The forest was on fire.

Well, at least it had been a short while ago. A wide demarcation line of ash and embers greeted me when I stepped out of an unnaturally lush tree line on my way home. It was still smouldering and burning in some places, but it seemed to have died down enough to not spread any further.

I had seen the smoke from far away three days ago. So I had kind of expected it and hurried here. The sheer vastness of destruction was still making me pause. I was used to forest fires. Trigger and Vigil did their fair share to desensitise me over the years, but they usually extinguished them again before they could get out of control, which was - admittedly - pretty difficult in the constantly drenched swamp forests of the lowlands.

Still, even then I always had to suppress flashbacks and memory fragments from old me’s life.

This field of gleaming and steaming charcoal and cinders, though… This particular fire had most definitely not been under anyone’s control.

The journey back home took me eleven days. Ripple had opted to stay and ‘play a bit longer’ when I had asked if it wanted to accompany me again. Well, I hadn’t been looking forward to another nausea-inducing amusement-park ride anyway. So I wasn’t disappointed about the slower return trip. My profile even considered my swimming proficiency as ‘competent’ now.

However, I couldn’t help but notice that I’ve gotten used to having company. A few days of travelling alone and I felt lonelier than I ever had before in this life. Well, maybe once… right after I had lost Sanguine. The memories of forlorn previous me that flared up now and then didn’t make it any better. And now, almost home, I found the fuming remains of what must have been a massive wildfire. Considering the closeness to the volcano and the circumstances I left under, I was tempted to call it a battlefield.

The fear of what might have happened to my children while I was away rose up through my chest and got stuck in my throat. Please, I can’t have lost them all again!

I was shaking a little. But I wouldn’t find out what happened if I just stayed here, imagining the worst. So I used my new earth shaping capabilities to clear a path through the hot ash and charred remains of trees.

The air was noxious.

Crossing through the lane of destruction didn’t take as much time as I had initially been afraid of. Reaching the other side after carefully manoeuvring through the cinders, I could see why too.

There was a clear border between the charred black ground and completely untouched vegetation. Someone had manually stopped the flames from advancing here. That was no small feat. On the contrary, really. Stopping this inferno outright at such a clear line without it breaking through anywhere must have been a huge effort.

It also told me that I wouldn’t come home to a graveyard. I’ve never seen one of the elementals being this precise in their application of magic. Considering what I knew now, about them producing their own elemental energies by converting an abundant resource, I didn’t even question why any longer.

No, this must have been the work of my children. And on this scale, it was unlikely that it had been only a few of them. Which was great! I couldn’t be certain about the number of casualties, though.

As I found my way towards the last shallow creek between the smouldering wastes and the pond, the underbrush to my right suddenly rustled and - only a moment later - a young ember-red scalamander shot through the ferns and tackled me in a… full-body nudge-hug? Was that a thing?

‘[Mom! You’re back! I missed you sooo much!] [Everyone was so afraid! But I wasn’t!] [Then the Swamp monster came, but I was totally brave!] [And Vigil was sooo cool!] [And then everything burned!] [And I helped!] [And the others too, I guess. But I was the most bravest!] [And Mom! You’re back, mom!]’ The words of water flowed on without end.

My little Pyra was shaking as I embraced her back. In excitement? Relief? I wasn’t sure, but probably both. She held her eyes pressed shut and inhaled deeply while taking a lick of my skin now and again.

Eventually, she calmed down. I hadn’t expected her to actually miss my physical presence. I had simply assumed that all that kept them here was the intellectual understanding of the advantages of a community. This was… heartwarming and made me feel guilty at the same time.

‘[I’m back now. Everything will be alright. How are the others?]’, I asked. I didn’t miss them the same way she had missed me. I only was afraid of being alone again. I was a horrible excuse of a mother.

Pyra looked down, avoiding my eyes. ‘[Spruce got burnt badly.]’ She looked up again. ‘[But he’s totally gonna be fine!]’ Then she hesitated.

I sigh-huffed. ‘[Who didn’t make it?]’

‘[Bast was still in the area.]’, she wrote tentatively. ‘[Spruce was visiting him now and then.] [When Ruby’s group came back again with Flint and Garnet, they told us they found Slag dead in the forest.]’ She gulped, pausing again.

