Mahrya Dragonsbane--Retired.

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Part One.

Four cases of protein pellets, a brat, a sack of sugar ...

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                   It was summer in the Borderlands, and Mahrya Dragons-bane was no longer in a good mood. In fact, the tall woman standing over the glaring brat could even be said to be ominous as she fixed a glare of her own at the shopkeeper standing just a few paces away. "What do you mean, 'here you go', Kelli?" she demanded, her husky voice sharp with irritation as she planted her hands on her hips and glared at the teen with eyes that had made dragons flinch. "My order--and I'm not going senile quite yet no matter what Larissa says—did not include one black-eyed brat!”

                   The brat in question made a spitting sound--managing somehow to look exactly like a small black cat hissing at a dog—and tried to mumble something through the rag stuffed in his mouth. Neither Mahrya nor the shopkeeper had any doubt that it was something foul despite the words themselves being unintelligible--the ferocious look in the brat's jet-black eyes was enough to convey meaning.

                   Mahrya gave him a push with one booted foot, not enough to hurt but enough that he fell sideways onto the floor. He'd been bound hand and foot as well as gagged so he couldn't resist, but the sounds coming through the gag rose in venom and strength. “Just where does it say that I get the thief who's been stealing merchandise, Kelli?!” she demanded, still glaring at the young shopkeeper through narrowed eyes.

                   He—secure in the knowledge that she wasn't really angry, and she'd never attack one of her own villagers—crossed his arms across his chest stubbornly and matched her gaze. Almost twenty years younger than Mahrya—closer to the bound brat in age than her—his family had been running the store in Mahrya's village for more than three generations. His older brother had been a Delver with her before a Naga had caught him, and because of that, Mahrya considered him a part of her family and allowed him special privileges. Now, the copper-haired teen was taking full advantage of it as he gave her a look.

                   “You're the landholder; it's your duty to take care of problems like this,” he said. “Use him as extra rationing for the Feather-rats or something--I don't care,” he finished bitingly, transferring his look towards the bound brat on the floor. The brat was currently engaged in attempts to fend off Mahrya's Dark Snitch, Gretchen, but spared enough time to return the look with a glare of his own. Their hostility was clearly mutual.

                   “For pity's sake; I'm the landlord, not the landholder! It's two different things, and I wouldn't even be that, if that pack of fools hadn't voted me in as such!” Mahrya cried in clear frustrated annoyance, throwing her hands up. “And even if I were, it wouldn't mean that--”

                   She caught sight of Gretchen picking the struggling brat up by his ropes, and quickly snapped, “Drop it, Gretch,” before continuing,

                   “--it wouldn't mean that I'd have to take care of every petty theft and grievance in the village! Let the elders handle him!”

                   Kelli looked stubborn, his stance not budging a bit. “And you think they'll handle him?” the teen asked skeptically. “Don't you think we tried that? I mean, two weeks!” he exclaimed in uncharacteristic heat, holding up two fingers and shaking them at Mahrya. “Two weeks he's been here, and in that time, the village has been attacked by wild dogs twice, four buildings have burned down, I've lost five hundred credits worth of goods to vermin and the brat (that's not counting your order of Ta-oya blankets he's ruined), and there's seven people sick—one of them with Malaria, MALARIA, if you can believe it! Not to mention the entire town's infested with mice, and the chickens have all gone feral. He's like a bloody Harbinger of Doom!”

                   He was quiet a moment, then shrugged and added on a offhand note, “Plus, he keeps escaping.”

                   Mahrya eyed him. Part of her was surprised at his list—she hadn't known they were having such troubles and as the town's supposed landlord, she'd have expected them to complain to her—but most of her was wryly amused at his obvious manipulation. She snorted, then gave him a dry look. “So you're giving me the Harbinger of Doom?” she asked, her voice full of irony as she unconsciously altered her stance till she was again standing with feet spread confidently beneath her with her hands on her hips.

                   Kelli snorted, once more his normal, cool self. “It should be easy for you if you're not going senile,” he said.

                   Before Mahrya could reply to that, a quavery voice said from the back of the store, “It'll be good for you, Dragons-bane, what with your man gone and all.”

