Homygod I'm so tired. This was an intense week man. Also this chapter got super intense too, I wasn't even expecting it. If there are any Leafman/Moonhaven/Jinn fans out there, just as a warning, there's a part in this chapter where I really start deconstructing the idea of who is the force of "good" and who is the force of "bad." So some "good" characters start appearing more morally gray, depending on the perspective we're coming from.
Also I would apologize for the puns, but I'm not sorry at all. My life wouldn't have been complete if I couldn't manage to slip "you son of a birch" in this story somewhere. Just let me have this one thing!
Ps. Included a deleted scene at the end that I liked but eventually removed because it created a plot thread that I wasn't planning on expanding on. But I liked the character interactions so I kept it as bonus content.
Enjoy!
Chapter 10. Danu
Nod and his mongrel sparrow rocketed over the finish line, waves of booing pouring out from the crowd. He threw his head back and laughed, twisting the reigns in his hands and wheeling the sparrow in midair. There would be hell to pay with Bufo, but the triumph that coursed through his blood pushed those thoughts from his mind. The bird's lopsided flight patterns made the racing more of a challenge than if he'd ridden Maia, but the hummingbird had turned her beak up when he'd asked her to race with him.
The marigold Jinn who was rigged to win nearly bowled into him and the sparrow. Her own finch twittered in anger and pecked at his sparrow's head.
"What the muck, Nod?" She stormed toward him. "Wait till Bufo hears about how much money you just lost him, you son of a birch."
"Yeah, but guess who won, Estralla?" Nod drawled, sashaying away from her rage. The other racers converged on him, and Nod scanned the area, searching for a quick escape. His sparrow lay on the ground in complete surrender to Estralla's finch, so that was a no go. As he backed away, he bumped into some large beetles who bashed their multiple fists together above him.
"Not so funny now, is it, bark-brain?" Estralla said. The beetles lifted Nod up by the arms.
"Hey guys, why can't we just let it slide? What happened to good sportsmanship?" Nod asked, trying to wiggle out of the firm grasp of the bugs.
"Tell that to the toad," Estralla said as the beetles dragged him off.
Nod felt a sense of déjà vu when Bufo's henchman delivered hefty punches to his torso. Honestly, he almost wished it was the Boggans still, because the beetles hit way harder. Except Bufo wasn't going to kill him afterward—he hoped.
"Come on, Nod." Bufo paced in front of him, hands clasped behind his back. "We had a deal. You know, this business isn't gonna work if you keep mucking it up."
"I couldn't help it, man. Agh!" The beetle socked him in the gut again, slamming the breath from his lungs. "Estralla should fly faster." Nod managed a cheeky grin before gasping as another fist met his chest. He groaned. "Damn it. What am I going to tell my mom when I get back looking terrible? 'Oh, hey Mom. Just got beat up by the racers today, no big deal.'"
Bufo paled enough at the thought of confronting Eilley that Nod found his smirk again. "Yeah, well, what's she gonna say when you tell her you were racing with us gamblers in the first place?"
Nod's smile tensed. She'd kill us both, probably. "Okay, okay, can't we just call it a truce since we're both equally terrified of my mother?"
The toad paused and looked at the beetle henchmen, who stopped mid-punch and waited for his command. Finally, Bufo rolled his eyes, tongue flicking out and across his lips as he grimaced. "Ugh, fine, whatever. Stupid mama's boy. You're lucky she's scary and more importantly, staying on her good side means I still get business." He clapped his sticky hands together and the beetles tossed Nod down into the dirt.
Nod staggered to his feet, coughing out a laugh as he wiped the dust from his clothes as a way to hide the aches that rang through his limbs from taking all the hits. "See, I knew we could work something out."
Bufo clapped a heavy hand on his shoulder, pressing down on him so that Nod was forced to lean toward him. "Just so you know, you owe me a couple thousand stone. I don't care how much Eilley comes after my hide, I'm gonna make sure you pay me back."
With a shrug of his shoulder, Nod brushed Bufo's hand off. "Make me the loaded winner in the circles then. I'm clearly the best flier."
