Chapter Sixty Two

The camp was made up of a single family. It was odd, but... well, made sense. For all the talk of clans and great armies and invasions, the land simply couldn't support more than a few families in a given area. No farming, and livestock could clear up a whole damn stretch of grass in barely any time at all. Bizarre to think that this place was defined by enormous clans which embodied a whole suite of rites and beliefs, which could determine the history of the steppe and its surrounding regions through invasions and conflicts... and yet she'd never see a clan really assembling. For all she knew, clans never assembled fully. Never a situation where every family joined together into a collective. The largest single gathering would probably be the rallying of soldiers for a war of some kind, but that would just involve the soldiers in question, not their entire extended families. She imagined the steppe as a series of networks, defined by connection, where each node was basically irrelevant. Individually insignificant. A clan-heart, a leader, going between isolated points on the network, building connections, oaths of loyalty, and growing stronger... while still remaining basically alone. If she wandered out far enough, she might find a clan-heart. Basically indistinguishable from their followers beyond some additional wealth and attendants. No town. No palace. No pleasant country manor. Just... a single family, proclaimed by right of rite to have earned the loyalty of other families, most of whom would never meet one another.

Something fascinating there. The steppe had kingdoms. It had states. It had great groupings of population. And yet it had no borders, no towns, no cities, no centres of administration, just... invisible kingdoms which could flow in and out of each other at a moment's notice. Kingdoms of air and sound and belief, the concept of the state distilled to its most perfect form, divorced of all the usual apparatus. Something a little... encouraging there, she supposed. The state could exist even with nothing. Humanity could organise even without resources or centres of operation. The human desire to form hierarchies and heterarchies and groups transcending all obstacles.

...to her, that was encouraging. Made humans feel resilient.

To an anarchist, she imagined it'd be thoroughly depressing.

But... eh. Screw them. She wanted to feel happy at the moment, she had no obligation to make a group she barely understood and mildly disliked feel happy, not when the term 'anarchism' didn't even exist out here. Look at all the anarchists she was annoying, all zero of them. Teach them to criticise the Court of Ivory for 'locking knowledge away behind birthright' and 'stifling creativity with pointless tradition'. Freaks. None of them understood the basic truth of existence - elitism wasn't evil, elitism was magical and amazing. As long as she was part of the elite. Which she was. So there. She'd scrabbled her way up through talent, intellect, determination, and blackmail. And no anarchist was going to take away her right to enjoy her position atop the greasy pole of academia.

...that came out wrong.

Founder, she was still experiencing symptoms from those pills. Drunken euphoria. Bloody discharge, that'd be fun to look forward to. Occasional muscle spasms - ah, there those went. Pinkie was twitching uncontrollably. And... oh, if she remembered correctly (doubtful, she was very zonked out on pills), there was a minor chance of hair loss. She scratched her head a few times. Anything? Anything? She scratched harder. Harder. Harder. Ah, there she was. Hair! She was losing her hair, she would become a hairless giant rat, and... no, she'd just scratched too hard. Hm. Maybe this fell under drunken euphoria, or maybe it fell under 'paranoia', a symptom they'd doubtless forgotten to include because knowing she was meant to be paranoid would make her more paranoid about being paranoid and that would feed into the existing paranoia and the earth was silent because it knew the river was hunting it carving away deeper and deeper the earth was afraid of the river the earth was-

Carza vo Anka needed a nap.

