Only two days of sojourning through the melting snows upon the lands of the Legranel were necessary to find the evident site of the coming Moot. It took no rocket science to determine the location, no fewer than seven great pillars of smoke rose, drifting towers that marked the meeting clans of Plains Elves. Only two days more were required to cross that deceivingly large distance between that horizon and the increasingly road-weary travelers. Few happenings served to distinguish one day from the next and Ulric quickly fell into that timeless state of mind that had blurred entire swathes of time in the glade.
Slow, easy, gentle cycling of the inner storm that was his core, along with the metaphysical enhancement of continued mana saturation, served to rehabilitate his abused body. The methods of Bathe Iriel, methodically suffusing tissues in the energies his arcane nexus produced while circulating the barest trickle of power helped to gradually restore Ulric's ability to manipulate his magic. It was, more or less, the only thing he could do to speed up the recovery process and Taipan had approved the method, this being the way of Elven mages to strengthen their abilities or to heal from overtaxing their talents.
Taipan had little else to offer in this field, her expertise were not in the realm of the mystical, his Shadow was a master in stalking, woodcraft, and the wielding of her core's umbral elemental energy towards assassination. Her classes did most of the heavy lifting towards manipulation of her magic, that odd transcendental knowledge supplementing the skills of those who tread along parallel paths through their lives.
For Ulric, he hated the thought of relying too much on semi-mythological horseshit, so he buckled down to understand his budding powers. As Ceraun chased itself through his body he bent his mind towards the principles and theories that dictated the forces of electromagnetism. Long had it been since his days poring over textbooks but he'd been a diligent student and most of it came back to him in the almost trancelike process of trudging across a couple of hundred kilometers of endless gentle swells of budding grasslands. Shoots of green were starting to peak through the growing gaps in the receding drifts of white nonsense that had overstayed their welcome. At last.
As his legs churned a rhythmic, steady motion, Ulric decided that the source of the elemental energy in his body was the mana field that pervaded the entire planet. His core was a form of biocrystalline matrix that condensed the field into an almost fluid state, through which it might be directed to flow inside his body, using the techniques shown him by his long eared teachers. Where before his awakening the mana was without aspect, making it easy to inflect a specific pattern, which Ulric had come to think of in terms of waveforms, his core now exclusively generated a purely lightning-inflected waveform. In so doing, that mana took on many of the properties associated with electromagnetic force.
Ulric discovered as he walked that he could create effective monopoles. He could isolate a particular charge and concentrate it in space. Doing so utilized more mana than a paired charge distribution, for reasons he did not understand but assumed had to do with utilizing his core's energy to fuck with quantum fields on some fundamental level, just like happened when a mage used mana to form matter, as in the case of creating ice or water or stone, or accelerating the growth of plants, or whatever the fuck else sorcerers were doing out there. The doing took a great deal more energy than manipulating what already existed, exponentially so, but matter-energy conversion was a far more fluid affair than in his previous life.
The former engineer had a feeling that anybody who attempted to use their core to play with strong forces would find themselves evaporated by the energies they unleashed before they could convert more than a few megajoules of energy. His more intensive Ceraun spells could reach gigajoule scales, if spark gaps worked the same way as in the Before, given some ramp time, but those were under some incredibly well-controlled circumstances. Ulric was using mental algorithms to envision the kinds of field conditions used to produce laminar plasma flows. He was positive the physics didn't actually work the same way using magic as it did in those prototype takomak reactors but it served as an analogue that helped his core manifest the same type of control over the energies. The results were clear, had allowed him to create incredible energy densities with a minimum of collateral damage.
Even then, Ulric couldn't perfectly control the lightning he unleashed. [Voltaic Riot] in particular was a violent arc that almost hungered to connect to the closest living thing. Targeting it was a difficult task and more trouble than it was worth, mostly. He cheated with [Lightning Javalin], tagging the spell to a physical object, similarly to capacitor plates, charge was separated between his core and the target object, positive on one and negative on the other, and he just had to release his hold on the poles to cause the lightning bolt to connect the two, passing the energy into a nearby target as he did.
Directing a free lightning bolt required building a streamer of Ceraun between himself and the intended target, like trying to tie a fishing line to a dancing bear. He could do it, especially since awakening, his core had tremendously evolved to facilitate that sort of magic, but it required more practice to deliver the strike with sufficient energy to kill the kinds of monsters he was running into out here in the Vardan wilds.
