Arlendr and Solveis could not have imagined that the chance meeting with the aepsis lady at the festival would have resulted, only a few weeks later, in an intrusion into their mountain. Yet it would be so.

One morning on Molil, when Livia was away, Arlendr and Solveis were left to entertain each other. Arlendr had insisted that Solveis show him how to do the braids that they had seen in the book at the festival. Solveis had used the opportunity of having his undivided attention to tease him and wind him up. He had no choice but to endure the frustration because he really wanted the knowledge. In the end though, she taught him what he wanted to know. He watched her practice the braid on her own head. He even had a reasonably successful first attempt on his own hair. After all this sedentary work though, he could no longer remain tranquil. He ran off to use up some of his energy. Just as he rushed away to begin a more active game, he and Solveis were called back to the cabin by their mother’s sing-songy whistle. “Woo-hoo.”

What was this!? It wasn’t lunch time! There could be no reason for the mother to drag them back to the sleeping-and-eating quarters. Displeased, Solveis stood up, stretched, and prepared to go to the plateau, to see what had caused her mother's perverse summons. She ran out of her cave, up the plateau, and toward the cabin. She stopped when she was close enough to get a good look at the cabin. There was no commotion outside, nothing unusual happening. What was the meaning of this summons then?! Solveis walked cautiously toward the dwelling, still somewhat hidden behind trees and shadows. Her mother leaned out of the front door, hung in the door frame, and looked around, not seeing either of her children who she had called in. She whistled a second time, “Woo-hoo.” It would be bad if she had to whistle a third time.

Solveis saw Arlendr, a distance away, looking down toward the cabin. He was scoping it out, just like her. She could see in his eyes that he was deciding not to go back to the cabin. Though she understood the impulse, she didn’t have the luxury to behave so. She knew that if they didn’t both answer the mother’s summons there would be some real consequence. There would be a long lecture at least and potentially real deprivation of fun. Solveis would need to heed the summons on her behalf and on her brother’s. She needed to get him to the cabin with her quickly, before her mother had reason to call a third time. He clearly wasn’t disposed to go; she would have to trick him somehow.

Solveis ran near enough to her brother for him to hear her clearly. “Chicken legs!” she shouted at him. Waiting just a moment to see that anger broke out in his eyes, she then ran off, away from him. The taunt had been enough to make him chase her. Perfect. She ran around, still moving away from him. Without him becoming aware of it, they were getting nearer to the cabin. As soon as she was close enough to the cabin for the parents to see her, she slowed to a jog. Arlendr was confused as to why his prey would make herself so vulnerable. When he looked around, he realized he was within sight of the mother. He forgot about his chasing game immediately upon realizing that he was trapped by the presence of his parents. As it dawned on him what his sister had done, he resented her interference, but no feeling would keep hold of him for long.

Solveis led the way into the cabin. Arlendr followed her, dragging his feet and looking at the ground. He stopped in the doorway and leaned back, standing as far out of the cabin as he could get away with. Feeling his sister suddenly freeze up and get tense, he glanced at her, then past her where the parents stood. Beside his parents were two aepsis people. They looked to be a mother and a father. In front those two parents stood two aepsis children, around the ages of Solveis and Arlendr.

Immediately, on a plane of existence completely separate from all their parents, the four children began to size each other up.

“Remember when you met my friend at the fair?” the mother addressed Solveis and Arlendr, gesturing for her children to look at the aepsis lady. “This is Mrs. B...”

The faun siblings nearly instantly lost track of what their mother was saying, being instead engrossed in watching the two new children. The mother continued telling something about the lady, while the two faun children and the two aepsis children all stared at each other.

The aepsis children were nothing special to look at. They looked like aepsis children. They looked alike enough; they were obviously related. The boy was larger than Solveis and Arlendr, had tan skin, short brown hair, nervous brown eyes, and a dull and uncertain expression in his posture and face. The girl had a dark, summer tan. Her dark hair was shoulder length, and her ears were particularly little and round. Like her brother, she also was larger than the faun siblings. She was much thinner than her brother though. Her thinness wasn’t childish and tiny like Solveis’s and Arlendr’s; it was sinewy. Very unlike her brother, her expression was shrewd and pointed.

