#he's GOTTA have some weird hang ups about dwarven women he's GOTTA

[beecreeper]

I know that @bharv mentioning they wanted smut for their birthday was mostly a joke but... 👀

This is based on their fic Control which you all should *absolutely* go read and then also read all of their other fic

Hearts version and link to full under the cut!

Heart-less version here

[theveryworstthing]

(pounding fists on table) fashion, fashion, fashion, faSHION FASHION...

it is time to release the fruits of my patreon sponsored Dwarf Week to gen pop. the theme was the long awaited history of dwarven punk (furthermore known as Lunk) and woo did it become A Lot. music genres and fashion movements don’t just come from nowhere and transplanting a human genre that started from specific human times and sensibilities onto another race without thinking about why a thing ain’t my style. so! i’m gonna give you a nice chunky lore post and follow it up with some posts about Notable Lunk Ladies.  let’s begin.

A Long Short History of Lunk To really talk about Lunk we gotta talk about the rebellion. And to talk about the rebellion we gotta talk about the flood in the Mander Drop cave system.

Two Disasters. - The Mander Drop cave system was fairly small  as dwarven cities go. It was also very remote, and as far as top-sider territories are concerned, outside of the Woods. So when a devastating flood/cave-in combo forced  survivors up to the surface they found themselves in the human kingdom of Luxterra, and therefore on the land of the recently appointed King Regiis The 27th. For a while this seemed like good luck. The king welcomed the refugees in and happily provided them with housing and food. How could they be anything but helpful to the first dwarves seen in Luxterra for generations? Especially since, whether they knew it or not,  the royal borders made it so that these were clearly their people? Their brethren? It was just too bad about all the blasphemy. The King and his religious advisers all agreed that they’d have to do something about that if their newly discovered people were to be Saved with the rest.

Now religion can be a force for love and safety and a link to important cultural heritage. But also. You know. Sometimes it sucks. Rolism, which is what Luxterra had recently adopted as their primary and only religion, sucked. The Incomparably Holy And Absolutely Complete Sapient Bestiaries was a collection of books written by a young failed anthropologist/failed fantasy writer/failed(eventually successful?) cult leader  with an unchecked ego and a down right girthy god complex named Sir Adam Brightcrown (real name:Rod Flaff). They were said to contain the true and holy roles of every sapient being barring demons, who were  not in the books outside of mentions of general badguy behavior and their penchant for the perversion of nature. The series was barely older than the current king himself and had flown completely under the radar until the former king Regiis The 26th, received the books as joke gifts and  got way into them. Like, into them enough to abolish all mentions or practice of any other religions in Luxterra and turn the church over to the author of the Bestiaries/voice of god, Sir Adam.

The Mander Drop dwarves did not act the way dwarves were described in the Bestiaries (a common theme for any race described in the Bestiaries). They thought themselves all women, even as they wore long beards! There was no gleam of avarice in their eyes when they walked past the golden ornaments hanging throughout the royal gardens! They weren’t even violently rowdy alcoholics!

Scandal.

It couldn’t just be that they were survivors of a horrible disaster reeling from the loss of their homes and families as they tried to be polite to human hosts who knew next to nothing about their actual culture.

No, they had to have been Changed. Touched by demonic forces that all Good People knew lurked beyond their righteous borders.

But they would surely come around with a little instruction and the church got to it right away, sending their missionaries into the hospitals and dwarven camps to spread the word. But the word did not spread as easily as they would have liked. The word was kinda chunky. The dwarves were very set in their ways and the loss of their home had made them very touchy about altering their traditions too much. So after enough badgering, the remaining Elders decided that maybe it was best to leave Luxterra as soon as their wounded could be moved and take their chances in The Woods. They even went so far as to tell the royal council that they did not see themselves as true Luxterrans and so felt that they should not be beholden to certain church guidelines. The King took this pretty well and told them that he would respect their wishes and support any decision they made. So a few weeks later, when everyone who hadn’t passed was stable enough to ride with a caravan, they sent messengers out with pleas for help to other cave systems.

They never saw those messengers again.