A few [Heckler Monkeys] Ulric was confident he could blast into pulp with a thought. The big cats that had attacked those few nights back required at least five to ten seconds of active channeling to reach one tap potential. Some of the more resistant monsters, like that bastard son of a wolverine [Shrieking Ravager] had eaten a charged lightning bolt and kept on trucking, albeit with a crippled leg and certain neurological damage. Ulric knew in his bones that something like a healthy, prime [Forest Lord] would eat all the juice he could throw at it and still have the moxie to eat him, starting from the feet.
Hence the emphasis on working out how to master his powers. The battle against the [Amberfangs] had revealed something of a new hiccup to his understanding of how mana and living creatures interacted. He wasn't sure, things had spun out of control so quickly, but he had a suspicion that he'd very nearly teleported himself as an almost living lightning bolt. At the very least he'd managed, with the assistance of his connection to a maybe demigod and the Akashic knowledge of his class, to infuse himself to a degree he'd not known existed, with Ceraun. The results had been catastrophic for the [Amberfang] and nearly so for himself.
"Fuck man," He remarked to himself as he pulled against his sled harness, "The more I look at it, the deeper into Wonderland I go. What are the godsdamned rules?!"
His frustrated growl drew a few raised brows but their traveling companions had already grown used to Ulric's habit of mumbling nonsense to himself.
He needed Gother or maybe Shor to explain it to him. Slowly. In terms a child or person with brain damage could grasp preferably.
What these long days of essential meditation had done for him was reveal a better way to purify his mana, the prerequisite to relearning how to cast his elemental spells. In the way of a moment of eureka, it sounded obvious after the fact. Whilst mulling over the way his magic constantly seemed to circulate within his core, like a dynamo that spun without end, he realized that one of his core's primary powers was to move the charges of his mana freely. Given his newfound ability to create a pretty densely concentrated monopole, whose existence naturally summoned a potent draw of the opposing charges and a fierce repulsion of like charges, he realized that he could just create opposing monopoles and then overlap them, neutralizing that pocket of mana, and then, poof! Ceraun just snapped into unaspected mana. Simple. Genius. And, best of all, it didn't explode like he was expecting it to.
Less a raw mana manipulation and more a spell all its own, Ulric could now produce pure mana at will and, from there, cast his old spells without all the idiosyncratic phenomenon that accompanied Ceraun impurities. Things like hungering pyroclastic storms that almost blew up in his face. Or whirling blenders of electrified Caelum blades moving like a ballista. The moment he'd figured it out the internal bell of his Akashic connection had sounded.
*PING*
[https://i.imgur.com/K1bQnVI.png]
He'd gained a class skill for that first, seemingly bottomless, class consisting of the wielding of various elemental magics. An active skill, this time. In the way of that esoteric class of mages it didn't sound like much on first glance. The effect was rather straightforward, Ulric could pull on the mana around him, draw it in, and, as the name of the skill implied, extract the individual waveforms to hold separate streams of elemental magic, all completely distinct from one another. Neat, but, to his untrained eye, not immediately useful now that he could produce unaspected "white" mana. After a little time chewing it over though, Ulric realized that this was a new path to power. The gateway to the Archmage.
This was the way forward to creating the tapestries of different elements combined, the prerequisite for truly great sorcery. Ulric could, if he ever figured out the method, manipulate the very weather. Infrig to increase the density of air holding it close to the ground, Cealum to draw that air into motion, circling in place, Aquae to build clouds, and Ceraun to impart a powerful draw of charge from the earth to the sky. He could create storms. He could call lightning at a scale, making his current abilities a pale imitation of the real thing. By the addition of Incendere to create a heated channel, he might also be able to create the conditions to generate tornadic activity, a true supercell. It was a sobering hypothetical and one that he wasn't going to touch for a long while yet, too complex, too apt to go out of control. But it was a possibility and that was sobering. He had a feeling that Gother could show him ways of applying this skill that would take decades to figure out on his own.