She was noticing everything about the faun siblings while they were noticing things about her. As the aepsis girl perceived that she was being scrutinized, she stood taller and made a twisted, unusual expression, twisting her eyebrows and nose at weird angles.

While both the mothers continued to talk at their children, the children had nothing to do but to continue attempting to communicate telepathically with each other. Solveis gleaned almost nothing from the adults’ conversation. She did however hear the names of the two children. The girl was Girselle. ‘Jeer-zell’. Solveis repeated the pronunciation of the strange name to herself and compared it to the twisted face of its owner. The boy was Hendriks, but he was apparently referred to by the shortened version, En. Their last name had started with a B, but no more could be remembered about it.

Girselle started her own analysis by sizing up each faun sibling, glancing back and forth between them, and finally settling her gaze on Solveis. Having chosen her target, Girselle looked directly into Solveis’s analyzing eyes and tried to get a read beneath the surface. Solveis wasn’t sure what to make of it. She wasn’t accustomed to unashamed staring and face-making. What was she supposed to do in return? All she knew to do was to unblinkingly size up her counterpart. This seemed to unnerve Girselle and to cause her to pervert her expression into an even more intense, almost aggressive, stare. The whole time that the parents continued to talk at them, Solveis kept her unsure and questioning gaze, and Girselle kept her twisted stare. Something seemed to grow and arch between them. En, on the other hand, seemed to become more uncomfortable, almost squirming in place. He shifted a little behind his mother’s arm and glanced occasionally, in terror, at his sister. Arlendr grew fidgeting-ly bored, longing to get out of the confines of the dwelling.

Finally, finally, the mothers seemed to be winding down their conversation.

“Why don’t you go play outside,” the faun mother suggested to the four children.

“Get to know each other,” the aepsis mother encouraged the children, while giving a significant squeeze to her daughter’s shoulder.

Arlendr squinted skeptically at the aepsis lady in response to her implication that he should be at any obligation to her children.

“It looks like it might rain. Why don’t you go show them your cave?” the faun mother suggested to Arlendr and Solveis.

Solveis and Arlendr glanced at each other in offended disgust and panic. The way that the mother had of always talking openly and freely about secret and intimate things was a real thorn in their side, but in this case was unforgivable. It was the cave, the inner sanctum. She had tipped the intruders off to its existence. This could not be had.

The minute that the faun mother released her children, Arlendr and Solveis ran out of the premises. Arlendr sprinted, getting far enough away so that the parents wouldn’t be able to recall him again. Solveis stood awkwardly outside the cabin, not knowing exactly what was expected of her. Girselle ran at her, maybe hoping to make Solveis flinch. Solveis stepped back a little and stared in confusion. Girselle then ran off in the direction Arlendr had gone. En first glanced all around apprehensively; then he followed Arlendr and Girselle.

Entirely unsure of what one should do under the circumstances, Solveis went to find the others. She followed En but kept a respectful distance.

Solveis walked up on a freshly unexpected scene. Apparently this Girselle did all sorts of unexpected things. Arlendr was hopping around on the hopping spots. Girselle was standing on the plateau’s edge as close to him as she could get without venturing out to the hopping spots herself. She was talking at him demandingly, and he was behaving as if no one was speaking to him. Instead of interacting with her, he was playing a game by himself, jumping from spot to spot, occasionally shouting “five points!” or “yes! That’s the one!” Girselle continued to speak at him. It was like someone in the audience of a play, standing at the stage edge and shouting at the performers who just keep on with their performance. The performer and audience did not seem to notice how strange they seemed. En and Solveis were left to watch the other two have this irregular encounter. They made no comments on what they watched, and the watched paid no attention to them.

Girselle eventually changed her tactic, as it had not been producing the result that she desired, which was for the faun boy to pay attention to her. She quietly walked to the edge of the plateau, to the spot that Arlendr was currently hopping toward. She stood there, in his way. Arlendr hopped around, in the general direction of the plateau, until he found himself facing Girselle, blocked by her from his next jump. With out skipping a beat, he jumped forward. He had jumped with exacting skill, directly forward. He landed, face to face with Girselle, one leg on either side of her, the tip of his nose just touching hers. Then, with one bound, he hopped horizontally, landing at the side of Girselle. She turned to look at him, thinking that she now had his attention. He flitted a glance back at her and immediately began to run away and start a new game.

