Mariwa: An Ivian Tale

They moved as a group.

For each and every man, Elder Seneschal had provided supplies and instructions: one old medallion, made from the heavy black metal grown by the Mountain's Guts, to be carried by each of the lads at all times; the notion that they shouldn't light any fires, no matter how dark it got; stand apart from each other, and avoid brushing against dense vegetation.

And how many of those were followed?

"Idiots! Smith, At least tell them to carry the medallions!"

"What do these do, anyway? You won't even touch them," Smith said, throwing one into the air and catching it again.

"D-don't do that! They are brittle, you moron!" Elder Seneschal said, shaking his walking stick so hard he nearly stumbled, "And what they do? They will keep her from noticing your sorry lot before we are there."

"Well, then what's the point? She'll be seeing us one way or another."

"If we're to bring her to the Father, we need to keep her calm. She's strong, Smith, stronger than all your lads made into one, and out of all ways to die I would rather not it be by her hands!"

"Stronger than the makings of man, buried deep beneath the ground, worshiped by the misguided and the foolish, like the Rootgnashers of old..."

"I have told you what I know, think whatever stupid bullshit you wish, just don't come act like you didn't know why you became a pile of viscera after!" said Elder Seneschal, narrowing his eyes, "So, what will it be?"

Smith pondered over the medallion for an instant before scoffing, "Your pet is one real damn demanding captive, isn't it? Well, I think I'll be carrying these for now, that's what it will be."

He sighed. Smith wasn't entirely wrong, at this point those things were probably useless.

Needless to say, the reason for those demands was not his dear secret. The reason was far away, sat like a king on his throne of earth and rock, but he didn't need a physical presence to track them across his domain, so long as they stood unprotected by the most unholy metal.

"And you, Olivia, honey? You should stay, wait with your grandchildren. The den of evil we are going to is no place for a woman," Smith said.

"I thank you for your consideration, Elder Smith." Olivia bowed slightly, hands clasped and low. "I know it is not my place to demand, but I hope you understand I would like to upkeep my duties as an Elder, regardless of the danger. Part of those duties, I believe would be observing tonight's Ceremony."

"A Ceremony, eh?" He chuckled, mirthless, "I suppose it is, in a way. Great diligence, by the way! You really can play one mean Elder. Shouldn't you at least bring your grandson together? He was with us just a moment ago..."

"I sent him away to care for his sister. She is prone to fits of hysterics, and I fear today's events might put too great a burden on her mind. Besides, I am old and unafraid for my own life, regardless of how the evening proceeds."

"Courageous, too!" Smith laughed, though his eyes fixated on her in a way that was not too kind. "Oh well, in case anything happens just get behind one of the lads. You boys alright with that, I hope?!"

There was a small chorus of assent. Him, Julius, and Olivia were being escorted from all sides by armed men, lead by Willy's own cousin, one Rose Willard, another large and largely stoic fellow to match his own son-in-law, though neither trait as extreme. He was an experienced one, veteran of many raids, and one of the few men in the village to ever have killed one of the Hold's soldiers in single handed combat.

"Great to hear! Now, let's carry on, before this stink gets any worse!"

The Hollow's woods were dark and dreary, thick enough with vegetation to cast night in the middle of the day at parts. Scant beams of fading crimson sunlight illuminated the way, but it wasn't half enough to keep the lads from being grasped by roots or getting snagged by thorns, so torches were soon lit.

That, more than anything else, revealed their presence. Were any of the lads to look up toward the tops of the forest, swaying to the dry afternoon breeze, they would see something quite peculiar: some of the branches were dancing in unnatural directions, as if pulled by strings in a poor mimicry of the wind's movement.

The clearest sign that God had not merely noticed them but that his attention was very specifically on them. Not that it hadn't been before, of course, the only thing keeping God's wrath since the group choose petulance over his wisdom had been his own design. Curiosity? A plan? Merely playing games? Elder Seneschal wouldn't dare hazard a guess.

Still, taking advantage of the wind's noise, he leaned forward and whispered near his fellow conspirator. "How are your tykes going to deal with this?"

A pair of harsh eyes met his. "They will hide by the river, and the moment they perceive the slightest hint something is about to happen, they are to jump in."