                   They both turned to look as a wrinkled old man made his way from the depths of the store, leaning heavily on a battered ivory cane shaped like twisted horns. He was short, his head barely coming even with Mahrya's waist and not much higher on Kelli, and the cane was nearly as tall as he was. Kelli's eyebrow rose in a dubious expression at the sight. “Gr'pa Jacob ...” he started, voice trailing off before he'd said anything more.

                   “Bah,” the old man said derisively, shaking the cane threateningly at the teen as he came around the counter. “Don't you 'Gr'pa Jacob' me, boy. I can still wup your tail anytime I please.”

                   “That is not the issue, Gr'pa,” Kelli sighed, running a long-fingered hand through his thick hair. It was easy to see the family resemblance despite the wrinkles, spiky gray hair, and height difference; they both had the characteristic Shipko long fingers and mis-matched blue and green eyes. “What are you doing here? I thought you were supposed to be with Suz and Tira today.”

                   The old man chuckled and looked inordinately pleased with himself, by which Kelli and Mahrya both correctly deduced that he had escaped. Shipko men were shopkeepers, true—there was always one in every generation suited to take over the business—but they were also notorious tricksters and womanizers. Glib tongues worked as well charming women as they did with customers.

                   Kelli would seem to be the exception to the rule—cool and quiet, almost studious, he'd never found a girl that interested him as far as Mahrya knew. It had been obvious almost since birth that he would be the one to inherit the Ryouzou Emporium, as few among his family could match his skill with numbers and trade. Now, though, the young head of the Shipko trading empire looked pained and irritated beyond belief--probably at the thought of his sister and aunt's reaction to the Gr'pa's escape.

                   Mahrya didn't even bother to hide her amusement as Kelli sighed and rubbed the bridge of his nose. “Gr'pa ...” he started again, but was interrupted by a second small figure dropping from the ceiling with a whoop.

                   “Ringing Chicken Death!” the dropping figure shouted, swinging a cane shaped like a skinny naked chicken at Gr'pa Jacob's head.

                   “Shield of Five Moons!” Gr'pa Jacob shouted, deflecting the blow with his own cane. The two magics connected with a flare of red and white light, letting loose an explosion of magic that broke the rawhide tie that held Mahrya's hair up and sent the red-gold curls free to tumble down around her face. As the explosion faded, the sound of glass breaking came from the store proper.

                   Kelli's teeth made an audible grating sound where he was standing by Mahrya.

                   “Humph,” Gr'pa Joseph snorted, seemingly oblivious to his grandson's irritation as he floated to a stop some four feet off the ground. It placed him almost on eye level with the taller people in the room. “Fool mutt!” he spat contemptuously towards his twin brother, gesturing threateningly with his chicken-cane. “However is that Suz going to get a man if you go about provoking her into rampages?! And after I had taken all that trouble to get her to that shrine-boy,” he ended, looking like he'd like to hit the other Shipko elder again.

                   Gr'pa Jacob snorted, giving the floor a solid thump with his twisted cane. “Bah. She didn't need that sucker anyway. Sweet Suz? Bah! A real man would know that a good woman comes with bite.”

                   Mahrya wondered what Suz's reaction to all this was. The Shipko Gr'pas picking out suiters? She'd bet that Kelli's older sister was fuming and ready to murder both the Gr'pas. What a horror.

                   “True, true,” the floating Gr'pa said thoughtfully. “A bit of fire always adds to the flavor ... Good day, Mahrya,” he chimed after a moment.

                   Mahrya didn't know if it was because he hadn't noticed her presence till then, or had just not said anything. The Shipko Gr'pas lived by rules that only they knew, and unfortunately for their descendants, they still had all the magical heft of their younger years.

                   “Shipko,” Mahrya murmured, giving the wrinkled Gr'pa a polite nod as she hid her smile.

                   “The Dragon-heart is taking the black-eyed brat,” the Gr'pa on the ground told his brother.

                   “The Harbinger of Doom?” the other Gr'pa asked, attention back on his twin as he ignored both Mahrya and his grandson.

                   “Just so,” the Gr'pa on the ground said sagely, thumping his cane on the floor.

                   “It's not good for a pretty girl to live alone,” the floating Gr'pa said, rubbing his chin.

                   “That's what I said,” the Gr'pa on the ground agreed. “It'd be such a waste.”

                   “Such a waste,” the floating Gr'pa echoed.

                   “A dreadful waste,” they both said, turning to look at Mahrya.

