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mjart12699 · 2 months ago

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Decided to post a fic I wrote a while ago on here since I have been too busy lately to write anything else anyway enjoy some Muriel’s not the Step Father He’s The Father Who Stepped up content

Woodcutters

I’ve always liked the woods. It’s always been calm, but not silent. There are little noises I can pay attention to and identify as I walk the path, feeling the dirt beneath my shoes.

It’s different now though. The woods are filled with the noise of people, scared people who came here out of fear of the city and settled right in the yard of my zio’s oldest friend.

The friend who is now my ma’s boyfriend, it seems.

Muriel seems nice, and from what Asra has told me he’s a good person. I feel calm around him, and so do the chickens and other animals that live here, so I suppose I can trust him. What’s weird is seeing how my ma is around him.

My ma was not very trustworthy of other people before she got sick, and she still had a lot of social anxiety after she woke up again. She’s been working on it. According to Asra and Finn, I’ve been a big help since we’re really similar. She got a lot better after we found Wojtek, a puppy that grew into a bear-like dog a few months after she was okay again. To see her so relaxed around someone, let alone Muriel, is a bit weird.

“Hey, Sawyer.” Finn’s deep voice pulls me back from my thoughts, and the scratch of my pen on the paper I grabbed comes to a halt. “Did you hear what I said?” He sits down next to me, and I feel his eyes on the paper more than see them. I shake my head in response, tracing imaginary lines in my mind across his dark hands as he fiddles with a foraging bag. “The adults are having another meeting, so your mama is going to be busy again for a little bit. I figured we could go look for some more of those honeysuckle flowers that you like, maybe practice some illusions?” I think on it for a moment before nodding, packing up my art supplies in my bag and standing up.

“I have to put my stuff away.” I sign to Finn before running off to my tent. It’s near ma’s and Muriels, towards the back of the hut and away from the people. Ma made a few jokes about how the three of us have that in common, the need to be away from the noise.

I open the flaps of the tent as I undo the locking spell, walking on my knees to avoid letting my dirty shoes touch the floor of the tent. I know it will get dirty anyway, but I don’t like the feeling of dirt touching my skin when I sleep. I tuck my art supplies under my pillow, shaking out my bag to make sure I didn’t miss anything and then repacking what I will need to take with me. My stuffed mammoth, my mini sketchbook, a piece of charcoal, gloves, extra socks in case the ones I’m wearing get wet, a sweater, and some candy so I don’t chew the inside of my cheek. Once that’s packed, I wiggle back out of the tent, closing the flaps and redoing the protection spell. I nearly fall back when I stand up and turn around to see Muriel, kneeling down to pet Wojtek right outside my tent.

“Sorry, I didn’t mean to scare you.” He doesn’t stand up, which I’m okay with. The man is ridiculously tall, my earliest memory of him being when Asra took me out here, I think I was a toddler. He had been wearing his chains, and his hair had been a lot longer. I also remember he didn’t seem as soft as he does now, a feeling I can’t really explain. “Your mom and I have to meet with everyone again, to talk about what’s going to happen. We- I mean, she wanted you to know where she was in case you’d need anything.”

I nod in response, feeling my hair brush against my neck and slapping it away when it itches. Muriel’s face changes when I do that, the same way that other adults do when I do anything considered weird. “It’s itchy.” Is all I sign before I walk away, finding Finn and his cat, Annette, on the outskirts of the settlement and taking one of the more wild paths with him.

I practice my magic a bit as we walk, summoning small gusts of wind in my hands and holding up leaves or flowers in midair with it as we walk, and sometimes coming up with small illusions. Finn’s job when we are not hiding from a bloodthirsty monster and his band of mercenaries is to dig up old bones and study them, paleontology. I went on a lot of his digs with him the year that we left Vesuvia while mama was sick. He had always kept me in the shade, putting big hats on my head and making sure I was wearing enough sun cream to “keep the people who make it from ever going out of business”. He talks about the bones he’s found as we walk, telling me what he thinks they might have looked like and asking me to summon the description in my hands, then summoning his own to compare. It’s a fun game we play, something that keeps my mind from wandering to the bad stuff.

By the time we find the grove where the honeysuckle is, the sun has started to head more into the evening, and a chill blows through. I pull my sweater out of my bag, the soft purple yarn smelling a little bit old and in need of a wash, but comforting.

