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La Curandera

by

Dissident Love

copyright 2011

or maybe it's 2012

it's hard to know for sure

Chapter I - Just A Beginning

As far as towns went in this part of the world, the best that could be said of it was this: it certainly was a town. It had buildings, and people, and some of the people sold stuff to other people in those buildings. People were born there, people got married there, and people died there. Generally, that was enough, and it was left at that.

It sat low and dry and clustered along the western bank of the Keishan River. The river, of course, was dry, but old and forgotten habits die hard. Someone long ago had even built a bridge over the river, and in that strange way that people are good at avoiding thinking about, the bridge was well-used.

The noonday sun beat down on empty streets; all sensible business was being conducted indoors. Occasionally a huddled figure darted across the hard-packed dirt, kicking up little puffs of dust. High noon, even moreso than deepest midnight, was regarded as the time of spirits and susurrations.

Of course, life had to go on somewhere, and it was a lot more comfortable when you had a drink in your hand.

"Fish," the hulking figure in the ill-fitting jumpsuit was saying, "now there's a positively unusual word. Fish. F-f-f-f-fish. Say it slowly, you'll see what I mean. I mean, what the hell is a fish, even?"

The local pub was quite full, particularly for a weekday, but only two sat at the enormous polished bar. Every other chair at every other table was occupied, and the walls were periodically studded with a local holding a mug of ale. "A fish lives in the water," the smaller and infinitely more feminine patron said softly. "It's got scales and a tail."

That got a little chuckle from the rest of the pub, for although they were crammed in elbow to elbow, they paid no attention to one another. Their focus was ostensibly on their drinks, which they all stared at with seemingly curious concentration, but there was no mistaking the air of studied indifference; they were listening to every word the two seated at the bar were saying.

"Hah! Old Crimsey has scales and a tail. Is he a fish?"

She glanced over to the bespectacled old man in the corner, who was now trying to hide under his hat. "Crimsey's an iguana, I believe."

The enormous man slammed his drink down on the bar hard enough to leave a dented ring in the old wood. "My point! My point EXACTLY! Show me a fish, eh? Show me a fish! Would there be fish in the river?"

"Once," she said, taking a tiny sip.

"Bah, I still don't believe all that crap about there being rivers full of water. There'd be fish bones in there, wouldn't there?"

Odella sighed. There was just no reasoning with some people. "What do you think the river was full of then? Whiskey?"

He laughed. "They were full of people! They had real cars back then, cars that ran for hundreds of miles without stopping! Cities so big you could see them when you were still a day away! The rivers were full of LIFE!"

Belief was a tricky thing, she thought. People could believe anything if they tried, and believing contradictory things was no problem at all for many. Most of her acquaintance were perfectly able to believe nine impossible things before breakfast, and they were the reasonable ones. She didn't need to glance back at the crowd to know that, in spite of who was doing the talking, opinions were swaying in the breeze of ignorance.

"That's one way of looking at it, I suppose."

"F-f-f-f-fish. HAH. What a word. Better than wallop, I'd say." He took a long draught from his mug and sighed. "Still can't believe you came all this way just for little old me."

Odella pat his arm, her delicate paw looking childlike by contrast. The rugged, ragged wolf was nearly twice her height, and while he towered over the bartender, the petite coati could have rest her chin on the edge of the bar without slouching. "Well, sometimes you have to make an appearance for special occasions."

"Is today special?"

"Oh, yes. Executions are always special."

He laughed, a mirthful and hearty laugh that would have been perfectly at home at a big family meal. "Oh, right! That's today, isn't it? I had almost forgotten. They're hanging a murderer, aren't they?"

She took another sip of her lemonade and nodded. "Indeed they are."

"Small mercies, I suppose. No room in this world for that sort of thing."

"Very true."

"Do you come to all the executions?"

"No."

He nodded, as though that were answer enough. "I suppose you must make quite a stir whenever you saunter into a town, eh?"

"I never saunter."

The bartender, a wiry black jaguar with a greying muzzle, polished the same mug for the tenth time. Customs were customs, and he wasn't about to turn his back on this one, but he didn't have to like it. He glanced through the powdery windows at the front of the saloon, gauging the shadows, and nodded. He had a little more time, at least.

The wolf swirled his beer around, staring into its amber depths. "You sure? You got a good sauntering body on ya."

"I'm sure I would have noticed if I had."

He leaned down a little closer. "You know, I'm not doing anything for about twenty minutes, if you want to-"

His grin didn't falter in the slightest under her blowtorch glare, but she saw a flicker in his eyes, a recognition of... something. It wasn't much, but it banished any doubts she had held. He just shrugged, sat up and finished his beer. "Barkeeper!" he called jovially, as though he hadn't a care in the world.

The barkeep twitched once, but did not make a motion to refill the mug. He flipped his rag over his shoulder, wiped his palms on his vest, and looked over to a large porcine figure standing by the door, wearing the bronze shield of the marshall's office. "Can I give him another?" he asked slowly, as the inscrutable exhortations of his profession demanded.

The bailiff just shook his head. "No," he said simply. "He's on the wagon."

The bartender nodded, relief clear in his eyes that his part of the pantomime was over. He went back to drying the glassware that could not have possibly gotten any drier if they had been placed into a kiln, and tuned out whatever would happen next.

The tusked, bristle-haired bailiff thumped slowly over to the hunched wolf and his empty beer. "Come on, Vin. Time to go."

The moment seemed to stretch out forever. Ripples filled a dozen beer mugs as knuckles whitened. People prepared to duck a flying barstool. The entire assembled crowd seemed to pull away from the bar, as though the extra inch or two could mean the difference between life and death.

But Vin laughed, pounding the bar one more time and getting to his feet. Chains rattled and clanked, heavy forged iron links big enough for Odella to fit her thumb through. "I guess you're right. Can't be late! There'd be no party without me! Bailiff, pay the man, would you?"

The bailiff had paid the bartender the day before. "Whatever you say, Vin." They were nearly the same height, and the bailiff was clearly the more muscular of the two, but even if he practiced in the mirror every day for a year he could never match the casual, effortless miasma of malice that surrounded the big wolf.

Everyone watched the pair leave, swinging saloon doors squeaking in the dry air, and then shared a sigh of relief. People trickled back to the bar, grinning sheepishly, each one making excuses for why they had been nervous that PARTICULAR day, even though it had obviously been a perfectly safe, even routine, Last Drink. Odella found herself between Old Crimsey and a weatherbeaten but still surprisingly young-looking leopard, each one eager to refill their drinks. No-one seemed to notice her.