                   “Gr'pa ...” Kelli growled, his slender form nearly vibrating.

                   The low growl made both Shipko Gr'pas cock their heads. “Did you hear something, Jacob?” the floating one asked.

                   “I think I did, Joseph,” the other agreed.

                   “The Devourer of Dreams,” one said.

                   “The Bane of Man,” the other said.

                   “WHAT DID I TELL YOU ABOUT USING SHOCK-WAVE IN THE STORE!?!” Kelli roared.

                   “RUN!” both Gr'pas shouted with maniacal laughs, leaping in opposite directions.

                   Kelli growled, then flung out one hand in an abrupt gesture, not even looking at his targets. “Shopkeeper's Revenge!” he shouted, and both the Gr'pas yelped as a hail of meat-tins exploded out of the bins located all over the store. The earth-bound Gr'pa went down in seconds; the floating Gr'pa lasted a bit longer, but not by much, before he too was swallowed by a wave of rattling tins.

                   “My apologies,”--Kelli said, still irritated--“for the interruption. Where were we?”

                   Mahrya snickered, then looked down at the brat, who'd managed to struggle more or less back upright. Both he and the Dark Snitch had quieted down some during the episode, their attention drawn by the Gr'pas' arrival, but the brat still glared at her as she squatted down in front of him. “Mm,” Mahrya murmured, studying him a moment before reaching out and tugging the gag free.

                   Immediately, the brat spat out a mouthful of fibers and said something foul. Almost absently, Mahrya gave him a rap on the head with her knuckles. “Behave, brat,” she warned, multi-hued eyes glittering in a way that made the brat reconsider his next insult. “Or I'll take Kelli's advice and use you for rat-rations.”

                   She paused to see if the brat would take her advice, and when he remained silent—although sullen—she continued. “Now, from what Kelli here's said, you've made quite a nuisance of yourself. So they want me to take you. Now, I don't particularly like brats—never had any, never planned to—but I suppose I could make do.”

                   The brat had very dark eyes, she noted; jet black eyes ringed with long, curling lashes that only served to make them look darker. Around his left eye was a dark ring—she would have thought that it was from somebody hitting him, except that the color was too even. Other than those two things, and the bitter tang of magic that hung about him, he could have been a normal Borderland mutt.

                   She studied him a moment more, sharp eyes missing nothing, then asked, “What're you called?”

                   The brat's eyes flicked to Kelli standing to the side radiating hostility, then back at Mahrya. Lips gaining a slight, smirking edge, he said slyly, “The Harbinger of Doom.”

                   “Well then, black-eyed Doom,” Mahrya said calmly, not even twitching at the clear provocation, “You have two choices. Number one: you come with me and become my apprentice.”

                   Kelli made a strangled sound behind her, but Mahrya ignored it. “Number two,” she continued, leaning forwards slightly till her lips were only inches from one of his ears, “is I take and dump you out past the border, and spell you so you can never come back to the Borderlands ever again. You can try Jamaica or Brunswick for all I care, but the Borderlands will not have you.”

                   “I'm not going back,” the brat snarled, glaring daggers at Mahrya as she leaned back. The Ex-delver simply smiled, a slow curling of the lips that brought to mind a Dragon returning to find a Delver looting it's cave. It was the sort of smile that said 'oh, what fun, lunch came to me' and it made the hairs stand up on the back of the brat's neck. He continued on though, driven by anger and whatever had made him run for the Borderlands. “You're not sending me back,” he snarled, and the depths of the hatred gleaming in his black eyes surprised Mahrya a little.

                   Mahrya propped her elbows on her legs as she squatted back on her heels. “Then come and be my apprentice,” she said, that dragon's smile spreading ever so slowly.

                   “Why should I do that?” the brat snapped venomously, black eyes glaring at Mahrya.

                   “Because it's your only other choice?” Mahrya offered, raising an eyebrow.

                   The brat snorted, “Oh, really?” His tone dripped condescension as he continued, “You can't make me stay out. I'll just go somewhere else.”

                   “Really?” Mahrya sounded surprised, but the eyes above that still-present dragon's smile made the brat break out in a sudden cold sweat. Beside him, Gretchen let out a low, rattling growl, and when he glanced at the Snitch, he found the beast staring at him with none of the playful friendliness of before. He'd never had that happen before; even when he'd gotten into trouble, the guard dogs had all loved him. But this creature, who'd been fawning all over him just moments before like animals always did to him, looked suddenly dangerous.