“I admit that I brought you out here with another ulterior motive.” Finn’s large hands pluck several of the white and yellow flowers at a time before he deposits them in his bag. “You’ve been looking a little sad, and it’s easy to see why.” I turn away as he talks, knowing that he knows I am still listening. “It was nice and calm for a while, then the Countess hired your mama for a weird job. A week later she has to go down south with a scary lady and the best friend of your uncle, who looks and seems like the exact opposite.” Annette climbs some of the branches, her soft fur shining a warm brown in the dappled sun, her golden eyes watching me knowingly. “ Then she comes back after months of being away, right before the biggest party of the year, dating said guy.” He’s right about that, it was weird to see them together. Asra seemed really happy about it, and tried to tell me stories of him and Muriel when they were growing up while he and my ma were down south, but it still felt strange. “Next thing you know we are all running away from the city and into the woods and we have to set up camp around a bunch of other people, some of which have obviously not learned about camping etiquette.” This makes me laugh a little, because it’s true. Not a day goes by out here where someone doesn’t start an argument with another person about something stupid. I feel Finn’s hand on my shoulder, and look up to see that he also finds it funny. He kneels down to my level picking some of the flowers on the forest floor as he does, all ones we can use for medicine or food. “The point is, you’ve been holding in a lot, and it’s okay to miss your ma. I know you think that because you’re one of The Big Kids out here that you have to act brave and happy all the time, but you need to remember that you are nine years old. It’s okay to have all of the bad feelings.” I don’t like that he’s able to read right through me, but that’s what happens when you spend most of your life around someone.

My throat feels sore and wet, and the area behind my eyes hurts. I know it’s a sign that I’m going to cry, but I still don’t like it. Finn pulls me down, leaning against the small tree the honeysuckle had been growing around and letting me sit against his side. I rock back and forth against the tree, not able to do anything else to calm myself down. Finn fishes my stuffed mammoth out in response, tucking it into my arms and rubbing his hand up and down my back as I hide my face in my knees. Annette comes down from the tree, purring as she wiggles her way into my lap and kneading her paws in order to get me to release my legs from my grip, preventing marks that I would normally scratch into my skin. It feels like forever has passed before I stop crying, and it still feels stupid to cry over something like this when I’m done.

My legs feel heavy when we decide to go back, so Finn hoists me up so that he’s giving me a piggy-back ride. If I weren’t so tired from today I would protest, especially since I’ve been getting a bit too big for that, but Finn doesn’t seem to mind, and carries me easily all the way back to camp.

I’m nearly asleep when we do get back, but I’m awake enough to help Finn and Mazelinka, Zio Julian and Zia Portia’s kinda-grandma, with making dinner. Mazelinka tells stories as we make the soup, her time at sea and the antics Portia and Julian would get into when they were younger. Everyone who was at the meeting, the Satrinava’s, Asra, Muriel and Ma come and eat with us when the sun starts to set even more.

The soup is good, and it makes me feel nice and warm despite the temperature drop outside. Finn sits between Ma and I, chatting with her about what happened in the meeting as we eat. He’s always felt like a nice protective bubble for when I don’t want to talk, but I know from experience that Ma will ask me what’s wrong soon. She has a weird sixth sense for it. By the time I’m done with my dinner some of the adults have gotten out drinks, some dancing around controlled fires and others laughing loudly with each other.

I don’t like it.

Ma see’s that easily enough, and when Finn begins to dance with Asra and Julian she scoots closer to me.

“Time for bed?” I nod, leaning against her and breathing in the smoky scent that lingers on her clothes from the fires around us. Wojtek follows us when we stand up, yawning and stretching before sending a deep bark out into the woods, earning a howl in return. “We’re going to head off to bed, you gonna be okay?” I already know she’s talking to Muriel. I hear him hum in response before she takes hold of my hand and we walk back to the tents together.

It gets cold pretty quick once we leave the community fires, but even then I am slow to get into my tent and into my pajamas. Ma gets hers on from her own tent, tapping the outside of mine in silent question. I open the flaps to let her and Wojtek in, which makes the tent really cramped pretty quick.

“So, today was pretty long, huh.” Neither of us are good at small talk, or starting conversations, but it’s surprisingly nice that she’s trying to ease into what she wants to talk about. I nod, grabbing my quilt and wrapping it around my shoulders before leaning into her, nearly melting when she wraps her arms around me and pulls me down onto the pile of furs that make a bed for now. “I’m so sorry baby. I haven’t had a lot of time with you lately, and when I do there’s always other people around so it’s never just you.” I tell myself that I’m listening, even as she runs her tattooed fingers through my hair and the thump of her heart tries to sing me into sleep. “I can’t promise to spend tomorrow with you, but after all of this is over, we’ll do whatever you want. Day and dinner, does that sound nice?” I nod as I hum in response, and it doesn’t take long for me to fall asleep after she brushes my hair out of my face and Wojtek curls around me.

The snow is up to my knees out here, and my breath freezes as it leaves my mouth. There are structures that surround me, old and worn so much that it would be impossible to fix them up again.

Suddenly, the red sky no longer weeps little white flakes. Instead, they’re gray, and it smells awful. The ash nearly chokes me as I try to run through the snow, but I’m not paying attention, so I fall through the ice and the cold water seeps through my bones as sharks swim in protective circles. I don’t have the time to scream. I try to kick my way back to the surface, I should know how to swim, but it feels like something is holding me back.