She waved her hand in front of Crimsey's face, but neither of his eyes tracked the motion. She shrugged, downed her drink, dropped a couple small, glittering coins on the counter, and headed out of the bar. She tried to saunter for the last few yards, but she wasn't sure she was doing it right; her tail kept slapping herself in the back of the head.

Drinks refilled for the last time before the big show in the town square, the bartender started to rack the bottles and collected the empty mugs from the polished countertop. Next to one unusually clean mug, he spied a little pile of strange coins and blinked in surprise.

Vin had been drinking the local lager, a reasonably terrible and bitter brew that he sold to people who were short on cash or luck, or both, and his mug went into the trash. This one was right next to where Vin had been sitting, though, and unless his nose was lying to him, it had recently contained wine.

He glanced at the door suspiciously, but then just shrugged and pocketed the coins. It had been a peculiar day.

---

The town square was a couple blocks away from the great broad crossroads that quartered the town. There was no real parkland for a hundred miles in any direction, but the aquifer that seeped and trickled it's way below the ancient dried riverbed supplied enough excess flow to keep a few hardy dwarf conifers alive. A few dozen stunted lumps of greenery dotted the perimeter of the wide open cobbled space, which most evenings was fairly well-attended with strings of music filtering through the air.

The minutes before sunset, though, when the last few virulently crimson rays of light streamed down from the horizon, the square had a much less pleasant purpose, though with a much better turnout.

Vin was led up the gallows steps, chains dragging along the worn wooden planks. Nearly the entire local population had turned up, though some of the men near the back were swaying more than others. Sitting right up front, roped off from the general masses, several tense, severe, and quite sober gentlemen stood in stolid silence.

"Vincent Leopold Modeski," said a tall, gaunt, nearly skeletal vulpine figure in a vertical black smock, "you have been found guilty of the premeditated and wilful murder of five... residents of our town."

"Whoa, hold on there, preacher man," Vin said jovially, reaching the top step, "I ain't even all the way up yet! Now, you wanna re-start, tell me what this is all about?"

"Shut it," the bailiff grunted, driving a heavy mesquite club into the wolf's kidneys. Vin grunted, but otherwise gave no response. His grin didn't even slip.

"For this," the preacher continued, "you have been sentenced to, upon the end of this day, be hanged by the neck from a rope until you are dead."

Vin put his hands on his hips and looked around, as though he were standing on the front porch of his own plantation and admiring the crops. "Well, it's a good enough evening for it, I suppose," he said, taking in the crowd magnanimously. "How you folks doing?"

Silence washed against him like the crash of a gong.

"Not big talkers, eh?"

The bailiff grabbed his shoulder and guided him roughly over to the trapdoor and the loosely knotted rope dangling above it. "That's enough," the swine said, another guard coming over to assist. "You can laugh it up all you want in a minute."

Vin stretched his neck out, helpfully guiding it through the noose. "Here, these things are real bitches, let me... there we go," he said with a grin, rattling his chains. "Do you need me to grab the lever? I could save you a trip-"

His words were cut off by an enormous fist smashing against his muzzle, splitting his lip. Vin's head snapped back, but the twinkle in his eye never left. He smiled again, blood trickling through his teeth, and winked. "Sorry."

The noose was hand-tightened, the bailiff yanking Vin's head roughly once before stepping back to stand with his hands at his sides. The preacher walked in front of the condemned, though keeping as much distance as he could, mangy hindpaws mere inches from the edge of the platform.

"May the sky above, the fire below, and the void beyond have mercy on your soul," he intoned.

"Hallelujah!" Vin managed to howl gleefully before the bailiff yanked back on the lever, bolts shot aside, the trapdoor yawned open beneath, and the rope snapped taut with a deep reverberating twang.

---

Odella reclined in the shade beneath an old dry rainbarrel, watching the proceedings. Hangings were a rarity, even in this generally lawless age. The last one had been years before, and the crowd had been considerably smaller; arson was impressive, but didn't really attack the heart of a town the way murder could.

She pulled her hat down low, cutting out the hellish light of the setting sun and focusing on the podium. The preacher, the bailiffs, and the huge, shadowy figure of Vin. She felt a little bit of remorse for Vin; the big man had never wanted this out of his life. Deep down, he'd been a good soul. She'd bought potatoes off of him before. He'd seemed nice.

And now...

The bailiff stepped back, and she untied the leather cords keeping the long bundle covered. A few tugs of greasy fabric revealed an enormous rifle nearly as long as she was tall. She picked it up, enjoying the weight and heft and the sense of imminent destruction, although she stomped on that last emotion. This was no time for fun. This was business.

Odella rested the gun atop the impressive and nearly horizontal upper slopes of her leather-clad bosom, sliding back the bolt and inserting a single, sparkling round. It chambered with a very satisfying click.

The rope twanged.

Odella stood up, slender body and bulbous bulk shifting heavily. "Showtime."

Below, Vin's body twitched and spasmed for a few seconds, torquing wildly like a leaping fish. Odella smirked at the mental image of the vicious killer below coming back as a fish. It made a sick sort of justice, these days. At length his convulsions ceased and she braced the stock against her shoulder.

r_ising out of the now-useless body, a grey smudge tinged red at the edge_

Odella sighted the cloud, tracking it as steadily and surely as a vulture tracks a dying tortoise. "Do you remember me?" she whispered, watching the blob pass through the preacher, moving down into the staring, expressionless crowd.

m_oving past the angry widowers, the mourning fathers, the looky-loos_

"I remember you," Odella breathed. No-one noticed the smudge. No-one else could see it. People shuddered when it touched them, rubbed their shoulders and wondered why they suddenly felt cold despite the stifling heat, and chalked it up to the unearthly stress of the situation.

a_nd through the mob, all of them so upset, minds hellish and chaotic_

Odella grimaced, seeing the spirit that had so recently inhabited Vin's body move deeper into the crowd. More and more people were finding themselves passing through her gunsights, something she had been hoping against hope she'd be lucky enough to avoid. "Not making this easy, are you."

those messy minds were no use to him, too knotty, no ways in

"Oh, no you're not, you little bastard," she hissed. Definitely wasn't making it easy on her today. Figured. Her little fingers tightened on the barrel, caressing the trigger. He needed to be closer. It wouldn't work unless he was closer. But if he was any closer than this... well, it was a very large bullet. Her window of opportunity was narrowing, though, and soon it would not become a chance at taking an innocent life, but a certainty.

b_ut this mind would be perfect, this mind was ripe, it was letting him in_

Odella squeezed the trigger. The enormous rifle cracked, driving her back an inch and blowing her hat high into the air. Most of the crowd, which had been slowly coming to life and murmuring quietly to itself, was shocked into silence by the explosion. A half-dozen screams and shrieks filled the air, though, as the specially-imbued round dug a furrow deep enough to hold a gallon jug.

