She could still recognize it, though. Even missing the turquoise insets and with all the nicks, it was the same blade she had handed her brother all those years before, the day he left the keep.

She couldn't help it. Tears began to stream from her eyes, and then Lin broke down sobbing.

The self confident smile immediately fell from Aytin's face as he rushed forward. "Oh, shit! Shit! I'm sorry Lin! I didn't mean-"

He was cut off when she wrapped him in a wing-crushing hug. After a moment, he responded with a surprisingly tight hug of his own.

"Missed you Tintin," she whispered as she held him close.

"You, too."

They held each other for long heartbeats. When they finally separated, it was only reluctantly. Lin kept one hand on her brother's shoulder as she looked him over.

"You haven't grown," she informed him, smiling slightly despite the brittle quality to her voice.

A look of mock indignation blossomed on the no-longer quite so young dragonette's face. "And you have?"

"I got all my growing done when I was younger. You're still short. But at least you've put on some muscle." She poked him in the arm.

"Well, there's no shortage of work out on the frontier. I've actually had to pull my weight out there."

She laughed. Her brother had never been one to lay around. He just lacked... focus? Purpose?

They had talked about it, back when they were younger. Her sister Zara was always destined to succeed her mother as Lady Luffin. Stonar was on his way to be the captain of the guard. Suuie... well, she didn't have interest in anything but the smithy. And Lin knew that she was going to be a huntress.

"Well, it looks like that trip to the capital really did help you find your role in life. Even if it wasn't the one mother wanted."

"Yeah. Speaking of..." Aytin motioned the other dragonette forward from where she had been looking on. "This is my mate, Rina."

"It's very good to finally meet you," the wildling said with a bow. Her words had an odd accent, sharp and punctuated with clacking jaws, but they were understandable. "Tin has told me so much about you. If you were not his sister, I might even be worried."

"Hey!" Aytin shouted while the two women giggled.

"It's good to meet you, too, Rina." Lin returned the bow. "You're all my brother talks about in his letters. 'Rina is so great!' and 'Yesterday Rina did a thing!' and 'I'm worried that Rina thinks I smell funny.'" That drew another indignant squawk from Aytin. "Oh, come on, I'm just telling her what you told me."

"No I didn't! Not how you're making it sound, anyway."

"Oh?" Rina's ears perked. "And what did you say?"

He squirmed under their gazes. "Look, it was back when we got that shipment of spices in and you didn't want any but you kept sniffing when I wasn't looking..."

"Ha! Yes, I remember that!" Rina said, a wide grin on her face. "And you did smell funny. Like you rolled in flash powder."

"Not my fault you have no sense of taste. You know she still thinks salt on her meat is a delicacy?" he added, turning to his sister.

"You would, too, if you never had any growing up."

Aytin pulled a face at his mate and stuck his tongue out. She darted in as if to nip it, but he moved smoothly to the side and it turned into a nuzzle.

Lin looked on, a soft smile on her lips. "I'm glad you found my brother, Rina," she said as the pair separated. "And not just because you saved his tail. You're good for him."

"I think he is good for me, too," she said, putting a possessive hand on Aytin's shoulder.

"So when can I expect nieces and nephews?" Lin asked, her eyes suddenly gleaming. "Because mother is still searching for a mate for Zara and Stonar is thinking about trying to join the Royal Guard and Suuie is Suuie, soooo..." She gave him an expectant look.

"Errrr..." He looked to his mate, who returned it with a raised eyeridge. "Soon. We've been waiting until everything at the keep was settled down but now it is, so... Soon."

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"Even visiting Bartelion, we will be home well before the midsummer festival." Rina's look made it very clear how she intended to celebrate that particular holiday.

"You remember what happened when I visited the capital, don't you? I was supposed to be back by the start of summer at the latest."

"Ah, but we already escaped the capital without a scratch."

Aytin just shook his head. "Don't tempt the gods. They have a horrible sense of humor. Trust me on that."

"You would not say such a thing if Priestess Karava were here."

"But she's not, and isn't that a relief?"

"You should not speak of the priestess so," his mate insisted.

"And you know she hates me and Faelon."

"That does not mean you should ignore her teachings."

"How did you get here, anyway?" Lin asked before the argument got heated. "We're not exactly between the capital and Bartelion here."

"Not far enough off the route that a trader won't make a detour for a little extra gold." Aytin grinned. "I wasn't going to pass up the opportunity to visit my old home."

Lin raised one eyeridge. "And you didn't even write to let us know you were coming?"

"Well, err..."

She narrowed her eyes. "Who knew?"

"Look, I didn't know if we would be able to even make this trip until late last fall, and then I didn't want to disappoint you if we couldn't find a trader to take us out here, so-"

"Who?"

He gave her a half smile. "Pretty much the whole family."