I don’t look down to see what it is.

I can’t.

But I can feel her bones, and hear her soft voice.

I’m on the shore again, but the scene is different. It’s an island this time, and there’s no snow. Only ash. I wonder if it’s the same ash from before as I push aside the dry branches to walk through it, the feeling of dread in my chest doing just as much damage as the ash in the air.

I come to a building, brick and mortar and on fire. Ash piles out from it and I can’t tell if those who were once inside are still screaming or if it’s just the flames and coals. Something touches my shoulders, the same thing from earlier, and when I turn to see what it is my screams die in my throat.

The specter doesn’t have any defining features, just embers within shadows. Empty eyes see right through mine, and their hand reaches for my shoulders again. The touch is gentle, and filled with so much sorrow that it’s overwhelming.

I nearly vault out from my blankets, any sound dying in my throat when I throw up next to my bed. Wojtek is gone, and the tent flaps are open. I barely process that Ma comes in when I throw up again. She rubs my back and holds my hair away from my face for a few more minutes to make sure there’s nothing left in my stomach. I think she asks if I want to go to bed with her. I think I nod. Muriel is standing outside the tent, not enough space for him to come inside. I think I hear her say something about cleaning up, and then I’m passed to him.

He smells nice.

We go into his and Ma’s tent, where he gets water and a rag and sits me down near the bed. There’s a small orb of light, just enough that we can see but not too much to hurt our eyes in the late hours. He helps me clean my face, rearranging the furs in the tent so they’re more spread out before sitting me down in the middle. He leaves the tent for a few minutes, I think, and when he comes back Ma is with him. She gets me to drink some water, running her hands through my hair and pulling me close. I think I hear her and Muriel talking to each other, asking out loud if I might be sick. I shake my head, but I’m too tired to explain. I just want to sleep.

Ma lays down first, pulling me with her so that I can use her arm as a pillow. Muriel is the one that pulls the blankets over all of us, his thick arm wrapping around both her and I. He doesn’t seem to mind that I’m here, and the little nagging voice that tells me I’m in the way nearly shuts up when he pulls us both closer.

I’m confused when I wake up, and feel like I’ve been boxed in by a million blankets. It takes a few seconds longer than I’d like to admit for me to remember what happened last night, and another few for me to process that the reason I’m so squished is because I am surrounded on all sides. Wojtek managed to lay on top of me in the night, further boxing me in between Ma and Muriel. It was nice last night when it was nearly freezing outside, but right now, under a thick quilt and the sun beginning to rise once again, it is not.

I resign to my fate, however, when I remember that Wojtek is nearly twice my size, and even if he wasn’t here on top of me I don’t want to wake Ma and Muriel. I take a deep breath and settle back in, tracing imaginary lines on Muriel’s face while he sleeps.

I like studying peoples faces, it’s something I’ve always done as far as I’m aware. I’m not very good at telling how someone is feeling just by their face, and I have difficulty recognizing people whenever there is a slight difference in appearance, like when they change their hair, makeup or even the metal of their jewelry.

I’ve never really studied his face before. He wasn’t around enough to warrant interest, but now he’s around all the time. He doesn’t seem to like it when people stare, though, and after Finn explained why I just avoided looking at him in general. He has a scar on his cheek and brow. I mentally trace the scar on his cheek, and look at how there isn’t hair growing close to it like there is on the rest of his face. I wonder if the hair can no longer grow there.

I’ve gotten bored of tracing his face by the time Wojtek yawns and gets up, somehow managing to not not step on any of us as he leaves the tent for the morning. The change still wakes Muriel up, while Ma still holds on to a few more minutes of sleep. I had closed my eyes and pretended I was still asleep when Wojtek left, and I turned over when Muriel got up to get ready for the day. He’s still wearing most of the Masquerade outfit that the Countess gave him, although he took off the cape part, leaving only the shirt, pants and boots. Everyone else had managed to find their normal clothes after the fact, except for him.

He’s weird.

Ma finally wakes up after a few minutes, brushing my hair out of my face again before getting up. I wiggle back under the covers, knowing that it’s time to get up but not wanting to leave the cozy nest. I don’t know if they know that I can hear their hushed voices.

“Do you want me to stay while you talk to him?” Muriel’s deep voice is easy to identify on any day, even with the failing enchantment The Hermit gave him.

“If you want to, I won’t pressure you, but it has been a few weeks since we’ve been out here, gah, I don’t know how to talk about this…”

“It’s fine, I think I get what you’re trying to say… and you’re right, I shouldn’t just avoid being around him… I’m not sure how to explain why I have been either.”

“It’s okay, it’s understandable. You don’t have to explain right now, but I do think it’d be good for him if you were here while we talked.”

He hums in response, and I feel Ma’s footsteps come closer before she kneels down and gently shakes my shoulder.

