The m was much more hopeful than I think any of us expected. Flyt looked better immediately. Her cheeks had more color and there was visibly less tension in her shoulders. She sat at the table a out small moans of happiness as she ate Weren’s cooking.

  I sat o her and smiled “Sleep well?”

  She nodded and swallowed a mouthful of breakfast before turning to face me “Better than I have in a month or more.” She paused and then looked around for a moment, clearly thinking about something. After a brief silence she tinued. “I have nightmares, pretty much every night. About what happened, my home burning and my neighbors dying.”

  aused to listen, faces turning and hands stilled.

  She shrugged “I mean, that’s expected right? The rest of my group was mostly the same before we got separated so I’m not embarrassed. Last night they started up again, but the strahing happened.” she smiled softly and I could see real happiness leaking from her unhindered for a moment. “The sky fell, but in a good way? It turned into night suddenly and a storm started rolling in and the rain and thunder drowned out all the other sounds, and the stars… gods. It was like the sky grew arms and held me a everything away. I was ed up in stars.”

  Carmil, Jaina, and I shared a look and I put my hands together in silent thanks to Vei’Ryn. Thank you, thank you my Goddess. Thank you for helping her.

  “I woke up feeling so much better.” She turo look at me “Thank you so much, I know you had no reason to-”

  “Helping someone in need is reason enough.” I said as I gave her a small, friendly pat on the arm. “Besides, we’re going there anyway and the vardo isn’t as cramped as it seems.”

  Dekarru groaned as she half stumbled dowairs about that time and Weren quickly moved to help her to the table, setting her down oher side of uest from me. Flyt started to speak but the shaman held a hand up until the teacup Were before her was empty. The out a pleased sigh and turowards the elf.

  Flyt simply leaned over and hugged the old orc, squeezing her as Dekarru returhe gesture. “o tha was draining but I o rest anyway. Besides, Stareyes was right. You’re hair is absolutely lovely, so it was worth the effort to see it.” She smiled and patted the woman on the head.

  “It does need brushing though.” Carmil called out from the pit as she shoved a brush into Luvetra’s hand. Both Luv and Flyt stared at each other a bit nervously for a moment before my elemental tinued “Oh e now. Luvetra has the most gentle and nimble hands here, I swear it to you.”

  Brigg gruhat’s the bloody truth. Yer in luck she’s here ta help, the rest of us might tug hairs out if we find a knot.”

  Flyt nodded after a moment’s thought and shoved the st bite of food into her mouth before she stood and quickly made her way back. To me she seemed as though she was a bit scared but f herself tainst it. Something I think she probably had a lot of experieh retly. She sat in front of Luvetra with her back to the giant, so she couldn’t see Carmil kiss our love’s ned whisper reassurances in her ear.

  “L-let me know if it h-hurts.” Luv said before she started to run the brush through Flyt’s hair gently. The look on the elf’s face was incredible, Luv must be magic with her hands in more ways than I thought because Flyt’s features were awash in rexed pleasure within moments.

  I sat down in front of uest and smiled brightly “Luv’s touch is incredible, huh?”

  She groaned “Ooh gods yes, I’d want her hands on me every day if I were one of you~” then both she and Luvetra blushed heavily and I mostly fought back a ugh.

  “It is a very, very strong motivator to be part of this encve, I agree.” I said with a wink towards my tall lover.

  The vardo began to move after a few more minutes, Redagga whistling a happy tune from the open door of the driver’s bench as Briggavel went upstairs to tinue going over the scraps we’d purchased. She retty sure even the more busted bits I pointed out had salvageable parts, and she said there were things in ste that needed repairs and repts so she wao get through the pile quickly. Also because the lohere was a mess in their room, the less Red put out.

  The day turned out quite nice overall, a light raihe heat down enough to rex in and light traffic meant Luv could adjust tuest easier. Weren, Luv, Dekarru, and Jaina all sat arouer a bit to torture my brain with tagakra lessons, which Flyt found amusing. But mostly it was just a day to rex. Dekarru told me that once we got to the capital, things wouldn’t be bad, but they would be different enough that rexation would be more plicated.

  Flyt looked at me for a while after we took a break for lund just before I was going to ask her why, she tilted her head “Why Stareyes? Is it some nguage joke because of those sungsses you always wear?”

  The shaman ughed “No, it’s because of why she wears them. Got hit by a whammy a bit bad she looks funny now. You didn’t think the purple hair was dyed, did you?”

  I sighed and pulled the gsses off, putting them in their case aing them aside to keep one of us from sitting on them actally. Flyt’s own eyes widened “Woah. Those are beautiful. I get it now, Stareyes.” she nodded. “But what about the rest of you? Are niames a Path thing? Do you all have them?”

  Weren giggled and hahe elf a handful of died fruit as she plopped dowo her. “Not a Path thing, but most of us dga is Red, Briggavel is Brigg, Luvetra is Luv, I’m Wen, Dekarru is Mommy, though we only say that one when we’re moaning it.”

  Luv reached over and swatted the cook who was now giggling madly. “Behave. We h-have a guest.”

  Flyt just nodded “What about the others?”

  I shrugged “Me, Jaina, and Carmil are all new. Joined up just a few days back actually. Stareyes is just something Dekarru calls me, for obvious reasons. I don’t think anyone’s e up with niames yet.”

