[M'tis settlement]
The season had shed its golden cloak, leaving the crater hushed beneath a fragile blanket of snow. The once-vibrant garden—bursting with sun-soaked herbs and plump pumpkins—now stood desolate, its birch branches stretching skyward, adorned with icy gems. Frostbite had crept into every surface, turning fence posts into crystalline guardians, while icicles hung like fangs from the eaves of cabins.
Food supplies dwindled by the day. The granary, riddled with weevil tunnels, its bottom nearly reached. The storage that kept pickled roots now held only despair. In the smokehouse, only a handful of hares remained—barely enough for each child to scrape together a scrap of meat.
Every morning, the gatherers set out, only to return with hollow eyes, their hands clutching a few scrawny hares at best. If luck was on their side, a few clusters of frozen berries offered a fleeting treat. But what they truly needed was meat.
And meat was out there, no doubt—but without magic, who would dare descend beyond the plateau, into the woods where monsters prowled?
"What should we do?" An elder's voice wafted with the smoke creeping from the fire pit. "The harvest won't last the winter."
The chief stared into the flames silently, as if struggling to read the future in their flickering dance. A hand touched his shoulder. "Father," a young woman whispered from behind.
He shifted his gaze away from the flame, catching the stares of the ten that had gathered—councilors to his left, elders to his right, as always.
He rubbed his brow, the spot where a faint scar ran.
"We'll need to send men into the woods," a councilor suggested.
A bitter laugh came from the opposite side of the end of the hut. An elder leaned forward until the firelight revealed the faded claw marks raking her neck. "Last winter, we sent ten elders. How many this year? Your own grand—?"
"Then shall all be starved?!" The councilor's roar sent sparks swirling. "What of the children?"
"Enough," the chief whispered. His soft voice cut deeper than any roaring shout.
He crossed his fingers and stared straight at the agitated councilor. "I… will go."
His daughter's indrawn breath hissed like a dying wind. The councilor's massive frame crumpled. "Chief—that's madness! What becomes of us without—"
"Dera, my daughter, will lead in my stead." His words fell like axe strokes on frozen oak. The carved medallion of chieftainship was already in his palm. He didn't look at his daughter as he pressed into the wood, its surface gleaming with generations of fingerprints.
A young councilor's mouth opened to protest, but another councilor's hand clamped his wrist. She shook her head once. The truth hung thicker than smoke: a chief's decree is as binding as a burial shroud.
At dawn, Bryn found Daisy seated by the fire pit, her fingers working absently at a small mound of dried lavender, crushing it into fragrant dust. The delicate scent should have been comforting—meant for their child's pillow, a softness against the harsh winter—but now it cut through the room with a sharp edge, thick with unspoken worries. The fire beside her burned low, casting his shadows on the walls when he stepped closer, but she did not glance at him.
"Take Dobby to the tunnel if anything happens," he said quietly, rolling his fur cloak into a tight wrap. He didn't ask for her permission, or even for her opinion, for that matter. He had already made up his mind.
By the fire pit, a pair of winter boots lay abandoned, unfinished, the leather soft but incomplete—three stitches left, always three. A promise not yet sealed, a future that may never be worn.
"You're not his blood-sworn," Daisy murmured, her voice barely more than breath. "You don't have to—"
"You know I must," Bryn said, though he did not lift his gaze. "Just as I followed him through the Red Spring."
His throat tightened as his eyes traced the unfinished boot, the way the needle lay beside it, waiting for completion.
"Even if I don't return… he must."
The unspoken why lingered between them. Daisy didn't protest his decision, only crushed the lavender with a tighter grip. She didn't look at him, not even as he turned away.
Bryn knelt before Dobby, gathering her small frame in his arms, pressing his lips to her brow. She did not cry. She only pressed her nose against the door frame when he let her go.
She watched her father's breath mingle with the chief's as they shared a greeting. She watched as they debated over plans she could not yet understand.
Only when Hmu Hmo darted from the smokehouse did she whimper.
"I'm going too."
The boy stepped in front of Bryn, planting himself firmly in his path, chin lifted to meet his gaze.
"Madness!" Bryn roared, grabbing his arm and pulling him back with a force that made the boy stumble. "You're just a child!"
"I walked through those woods." Hmu Hmo shouted back. "Those monsters… they—" He swallowed, clenching a twisted root that hung from his neck, an amulet Dobby had woven for him. "You will need a guide."
He waited, breath short, as though willing Bryn to understand what had already been decided. "The chief has already agreed."
Bryn turned toward the chief, searching his face for doubt, for hesitation, for something that might undo this madness—but the man only nodded, solemn and steady.
Bryn exhaled sharply, jaw clenched. His hand shot out again, this time gripping the boy's arm with more force than he intended. "You stay behind me. Always. Do you understand?!"
The words tasted like ash, bitter and clinging—the same bitterness that had lingered the night his mother screamed in his ear, when he refused to put on those collars. His stomach twisted, curling into something strange, something he didn't know how to name. A sharp, absurd urge flickered inside him—to laugh, to cry—but he crushed it, forcing it down where no one could see.
"Understood."
After gathering a few men, sharpening some spears, and tightening some bows, the group marched toward the passage quietly. They didn't wave goodbye to those who stayed, and no one came out to send them off.
But every eye watched, holding them in sight for as long as the crater allowed. Praying, hoping—not only for their return, but for the illusion that they had never left at all.
As the last of them disappeared into the passage, Dobby traced a new figure in the frozen dirt—smaller than the others, all sharp angles and wild hair. Daisy watched as a single drop slipped onto the figure's head. She did not speak, nor did she comfort.