The Legranel had responded to Ulric's apparent wielding of the arcane with the same kind of muted surprise as to Taipan's ability to see through the darkness. Was it unusual for a barbarian youth to use lightning? Surely. But, in the words of Hild, "The plains are vast, and Varda yawns vaster still." An elegant way to say "shit happens". In the long lifespans of the nomadic plainsfolk, they had no doubt seen some sights unimaginable to the reforged man. These well-traveled people were of a far more egalitarian bent than their mostly isolationist Southern cousins. The yarns they spun over a hot meal of an evening supported Ulric's suppositions. Great storytellers were the natives of the endless plains.
Where leagues had once implied a bustling of peoples, the steady approach of this impromptu party began to resolve the place that would hold this Moot into a frenetic chaos of nomadic Aes'r. Elves of all ages scrambled hither yon and everything between to assemble a metropolis from nowhere. Yurts arranged according to no pattern that Ulric could decipher came up in mere minutes, clusters, tightly packed corridors, impromptu neighborhoods, diffuse thoroughfares, it was insanity. Ulric was reminded of a timelapse of ants building a nest in the growth of the gathering. Groups akin to the one he and his Shadow were accompanying trickled in at a hearty pace, adding continuously to the sprawl. All day long the borders of that Legranel host swelled towards the travelers, bringing it to meet them even as they approached.
"Holy fucking moly." Ulric exclaimed, now close enough to see the individual traffic of Elves, dressed in myriad colors that defied description. Kaleidoscopic, was the nearest he could come to putting a word to it.
"Indeed, Ulric. This is a thing that has not happened in my lifetime, a Moot of the Legranel. Doubtless, they must choose a new ruler to lead the nomadic clans, a central voice to issue the will of the Roosts to the council of Orlethrem." Taipan responded, voice pitched low, as awestruck as he.
Even at its height, there were not so many of the Iriel'en in one place ever. The city that lay empty beneath the boughs of Irielhos might have held a third of this host, and her appreciative gaze took it in with a struggle to comprehend the scale of her cousin's population.
"Whoever is chosen to lead this mob will needs meet with my brother, to know the will of the acting Crown. War makes my little Lumyt'seit the defacto Lord of Orlethrem and Primus of its armies." His Shadow informed him, before continuing to think aloud, "It is my little Lord of Iriel who will have to guide these folk to spearhead the war, as it is they who are the masters of the Plains and who live along the borders with Prespang."
Bald'rt had been greatly diminished by the Bane that had almost claimed him. He had survived only because his devoted wives, Taipan's mother Vedyr, Brighteyes' mother Bathe, and the mother of the other daughters Ulric had not met, Shor, had taken him into the heart of Irielhos, a near-divine entity, a guardian tree of the Deep Woods Elves, and used its powers to keep him alive. Ulric had helped to modify a substance used to eliminate traces of the species poison from the environment into a form that could be solvated and administered which saved the Elf. The cost to Bald'rt had been great. The cost to his wives had been not inconsequential either, they had given much of themselves to keep his flame burning for as long as possible, in the hopes of outlasting the Bane's effects. Thus was the potency of Iriel's champions reduced at perhaps the worst possible time. That, of course, had been the entire point of the attempted assassination and the assault upon Irielhos.
Stolen content warning: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.
It left the boy-elf Ulric had come to know as a kind of friend in the position of taking up the reins of his father about a century or three ahead of schedule. A tall task that, Brighteyes was, according to his Mothers, a genius mage, awakening his core at a phenomenally young age, but he still lacked the power of his parents, being barely at the cusp of puberty. The Lord of Iriel was a child. Ulric knew him well enough not to underestimate him, but how well would these distant cousins, some of whom were unthinkably his elder? No telling. The Blood Moon of Iriel had kept his enemies at bay and his cousins in line through force of will and indomitable might. Lumyt'seit Iriel would have no such benefit, and Ulric did not envy the lad the row he was going to have to hoe. Good Luck little buddy, he whispered.
Heavy thoughts to hold as they took in the mess before them.
A pinch on his derriere broke the somber atmosphere and Prenya's distinctive scent wafted into his nose as he jumped, accompanied by her softness leaning into his back.
"What has my able bedwarmers so still? Regretting already that our nights are so soon to come to an end?" Joked the slim lass, a carefree grin on her face when Ulric turned to face her.
