Rat-tail placed a gentle paw against her shoulder, causing her to flinch slightly. She hadn't known he was there.

"It's not bad," the heat of him was like the sun behind her, "it's just different, that's all."

Jump-touch shook her head violently, trying to shrug him off, but his clawed hand stayed firm against her shoulder.

"I don't want to be different. I want to be like you. I want to stay with you."

I'm whining.

Even now, she knew she sounded like a child. The fire in front of her was a blurred shape, and she could feel the tears streaking down her face. "I don't want to be different."

There was a light sigh as the kobold released her, settling down onto the carved stone bench beside her.

"It's not something either of us can control, Jump-touch. We always knew it was going to be this way. You can't stay isolated here forever."

She shook her head again, and he leant to the side to stop her braids flicking him in the face.

"I mean, you could stay," he started, raising one blurry paw to stop her from interrupting, "if you really, really wanted to, but I don't think you should. You need to see the world, Jump-touch. You need to know your own kind. You need to experience your own culture. "

She sniffled, trying to quash the spark of hope his words had kindled inside her. She knew she could stay, but she also knew she couldn't.

It didn't stop her from wanting it so badly that her whole body ached.

"But this is my home." She tried, "I… I don't remember being anywhere else. I don't even remember… This is my culture, my people, I don't even…."

She scratched through her mind, but none of the language of her childhood would come to her, not even the few words Rat-tail had tried to teach her over the past few days. She had spoken it for five-odd years, and fluently she presumed, but it had been so long…

"It'll come back to you," Rat-tail reached forward and nudged a piece of wood into the fire. "Plus, the Stone fills in. It will give you a skill to help you along."

Jump-touch sniffed, wiping her eyes on her sleeve, the heat of the fire drying them even as they ran down her face. "But what if it doesn't, what if I'm different because I didn't grow up there. What if it doesn't work? Can I come back then?"

She looked over at him, his scales lit orange by the firelight. He didn't look old, for a kobold, but his normally happy face was serious today, and she could see creases of tiredness in the grey-scaled skin around his eyes.

He shook his head, his eyes shining bright gold. "I keep telling you, this isn't exile, Jump-touch. We're not throwing you out, you can always come back. We raised you as our own, but you need to know what was taken away from you when we did. What you're missing out on."

She screwed up her face and looked away, back into the light. Her distressingly human face.

In a village full of people with scales and fur, she had always been the odd one out. No fur, no scales, no wings. Two arms and two legs and a stupid upright posture that made it hard to run on all fours. Skin the colour of old wood, and hair and eyes the same. She had no natural protection against the cold winds of the Mountain peak, and she couldn't even sleep on the floor without padding.

The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

She was boring. She was different, and now at fourteen years old, she was being made to leave.

Exiled.

Rat-tail huffed at her. "It's not exile, how many times am I going to have to repeat myself. You can always come back, and we will always care for you, but you need this."

He sighed, "How about this. We will mark a year on the trees from the day you leave, and you may return when it is up. If you want us to make it exile, then we can do that. We can take the choice away from you."

She bit her lip so hard she thought it might bleed, she-

"And no, you cannot hang around outside the village for a year, pretending to be gone." Rat-tail cut her off mid-thought. "And you cannot bribe Feather-paw to bring you food while you hide in the Dip or the Valley."

She squinted at him, somewhat blinded by the change in brightness from fire to face, how did he know?

"If you return early," he continued, ignoring her, "then you are to do it in the garb of the humans. Bring us something of theirs, to prove you at least tried. Bring a friend, a pet, books, knowledge. But don't just hang around in the woods for a year moping like a lost dog. You need to understand, Jump-touch."

He leant against the back of the bench for a brief moment, before wincing and leaning forward again, his sharp back spines scraping against the stone. He was one of the more humanoid members of the village, with his upright physique and his ability to easily vocalise even the human tongue, but even his body had its limitations. His wide-but-still-vestigial wings and sharp spines limited both his ability to wear clothing and to lean back against things.

I don't want to leave. I don't want to understand. I just want to stay here, with you.

"We'll send Sweep-claw with you down the mountain," Rat-tail spoke on. "He'll protect you until you reach the road, but he can't go further. Once you reach the road you'll be on your own."

Jump-touch stared into the fire, unable to look at him anymore. "I don't understand."

Rat-tail sighed, before pushing himself to his feet with his tail. "That's why you have to do this, Jump. It'll be good for you."

She sat there until the fire had burnt down to embers, and by the time she finally dragged herself off to bed, the dawn was lighting up the sky.

****

Sweep-claw rolled his eyes and gently plucked the rucksack off her back. It had been three days since her talk with Rat-tail, and although the tears had stopped, she still felt raw inside.

"You will have to carry that on your own eventually," his voice was a growl as he inspected the pack, "but for now…"

He paused for a moment, before hooking the straps over one of his giant ears.

"You are walking though, I will not carry you."

Jump-touch nodded, a touch shyly. She hadn't spoken to Sweep-claw much over the course of her life. He had always been an imposing figure, somebody she knew she could run to in an emergency, but he had been more of an idea than a person. A shape in the distance.

People didn't tend to let the gigantic bear babysit, not even kobolds.

"You're sure it's okay for you to come with me?"

Sweep-claw was one of the guardians of the village, and even though she was fourteen now, and tall compared to some, she barely came up to his elbow even when he crouched. He was a being of pure muscle, designed to fight, if she hadn't known him her whole life then she would have thought him a monster.

He lead the way down the mountain, from the barren stone near the village, down through the waist-high scrub and towards the forest below. Jump-touch following silently in his wake.

****

"You will come back?" he asked eventually, as the sun was moving towards evening, and she nodded, before realising he couldn't see her so far back.

"Yes, of course." Jump-touch moved forward with a skip, "the village is my home, you're my family. Of course I'm coming back!"

Sweep-claw grunted, the backpack bouncing off the side of his face as his head swayed side to side, but he didn't say anything further.

That was fine. He found speaking hard, and couldn't communicate at all with many in the village. His life as a guardian also kept him away from the community.

That night she slept against his side, snuggled deep into his coarse brown fur, and in the morning they set off again. Down towards the Lower Village.