He frowned. "I hear your grandson is a terrible swimmer."

"It's their only chance of escape." She turned away from him, eyes firmly fixed on the form of Elder Smith, having his own hushed conversation with the vanguard of their party. "... And if worst comes to worst, one way or another, it is the more dignified death. You should have sent you daughter to join them."

Elder Seneschal didn't question her. It wasn't as if he didn't understand that desperation. Everything his family had worked for, every scheme he plotted since he became an Elder, every single thing written down in his hidden tomes were made out of that same desperation, born of a clear reality that should be as self evident as the Father Cosmical, but that in the end only his dear friend besides him truly seemed to understand.

Lesser Hollow was done for.

Lesser Hollow was a shambling corpse that had learned how to forestall its own rot, never fully rid itself of it. Now, it would die, either the slow death at the hands of its Lord, or should he succeed , a faster, more merciful end at his.

Simply put, they couldn't maintain God's demands anymore. Even if the choice of brides was to be left eternally in their hands, years of Ceremonies had worn the minds of their people too much, the punishments and death incurred with every failure culling their Herd to less than a half of the half left from the great tragedy of his grandfather's time, the last time somebody had truly tried dealing with the problem. More losses, and they would break.

The alternative had always been to take brides from the road that connect the other two Hollows, but the years had made them wise to their methods. As the solstice approached, women were warned from traveling in the region, and those few that absolutely needed were escorted by the soldiers of their empire, equipped with quality metals and taught in bizarre arts that made even individuals a nightmare to fight for any amount of lads. And with the towns tightening their security so even known vagrants struggled to get in...

Not sacrificing was not an option, of course.

Escape wasn't an option either. He had enough of the black metal to maybe hide his family on the way out, but even that wasn't entirely guaranteed. There were certain attitudes, certain things you had to keep an eye on to avoid being found, and only him as the Godspeaker, partaker of some of God's Will, could do so consistently.

And even if there was a miracle, and they all made it out? The Hollows were a beast ridden land, full of diseases and bizarre apparitions. It was already dangerous enough for the trained lads, what would happen to the old, to the children, or the ill?

This, of course, only speaking about the many beasts God kept out. He knew how Galehold, their glorious nation, saw people like them.

Death, one way or another.

The Seneschals had spent generations secretly researching a way to deal with the issue, most of it now lost, not that they had gathered much of use. The only solution had always been obvious, but how would they go about it? The village would never turn against the Father, and even if they did, they would probably all be destroyed; outsiders, out of question; praying for mercy? A joke.

The only angle they found to strike at God was the solstice Ceremony, the most vulnerable he would ever be, and the closest to success they ever came to was a massacre.

It had been a success however. A disaster, but one that solved half the puzzle. His grandfather had figured it out. In his panic he had asked the right question, wrote it in a journal in thick ink and contoured it for good measure:

"What is purity?"

in the century and a half of God's rule, this was the chief guideline of who was chosen as a bride, taught by the first Godspeaker, before the Seneschal's learned enough of that art to force themselves into the role, and for many years it had been followed to the letter: the best, most loyal, most ardent, healthiest virgins in the village.

Need changed the standards.

What is purity? Is it chastity? In times of need, they had made mothers into brides. God did not make any sort of displeasure known. Then, purity was wholeness of being.

Was purity a quality of body? In times of need, they had made the severely ill into brides, and only known it much after. God did not make any sort of displeasure known. Then, purity was a measure of behavior, of morals.

Was purity a measure of morals? in times of need, pick a petulant child, arrogant and rebellious, threaten the few things she holds dear, then put her in the laurels of the bride, so she does the bare any other would to not bring about punishment. God did not make any sort of displeasure known. At this point, purity becomes unquantifiable by the herd, something only the divine can gauge.

One thing had earned God's displeasure consistently: when the brides broke down before the right time, or before the Ceremony even started at all. It's why procedure was so important, but if that could be exploited Elder Seneschal didn't know how.

The one chink in his armor, the one angle to truly be exploited, had also been discovered by his grandfather. The Village went on thinking his grandfather's sin had been his writings on God and the Herd, which ironically were the only remaining proof of his true breach of taboo.

