Alnyx was still up with the sun, which was a surprise to him after the previous night’s activities. With Peter’s limbs tangled around him as they were, he had to take great care not to wake the mortal as he freed himself. Alnyx shoved the pillow into the void of the human’s arms, pausing to make sure his eyes didn’t open. Satisfied Peter’s sleep was undisturbed, he walked to the bathroom.

  Before pulling his clothes back on, making sure they were his and not the smaller man’s, he took a moment to assess himself in the mirror. His hair was clean, but a mess he would have to sort out when he had access to his things. And a rag and cold water from the wash basin would have to do to clean up any…Remaining evidence from the night before.

  Once his boots were on, he was out the door they had been so neatly left next to. He searched his pockets for the strap of leather he kept in them to keep his hair out of face, since it would be the best he could do.

  The tavern was empty while the sun was up, and so the cleaning girls were the only ones in the large room. They whispered among themselves as he came down the stairs, pausing to use a mirror by the bar. The guard at the door grunted when he made his way over, and Alnyx gave a nod in response.

  “I wasn’t able to lock the door. If someone could do so for him?”

  It shouldn’t have been a kindness. Should have just been common courtesy. Judging by the confusion it got from the half giant (a different one from the night before, only noticeable by a scar above one brow), it was not though. But the guard nodded and Alnyx set out onto the street.

  The walk back to the Bed-share was a good one. His muscles were pleasantly sore and the stretch it provided helped him to loosen up some. He picked up a loaf of bread, and some dried sausage from one of the early morning vendors. In this distract it cost more, but certainly tasted better than the dried fish and day old rolls that he’d find closer.

  “Oh you must be the wolf’s human then.” The young man behind the desk beamed when Alnyx gave his name and bed number to him. “Or…Elf rather. The night worker said he’d been a darling. Tucked himself in and everything.”

  Alnyx couldn’t help but smile. The lycine knew how to get what he wanted as easily as any two-legged beast did. Even if what he usually wanted was food he shouldn’t eat.

  “Good. Thank you.” he nodded to confirm he was before going up to the bed-share room.

  Seeing his fury companion curled up and dreaming, he almost felt bad for nudging him awake. Almost. Fish peaked an eye open and yawned, giving a sleepy whimper before covering his snout with one paw.

  “Your tricks don’t work on me, don’t try to play cute.” Alnyx picked up his bag from where it had been stashed under the bed. “Up. We have a lot of ground to cover before it gets dark.” No movement on top of the bed. “We’re off to The Grove, remember?”

  The other eye opened, and Fish stretched out, rising onto his paws. He let out another mighty yawn before shaking the blanket off. The beast jumped from the bed to the floor, with a few wags of his tail.

  “Thought that might do it. We’ll get you something fresh from the butcher and head out. I want to make it to the lake by nightfall.”

  At the mention of the butcher, the snow-white beast was already half way to the door without looking back. A fond chuckle and an adjustment of his bag’s straps, and Alnyx was on the way behind him.

  * * *

  Even though it was stationary, unlike the nomad bands that his Father and Mother led, every trip to The Ancestral Grove of his clan seemed to take longer than the last. Even if it started in the same place most times. Every hour further from the salty spray of Port Morgranto’s air, he could feel the giant pine trees call to him.

  The snow was nothing more than a troublesome flurry in the few days it took to move along the well-trod path to the last Northern City of Humanity. The bed in the Inn was only marginally softer than the ground, but it was at least dry. And the water was heated by metal pipes and magics like further south. The little town had come up quite a bit since his last stay there seven, maybe nine, years ago. More surprising than the warm water, though, was the newly sanctioned Tasker Guild office.

  There were more beasts than people up here, and even fewer of them would have had the coin needed to make a proper request. When Alnyx stopped in before he meant to be on his way in the morning, it was more out of curiosity and perhaps to have a good story for Marigold in case a trinket or a gift wasn’t possible. But seeing the desperation on the man’s face behind his desk, the elf could not help himself. The work that was local was mostly clearing out beast nests, making the surrounding area little more…Hospitable for the locals and the few traders that made their way though. The payments were part in coin, but mostly in a trade of goods or services.

  The beautifully preserved leather bracers, perfect for an offering to the Elders he decided, were too enticing to pass up. And considering it was a rare enough thing to have a warrior capable this far up, there was no need to profit share. Thank the Ancestors for what Marigold had called “approved exceptions”.

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  Two and a half days later than he had originally planned on, with furs, leathers, and even a little more coin, Alnyx and Fish made their way to the treeline of his clan’s Grove. He took pause, placing a bare palm against the bark. The rough scratches from it were more pleasure than pain, a familiar abrasion. A few decades of climbing through the branches and falling out of them came to mind. The roots never forgot their saplings.

  By the time he opened his eyes again, Fish was already ahead, a blur of white as the lycine moved through the trunks and boughs. The joyous howling of the beast made any subtle entrance impossible. But Alnyx could not help but chuckle fondly as he followed after. Even though Fish was the most magical thing about him, branches and boulders seemed to shift out of the way to give him a bath to safely walk. More than one bent towards him instead, tangling in stray strands of his hair, like the hands of a mother fussing over their messy child come in from playing outside.

