Elruin climbed up from the muck, disheveled but unharmed. Confused, she began piecing together what just happened. First, Father was dead. Second, he shot her after saying something about her not being his. Elruin couldn't parse together what that was supposed to mean; she'd have to ask Mama about that.

Distracted from sorting out the events of the last few minutes, she looked down at the body of her now-human looking father. Not only did he shoot her, he also grabbed her and hit her. She couldn't understand what she did wrong, but maybe he could tell her. Her eyes turned inky black, as she began to hum the song she learned from her new friend.

Her eyes observed the skeleton, reading its notes and patterns; there was nothing left of the intelligent will from before, merely the strings needed to allow a puppet to dance. It was a doll, nothing more.

Elruin smiled. "I have a dolly!" Toys were a rare luxury for her.

She began in earnest, singing to the corpse of her late father. Necromantic power surged up from within her, washing over the area. Flowers whithered, plants died, and insects fled. The body in front of her twitched while undying threads were woven through the flesh and chained to the bones. Thread too frail to support the metaphysical weight of a human corpse.

Elruin gave up; perhaps some day, she'd be strong and skilled enough to create new dollies for herself, but for now all she got for her efforts was a corpse that looked like it had been sitting out in the hot sun until it turned into a raisin.

However, this was the first time she truly looked at a human with her sight. The patterns, the structures, the nature of their life and death, wasn't all that different than those of the rodents she drove from the buildings as her primary duty. As with rats, humans had concentrations of life energy, mostly in the chest and head area. Those were the vulnerable places, if she ever had to defend herself again.

She noted that the day was getting late, and Father did want the wall repaired, so she sang the details of what a wall looked like in her mind to her minion. But she also remembered when Grandma died, and was buried, so she instructed her dolly to put Father's body along the path of the fence, so she could both bury her father like she was supposed to, and build the fence as was the chore she was assigned.

Satisfied that Father was properly buried, she held her hands together and looked at the ground as she was shown. "He's dead now. He will be remembered."

With little left but allowing her dolly work, Elruin left the site of the mudslide and began the long trudge back home. By the time she got back to the farm proper, the sun was well into the process of converting a cold, wet morning into a hot, humid afternoon.

Carob saw her first. He was Elruin's favorite brother, one of the elder twins, and one of the only that would play with her sometimes. The moment he saw her, noticed she was alone, he left his pitchfork next to the piled hay in order to meet her halfway. "What happened to Father?" He looked at the hole in her dress, caked with mud and blood. "Are you okay?"

This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

"Umm, a monster got us!" Elruin blurted the first thing that came to mind. "It was big and scary and ate Father!"

"Merat!" Carob swore under his breath. If he'd been more attentive, he may have questioned Elruin's story, but he had no reason to believe she was lying. After all, she was covered in blood, and Father hadn't returned with her. Something serious had happened, of that there was no doubt.

He raised his hand to the sky, drew on his own limited magic potential, and sent a blood red bolt into the air. The bolt struck the protective barrier and joined with it, which turned the sky deep orange; an artificial sunset that last all of four seconds. It was nothing more than a basic illusion spell, light twisted and warped by magic, but it was a cheap spell that under the right conditions could be seen for miles. Ideal for sounding alerts across a large farm.

Signal sent, Carob turned his attention back to Elruin. "You're very strong and brave, making it this far on your own." He knelt to pick up his presumed wounded little sister, carrying her bridal style across the still muddy ground. "I'll get you to Mother. She'll heal you."

"Okay." Elruin put her arms around her big brother, watched as he pushed just a little magical power into enhancing his strength and speed. It wasn't so different from the methods of necromancy which kept her new dolly moving where flesh had long ago failed, though the two types of energy could not be more different otherwise.

By the time they got to the central barn, almost everyone living on the farm had begun to gather, including Othsa.

Carob began to announce the situation to the others; stragglers would be drafted as they arrived. "According to Elruin, there was a monster attack that hurt her and wounded Father. We need to organize a response."

He set Elruin down on the ground in front of their mother. Meanwhile, he eyed her for signs of censure. With her husband missing and reported dead, she was the farm's matriarch unless he was found alive, but cultural propriety meant that the responsibility of commanding the men fell to Carob as eldest son. The role of dealing with the women, including Elruin, fell to her without question.

Othsa, shocked by the news that her husband of decades might be dead, showed little emotion beyond pain and fear. She was in no condition to make decisions, but Carob didn't need her express permission to take charge, only a lack of forbiddance.

He glanced over at Onol, his twin, next. If they argued, Mother would be forced to take sides, which she was not equipped to handle at this moment. So he selected the most important secondary task for him. "Onol, I need you to go get the weapons." Phrased as a request, not an order. "Take anyone you need to help; we want every man armed and ready to do a manhunt. Maybe Father's still alive, maybe we can save him if we move fast. Or at least avenge his death and save others."

While Carob was busy, Elruin finally got a chance to ask her question: "Mother? Why did Father say I wasn't his?"

For a moment, the whole area was silent. Onol stopped in the middle of picking a third assistant, Carob choked over his orders to gather some horses and assigning scouts.

Othsa, still in shock, said the only thing she could think of. "You must have misheard him."

There was nobody in that room, save perhaps Elruin, who believed her words for a moment. Some had harbored suspicions of infidelity for years, though others doubted that the unnatural child in their midst could be the scion of any mortal coupling. The belief that she might be a changeling or the result of some fell curse grew as she did.

Carob cleared his throat. "Darak, get the horses! Eril, I want your hawks on scouting duty! We have no time to waste, men!" That got the message across; men dealt with men's problems, and women dealt with women's problems. A rule he was never so grateful for as he was today.