“Wait,” Girselle commanded firmly. Arlendr didn’t like commands, particularly from those who had no authority to give them. But, he was just a little intrigued by this strange intruder, so he turned and opened his eyes, wide as saucers, and looked at her without speaking. He tilted his head at her, making one of his play facial expressions.

“You have to show us around. Your mom said,” Girselle reminded him of an obligation that he would choose not to take on himself.

Not liking the command, he ignored it and began to run away again, to a new game.

“Wait,” Girselle entreated him in a gentler tone. “What is this place?” she asked.

“It’s my mountain,” he responded haughtily, head still tilted at her.

“It’s my mountain too!” Solveis shouted from the sidelines.

“It’s MY mountain!” Arlendr screamed hoarsely with all his child power, in the direction of his sister. Solveis just opened her eyes wide at him, making no other reaction. En jumped, and his innards wound yet tighter.

The shout had been loud in Girselle’s ears. She responded to him by correcting his ignorance, “It’s an island, not a mountain.” She was pleased for the opportunity to show off her superiority of wisdom and experience. The faun siblings had been told this many times. Every time, they simply allowed the insult to pass. It wasn’t worth deigning a rebuttal.

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Arlendr turned around again to leave.

“Stop,” Girselle entreated him again.

He began to be frustrated with her.

“What!” he shouted with more anger than he actually felt. He sometimes played at expressing feelings that he didn’t actually feel, like trying on a piece of clothing.

“Show me around,” Girselle said. Then, she softened her tone a little, reading from his behavior that a softer tone was more likely to get her what she wanted, “I want to see your mountain.” She said the words ‘your mountain’ in a way that meant only his and not Solveis’s.

Arlendr accepted the position of tour guide. He went around the island with the newcomers in tow. He was a poor tour guide and host though. His young, selfish mind made no effort to condense its own interests into a format that his guests might find interesting or even understandable. So, he sprinted from place to place, with the two aepsis siblings following close behind and his sister following at a distance. He said very little, and nothing that gave any explanation or context to the places he was showing. He occasionally verbalized thoughts which were incomprehensible and probably uninteresting to the aepsis siblings: “The tree of brown”, “Sometimes birds”, “Because of cliffs”. Part way through his tour, he forgot that he had an audience at all. He started solo playing, with the two siblings still following. They would have completely lost interest, except that there was nothing to do besides follow him.

As the mother had predicted, it began to rain. Girselle and En grumbled and fled under trees. Arlendr failed to notice their discomfort – or them – at all. He continued playing among the trees until the rain began to fall too heavily to have fun in. Seeking shelter, he ran to the cave. When he arrived at the edge of the plateau, just above the cave mouth, his spine tingled with the awareness of two unwelcome people following close behind him.

He felt their presence near his cave as an unacceptable intrusion. To evade them, he dashed down the rocks and into the cave at his very fastest speed. He trusted in his super-humanus agility to prevent them tailing him and discovering the inner sanctum. Upon entering the cave, he found his sister sitting and working on a project. He must have lost her from his tour entourage at some point without noticing. He had been frustrated about being followed so close to the cave a moment ago, but was already forgetting why he had been frustrated. He grew interested in a project involving one of his knives. He continued his project in perfect confidence of being free of any and all intruders. Who could remember when they’d even been around last?

Only minutes later though, he and Solveis began to hear noises outside on the rocks. Solveis looked questioningly at him, surprised that he had brought the intruders here with him. She might have done so, maybe, if it was really raining hard, but she could never imagine him doing so. Arlendr shrugged in confusion. He had no idea what it could be.

Arlendr dashed forward to see what was causing the ruckus, popping his head out of the cave mouth. “It’s shoulders boy and the sinewed,” Arlendr notified that En and Girselle were the ones making the noise. “Shoulders is whimpering,” he said evilly.

Solveis braced herself for the coming trespass of strangers into her asylum, but since it seemed it could not be helped, she resigned herself to it. She and Arlendr went back to their tasks, occasionally glancing at the noises that were slowly getting closer to the cave mouth. The outsiders were clearly having a hard time finding it, or at least having a hard time climbing into it.