                   He looked away. “E—Even if you could ...” he said, his voice trailing off. After a moment, his lip curled and he made an irritated noise. “Fine! I'll go be your student or whatever,” he snapped, glaring at her. “But I'm not going to be all grateful and whatever, and I'm not going to stay.”

                   Mahrya chuckled, rising to her feet with a graceful movement. “I'll consider myself warned,” she said, amusement rich in her voice. He glared at her even harder, but she only grinned down at him and reached out a finger. It poked him in the middle of the forehead, and there was an audible zap and a sting as it touched him.

                   “Ow!” he snarled, glaring at her, “What was that?!”

                   Mahrya withdrew her hand with a snicker, and his eyes widened as he saw a black cloud shot through with silver lightning winding around her fingers. “Don't worry, Little Cat,” she said, smirking a little. “I left enough for the beasties not to eat you.”

                   “Hey! What did you do?!” Doom yelled, struggling in his ropes.

                   Mahrya ignored him as she turned to Kelli, standing and watching with a now resigned look of faint disapproval. “A jar, if you could?” she asked, one eyebrow raising.

                   He left, but came back after only a few minutes, carrying three jars for Mahrya to choose from. Mahrya tapped them all with a long forefinger, frowning slightly, then chose a tall, skinny green one with a glass and wire stopper. The lightning-shot cloud resisted her efforts to scrape it off into the jar, but after a couple tries and a low growl, she managed to get it all in and stoppered the jar. Weaving clear blue light around the fingers of her right hand, she then wrapped the light around the stopper, where it spread apart to become a slender band of intricate runes, sealing the jar tightly.

                   The brat had subsided in his thrashing, and when Mahrya turned back around to him, he was glaring at her. She hefted the now-sealed jar, eying him as if turning over a question in her mind, then seemed to think better of it. Instead, she simply stepped over and picked him up by the ropes around his torso. He yelled, but she ignored him, striding easily towards the door with him in one hand, and the jar in the other.

                   Once outside, she crossed the narrow board-walk, and stepped down into the street where a sturdy wagon was parked. The lean youth sitting in the seat, one foot propped up beside her as she read a battered, leather-bound book, looked up at the sound of boots. Upon seeing Mahrya, she straightened and took her boot down off the wagon-seat. “'ey, Mahrya. Done now?” the girl drawled, then spotted the brat hanging bound from Mahrya's off hand. The girl's eyes widened, and she reached up to remove the grass she'd been chewing on as she'd read. “What're ya do'n with th' Doom brat?” she asked incredulously. “Ya aren't expect'n us ta take 'im, are ya?”

                   The girl, Glyph, was the oldest girl of the Stone-heart family, newcomers to the valley but old to the Borderlands as a whole. They lived in one of the canyons close by Mahrya's own place, and she often hired Glyph to drive her into town in their wagon, rather than use magic to transport her supplies back home. Unlike most Border Dogs, the Stone-hearts had never been Delvers. Instead, they'd made a living breeding horses and cave-ponies, training them, then selling them, so they hadn't been hit as hard as the rest of the Borderlands by the closing of the Foundation. That's not to say that they were unaffected, however—if no one had any money to buy their stock, there wasn't much profit to have.

                   Mahrya tossed the brat into the back of the wagon, where he yelped and started another run of profanity. Mahrya absently snapped her fingers, and the brat yelped again as invisible knuckles rapped his skull. “I said there'll be none of that,” Mahrya said coldly to him, then in a more casual tone, said to the girl, “No, Glyph, he's not for you. Ya don't have to worry about him.”

                   Glyph eyed the glaring black-eyed brat like she would a cat's love-offering left on her front step. “O-key ...” she said slowly, tone dubious, “I guess ya kin do what ya want's, but if I was ya, I'd toss 'im out on 'is 'ead.”

                   Mahrya chuckled at that, then handed the girl the jar. “Here, keep a hold of this, will ya? I've still got some business to do with Kelli. You seen the boys around?”

                   Glyph shrugged, wedging the jar beneath the seat with her crate of books. “Trey an' Martin were by, but I 'aven't seen th' rest,” she drawled. “Ya want me ta go find 'em?”

