This chapter is not indicative at all of my thoughts on Yukes or teenagers or romance. Yerica's character is actually based off of the way I felt when I was sixteen or so, except that I'm not a magical bird being.

The nice thing is, this is the last named character whose perspective we will follow in this story (we got a small taste of Jai Noo's perspective during one of the ensemble chapters).

Yerica - Lonely Young Lady

One is the loneliest number that you'll ever do
Two can be as bad as one
It's the loneliest number since the number one

Yerica looked into the mirror and at once wished she hadn't. Reading herself for the festival to come, she'd almost forgotten how ugly she was. Raising large paws to her face, she pressed gently at her beak, at her dark, striped fur. Even if she had been born a prettier color than her dull, colorless grey, she was still a Yuke, still awkward and hideous.

No costume could ever hide who she really was. Though she was short for a Yuke, who could miss the fur, the long-fingered paws, the beak, or the tiny wings that fluttered on her back? No, she would be one of the wise men, the birdmen, the freaks, until she died.

At seventeen years old, she'd never had a beau. The only eligible Yuke males in the village were over ten years her senior, and five years her junior. None of the young Selkies, Clavats, or Lilties had looked her way in a decade. There'd been a Lilty lad once, but he'd stopped holding her hand in the schoolroom when she hit a growth spurt at six. Since then, no boy had looked at her as more than a friend.

She was seventeen. She wanted romance. She wanted a beau. She wanted love. She wanted her life to be like those in the tales.

But the mirror did not lie. She was seventeen. She was ugly. She was alone. She was a Yuke. No one ever wrote romance tales about Yukes.

Darkness had fallen completely over the town, and with all the treats gathered and tricks played, the villagers abandoned their homes for the crystal and central festivities.

"Yerica!" a singsong voice called from the crowd as she trudged to the center of town with her parents. A short female Clavat with skin and hair the color of cinnamon with skipped out onto the path, twirling as she reached her. "How do you like my costume?"

At fifteen, Annie was the closest girl her age in the village. It was only unfortunate coincidence that she happened to be heartbreakingly pretty, Yerica privately thought. Standing next to her petite and beautiful best friend, who was garbed as an elegant noblewoman, she only felt more gangly, awkward, and hideous than before. She resisted the urge to turn around and just head home.

"Hey Annie," she said weakly as the energetic Clavat seized her by the arm and dragged her towards the crystal. She waved a half-hearted farewell to her parents, who immediately set off for their own friends.

"My sis says we can hold the torches for Captain Raithen and Captain Sherrill!" Annie whispered as they at last reached the center of the crowd. A space had been cleared, and before the crystal stood the five Elders and five caravanners. The chalice rested at Aaron's feet, and he held two torches instead of the usual one.

"What am I, a pack animal?" he was complaining to Ren when Annie interrupted.

"Sis, I found another person to help," she announced importantly, drawing Ren's attention away. The older Clavat girl nodded to her younger sister, gesturing to the lit torches Aaron held.

Annie immediately snatched the leftmost one, Yerica accepted the right. "Thank you," Aaron said politely, gathering the chalice into his arms. She nodded a reply before stepping back, moving behind the caravanners so that the ceremony could begin.

The caravanners tipped their torches forward as one, and Raithen set the pitch covered ends afire with a small spell. The crowd fell silent as the group raised their torches high, then brought them down once more to hold before them. With a smooth motion, Ren turned to the two girls behind her, lighting their torches as well.

"People of Pine Valley," Elder Sot Rah spoke in his booming, cheerful voice. "We are here today to celebrate life."

Elder Zigera, a Yuke woman whose age had not yet bent her back, stepped forward. "And to celebrate the deeds of our honored caravan."

The speech was customary, and Yerica found herself tuning them out, mesmerized by the waving flame before her. The only words that had changed in the entire speech in all her years of hearing it was the names of the caravanners involved. Well, and that time when Elder Sot Rah had imbibed a little bit too much Strange Liquid and started telling raunchy stories about his time in the caravan. Smiling privately to herself under her helm, she allowed herself to be lulled by the familiarity.

And then, there were new words.

"...as we rely on you, our guiding stars," the Lilty Elder Kiel intoned gruffly, as he had each year before.

"Yet all stars must fall, and all lights must fade," Elder Hannah said into the silence of the crowd, dress still speckled with flour from her earlier baking. Her normally smooth, slow voice had turned somber and trembled over the new words. "Some, sooner than others."

As she said this, Sherrill held forth her torch, the only one whose top had only a small amount of pitch, and Raithen gently blew out its wavering flame. Taking the still smoking, blackened staff, she passed it to Zigera, who leaned it against the rock foundation of the crystal.

"We are here today to celebrate life, and to celebrate the lives of those who have gone before," Alexie took over, returning the ceremony to its usual script.

Yerica handed her torch to Sherrill, and once Aaron had passed the chalice to the Elders, Annie gave away hers as well. Though she listened closely to the rest of the ceremony, no other words had changed. The death of a caravanner was noted and passed over in less than twenty words.

With the rejuvenation complete, the square was cleared and trestles of food set along the outside. Villagers brought out their favorite instruments, tuning them and playing small ditties as the people chose food, drink, or dance.

Annie barely let Yerica find a place to set her plate before hauling her into the center of the square. "Let's dance!" Her best friend immediately began a Clavat jig to an accordion reel being performed by a rather inebriated Lilty.

Yerica loved to dance. It was probably the only reason she'd bothered to attend this festival anyway, rather than staying home and curling up with a new tale. With a twirl and a wave of her arms she joined her best friend, maybe her only friend, and resolved that at least for tonight, she would only think happy, confident thoughts.

So she was seventeen and had never had a beau. So all her romance tales only featured Yukes as the wise best friends to Selkie or Clavat beauties. So what?

Tonight, she would be single. Tonight, she would be a Yuke. But tonight, she decided she would be happy in spite of both those things.