God had been poisoned.

Thing was, that had been attempted before and after too. No matter what was fed to him, even some of the most noxious substances you could harvest in the Hollow, poisons that could kill ten men with one drop, had never given God pause. The worst they had ever earned in these situations was when the bride was left too debilitated to proceed with the ritual.

With one exception: That fateful day, hours before the Ceremony, the bride had been fed a slice of soft tissue from the depths of the Mountain's Guts.

The same Mountain's Guts that birthed the unholy black medal that could hide one's presence from God's Will, whose lands above were taboo, who made plants and animals fall sick when angered, who now protected his own sin.

But why off all things, that? Of course, in hindsight, it was very obvious, but why? Pondering that, the first question came back in mind: What if the people were right, purity was some arcane measure, something only God could actually feel the difference of? Something so much deeper than the flesh, so much harder to replicate than simple toxin.

The confirmation fell on his lap, long after his grandfather's time, long after he took the mantle of Elder from his father's cold hands, but it would take years to accept it, more to have the guts to act on it.

And now, his family's sacrifices finally bore fruit.

Tonight Lesser Hollow would burn with its God, and if everything went right, regrow from the ashes.

The Seneschals paid dearly for their patriarch's transgression.

By the time Florid Seneschal had become twenty, his mother and all his sister's had become brides, and his only brother had "ran away." His father, the tattler who exposed his own progenitor's crimes, had burnt much of their family's knowledge to prove his faith and commitment, including their means of learning Godpeaking, all which amounted to nothing as they were nearly pushed into the same pyre anyway. Had Florid not found his grandfather's second archive, containing transcriptions of most of the essential stuff, he wouldn't have survived to be this old.

Part of him hoped things would get better after he became the village's sole Godspeaker, but expected nothing. As time passed, he regained much of his family's reputation, married a woman named Flora, and became a father of two girls.

His wife was the first to become a bride, chosen a mere couple months after the birth of their youngest.

His elder daughter, Laurel, had gone after, little after his youngest turned five.

Paranoia ate him up inside. He hid Cassia like a precious treasure, forcing her to keep a black medallion on her person at all times, to never leave the house even to fetch water, to never speak louder than a whisper or walk by an open window. As if he didn't know none of that would work, but those were the worst times of his life.

For a brief period of time, he had considering taking his losses and risking escape, consequences be damned and buried deep with the worms! He could believe in a fear stronger than that which he already felt then, but something happened which shocked the notion out of his head, which shocked the village to its core.

Laurel had come back.

...Or, so he first thought when the only stranger Lesser Hollow had ever seen since God rose from his throne was brought before the village's Elders, dragged by the arms into the Meeting Hall.

That was impossible, and logically he knew that. The dead didn't come back, first of all, but she had many differences from his late daughter: Her skin was darker, she was obviously older, the language she spoke complete nonsense. But her face, her eyes, her gestures, her voice! It was impossible, but it was right before him, so close to what Laurel could have been it felt like a trick, cruel beyond even the imagination of the Rootgnashers.

Elder Seneschal had never considered himself a credulous man, but in his heart of hearts, he struggled to convince himself it was mere coincidence. The old tales told of the cycle dictating man's life: from the earth they were born, and to the earth they returned to rot and nourish the Father and his lands, his children, then be reborn anew. He had never given them much consideration beyond duty's sake, and the moment the idea left his mind he would never again try, but for a week, he was made a believer; an omen had come before him.

An omen had come before him, and in dire conditions. She was caked in grime, clothes clinging to her thin frame through a myriad wound discharges, smelling of waste and infection. From the wideness of her eyes, the tone of her voice, he could tell she was afraid; from the way she limped, the way she struggled to move her arms, to breath, she wouldn't last long.

And worst of all, her children didn't look much better.

Two little things, one who clung to her mother even as she was dragged, and the other who had to be brought by a lad. One toddler crying and another eerily silent, both malnourished, both with dirty, open sores, though not nearly as ragged as their mother. At the edge of madness, Florid had demanded both brought to the healer immediately by the screams, separating them from their mother.

It was the kinder action, Elder Florid Seneschal would often tell himself later.