                   Mahrya shook her head. “Na. I'll catch them later. I'll be sending stuff out now though—Kelli should be getting the rest of it ready now that th' brat's outa th' way,” she said, turning around and giving Glyph a casual wave with one hand.

                   “Will do,” the girl answered easily, already propping her leg back into place and opening her book.

                   Kelli wasn't in sight when Mahrya went back into the Emporium, so she wandered around aimlessly looking at the shelves till he came back in, his arms full of folded blankets. “You should find some way to keep those Feather-rats out of your stores,” he said upon seeing her.

                   Mahrya shrugged noncommittally, not about to tell him that she was just ordering new blankets to get some money moving, then asked, “Has Kuwa been by?”

                   Kelli shook his head as he set the blankets on top of Mahrya's growing stack. “Haven't seen him,” he replied, leaning against the end of the counter in order to look at her. “Last I heard, he was headed out towards Denver's place. Why? You had something you wanted him to fix up?” he asked, arching an eyebrow inquiringly.

                   Mahrya made a small sound, then raked her red-gold curls back from her face. “No particular reason I guess,” she answered slowly. “Just that I haven't seen him lately, and I figured he was about due for a visit.” Kelli's older cousin hadn't taken as well to the change after the Driftlaw as some had; he said he'd become a tinker and was doing fine, but everyone who'd known him before knew better and did what they could for him. He'd only gotten worse after the death of his Delving partner. Mahrya herself tried to keep tabs on him as he wandered around, doing odd jobs for people, and let him stay at her place whenever he was in the area, but she still worried.

                   “I can ask around, see if anyone's heard anything about what he's been doing,” Kelli offered with a shrug, “But I doubt they have. He's been keeping pretty low these days. Something the old man asked for, I guess,” he said, shrugging again at the mention of the gray-haired Patriarch in Gledou', and the closest to a head of state as the ex-Delver/Border Dog community had.

                   Mahrya nodded, then gestured at the stack. “Is that the last of it?” she asked, changing the subject. She and the Patriarch weren't on real good terms these days, and Kelli—like most in the community—knew it.

                   Accepting the change without comment, Kelli nodded. “That's it,” he said, patting the folded blankets. “The wood-stock will be up in a few days; I'll have some of the boys run it up to the Stone-hearts, and you can pick it up from there.”

                   Mahrya nodded, then snapped her fingers twice at the stack of crates, boxes, and bags in front of the counter. Immediately, the pile started shifting as things floated off the top, and one of the heaviest crates levitated off the wooden floor before heading for the door. Mahrya waited till that crate was out the door before sending the next on it's way, giving Glyph time to maneuver the first into position and drop it to the wagon.

                   After setting the last box on it's way, Mahrya paid Kelli, ruffled his hair just to see his annoyed expression, and went out the door with a sideways grin. When she climbed into the wagon and looked into the back, she could see no signs of the black-eyed brat.

                   She arched an eyebrow at Glyph, who shrugged as she unwrapped the reins from the wagon-brake. “'e was being a pest, so I buried 'em,” the girl said laconically.

                   Mahrya gave a soft, not-quite incredulous laugh, and turned around to settle into her seat. “He was bound hand and foot; how exactly was he being a pest?” she asked in amusement.

                   Glyph snorted as the wagon lurched into motion. “Ya'd think, but 'e managed it—th' brat,” she said in clear dislike. “I re'lly don't know why ya are taken 'em.”

                   With a soft chuckle, Mahrya answered, “Ah, but he's so interesting; it'll keep me from getten so bored.”

                   Glyph eyed her with an dubious expression. “It's ya's own choice, I suppose,” she said, in a tone that said clearly, 'you're crazy'.

                   Mahrya just laughed.



                   Mahrya and Glyph rode mostly in silence, enjoying the warmth of the sun and the cool breeze. The rutted trail they followed wound along the foot of the hills surrounding the flat valley for about an hour, then turned to twist through the hills themselves. Finally, they reached their destination, and Glyph pulled the horses to a stop before a low, sandy overhang in a small side canyon. After she set the wagon brake, wedging it firmly with one foot, she looked at Mahrya and asked, “Do ya need any help getten everythin' in?”

                   Mahrya swung herself down off the wagon, shaking her head with an amused curl to her lips. Glyph had asked that since the very first time she'd driven Mahrya, and Mahrya's answer had never changed. “Na,” Mahrya said, her amusement thick in her voice, “I'm retired, not old.”