‘[I found Yew and Cedar too, honey. There was not much left of them.]’

Her eyes went wide and I embraced her as much as I could on four legs. Yew and Cedar had belonged to the ‘smart ones’. Slag was one of my two ‘lazy daughters’, who didn’t bother with learning magic or reading while she was here. There wasn’t as much communication possible between her and her siblings. In the end, it didn’t make much of a difference though, I supposed. For Pyra, it was a grim reminder of her own mortality.

‘[What about Spruce and Bast? You didn’t say yet.]’, I finally asked her.

‘[Spruce wanted to bring Bast home after he understood how dangerous the lowlands were becoming.] [But it turned out, Bast had figured out a little bit of magic on his own too…]’ Again, she stopped for a moment. ‘[I don’t know how it started. Spruce can’t write much yet. And he was hurt badly so…] [One day, a few days ago, we heard crashes in the forest. Fighting. So we went to investigate.] [Bast was already dead when we arrived there.]’ She nodded in the direction I came from and kept staring that way. Mesmerised by the memories, I assumed.

‘[Who’s we?]’, I wrote into her field of view.

She shook her head as if to clear it. ‘[I don’t know? Everyone?]’ A slight smile formed on her face. I mean, she started to show teeth. That’s a slight smile for us, okay? ‘[Vigil was livid.]’ Pyra’s eyes began to sparkle. ‘[He was so awesome, mom! All big and powerful and burning everything to the ground!]’

I ignored for the moment that Vigil was supposedly a ‘he’ now. ‘[Vigil fought the Swamp alone?]’, I asked incredulously.

She nodded. ‘[He got all big and angry and exploded into the Swamp.] [We kept the fire from spreading towards home.] [Well, Junior told us to… and Iris did the most work.]’ She grumbled. ‘[But I was totally second best!]’ My daughter expectantly stared up at me.

‘[I’m sure you were.]’, I wrote, stroking her head. ‘[Let’s go home and meet the others, shall we?]’

Pyra deflated at that. ‘[I’m supposed to keep a look-out] [See if the Swamp monster comes back] [Siria is next, though.]’ She perked up. ‘[She should be here soon! Can we meet her first and go back together?!]’

Well, we could do that. Considering how the reunion with my most intrepid child went, I’d honestly preferred to meet them all one at a time. I guess that isn’t an option, right?

Eventually, we finished Pyra’s perimeter patrol. Of course, she didn’t call it that, but I thought it was a fitting description. Junior supposedly had insisted they’d frequently check along the new ashen border if the swamp grew back somewhere faster than it naturally should.

I had to admit, this was smarter than I’d have expected of any of them. What impressed me far more though, was that they actually stuck to it after not finding anything amiss after a couple of days.

Since I had delayed Pyra by quite a bit, Siria was already waiting for us. She was about to form a message - probably to complain about the tardiness - when her eyes fell on me, going wide. I was sure she’d have teared up if scalamanders were able to. Her half-formed script wavered and splashed to the ground as she ran up to me performing a repeat of her sister’s greeting earlier. Taking in my scent and taste included.

I noticed marks of still healing burns on her neck frill and front legs. They didn’t seem to bother her though, and when I asked her about it she just waved it off.

Of course, she insisted on coming back to the pond with us right away. Without even starting her own patrol round. I hadn’t expected anything else to be honest. As I said. It already was a minor miracle that they kept it up until now on their own volition.

Arriving at the spawning pond, I immediately was the centre of a bundle of exhilarated young scalamanders. All of them were desperately trying to snuggle up to me, welcome me back and tell me about our time apart simultaneously. Needless to say, I was unable to keep track of a single conversation and just let them climb all over me, waiting for them to calm down.

Again, I saw burn marks and singes on most of them. Only Iris, Rose and Pyra didn’t seem to have any. So, either they got off scot-free or at least lightly enough that they had already healed up.

Still, after initially being swept up in the lively atmosphere, I couldn’t help but feel guilty once more at the sight of those injuries. I had learned a lot at the coast, and I was still convinced that it had been worth it, but my children had to defend our home on their own while I had been away.

I wasn’t sure how long it took for everyone to get a hold of their excitement. Could have been a couple of minutes or half an hour. But It was probably shorter than I perceived it to be.