The second coming of his Laurel would not make it to the morrow, departing back to the earth that same night, never leaving them so much as a name they could understand.

By a miracle, the children survived, and what a fight it was to keep them so! Outsiders, even those this young, were forbidden from learning their secrets. Thankfully, taking advantage of the moment's surprise and the hesitation even the Lesser's Elders felt at the idea of killing mere babes made it easier to bring them to a compromise: He would assume the responsibility of inducting them into the Herd, of caring for their well-being and making sure they would never remember where they came from.

And thus, Hazel and Holly earned their names, and became Seneschals.

Their lives were never going to be easy. Beyond the average daily misery's of Lesser Hollow, the two girls were abominations in the village's eyes, kept at arms length by others at the best of circumstances, accused of being Rootgnashers in human skin and beaten bloody more than once, but they were supposed to grow as normal girls, happy to whichever measure of happy they could manage.

Elder Seneschal loved them as his own, this he would proudly tell anyone who asked.

He had even prepared himself to teach them how to read, if they proved capable of keeping a couple secrets.

Then, when she was eight, Holly grew sick.

At first, Florid had believed it was mere Sun Fever, Flowering Flu, or something of the sort. She was constantly dizzy, exhausted, and had difficulties keeping food down, nothing a little Mother's Herb wouldn't cure.

After a week, she grew worse. Feverish, languid, and pale, the healer came for a visit and recommended some rarer medicinal herbs, which Florid had to go search for in the forest. Easy, nothing he hadn't done before, and he stood hopeful. Things would get better.

After a week, she woke up spitting blood and screaming.

The healer's home was vacated, and she was given a privileged position, the softest bed by the most well lit window, blessed with the Father Cosmical's warmth every day. The healer had pain medicines, fruits from another solstice and kept at hand in case of an emergency, things that would put a grown man to sleep in half a pill.

Nothing worked. Nothing curbed the impossibly high fever nor the paralyzing agony nor the rivulets of red coming from her many opening sores. The healer and his son did their best to keep the poor girl from trashing herself apart, from howling her throat to pieces, but what could they do? Restrain her, balm her parting skin?

That day, Seneschal went home in silence, comforted his children, then slept, expecting to wake up to another dead daughter the next morning.

That would have been a mercy, he would often tell himself later.

The day rose red.

The fury wasn't pointed the village's way, however, if it was fury at all. The tinge in the sky was so slight it didn't alert the early risers, but Florid could feel God's tension in the air. He didn't need to look for the cause; he rushed out of his house towards the healer's.

The first sign of something wrong came when he first saw the door had been left wide open, fat flies pouring in and out of the entrance. The smell of putrefying offal hit him seconds later, pungent and thick even from a distance.

He lingered at the small home's entrance, physically incapable of taking a step forward without voiding his stomach. From there, he could see the windows had been left closed, beams of sunlight barely enough to lighten the environment, and no deterrent to the swarm of insects loudly feasting inside.

Elder Florid Seneschal was not learned in the processes of the body, but something about this felt wrong. Had she passed in the night, surely her body wouldn't have deteriorated to this point? No, it couldn't be. And where was the damned healer? From sound alone, he could tell there was nobody inside the hut.

His heart pounding like thunder, he took a deep breath, nearly paying for this mistake, and entered the house.

Immediately, he found the healer, or rather, nearly tripped over him.

The old healer of Lesser Hollow was a man who worked far past his prime, but his son was, by the accounts of half the village, a complete idiot and not to be trusted with the craft, so he toiled away his years over weeping cuts and his trusty sickness pail. There was nothing he had not seen: He had amputated limbs, had sewed intestines back into bellies, and personally offered his strength to dig the shallow graves of his failures.

Florid found him on the floor, back against the wall, mere centimeters away from the door into his infirmary. Clutching the rumpled shirt over his chest, eyes wide and glazed, body tentatively explored by some of the pests inside. He had been left to linger in his own waste, adding to the putrid musk of the room.

For a second, Florid's eyes tarried there, too afraid to look further.

He was never going to last. Knowing where her bed was, his head turned.

The sight of it loosened the walking stick out of his hands, and sent him to his knees.