                   Glyph shrugged with a small, what-can-you-say smile, waiting as Mahrya levitated everything out of the back of the wagon and over underneath the overhang. Mahrya found the brat only after she had removed most of the load, stuffed into a corner and still glaring. His silence during the ride was explained by what looked like a sock that had been stuffed into his mouth.

                   Mahrya raised an eyebrow, and placed her hands on her hips. “Mouthed off to Glyph, I see. She has numerous brothers, so she's used to dealing with problems like you,” Mahrya told the brat.

                   He glared at her, making her chuckle.

                   She finished unloading and paid Glyph, waiting till the youth and wagon disappeared before turning to the brat. He was still glaring at her, fury bright in his dark eyes, and she studied him a moment before sighing. Best go about this ... an unwilling apprentice was not something that she cared to have—not that she'd wanted any apprentice!--so it was best she got that out of the way.

                   Turning on her heel, she stepped away and vanished before her foot touched the ground. An instant later she was back, a drawstring travel-pack in her hand. With a snap of her fingers, the ropes fell off the brat and before he could react, she'd dumped the pack unceremoniously at his feet. “Cloak, trail rations, flint-set, belt-knife, change of clothes,” Mahrya said shortly. “There's enough there to get you to the border, or to near-about anywhere else within a fortnight if you're careful.”

                   He yanked the ropes off with a scowl and threw them away. “So I guess all that talk about becoming your student or whatever was just talk, huh?” he snapped angrily.

                   Mahrya had already turned away, but at that she stopped and looked over her shoulder at him, the light from the fading sun catching her eyes and turning them to shattered fragments of sharp, bright color. “I don't go back on my word, but neither do I teach unwilling students. You're the one who said you'd be off the first chance you got; well, here it is.”

                   Sharp eyes studied him, and not for the first time, the brat felt like he was standing in front of something not quite safe. Then, with a little, dismissive snort, Mahrya looked away and started over to the overhang to start carrying boxes and crates through the discrete doorway in the stone. The brat stayed behind, scuffing at the dirt with his bare feet. He remained there for a while as Mahrya worked, then—sometime between Mahrya's veiled glances—he was gone, along with the pack. If not for the rope lying discarded between the sparse tufts of prickly grass and even pricklier tumbleweeds, he could have never been there at all.

                   Mahrya ignored the small sting of disappointment as she continued her work. It wasn't like she'd wanted an apprentice, or a brat in the house. She was fine on her own, with just her beasts to keep her company. Sure, the house was depressingly silent with Shauntaq gone, but she'd get used to it eventually. Besides, it wasn't as if Shauntaq was going to be gone forever.

                   She checked one last time before carrying in the last crate, but there was no sign of the black-eyed brat. It was then, as she watched the shadows creep up the canyon wall opposite, that she remembered she still had the brat's magic sealed in the jar, and that she hadn't remembered to retrieve it from Glyph before the girl had driven off.

                   She paused for a moment, considering possibilities, then shook her head and carried the crate inside. If the brat wasn't going to learn how to control it, then he was better off without it. Especially that type of magic. “Doom-cat is right,” she muttered to herself as she mounted the steps up to the house and sealed the door behind her. “He'd probably manage to burn down an entire city someday.”

                   She still found herself a little disappointed as she started up the long winding stairs, but determinedly pushed the brat from her mind. She'd given him a chance, and he'd refused. It was all on his head now.



                   Mahrya had opened a bottle of Ice-heart and was sprawled out on her front porch enjoying the last dying rays of sun to the west, when a racket of thumps, bangs, snarls, and Gretchen's deep cough nearly tossed her off the edge of the porch. It sounded like the Feather-rats and the Dark Snitch were locked in a death battle; Mahrya flew through the wide front door prepared to see blood and bits of feather and fur everywhere. Instead, she found Gretchen outside the door to the pantry, coughing and rearing up against the door trying to get it open.

                   “What in all the worlds ...?!” Mahrya said, starting forwards, but before she could go more than a step the door was flung open, and a glowering and bloody black-eyed brat stomped out. There was a Feather-rat chewing happily on one of his ears, and three more hanging off various other parts of him.

                   The small creatures looked delighted.

