“Skunkscent,” Kuro grumbles. “I should have known the old woman wouldn’t keep her muzzle shut.”

My head tilts. “Old woman?”

Kuro angles her ears upwards. I follow them up the rock face to see Gima overlooking one of the ledges near a den, surrounded by a group of Kin staring at her with fascinated eyes. Tilting my neck forward, I overhear some of her raspy conversations. “…flew right up to the airship-prey, she did! And then she stared down the eyes of the prey, threatening it until it turned around like a scared Grepo!” The Kin swivel their faces between Gima and me, scarcely believing I was the same Lithan in the tall tale.

So, that’s what happened. When Gima and Ykuvi arrived here last night, she babbled the whole story of how I chased away the Beatrix. Word quickly spread that a Farlander had done it, and eventually, the story reached Tott, who couldn’t wait to let the entire camp know I’d arrived.

“Well, what do we do now?” I ask wearily, watching still more Kin emerge from another forested path on the opposite side of the clearing. Despite their curiosity, nobody seemed brave enough to come forward and talk to us.

Kuro sighs, tearing at the grass beneath her talons. She turns and says, “The only thing we can do. Introduce you to the flock.”

Trepidation courses through my feathers. “Here? B-but what about White Mountain? And the elders? Didn’t you s—“

“Let me do the talking,” she interjects my blathering.

“What? Kuro, n—“

“I told you I’d handle it. Trust me, Asha.”

She smiles, and I feel some of my anxiety dissolve. I don’t want to get too involved in their flock until I can talk to their elders. What if the Kin here don’t like me because I’m an outsider, which colors their elder’s decision on whether I can join them?

But I asked Kuro to trust me yesterday, so I suppose it’s only fair that I trust her to handle this situation. I dip my head and mutter, “Okay,” in a voice so meek she may not have heard it.

She swivels her head up and steps forward, roaring a call over the crowd. It echoes through the clearing and up the rock face, silencing the assembled Kin in its wake. The gazes of everyone gathered turn toward us.

“Brothers and Sisters!” she calls in a voice that carries far. “It seems the news of our visitor has arrived before she could.” I glance up to see Gima and Tott with regular expressions, seemingly unaffected by Kuro’s blatant call-out.

“So, allow me to give you a fitting introduction. This,” she says, angling her wing over my shoulders, “Is Asha. Born as a Lemur in the Farlands, she found herself the way you see her now after a tragedy close to her den. Unable to turn back and unable to communicate with those she once knew, she fled to Felra. Enyll and I found her just as a wretched False-Kin was about to take her life.”

Kuro pauses a moment to let her words spread. Even though she’s the one speaking to the flock, all eyes are on me. I hold my wings tight against myself.

She resumes while pacing through the clearing. ‘When Asha heard that an airship-prey was approaching Felra, she stepped forward and insisted she could convince it to leave. But when she flew up and approached the lumbering beast, the airship-prey was upset. Filled with seething rage, it attacked her!” Kuro plays up drama in her storytelling, snapping her jaws like she were a vicious prey feral. The younger ones around us gasp in shock.

“But Asha was smart. Being a Farlander, she knew how the prey behaved. She knew the exact moment to dive and avoid its attack. Asha returned to the prey’s face and snarled a fierce cry, warning it to leave. And so, knowing it could not harm her, and knowing it must always obey a Farlander, the airship-prey flew around and returned to the Farlands.”

That wasn’t the most accurate storytelling — she left out some critical pieces of information — but by the Goddess, did she ever play me up as a hero! I sounded so gallant in her tale that even I’m convinced I acted like one. Once more, I can’t help but wonder why she’s stretching her neck out so far for me.

Kuro folds her wings and turns to walk back to my side. “A great tragedy was avoided because of our visitor. A visitor that doesn’t know how to hunt or survive on her own. I intend to bring her before the elders at White Mountain and have them determine what will happen to her next.”

Silence permeated the hollow as Kin looked between themselves, unsure how to react. Despite Kuro’s top-notch storytelling that painted me as a hero, there’s still some lingering doubt. Should I step forward and say something as well?

“How could a Farlander possibly take the form of Kin?” A gruff voice from the crowd speaks up.

I’m about to answer when Kuro speaks up for me, “We’re not certain, but Asha had a rock that shimmered like the lights of the Grandfather Tree while she changed. It’s possible there could be a connection.”

My head snaps to face Kuro, unable to believe the huge nugget of information she just casually dropped. The ‘lights’ of the ‘the Grandfather Tree’? What lights!? What tree?! When I told my story last night around the campfire, I simplified the explanation of the Serpentine Diamond to say it was a unique rock that glowed like Maki while I was transforming. But it seems to dumb down that the story was unnecessary.