"Oh, those absolute bitches!" Right then, Lin was ready to strangle them all. "And you, too!" she hissed, pinning her brother with a glare. "I don't care what your excuse is, I am going to get you for this."

"Nah, Rina will protect me."

"I won't allow her to do anything permanent," the wildling added, expression carefully blank.

"There's an awful lot I can do that wouldn't be permanent.."

"Yes there is," she confirmed, this time with a twinkle in her eye.

Aytin backed away from his mate as the two women shared a laugh at his expense, mock outrage written on his face. "I should have known it was a mistake introducing the two of you."

"You bet it was." Lin put an arm around her brother's shoulder and added just a bit of extra pressure to the affectionate gesture.

After a moment he snaked his own arm around his sister and pulled her closer. "I don't regret it, though."

After a few moments, they parted, although the two remained close. Rina stepped up to be at her mate's other side once more, near enough that their wings and tails occasionally brushed together.

"So, Rina wanted to know what life as a huntress here was like," Aytin said into the lull. "I'm not exactly an expert there."

"You were out here alone? Is that normal?"

Lin wasn't sure if the wildling's questions were a veiled criticism of how they did things here. She took her time answering. "No. Usually we go out at least in pairs. Only Tahni told me no one else was free today on account of a trader being spotted. Then she said that she'd seen a herd out this way." Her eyes narrowed. "I guess I know why, now."

"She was the silvered huntress who gave us directions, yes?" Rina asked her mate.

"Yeah, that was Tahni," he confirmed.

Lin was already trying to figure out how to get back at her boss when her thoughts of revenge were interrupted by Rina. "Things are so open here," the wildling noted, stretching her hands out to encompass the savannah beyond the small stand of trees. "I was thinking I would be able to see herds from half a day's flight away, but it is so empty!"

This was a subject Lin could talk about for days. "It might not look like it, but the hills hide a lot. You're flying to the north and half of what's to your east and west might as well be invisible. So you have to know where to look. They stay hidden in the gullies and the brush, but if you know where the watering holes are or where the best patches of grass grow, you can find them. Usually."

Rina considered the response, then nodded. "It is the same as in the forest, I think. All about knowing where to look and what to look for."

"Yeah. Not that this is really huntress work." Lin waved her hand around.

Aytin raised an eyeridge as he glanced at the hanging carcass. "Looks like huntress work to me."

"When I was training, I had to learn how to fly through canyons at full speed. Live off the land and know the plants that were edible, which ones were valuable, the ones that would kill you, and the ones that would just make you wish you were dead. I know how to find water out here even if it hasn't rained in months. How to make fires without setting the grass ablaze.

"And what do I do with all of it? I fly out. I shoot a pronghorn. I dress it. I take it back. And I wake up the next morning and do it again."

Her excitement at seeing her brother again had faded, replaced by pure frustration. She had mentioned bits and pieces of it in her letters, but always interspersed with other news and happenings around the keep.

"It can't be all like that," Aytin said with a wince.

She made a face, but relented a bit. "Not always. I guess not even half of the days. Sometimes we get sent out to gather needlefruit or herbs or check on the trees or scout around a little. Always to places we've been before to do things we've done before a hundred times. Any greenhorn with a bow and a map could do this!"

Being a huntress herself, Rina seemed to understand more than her brother. "All those skills and nothing to hone them with. I believe I see why you are angry."

Lin shook her head, though. "Not angry. Just..." She groaned. "No, you're right. I am angry. I want to do more. Listening to the stories from Tahni and the other older huntresses, it wasn't always like this. Only the keep's gotten so big since mother took over and now, well, there's even talk of catching the pronghorns and trying to keep them in pens!"

From his expression, Aytin was finally starting to understand. "You never said anything about this when you were a greenhorn."

She shook her head and made a face. "I didn't know better back then. Everything was still new and I was learning. And then there's the new crops we put in when the mines closed."

"I saw them flying in. Those are the oil trees?"

The trees were a niche crop. Or they had been. Native to the southern lands, they had thick trunks that held water against long, dry seasons. When the bark from the trees was stripped, it could be pressed, releasing a viscous oil with a sharp but not unpleasant odor.

It was wholly unsuitable for cooking. The taste was like licking coal and it would leave anyone who forced it down stuck on the chamber pot for days. The stuff worked well as an armor lubricant, though, and it burned decently enough in a lamp if you didn't mind the fragrant fumes.

Only, demand for it had grown since the first grove had been planted. Exploded, really, even if no one was quite sure how or why. Just one of many changes that had been working their way through the kingdom over the past few years.

Now cuttings from those newly matured trees covered a huge swath of land around the keep. In a few years they would probably be one of the single largest producers of the oil in the kingdom.