Regardless, the scalamander pile broke up eventually, when Iris left up the volcano to fetch Vigil, after she had whined on and on about not wanting to ‘babysit’ anymore. Pyra and Ash went with her. The others also let go of me soon after. Garnet and Flint were a bit hesitant, having been separated from me the longest. Only Nibble kept on clinging to my back, nibbling at my scales from time to time.

Notably missing from this ‘group hug’ had been Junior and Spruce. When I found them in a shallow part of the pond, I also could see why. Spruce was horribly battered. He looked even worse than Cinder had when Ruby and Fir had dragged him back here before my trip.

Junior was with him, channelling energy into his brother. I could sense water and earth. But I was relatively sure, he just pushed all the energy he could into Spruce. I simply lacked the affinity to taste the heat.

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‘[Just remember that Memory is looking out for us.]’, he wrote as I was slowly approaching from behind him. ‘[And mom is back now. You’ll be fine in no time.] [Memory helped us before, she surely won’t let you die now.]’

I wasn’t sure if Spruce understood all of that but his hesitant and probably painful nod indicated that he at least got the gist of it. Probably. Anyways, he saw me approaching and looked in my direction, prompting Junior to do the same.

The relief was all over his face. Then he unsuccessfully suppressed an amused huff when Nibble, still riding on my back, poked her head over my neck shield. ‘[Welcome back, mom.]’, he wrote as he moved to nudge against me.

I nuzzled his side. ‘[I heard you were quite the hero while I was away.]’ And I really had. At least a quarter of the spammed messages of my children had been about Junior being awesome to varying degrees.

‘[I…]’ My clever son faltered a little. ‘[I only did remind the others of your lessons.]’, he wrote, meeting my eyes.

‘[My lessons? About Memory? Or about remembering in general?]’ I laugh-huffed.

‘[Both?] [You told us to not use heat to make something burn.] [Some started to forget or didn’t think about it.]’ Junior shot a look at Nibble.

‘[Food is more tasty when it is cooked!]’, the little glutton defended herself from the unspoken reproach.

‘[Ruby and Garnet wanted to combine their groups and go out again.]’, Junior continued. ‘[I only said that we shouldn’t because the Swamp was surely still there.] [They weren’t happy about it and wanted to go anyways, but...]’

‘[Iris took Junior’s side and fought them!]’, Rose interrupted. She had been approaching us with a giant, dead spider floating on an earthen platform behind her. ‘[They didn’t like it, but they listened and stayed after she trashed them]’ She laughed and deposited the meal in front of Spruce. ‘[Eat up!]’

‘[Thank you, Rose]’, Junior answered in his brother’s stead.

‘[No need. It was my turn.]’ She nudged him. Then she turned to me. ‘[Junior was so awesome, mom!] [The Swamp was rampaging, and Vigil went all big and angry!] [And everything was on fire!]’ Her eyes shone brightly.

Nibble nodded against my frill.

Junior turned away, hiding his face.

‘[Everyone was panicking.]’, Rose continued. ‘[Then Junior told us to make a line.] [Keep the forest from burning in the direction of home]’ She nudged and poked him with her claws. ‘[It didn’t work at first. But then he said to remember Memory watching us] [and to trust her that she would help us.]’

I had no idea where my son got the last part from. He didn’t seem to like his sister teasing him though.

‘[It did work, did it not?]’, he pushed new symbols against her, this time made of ice rather than the usual water.

Rose croaked in surprise and jumped back. ‘[Yeah. I guess it did.]’, she admitted sheepishly.

I was a bit lost. ‘[What did work?]’, I asked.

Rose and Junior looked at me befuddled, as if I just asked them how a symbol was written when I was the one who taught them writing in the first place.

‘[We all felt it, mom.]’, Nibble answered in their stead. ‘[There suddenly was this strange energy flowing through all of us.] [And holding the fire back got easier.] [A lot easier.]’

I looked from Rose to Junior for confirmation. They simply nodded.

That was indeed quite strange. Did Memory really intervene there and helped? I couldn’t be sure but it was incredibly convenient for her whole ‘cult-making’ task. So, probably?

Anyway, I wouldn’t contradict that interpretation of events.

Instead, I smiled mysteriously, got comfortable and let my kids continue to fill me in on what else I missed while we continued to pump Spruce full of energy.