In the middle bed of the infirmary, a cloud of flies buzzed in erratic patterns over what could never be called a human body.

It was a husk. A shell broken into and voided of its contents. The swarm ate from it, from the thin strips of papery skin and darkening meat still attached to its splayed, broken ribs; from facsimile of a sunken human face, eyelids and lips drooping over the lack of eyes and teeth; from the nearly detached limbs, one arm and one leg hanging limp from the edge of the bed, shoulder socket exposed from beneath her torn clothing.

Florid stood stupefied. For a second, he thought himself dreaming, and the thing sitting in Holly's place a terror conjured by stress. But even as a dream, it was unbelievable, so he crawled forward, uncaring for insects crushed under the palm of his hands, for the crimson mess spread across the room and now smeared on his robes.

And in that moment, as he reached a hand to his dear daughter, he heard a noise.

It was so faint, he barely noticed it. Like a grunt of pain, or a sob, but... he couldn't describe it. Croaky, wet, the imitation of human sounds by some bestial throat, or something unimaginably worse.

That he thought what he thought, then, could only have been madness.

Swallowing dry, he lowered himself on his arms, carefully.

Underneath the bed something convulsed and breathed, glistening wet and curled into itself like a newborn child. He could almost swear it was speaking

Against all instincts telling him to run, he opened his mouth and called-

Holly Seneschal was bored out of her gourd.

She finished the story of Wisteria and the Worm for the nth time and carefully closed the flimsy book with a nail. Sighing, she leaned back against the wall, attentive to not squish any of the glowy veins, and briefly enjoyed its mild warmth. She had to while she still could: soon, with the end of the solstice, her quiet buddy will go to sleep again, and her room would go back to the usual chill.

Which would leave her almost completely alone! her pets and the vile little puking maggots that built the glowy veins notwithstanding, it had been days... Weeks? Months? Years?! A very long time indeed since the last time somebody had come visit her! She could understand that the Elder was busy, and without him neither Cassia nor Hazel would come, but it had been so long since she saw either.

She felt so hungry too. She couldn't keep living from her pets alone! Her crickets where almost all gone! She wanted meat, she wanted that Uluun thing the Elder brought her sometimes! Or fish, the ones filled with crawling things! Or snails too, those were fine, the meatier ones anyway! Rives squids, flatslugs, crabs...

Sighing and grunting to herself, she got up. This wasn't the time for negative thoughts! She had to be strong, and he would be here soon. All she had to do was entertain herself meanwhile, and everything would be okay.

First, she went to her side room and stored her book with the others. She had a few loose piles and old crates of stories here, but she never managed to keep them organized for long. She did, however, separate by genre and state, many of her favorites sadly eaten away by the damp and the larvae. Her best pile, the Elder's chivalry tales, she kept on a special corner, but the one in her hands went into the sacred texts piles, small and most made because she asked the Elder to write down.

Next. she went around counting the little critters.

Her crickets she mostly kept by her basin, her bed, down stream from her spring, as they loved gnawing on the mosses and slime that grew around it. She always found them pretty dumb, if very cute, but they had been taking it a bit far lately, completely frozen to their spots. One even had stopped in the middle of eating! Feeling the pangs, she grabbed it, identified it as Florid the Fortieth First, and gorged on both it and its meal, a cute little round capped mushroom.

Her spiders, she didn't have a single place, but rather, just let them keep to their webs. She checked them one by one, even prodded a few, but they were all frozen too. Hazel the Eightieth, may her body nourish the Father, had sadly passed away while she wasn't looking.

The centipedes were still all gone. All the better, she thought!

She sang. She was getting better! She hoped.

She almost practiced writing a little, but she was pretty sure she had gouged the walls too deep, and the Elder had warned her from poking her buddy. Supposedly, he was quite noxious.

She watched the maggots squirm on the wall, watched the glowy veins flicker with their movement. A beautiful show, if repetitive.

All pretty fun stuff! Really.

But nothing did it. She had to admit, she was nervous, scared.

Ever since she got sick, Holly had felt a certain... pressure, all present and all reaching. Elder Seneschal had told her he called that God's Will, and the name said it all, that was God's presence feeling up everything in their lands, even down here, as fuzzy and indistinct as it felt.

