I know you're there.

"AROOOOOO!"

No answer. Storm ran a ways and tried again.

"AAAAROOOOOOOO!"

Nothing. He decided to catch his breath and eat something, and by the time he finished a few of the dry crackers, he was ready to move on.

"AAAAIIIH!"

He'd turned around and found over a hundred elves staring at him. Silently. Expressionlessly. Maybe a bit hungrily.

Storm held out the rest of his crackers. "Food?"

Twist—standing in the front—approached slowly, snatched the crackers, sniffed them suspiciously, and bit a chunk off one. Then he retreated and distributed the rest of the crackers to the others, who each broke off a tiny piece and passed them on. As the crackers disappeared, the other Cuind crept forward and surrounded Storm, and one yanked off his pack. The remaining nuts, dried fruit, meat, and bread were similarly shared.

Storm hoped this was an initiation ritual and they weren't actually that hungry. Twist came up to him again, and Storm met his eyes firmly, ready for the usual staring contest; but Twist only tilted his head and watched Storm with an unreadable expression. Then he gave a click-click-click and the Cuind all broke into a run as one, and Storm had to scramble to keep up. Sounds came from all around him.

Tick-click.

Whistle-click-click.

Click-sssss-kssss.

Tsssssssk.

Clickclick-clickclick-click-ssss-whistle-sssss.

"Tsst!" hissed Twist.

Tsst-tsst-tsst-tsst-tsst-tsst-tsst-tsst-tsst-tsst-tsst-tsst-tsst-tsst-tsst-tsst.

Then they all fell silent.

. . . . . .

Storm didn't even try to hide his groan as he struggled into a sitting position; the Cuind knew he was sore already, no use pretending. He'd heard they ran all day most days, but he'd thought centuries of trying to keep up with Raven and Flint and Dawn would've prepared him. It had for the first day. Not the second, or the third, or the fourth.

Click.

Whisper knelt beside him. "You'll get used to it," she promised. The healer was the only one who'd really showed sympathy, although half of it was probably relief at having someone to talk to. The Cuind technically had conversations, but most of it was clicks and whistles, hand signals, and expressions. Especially the latter. "Here."

Soup! With actual meat! Storm had barely eaten in days; even the prey he'd shot had been taken, although he'd always gotten a little strip of meat, unlike when he didn't catch anything. "Won't you get in trouble for this?" Though it was early morning, those elves who were awake were eyeing them already. Twist was still fast asleep in that strange nest he made every night, as far as Storm could tell.

"Don't be silly. Twist won't argue with me." She glanced back in his direction. "He's not as harsh as the others."

Whisper was slight of build, with dark hair that curled just enough to give her a slightly wild look, and her eyes were a little haunted sometimes. She did look like Twist, sort of, but he wasn't as thin and his eyes were further from black, and his hair hung straight (if raggedly cut), and his skin was a shade darker—a sign of his mixed ancestry; one of the Noldor groups, not the one Raven was from, had dusky skin. Their noses and ears were different shapes as well, hers longer in both cases. No, she probably wasn't his mother.

He'd asked Twist. It didn't work.

Click-click. Two more of the Cuind stood nearby—Wasp and Viper, he thought. These two weren't related either, or married, but they were always together. Another comedic duo like Starling and Clover, he thought, though these two didn't do dumb things on purpose; he got the impression they were the bane of Twist's existence. "We're hunting," declared Wasp, the she-elf. Storm assumed this also applied to him.

"Twist said," added Viper. "Last night."

Whisper gave him a woeful look, but also a little push in their direction. Storm had wolfed down the soup already, luckily, and he left the bowl.

"I'll take him."

Wolf, the former leader. Storm was told he'd been an obnoxious elf to work with at all-tribe meetings, but mostly he just seemed bitter. It was clear where he'd gotten his name; he had gray-silver hair and gave the impression he might possibly kill someone, just like Flint's canine friends.

"Wooooolf," Viper whined.

"Twist said—" began Viper.

He snapped his glare at them, and both gulped and slipped away like they did when Twist gave them that look. Storm, however, found it a lot easier to meet Wolf's eyes when the same stare was turned on him.

"So, we going hunting, or standing here all day?"

Wolf worked his jaw. "Just like your grandfather."

Oh yes, this was the elf who'd originally broken off from Shade's leadership. The whole tribe, in fact, had very little respect for Storm's ancestry, which was arguably a nice break. Storm followed, telling the little voice in the back of his mind that if there was going to be a murder attempt, he might as well get it over with now.

GRRRRRROWWLLLL.

Storm had never heard an elf make that sound, and his first thought was warg until Twist stalked around him. Wolf turned slowly to face him.

Twist's teeth were bared. The Cuind did that when they hissed, but they didn't growl. Indeed, Wolf was hissing even now, but backing up a little, even as he fixed Twist with his stare.

Dogfight, thought Storm; all indications were that blood was about to be shed. Wolf was wearing a pair of those gloves the Cuind had with thorn-like spikes on the palms, which would surely leave deep gashes in an opponent.

But even Wolf couldn't hold Twist's gaze, and he looked down suddenly and slunk off like a wounded animal.

Twist straightened out of his crouch and watched Wolf leave with narrowed eyes, then looked at Storm. "You would've gone with him?"