I’m about to ask Kuro about it when a younger voice from the crowd yells, “Use some of your Farlander words!”

My face twists. ‘Farlander words’? Just what are those supposed to be? I flick my eyes to Kuro for help, but she offers none, keeping her face steady. Guess it’s my turn to speak. “…What do you mean, exactly?”

Some of the Kin flinch as I speak for the first time. I guess they weren’t expecting me to speak the Lithan tongue as well as I do.

“Supposedly, you told the airship-prey special words that made it listen to you. If you’re really a Farlander, then what were they?” another voice from the crowd, this time an older woman with a striking, almost pure white plumage.

So, that’s what they want to know. I suppose my speech to the Beatrix sounded strange to the Kin on the ground. I used many words that are brand new to them, and Gima must have mentioned that in her version of the story.

I don’t remember it perfectly, but I could recite most of it. “I’ll tell them to you,” I step forward from Kuro and Enyll’s side, feeling the weight of a crowd fall on me again.

Kuro told such a gripping tale about me. There’s no way I can’t follow up her performance without a few of my own theatrics. I draw a breath and close my eyes, imagining myself in front of Beatrix’s bow, allowing the same conflicting emotions I felt at that moment to course through me again.

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“Air Destroyer Beatrix!” I shriek, flaring my wings wide. The crowd winces. “I am your Princess, Asha Lordanou! I order you, as heir to the throne, and daughter of Her Majesty the Queen, to stand down and return to Fort Richter! Do not encroach the Northern Continent!”

The camp became quiet, filled only with the sounds of feathers shifting. I find myself back in the moment, and regret washes over me like cold water. Did I really have to act it out so dramatically to them? “Um, that’s what I told it,” I mumble sheepishly.

“Wooooww!!” A kit in the grass breaks the silence, fluttering her wings in excitement. She screeches, “I am MAJESTY’S HEIR TO THE QUEEN!!” while trying to imitate my voice. Some of the young ones around her join in with their own cries until a mother trundles forward and quickly silences the braying children.

I didn’t notice it until now, but there are nearly as many kits and fledges here as adults. I wonder why that’s the case? Maybe I should have been a little more reserved with my storytelling… things wouldn’t end well if some fledge believed all they had to do to scare an airship-prey was repeat the particular words I just recited.

“And, why has this outsider come here…?”

A warm, confident voice rises like steam from the back of the crowd. I see Kin parting their wings on a level close to the top of the rock. A stunning, almost crimson plumaged Kin emerges into an opening on the rock face that’s visible to all. His face is angled liked a rapier’s edge, and his shoulders are broad like barrels. “Is she here to steal prey, as all Farlanders do? Or to corrupt us with her strange, Farlander ways?”

Surrounded by other Kin young and old, Relmoon looks down on Asha from a high rock ledge. [https://www.sarlain.net/img/m2/ch33-2.png]

“Relmoon,” Kuro curses under her breath. I take it that’s his name and that Kuro has some beef with this smooth-talking Kin.

“And what of the Farlanders that knew her?” he continues, looking around and below him amongst the Kin. “When the airship-prey returns to its den, it will surely tell the Farlanders she once knew that she fled to Felra. It seems it will only be a matter of time before more prey return to fetch this lost girl.”

The flock murmurs in hesitation, fledges and kits turning to their parents with looks of concern. I don’t like the tone of this guy’s voice, but if all you knew was the story Kuro just told, then it would sound like he’s raising some valid concerns. I push my wing against Kuro as she’s about to answer back. She stops herself and looks at me a pinch annoyed before flicking her eyes to the crowd in front of her, then back towards me. Her face softens and she nods, allowing me to continue.

“Airship-prey will not return to your lands,” I address Relmoon the same way mom would address a foreign delegation. “It would be difficult to explain, but to send one from my region of the Farlands is a dangerous gambit. To do so twice would cost many lives.”

There are certain treaties with Nortane that mom could argue allow her to send a ship through their airspace. Passage for scientific exploration of Felra has been permitted in the past, though only with small, unarmed vessels. Either way, there’s no chance she would do something so risky twice; mom is not so reckless as to intentionally provoke a war.

Not content to tower above me, Relmoon leaps from the cliff and glides into the clearing at the base of the rock. He lands close to the firepit and strides forward with his wings splayed. “And yet, they sent one anyways. How can you be so confident they won’t do it again once they learn of your presence here?”

“Airship-prey are dumb but loyal prey,” I counter, feeling my feathers puff up as Relmoon’s hostile scent drifts over me. “We have special ways to communicate to them without talking. They are unable to talk back to us.”

Relmoon scoffs and rolls his eyes. He takes a provocative step forward and growls, “That’s absurd. How can you control ferals if not by talking to them?”