When Vigil returned with Iris a while later, I didn’t immediately recognise it. It still had the same general form and colour scheme as before, even though it was quite a bit larger. But the energies flowing from it were something completely new to me. The area around it was thick without compare. I felt like I’d be able to cut it. There even was water mixed in, but mostly earth and a large amount of stuff I couldn’t actually taste. Pyra was swooning the whole time she was around the elemental.

Well, I learned that it technically wasn’t an elemental - or proto-spirit - any longer. Vigil explained proudly that ‘he’ was a proper spirit now. Despite him suddenly being an energy fountain, I would have called bullshit on that, but he suddenly used pronouns. Can you imagine that? Pronouns! I’d been unsuccessfully trying to teach him that for nearly three years now!

Over the next few moons, we kept up the patrol of our newly established border. We even burned it back down periodically. The Swamp elemental didn’t return, though. Nevertheless, Junior and I insisted that every time anybody moved past it, they’d be in a group. Remembering the casualties amongst their separately moving siblings, everyone begrudgingly agreed to take at least two others with them whenever they left.

Otherwise, a feeling of normalcy returned to the glade. I started to enlargen the pond while teaching my daughters about childrearing and its benefits over just letting the spawn fend for itself.

Pyra wasn’t very interested after I told her that Vigil was definitely not a viable mating partner.

Siria and Rose were paying attention at least. Especially when Junior was attending the lecture… I meant to say: When he coincidentally was helping out with the landscaping.

Ruby and Garnet were out with Flint, Cinder and Fir most of the time, foraging for food they’d bring back for everyone to share. I wasn’t sure if this was out of a genuine sense of duty to provide for the family, a thirst for adventure or to escape my boring sermons.

Speaking of sermons, Junior continued to play preacher. Going on and on about Memory and flames whenever he had the opportunity to more or less naturally bring up that topic.

Iris was behaving strangely. She evidently deeply desired to join Ruby and Garnet on their forays and explore. But she didn’t. Instead, she was my most attentive student, frequently throwing in questions and making sure she understood everything I taught.

Nibble was… attending. At least I think she was listening. The only time I got a bit of participation out of her, was when I brought up the idea of cultivating mushrooms as a secondary food source.

Well, and during the new magic lessons of course. But everyone was eager to learn those. Even Ash, Verdant, Juniper and Spark, who had joined up with the recovered Spruce to make their own expedition group with ‘no girls allowed’.

Vigil, surprisingly, also paid apt attention to those. When I asked him, what he would get out of knowledge about mana - since he didn’t have any - the spirit told me he’d need to know about it if he wanted to teach it in the future.

Thinking about the upcoming mating season brought up a few problems, too. My kids would reach sexual maturity in another two years if it was the same for them as for me. And they’d probably feel the urge to do their mating right here where they hatched. I wasn’t as worried about the girls as I was for the boys, but I had no idea how the mating frenzy would interfere with their increased intellect.

My main concern, though, was with all of them being siblings. Would they just jump each other when the time came? I had no idea and didn’t know how I’d fix it even if I knew for sure. At least not for their first year.

It made me think about Pine-Green again and that I really didn’t know if my first mate had been a cousin or older brother of mine. I was reasonably sure that he wasn’t from the same year as me at least. But did I really want to ponder that, or worse, actually find out?

On that thought, I also didn’t know if boys took more or less time than girls to fully develop. Well, I’d find out in a couple of years, I guessed.

In any case, it would probably be for the best to bring back a few spawn packages from other females as well this time. They didn’t care about their offspring anyway and I was pretty sure we’d need the genetic diversity somewhere down the line. It would be an absolute pain to raise and feed so many brats though.

While we were at it, we should try to get a couple of clutches from different spawning ponds and lakes too. I was sure there were at least some and it would give my more adventurous children something else to do during that time of the year. At least until they felt their own urges to procreate.

I’d just have to figure out a new way to care for them all. Raising them like my first clutch just didn’t seem realistic in those numbers.

So, with the looming threat of the Swamp elemental suspiciously silent, I passed half a year with training my magic, teaching and preparations. The pond was a shallow lake now, fed by the closest creek. We had an area where Nibble tried to raise her favourite fungi, a dedicated dismantling and cooking zone, and a few additional ponds in which Junior experimented with raising fish. Well, first he had to figure out how to keep his siblings from ‘just tasting a few’ all the time.