Tense, lips quivering, Odella scanned the crowd. A panicked mother picked up her cub, clutching her tightly and patting her all over, searching for injuries. The little cougar cub was staring around dazedly and rubbing at her ear, which had been singed by the bullet's trajectory.

The bailiffs had thundered down the platform steps and were ushering the crowds out of the square, ordering everyone back to their homes. Several dozen men had drawn concealed firearms and were eyeing the rooftops suspiciously. Their gaze slipped off of Odella as though merely looking in her direction caused them discomfort. Unconcerned, she started to clean and re-wrap her rifle, waiting for the hubbub to die down.

A short time later, when the sun had finally dropped below the horizon, turning the sky a livid continuum of pink and indigo, Odella walked through the largely deserted square. Her rifle was strapped across her back, extending high above one shoulder and nearly touching the ground on the other, and she had managed to retrieve her hat. A passing couple, huddled close together and obviously trying to somehow spot something the law had missed, nodded to her politely and scurried onwards.

"Best wishes," she said softly to their retreating backs. It was tricky, she knew, walking so often between the worlds of the Seen and the Real. The Real world was lonely. The Truth was lonely. The Work was lonely. Sad little eyes stared longingly at the horizon.

But then she just shrugged, hefted the rifle again, and meandered over to the little dusty pit near where the cougar cub had been standing. Sauntering still wasn't coming easy to her, but she made a mental note to run it past Kenyon, see what he thought.

She knelt, potently-laden trousers forcing her legs out wide, brushed away some loose gravel and picked up the spent round. It still sparkled strangely, as though the brass bullet had been coated with diamond dust. Her little fingers turned it this way and that, admiring the fine craftsmanship.

"I told you I don't come to all the executions," she said softly. "But for you, I can make an exception."

it was a tiny prison, an impenetrable seashell, he rattled around

She brought the bullet up to her eyes, glaring with quiet fury. "Do you have any idea how close I came to shooting that little girl?"

i don't care, you should have scattered her brains all over the crowd

"I almost had to. But you don't care about that, do you?" Little pocks and scars marred the beautiful brass and its more exotic components, and it still smelled faintly of gunpowder and blood. It was warm to the touch, warmer than the rapidly cooling desert soil had been. "No. You don't care."

let me out of here, you slattern witch, or i will rend your flesh until

Odella stepped out of the world of the Real with a little whimper and beheld the simple, plain, rather dull-looking bullet in her hand. She opened the little pouch on her belt and dropped it in without a second thought.

"Can I go home now?" she whispered to the world around her, standing straight, tail erect, sniffing the wind. A breeze picked up momentarily, blowing dust around her bare feet. Another job well done, she thought, another ancient evil dashed from the face of the Earth, another life potentially saved. Do I get to sleep in my own bed?

She turned northwards, and the exceptionally curvy coati smiled.

"Thank you."

Chapter II - Home, Home On The Range

The town was far behind her now. Truthfully, Odella wasn't even sure what it had been called. There had been no sign on the way in, and she had decided that it would probably be prudent to hide herself from the perceptions of the locals. Sometimes she could breeze into a community and have wreaths of flowers laid quite literally at her feet, but given the sudden rash of gruesome murders it probably wouldn't have made anyone particularly enchanted by her presence.

Her little paws ached. She had been walking all night, using the weatherproofed rifle as a walking stick. She rather enjoyed the sparkling splashes of stars and the huge looming bulk of the moon stretching her shadow out before her, and under most circumstances she genuinely enjoyed walking through the world, but it had been a long couple weeks. She could practically smell her effervescent bath salts calling her, taunting her...

The sun was rising to her right, slowly but surely. The desert around her became less desolate, less foreboding. Distant hills and mountains acquired definition, syrupy golden highlights and deep velvety shadows. A stunted and scraggly cactus seemed to stretch and shift, becoming two distinct shapes as the rangy feral coyote stalked out from behind it.

Odella glanced at it once, but didn't break stride.

The coati herm would be extremely noticeable were she, in the traditional sense, actually noticeable. Her bushy and banded tail rose straight up behind her, ramrod stiff and swishing back and forth above a hat that was trying to keep her unruly reddish curls under control. She was slender, but that was really only apparent from behind; from the front she was usually defined by the almost ridiculously capacious expanse of her chest and the heavy, bouncing, swaying mass of her maleness. Trim legs strode swiftly beneath their bulk, and her upper arms were usually rubbing against the projecting sides of her breasts.

Long story short: it had been a long time since someone had noticed the color of her eyes.

They were blue.

The butte she was approaching looked breathtaking in the pre-dawn light. Nearly vertical sides towered more than two hundred feet above the scrubbed desert floor, but her destination was fortunately at the boulder-studded scree field at the base. Every year a little bit more of the butte cracked and split and tumbled away, and now it looked as though the volcanic plug of stone was simply forcing it's way up through a colossal gravel pit.

The coyote was matching her pace, weaving lazily from side to side, tongue lolling. Wild dogs usually weren't up and around at this hour, usually spending the early morning looking for a place to sleep the day away. Additionally, they also didn't usually hum.

"Morning, John," Odella said.

"Woof."

"You're not even trying, are you? Coyotes don't woof."

"Woof, I say. Bark. Yip."

She rolled her eyes. "Always half-assed, with you."

"Hey, you try speaking with flawless eloquence when you have bits of vulture stuck in your teeth," the coyote said thickly, lips not used to moving around the strange sounds. "I'm only being half-assed because there aren't any donkeys in the area. Then I could be whole-ass."

The coati's lips twitched. "Coyotes don't bark, either. The yipping might work."

"Meow."

"Oh, stop," she chided, scratching John's ears when he got close enough. "I was wondering if I'd see you today."

"It's my job, isn't it? To escort you safely through the dangerous and blasted lands?"

"It would be, if you've ever tried. You run away before the first sign of danger."

The coyote looked hurt, something the feral form was very well-suited to. "Safety first," he said. "Besides, you're a curandera. What the hell am I going to do, bite their toes?"

"If you're carrying any parasites or bacteria, that might come in handy," she said airily. "Give them a bit of a nibble, and then ten years from now when they're wasting away in a broken-down little shack, looking back on their life of crime and villainy, they can say I cursed them. It would do wonders for my reputation."

