A toothpick of a girl, with as straight of hair to match, walks along a path. The ground is beaten and dusty, making her sneeze, tripping over her own two feet. She groans, levering her body up. “I’ll never, ever, not fall. . .” She moves on, glancing down at her leather-clad feet with forest green tights. The jerkin reaches just above her knees, that same muddy brown as the trail after a rain. A belt binds her waist, holding a small pouch of coins, a tiny dagger, and a box of flint.
        Her right arm hefts the bag she’s carrying to over her shoulder, letting her breath out as it pounds her back. This action causes her to lurch forward again, this time tearing a run in her new tights. “Oh, drat! Just great! I just bought these, oh. . . What will Grandmother say?” Bringing one leg up, she hauls herself from the genuflecting position to her feet. Cursing minor obscenities such as, “Gods, hell, eels, and leeches,” she manages to be on her way again, bag on her back.
        Some hours later, the teenager ends up walking to their secluded hut. After falling many more times, of course. She staggers in, through the door, casting her glance around. “Ferne. . . Ferne, are you there?” She pauses awhile, gratefully letting the bag drop. The hempen drawstring loosens, the neck parting to reveal crinkled and bunched clothing.
        An older woman in her early forties steps awkwardly out of a room. Letting the potato sack door drop behind her, disguising the dark background once more. “Hafza, is that you?” She asks quietly in the gloom of gathering darkness. A dying fire lays in the center of the sod floor, surrounded by a ring of soot-blackened stones. Blue-gray smoke curls upward, filling the room with a heady aroma of burning pine. It drifts to the small chimney, really just an opening in the simple log roof.
        Hafza rushes forward, not tripping for once, in her urgency. She steadies the elderly lady, who was teetering dangerously on her heels. The young girl clucks chidingly as she ushers her grandmother into a wooden rocker near the fire.
        “Ferne, you know you’re supposed to rest. How many times must I say that I’ve got everything under control?”
        “As many times as my old ears can stand it, my dear.”
        Her wrinkly face creases into a calm smile, which reaches her blue eyes, twinkling in the dim light. Night is falling and Hafza reluctantly pulls away from her caretaker to bustle around in the wooden cupboards. She drops their trenchers multiple times, gasping when one landed on her foot. Taking three minutes to massage her toes with a sour expression on her face, she leans on the washbasin.
        “Are you alright?”
        “Perfect, Ferne. You just rest easy, now.
        Within the hour, she’s managed to stoke the fire and has it crackling merrily beneath the cauldron of stew resting on the logs. She stares into the flames, as does her grandmother. Both are recollecting the time that she was separated from her family. It takes the game broth boiling over and onto the embers to arouse her from her musing.
        “Eels, ouch!”
        With a furtive glance at her Grandmother, who is just as startled, she recovers her mouth.
        “I- uh, um, I mean. . . Um. . .”
        “I thought we were agreed that you would refrain from cursing such obscenities in the presence of your elder,”
        says a voice from the doorway. Cliodhna folds her wings against her equine body, snorting disapprovingly. Her gray hide is flecked with red spatters, which is only accentuated by the gems of a pair of eyes she has. The winged unicorn dips her head impatiently.
        “Clio, hold your horses- sorry. We’re just getting around to eating. Here you go, Grandmother,”
        she murmurs, handing off the wooden bowl carefully. Her hand stretches to a grubby cloth-covered parcel and her fingers flick it off carelessly. Hafza closes her hand around a piece of bread and pulls, ripping off a formidably-sized portion for Ferne to sop up her stew.
        When she finally decides to serve herself, she pours half of it down her front, screeching in pain as the scorching liquid makes contact with it.
        “Damn! My skin’s not tough as dragonhide. . . fuck!”
        “Hafza!”
        Her nan gasps in horror at her choice in words. Clio has a similar reaction with her ears laid back and a furious snort of derision. Hafza’s brown eyes are bloodshot from welling tears threatening to overflow down her cheeks. Her lip trembles as she attempts to snap, managing more of a strained whimper.
        “What do you expect? It fucking hurts.”