The family before them looked... well, they'd been downright interested when the two of them approached. Hands empty of any weapons, waving to show they were coming in peace, waiting until the family signalled for them to come closer... Kani hung back a little. Carza could understand why. Once her brother had ridden away to make sure that his presence wouldn't cause any problems, she'd... sagged. Been holding a fair amount together, and with him gone there was no obligation to keep going. It was dispiriting, seeing her... retreat inwards. Huddling her shoulders close, keeping her head low, walking around like a newborn deer, all hesitant steps and uncertain glances. Twitchy. Radically different to the Kani that Carza remembered being... well, sarcastic, droll, self-assured... and the family seemed to find her a little distressing as well. Their expressions shifted from polite interest to mild unease, for some of them escalating into downright fear. Not a large family. Father, mother, no sons in sight, but a pair of girls, one older, one younger. The older was holding a child close to her chest, nestled amidst so much cloth that it was hard to tell that it was a child at all, and not a very docile dog or cat. Little Friend, still nestled in Kani's robe, was definitely docile and quiet enough, could be confused for a very polite child at the right range.

And Kani couldn't be confused for anything but... herself at any range, really. The moment she came close, they saw the tusks, the size, and realised that something was off.

The father of the family, an older man - human - with a surprisingly well-groomed face and hair (no wild, bone-ornamented beards in this part of the country. Different clan, presumably) stepped forward, hand drifting to a long sabre he kept at his waist. Carza and Kani froze, and Little Friend mewled very quietly in curiosity. Wondering why they were walking around like idiots when they had a horse right there. Kani coughed. Carza blinked. The family stared at them with wide eyes, looking nervous, suspicious, curious... and all three slowly metamorphosing into one desire - for them to leave and never come back. Anything this unnatural would be a nexus of bad luck. The father gritted his teeth, but said nothing. Hand still on his sword. His wife quietly reached for a primitive-looking rifle, mostly just a metal tube mounted on a long, wooden pole. Looked like an old hand cannon, really. The sort which... well, operated like cannons. Gunpowder, metal ball, external match. Nothing else. Simplest form of firearm, and one that'd been obsolete for centuries over the mountains. The model the woman used didn't look like an antique, though. It looked well-used, and they'd modified it over time. A whole suite of tiny charms along the shaft, carvings along the metal barrel, handholds, even specially crafted tapers for lighting it up.

It was primitive. But, well, so was a rock. Being primitive wouldn't stop a rock from bashing her brains out, and that hand cannon could blow her brains out from this range, easy enough.

The two other women retreated further into the camp, the younger one watching nervously, twitching her hands in and out of one another. The older one was simply... defensive. Wrapped her child up tightly, and was clearly bracing for action. Kani coughed again, and... said nothing. Carza glanced over. She was opening her mouth, closing it, and... nothing was emerging. Nothing at all. She just kept clutching at the kitten hidden in her robe, and Carza could vaguely see her vestigial arms shivering slightly. Eyes were wide with alarm. Shame. Embarrassment. Fear. She was... oh, Founder, she had stage fright. The only people she'd seen so far were her brother and Carza, people she could feel comfortable around, and now... now...

Crumbs.

Carza spoke quickly. Social things weren't her forte, but she could understand one part of them very well - how miserable it was to be out-of-place, put on the spot, and nervous.

"We're here to claim guest right. We're tired and hungry, and all we need is some shelter for a night before we go on our way, so our horses can rest and we can recover from our journey."

She actually had to bite her tongue to avoid phrasing it all as 'oh but only if you're feeling like it, no pressure whatsoever, make up your own mind, we won't object if you kick us out'. Which would be the polite thing to do, but she'd spent long enough among the nomads to know that you had to be forceful about these things. The more forceful she was, the less foreign she sounded, and the more in-tune with their rites. It was one thing to overlook guest right because it was an idiot foreigner with a weird mutant friend, no-one would judge you there. But for a local, part of their traditions, someone who understood the concept of luck in a steppe context? Maybe she was being a bit on the untrusting side, but... she wanted a place to sleep. And someone to warn her if the Scabrous came hunting for them up this far north. Seemed unlikely, but... you never knew. Never knew. The father nodded hesitantly, his face flashing with a little shame. His wife was significantly less impressed, but she lowered her rifle nonetheless.

"Of course. We freely offer you guest right, so long as our rights as hosts aren't violated. Luck be on you."

Carza nodded hesitantly.

"Luck be on you too."