My earth magic had improved by leaps and bounds. Even if it still was categorized as ‘weak’. None of my present or regularly visiting children still had any affinity at ‘traces’, though. But I didn’t expect anything less. They’ve been raised by a genuine genius after all!

Eventually, the time came when I felt the guiding urge to return to my birth pond. So I sent out my kids, in two groups of five and two of three, to look for any other scalamander mating sites. First, however, I warned my daughters to not let some random ass males crawl all over them if they found one. I didn’t know how they’d react to not-yet-fertile females. The air would be full of pheromones, though, and I doubted they’d be able to differentiate in their frenzy. Most importantly, and I mainly addressed Pyra here, nobody was to play with any fire.

When I arrived at my birthplace - I was apparently rather early this year - I met Ferra again. But she was rather ‘occupied’ with the largest male she could have possibly found, keeping away every other suitor with walls of mud. After only a short greeting I left them to it. She had a standing invitation to visit, in any case, if she ever got tired of the sea.

Finding a mate for myself proved rather complicated. While it wasn’t difficult to find one, it wasn’t easy at all to find the right one.

Pine-Green was nowhere to be seen. Either he didn’t survive the last year, which would be a shame, or he didn’t arrive yet. So, going with familiarity was right out.

Then I tried to find the most intelligent of the bunch. Yeah… that was a wash as well with all of them drugged up on pheromones.

Next, I considered Ferra’s criteria for a large and strong one. But then I remembered Memory asking me to pick someone ‘hunkier’ next time and this option went right out of the window too. I absolutely did not want to play into her weird fetishes.

Trying to find one with high magic potential proved fruitless as well. They all tasted of very little water and earth. For everything more precise I’d have had to hurt them, which I didn’t want either.

So, after half a day of trying to find ‘Mr. Right’ without success, I just went with the most attractive amongst the most stubborn ones again. The one I eventually chose had shades between light green and light blue, getting progressively darker the further back on its body the scales were. I think this colour was called seafoam back in previous me’s life, but I hadn’t been an expert and it wasn’t important anyway.

He also was among the bigger ones, but not so big that he would rival the size of any female. The act itself was relatively similar to last time. And I still don’t want to talk about it.

When I returned with my own and another four clutches from promising-looking females, I was only greeted by Vigil. The kids weren’t back yet. So we fell in the same routine we’d had the year before.

A couple of days later, Iris, Nibble and Pyra returned with another three clutches, proudly presenting one each.

The all-boys’ group and Junior, Siria and Rose returned another day after that. They were both pretty dejected having found nothing.

When Ruby and Garnet came back with their group, telling us, they’d found a place but were too late this year, I could finally feel relieved that nobody had a run-in with the Swamp monster.

There was another problem though.

Most of the eggs - all of the eggs, not just mine - weren’t viable. We had eight spawn packages from 30 to 41 eggs. 291 in total. Of those, only 47 were developing properly. That was still more than last year, but less than six per clutch.

And since this was affecting all of them, even those from another pond, something definitely wasn’t right here. Suddenly being a sixth as fertile as before just wasn’t natural.

If this was the case for every scalamander out there, it would have catastrophic results for our species as a whole. The mountain scalamanders and whatever breed Ferra’s children would be called could probably survive with those numbers.

But how would the relatively dumb swamp variant have enough surviving offspring to maintain their numbers if they continued having to fend for themselves from the moment they were born?

And why had the Swamp been so quiet all of a sudden after being slapped around a bit by Vigil?

I couldn’t help but feel that those two developments were connected somehow. I wasn’t able to quite put my finger on it, though.

A few days later, the first clutch - one of the three, Iris’ group had brought back - began to hatch and I was presented with a whole different headache.

As I was watching Iris, cooing at the tiny larvae and examining them as they zipped around, I heard a ‘ding’ chime again and familiar words appeared in front of me.

[An affiliated Deity wishes to grant you a Quest. Would you like to view it now?]

Not ‘Your Patron’? Who the heck else was I ‘affiliated’ with?

I groan-croaked and looked up at the sky.

There better be a real reward this time.