A freak flash fire broke out in the dwarven camp that evening. All of the Elders and the adults most resistant to the church’s advances  mysteriously did not make any moves to escape as they were burned to death in the meeting tent. Most of the possessions and goods salvaged from the Mander Drop caves were also reduced to ash . In the end, all that was left were a few resilient trinkets and a vast amount of mostly orphaned dwarven youth that had luckily been away at the time. The king’s detectives declared that it probably was and accident, but the remaining dwarves should move to the land behind the royal monastery for a while just to make sure it wasn’t something more…unsavory.  And so the survivors were put under absolute royal protection. Which meant  a settlement furnished with everything the holy books said that a dwarf could want, entry into St. Adam’s Rolism School for the young ones, round the clock guards to ensure safety standards were met, and many other…perks.

All the king asked for in return is that they work the mines to repay him for his generosity. Since they were not actually Luxterran citizens, they could only receive a certain amount of aide without incurring debt from their hosts, and that line had been crossed long ago. But no worries! Once their debt was repayed and they felt stable enough, they could leave with the kingdom’s support and blessings.

House Arrest- The dwarves had a bad feeling about this whole deal, but weren’t exactly in a position to refuse. The initial agreement to pay for the  refugees room and board  looked completely fair despite their awful feelings toward it but like everything else in their situation, it sucked.   Hidden, vague stipulations in confusing foreign languages and weird time frames made them inescapable. The mining conditions were so hazardous that many didn’t live or stay healthy long enough to pay their due. Children inherited debt from their parents and were locked into the system as soon as they were old enough to enter the work force (an age that inched ever lower). As far as the king and the church were concerned, the dwarves had a sizable community debt not just from enjoying Luxterra’s  gracious hospitality but for having their souls saved by being shown their proper Roles. And that debt was so great that it made sense that it was impossible to pay off. Also, trying to escape the contract was as much a death sentence for you and your family as ‘consorting with demons’.  Leaving the kingdom or rebelling against Regiis’ rule was akin to stealing the prosperity they had surely enjoyed and no one stole from the king. It was rehabilitation from the church or death.

And let’s be real. It was usually death.

Besides, the Holy Bestiaries stated that dwarves lived for mining and their generations of work had made Luxterra prosperous beyond measure. Why would they want to leave?

Basic Rolism Dwarf Rules- Dwaves are masculine. Dwarves are brutish. Dwarves smith and mine but they do not craft. Dwarves only love Gold and treasure. Dwarves only take joy in fight and drink. There’s more but you get the idea. There were other random rules around appropriate use of the dwarvish language (no use. No use is what they wanted) that included acceptable names (most families got to keep their last names because they were appropriately Aesthetic but first names were changed for most people). These rules weren’t in the books, the church just decided they were for the best.

Music - music was the biggest and most freeing coping mechanism the dwarves had during the three generations of life in Luxterra.  This makes sense, as screaming rhythmic complaints is a known stress reliever for many sapient races. What culture could be recovered or remembered, which wasn’t much tbh, was used heavily in the Lunk (short for ‘spelunk’ which some dwarves did in secret to recover relics from the ruins of the Mander Drop caves) scene, and that included attempted replications of traditional instruments and songs. It was way different from classic dwarven music due to the new instruments, influence from human underground (not that kind of underground) musicians, and enhanced Angst, but like all of lunk culture it was good enough.

Dwarves were expected to sing per their entry in the Bestiary, and so were never bothered about practice during the work day unless snitch human coworkers or guards heard…less than tasteful lyrics. This meant anything treasonous or ‘contrary to their nature’. Fighting and drinking were okay subjects but critique of  religion, the social order, or the king? Literal devil music that was cause for possible arrest and ‘rehabilitation’. To be fair, a lot of human miners weren’t too fond of the king either (Rolism didn’t just affect dwarves) so they let a lot slide unless a dwarf got uppity and they were a huge bastard. Also fighting and drinking persisted as song themes long after they were freed from their restrictions because those are almost universally fun topics to scream about in a cave, but still.

While plenty of singing went on in work areas, actual concerts and events were held in deeper decrepit mines than were usually condemned for one reason or another. It was…not safe. But that was kind of the point. If it wasn’t safe for dwarves then humans certainly wouldn’t want to  venture down there, not that they didn’t. Human friends could come to shows if they were vetted by  enough dwarves, kept their mouthes shut, and brought their own safety gear. Crouched figures with oxygen tanks, harnesses, and dusty mohawks weren’t as rare as you would think. Especially when the war started and the king really kicked his religious fervor into high gear.