Despite being awake before them, I still feel groggy. I turn over to see that she’s already pulled half of her hair back, although a lot of it still frames her rosy face. I sit up, still pulling my blanket around my shoulders and groaning when my stomach growls.

“Buon giorno piccolo, ti senti meglio?” She rests her hand on my forehead while she talks, pulling it away after a few seconds and scooting over a little closer when Muriel comes to sit down, a cup of water in his hand. “Do you still feel sick?” I think for a minute to see if my stomach still feels all twisted up, and nod when the thought of eating makes the nausea worse. Muriel hands the cup to me, his brows knitted together making the scar on his forehead move slightly. A little voice in the back of my mind wonders if it still hurts.

“Bad dreams?” I hadn’t expected him to speak, and everything feels slow before I am able to nod, doing my best to drink the water and get rid of the bad taste in my mouth.

“Would you like to talk about it?” Ma rubs her hand up and down my back, sending shivers through my brain and down my spine. “We’re pretty good at listening.”

My head throbs when I think about it too much, but I do my best to tell her anyway. “The sky was red, and I fell through the ice. There were sharks, and something was pulling me down.” Wojtek comes back into the tent, sitting down across Muriel’s lap and extending his paws into mine. “Then I was back on a beach, and I went through the woods to the building. It was on fire, and the thing that pulled me down just stared at me.”

By the time I’m finished with what I could recall from the dream I can hear Vesuvia waking up for the day as well, mixed conversation muffled from the tent. Ma pulls me closer, nearly into her lap and continues to rub my back, using her other hand to comb through my hair. Muriel looks at the floor, his hands busy petting Wojtek.

“Maybe drawing the thing in your dream will help a little, we used to do that all the time.” Ma’s idea normally works. Most of my memories of her from before she got sick are of us drawing together, her showing me how to mix paints to get the color I want and the way different brushes would have different strokes. We haven’t done it in a while. I nod against her shoulder, the movement making me skull throb, before standing up and going to my tent to get ready for the day.

We have breakfast just outside our tents, the first one in a while that’s at least a little quiet. Muriel had the idea in the first place, and Ma went to the campsite to tell Asra we’d be having breakfast alone.

I’m so used to someone trying to squeeze by me for something or bumping into me that it’s a little bit weird that we get to make breakfast and eat in silence.

I pull my hood up over my head, hiding the tangled mess my curls had become overnight and sitting down a few feet away from Muriel, close to the fire. I watch as he shakes the frying pan with the eggs, thinking of the paint colors I would need to get the right shade of yellow for the yolk.

“Do you want to try?” Muriel’s voice breaks my thought, and I look to see he’s holding a spatula out to me. I scoot closer, looking at him before grabbing it and trying to flip one of the eggs. The yolk ends up breaking, but when I try to give his spatula back to him he just scoots closer, putting his hand over mine to hold the spatula and flip one of the other eggs. That one doesn’t break. I still give the spatula back to him, preferring to watch and not fail at something so early in the morning. By the time ma is back from talking with Asra everything is cooked and served on three plates.

“Sorry that took longer than anticipated, Finn wanted to know if you were doing okay and then Nadia heard and yada yada yada…”

“It’s fine, Sawyer helped me with the eggs.” Muriel hands her the plate and gets the kettle off of the fire, pouring the hot water into three cups before settling back and getting his own plate.

“Did he now?” She has a weird look on her face, even as she stirs more cinnamon into her tea and crosses her legs to balance her plate, it’s like she’s hoping for something.

They chatter back and forth as we eat, mostly about the battle plans and safety measures taken in the forest. Everyone’s talked about those types of things so much that I’ve learned to tune it out, but it also means that I tend to tune out important stuff.

Like when ma asks me a question.

I look up from my plate, ma has her head tilted the way a cat does when they’re curious about something, as though it makes more sense at an angle. “Repeat?” I have to use both hands to sign most of the time, so I just set my plate to the side.

“We were talking about the things we could do today. I think we all need at least a little bit of a break before tomorrow.” She looks between both Muriel and I as she talks, taking a sip of her tea in between. “Got any ideas besides painting?” I stir the eggs and mushrooms on my plate as I think, tidying them into their own piles so they’re not touching.

Of all the things we can do out here, I’ve done most of them. I’m not saying that I would be bored with anything I’ve already done, I’m just worried that none of them would result in anything useful.

Muriel leans over to ma, whispering something in her ear that makes her nod, her smile changing to the one she wears when she’s about to beat Asra at cards, a rare occurrence. He turns to me, his plate almost cleared of the mushrooms. “Maybe you could help me with renewing the charms around the camp? The forest has had more traffic than it’s seen in centuries and the protective spells we’ve had up are nearly burnt out.”

Well, I have needed to work on my charms… I nod, resuming my breakfast with a set plan for the day.