"...your friend, does she-"

Kani jumped slightly.

"Ah. Yes. I speak. Sorry. I speak. Hello."

Founder, she was shaken. She sounded like Carza. The natural order was being inverted. A sign of the oncoming end of days. Sooner or later Kani would be chastising Carza while Carza swore like a sailor. And then Carza would get engaged to someone while Kani impotently wondered what was happening, and if maybe the Court of Ivory ought to include classes on this sort of thing because it felt essential and yet their celibacy made it optional, but it was essential for most of humanity (and the demigods) and it was her duty to know things so-

Urgh.

The two women at the back, presumably daughters of the family, kept a close eye and a healthy distance as they entered the camp, leading their horse with them - promptly taken by the wife, who led it off to graze with the others. For a second, Carza felt... at home. Which was a very odd thought indeed. But the bubbling of cauldrons, the light breeze coming off the steppe, the rustling of tents made of elaborately embroidered felt... it was all just... familiar. Like she was doing her ethnography all over again. Come to think of it, she could start asking them about kinship structures, anthropologists back home lapped that stuff up like- come to think of it, maybe best to just stay quiet, be polite, take their hospitality, their food, and leave in the morning. Simple as. The family slowly gathered together again, silent as the grave, staring at the new arrivals with a mixture of curiosity and mild hostility. Kani shrank into herself... not like she had much of a chance to hide her tusks, though. And no amount of hunching could hide how tall she was, or how strong. Carza struggled to think of something to say. Did she address the elephant in the room? 'Sorry about my colleague's strange appearance, you see, she was just captured by the Scabrous who are currently pursuing her and-' no. Definitely not. 'Keep staring at my colleague and I'll bite your-' no. Exactly the sort of thing a giant rat would say. And she was trying to move away from being a giant rat, maybe she could be another sort of rodent. Or mammal. Hey, there was a conversation!

What's your spiritually emblematic rodent? I'm trying to be less of a rat, what's your stance?

She was on too many pills to be trusted with conversation.

And Kani was too... hold on.

Idea.

"Kani, how's the cat doing?"

She waggled her eyebrows slightly. Oh, corks, she was improvising. She was doing improvisation in a conversation! Hull would be so proud of her, Hull would shoot her an approving look and then later on they'd have a celebratory hug that she'd act displeased with, but would be feeling for days afterwards, a little crackle in her nerves, a phantom impression... Kani blinked a few times, and... she got it. Dragged the kitten out.

And the situation was repaired.

Turned out, people liked cats.

People especially liked small cats which rolled frequently, soaking up the scent of the grass while mewling in an appealingly childish way. And based on how the family was now looking... well. Well. Now, as an anthropologist she could call this a dashing example of evolutionary exploitation. People liked small things which were delicate and furry, they also liked things with big eyes and high, child-like voices. It was quite literally like dumping a baby in front of everyone. No, better. A baby, if dropped from a height, would turn into a ghastly mess and a senseless tragedy. A cat, when dropped, landed on its feet, sniffed, and got back to whatever it was doing earlier. It was literally just a baby but better. Tripped all the same switches but had none of the same responsibilities or risks. Honestly, she was starting to think that mutants had missed a trick here. Evolutionary superiority didn't involve getting massive claws and terrifying venom, it meant becoming the most efficient organism possible. So... why not just grow large, attractive eyes, a coat of soft fur, and a voice which vaguely mimicked an infant? Humans would literally line up to give it more contamination to consume while calling it 'a special little guy' and 'a fat old chum'. Amongst other things.

Anyway.