Strangely enough, none of these venues ever killed or injured their occupants. Future dwarven musical scholars would say that the shows tied into ancient protective ballads that are sung in unnaturally excavated areas, a bit of accidental protection magic, but at the time they just considered themselves lucky.

Music Part 2: Themes In Screams - Classic lunk was angry rebellion music, but it was also very fantastical and tended to veer into a surreal dreamy territory that at times produced echos of ancestral dwarven music. This was purposeful, as the descendants of the Mander Drop dwarves had a lot of culture scrubbed out of them, but they fiercely guarded and celebrated what remained. Lunk also had a kind of fun hopeful romanticism to it once you got through all the verses about beheading the king and pissing down the stump. Besides regicide and bar fights, major classic lunk themes were a mix of gender, identity, and love.  Lunk was a perfect medium to explore their  heavily repressed femininity and sexuality because as far as the Church was concerned all dwarves were manly men who only touched through punches and dwarven babies came from special chunks of gold and rocky debris found in mines.

Music Part 3: Instrumentals - a lot of scavenging and creative instrument construction went on to make lunk possible. The dwarves were limited to crafting weapons, tools, and armor due to their Role in the Bestiaries, but used their time combing scrap yards and dumps for forge materials  to smuggle out other interesting tidbits. Using knowledge gained from discarded manuals and spare parts hidden among mining equipment, a workshop (called the Ironing Board for its red walls and duel purpose as a place that outlaw seamstresses hung out while doing clothes alterations and fittings) was established in an empty  side tunnel, and secretive tinkerers would spend their spare time churning out strange stringed things, portable piano adjacent items, and drums that were honestly, Too Much. Some of the better sounding instruments became staples of the genre and were mastered by most players but there were a lot of funky one-offs only used by specific dwarves.

As for singing, Lunk started as a mix of dwarven throat singing, very energetic yelling, seductive crooning, and rare operatic belting. Mostly it’s just Loud. Microphones weren’t a thing and being heard over the instruments meant positioning yourself in the cave for maximum acoustic effect while wearing your lungs out.

Some original music from the time in Luxterra still exist in dwarven museums and private collections. Recorders were retrieved with the rest of the spare parts they hid down in the tunnels, and the ones that weren’t taken apart for instruments were used to record shows.  The quality of these recordings is middling to pretty bad, but considering how few of those bands survived the war with all their members, they’re treated like the exquisite treasures they are.

Aesthetic:

Hair- Mostly bald or buzzed short with bangs but short thin mohawks or rat tails were also acceptable. Usually bleached  completely golden blond or streaked with blond chunks as a sarcastic nod towards The Bestiaries stance on the dwarven race’s supposed obsession with gold. Besides, bleach was cheap and easy to get. Hats were worn constantly above ground to prevent questions about the styles from nosy humans.  

Beards- Styled to hell. Gelled monstrosities that were sometimes bleached and often dusted with mica powder until they resembled shimmery  stalactites /stalagmites. Lunk beards are dyed a variety of colors these days, but in the past mica powder was easy to make/steal and a dusty beard was easier to explain away than a rainbow one. Beard style varied, some cut them short and shaved them into easily spikeable strips, some only  shaved the chin  and wore the rest in two braids laced with found bits of metal and ribbon, and some went with the dwarven classic: letting it grow to ridiculous lengths. It really depended on how closely they were monitored and what they felt they could get away with safely.

Clothes Makeup and Accessories- The goal was to be a visually blasphemous fuck you. Rolism gave dwarves very strict very masculine fashion guidelines that favored rugged disregard for appearance over careful grooming.  Makeup and any accessory deemed too feminine was prohibited. Colors were restricted to shades of brown with an occasional splash of white or gold. All jewelry was bits of rough blocky metal with very little detailing. Free dwarves have an androgynous style that flips from feminine to masculine and everything in between depending on cave system and activity but the Lunk style aimed for less gender androgyny and more gender discord. In the beginning dwarves turned up to shows in a mix of their least ruined set of work clothes and whatever super  ‘feminine’ items they could get their hands on.   This made for some very patchwork looks like heirloom pearl necklaces and gaudy costume jewelry earrings were paired with grungy button ups and ripped jeans. As scavengers got bolder and seamstresses got better they started experimenting with castaway human sized dresses (and the rare ballgown) that were ‘harvested’ by being hacked apart and put back together to make two or three slightly scandalous smaller dresses and taking apart discarded heels to recreate them in dwarf sizes. Patches were made from leftover scraps and either sewn over holes on clothing or embroidered with slogans and symbols to decorate vests, jackets, and bags.