“That’s great! I do have some stuff I need to work out with the Countess, so you two will be alone in that endeavor, but I’ll come back to paint sometime after lunch.” Wait, us two? “I’ll see you later.” She kisses Muriel and then kisses my forehead, standing up with her dishes seemingly without any thought.

I help Muriel clean up around the fire pit after we’ve finished eating, washing the dishes and putting them away. Wojtek helped with the dishes too, licking off any remaining food from mine and then following me around while I did my morning chores.

When everything’s all done and put away I go back to my tent to get my bag, making sure that nothing was misplaced before putting it on and stepping out.

I haven’t gotten to do much with charms quite yet when it comes to practicing magic. Asra focused a lot on water types and illusions at first, teaching both Finn and I the simple stuff. Ma always taught me about hedge magic, and after she woke up we all learned about various magics from Asra, but we haven’t really focused that much on charms for a while.

Wojtek bumps his snout into my hand, indicating that he wants me to rest it on my head while he leads me somewhere. It’s how we walk through the markets on a normal day, and at the moment he’s leading me towards Muriel. His head nearly reaches one of the lower branches, and the fur cloak he wears makes him look a lot bigger.

“Most of the charms were made by Asra, but some of them are mine.” I’m surprised I don’t have to walk very fast to keep up with him, his pace being slower than Julian’s, who practically leaps everywhere. “We actually started making them when we were a lot younger, when we first moved out here. Some of them had to be replaced over time, mostly from weathering, but others have held on for longer.” We stop walking when we reach one of the trees, huge and covered in moss. “Like this one.” Muriel gets something out of his pockets, long strips of cloth that he wraps around his hands and ties off at his wrists.

I have to wave to get his attention before signing. “What are those for?” He pauses wrapping his other hand before continuing with an answer.

“They’re to keep my hands safe, and these,” he pauses before pulling out two smaller strips, “are to keep your hands safe.” Wojtek sniffs the fabrics before sitting down at the base of the tree, taking a deep breath like he’d just run a mile. Inanna seems content to sit with him.

“We’re climbing?” I might as well ask all of my questions before I can’t ask them.

“Mhm, can I see your hands?” Muriel kneels down in front of me, showing how to wrap the cloth the right way so that it actually stays.

It feels weird.

“I’ll help you up to the higher branches, but most of them are pretty close together, so you won’t have to worry.” He leads me to the base of the tree after standing up again, eyeing the branch for a moment before looking back at me. “I’m going to have to pick you up for this one, will you be alright with that?” Looking at the tree, I don’t think I’d get up there any other way, so I allow it. Muriel puts me on his back, the same way Finn does, and jumps to grab onto the branch. I have to squeeze my legs to avoid falling off, but he pulls us up to balance quickly.

I get back down, holding on to Muriel’s arm without thinking about it so I can balance myself. I’m not really used to climbing trees this big.

“I can show you the branches to grab before you climb, and then I’ll follow.” Muriel looks around at the branches above us, pointing to a thick one I can reach. “You might have to jump a little for that one, but you can push your legs against the tree. I’ll be right behind you.” He’s right, even at the base of the branch I have to jump a little, pushing my legs against the tree for leverage and clinging to it once I’m secure. It takes a lot longer for me to get upright than Muriel did, but he doesn’t seem to react, he just climbs up after me and shows me the next branch and the next one and so on.

It feels like forever has passed once we reach the top, where a small, worn out charm dangles from a branch on a piece of twine. Stones and seashells decorate the center with twigs woven around them to create a rune. The closer I am to it, the safer I feel, but it’s a different safety than Asra’s magic.

Asra’s protective spells feel like tempered glass around you, watching the ocean from inside and hearing the echo of the things that pass. Muriel’s feels like diving into a nest of blankets and furs in front of a fire when there’s a howling blizzard outside.

I sit on the branch as close to the tree as I can get, looking over the trees and across the horizon. I can pinpoint the camp from here due to the smoke that rises from some of the trees in the distance, and behind me I can see a few of the small mountains, which ma likes to call glorified hills.

Muriel shows me the process to recharge the charm, which seems to make it age backwards somehow. His hands take on a slight green and bronze glow as he focuses on the spell for the first half, but then he stops.

“Hold out your hands, and concentrate on the rune and what it means to you,” I do as he says, watching as my hands develop a dim bronze and orange light washes over them. It flickers even as I try to focus, giving way to the green and bronze light from Muriel��s hands. “For a first try you did well. It took me several to even make this work in the first place. Then there was getting them all put up.”

I have questions.

I wait until we’re done with the charm, watching as Muriel hangs it back up on the same branch, which makes it rewind in its age within a few seconds. Once he’s done with that he looks below us, eyes bouncing from branch to branch and plotting a route back down. Before he can move to get down I tap his arm, making sure I have his attention before signing.

“How old were you when you moved out here?” He makes a weird face, his eyebrows raising and eyes widening, an expression that Asra says means someone is shocked. He almost says something a few times, but then decides not to.