The point was, the younger daughter squeaked, and sprinted over to hunch over the cat and scratch it from a dozen different angles. The mother had to resist cracking a smile, the father was clearly enamoured and barely resisted lunging himself for a quick cuddle, and the older daughter definitely softened a little. The cat just glanced over at Carza and blinked slowly. Smug creature. But useful. Kani gladly retreated from attention... and was probed out of it by the youngest daughter asking a whole litany of questions. What was it called? Was it a boy cat or a girl cat? Where did she get it? She'd never seen a cat with grey fur and golden eyes, steppe cats were usually bigger, fatter, fluffier, and had rounded pupils - vertical pupils were excellent when life involved plentiful leaping and climbing, and steppe cats had no heights to scale or leap from. Kani was hesitant to answer some of the questions, just out of induced shyness, but... she gradually opened up a little. His name was Little Friend (she hadn't been enlightened to all his titles), he was a boy cat, he was from the desert, and he was brought over by her brother who'd returned from the latest raids out there. Little present. The mention of a brother, of raiding, of looting all attracted more sympathetic nods and approving hums. The ice had been broken, and now the father was rumbling about his own sons - the two younger women here were both his daughters-in-law - who'd gone off to the desert themselves to do all manner of unpleasantness.

Carza couldn't help but wonder if they were dead. Or exiled. Or simply... hadn't acquired the wealth the family clearly expected from them. A soldier would require multiple horses, armour, weapons, and most likely more food than any other member of the family due to being constantly on the move, and needing their horses to carry more, do more, and perform better in stressful situations. A high investment for something that could go catastrophically wrong. And yet... she could see that they'd participated in raids before. They had gold here and there in the form of brooches, bracelets, tent decorations, and a few precious stones. Carza had to resist the urge to get anthropological with them, but she had ideas. Nomads couldn't build mansions out here, they couldn't acquire vaults of gold. Wealth had to be portable. So, wealth-in-people was important, in the form of wives, marriage alliances, slaves... and small precious objects. Inter-clan raiding would help disperse this wealth around the steppe some more, and presumably there were chances for wealth destruction. A raid required investment - could this family make weapons and armour? Or did they go to a specialist who needed to be paid in gold, stones, valuable goods... maybe becoming a clan-heart or advancing in the ranks of a clan demanded dispersals of gifts and-

It'd taken a while to get her host family used to her asking constant, very specific questions. This family had just met her.

If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.

Patience.

She was starting to wonder if maybe she should start travelling with a cat and liquor. That way she could bribe anyone into having a lengthy conversation with her. And she was skinny and weak enough to not be mistaken as an evil wandering serial killer trying to lure in another victim!

She was a good wandering serial anthropologist trying to lure in another victim. World of difference.

The night began to draw on. The family never named themselves, she noticed. Just condensed down to Father, Mother, Youngest and Eldest Daughters. Interesting. They were being polite and accepting, but... weren't going to invite bad luck onto themselves by asking for names or supplying their own. A name could call something, and if someone was a nexus of bad luck... well, why let a pair of weird wanderers know your name, why give them that access to your sources of luck, why let them poison the well? And why invite bad luck by naming them? No, anonymity was safe. In anonymity there were no grudges, and no obligations. The family supplied them with drams of fermented mare's milk, which Carza chugged down gladly and Kani sipped at a few times before abandoning dignity and downing it in a single gulp. Food in the form of, surprise or all surprises, meat. The hospitality was fine, they were given places to sleep, and things were generally perfectly acceptable. She got the feeling that this was a normal state of affairs, that guests weren't unusual or unexpected, and that most people just passed through, slept, ate, and left the next day with quiet politeness.

And yet Carza couldn't help but feel a little uneasy.

Remaining still for too long. If they were being tracked, the Scabrous would have plenty of time to surround them on all sides. If they weren't being tracked, the Scabrous would have oodles of time to hunt them slowly and deliberately, to search the steppe piece by piece until they found this camp. And then there'd be no running. Carza quietly plotted a way to escape in the event of being confronted by those things... steal horses, first of all. Their own horses were tired. Very tired. Even if nothing happened, the next few days would have to be taken very easy, just to make sure the horses didn't wind up getting clumsy and breaking a leg on a pothole. Then... ah. Food. Maybe steal some, just in case hunting stopped being an option?