And oh man the underwear.

It’s seems weird to bring up underwear as a sign of rebellion but the church only provided the worst boxer shorts you can imagine and ill fitting ‘undershirts’ used for binding chests too big to be ignored. The first seamstress to reverse engineer a comfortable bra and make underwear that wasn’t constructed of congealed depression was regarded as a goddess. And the great thing about the underwear was that unlike their other clothing which had to be stored in the tunnels 2/7, they could wear them anywhere as long as they made sure everything was covered up and washed them out of sight. That little act of rebellion carried a lot of people through and though great creativity and care was put into all the clothing made underground, underwear were by and large the fanciest and best taken care of items.

Now back to accessories where everything was spikes. the style was meant to mimic the stalactites/stalagmites and jewelry was made with random polished rocks and fabric scraps when actual pieces couldn’t be found. Makeup was little more than getting creative with charcoal for eyeshadow and lipstick (it had to be something that didn’t stain easily and the dregs of old makeup they would find caused enough eye infections and cold sores to be undesirable at best unless you were really willing to risk it for that great pop of color) but eyelashes were more important. Dwarves naturally have long eyelashes but they were ordered to trim them to prevent gender ambiguity so of course this meant that super long false lashes became a big thing.   What else were they gonna do with all that beard hair they were shaving off?

Art- Outright rebellion would have meant death for every Mander Drop dwarf, so all Lunk activity was on the down low to a degree that it might as well have not existed to humans not in the know. It was very easy to tell where humans weren’t hearty enough to work though because there was Lunk graffiti everywhere. Most graffiti was chiseled or scratched into available surfaces with re-purposed broken work tools or pocket knives. A lot of it was standard sentient species graffiti, tagging, poetry, declarations of love/hate, badly drawn pornography, puns, calls for regicide, memorials, cryptic messages, well drawn pornography, ect. But there were also a ton of illustrated instructions. Popular clothing patterns in different sizes were etched into the walls of the Ironing Board by seamstresses. Important instrument parts and building shortcuts were sketched out for crafters to reference. Tips for smuggling contraband, finding the best garbage, and lists of which humans were to be trusted (and who was to be ignored if they happened to fall down a mine shaft one day) were also present. A lot of this art was lost in the ensuing escape cave in, but now that dwarven archaeologists are allowed to venture into the mines again much is being found and displayed in Woodland museums.

Tattoos- Tattoos were very important before the flood drove them topside but the church declared the dwarves’ traditional designs blasphemous, going so far as to decree that those that couldn’t be hidden at all times be magically removed.  If they really really wanted a tattoo in Luxterra it had to relate to Rolism in some way. This meant that most dwarves did not have tattoos unless coerced into doing so to prevent punishment. So while makeup and drawn designs like the Mander’s Drop (the raindrop and circle worn on the forehead) were frequently used,  tattoos weren’t  a thing in Lunk culture until after the war. After the war, when they didn’t have to worry about hiding identifying features and they had the freedom to choose what designs they wanted, a lot of dwarves got inked up. Tbh, the result was less desirable than the absolute high of real choice but being able to get their Drops properly tattooed instead of drawing them on in secret every day helped soothe the identity problems some dwarves came out of this mess with.

New Blood - While the Mander Drop dwarves took solace in their music, King Regiis The 28th and head priest Adam III were working on plans to take their forefathers’ conversion of the demonic touched races a step further. It obviously worked for the dwarves, why not send missionaries into the Woods and actively enlarge their congregation? Or failing that, why not kidnap dwarven travelers and stick them with the tamed-I mean pious dwarves until they shape up and join the church? That should work.

It didn’t work.

The new dwarves, upon waking from the heavily drugged sleep brought on by the free food from the previously mentioned missionaries and getting an inside look at this whole Situation give a healthy internal scream and started planning their escape.  Their goal was to warn everyone in the Woods that those kind of annoying human missionaries were a vanguard for something much worse and nip this in the bud before it got (more) out of hand.

They kept their distance and didn’t really trust the Mander Drop descendants at first as they assumed that they were brain washed weirdos.  They eventually  came around after then elder, Thorgold Buckmarble (a common and ‘traditional’ dwarven name from the Bestiaries I swear) was instrumental in making sure the new blood didn’t get murdered by guards for demonic behavior within a week. With her help they were able to gain the other dwarves’ trust and realize that their pious behavior and shows of loyalty to the crown was all an act.