Feeling God's Will came with learning they had periods of... desire, she suppose. Craving, hunger, something of the kind, though she couldn't quite place her finger on it. These desires came in with periods of tension in the air, something heavy and terrifying that even her buddy couldn't protect her from.

But this periods were supposed to end. This time, it felt like they were going for too long. Something was very wrong, but there was nobody to tell her what.

So she did what she could: curled up in a ball and waited.

Thankfully, it wasn't for long. Suddenly, voices began to echo around her home, breaking its near eternal silence.

"-Behind me, moron!"

She jumped up. She could tell that croaky ranting anywhere! The Elder had come for her! But then, another voice joined his.

"Ha! I don't think so, Seneschal. Ugh, Father above, this thing stinks!"

"Keep it on if you don't want to get poisoned to death. Stop fiddling with it! That way."

"Oh, this really is one mad labyrinth you found, Seneschal! Wonder how you never forgot the way back."

For a second, she almost tricked herself into thinking that was her brother-in-law Julius, until she dug deeper into her memories and remembered what Julius actually sounded like. This voice wasn't half as gruff or heavy. Elder Seneschal didn't bring people outside the family here, he shouldn't, but if then, who was this?

Suddenly, the visit didn't seem as pleasant anymore. Swallowing down the trepidation, she huddled against an alcove from where she could peek out, and willed herself closer to its color. She felt her hairs trying to stretch, and had to fight to keep them close.

From the entrance, light. A torch, judging by the color and the light crackling. She heard the clicking of a walking stick, and several pairs of footsteps right along, very far back.

The very first person to cross into view wasn't Elder Seneschal. It was some huge guy she had never seen before.

"Wait for me! You don't want to scare her!"

"The big bad-"

"Not another word Smith, not until we're out of here!"

"Ooooh."

His figure came shortly after, long white hair hanging to his waist from around his bald spot, leathery tanned skin, wiry limbs, limping along on a crooked foot and walking stick. The relief she felt when she saw his dour eyes, his face covered from the nose down in a cloth, looking to and fro in search of her, couldn't be described in words. Unfortunately, more people began to pour in. Most of them were bulky lads, but she saw Julius as well, and two old people, one baldy with a long beard and a pale old lady with a really severe face and long braid.

They stunk, too. She expected the smell of mud and other forest musks, the Elder always smelled of that, but the sheer nervous sweating was overwhelming, plus that acrid tang she felt from Julius sometimes, but could never quite place.

The old people and Julius were surrounded, she noticed, while the lads spread around the back of the entrance and against the tunnel- the hallway out. The Big guy who had come first hadn't stopped looking for her since the beginning, and the way he stared...

"Well, Seneschal, time to put that honeyed voice of your to use."

"Get Willy's little henchman out of the way first."

The insult earned Elder Seneschal a sharp glare from said little henchman, but Beard just chuckled wryly. "Rose, back down a little, will you? Worst comes to worst, don't think you'll get much of a fair fight here."

"Not lookin' for any," that Rose answered, but did obey.

The Elder sighed. Approaching her door he grabbed its bars, mindful of the black spikes as always, before lightly rattling.

"Holly? Holly, love, I've come to see you!" he said, and rattled again. "Holly!"

She didn't come out, of course. Not in front of these many people.

"Holly my dear, I know I brought way too many people to your room, and completely uninvited too, but I swear I wouldn't do it if I had any other options. Could you please come out, and talk to us a little?"

She didn't move a muscle. She considered it, after all she wouldn't dare spit on Elder Seneschal's good will usually, specially not in front of others, but something about this felt wrong. She kept watching.

"Holly! I know you are there, please come out! We've even brought you a tasty little gift! It's your favorite!"

She slid forward, just a little.

Not just because of the gift though!

While Elder Seneschal called her, that Rose had started whispering to Beard. Whatever they were saying, she didn't catch it most of it, except one single bit.

"Right there," Rose said, nodding right towards her hiding spot. Beard squinted a little, exchanged a few more words with him, than took a sudden step back, eyes going wide.

"Holly!"

She didn't resist it for long. In the end, wrong as if felt it would be even worse to ignore the Elder when he was so kind as to visit her, specially when he knew there was nowhere else she could be.