"A bikini would do that," the coyote chuffed, managing a little whistle at the end.

Don't kick him, she thought to herself. You could kick him, maybe you even should kick him, but don't do it. "It doesn't really do a lot for my credibility," she said at length.

"Maybe, but your fan club would be the largest standing army in the world."

He dodged the kick.

The distant eastern horizon was growing brighter and brighter, but the loose sandy soil of the desert around her was slowly acquiring chunks of rock the size of her head. The butte dominated the landscape in front of her, the very top of it seemingly ablaze in the rising sun's light. "Is the cave safe?"

John nodded. "Yup, no-one's camping in the area that I can smell, and I can smell pretty good."

"Not in my experience."

"Haa haa. If you feel like giving me a sponge bath..." John trailed off meaningfully, but Odella just stared at him quizzically. "Aww, crap, you don't know what sponges are, do you?"

Odella shrugged, her travelling outfit creaking against the strain. "Someone called me that when I was a kit and wouldn't go exploring the Dead Zone with them."

"Glad to see the language has survived," he said sarcastically. "It's a sort of soft, squishy thing, all full of holes, and you squeeze it to get bubbles, and naughty nurses are supposed to bathe guys like me with them."

Odella blinked. "For fun?"

"What the... YES, for fun!"

"That doesn't sound like much fun for the nurses. They have lives to save."

"What?! No, it's not that kind of... are you laughing at me?"

Odella hid her grin with a delicate hand, but the bouncing of her improbably wide and full bosom had nothing to do with her gait. "No," she said, but John's look of hurt persecution brought on a fit of snorting giggles. "Oh, Johnny, I know you miss the days before..."

"Yeah, yeah," the coyote said diffidently, speeding up and weaving in between the rocks that were now larger than he was. "The old days. I'll see you when you wake up, 'kay?"

"Don't be like that," Odella said, wondering if she had perhaps gone a little far. John had always endured her chiding with good grace and usually fired back faster than she could handle; something was on his mind today. She made a mental note to make him a treat when they got back to the homestead. "Just... take care of yourself, ok?"

"Fine," he said, tail twitching. He darted behind a boulder nearly the size of Odella's house, and when the coyote reappeared on the other side, his face was a mask of confusion. He looked up at her, eyes wide with fear, and darted off with such speed that gravel pitter-pattered against the armorlike tightness of her bodice.

She sighed. It was going to be a long week.

The cave at the base was familiar, but then again, they all were. She pulled a piece of chalk out of her pocket and added another slash on the smooth, flat rock well within the protection of the cave's interior, bringing the grand total to five. Funny, she thought, it didn't seem like that many.

Her wildly exaggerated hourglass shadow was projected onto the back of the short cave, but it was diffuse as the sun's rays hadn't reached the base of the butte just yet. Her little fist stifled a yawn, allowing the night's exertions to finally catch up with her. Odella settled herself against the back of the cave, piling her rifle and satchel into the limited space on her lap, and prepared to sleep.

The horizon was brightening noticeably now, waves of orange and yellow marching ever higher. In her comfortable bed at home it often took her hours to fall asleep, but it was a simple enough trick, one of the first she had learned, to force the body to oblige, even if only for a few seconds.

The sun crested the horizon, flooding the cave with blinding light.

The empty cave.

---

Odella walked slowly and unsteadily down the steep slope, twisting her torso side to side and trying to work the kinks out of her spine. The sky was purple, gunmetal clouds scudding in from the south. Another day done and gone.

Rising behind her was a hoodoo-studded mesa more than twenty miles across. Most of it's caves were east-facing, but there was one perfectly situated to capture the last glow of the setting sun. It sure beat walking all day, she thought, but Travelling was not without it's risks.

"John?" she called, rolling her neck and feeling the bones creak and pop. "You out there?"

Silence.

"Fine, be that way," she said, squaring her shoulders. This area was much more familiar to her, Grim Mesa dominating the region and visible for miles around. The nearly full moon cast strangely foggy shadows all around her, moving swiftly through the boulder field and out into the dry, dusty plains.

The moon rose higher and higher as she walked, rapidly covering the five-mile stretch of nothingness between Grim and the cracked, bony fingers of rock that marked the outer boundary of the Bloody Foothills. The land sloped up here, gently but insistently, a sprawling range of mounded hills and sundered valleys that few people entered willingly.

And yet, the path was surprisingly wide and well-maintained. The weather-worn signs this far our simply read DANGER! and DO NOT ENTER! and RADIACION! Signs like that were more of a lure than a deterrent these days, which is why the best defences were far less tangible.

Sweat starting to bead on her brow, she hiked higher into the hills, enjoying the way the limestone formations around her seemed like dribbly wax candles. Some of them looked like cake batter dripping off of a spoon, if the batter were dripping straight up. Kenyon knew more about geology than she ever would, and had once tried explaining metamorphic rock formations and how striations affected erosion, but Odella had gone cross-eyed. She just thought they were pretty.

Passing below an enormous overhang that Kenyon had dubbed The Really Big Fang, she unbuttoned the top buttons of her tight leather coat and began fanning herself with her hat. The Foothills were not for the faint of heart.

A huge metal billboard proclaimed UNEXPLODED MUNITIONS to the world, although most of the smaller letters below were completely illegible due to rust and strangely-colored scars. Radiation warning stickers were slapped up haphazardly on it, and she smiled at the splashes of 'blood' along the jagged lower edge of the sign.

"Nice touch," she chuckled, breathing hard.

The path branched. Off to the right, it narrowed and disappeared down into a short, deep valley, while off to the left it became considerably steeper. CERTAIN DEATH read the nearest sign. The skull at the base of the signpost helped to drive the point home. As she climbed the warnings became more and more dire, but experience had taught her that they wouldn't make any difference. Someone would always come stumbling in, and it was her job to send them stumbling back out again.

"Escalator," she puffed, chest heaving. "Next year. Or... rope lift. Or some... some sort of... truck." She leaned momentarily on a sign that read BEWARE!! BRAIN PARASITES!!, and tackled the final rise.

And then all of her cares and worries and strained muscles seemed to disappear. She propped herself up with her rifle and just spent several long minutes staring down at the the strangely idyllic hilltop bowl valley. At the heart was the mirrorlike little lake that welled up from springs deep underground, trickling away spiderlike into a dozen other little muddy sinkholes. Several neat and orderly gardens surrounded it like a patchwork quilt, and built against the isolated outcropping of rock was a ramshackle cabin made up of aged timbers and scrap metal.