Taking in the lovely woman his Shadow had conquered, Ulric couldn't help but feel a little cheered. They'd had a pretty grand old time, all things considered. Would he miss her a little? Certainly. Would sharing his bed with Taipan alone decrease his satisfaction? Certainly not. Still, the bunch of jocular, once they'd sort of gotten used to each other, Elves were a fine lot and Ulric was much better predisposed towards the Legranel than he probably would have been had not they met. Hell, even Joclyn had proven to be a decent sort, if a little too hot-headed and prone to letting his dick lead him into places his hands had to be quick to get him out of. Places like having Ulric's sword carving him to ribbons.
"Just thinking of the future lass. I would like to think I favor peace in my travels but I think that well is about to run dry." He told the notch-eared woman, a bit down.
Her smile only faded a little as she bubbled, "Droughts follow the rains. Fear not, young man, I believe we all will see the rains come again."
Oh the optimist was Prenya. Guess not everybody could be a sourpuss cynic like him, and probably that was a good thing.
Taipan's musical lilt joined her for now lover, "My husband cannot help but let his thoughts gnaw like bark weasels at the what if. That is why I must be diligent in keeping his cheer for him. And it will be harder for the lack of your assistance Prenya. Glad I am for the company of yourselves, myself, and my mate."
Ulric shook off the doubts of the future at his partner's gentle remonstrance. She was right. Summoning a little positivity he affirmed his pleasure at their small cadre of wanderers.
"This is so, my apologies for being too dour. It has been a fortuitous journey and I have greatly been impressed by the warmth of the Legranel. When we leave here, it will be with fond memory, especially for Prenya of the Isevor." He assured the cheerful Elf.
Prenya took up Taipan's hand and began to drag her off, declaring "Then allow me a chance to add to those memories. And also an opportunity to reclaim my honor from your Wife, if I had not kept watch to see, I would have thought she slept with her knife in hand!"
And off they went, his Shadow shrugging at the insistent tug to partake of another game, leaving Ulric to stand there alone. He laughed briefly at the antics. It had done his thorny wife good, these leagues traveled. She'd shed a good few thorns along the way, although he had no doubt that an unwary passerby could easily find themselves with blood drawn in short order.
"You have been good to my Aunt."
Ulric jerked at the abrupt statement at his shoulder. Damned Joclyn! The young Herdrider had managed to close on him without so much as a whisper. Lightfooted bastards were the Aes'r, somebody ought to put bells on them.
He turned to address the formerly hostile Elf, with a brief frown to show he didn't care for being snuck up on. By the faint twitch of the tow-headed youth's lips he knew it and had done it deliberately. Such taunts and jokes were par for the course.
"She has been good to me, and to my partner. In fact, I would like to thank you, all of you, for your company on the road. It would have been a lesser experience to have crossed the plains absent so fine a group of peoples." Ulric admitted.
Joclyn's ears twitched briefly, a bit of surprise, and he smiled in a manner reminiscent of his aunt.
"You have proven yourselves welcome, Ulric. More than welcome. We would have lost someone to the beast attack if not for you and your Iriel'en partner. The Great Blue Skies have granted their blessing to our journey home, it seems. I am glad that we shed our grievance, I am better for your lesson in courtesy. If ever you return to our lands, Joclyn will have a place for your rest." The youth offered sincerely.
Ulric put his hand out and shook the Elf's more dainty mitt once firmly.
"I will take you up on that, Joclyn, gladly. I don't know where exactly my journey ends but if it does come back this way I'll not forget the hospitality of you and your kin. If things go well, I will extend to you the same welcome to my hold, paltry though it may be." Ulric returned.
The cacophony that had begun to ring out as they entered the threshold of the growing canvas city and the sheer scale before him sort of underlined that discrepancy. Here were at least five thousand Elves gathered, with all they owned carried along with them. Seven Roosts meant seven Legranel cities merging now in apparent anarchy.
Gesturing absently towards the surrounding bustle, Ulric commented, "Your kin waste no time in laying roots."
Joclyn proudly surveyed the budding Moot before agreeing.
"We are masters of life on the move. Most Roosts move once a week or so, sometimes more frequently when we are guiding a herd, sometimes less, when we graze through a richly growing [Silver Braided Cereal-grass] field. The sooner that stakes are driven and goods are stowed, the sooner we may relax and enjoy the fruits of a well-earned rest." the dirty blond plainsman told him.
The Aes'r youth's expression did not hide a bit of a reflection of Ulric's own astonishment, however.