                   Catching sight of her, the black-eyed brat stomped forwards, trying unsuccessfully to pull one of the Feather-rats off himself. “You!” he shouted, giving up on the Feather-rat and pointing at her angrily. “You'd better teach me magic!”

                   Immediately after this, he switched his focus to the Feather-rats, trying to shake one off his arm as he growled, “Get off me, you little--”

                   Mahrya snorted, then snickered, and then she was laughing so hard she was bent nearly double, long arms wrapped around her ribs and her whole form shaking. It was too much—his abrupt and unorthodox appearance, his startling declaration, the delighted feather-rats—for her to take.

                   The brat glowered at her. “It's not funny!” he exploded, nearly vibrating in his rage. “You'd better be the best teacher of magic in the world for all I've been through!”

                   Wiping tears out of the corners of her eyes, Mahrya glanced at him and nearly lost it again. That, of course, only made him more angry, which only made Mahrya laugh harder, but finally, she was able to control herself to the point where she could call the Feather-rats off him in between snickers. The small, ferret-like creatures left only reluctantly--with several pauses as they sat up on their haunches to give him wistful backwards glances--and Mahrya pulled out a chair from the dining room table beside her. “Sit down and let me get you fixed up,” she said, amusement still dancing merrily in eyes and voice as she snickered, “What did you do, climb up the lift-shaft?”

                   “I couldn't get the door open,” the brat muttered, and Mahrya choked on renewed laughter. Crossing to the adjoining kitchen, she got down the battered case containing her first-aid kit from the kitchen cupboards, then got out a handful of rags and a large bowl of warm water. The brat was still glowering at her when she turned back around, but he seemed more sulky than angry now despite the occasional snicker still slipping past Mahrya's control. He huffed as she walked over to set everything on the table, then demanded, “You are going to teach me, aren't you?”

                   Mahrya glanced at him, then snickered, her hands moving deftly as she picked one of the rags, damped it in the bowl, and began wiping some of the blood and bits of feather off his face. “I'll teach you,” she chuckled, voice rich with amusement. “I'd have to, for someone who'd climb all the way up here that way.”

                   He humphed and folded his arms, glaring down the short hall towards the open pantry door, and Mahrya hid a laugh with one hand. He continued to sulk as she cleaned the cuts in his scalp and his chewed ear, but complained only when she got out her waxed thread and needle to sew the deeper cuts closed. Despite that, he was a better patient than many of the fellow Delvers she'd sewn up--especially considering that they'd all been full grown and he wasn't.

                   When she finished and drew back, he glared at her, bandages on nearly all of his visible body parts. She snickered, then said, “There, all done. You'll live, and most of that will be gone before the week's out without even leaving you a good scar.”

                   He humphed and looked away, kicking one foot back and forth. “Why didn't you just use magic to heal it?” he demanded after a moment.

                   Mahrya started re-packing everything back into it's proper place in the first aid kit, making notations on the paper slipped into a slot in the lid on what things were running low or she'd used the last of. “Makes my head hurt--” she explained, “--and my spells are a bit overkill for this anyway.”

                   “You used magic for loading the wagon,” the brat said sulkily, staring at one scuffed toe as if it held all the mysteries of the universe.

                   “That's not healing,” Mahrya said, tapping him lightly on the head with the knuckles of one hand, before she turned and started to carry the bowl and first-aid kit back to the kitchen. “My magic's not well suited to healing, so it's harder for me to do fine work with it.”

                   He was quiet, then said with a stirring of curiosity, “I thought that there was just one kind of magic.”

                   Mahrya felt her eyebrows rise incredulously. “Wherever did you hear that?” she asked, turning around to stare at him. “Whoever told you that was a fool—I'm sorry if that was your gr'ma or something, but they were a fool when it came to magic even so. There's as many different kinds of magic as ... as there are different colors of hair,” she finished, tugging at a lock of her own fire-hued curls to illustrate. “Mine's mostly a Fey type—good for pretty much everything, though better at Craft and Charm spells and worse at Healing—and yours is probably a Beast type, or Beast and Fey. It's pretty lucky, in a way ...” she said, her voice trailing off as she followed some thought off into the distance. After only a brief moment, her attention came back to him, and she finished, “That's why the beasts like you so much--your Beast magic.”