A marble and gold palace filled with nubile poolboys would not have been more enticing to her at that moment.

She started down the gentle slope, basking in the scents of the gardens. The night-bloomers were really coming in nicely, and the pepper plantation had nearly doubled in height while she was gone. Well, it was certainly going to be a good year for chili. She licked her lips in anticipation.

Rough and slipping stone became well-groomed gravel pathways and then snugly-fit river rocks. Little reflecting pools and tiny waterfalls wandered in between the plots, and Odella couldn't hide a grin when she saw a little metal toy truck half sticking out of the meditation fountain.

She circled around to the cavernous shed leaning against the side of the house and hung up her well-wrapped rifle alongside several other oddly similar shapes, and dumped her satchel out into the laundry bin. There would be ample time to sort it out the next morning. Right now, her aching bones needed a good lie down.

The front door hardly whispered, and she closed it gingerly behind her. The entire main floor of the house was one huge room, living and dining and kitchen and a dozen other uses all rolled together, and there were signs of the overlap everywhere. She kicked at a red-headed ragdoll and signed happily.

"Ho-" she started.

A shaft of light stabbed down from above, briefly blinding her. The sound of small clawed feet filled her senses and then strong arms were all around her, attacking her, pulling her down, down.

"MOMMY!"

Odella squealed with delight, collapsing onto the creaky but reliable overstuffed couch. She launched a counterattack, tickling at the exposed flanks of her offspring and eliciting screams of sleepy glee. "HELP! Tiny paws, everywhere! Someone save me!"

She blinked the afterimages away and saw Kenyon standing above, leaning against the railing that overlooked the living room and beaming the ancient flashlight back and forth. A small foot landed on her tail and she squeaked, rolling sideways and pinning a small, wriggling figure with her chest. "Hah! Got you, evildoer!"

"ACK! No fair, mom! You promised no boobs!" Briar flailed wildly but the little foxgrrl could not free herself. "She's fighting dirty! Get her!"

Strong hands gripped her shoulders and pulled, but the giggling woman was far more massive than the three kits put together, even if all that extra weight was up front. "You will never defeat me!" she cackled.

The stairs creaked and groaned under Kenyon's bulk. "Dear," a soft, deep voice said patiently, "I don't think she can breathe."

"Oh, she's fine," she said with a wink, but allowed herself to be dragged upright. "There you go, sweetie."

A petulant foot kicked the side of her breast, but the tightly-bound bosom was tough and Briar nearly bounced herself onto the floor. "Not fair," she said again, pouting.

"Oh, sweetie," Odella purred, giving the girl a kiss between her ears and pulling the older two in for a hug. "I missed you all. How have... Oh, my goodness! You've grown! You're so big now!"

Pueblo stood up proudly, all of five feet tall. "Dad says I can crush rocks with my head soon!"

Odella glanced sidelong at the grinning Kenyon. "Oh, he did, did he?"

"Yeah!" Pueblo, other than the unusual stripiness of his coloring, looked like any other teenaged foxboy, which only made it more remarkable when she remembered he had only turned eleven the month before. Another few months and he'd be taller than her. "You know the really big rock in the tomato patch, the one with the white stripes? I can hold it over my head!"

She nodded, impressed. "Good! With any luck, it'll knock some sense into you. And what about you, Zora? Cracking any boulders yet?"

The middle child was considerably smaller than Pueblo, though much closer to what an average foxgirl would look like. She was trim and slender, and would probably stay slender as an adult, something that Odella was occasionally jealous of, but they did share the same coppery curls. "No. I ate an aurora pepper!"

"Oh, really? Was it tasty?"

"I barfed!" she said proudly.

"Well! Isn't that special!"

Kenyon scratched the back of his head. "I told her not to do it," he said slowly.

"It's fine, it's fine. Gotta learn sometime." She ruffled the older girl's head lovingly. "Gonna do that again?"

"Yes!"

Briar clutched the red-headed ragdoll closer to her little body. Although clearly vulpine, she shared more than a few attributes with her mother, notably the unusually long and straight stripey tail, the more delicate muzzle, and the faint swells that indicated a herm in early bloom. "Did you do good?" she asked.

Odella cocked her head. "Yeah," she said at length, "yeah, I think I did."

"Did you kill anyone?"

"No. Definitely not." She had to stop herself from adding, this time.

_"_Shoot anyone?"

Trickier. "Not really," she said.

Briar smiled, a small crooked smile that worried Odella. It was a smile that knew too much. "I hope whatever it was, it deserved it."

The woman smiled sadly, beheld all three kids in their loose linen pyjamas, and hugged them close, squeezing her eyes shut. "I'm back, and that's all there is to it," she said thickly, not wanting to let go. "But," she continued, her voice filling with suspicion, "that doesn't explain why you three aren't in bed."

Three arms immediately pointed to Kenyon. "Traitors," he chuckled.

"He sat in the attic watching out for you and he woke us up when he saw you!" Zora announced.

"How did you know I'd be home tonight?" Odella asked wonderingly.

Kenyon shrugged. "Didn't."

There was a long, hug-filled silence. "Have you been staying up every night?" she asked, eyes wide.

"Not... every night," he said slowly.

And that was him all over, she realized. He would cook and clean and work and play with the kids all day while she was gone, and then stay up all night waiting for her return, just to surprise her with sixty seconds of tickling and reuniting. And he'll do it again.

"Off to bed, you kits," she grinned, standing up. "It's still really late, and you all are going to have so-o-o-o many chores tomorrow."

"Awwwww!"

"There's millworms all through the tomato patch, there's toys in the fountains, and I can see that someone has shoved a couple hundred toys underneath the couch, the yarn chest and the woodpile." Almost on cue, a small tin soldier chose that moment to topple sideways from it's position between two split logs, clattering to the floor.

Kenyon chuckled. "I told you it wouldn't fool her."

"Awwwww," they chorused again, but with polite resignation. She hugged them all one last time and then watched, heart swelling fit to burst, as they tromped up the stairs and vanished into the huge room they all shared. Briar's paw emerged, waving one last time, and then the door was closed with a click.

A bouncy rubber ball rolled out of the woodpile and struck the tin soldier with a squeak.

"They really did try to make the place look nice for you," Kenyon offered.

"Oh, I know," Odella laughed, rolling her neck and feeling it pop. "And they did a pretty good job, but it always amazes me that they haven't figured out it's not going to work on me."