“How about we talk when we’re on the ground again.” He doesn’t seem to want to answer at the moment, maybe it’s because we’re so high up.

I follow him down, sometimes having to hold on to him while he gets us to the branches that are further apart, much safer than jumping down.

Wojtek and Inanna are still waiting for us at the bottom, and their tails start to wag once they can see us. Wojtek runs in a circle at the base of the tree until we get down, wiggling in place in front of me while I pet him. We get back on the path to the next charm after catching our breath.

“My childhood…” Muriel’s voice is quiet, a deep rumble in the distance. “Wasn’t very pleasant. I had Asra, and they had me, but that was it. I had thought for years that my parents had abandoned me because they couldn’t feed me, and I grew up avoiding being a burden at all costs.” The brush is thicker back here, and I have to raise my arms to get through. “The people of Vesuvia were hardly ever kind to the children of the docks, and Lucio’s rule made their wariness of us even worse, especially when he began to collect us for dirty work.” The next tree is shorter, and we go through the same routine as we go up. Muriel pauses to talk in between branches, explaining that his parents had not abandoned him, but he just didn’t know what had happened to them. He explains how he met Asra, and their eventual decision to go to the forest. “I had watched and helped some people build their houses at the outskirts of the city when I was a little older than you are, and once I thought I knew enough we went to the woods to build the hut. It took most of the spring and summer. I had to fix a few things as we got older, like the fireplace and the roof, but it was worth it to escape the city.” When we get down again I don’t even recognize that my legs feel sore, too many questions going through my head to even think about it.

I ask a few more questions as we walk, most of them just verification of Asra’s retelling of their childhoods together. Those seem to make him a bit less nervous, and I get to hear some of the stories that Asra never told, like the fact that when they first met my ma was because Faust had tried to climb in through her window at the shop.

“First time I actually met your mother was at the shop as well, and she was still pregnant with you.”

“Actually?”

“Yeah. Your ma and her aunt were celebrating the solstice, and Matty had invited Asra and I. I hadn’t gone to the coliseum yet so I wasn’t as nervous about going somewhere like that if it had been a few months ago.”

“Did you like her then?”

“Hm?” The next charm is on top of a big rock that we’re approaching, so Muriel gets that one by himself pretty fast. It’s quiet for a minute before he answers. “I don’t really know. At the time I knew that she was someone who’d befriended someone I cared about, and I was really just making sure they were safe there.” He hits the ground with a thud, dusting his hands off and sitting down against the rock. I sit down with him and watch Wojtek try to play with Inanna. “I remember that she was more focused on making sure we all ate than making an impression, and that she enjoyed playing the banjo your aunt gave her. She fell asleep before everyone else though. I carried her up the stairs.”

“And me.”

“Yeah, I suppose I did. Don’t tell her I said that though. She won’t let me live it down.” I think he might be joking since he laughs after he says that, but I still won’t tell ma. “Let me know when you’re ready to go to the next one, we’ll take a rest for now.”

Inanna watches as Wojtek races around her, sighing when he starts to slow down a bit and walking off into the forest when she’s done entertaining him.

The clouds in the sky begin to gather, and the air begins to smell like it’s going to rain. I stand up immediately, but Muriel just kinda relaxes into the rock.

“We need to go back.” I jump up and down in front of him, pulling my sweater out of my bag and over my head to avoid any droplets. He takes a minute to stand up, dusting off his hands and unwrapping the cloth from them.

I try to make a run for it, keeping my sweater over my head and ignoring how my bag thumps against my legs. Wojtek runs ahead of me, his ears flopping and his fur getting soaked within a few seconds once the rain turns from a sprinkle to a downpour.

I’m not a fan.

I love the rain… when I am inside. However, when I am outside, it becomes difficult to enjoy. The water is cold and makes me shiver, making my clothes feel weird and stick to my skin. My hair gets frizzy and tickles my ears and touches my neck in a way that I just can’t stand.

Heavy footsteps follow behind me, getting closer and closer until I feel heavy furs wrapped around me and my body lifted up over someone’s shoulder.

Muriel gets us back to the camp faster that way, and I don’t think he breaks a sweat the entire time despite all the climbing that we did.

The magicians in the camp work to make shields over the fires to keep them from going out and the people huddled around them dry. Almost everyone else has resigned to staying in their tents.

The tent ma and Muriel stay in is filled with light, and ma opens the flap before we can. “No entry until you’re dry, come here.” She laughs as she lifts her hands, filled with a warm light that sends away all the water from our clothes and prevents any more from getting on. “Leave your shoes too, they’re caked in mud.” I don’t even wiggle around much before I feel her take my shoes from me, and Muriel sets me inside the tent. I’m still wrapped up in the cloak so I lose my balance and fall to the ground, and judging by the laugh I hear from outside ma definitely saw.