  “Well well. Look what the Dryads dragged in. You certainly know how to make an entrance, Little Leaf. Fish could wake a sleeping giant with all that racket.”

  Not a scout from his people, but just as welcome a sight as one may have been. He knew those hoof-beats nearly as well as he knew his own footsteps as he turned to face the female voice. The body of a dappled gray horse gave way to the torso of a woman from the waist up. Her laugh shook the very trunk of the tree that she stepped out from behind of to properly greet him. There were few people that ever made Alnyx feel small, though he supposed that the Centaur wasn’t….Well, people exactly.

  “Iphinica.” he smiled and stood before her. “You try to tell Fish to be calm or behave himself. He hardly knows the meaning of either one.”

  “That’s why he has always been my favorite.” She bent, their foreheads pressing together as a sort of embrace. “Walk with me. I will take you to Your Grove.” There was a familiar mischief in those violet eyes.

  “Of course.” he took a half step bask so she could lead the way.

  As if he needed a guide in these woods.

  “It has been far too many moons since you have been back. Has something happened?” She stepped over a large, exposed, root with more ease on four legs than Alnyx could do with two. “You smell of people and of the ocean.”

  “Nothing out of the ordinary.” A small lie. The encounter with the Scholar has been anything but ordinary after all. “I was in the Port town that I have told you about in the past. And the Human town just a half day journey from here before then.”

  “I see…Nothing out of the ordinary, and yet you have been called to The Grove for the first time in nearly as many years as you have fingers, close to the snow you may have to wait to thaw before returning to your Wandering.” Iphinica arched an eyebrow. “You do not seem wounded. Nor does Fish.”

  “Can’t I just come home like any traveler without having to have a reason?”

  “You are not just any traveler, Little Leaf.” She laughed and shook her head, causing her hair to shift just slightly from the way it lay covering her otherwise bare chest. “The Forest is always glad for the return of her saplings. But you know that your nosy clan-mates will not be so easily put off as I may be from answers.”

  Alnyx was all too aware of that fact. The youngest among them were always the easiest to redirect with a stories of cities and places they had never heard of outside of a book or a passing nomad. His direct blood could be contented with knowing he was in one piece and well kept. It was the Elders and the Treespeakers themselves that were the problems. The specific probing about the Winding Trails. The demands to be party to new definitions and visions since he saw the world outside of the trees…He already planned on leaving if the questions went beyond fifteen in the first meeting.

  “With luck, the need to prepare of the change in seasons will be enough to keep them preoccupied.”

  Iphinica’s laugh said she didn’t believe it either. She waited for him to navigate past another particularly curious bramble bush that had gotten its hooks into his pant leg.

  “I met someone.” he relented when he managed to get the pointy bit out of the fabric without tearing anything or harming the bush. But wasn’t able to get any other words out before he was interrupted.

  “Alnyx!” The centaur gasped before he could elaborate. “Someone? But…” The beaming grin faltered as she glanced around. “I see only you and Fish here.”

  “Not that sort of someone.” Alnyx rolled his eyes. “On a job. They were part Wylder, and speaking with them about it made me homesick.”

  “Part Wylder? By that messy hovel by the ocean? Those sort do not go that far.” Iphinica wrinkled her nose as she considered it. “At least not any who belong to reputable covens. You are sure?”

  “It is what they claimed, and they gave me no reason not to believe them.” Alnyx shrugged in return, wiping dirt from his hands off onto his pants. “We only spoke briefly about it, and it felt wrong to pry.”

  Alnyx recounted the details of the conversation, as much as what might matter to the horse woman. A cult of the Green, from a grassland that had to be nearer the Highblood Towers and the mages than here. A father that hadn’t been a mortal man, or stayed around for long enough to explain themselves. When Iphinica asked how he could tell, he explained the horns, but was sure he did them no justice. The notion some grazer-horned Wylder was roaming around had her wracking her brain for which of the Covens would allow for that and kept her from asking questions Alnyx didn’t have answers to.

  Eventually Fish did re-join them, likely able to tell they were growing closer to the settlement. Already the white fur was a dirty brown-gray as the beast had been happily rolling in Ancestors know what while they were apart. But the happy way the lycine’s tongue lolled as he jumped from fallen log, to rock, to tree stump made him hard to stay annoyed with. Even Iphinica kept from groaning when he licked her hand.

  He could smell The Grove before there was any sight of it, on the ground or in the massive, thickening canopy above them. The sweet scent of flower and herb gardens, cultivated longer than the spans of mortal lives, cut with the char from the smoke houses that helped preserve kills from hunts when game was more scarce. There was the whisper of chattering families and traders as they neared the Center on the Floor. So many voices in his native tongue, Alnyx found a place inside his chest he hadn’t realized had grown cold grow warmer.