So for the first time in an eternity, Holly Seneschal stepped in front of strangers.

She kept low to the floor and close to the wall, trying not to draw too much attention to herself just yet, but it was all in vain. Just as the light of the torches outside touched her, there was a collective gasp and step back from her guests. Feeling stung, she nearly retreated, only one thing convincing her otherwise.

Elder Seneschal was smiling at her. Despite everything, he actually tried kneeing to get at eye level with her.

"W-wait, Elder Seneschal! D-don't --"

"Holly! There you are, love!" Elder Seneschal said. "You scared me for a second!"

"S-sorry! But you brought so many people..."

"They're all here to see you, Holly, but don't worry about them! These are a bunch of idiots, they couldn't harm you if they wanted to! So let's not bother with them right now, not when I brought you something much better!" He turned away from her. "Lads, the bag, now!"

One of the younger lads hurried closer, than practically ran away as he got a good look at her, almost sending her away out of pure shame, but she held strong, for the Elder's sake at least. He had a small pouch of cloth, bound with thin vines, and she knew what it contained before it was even opened.

It was the sensation of it. They didn't smell, and didn't taste much better than any other flower she could remember, but if you focused on them, even from a distance, it was like... she struggled to describe it, even with the Elder's help. The closest she could come to the feeling was like dipping your toes in the river during a hot day, but not physical.

"Purple Rings!"

"Smart girl!" the Elder laughed, and gave her her treats through the bars. Uncurling her nails and tearing open the vines, she didn't hesitate a second before gobbling the little flowers up. As she ate, she felt that pleasant chill seep into her bones, calming her from her panic, making her feel whole and restored. The Elder spoke again. "Good girl. It's been a while since I've last visited, hasn't it? The situation outside has been completely mad, love."

"I know, I can feel it. I was getting really scared!" Holly said.

"I know you were, but I'm here now."

"D-did Cassia and Hazel come too? I want to see them."

"No dear, Cassia has been rather indisposed. As for your sister... Well, I'm afraid she is the reason we're all here today."

"... W-what do you mean, Elder Seneschal?"

"Holly, would like to step out of your room today?"

Worried thoughts came to a crashing halt inside her mind.

"What?"

"Really! You're going to have to follow some rules, but-"

"E-Elder Seneschal! I-I'm still sick! What if they catch my bug?! and I'm indecent, and I'm all dirty, and-"

"Holly, Holly! Dear, calm down, nobody here minds, alright? And if they do?" He shot the other in the room, all huddled by the back wall and pale by now, a dirty look. "Well, they can close their eyes and hug the walls, the idiots! No, the reason we need you is more important than modesty, and time is of the essence."

"What happened, Elder Seneschal? Tell me! D-did something happen with Hazel?!"

"I think I better show you, rather than just speak. Will you come with us?"

"P-please, I-"

"I will show you what I mean, Holly, but you need to come with us."

"Elder..."

"Holly, aren't you an obedient girl? Wouldn't you do anything for your sister?"

"Y-you know I am! You know I would!"

"Then come with us. I promise it will be quick."

Holly sighed, the sound scaring a whimper out of somebody else, "Alright, Elder Seneschal. S-sorry, I didn't mean to be disobedient."

"It's alright, love, so long as you come. Everything will be alright. Now, if you could stand back from the door for a moment."

"Sure."

Slowly, she stood up, and looked down at the people behind the bars.

The big, strong lads gasped and flinched. One stumbled to his back, turned, and disappeared into the hallways of her home, whines echoing in the dark. The old lady covered her mouth and shook as if she had seen a ghost, and even Beard was mumbling curses under his breath. Julius, as usual, didn't react beyond looking away.

Elder Seneschal demanded the keys for her door, hidden behind a rusting handcart, and unlocked the chains holding her door. Then, the door's locks. Against her expectations, however, he didn't unclasp the burning spikes.

"I don't think those even come off anymore, Holly. It would take too long either way, so please just be careful with them."

So she did, hunching over and gingerly stepping through the threshold.

And then, for the first time in so, so long, Holly Seneschal left her room and stood among the people of Lesser Hollow.