"I will admit though, Ulric, that the Moot is a passing rare thing to occur, and seeing so many of my people in one place is more a sight than I was prepared to face. It is daunting, but a good chance. Many young Elves will find mates from between Roosts, to strengthen the lines of our clans. Perhaps I will even be so fortunate as to find a beauty as you have done. Not Iriel'en, of course, they do not come North to indulge in games so frequently, but I have heard that there are some prodigious women amongst the Herdriders of the other Roosts. This is my first time returning from a drive, so I have not had the chance to venture between to find out." Confided the youth.
Ulric found himself commiserating a bit with the Isevoran greenhorn. He'd be a solid sort once he calmed down some, just like all those fresh into manhood. Always itching to prove themselves, to everybody everywhere. It took about a decade before they figured out they didn't need to try so hard. At least, that was how it worked back in the Before. Out here, Ulric had a feeling you didn't live long running your mouth or being overzealous in your posturing. Not amongst the Iriel'en, anyhow. Perhaps the Legranel were a bit more gentle in the reining in of their less wise rookies.
He couldn't help but grin thinking about the antics of Christ, that young friend who had so fearlessly thrown himself into the grinder of training with the Royal guards, honing his talent by taking on everything his elders could throw at him. That budding friendship had had some significant portion of it shared under the hands of a Sano Healer's ministrations. The Iriel'en royal guard did not much pull their punches, even in practice spars. Those who weren't fit to endure their high standards did not stand on their training pavilion, or they would be carried off of it in short order.
The kid definitely needed to go and find himself some friends to go play with, some ladies to woo, that was for sure. A likely lass would knock most of the teeth off that saw, smooth him out some. Ulric clapped the Herdrider on the shoulder and told him as much, which earned a laughing agreement.
They parted then, Joclyn deciding to put that advice to action and promising he wouldn't pick fights with any barbarian Valin without getting to know them first as he departed.
While the two of them had been standing there, the others had begun setting up their own Yurts now, having decided that the Moot would likely expand to encompass their location soon, new additions were still streaming in from all directions. Truly, the Aes'r that cultivated the wide horizons out here did so in a diffuse manner.
Taipan erred when she allowed Prenya to make the contest one of using an atlatl, a spear-throwing stick. With knives, bows, physical feats, or skills of the hunt, his Shadow was a master. The Plains Elves turned out to be artists with the thrown dart, mustering an incredible velocity and accuracy with their meter-long, thumb-thick throwing spears. The smaller plains Elf must not have bones in her spine because the way she twisted to generate the torque of her throw looked almost impossible, the flexibility turning her into a whip to sling the dart fifty meters, to be joined by another five similar munitions within a ten count, that being the challenge. The space inscribed around those buried spear points could be paced off at less than a normal bath tub.
He reasoned that they had preferred their short bows to defend themselves from the Amberfangs instead of those more potent weapons was that they didn't want to break their spear and bow formations. The atlatl throwing motion did require significant wind-up, which would have made it vulnerable to the beast's flanking habits. Their responsiveness of the quick drawing bows let them afford to miss and still direct effective fire at the agile monsters. Always learning was Ulric and these people taught him something new every day, even when they weren't trying to.
Tiring of his inspection of the looming metropolis that threatened to consume their camp, Ulric went to help set up the shelters and tackle necessary tasks. They would be staying with Prenya, it would appear, as she had promised to act as their host until they left the Moot. Once Ulric had pounded the last stake and lashed the last tie down to pull the canvas Yurt taught, he entered to find that his wife was being punished by being disallowed the use of clothes within the shelter. She shrugged when he raised an eyebrow at her state of undress and said only "Prenya prefers her plums peeled." to which Ulric found he did not disagree.
By the time they had stowed all of their gear, settled the oxen down with their feed bags, and generally put their miniature camp together, the press of the Moot was all about them. Elves coming and going, of every variation that their clan had to offer and then some. The nomadic Legranel intermarried more than any other clan and Ulric saw more than a few Humans wandering here and there, even a few Beastkin, though other tribes of Elves were more common in the pairings. The Seafolk were well represented, for some reason, given how far from the ocean these plains lie but Ulric didn't get a chance to ask about it, he was soon diverted by tasks of the cookfire.