Bufo shook his head. "You're an idiot businessman if you think I get to choose based on that alone. What's the point of betting if everyone knows who's going to win? When I tell you to throw the race, you throw the race, period, end of story. Got it?"
Nod swung a leg out and pivoted on his other foot. "Whatever, man."
"I'm serious, Nod! I can make you sorry, and Eilley won't ever have to know it was me," Bufo called after him.
Nod let out a cackle as he left the hovel. "But she always knows!" he sang back. If his mom knew he was using her influence to escape the consequences of his own impulses, Bufo wouldn't have had to worry about him, because she would have buried Nod herself. What she doesn't know won't hurt her, he thought, smiling all the way out of the gambler's hideout.
As he meandered out of the shelter of Bufo's dead twisted tree, where the riff-raff crawled from the nooks and crannies, Nod cast a gaze over the sea of golden reeds that spread out like a miniature forest around him. The smile that lingered on his face dropped away when, amidst the fluttering moths and honeybees, his eyes landed on the Boggan female who accompanied MK when she burst in on his interrogation. Nod ducked behind a thicket of grass, watching her chat with a gruff looking fly.
The fly disappeared into a rotten log and after several minutes, returned with a sack full of food. The Boggan appeared to thank the fly before hurrying away. Nod narrowed his eyes. "What does a Boggan need with nutgrass and seed cakes?" he muttered. No Boggan would ever need anything like that. At least they were feeding MK, though he would have chosen something better than nutgrass. Nod watched the Boggan leave. If she came back, he would be keeping an eye on her.
MK took the sack of food from Amianth, drinking in the sweet scent of its contents. "Wow, Amianth, that was really quick."
Amianth puffed up like a bird. "Told you it would be easy." She lifted her arms and sniffed herself. "Stank the whole way though. I'm going to smell like leaves and tree sap for days."
MK laughed as she fished in the bag. Nutgrass and seed cakes. After days of fish, she was ready to be a vegan for the rest of her life. "Well, then you have even more of my thanks for going all the way out there for me."
"Thank Dagda for convincing the Chief to let me," she said, flicking her hand.
Dagda perked up from where he was sitting, sharpening a stone knife blade. "Hey I would get tired of eating the same thing all day, if it were me. Besides, it's not like we're not allowed in the Neutrals anyway, so it would be stupid if he said no."
"Still, it was nice of you to vouch for me," MK told him. She munched on the bittersweet grass that was a bit too fibrous on a normal day, but she would take what she could get. The seed cakes were delicious, though.
Their pleasant chatting was interrupted by a cacophony of grackle screeches ringing out above the Hollow. Amianth lurched to her feet.
"They're back," she muttered. She raced to the door, stopping in the entryway and turning to Dagda. "Aren't you coming?"
A storm cloud had crossed over his expression, and he glared at his knife. "No. Not like it was an important mission. And if he got himself hurt, that's his stupid fault." He swiped the knife on the whetting stone hard enough that sparks cascaded from the surface.
Amianth frowned at him before backing out the door and disappearing down the corridors.
"What was that about?" MK asked.
"Dad went on a stupid, pointless revenge invasion. Just to pay back for me getting hurt. And right before the…" He clamped his mouth shut, tossing the unspoken words around in his mouth before swallowing them back down.
"Before the what?" MK tried. He wasn't going to say, but she thought she might try anyway.
"Never mind."
At this point, he was as moveable as a boulder, so MK didn't push. "So you were worried," she said.
"He gets on my case about being reckless, but he's always right in the middle of the fight, so look who's talking!" Dagda tested the knife's sharpness and accidentally cut his finger. "Ow!" He wrung his hand and pressed at the tiny wound.
MK clicked her tongue as she made her way over. "Your dad might be slightly less accident prone," she said, taking his hand. She rifled through her bag and pulled out some gauze. "It's just a small one. Nothing to worry about," she said, daubing the cut.
Dagda groaned. "I know, I know. He's way better at the whole awareness thing. Fighting just comes naturally to him. Amianth too. I don't know. I try, since I know he wants me to, but it's not really my thing."