Her hosts looked startled when she spoke, her voice low and urgent with stress, even though nothing had actually happened yet. Hard to come down from fighting for her life, racing across the steppe, desperately planning... hard to get out of the mindset. Easier to stay wound up, just in case she was called on to fight again. The rifle was being kept hidden for now, the sac concealed by a cloth wrapped tightly around the thing.

"What's north of here?"

The family twitched, startled by her sudden noise. The father coughed to himself, covering up his surprise.

"...well, you go north, you hit the salt marshes after a few days. Boggy ground, not good for horses... best to have a guide if you go up that far."

"Do people live in those marshes?"

"Oh, some. Some. But salt water... not so good for horses. I hear they mostly fish around some of the bigger lakes, build deep wells to reach freshwater. If they have herds, then they take them out of the marshes for proper grazing and drinking, hide in the marshes when they see raids coming."

Hm.

"Do they live in tents too? Or..."

"Oh, no. Reed huts. Ugly things. Not healthy. Best to stay away. Folk become queer when they stay in a place like that for too long."

The others nodded wisely. Hm. Hm. That demanded exploration, and... no, no, stop being anthropological, stop it. She was meant to - no, wait, she could find something there.

"Do they respect guest right, at least?"

"Probably. But you never know with those folk."

The mother of the family sniffed slightly.

"Well, not all of them are bad. When I was a girl, during a lean winter we travelled closer to the marshes. Traded our jewels for sacks of saltfish, kept us alive when the grass died, the animals froze and people became unkind."

The father shot her a look.

"...that's true, but to be fair, those are the border marsh-people. The inner marsh-people..."

The mother nodded firmly.

"Of course, the inner marsh people are probably insane and strange. No idea why anyone would live out there."

The youngest daughter coughed herself, interrupting the consensus.

"Well, I remember my mother's brother married one of the inner marsh people, and he said they were perfectly nice. Good fish, nice herbs. Smelled very strongly of salt, but I don't think you can hold that against them, they live in salt marshes. Villages were nice too, they take great care with their own cleanliness."

So... the marsh-people were weird. Or, the inner marsh-people were weird, but the border marsh-people were civilised. Or, they were all basically decent. In short, they were just... well, people. Nods all around. And the youngest daughter shrugged mildly.

"But the sea people..."

Grumbles. Of course. Sea people were weird. At least marsh-people lived in proximity to the steppe, could wander out for steppe purposes whenever they pleased, even maintained horses. But sea people didn't even have horses, they just rode around in silly boats and ate fish constantly. What kind of degenerate ate nothing but fish? Fish was nice from time to time, but they were cold, slimy things which ate Founder-knew-what, why on earth would someone live only on fish? No horses, rickety boats, constant storms, endless fish, and most likely not a huge amount of alcohol. Yes, agreement had been reached. Marsh people were basically fine. Sea people were dangerous freaks who couldn't be trusted under any circumstances, and the only good thing about them was that they didn't come inland, and no-one had actually met them, which meant they were safely quarantined in realms of obscurity.

Carza got the feeling that if one of these people had met a sea person, they'd be saying 'well, the shoreline sea people are decent enough, but the deep sea people? Lunatics, the lot of them, and morally repugnant. Unless they knew a deep sea person, in which case... uh...

Those absolute maniacs who lived across the sea were just wrong and-

"...bad business up that far north. Stay away from the coast, if that's where your heading. Nasty folk, some of them... not quite, well, mortal."

Carza blinked.

"Oh?"

The father shifted uncomfortably under the sudden scrutiny.

"...well, it's just some stories. Not... demigods, I think. Not Scabrous, neither. Just... weird folk. Used to live in the marshes, left generations ago. Heard about them from my own grandfather, he said that his grandfather was told by his grandfather that they came from over the sea. Giants. I'd call it a bunch of tall tales, heh, but... well, Scabrous are strange, demigods are strange - no offence, miss - so who can say? Probably just people getting strange on swamp gas."