Thorgold was the one who introduced them to the lunk scene, and with her gentle guidance and constant threats to ‘come over there and chuck you idiots down a mine shaft if you don’t cut it out’, everyone was able to get along. Mostly. The newcomers’ insistence on escape and tales of dwarven culture outside of Luxterra intrigued the locals, and as they became more involved with each other lunk started to change from a simple music scene, to a movement.

Spread The word - The Mander Drop dwarves didn’t know any dwarven and the newcomer dwarves only barely spoke Luxterran but both sides were eager to learn. The misunderstanding were making things more difficult than they should be. The exchange had an unintended effect however. The few trusted human acquaintances ended up learning dwarven too.  And dwarven turned out to be a pretty good language to be treasonous in. And treason was starting to sound pretty cool for the small population of people who weren’t keen on what was shaping up to be a bloody crusade over a religion that they didn’t really believe. Of course the dwarves and their sympathizers didn’t want all this treason traced back to them, so they created a code to talk trash in and tentatively labeled it Lunk-Speech. This new code language was used for more than light treason though. It was also used for elaborate escape plans and HEAVY treason. With the king growing more paranoid by the day and war becoming more likely, the dwarves used their human comrades to sneak Lunk S.O.S. messages into The Woods. Lunk code was also used to make literature criticizing the king and the church, which made the ranks of sympathizers swell dramatically.

The king did not like this.

He only heard the barest of doubtful whispers. Even with the secret growth of the lunk movement, most humans in Luxterra were sippin’ the same flavor kool aid that he was. He had no real reason to be concerned about a few weird notes but paranoia sure is a thing.  The demonic forces had clearly crossed his borders. No more missionary trips. No more acclimation experiments. It’s holy war time.

The Second Jewel Towne Fire - Faking their deaths seemed as good a plan as any. There wasn’t gonna be a search for dead dwarves.

The messages did their job and rescuers in the Woods got to work. The least crushed bits of the abandoned Mander Drop cave system was rediscovered and tunnels were connected to one of the dwarven-only work areas of the  smaller  royal mine. As soon as the escape route was open the signal was sent to every dwarf. 3 days.

By the time the king got word of the flash fire at the dwarf village,  now called Jewel Towne, the flames were a wall of rainbow fury from the metallic dust burning off of the clothes and buildings left behind and the thought that anyone could survive the inferno was laughable at best. Instead they focused their efforts on saving the monastery and other adjacent human buildings.

Meanwhile, the dwarves were making their way through their escape tunnels. Their last act was to detonate their exit.

It had taken three generations, but the Mander Drop dwarves were free again.  

Free Agents - So the Mander drop dwarves faked their deaths. Now what? Freedom was amazing but it wasn’t smooth sailing. They never completely fit in with the Woodland dwarves after their ordeal, and while they appreciated the help from the outsiders who freed them, they felt iffy about moves to coerce them into the Woodland army. This led to them being a pretty solitary nomadic tribe. They did their part though. It’s not like they magically stopped hating the king, they just didn’t want to give anyone else a chance to use them. During the war they worked alongside woodland forces as spies, info dealers, assassins, and Luxterra experts. They were a boon for anyone looking to infiltrate enemy ranks, pose as  slave traders to free captives, or safely escort refugees. They also served as an early warning system for different communities and provided hand transcribed copies of The Bestiary so that people could hide ‘demonic behavior’ from roving Luxterran forces looking for an excuse to go after them. These blasphemous reproductions included translations for common Luxterran phrases, inventive curses to yell at captors/raiders, beauty tips, song lyrics, and a variety of very raw comix. The info didn’t always work because if someone really wants you to be guilty you’ll always be guilty and many holy raids were just cover ups for land grabs and kidnapping, but they helped a lot and were pretty much how zines in the Woodlands were born.

You would think that trying to stay out of direct combat would mean they were relatively safe, but many Mander Drop dwarves fell during the war. They  were most often the first to warn towns of approaching Luxterran forces and last to leave, which meant they got into a lot of skirmishes. They also had a habit of always trying to rescue P.O.W.’s , kicking in the teeth of slave traders, and generally freeing anyone they could from the Rolism colonies (it seems dwarves weren’t the only people that the church had captured and tried to convert). Very touchy on the subject of stealing people those Mander Drop dwarves. Very willing to risk their lives for any opportunity to stomp on a Rolism priest’s nuts. 