His confusion tugged at her heart, but at the same time, MK felt a surge of affirmation that Dagda was comfortable enough in her company to share his thoughts with her. Perhaps it was the fact that she didn't expect anything from him, nor would she be able to judge him for telling the truth.
He turned his hand over, staring at the small bandage she had applied to the cut. "Hey, MK, would you teach me about healing things?"
She glanced at him in surprise. "Um, I suppose I could try. I don't know too much about Boggan anatomy."
"You knew enough to help me," Dagda pointed out.
"All right, true," she said. "I could work on that with you."
A grin broke across his face. "Great! Gives me something better to do than fiddle with knives."
MK returned the smile. "Yeah, and who knows how many cuts you'd have if you kept that up!"
"Hey! I'm not that bad!"
"You're kind of that bad!"
Their laughter was interrupted by the reappearance of Amianth who poked her head in through the door.
"Stomper, the Chief wants to see you. We have some injured warriors."
Dagda's face soured again, and MK paused before following Amianth. Her mind raced to think of a way to get him out of his funk.
"Hey, how about we get started on your first lesson right now?" she asked, reaching a hand down to him.
He twitched at the proposition. "Wait, really? Now?"
MK smiled down at him. "No better way to learn than firsthand experience."
Dagda took her hand, and she hoisted him to his feet before chasing after Amianth. They soon arrived in the room where Nod had been interrogated, and MK had to take a moment to breathe in and back out again at the sight of the five injured Boggans sprawled across the room. The rusty stench of their dark blood burned her nostrils, and she let out a short cough into her sleeve before stepping in.
Mandrake stood in the center of the room, speaking to another tall, feline Boggan who held a polearm in a relaxed grip. Off to MK's side, Dagda stared conspicuously at the opposite wall. MK sighed, hoping the interactions wouldn't be overly awkward.
"Chief, Aunt," Amianth said. Mandrake and the other Boggan ceased their conversation and turned, catching sight of MK who had already bent down to examine the wounds of the nearest Boggan. "I brought the Stomper."
Mandrake nodded. "Let her do her work." He cast his gaze on Dagda. "Are you well?"
MK could hear the eye roll in Dagda's voice without even having to see him. "You asked me that this morning, Dad. I'm fine." He knelt down next to MK. "What should I do?"
MK clicked her tongue as she checked the first Boggan. His leg was bent wrong, and he was clutching his arm. She scanned the room, hissing out a breath at the sight of the Boggan nearest to Mandrake. "Hold on a moment." She ran over to the last Boggan who lay gasping for breath as she and another friend attempted to stop the copious blood billowing from her chest.
"What happened to her?" MK demanded, sliding over. Her heartbeat throbbed in her ears. She'd never had to deal with trauma this severe.
"Leafman lobbed a javelin," the friend rasped, pressing her hands onto the wounded Boggan.
"It ran her through?" MK eyed the puddle of blood that bloomed out from underneath the Boggan as well. She whipped her head around to scan the other injured she hadn't even seen yet. Two pierced by arrows, the Boggan with the broken leg, another bleeding from a head injury…MK felt the panic bubbling in her stomach and cursed under her breath. "I don't have enough hands." Her voice wavered as it escaped.
"Dagda, I need your help," she said, propping the bleeding Boggan up to apply a tight padding to the back wound.
Dagda hurried to her side.
She pointed at the Boggans with arrow injuries and handed Dagda her tape. Looking him directly in the eye, she said, "Do you remember how I wrapped your arrow so it didn't move? I need you to do your best to do that for them. Can you do that? I need more time if I'm going to help anyone." MK bit her lip. If she were to be honest, the one she was helping right now was likely not going to survive, based on the blood loss and severity of the injury, but she couldn't bring herself to give up just yet.
Dagda stared at her for a moment, holding the tape in his limp grasp before narrowing his eyes and nodding. "I'll try my best."