"I don't think they do it because it will ever work on you," the huge fox said softly, "I think they do it because they like testing your boundaries. For instance, you didn't notice the dolls-"

"-the dolls that are stuffed behind the drapes?"

Kenyon just winked. "Had to let them think they got away with one?"

"I didn't want to crush their spirit," she said affectionately. "Always keep striving."

The room was still lit only by Kenyon's flashlight forming a luminous patch at their feet and filling the space with a faint white glow. Odella smiled and shuffled her feet, fiddling with one of the pouches on her belt. "You didn't stay up every night, did you?"

"Enough," he replied. "Had a good feeling about tonight, though."

"You and your feelings," she said, chuckling briefly before coughing nervously. "Well, I'm glad you did."

"Me, too."

There was a distant shuffling of beds being climbed into, but otherwise the house was silent. Every time, Odella thought to herself, berating her spineless-ness. Every time you come home it's like this, you stupid woman. Go! He's right there! He's right in front of you!

"Were the kids ok for you?"

"Zora and Pueblo got into a swordfight with the big ladles, and Briar's taken to dropping little things down the hole, but otherwise they're-"

"Briar was near the hole?!" Odella snapped. "Did she have a safety line on?"

"No, she was just sitting and talking to herself and-"

"Didn't you stop her? You know I don't want them anywhere near there!"

"Dell, it's safe," he said slowly. "They know not to get too close. They're smart kids."

"I'm going to go talk to her," she said, biting back harsh epithets. "She needs to know that's not acceptable behaviour." Hands clenched tightly she moved to pass Kenyon, but he shifted sideways to block her. As big as the room was, he could make a very effective wall.

"It's fine, really," he said, hands up placatingly. "She's in bed now, don't go waking her up just to get mad at her."

"She can't go near the hole!" she spat, muzzle trembling. "Don't you understand that? They can't! I don't even like it when YOU go down there! How can I go again, knowing you'll let them wander off and-"

She could have stopped him. She could have easily dodged his hands, she could have knocked him down any of a dozen ways, she could have pushed aside his powerful arms as easily as Briar could push a tomato vine out of her way. Even after all these years, she was a little bit surprised when that little black ball within her stayed quiet, and she felt wretched to know that Kenyon never doubted it for a moment. He gripped her arms, huge paws nearly enveloping her from elbow to shoulder, and picked her up like a doll. The flashlight dropped to the floor and rolled a short distance, throwing crazy shadows around them.

"I would never let them wander off," he said, as always, softly. "And they know not to. We're fine, honey."

Her feet kicked once, uselessly, and then she sagged in defeat. "I know," she mumbled. He lowered her gently. She rubbed at her arms when they were released, hoisting them above the level of her bosom to actually reach. "I'm sorr-"

And then she was lifted high into the air once more, crushingly huge arms wrapped snugly around her, his lips pressed to hers. And this is why I love you, she thought dreamily, twisting her body around and trying to hook his hips with her legs. He didn't need to be so gentle with her, but he always was. And he always would be.

One arm slid down to support her rump and she managed to wrap her legs around his midsection, her incredible hermness rubbing warmly against his belly. She managed to extricate her arms from his embrace and gripped his head firmly, dragging him closer still. A muffled groan escaped his lips and she could feel him grinning in the darkness.

"You looked like you needed a hug," he managed, which wasn't easy considering she was still very much trying to suffocate him with kisses.

"Less talking, more loving," she said quickly, heaving herself higher on his body.

Odella was average sized for a coati, or at the very least average height. Kenyon, though, put most people in mind of a wild bear that had undergone some serious cosmetic procedures, and some of the locals beyond the Foothills still refused to believe he was a fox. Nearly two feet taller than his wife, he was broad and heavily muscled and it was only conjecture that somewhere between his shoulders he possessed a neck.

Yet despite his colossal size, he was the gentlest person Odella had ever met, and she seriously doubted he had an angry bone anywhere in his body. One time, on a shopping trip to the pleasantly crime-free township to the north, a drifter had attempted to stab Kenyon and make off with his wallet. Odella had found her husband quite safe, pinning the would-be mugger to the wall with one enormous fist and engaging him in polite conversation. Gods above, the huge fox had been trying to convince the man to try stage magic, impressed by the speed of his attempted attack.

But that didn't mean he was entirely without passion. He growled deep in his throat, and clearly didn't need any more direction. Still carrying her and noticing her weight as much as he'd notice a particularly heavy sweater, he padded softly up the steps and brought her to her much-needed bed.

Chapter III - Where The Heart Is

"Did you hear anything?"

"Not much. They were being pretty quiet."

"Mom was yelling before they came upstairs."

"She always yells when she gets back from Work."

"She's trying so hard to be nice. She wants more than anything to be the sort of mom that's in storybooks."

Both older siblings turned to look at Briar, who was sitting up in her little bed and making her little stuffed water buffalo dance gaily on her sheets. Pueblo was eleven and Zora was nine, and they each had several years experience trying to understand just where Briar came up with some of her observations. So far, no luck. "She is nice."

"Of course she is."

Pueblo and Zora exchanged glances, and shrugged. That's just Briar. "Well, anyways," the eldest continued, shuffling sideways out of bed and opening up the draped, flooding the spacious open-timbered room with early morning light, "at least they were quiet when they went to bed."

"You promised to tell me what they do when I was old enough!" Zora said, thumping her mattress.

Pueblo blushed and glanced at his feet. "You're not old enough yet. Maybe when you're ten."

"You said last year you'd tell me when I was older!"

"And you'll be even older next year. Trust me, you don't want to know."

"Yes I do!"

"Just... not yet, ok? Come on, who wants some breakfast?"

Pueblo led his sisters out onto the little landing that overlooked the hastily-cleaned living room and marched them down to the kitchen. As their mother's trips away from home became longer and more frequent and Kenyon spent more and more time sleeping in, the eldest kit had taken it upon himself to look after the girls, and they had developed their own little morning routine.

"Toast?" he asked, starting off the pantomime.

"Oatmeal!" Briar cried. "With honey!"

"Blueberries," Zora said.

"Honey!"

"Blueberries!"

Pueblo had already restoked the embers in the bottom of the heavy cast-iron stove and was shovelling in larger and larger pieces of kindling, heating up the pot of water that he had placed on top the night before. In a matter of minutes it would be steaming, and with any luck he could head off the argument before it progressed to the biting stage.

"We had honey yesterday!"

"No, we didn't, we had apple chunks yesterday because we're running low on honey."

"If we're low on honey, we can't have it today, can we?"

"We're going shopping tomorrow, we can get more! I want honey TODAY!"