Finally, En scrambled head first, seemingly having been shoved, into the cave. Arlendr and Solveis tilted their heads, bird like, at him. He rolled in on his side, scuttled backward to a cave wall, and cowered. He looked more bruised and battered than the trip warranted. Trying to act normal and comfortable, En spoke, “hey. We finally found you. It’s a good hiding spot.” He spoke in a low, breaking voice, which he forced to a normal speaking volume here and there.

His sister came struggling up behind him, as gracefully as she could possibly manage, while being mostly drenched and having her clothes all rustled from the journey. She got up to her feet immediately and stood up at her full height. “You were supposed to show us in here. I’ll tell your mom,” Girselle threatened the siblings, directing herself mostly at Arlendr.

Arlendr smiled evilly. Seeing his meaning, Solveis let a small smile pass her lips. All the mother could do is punish him, take away something he liked, or make him do undesirable chores. He would happily endure that and then repeat the behavior again, if he had a good enough reason. The threat only served to make him distrust Girselle.

Seeing that her aim had failed her, Girselle changed her approach. “We probably had to earn our way in here anyway. It wouldn’t count if you showed us in,” Girselle said in a haughty voice, full of imagination.

It caught Arlendr’s fancy. “That one earns his way with bruises,” Arlendr said, pointing to En.

“He was being a scaredy cat, so I pushed him off the -” Girselle paused, struggling to find words to describe the plateau. She recovered and continued in all her false confidence, “the flat rock up top.”

“The plateau,” Solveis interjected, helping the intruder to the right word.

Girselle had to admit, inside herself, that it was the right word. It made her resent Solveis more than her child prejudice had already led her to do so.

Arlendr spoke his thoughts aloud, “Round eyes didn’t earn with bruises. The sister helped pull her up like a baby.”

“Round eyes?” Girselle questioned. Growing more comfortable with her surroundings, she entered further in and sat on the ground.

“Just that baby who always follows the sister around,” Arlendr answered, then to annoy his sister, he added, “The baby who Solveis follows around.” For good measure, he added, “baby, baby, baby.”

Solveis knew he didn’t really mean it, so she wasn’t offended. She passed over the insult. She spoke to him in their secret language saying, “You like to tell things to the intruders?”

Arlendr thought about it, pinched his face in thought, and then decided he could trust himself to say only the safe things. So, he rebutted his sister in the same tongue, “Meh. I never tell things.”

Girselle’s deep interest at what was passing between the redheaded siblings made Solveis uncomfortable. She fell silent and became engrossed in her project.

Time passed with the aepsis siblings talking, trying to get information out of Arlendr, rarely succeeding. Girselle eventually grew bored with being a passive participant. She stood up. “Show me your cave of wonders!” she pleaded with Arlendr in a fantastic, imagination voice.

Engrossed in the game of it, Arlendr stood and walked about. He said a few incoherent statements about some of the things in the cave, but his tour guide skills were just as useless here as they had been outside. “The popcorn has my stuff in it,” he said as he pointed to some popcorn tins. “My cornucopia,” he explained while pointing to the depths of the cave. “I always can use it to sharpen my rocks,” he said, gesturing to nothing.

Girselle wanted Solveis to fulfill the obligation her mother had given her, and to show them around. She tried to direct conversation in a way that would engage Solveis. Solveis heard it, but refused to take the bait. “That box has flowers on it. It looks like a girl’s. Is it your stupid sister’s?” Girselle asked Arlendr, in order to engage Solveis. Confused by a description of the tin, which he himself never would have thought to use, Arlendr ignored the comment all together.

After a few other attempts to force Solveis into communicating, Girselle decided to change course. She looked calculatingly around. One tin drew her attention. On top of and all around one of the tins were positioned a bunch of little figures: toy soldiers, small fabric dolls, and little hand-made stick people. Sitting with its back to the throne-like tin was a particularly large, ornate, hand-made, stick doll. She seemed to have a stick skeleton with some fabric wrapped around for bulk, handmade clothes, a shredded plant husk for hair, and countless other little ornamenting details.