"I know," MK said before turning her complete focus on the patient in front of her. The rest of the world faded out around her as she concentrated on slowing the bleeding and suturing as much of the deep tissue as she could. Only the vague sounds of the Boggan's friend comforting her even registered at all. If only she had anesthetics and proper antiseptics and a damn bloodbank, there might have been hope. She pushed the despair from her mind, wiped the cold sweat from her forehead and continued her work.
After the emergency surgery, she moved on to the arrow victims, and took a moment to praise Dagda for his wrapping, though he'd managed to use up her entire roll of wrappings. MK's mind was a fog of red intensity as she bandaged and stitched as fast as she could without losing precision.
By the time she'd finished, the crickets had long since ended their midnight symphony and the moon had already set. Tiny embers flickered around her, the only light she had left to finish setting the leg of the first Boggan. When he dropped down onto his bedding, sound asleep from exhaustion, she leaned back and let out a long exhalation, returning to full awareness from her frenzy. Stress bleated in her veins and in her mind, and MK held up a hand in front of her face, watching it tremor.
"Carcen, please, wake up," a soft voice pleaded from the corner. MK raised her head. The friend of the impaled Boggan lay draped over her friend, sobbing. "Wake up. Please breathe!"
MK stumbled over to them and took the patient's hand, feeling her arms and neck, anywhere she could, for a pulse. The Boggan's limbs were heavy and cold. MK's throat tightened, and she had to choke up her next breath before it would escape her frozen lungs.
"I'm sorry…" she whispered. The Boggan ignored MK, only continuing to plead to her friend in hushed tones.
Even hugging her hoodie as tight around her as she could, MK could not shake out the shivers that ran through her. It wasn't her first time seeing a patient die, but that did nothing to dull the piercing sorrow that screamed in her chest. She backed away from the grieving Boggan and fled the room into the hall.
The pitch black night turned the already confusing Hollow into a mystifying labyrinth. MK leaned against the wall as she walked, fearful that she would collapse without something to support her weight. When the wall vanished, opening into a room, MK reeled through the threshold. She fumbled through the darkness. "Dagda?" she tried, even though she was fairly certain he was asleep in the patients' room.
Her next footfall did not meet solid ground, instead plummeting into an abyss, the bottom of which she couldn't see. A scream barely made it across her lips before an arm hooked under her waist and pulled her back to safety. MK tumbled backwards, looking up to see the looming form of tall bat ears silhouetted against the faint starlight that ricocheted from the ceiling and the walls.
"That would have been a very unfortunate fall," Mandrake said, stooping over the dark pit. "I keep the Blight in there."
"Th-the blight?" MK stammered. She became aware of the stench of decay that rose up like a volcanic cloud from the pit, and shuddered.
"A catalyst of rot. I invented it myself. It would have scoured the flesh from your bones within seconds," he said in the same voice with which someone might deliver the weather report.
"I couldn't—it was dark." She felt a blush warm her face as her words jumbled together. "I-one of the Boggans, she—she died. I'm sorry, I couldn't save her. I tried everything, but there wasn't enough time, not enough supplies. She lost too much blood. I—" MK swallowed the lump in her throat, not even sure what she was trying to communicate, only hoping that the Boggan chieftain wouldn't hold her at fault.
"It was inevitable, then," Mandrake said. He sat down on a stone a few feet away from her, perched at the edge of the Blight-pit.
MK sniffled. "I'm sorry."
When Mandrake looked at her, she could see his eyes glowing like a wolf peering through a dark forest. "And the others?"
"They should pull through, barring sudden infection." MK rubbed her wet eyes. "I cleaned them as best I could." Her vision slowly adjusted to the dark, and the surrounding room was more visible to her now. There was little else in the room besides the stinking pit, but even the stench could not compel her to her feet just yet. MK felt as though a room had crashed down on her, pinning her in place.
"You're upset," Mandrake commented.
"Of course I'm upset. I just watched someone die while I was helpless to do anything!" MK snapped, though her quivering voice ruined the effect. Her breaths came harder as she remembered Dagda's conversation, remembered that one of the Jinn on the other side of the petty yet violent skirmish could have been Nod. "Was it worth it?" she spat, panting.
Mandrake flinched and her tone and turned to her sharply. "What?"