Probably. Carza's mind started to race, while becoming increasingly resigned. Right, yeah, sure. Demigods were real, Scabrous were real, and now she'd heard about this lot, she was probably going to encounter them, fight them, kill them, get up to adventures, and it was all going to be shockingly unpleasant and traumatising. She knew the pattern, and... no, no, that was silly. If there were giants up there now, then these people would know about it. And why would giants live in a marsh, surely that was the worst place for them, what with the mud and the damp. The athlete's foot alone would be a good reason to leave. A giant with perpetual trench foot... if anything, the annoyance would've driven them into murderous frenzies, and people would damn well know about them if they were out there. Carza knew she might get murderous in that situation. She might decided to rampage and steal babies and kidnap women and haul sheep away in giant sacks and-

Carza was getting carried away.

Point was, the salt marshes were north. Slow. That'd be... good, actually. She'd considered going west or east if they were followed, but marshes felt... good for hiding. The Scabrous rode horses the size of small buildings, those things would simply collapse in a place like a marsh where the ground was wet, boggy, and sank under anything too heavy. And if they pursued on foot, they'd be significantly slowed and just as lost as Carza would be. Workable, as situations went. Ideal? Not really. But workable. Keep heading north, find shelter in the reeds, come back when the coast was clear. A small spark of worry lit up in her. The snows had been dangerously close when they'd left the mountains, that was why they'd been so desperate to reach that valley. And now... now they were way off course. Could easily wind up missing their chance, and... then what? What if they found that valley, and it was completely snowed over? Would they just die of starvation, exposed to the bitter cold of the steppe? Would they need to go begging for shelter from any family that was willing to take them? Or would they... hm. As the night drew on, and as the family retired for bed, Carza and Kani were left alone. And Carza quietly began to ask questions.

"What should we do if the valley's sealed up when we get back?"

Kani sighed, and picked up the cat - squirming on the ground while playing with a handful of weeds. The animal placidly accepted his new position on her lap, curling up and blinking wisely as Carza. Judgemental little thing, really.

"...I'm not sure, really."

"Is there another family we could stay with?"

"Dog's family might be available. Might be. But I'm not sure where they are, and... what the status of our relationship is."

Carza felt a last burst of euphoria from the pills, granting her enough confidence to ask a question that'd been weighing on her for some time.

"Why are you marrying him?"

"Hm?"

"Dog. Why are you marrying him? I understand that it's a luck thing to not interact with your fiance before getting married, but... well, I'm curious how it started."

Kani leant back a little, scratching the cat behind its small ears, which twitched and swivelled in approval, showing her new spots to address.

"Dog... and it feels odd calling him that, I know his name, and... anyway. Dog's been with us for a bit, and you're not seeing the best of him. But when we first met... I was younger, and more easily impressed. It was a feast for a good part of the clan, even a few ancestors showed up to enjoy our food and rumble disapprovingly about current fashions. Not that I minded. And... I met him while I was fetching more alcohol for my family, and he was... well, he was confident, he was smooth, he was charming. More than that... I was a skittish girl at the time, walked like a newborn calf, hunched, flinched constantly. And he was the first boy who'd shown any real interest in me. We hit it off, met a few more times, and... then it was arranged."

"That was quick."

"Had to be. Years of courtship... that's something hard to manage, you know. Very hard when you're moving around constantly. A few meetings, some little engagements, and... then it was settled, and he was moving in. A few years of marital labour to my family, then we could move on."

"...and?"

"...and he may've changed. Not dramatically, but... he went from a young man to a young servant, barely a rank above a black-headed one. For over a year. That changes someone, makes them a little more bitter. But every so often he'll give me bunches of flowers from the steppe, and... well, I remembered what it was like seeing him at that feast, and realising that it was... quite nice to have someone paying attention to me, calling me pretty... petty, but…"

She sighed.

"...not much of a prospect now. Not like this."