He rolled his eyes and scooped a measuring cup of oats out of the heavy porcelain container at the end of the counter; oats were a staple of the household, and one of the few foods they could buy in bulk. "You guys are going to wake up mom, you know."

Two pink tongues stuck out at him, and he just shrugged. "Just saying. So, honey?"

"Yes!"

"No!"

The argument continued, as it always did, but it was easy enough to steer. They'd both be happy with whatever they were served, and secretly Zora suspected that Briar was just arguing to make the older kits feel reassured; when she was younger, Briar was almost eerily silent, speaking only when absolutely required and even then in a remarkably adult fashion.

The house was well, if haphazardly, built, and the vaulted kitchen shared a small portion of wall with the parent's bedroom. High above the breakfast fracas Odella was leaning against a small mountain of pillows, fingers laced behind her head, smiling to herself. Kenyon shifted his weight slightly and the enormous overstuffed mattress heaved and sagged like a shifting sand dune. "At least they waited until the sun was up," she said, patting his belly.

"Mmmmhmmmm," he mumbled, eyes still closed. He pulled a pillow over his head and resumed snoring.

Odella chuckled and planted a kiss on his shoulder. The big fox raised his hand, waved it once until he found her exposed breast, gave it a fond squeeze, and then sagged bonelessly against the sheets once more. "Oh, fine," she murmured into his pillow-helmet. "You sleep in. You had a long night."

His tail started to wag, but otherwise he gave every indication of still being asleep.

She slipped out from under his limp arm and managed to escape the quicksand-like embrace of her bed. She didn't know how many beds Kenyon had sacrificed to make the monstrous mattress, and she didn't really care. Some of her fondest memories involved that bed, and she never felt truly safe without it. Not because it was so comfortable (and it was), but because of the simple requirement that, to be in that bed, she had to be in that room, in that house, with her family close by. Anything else was simply... not good enough.

Kenyon peeked out from underneath his pillow and watched his strange, unique wife walk naked through the sunlight peeking in around the drapes. Growing up, he'd never had much trouble attracting women. He was, quite without trying, the biggest and strongest in his town, and had never earned a reputation for being particularly intelligent. A sizeable portion of the available women had found their way to his bed, and no small number of married women, but to him it had just been an enjoyable end to a hard day's work, no more. Luckily, no-one had ever asked more of him.

But then he'd left home to find his fortune, secured his stake in the Foothills, and... there was Odella.

She looked just as beautiful now as she had the day he had awoken in her arms, gently feeding trickles of water to his parched and bleeding lips. She had been mercy personified, ministering to his many, many wounds, and then when he had regained his strength, he had discovered so many more wonderful things he could do in the company of a willing woman. She looked to be no more than twenty years of age, full in the flush of her youth, but they had been together nearly that long. In another twenty, would she still look so perfect?

To him, she would.

He felt himself react to the sight of her naked body, but hopefully the blankets heaped around his hips would keep his little secret safe. Walking towards the wardrobe he could still easily see the light gray fuzz of her sac swaying side to side, just below the ruddy inviting curve of her rump. He admired the straight line of her tail and then, as he had nearly every morning for the last couple decades, licked his lips when he saw the silvery fur of her breasts projecting to either side, well beyond her upper arms.

She paused, cocked her head and seemed to sniff at the air. Odella spun (slowly, in deference to her centre of gravity) and looked straight at Kenyon. "Don't you have enough pictures of me?"

He twitched beneath the sheets, and realized that they weren't hiding his arousal nearly as well as he'd hoped. "Never enough," he rumbled.

"Pictures?"

"You."

Odella had done incredible things in her life, and he only knew a handful of them. She had once taken on a very angry militia who were caught up in a witch-hunting frenzy, and sent them all running. She had called lightning down from a cloudless sky and frightened off a black-scaled wurm that had been devouring the cattle in a far-off village. He had watched her drive her bare hand into a raging bonfire and, somehow, extinguish it without burning a single hair.

And yet, at that single word, she blushed. Her muzzle dipped down and she scratched nervously at her cheek. "Aren't you supposed to be asleep?"

"Later." He tugged the pillow aside a little bit to get a better view of his wife from the front, a sight that never failed to make his blood boil. Kenyon was a big boy, built on a scale that was usually reserved for draft horses, and yet her copper-colored sheath dwarfed his own. It could have easily been mistaken for a third thigh, and it was always a shame when she struggled into her crushingly tight travelling clothes. Her waist was slender enough for him to get both hands around, and seemed wildly insufficient to support her upper body.

And there lay her second miracle. He'd watched her assemble her corsets, putting as much care and effort into them as she put into her collection of firearms, and for good reason. Most 'overly' buxom lasses only had to worry about two breasts; Odella's three put every other woman he had met to shame. She could, with some effort, touch her hands together in front of her, but he much preferred when she allowed herself to breathe free.

She wiggled her hips and laughed, spectacular body jiggling. "You worry me," she said lovingly, swinging back around and rummaging around in the wardrobe until she found an enormous black silk robe. She tied it around her waist, making her resemble an hourglass filled with volcanic sand. "Staring at naked ladies all the time... it can't be good for you."

"Hardly ALL the time," he replied, tail thumping.

She sighed, bosom bouncing several inches. "I know, the Work has been... asking a lot, lately."

He shrugged. "It needs to be done," he said simply.

She clenched a tiny fist. "I know, I just wish it sometimes needed me to spend more than a week at a time here. Honestly, I'm going to spend all of today just purifying the spring again. One whole day, gone."

"We understand. You do so much, Odella, for everyone. I know there's more than me what needs you."

"But the kids-"

"The kids, dear, couldn't be prouder. They go to sleep each night, wondering what ancient evil you're defeating, wondering what festering plague you're curing, what rampaging horse you're slaughtering."

"Slaughtering?!" she gasped.

Kenyon laughed. "Pueblo makes up some interesting stories, I tell you what. His last one had you riding a winged horse made up of smoke and lightning, and you were waving a broadsword. With one paw." Her jaw dropped, and he laughed again. "I know what you're thinking, but it makes the girls happy, and I think it makes him happy, too. If that's what they think you're doing, and you come home just fine every time, what power in the world could ever take you away?"

You don't want to know, Odella thought, heart thumping. I wish I didn't. "Maybe just ask him to tone it down on the slaughtering, ok? You know I don't like violence." Technically, not a lie. "Are you going to get out of bed?"

"Me?" he asked in mock surprise. "Of course not. I'm asleep. I was up late."