  “I guess I’m just more special than you.” she said, looking at me with a deadpan expression. There was plete silence for several moments before she snickered and everyone broke down with ughter at me.

  “Ooooh, you are a smart-ass I see.” she simply nodded and nibbled os.

  Much of the rest of the trip was warm and upbeat. Briggavel came doced a couple of aricraft items o ter after a few hrinning brightly “Wen! I fixed the fekkin bread maker! I also got that damn slow cooker you bought sed hand finally workin’.”

  “Oh fuck yes!” the cook rushed off to examine her ary devices with a wide grin.

  “Thank Esme, I’d have skipped the parts I found without her.” and suddenly I had an orc chef in my p kissing me and grinding in my p so hard I had to pull her bad subtly remind her we had a guest.

  “It’s no problem, just used a Skill to help my tribe. I know any of you would do the same.” I ughed as Wen climbed off of me.

  Flyt and Luvetra actually had a long talk in the er at one point, I tried not to eavesdrop but I still heard bits and pieces. They were bonding over the trauma of surviving aloer people tried to kill them. I was not happy about the trauma, but I was happy about Luv making a new friend.

  Dinner was amazing as usual, with Flyt eating even more than Luv once she was vinced she was allowed. Which did take Wen standing over the elf and asking if her cooking wasn’t good enough. Guilt the elf iing, I could think of worse pns.

  Afterwards Brigg patted my shoulder and had me follow her to get us moving again. As I sat on the driver’s benext to her I looked around and saw the mountains that stretched along my view in both sides. “Are we already in the valley?”

  “We are.” She got the bison moving and took a breath. “Be there in a few hours, settle in for the night outside the walls in an encampment, then ohe suns up we’ll head inside and hope shit doesn’t go to the abyss.”

  “Do you think it will?”

  She looked at me and reached out to squeeze my thigh. “Aye. Dekarru fight the shit storm hard as hell, but at least some of the elders are gonna be absolute bastards about this.”

  “Yay.” I huffed and leaned back. “You get through all of that junk?”

  “Aye, didn’t take that long to salvage the good bits and fix up what I could. Ya did damn fine, we have a surplus of spare parts for a bunch of stuff now, including the radio. Which, that’s fekkin important if you were unaware.”

  I smiled and leaned against the dwarf. “Mmph, tired of clothes already.” I muttered.

  She ughed “The seer was right, you are one of us.”

  “Hope I stay that way.”

  “Ya will, one way or another. Oh, look! ing over the ridge, we should see the city in the distance!”

  Sure enough, as we crested a hill I could make out the stretch of the valley ahead of us. There were rivers ing from nearly every one of the many peaks in the mountains that lihe nd, filling it with more meandering blue lihan I could t. And in every single ohat I could see were numerous ponds and kes. I could see a number of what might have been small vilges, a trading post or two, maybe a guard post, but they were all too far away to make details out and some might have just been unusual roations.

  But in the middle of it all was a massive greenish blot that had to be a city. I could make out what I guessed were walls around it. But mostly what I noticed was that the majority of what I could see was directly over water. “It’s floating, oh damn. It really is floating.”

  “Not all of it, but plenty. Don’t worry though, it’s safe. Got divine inscriptions on the floaty bits to keep them dry on top and the non floaty bits have deep, deep foundations.” She chuckled. “Also, the encve district is mostly a floatiion. So we go swimming once we’re there!”

  “Encve district?”

  “You didn’t think the capital would be hostile to a sub-culture that has one of their leaders in it, did ya?” She patted my shoulder. “So don’t fret yer speckled arse, we take it all off again soon enough.”

  “I’m still worried.” I admitted.

  “You’d be a fool not ta be.” she took a breath “But we’ll fight for ya. I swear it.” She then cleared her throat and shifted nervously “Particurly with uh… the issue of… um…”

  I turo look into her eyes “Just say it, I promise I won’t be upset, whatever it is.”

  She took a deep breath and sighed it out heavily. She was still blushing though “Me aalked and… we didn’t make a decisio but, well, we were wonderin’ about maybe… askin’ you to give me-, that is-, make me a mother.”

  I felt my heart in my throat. I slowly reached over and took her hand in mine. “I uand that ’t be easy to talk about. I’m hohat you’re even sidering me. But we all o think and talk about this a lot more before we decide anything.”

  She squeezed my hand and nodded “Aye, we do. I just, it’s somethin’ that would affect you so we decided to let you knoere discussin’ it and invite you to talk about it with us.”

  I leaned over and kissed her cheek. “Thank y, I’ll take it extremely seriously. I promise.” she blushed and smiled with a small nod. I think that was about as much talking as she could dht then, so we just sat in silence as the city slowly grew closer.

  It felt like something was ending. Not necessarily in a bad way, but things would be different tomorrow than they were every day before it. My time wandering these nds was likely doo oent or another and I didn’t know what to expect. The unknown didn’t scare me, not really. Too muy life was unknown and I wasn’t afraid of that as much as worried and annoyed. But the possibility of being separated from my tribe so soon after I found them… that did scare me.

  As the su down and we came close enough to pull into an area cleared for tents and caravans I was suddenly struuch it felt like that day at the train station, leaving the Hospital and the growing tension behind. Though this time I was walking into the tension, on purpose no less. But I felt optimistic about this. I had my new family with me and I knew we could take on the world together.

  End of Arc 2 – Not All Who Wander