"Was it worth it to endanger the lives of your people for this fight? For what? Revenge? Did it feel better? Someone died for this! I hope to god it meant something!" MK wanted to stand, could feel every fiber of her being trying to leap to her feet, but her body failed her.
Mandrake on the other hand, had no such issue, and he did stand. "What do you know of my choices to fight?" He paced in front of her, sweeping his staff along beside his feet. "How would you know what it would mean if we let Jinn aggression go unpunished?"
"So you try to one up them? Where is that going to get you?" The remaining rational voice in her mind flailed at her, shouting that Mandrake could shove her right over into the Blight pit at any moment, but her anger, grief, and fatigue loosened her tongue beyond control. "What does this entire war get you?"
"Try being us for a day, why don't you?" Mandrake snarled in return. "For as long as I can remember, as long as my ancestors can remember, we have lived subservient to the Brightwood, dependent on their whims and wills for what we can and cannot have. Try having to fight every day to make sure we have enough shelter and food to support our families. Try being reviled as icons of death and destruction. Try being herded and forced away from our homes by overgrowth and having it be called 'balance.' I'm sick of Jinn 'balance.'" He glared down at her. "No, the Jinn have shown, time and again, through their close-minded, tunnel-vision perspective, that they are not fit to dictate the mechanisms of this forest. I won't stop this fight until I've made certain that the forest is a place where our children can roam freely without wondering if their homes will still be there the next morning or whether they will be able to feed their families."
"So you want to turn the tables? Switch places with them?" MK murmured.
"Perhaps if they knew even a bit about what it means to struggle, they would understand why we fight."
Tears sprang up in MK's eyes again as her thoughts spiraled around in her brain. She blinked hard, wiping her face and gritting her teeth. Too many thoughts, too many questions barreling through her head. "I just…with every war I've ever seen or read about, the only thing that's ever come out of it is suffering. No justice, no joy—just pain." The voice of the crying Boggan echoed in her mind and resounded with the familiar grief MK still carried with her.
She heard Mandrake sigh, chords of exhaustion that were years in the making threading in his voice.
"You have a kind heart, MK. That's easy to see. I'm sure it serves you well, where you come from." He shook his head. "Not here, though. I've already seen it. We've tried peace. It did not work."
MK looked up at him in shock. "What do you mean? What happened?"
Mandrake turned away from her, staying silent for so long, she worried he was going to pass over her question. He sighed again, and the weight of the sound added to the crushing load that already sat on MK's head.
"You must wonder…where Dagda's mother is," Mandrake said. "She thought the same as you—didn't believe in war. She was too kind for that. She wanted to build a better world for all of us through peace, not violence. Danu Fireheart we called her."
Heart of fire, MK remembered, breath catching in her throat.
"Danu was a protector and caretaker above all things—hence her rite-name. Fire has a different meaning to Boggans than it does to Jinn. They fear it as a symbol of senseless death, but for us, it means restoration and new beginnings, a way for the old and stagnant to be cleaned away and replaced. Fire is what gave us the Wrathwood, made the soil fertile for us to produce food. Without it, we would have remained disjointed scavengers, wandering through lakes of green."
His eyes narrowed, and he drummed his nails on his staff. "Danu tried to expand our territory gradually, so we wouldn't disturb our Jinn neighbors. Even so, she met with resistance." Mandrake sucked in a breath. "They killed her."
"What?" MK whispered, chills running down her spine. She struggled to imagine the Jinn doing something so cold-blooded. Then again, someone had to have had the resolve to plunge a spear through Carcen's chest.
"They did not deserve her kindness. They deserved to be burned, ground into wildfire ash to provide fertile soil for our struggling people to stand upon," he said through clenched teeth.
MK's mouth was a desert. She licked her drying lips with a sandpaper tongue. "All this time no one knew why." MK looked up at him. "They thought you just attacked for no reason at all."
Mandrake stared at her, his expression blanking out like the dark void left in the wake of a power outage. MK watched him struggle to comprehend her statement. "They think," he began slowly, dangerously, so that she inched away from him, "that the war is my fault." The toxic anger radiating from him could have curdled blood for a mile around.