You'll have plenty of time to gawp, Ulric, he told himself. For now, he was glad to rest and to enjoy the company of the companions who had shared in battle and in common roads for these long days. No one so much as glanced askance at him and he was gladdened for it. It would seem that they had left their identities fully behind and could bask in anonymity.
************100 Kilometers South of the Moot************
"That sadistic lynx stuffed in Leor wrappings is gone again!" Raged Quert, for not the first time in the last week.
The Svartalfin in plate armor pulled off his helmet and spat casually to the ground to share his disgust with his partner in crime.
"Aye, comrade. That she is. I knew we were going to have trouble when we kept passing those small groups of Elves. Too vulnerable, too tempting for the sorts of games our erstwhile partner likes to play." Ari complained.
Gesticulating wildly, heavy tail lashing fit to break bones, the Sauri assassin fumed bitterly, at odds with his normally placid disposition, "This is the fourth time this job! First, she gets us run across Celestin, all the way to Trachn'ir, killing our mounts to evade the patrols sent after us. Then, I sit in the wilds for two days wondering where the both of you are, only to find that you, my stolid partner, have had to pull her out of one of her little torture dens, where she wasted an entire day. Now, we have finally, at the cost of two more sets of mounts, I may add, finally caught up to our quarry, just in time to see them enshrouded by more Legranel than have ever congregated in living memory for anyone not two centuries old."
"And then!" Screamed the killer, his voice hissing with fury, "She disappears again, no doubt to play her sick games with a couple of traveling herdsmen, leaving us to either wait or find her and clean up after her, again! That half-whiskered, yarn-rolling psychopath is done. Never again will I work with her."
The volume of the cursing Sauri jarred the Svartalfin. He now knew how greatly incensed his partner truly was. The Phantom had a reputation for having never committed a murder that wasn't in cold blood, ironically enough, for one of his kind. Calm, analytical, professional, and without ill will was his assassin partner, but if their third member showed up right then Ari the Juggernaut didn't know that the Sauri wouldn't vanish, erase his presence, and try to cut her heart out with all haste. This could end in problems because, for all her aggravation, Yherska was a member of the Blight Triad because she was one of the most efficient slayers their guild could muster.
Ari would likely be playing peacekeeper again, although he couldn't help but admit that they had been denied their opportunity to catch the contract in the wilds almost entirely thanks to the amateurism of their third member. He hated it when a job got sloppy. The reported events of the city, the ease with which the pair had dealt with the catch teams and then decapitated, literally, their organization, and now these delays, were leaning towards the job getting sloppy.
They'd killed their last mounts last night, catching up to the slower-moving group of travelers the contracts had joined. Quert's still lived but the creature had been hard used when he'd been forced to find the quarry as they'd, somehow, put unbelievable distances behind them upon entering the wilds. The bird was lame and they'd probably be eating it tonight.
That haul from Trachn'ir was worrisome. If the pair had made that pace on foot, it meant they were both of them more formidable than he'd given them credit for, an assessment further justified when his raptorish Beastkin comrade had told him what he'd observed about the Human's actions and the rumors he had of the Elf. Not just the Iriel'en Hunter to worry about then, a combat-capable Valin of a remarkably young age for the skill with a sword he'd demonstrated. What the Hells kind of assignment had they accepted here?
If only damned Yherska wouldn't keep getting distracted they could just ride in, kill the targets, and be done with these soggy plains. Ari's boots were sinking worryingly into the thawing ground, his abnormal weight proving a disadvantage in making this passage. That problem would only get worse, before it got better. Perhaps they could buy a small wagon for him to ride in? He wasn't a great fan of making speed anyway. Better to go slow and certain, leaving no loose ends.
The dwarf Juggernaut briefly considered grabbing his catkin comrade and squeezing her ribcage through her lungs. He could do it. It was the second most of the reasons she'd been assigned to their team. Dear Yherska had a habit of killing her partners on the job and him she couldn't so much as scratch, especially when he wore his armor, while Quert simply couldn't be found four in five days, being of the habit of lurking about with all of his stealth abilities active. Ari appreciated the Sauri's dedication to the craft. He didn't so much appreciate waiting around in a grass covered mud pit for their blood frenzied ally to find time in her busy schedule of playing with her food to get the damned contract done with so they could return to their comfortable lives back at the guild house.
Maybe he would be giving that cat a hug, after all.