I sense Kuro taking a step forward to match Relmoon’s advance. I thought he was simply concerned for the flock’s safety, but now he’s being outright confrontational. I decide to offer him the unfiltered truth. “We command them with boilers, electrical circuits, valves, and steam superheaters.”

Understanding drains from Relmoon’s face. He thinks he’s not showing it, but I know better. I know his veiled expression from every noble who tried to humor me when I talked to them about plants. “If you are clueless as to what those are, then I suggest you leave matters of airship-prey to me.”

I may have become short, but I still know how to act like a tall girl.

Relmoon narrows his eyes at Enyll, utterly silent up to this point. He turns about and grunts, neatly folding his wings against himself. “Keep your Farlander riddles to yourself, daughter of Her Majesty the Queen. You may look like Kin, but you will never be one of us.”

Murmurs of agreement rise from some of the older Kin as Relmoon storms off, weaving his way through the crowd to one of the far exits from the camp. As he’s about to pass through the trees, he turns his head unexpectedly and calls back, “Warm currents, Kuro.”

She rumbles a sinister growl in response. More than ever, I’m sure that blood has been spilled between these two in the past.

“I don’t like that guy,” I whisper to Kuro as Relmoon slips from sight.

“Good,” she responds with an edge that could cut. I’m glad we agree about him.

While we spoke, the buzz between the crowd rose once more. The adults are talking about the points Relmoon brought up, pondering if the airship-prey would return and if a Farlander could indeed be Kin. So far, nobody has explained what will happen at White Mountain when I go before the elders and ask to join their flock. How worried should I be if the Kin at Flat Rock agrees with Relmoon?

It’s becoming clear that this is why Kuro played up my encounter with the airship. She must have known that it would’ve been a tough sell for the flock to accept an outsider — a Farlander — as one of their own. I watch as she scans them, looking up and down the rock face with a guarded expression. Why is this Dragon I didn’t even know a day ago doing so much for me?

“I for one, think we should welcome Asha!” A brighter, familiar voice calls out from the second level. I follow Kuro’s eyes, and my mood is lifted, seeing Ykuvi fixed wing to wing beside Gima.

“Keuvra teaches us to welcome those with capable wings. With nobody to guide her and almost no flight experience, Asha has made the crossing to Felra in harvestwing. With her kind heart and intimate knowledge of the Farlands, I believe she could be invaluable to the flock.”

“How has she been kind-hearted?”

A gravely, age-marred drakon echoes down from atop Flat Rock. I strain my neck to see far above the crowd and spot the eldest Kin yet, drenched in large, tawny dorsal feathers down his entire neck, black horns spring from the back of his jawline, and… whiskers! Long, flowing whiskers that trail down to the ground! Wow!

I suppose he must be the leader of Flat Rock. Just how many years has this Dragon lived?

“Asha was kind to me,” A demure woman with a stone gray plumage and a soft voice answers him from the second level, competing against the sounds of loose feathers to be heard. “When she learned I would be kitting in the spring, Asha insisted that she share a portion of her prey with me. Gima and Ykuvi presented it to me last night.”

So, this is Enyll’s sister! I would have never guessed someone so soft-spoken could be related to the fiery Enyll. “Asha,” she continues, lowering her voice perhaps by necessity. “I don’t understand why you chose to be so kind to someone you’ve never met, but know that I appreciate you very much.”

I straighten up, warmed by the praises of Ykuvi and Enyll’s sister. “You’re very welcome. Tell me, what’s your name?”

“I am Fra, Daughter-of-Kadi,” she mantles her wings halfway and dips her head. “Asha, if you are ever in need and close to Flat Rock, please seek me out. I would be happy to provide whatever assistance I can to help you.”

Warmth fills my heart, seeing Fra smile in gratitude. All I did was share a bit of prey, and she’s offered so much in return. This is way too much — I think she’s the most adorable feral I’ve ever met! “Thank you, Daughter-Of Kadi. In my short time here, it has become clear that the bonds of kindness exist in Felra much the same as they can in the Farlands. I hope I can continue to earn the respect of all of you.”

I smile, swiveling my head to face the entire crowd. It seems that once you earn their trust, Kin can be incredibly kind-hearted creatures. After everything that’s happened to me the past few days… I needed something like this. The feeling of community, the support of people who care about me, and most importantly, hope…

I needed it so much.

“Most fascinating,” rasps the elder Kin from up high. “I would have never guessed that Farlanders could be such intelligent and compassionate creatures. Daughter-Of-Mecali, please escort Asha to my den. I want a personal word with her.”

Daughter-Of-Mecali? That must be…

“Of course,” I turn back to see Kuro giving a swift nod. “Asha, the Chevil has summoned you.”