...did Carza mention that Dog had been a weird little coward who'd failed to save her, then tried to save face by pinning the entire thing on Carza, which led to her running off without any aid or supplies? Did she... no. No, she wasn't that cruel. If their engagement had been broken off automatically once she mutated, then it was a moot point. Might as well let her remember her engagement fondly. No reason to taint a memory when it benefited neither of them and improved nothing, just made things seem grimmer and worse. Kani hummed thoughtfully, trying to move away from thoughts of lost love.

"...well, we could hide up in the marshes, conceivably. Should be some good shelter up there... if we can tolerate the damp and the endless fish. No connections, though... so we'd be surviving on our own, minimal resources, minimal anything. Reliant on hospitality for a good little while until we got to our own feet. Or..."

She tilted her large head to one side.

"...we could... well... go over the mountains."

Carza blinked.

"...in the middle of winter."

"For a human, impossible. The passes will all be snowed up. But the ancestors know their way across, through caves and tunnels... should be warm enough for you, and if it's not, then we'll find someplace. Can rely on hospitality. But you'd need to cross anyway, my brother too, and..."

"Haven't you wondered why he was exiled?"

"A little. Yes. Of course I have. My brother's an idiot, but he's not an evil idiot, at least, I don't think he is. But it's his business how he was exiled, not mine."

"You really don't want to know?"

Kani shot her a very, very sharp look, and even the cat seemed affronted.

"It's his business. I trust that my idiot brother didn't do something unforgivably monstrous, and if it's not unforgivably monstrous, then I've already forgiven him for it, and that means I don't need to know. It's his business. If you want to interrogate him on the topic, that's your prerogative, but I'll be very insulted if you do. He's very impressionable, and if you start knocking him about-"

Carza screamed internally.

"I'm sorry. Didn't mean anything by it. I'll stay quiet."

"Good."

It took a second for Kani's tension to unwind a little.

"...he's my brother, Carza. My stupid little brother. Let me keep him the way he was, before he left for the desert."

"...sure. Sure. I'll leave him alone. Sorry for bringing it up."

"Thank you. Sorry for being..."

She sighed, scratching the cat.

"...I suppose I ought to go with you."

"Hm?"

"Go with you. Over the mountains, if you choose to go that way."

"Your parents-"

"My father is old, and will be going up the mountains soon enough. My mother will have enough trouble finding a spot for her to retire and wait for her own ascension without worrying about a very large daughter with no marriage prospects, who'll be considered a locus of bad luck for the rest of her life. My mother will be better off without me."

Genuine altruism, or an ashamed embarrassment? Knowing that going back would mean confronting Dog and... all that entailed, feeling out-of-place for the rest of her life, feeling stared at. Kani had, apparently, once been skittish and coltish, which was odd to think about, but... well. Even if she'd shed a lot of that, becoming more confident, more beautiful, more generally able, she still had elements of that in her, and mutation had only made that part of her stronger. Old insecurities coming out to the open. She had a shy part of herself which had been carefully suppressed over the years, but now it had every reason to spread over her personality. Interesting, that. Carza felt a spark of kinship, and wondered if her... outgoing friendliness, her strident confidence, all of it was just her forcing herself to act that way in order to make it a habit. Personality was as much a matter of habit as birth, Carza had gone from skittish and half-feral to being downright civilised, and part of that had just been the habits - dressing a certain way, learning to speak a certain way, act a certain way, live a certain way, eat a certain way... a thousand little things, drilled in through constant practice, until she was doing them instinctually. And thus, to the rest of the world, she was civilised. And in the confines of her own head...

Well, in her experience that realm was the realm of the poet and the self-obsessed, the self-pitying. And she had never liked that sort of thing, even if she'd occasionally, and shamefully, indulged.

"So... would you like to come over the mountains, back to my home?"

"If my brother's going, and if my family has no use for me, then I think I'd better. Strange, how this all... worked out, I suppose."

"Strange. That's... definitely a word for it."