Untangling myself from the cloak takes a minute, and once I’m out of that I can see that ma has Muriel sitting on the ground while she dries his hair with a fluffy towel. He reminds me of when we have to dry off Wojtek with towels, the rare smile on his face proof that he might be enjoying it.

I always feel like I’m intruding whenever I see them like this. It’s weird, I know. I don’t know how to explain. I’m not jealous, I know that. However, I’ve never really witnessed openly romantic relationships up close. Zia Matty tells me about herself and Husain, the archeologist she’s married to. I’ve seen people on dates or strolls throughout the city, but I’ve never seen anything besides that.

Thunder claps outside of the tent, and lightning follows soon after, making the darkness of the forest outside not as heavy.

“It seems we’re in for some worse weather than we thought, huh?” Ma pulls out her bag, embroidered with bees and violets on the cloth, setting it on the ground and pulling out paint brushes, paint and paper. “Good thing we had plans for stuff that we can do inside, but first!” She turns to me, pulling another towel from the makeshift clean laundry pile in a corner of the tent. “Devo farti i capelli, sembri un piccolo leone.”

I don’t have to scoot very far to be close enough that she can do my hair, but it is funny to watch Muriel’s face as he tries to piece together what she said with context clues.

Ma talks to the both of us as she does my hair, stuff about her morning and how the meetings went. I can tell she’s leaving a few details out since I’m here, but I’m not sure I would want to know anyway.

The feeling of the brush in my hair is a familiar one, bringing up both pleasant and bad memories. I hated having my hair brushed when I was little, and would run away from anyone who tried to do my hair in the first place. Asra said that it took a while for ma, Finn and them to find a hairbrush that I wouldn’t scream at, and we still use the same one years later. She rubs one of the oils we managed to get from the shop in her hands, rosemary and mint, another familiar scent that almost immediately makes me relax a bit more. She always puts it on my scalp, massaging it in and combing whatever’s left on her hands through the rest of my hair. Asra likes to joke that it’s why my hair grows so fast. The longest I’ve grown it was down to my waist, but that was before ma got sick, and when she woke up most of her hair had been cut off.

That was the only haircut that I ever asked for.

Muriel tells her about how our morning went, finding a few of his own things within the tidy piles of stuff we have in the tent. He uses a knife to carve into a block of wood, the chips curling when they fall to the floor. It’s nice to watch, and I nearly fall asleep before ma’s done braiding my hair away from my face and down my spine. It’s still a little damp when she’s done, and it will probably stay like that until tomorrow because of the weather and just how much hair there is.

Even with the storm raging outside, it’s nice and cozy inside of the tent. The spells were put on all the tents when we first got out here to prevent leaking and damage still intact thanks to daily check-ins.

We sit around the lantern, each person focused on their own tasks and almost completely silent. It’s not awkward, for once. If anything, it feels right.

The paintbrush in my hand glides on the paper, leaving streaks of color over white that will soon longer show through. My favorite things to paint are mammoths, an animal that I’ve always loved. A majority of my books back home are about them, and I’m pretty sure Zia Matty and Asra are to blame. Matty liked to show off her illusions before bed, something she did with my ma and her brother when they were little, and with me before she fled from the plague. Her favorite one’s to do were often about ice-age animals, talking about the theories about them and what we know so far. Asra likes to say that they encouraged my interest in them after they crocheted my stuffed mammoth for me. Finn helped me gather my collection of books about them due to his job, even making a cast of a mammoth's tooth as a gift for my birthday one year.

I hope none of it has been destroyed by the raiders.

While the rain continues to pour outside, it’s warm and dry inside of the tent. The fabric of the tent is a deep blue, a little taller than most of the other tents around the camp so that Muriel can stand up in it for the most part. Furs cover the floor, keeping it warm compared to the cool ground. More furs are piled on one side of the tent, the makeshift bed ma and Muriel have been using. A chest of clothes and useful things from home is next to the bed, flowers painted all over it adding color to the space without looking odd.

Most of the noise from inside the tent comes from the sounds of Muriel’s knife scraping against the wood block, or ma’s erratic sketching on her paper. I look over and see that ma is painting a field of rolling hills with tiny blue flowers. Mine is almost finished, since I painted what I had seen in my dreams last night. It’s not as good as ma’s painting, but she’s an artist for a living and an adult so she would be better anyway. I scoot closer to ma and show her the painting I did. She takes it from my hands carefully, blowing on the paper to help dry it while looking at it. Her brows furrow while she looks at the paper. We spend a few minutes like that, just looking at the painting. It makes my heart beat faster and my throat feel tight because I’m worried I did something wrong, but she pulls me close again and sets the paper down.

“Do you want to talk about it?” I shake my head, and scoot back to my spot to grab more paper and my paint brushes again. I can see out of the corner of my eye that Muriel moves his head so that he can see the painting, and moves closer to ma to whisper something in her ear before going back to his carving.