                   The brat eyed a Feather-rat sitting on the table with a skeptical expression, making Mahrya laugh. “If they didn't like you, you wouldn't have made it to the top, Black-eye,” she said, her smile plain in her voice as she turned back to the sink to resume rinsing out the rags. “They're Feather-rats—deep cave dwellers. I don't keep them around because they're pretty.” They might be small, but there were horror stories told by Delvers of all nations about coming upon the campsites of Delvers who'd been in the way of a Feather-rat colony. Bones, left lying in bedrolls or even still sitting up, their flesh stripped from their bones before they could even start to scream.

                   Behind her—visible in the reflection from the polished sides of the bowl—the Feather-rat on the table made a darting move towards the brat and got a warning growl in response, making the creature halt with a short, complaining toss of his head. But the lithe little creature didn't make another move, and Mahrya finished rinsing out the rags and the bowl without anything more exciting happening. When she finished and turned to place the bowl and wet rags in the drying rack, the brat kicked his feet against the legs of his chair. “Do you have anything to eat?” he asked in a brave attempt for nonchalance, not looking at Mahrya.

                   She dried off her hands, and then dug a length of rawhide out of a jar to tie her hair back with. “Was just planning to set something out,” she said easily. “You like stew?”

                   “Dunno,” the brat said with a shrug, chancing a peak at her as she crossed the open kitchen to the small cold-case and opened it to look inside. “Never had any.”

                   He definitely wasn't a Borderland brat, if he'd never had stew. Most of the families that Mahrya had ever met lived on the stuff. But she hid her smile behind the cold-case door, and pulled the butter dish out to set on the counter. “Well, you'll have some tonight. Get that rat off the table, then come get the butter and some bread, will ya?” she said, turning to the stove and the pot now bubbling on one of the burners.

                   The brat hesitated a bit before getting up the courage to pluck the Feather-rat carefully off the table and just as carefully set it down on the floor, but then—courage renewed—he went swiftly off to get the butter and hunt around quietly for the bread. He also had the sense to get a dish to put the bread on—it wasn't the dish Mahrya would have chosen, but it was a dish—which was more than Mahrya had expected. He hesitated by the table as if unsure what to do as Mahrya stirred the stew, then got down the rest of the dishes and sent them floating over to the table, but when she followed with the stew itself, he sat down quickly. She barely had a chance to serve the stew before he was wolfing it down in great quantities.

                   Mahrya watched with amusement as she ate her own stew, and the last rays from the dying sun vanished from the slope outside the long window. He was still eating when she'd finished her own food, so she simply sat back in her chair and called the bottle of Ice-heart she'd been drinking previously to her hand. She sat and sipped for a while, absently petting a crooning Feather-rat that'd come up to watch the new thing in their territory, then, when it looked like he might be slowing down, she got up to check on the Apprentice room. When she came back, it was to interrupt him in the middle of a huge yawn, his head bobbing sleepily over the last few bites of his stew.

                   She chuckled and said, “Come on here, brat, and I'll show you where you'll be staying.”

                   Sleepily, he did so without complaint, pushing back his chair and padding over to her with steps that were naturally silent. Another indicator that the boy had Beast magic in him, Mahrya thought with a chuckle, guiding him gently through the open entry, past the second dining area and the recessed living area, then down the wide hall opposite the front door. Steering him to the very end of the hall, she reached over his head and opened the last door on the right. “The water-closets through the first door on the end,” she told him, giving the door in question a tap before pushing him through the one she'd opened. “This is the Apprentice room—pick whatever bed you want, and the corresponding chest and locker are yours as well. There aren't any other apprentices now, so feel free to use whatever you want.”

                   She didn't wait for a reply, but closed the door and turned away. The beds were all made, and there were extra blankets on top of the lockers if he needed them. She'd planned on showing him all around the house, but there was no point dragging him around when he was so sleepy, he'd forget it all anyway. It could wait till tomorrow.

                   She made one last check of security, trailing her fingers through the spell-web woven into the house and grounds, and fed Gretchen the last of the stew as she did up the dishes. Then, the Snitch and two of the Feather-rats trailing along behind her, she headed upstairs to the loft she and Shauntaq shared.

                   The mirror in the corner of the bedroom was silent and still, it's surface only reflecting darkness back at her, but she brushed her fingers across it's surface anyway. “Miss you, my love,” she whispered, and then turned away for her bed.