"And at least in your home both me and my brother will be odd, hm? Both of us unfamiliar, so... equally peculiar, I think."

Her face became painfully stoic.

"Maybe I can convince your people that all our females are large, tusked, and powerful. Like spiders, you know. Female of the breed deadlier than the male. Be entertaining, I think."

Carza snorted.

"Yeah. Sure. Entertaining. If you want to pass it off that way, I'll... not object."

"It'd be very funny. I am a very funny person."

"I know, I know. You keep reminding me."

"Well, sometimes you forget."

The two lingered in comfortable silence for a few minutes, finishing the last of their food, enjoying... hm. The scents in the air had changed. Wind blowing from north to south. Irrational panic rose in her - their scent would be carried downwind to the Scabrous, now. If they had trackers... well, they'd kill them, then. Set watches, keep an eye out, be ready to run. But the scent in the air was... salty. Founder, it was very salty. Carza had never been to the ocean, understood it more as a vague notion than a solid reality, but... she'd heard about the salt. Read about it. And this definitely seemed salty enough. Miles and miles of salt marshes, leading to the ocean. Poor water drainage, so the waterlogged miles could extend outwards in vast, reed-covered flats... with forms of life unsustainable on the steppe, and apparently a whole damn people living in villages amidst the mud, fishing in the winding canals and streams, ever-shifting, ever-eroding. A semblance of the formless, muddy chaos which the Court of Ivory believed the world originated in. A vast, slimy lake of mud, teeming with slithering creatures, blind and ugly, ignorant and content with that ignorance, until light bred in those sightless, bulging eyes and the legless things squirmed to the surface, to heap mud upon mud upon mud until they had mountains and islands and continents to squirm on, to grow on, to build on. An old belief, but she remembered a mural from back home. A huge mural of the lake of mud, and how fragments of the primordia continued, the Founder dancing lightly upon their surface to meditate upon the roots of the world. A place where he built his winding libraries and museums of impossible creatures. The afterlife of the Court of Ivory lay in memory, in the collective unspoken remembrance of the great lake of mud, where the Founder could think and dream.

...she couldn't wait to show Kani it.

And idly, the two nestled into one another against the cold, and Carza let Kani wrap her up in enormous arms. Pulling her close, the cat at her side. Contented. The world was moving onwards, just as it ought to. She'd saved Kani, brought Ayat into the fold, and now both of them were coming home with her. There was something... well... she thought Hull would be proud of her. Hoped he'd be, at least. That she'd moved on, and found new friends, new colleagues, new people to advance the cause of their ethnography. Oh, his name would remain on the document, pride of place - Carza had given her time to this expedition, and several digits, but he'd given his life. But beside it, she intended to put the names of Kani, her finest informant, and Ayat, who saved the life of her finest informant and who she intended to interrogate further. Wait.

"...do you have a surname, Kani?"

"Hm?"

"A surname. A family name. A clan name?"

"My family is a cadet branch of the Puliraliq, if that's what you mean. Why?"

"...just wondering about crediting you as a co-author for my ethnography. But just putting Kani felt... well..."

"Silly?"

"Not conventional."

"...well, Kani of the Puliraliq might work. Co-author... hm..."

She glanced down, interest brewing.

"I shall have opinions on your style."

"...well, I'm writing the thing, you're providing information, so-"

"No, no, no, you've explained 'authors' to me. As 'co-author', I wish to make comments on style. All good stories start with songs, you ought to compose one. I can help."

"Please don't."

"I insist. Now, the conventional beginning of all songs is a bellow of 'everyone shut your mouths and listen before I smack you with a stick'... don't look at me like that, all good songs start that way, if you didn't start that way then no-one would shut up, they'd think you were drunkenly rambling to yourself. All good songs start by telling the audience to shut their mouths in fear of violence, everyone knows that."

"I really don't want to threaten my readers."

"Well, I do, and I'm co-author..."

Carza found herself drifting away.

Life felt good.