She purred as she walked by his side of the bed, trying to put a saunter into her hips but still not sure if she was getting it right, and lovingly caressed his thigh. "Mmmm, indeed you were. Kept me up for hours."

The hulking fox shivered, and she could almost hear his grin. "Is that a complaint I hear?"

"Hell, no," she whispered, giving his rump a quick smooch before heading for the door. "I'll tell them to keep it down. Big boy like you needs his rest."

She paused at the open door, but the only response was a gentle snore. "Doofus," she purred, wondering again how she could have ever gotten so lucky, closing the door behind her.

Odella walked into the kitchen just in time to see Zora bounce a blueberry off of Briar's head. The tiny kit's eyes filled with pre-adolescent fury and she instantly retaliated with her little stuffed water buffalo which struck her sister's face with a faint squeak. Zora recoiled, inhaling and preparing to escalate.

"Briar! Zora! Pueblo!" Odella snapped.

"What did I do?" Pueblo asked, stirring the oatmeal.

"Nothing!" Odella shouted. "I just like saying your names!"

All three kits relaxed and rushed her, piling up around her and hugging her so hard their arms ached. "Mommy!" Zora cried, forgetting the fruit-based warfare altogether. "We missed you! We didn't get enough hugs last night!"

"There's never enough hugs for you," Odella chuckled. She couldn't see either girl beyond the curve of her chest, but Pueblo, who was growing like a weed, was hugging her from the side and resting his head against her shoulder. "Goodness gracious, Pueb, look at you! You're going to be bigger than dad in no time!"

"Awww, not that big," he said.

"Do I smell oatmeal?"

"With blueberries!"

"Honey!"

"Blueberries!"

"Honey!"

Odella glanced at her son, who just rolled his eyes. "Every morning," he said, moving back to stir the pot before the oats burned. "We've got a little bit of both, and now that you're back we can go shopping tomorrow. We didn't want to go in case we missed you, so we've been low on some supplies."

"No kidding," she agreed, moving over to the cupboard and fetching the coffee pot. "Salt canister is almost empty, cornmeal is completely gone, and the coffee... well, ok, the coffee is still full because your dad believes it's a dangerous, but still. Oh, wow, we're out of butter, too."

"We've had chili five times this week!" Zora said proudly. "Daddy and Pueblo had a contest over who had the loudest f-"

"Zora!" Pueblo said, stirring madly.

Odella covered her grin with her sleeve. "Well, that does sound exciting," she said, "but I think that this is a definite, nay, dire, emergency. I don't want another contest to take out the windows."

Briar snorted and giggled. "Gross."

Odella carefully measured out two scoops of coffee, pondered for a moment, and then added a third heaping spoonful. She might have just spent a lot of time in bed, but she hadn't gotten all THAT much sleep, after all. "So we'll definitely go down to Bayside tomorrow," she continued, "and do some shopping. I peeked at the laundry pile, and at least four people in this household need some new clothes."

Zora and Briar perked up instantly. "I want a black dress!" the elder girl said. "With shiny bits on it!"

"Why?"

"Pueblo says that's what you wear when you face the thundering hordes, a dress made out of midnight, with stars all over it!"

Odella glanced sidelong at her son, who was studying the oatmeal so intently she wondered if he had just discovered a new type of intelligent life in the pot. "I don't wear that dress EVERY time," she said slowly. "It's hell to clean. But I'm sure we can find you something nice."

"Yay!"

"Briar? What about you?"

The smallest kit plucked at her nightie. "Can I get some clothes like yours?"

"I don't think they have that many dresses made out of midnight in Bayside, sweetie, but-"

"No, I mean the ones you wore yesterday. The leather ones."

Odella stared, and she wasn't alone. Pueblo and Zora looked at their youngest sibling as though she were crazy, and their mother had to stomp on a little flicker of fear. "Why, honey? They're not that comfortable, I just have to wear them when I travel, because they don't wear out."

"They smoosh your boobs so you look like you only have two really big ones, too," Briar said with the innocent matter-of-factness that young children can bring to bear so effortlessly. "And they look tough. My dresses get snagged on things when I explore."

"Explore?" Odella repeated, knowing all too well what she meant.

"Yeah! There's cool rocks and animals and bones and metal bits all around in the hills, and I watched daddy go down the Hole a few times, and-"

"Briar, you c-" Odella started, then bit her tongue. Remember, she thought to herself. She takes after you more than you want to admit. Are you really going to tell her to stop doing something that's been harmless so far? "You... need to be careful when you're exploring. There's dangers, outside of our little valley."

"Oh, mom, relax. I know my way around. I'm not a kid anymore," she said reasonably, in defiance of every available piece of evidence. "I found a bullet the other day! It had blood on it! It was in a skull, but there weren't any extra holes in the skull. Just the regular ones. So I guess he got shot in the eye."

The only sound for several seconds was the soft, moist glorp glorp of boiling oatmeal.

"That's nice," Odella said at last, ladling some water from the heavy metal cistern into the coffee pot.

"Or the ear. Or maybe in the mouth," she continued, as though listing her favorite types of fruit. "I suppose he could have killed himself, but then where did the other skull come from? I didn't see any more bullets."

"That's not really kitchen talk," Odella said, pushing the coffee pot onto the hot plate as Pueblo moved the bubbling oatmeal to the table.

"Ok, I'll show you after."

"The spot?"

"No, the bullet and the skull! They're in the garden now."

Odella kept her gaze firmly on the coffee pot. "That's very creative," she said, wishing she could settle her pounding heart. "We're going to talk later about leaving the valley, ok?"

Briar sighed. "Fi-i-ine, mom, sorry," she said resignedly.

The three kits ate in silence, which was a small miracle in itself. Pueblo handed out the blueberries and honey to whomever wanted them (each girl ended up using both), and enjoyed his own with a heaping serving of salt and pepper, just like his father.

"I don't mind you exploring," Odella said at last, "honestly. I explored a lot when I was little, and it's important to do things for yourself. I just can't help but worry."

"I know, mom. That's your job."

Odella blinked, and chuckled softly. "I suppose that's true. I'll worry about all of you, forever. Long after you've grown up and gone off to change the world and you're wearing your own star-studded dresses made of midnight. Or longcoats, Pueblo, don't worry, I didn't forget you."

The coffee started to burble in the pot, but she took the time to walk around the table and hug each of her kits tightly, leaning to far forwards she was in danger of toppling.

When she got to Briar, the little herm smiled her knowing little smile and said "We'll make you proud, mommy."

"I know you will, honey. I know."