And besides all that there was the fact that now that they were free, they were very loud and open about their seething hatred of Luxterra. They couldn’t let the enemy forces know that they were their former captives since they were still pretending to be dead (and in fact had stopped using the Mander Drop title in exchange for just calling themselves Lunk dwarves and adopting new names for themselves) , but they spread the tale like wildfire and turned a lot of would be allies against the Luxterra. Most of the groups that were the loudest, most widely spread, and biggest pains in the collective royal ass were led or assisted by Mander Drop dwarves. It was so much of a thing that in the Lunk scene people used bounties and wanted posters like stylish accessories. This of course meant that anyone with a heavily styled beard  and a mohawk was enemy number one.

Some Woodland forces pegged this as reckless and suicidal behavior, but they won more than they lost and their work with the goblins who created the Guides saved a lot of people so no one really said nothing to them. Plus Lunk musicians were still making tons of morale boosting music in between missions and were regarded as some of the greatest war bards the Woodlands had ever known. You came to their shows talking smack and you had better have had a good reason or great brawling skills.

End Of The War-  Stomping on slave trader necks was fine, but it was the spies that really helped bring an end to the war.

Intel from human allies still living in Luxterra revealed that the king was going to try revive his weird dwarf collection and use them as spies. This would be his downfall however, as it gave a few of the top Mander Drop spies a way to get in there and just mess things up real good.

The ladies who took on this mission were Basaltherick Boulderboar, Thorgold Buckmarble, and Brickarth Dirtraven. They posed as miners who had been trapped by  a cave in right before the deadly fire, claiming they’d been wandering the underground for over a year, surviving only on water and mud (which The Bestiaries totally said they could do in hard times). It was almost suspicious how quickly they were believed and offered the job. If there was any Divine meddling going on, it definitely wasn’t for the king’s side.

It takes another year, a lot of sabotaging the hidden camps holding the heavily guarded healer P.O.W.’s that the Luxterran forces had been using the keep their army borderline unkillable, the accidental seduction of the king’s cousin, the death of a brave comrade, a few murders here and there, and getting a real tasty peasant uprising going, but eventually the crown was scooped up off the floor next to the guillotine, dusted off, and placed on the head of King Renn. His two dwarven advisers, Ladies Boulderboar and Dirtraven, stayed in Luxterra for the rest of their lives, and  later became peaceful dignitaries. To this day they are still  a constant presence in the Luxterran courts in what totally isn’t keeping an eye on on whoever they didn’t kill/get killed the first go round. They are also  founders/joint leaders of the less peaceful secret society who totally are making sure that that bullshit never happens again.

Dwarves age amazingly but they both look very young for their respective ages. Just a fun fact.

Also they are still spiking their beards.

Post War - Everyone kind of expected the Lunk scene to die out once the war was over, but changing out a king doesn’t entirely change out the ideas implanted in his people so even today there are still pockets of Rolists causing trouble so in turn there are still Lunk girls carrying on the family tradition of stomping on their nuts. It was eventually revealed that the Mander Drop dwarves had faked their deaths, and negotiations started on declaring their ancestral cave system as dwarven land entirely separate from Luxterra. Today the system is mostly restored and serves as a dwarven historical landmark but few people took up residence there right after the war. They were happy to have access to their home again but the feeling of being in Luxterra borders was just…too much.  The majority of the Mander Drop survivors decided to spread their wings a bit and explore the Woodland on quests for insight into free dwarven culture. The bands that were still whole and didn’t hate each other toured wherever folks would have them, picking up new musical skills and spreading the Lunk sound across the land. The fractured bands did similar, banding together or training up new members from other cave systems. Seamstresses used their skills to transform the post war fashion industry into something weird and wonderful (and one has a granddaughter who’s the current talk of the non-human fashion world with her Chainmail Bikini brand). Some of them went into crafting apprenticeships. Some helped rebuild Mander Drop.

Some, maybe more than people talk about when discussing the Woodland’s victory, never recovered from Everything and it’s a shame what happened to the ones who got smothered by all that ugliness.  That’s what these things do to people though.

There are worse happy endings than this.