Wow, an actual sentence. "Figured I had more swords than he did." He still kept up with his practicing, and was used to fighting when his muscles ached.

Twist considered the sheathed swords, which Storm had added to his belt as an afterthought as he got up. "He hates you."

"He hates you too."

The leader shrugged and nodded.

. . . . . .

Storm had never been in better shape than he was after a month with the Cuind. He'd now been here as long as he'd been with the Kinn-lai, and his relationship with the elves around him was about the same as it'd been with the sarril, with the exceptions of Whisper and—maybe?—Twist. Oh, and Viper and Wasp; he'd been sent hunting with them after all after Wolf was chased off that day, and eventually figured out that if he kept them moving fast enough and redirected them before they could get distracted, they did well enough. They actually listened to him now.

As for Twist himself, his tribemates were impressively committed to distracting or waylaying Storm anytime something happened with him, whatever "something" was; Storm had only seen a few odd little twitches that explained Twist's former name, but those were often ignored by the tribe. He'd met elves who had twitches like that sometimes, but he was pretty sure something further was involved here. He never did figure out what that was, but a few days before his time with the Cuind ended, something else exciting happened; an elf came whom he'd never seen before.

He showed up unceremoniously one afternoon while they were traveling, and ran alongside Twist and Whisper for a while. Storm was curious, but every time he tried to catch up with him, he found elves blocking his way or that after he'd crossed some obstacle they'd changed position in the column. The elf couldn't hide forever, though, and Storm cornered him against a tree as soon as they stopped. "You're Thorn."

It wasn't hard to figure out; this elf didn't have Pine's bulk or Star's chocolate-colored hair, but he was very clearly their son all the same. In fact, his frown was just like his mother's. "What do you want?"

"What do I want? You haven't shown up to an all-tribe meeting in millennia. Visit your parents sometime, for goodness' sake."

"I do. They've seen me." Thorn, though not as big as his father, was tall and strong enough to give Storm a good shove backward.

"If you have elflings someday, I think you'll want to see them more than one day in five centuries." He knew from Star that Thorn didn't have children, or at least she didn't think so. He'd left the Hwenti at a young age; Star and Moon thought it was because he'd been only an elfling when Ember died, and she'd been one of his favorite playmates. If he'd been so scarred he left his tribe, thought Storm, then surely he wouldn't put up with anything having to do with Captured elves either.

But, the Kindi were right. Whisper sure did get a hunted look when you asked her about it, and changed the topic awfully fast.

Thorn didn't have an answer for that.

Twist was standing behind Thorn—who by now had pushed Storm aside, but Storm's scolding had affected him enough that he wasn't leaving—and the leader narrowed his eyes at Storm and made the quiet sign (which, coincidentally, had the same meaning as the tsst sound). Then he crept a little closer. Closer. Closer. And... he pounced, and he and Thorn went down, wrestling in the grass.

Twist played sometimes. This had surprised Storm at first, even though the Cuind leader seemed to enjoy foiling elves' plots to get him to talk. Oh, and that time Storm had dumped snow down his neck, the entire Hwenti tribe had woken up the next morning with Cuind dye-marks, even the ones who hadn't been planning to sleep. He didn't seem to know how to smile, though, which made his attacks even more unexpected.

Right now, the two Cuind were hissing and rolling around at Storm's feet; eventually Twist pinned Thorn, who didn't seem too upset. Storm decided to see what happened if he jumped on Twist.

Storm lost blood that day.

. . . . . .

"Storm's back!"

"Storm's got stiches," Moon remarked to Fox as Raven and Flint showed how happy they were to see Storm by tackling him.

Sure enough, Storm had a stitched-up gash on his hand, and claw-marks on his face. Twist fought dirty, which included biting. And he showed no remorse. "I brought a friend," he gasped from under his friends.

For the first time, the tribe (or the less observant members, anyway) noticed the other elf waiting by the stream, in the shadows with his camouflaged hood pulled up. His mother recognized him anyway. "Oh, thank you Storm!"

Thorn submitted to the mandatory hugging. "He guilted me into it." Thorn actually talked sometimes, like Whisper, probably because he'd grown up Hwenti.

Storm escaped from Raven and Flint, who were distracted by the scene, and joined Dawn off to the side. "He's friends with Twist," he told her. Thorn had spent most of his time with Twist after he showed up, although he kept disappearing for a few hours a day.

"Interesting," she mused.

Pine didn't hug Thorn, but his mere smile thawed his son more than Star's affection did, and the healer picked up on this and relaxed a little. "It's good to see you."

He half-smiled. "Likewise."

Raven spoke up. "Stay for a while, Thorn."

"Please," added Star.

Pine didn't say anything, but his hopefulness was more guilt-inducing than Storm could hope to be.

Still, Thorn looked over his shoulder worriedly. "Well..."

"Stay or I'll make you stay," declared Star, and since she was a healer, it wasn't an empty threat.

Pine nodded thoughtfully.

Thorn chewed his lip. "Three days."

Star gave a little sigh. "What's so important up there?"

He didn't answer.

Raven had circled behind Storm, and he tugged on his hair. "Glad to be back?"

"Yeah. Yes, I am."

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