"That's exactly who they are!" he hissed. "That's exactly what they would think. No mind for the consequences. We're lower than mindless insects to them. Who else would promote a murderer to the rank of general?"
MK balked. "Ronin?" she muttered, tendrils of betrayal snaking into her heart.
Mandrake whirled around, pointing the lethal staff at her face. "You know him?" he asked, head tilted like a predatory bird as he advanced toward her.
MK scooted away from him. "I met him. He-he didn't seem very nice, but he didn't seem like a murderer either. I didn't know!" She squeezed her eyes shut, expecting the worst. When nothing happened, she cracked one of her eyes open and squinted up at the Boggan leader.
Mandrake had lowered the staff, and he pressed a hand to his forehead. "We've had a long day. You should sleep. I assume you will have to care for the injured further in the morning."
MK opened her other eye, panting in relief. "You're not going to kill me?"
A look of actual remorse flitted across Mandrake's face. "You had nothing to do with it. I should not have threatened you." He held out a hand to help her to her feet, which MK was grateful for—her legs still wobbled and a fatigue headache throbbed against her temples.
Mandrake led her back to the makeshift infirmary, and she settled down beside Dagda's snoozing form. Mandrake tucked Dagda's rat coat over him further before turning to leave. Through the cracks in the walls, MK could see the pre-dawn light already filtering through and yawned.
"I wish I could have met her," MK murmured through her yawn, making Mandrake stop in his tracks. "She sounded like a wonderful person."
He nodded, still facing away from her. "She would have liked you."
As he swept away, MK, for the first time that night, felt warmth rise inside her. She hadn't received so high a compliment in a long time.
Deleted Scene: Nod makes a deal with Bufo
Watching her retreat over his shoulder, Nod turned away and ran back to Bufo's hovel.
"Oh look, it's Mister High-and-Mighty," Bufo said as he counted his coins, documenting them on a piece of leaf. "Back for more snark and wit?"
"Wasn't planning on it, but I'm adaptable," Nod said, but lacking his characteristic smile.
Bufo frowned at his sober expression. "What's got your britches in a bunch?"
"You ever see any Boggans dealing with the fly boys lately?" Nod asked, planting his hands down on Bufo's desk and looming over him.
"So what if they are? It's the Neutrals. Can't be holdin no Leafman grudges here, boy. They got just as much right to be here as you." Bufo returned to his counting.
"Yeah, I know," Nod groused. "What I'm trying to say is, you got connections with the Wrathwood right? Because of your…occupation."
Bufo glared up at him. "Yeah, why?" He waggled his ink stick at Nod. "Don't even think 'bout using me to start something with the Boggan Chief." Bufo smacked his tongue. "No sir, that guy is bad news."
"Don't get me started on that," Nod said through gritted teeth. "Look, I have a friend there who I want to…keep tabs on."
Bufo's eyes widened so much that if it were any other time, it would have been comical. "Didn't think you were the type," he said.
Nod growled. "Not a Boggan!" He ran a hand through his hair. "It's a long story that I'm honestly sick of telling, but there's a Stomper girl who got shrunk because of reasons who got me out of a sticky situation by letting herself become a hostage for me."
"Ah, because of reasons, how illuminating," the toad said with a snort. He propped his chin up with an arm and let out a low whistle. "You musta really mucked up to land her in that situation."
"Yeah, I did," Nod said, glaring at the wall. "So can you help me?"
The toad pursed his bulging lips. "Depends. What're you willing to do for me?"
"Stop losing you money, for one."
Bufo rocked back in his chair and clapped his hands. "Hah! That's good. That's real good, Nod." He pitched forward again, fixing Nod with a mirthless stare. "But you gotta start earning me money. This ain't a break even business." He twirled his ink stick in his fingers. "Tell you what. I'll see what info I can get on the girl. If you do well enough in the racing circuit to get me double what I lost today, I'll tell you what I find."
Nod reached out a hand, and they shook on it. "Deal."
Chapter 11. Rescue comes out June 27.
Won't be having excerpts until I refill my buffer again.