"We're turning into a plantation," Lin grumbled. "Everything is about the trees. In a few years the farmers will be more important than us huntresses. I know it."

"How is it different from the mines?" Aytin asked. "I hate to say it, but have huntresses ever been at the top here?"

"You can't eat copper. At least they needed us to get enough meat to feed the keep and all the miners working down below. Without that, the mines would have been just a big dark hole in the ground. Now, though... have you tried the beans yet?"

Her brother looked confused. "Beans?"

The smile she gave in return didn't reach her eyes. "Yeah. Beans. Fucking beans."

Rina cocked her head. "I do not know this word beans? It sounds like food?"

"A sort of soft seed," Aytin told his mate. "But where do they come from? Not the oil trees?"

"Sort of. You plant them at the base of the trunk and they climb up it. Grow like weeds, too. So we have them in everything now. In every stew, with every portion of meat, Tavot even tried to make ale with them." She grimaced. "Tasted like bitter grass."

"Ouch."

"Yeah. Between that, the other crops, and what we can buy with the money from the oil... I don't even know why mother is keeping us around."

"Oh, that's easy. Without you huntresses, the keep would fail. Do you know why?" She shook her head and Aytin reached over to put a hand on her shoulder. With utter sincerity, he said, "It's to make sure my welcome feast is pronghorn and not bean soup."

He danced away before her smack could land. "Ha. Ha." The glare that followed slid off his smug expression like rain off a dragon's back. When she heard Rina giggling as well she shot her a look of betrayal.

"Yeah, well, is mother even going to let you have the table scraps?"

Aytin's expression sobered. "Yes, actually. You know we came to an... understanding?"

She nodded. It had only been in the last couple of years that she had gotten her brother's letters in the open instead of secreted to her from Uncle Cork. And that first year, the mere mention of his name was enough to set Norvinia off ranting.

That had faded, though. And lately she had even had the odd kind thing to say about Aytin. Once or twice she even sounded proud.

"Are you coming back? Is that why you're here?"

She already knew the answer, but it was still disappointing to see her brother shake his head. "No. As much as I miss everyone here, I have responsibilities. And a family of my own." He gave Rina a look of pure devotion. "But..."

"But?" A hint of hope crept into her voice, although she had no idea what he might suggest.

"But, well, you said it yourself. You're not happy here."

Lin wasn't stupid. It only took her a moment to realize what her brother was suggesting.

"Leave? With you? I... I don't know if I can. Mother..."

"I've talked to her. She's not... enthusiastic about it. But she also won't stop you if you want to come with us. And we could really use someone as talented as you."

"I'm not-"

"Shut up, Lin," Aytin ordered with a wry smile. "I know how hard you worked to become a huntress and I know how hard you'll work out at Faelon's Keep. I also know you won't be quite as... inflexible as our first batch of recruits."

"They had problems working with the tribes." A hint of disgust colored Rina's words. "Arrogant is the word, yes?"

"Yeah, that's about right. Although we only really had one experienced huntress and she left after the second year. Took one of the others she'd been training with her. We've got Rina and a couple of huntresses that we're calling coppered but might as well be greenhorns. The wildlings help out, but..." Aytin shrugged.

Lin was aghast. "That's... how is the keep still standing?!"

"Faelon," was her brother's answer. "He still has enough gold to bring in the supplies we can't make ourselves. For now, at least. And there's a keep nearby that's buying all the flash powder he can make, so that helps a lot. And I did say the wildlings were helping. This trip, though? A big part of it is recruiting."

"And you want me?" It was hard to imagine. Well, to be fair, she had imagined it. A few times, anyway. When the monotony of the hunts was at its worst, she had thought about just flying off to join her brother.

Obviously she had never gone through with it. She couldn't bear the thought of putting her family through that again. And with Aytin's name being coal dust for so long, bringing up the idea had seemed doomed to failure. But if she had her mother's blessing... "How long do I have to decide?"

"We leave in the morning," her brother said, face scrunching in apology. "I suppose if you need more time you could make your own way. We'll be in Bartelion for a few weeks at least. After that, though..." He shrugged. "If you can make up your mind by dinner, that would probably be best."

She considered his offer. As much as she complained, her life here was easy. She had friends and family. Good food and a warm bed to come back to every night. Leaving would mean giving that up. Moving to a place full of strangers and uncertainty and backbreaking work and a climate that would try to kill her every winter.

It would have Aytin, though. The brother she had grown up with. When she thought that he was dead... those had been the worst days of her life. And even though he had survived, he was still halfway across the kingdom with no chance to do more than exchange letters a few times every year. Until now.

The more she thought about it, the more she realized that the decision wasn't really a decision at all.

"Tintin," she said, stepping close and wrapping her arms around her brother and pressing her head up alongside his. "Just you try and leave without me."

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