In the games that Arlendr and Solveis used to play when they had been little, she had been the queen of Solveis’s troops. Solveis had added to her construction over time. Now that they were too old to play with dolls and toy soldiers much, Solveis kept her in a place of honor. Livia had sat petting her husk hair many a time. Nowadays, Solveis used her as a model to practice smaller versions of garments she would make.

Girselle fixed her eyes on the queen of the toy soldiers. Solveis didn’t notice because she was intentionally keeping her eyes on her project. In one quick and calculated move, Girselle dragged the queen away from the other dolls with the heel of her boot, positioned the queen on the ground, and stomped full boot bottom on the full front of the doll.

Solveis looked up, startled by the nose of breaking twigs. Seeing what had been done, she instinctively stood to her feet, jumped a few steps forward, and stood leaning aggressively, her hands in impossibly tight fists, and hate in her eyes.

Even Arlendr, who was difficult to rise to real fury, had a hot, red indignation in his eyes.

Solveis had never faced such a situation before. She had no idea how to respond to it. She wanted to cry, and to beat and kick the girl, and to scream, and also to do nothing (to coldly refuse to engage with Girselle). All the children stood frozen, on their feet, brought up by the moment of surprise. They stood while Solveis decided, for what seemed like minutes, but was really a second. Solveis, not being a naturally violent person, ended up communicating her hatred in bodily and facial expression, rather than in violence. She allowed all the hate to rise up into her face, unrestrained. She stared, still leaning forward in an attacking posture, at Girselle. She stayed thus, hate increasing unbounded until Girselle fainted of it and looked away from her. Then, Solveis charged out of the cave, walked away, and went to a favorite, very tall tree, where she could be alone.

Arlendr, feeling some residual hate, had rage bubbling out through his body language and looks. He felt that everything in the cave was his, even and especially Solveis’s things. The impertinence of destroying his own (though not so prized) item, right in front of him! His pride couldn’t take it. He took up the remains of the queen and shoved it in Girselle’s face, knocking her down. En jumped and shuffled into a corner. Girselle braced herself on the ground, stared up at Arlendr hatefully, then tried to adopt an apologizing expression. Arlendr first backed away, and then he charged toward where she was on the ground, making as much noise as his hooves could. He had learned that this was a good way to scare people away. En ran out first, followed by his sister, shuffling to her feet. The two of them made scuffing rock noises as they climbed awkwardly back up to the surface.

After fleeing the cave, Solveis had climbed up a tall tree to be quite alone. Once she was quite alone, she released the tension in her chest in a fit of furious sobs, gasping for breath. She wasn’t sure why rage was expressing itself as sobs, but she allowed it to express itself fully for as long as it took for her to command full control of herself again. Then, able to think a little more clearly, she mulled over the events of the day over and over again. She was an avid studier of humanus behavior, and generally enjoyed mulling over a new experience, but not this time. It made her mouth taste bitter. The hate didn’t fade with contemplation, it remained, ever potent. Her only consolation was that the girl would hopefully never come back. She dug into the bark of the tree with a stick, over and over, as her thoughts circled.

When her mom made the summoning whistle, she was still mulling. Enough time had passed for her to be composed outwardly though. She would not give Girselle the satisfaction of seeing her still upset, or snap-ish, or in any way changed, except maybe a little more careful of what she communicated in front of Girselle.

Answering the mother’s summons, Solveis climbed down from her tree and walked back to the cabin. She saw a figure, near the cabin, standing, seeming to look for something. Upon approaching it, she discovered that it was En looking around, craning his neck to find something. She made up her mind to pass him, as if not noticing him. She couldn’t trust him with any words, as he was an agent of his sister’s.

En spotted her and ran up to her, stopping her in her tracks. “I’m sorry,” he choked out, seeming truly sorry, looking like he had done some crying too. “For what she – I’m sorry,” he choked out a new stream. His voice cracked and Solveis heard him swallow a lump.

She tilted her head, bird like, at him. This was curious. Solveis would have to think about it later. She was sympathetic for him, but he was still an agent of his sisters. She looked inexpressively at him and asked in a flat voice, “for what?” Without letting him respond, she rushed past him and went into the cabin.