I’m painting mammoths again. The field they walk in is covered in frost and small patches of vegetation, just like Zio Finn said they would. I like to paint them with bright colors though, using purples and blues and greens with the normal brown paints instead of just shades of brown. Ma is still working on her flower painting, adding small details with a thin brush and a careful hand. She’s used to tattooing skin and taking her time with it, so her paintings normally have a lot of tiny details that most people don’t notice in them. Muriel’s carving is starting to take shape too, and I’m starting to notice that he’s looking at my stuffie a lot in order to carve the mammoth.

The rain refuses to clear up, pouring harder with each hour that passes. The thunder and lightning doesn’t slow down either, and I wonder if we’re at risk of flooding. Muriel makes me think that he can read minds sometimes because right after I thought of that he told us that he built the hut here because it hardly ever floods, and if it does he has charms and protective spells around his hut to prevent leaks. He and ma enforce the charms on the tent for the same reason, checking the storm protecting thingy on top and drying themselves off when they come back inside. Muriel has me help him make more protective charms to put up directly outside of the camp and when we’re done with that I get out one of the books I managed to take with me and read while ma and Muriel do… whatever it is they do.

It was stupid to think we’d have a peaceful day.

The raiders attack when the sky is at its darkest, sending shouts through the camp and startling all of us in the tent. Ma tells me to stay put while she and Muriel go and help everyone, putting on her boots and cloak and leaving me alone in the tent.

I fiddle with the necklace my dad gave me and hold my stuffie while I wait for them to get back, rocking back and forth on the blankets and looking around the tent to keep myself busy. It’s hard to do anything else when I’m worried about my ma getting hurt or worse, and it feels like time moves slower while they’re gone.

It takes a while for them to get back, and when they do Muriel has a cut on his leg. Ma cleans it up and heals it, but falls asleep right after so he helps her into the furs and removes her shoes and cloak. I’ve seen her fall asleep after using a lot of magic, but never just from a healing spell.

“She fought pretty hard… no wonder she’s exhausted.” Muriel stacks the furs on top of her, brushing her hair out of her face and taking off the green bandana she has over her hair. “Are you alright?” I nod, finger combing the fur of my stuffie and rocking back and forth. “I… there has been a lot going on lately and if you need to talk to someone… I don’t mind.” I set my stuffie down to sign, my head tilted to the side.

“I’m okay.” I don’t actually know if I’m okay or not, but I tell him I am anyway. He sits with my ma for a few more minutes, not really doing anything when he grabs his carving stuff again. I watch as the wood curls when he pushes the knife against it, the pile on the floor slowly growing.

“Do you want to try?” He’s already carved out a rough shape for it, and he’s started working on details. “I’m not sure if your mom would be okay with you handling knives, but I started learning when I was about your age, and I’ll be right next to you.” I think his logic makes sense, so I move to sit cross legged on the cushions next to him and watch him carve the wood. He explains a few things while he does, and then hands the wood and knife to me. He shows me how to hold my thumb against the knife to guide it and how to keep my fingers away from the knife's path.

Muriel has taken over carving the wood by dinner time again, but he’s given me one of his older pieces to paint. It’s a carving of a bear, but I paint it green and blue with tiny flowers all over it.

Ma sits up and rubs her eyes, looking at us and at the top of the tent. “What time is it?”

“It’s close to sundown, if I had to guess.” Muriel puts his things away, looking at my ma when he’s done.

“I’m going to guess you two waited to eat until I was awake again?” I nod, bouncing my leg and still painting. “Well we should get started on that then…”

“You should rest, MJ.” Muriel tries standing, but while his leg is healed it must still hurt because he hisses through his teeth when he stands.

“You should too, but alas we are both adults here who need to eat and I’ve gotta feed this one here too.” She says all of this with a smile, standing up and ruffling my hair. Both of them end up working together to make something, ma heading out to the camp to check up on Asra once we had everything started. Dinner is okay, but I miss being able to cook on the stove back home. Even the fireplace in Muriel’s hut would be better, but he’s lent it to the Satrinava’s and Mazelinka uses it to cook for a lot of people at once most of the time. I show ma the carving Muriel let me paint after we’re done cleaning up, and I start to head to bed. Wojtek still isn’t back, but he’d be soaked anyway, so I start to get ready to go to sleep.

When I start to open the flaps of the tent, Muriel stands up, the carving he’d been working on in his hands. “Put this next to your pillow… it should help.” He hands it to me, and when I look closer at it I realize he’d carved runes into the back and the belly of the mammoth. I can see ma watching from the bed where she’s rearranging the furs and pillows before bed. She’s not very discreet.

“Thank you.” I sign to Muriel before heading to bed, doing a small spell to keep the rain from touching me before I get inside my tent.

I think the carving works, because I don’t have scary dreams that night.

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