Ro had to wait 'til nearly winter before she felt she could take a hunting trip. And of course that was cut short because no less than a day after she left, she felt a wheedling sense that she needed to return home.

She considered ignoring it, but they insisted that it was important. Someone said something about birds, but they only showed her a flock of ravens when she asked. Ravens weren't any good for eating and they weren't dangerous at all, so she wasn't sure why they'd be in her head. The spirits usually only told her about prey and threats.

The source of the wheedling was easy to find. 

As Ro headed back into her forest, she spotted the black-robed figure shuffling down the developing path like a grounded vulture. Its hooded head remained stationary while its narrow shoulders worked in opposing circles. The feather cloak gave the motion an even more bird-like affect, dragging on the dirt like tailfeathers. It smelled like dry death, the dusty smell after the desiccation finished and only bones and skin remained. Its walking staff stood taller than the creature, four feet against its three. A closer look at the staff revealed a shining red… eye rolling around on the top. She wasn't sure how she knew it was an eye, it looked more like a glowing black ball, but it was looking through the forest directly at her. Despite that, the creature didn't seem to notice her. It was grumbling and muttering to itself in a scratchy croak of a voice as it made its clumsy way along. The long pointed nose stuck out of the hood like a narrow gray beak, the mottled hands were spindly, and the long feet were wrapped in cloth shoes and bandages. As Ro got close enough to follow it, a two foot tall 'raven' (a spirit of the dead) flew past her with a cry and landed on the creature's hood.

The creature's face briefly came into view when it picked its head up and squawked at the gigantic bird, maintaining its pace. The rictus grin and single shining eye only emphasized the corpse-like appearance.

Ro followed it through the woods, flitting from spot to spot with her teleport to watch it, not sure what to expect anymore. It was going to Brotz's house, that was no question, but Ro was comfortable guessing that it wasn't going to hurt anyone. She felt no malice from the thing. The spirits were expressing familiarity, they knew what this was, even if they couldn't explain it to her. She was getting too much incomplete information. It was a swarm? A flock. Of a whole lot of small dead things, different dead things? And this creature. Was composed. What? Pieces? 

Ro felt her spirits running to it. The creature must have heard them because it stopped before they caught up, and he turned sideways on the path. Apparently he could see them, as his head bobbed in greeting to each of the spiritual trio. It made her ears itch when the creature cheered, "Hello, hello, hello! How are you, yes, yes, no, it's not, no, yes." 

Ro realized she was hearing through the spirits' ears. She'd never had anything address them directly. Being dead, it made sense that this creature was more firmly tied to the spirit realm than she was, but Ro didn't like it. He could speak their language in a way she couldn't, and wouldn't be able to until she was dead and no longer their interest. 

"No, no, no, no," the creature rasped cordially to the spirits. "I'm here for the other one. Other other one. That one, too, actually. And the other other other one."

Ro waited to see if it was going to notice her at all, or pay her any attention. He knew she was there, there wasn't a chance he didn't while he was talking to her spirits. It had told them that it wasn't there to talk to Ro with all that rambling, but she wasn't sure who the 'other other other one' was. 

The creature didn't address Ro at all, even when her spirits returned to her side, and it turned on its toes to continue marching along the path to Brotz's cottage.
 
Ro teleported ahead to find Eupa perched on the roof in a red house dress and cowl with a belt and dagger on her hip. She stared down the developing road intensely with her mouth tight and her head cocked to a side. "I knew you coming back early was a bad sign." Ro appeared at the peak of the wood-and-clay roof with her sister. She didn't look away from the road, or the creature waddling into view. "The fuck is it? I could hear it talking, but it sounded like that weird harpy thing from that one place with the teeth in the wall."

The spirit raven flapped up over the roof peak and landed next to the twins and creaked. Eupa bared her sharp teeth at it and growled, and it flapped away with another creak.

"You can see that?" Ro whispered. 

"Of fucking course I could see it, it's a fucking bird the size of the brat! How the fuck could I miss that?"

"It was a spirit," Ro explained, and Eupa's fur rose along the back of her neck as her yellow eyes grew wide. "Calm down, it's not that bad. He's not here to hurt us. I don't know why he is here, but he's not a threat."

Eupa narrowed her eyes to slits as she glared at her sister. "You're a fucking idiot, you think I'm going to let something else with a spirit realm tie near us? I know what you can do, and you don't even have the power to meat your guys up."

"I do so," Ro objected, but that wasn't the important part about what made the creature potentially dangerous. "Anyway. He's not a threat."

Eupa shoved Ro sideways, and Ro hopped off the roof to go meet the creature as it emerged from their path to their clearing. She kept her posture tall and her spear in hand, but she was already aware that she was not the scary one. "What's your business?"

The creature hobbled a little closer before the hood inclined and the pointed nose eventually leveled with Ro's face. One red eye shone from under the hood, as though it was its own light source. Ro was half-sure that was its animating energy, the life holding the corpse together and moving it. The real creature, not the shaped dust carrying it. Ro didn't like feeling looked through like that, but the piercing light in its eye sank into her core. 

"Oh, our business is not with you," he said eventually, working his shoulders like wings as he put his knobby hands on the staff. The beads and bones on the leather cords around it clacked together. "It is lovely to meet you, yes, and your friends, but you do not live here." 

Ro put her fist on her hip and thumped her spear down. She wanted to call on her usual energy of mystique and wilderness, but he had already seen her power at its source and said hello. So instead she called upon Eupa's energy of cockiness and creative threats. "I do live here. It is my forest," she stated firmly. "And I'm ruler of it, DeadFeathers, and you don't get to wander in here and tell me I don't live here." She was not good at this. 

"Excuse me, excuse me, I meant no offense," the little thing said, but it was grinning in a way Ro knew was a laugh waiting to happen. It was also threatening to take the top half of the creature's head off. "I simply meant at the cottage. The other young lady might be able to help me, though, yes, but where is the big one?" The gigantic raven did a circle overhead and landed upon the staff. It looked down the path and croaked at them. 

The big redhead was carrying a wooden crate of rattling metal up the path. The bass voice was humming cheerfully while Brina kicked her feet and sang tunelessly along from the sash-sling on one side of his chest. He drummed a beat with a thumb on the side of the crate and didn't seem to notice Ro and the creature waiting for him until he reached the clearing. Brotz's feet thumped heavily when he stopped short, and he took stock of Ro and the creature. Ro shrugged a shoulder at him, and he decided there wasn't much to worry about. He closed the gap and let the box down next to the wall and got Brina out of her sling to hold by her middle, huge fingers cupping the baby from the knee to under her arms. "So who's the guest?" 

The black-robed figure shuffled merrily and craned his head back to level the shining gaze on Brotz. "My name is Peck!" the creature squawked happily. "I'm here for the Prophecy!"

Eupa leapt from the roof and landed smoothly, knife in hand. She kept the knife in a defensive position, but she was still pointing it very deliberately at the bird-dust-thing. "I fucking knew it! Prophecy?! You're here for the brat, aren't you?!" 

Brotz took a quick breath in and stiffened for a moment, gaining a terrifying air. Peck shrank away from all of them with another harsh squawk of a laugh. "Not like that, no, no, no, no, please, please, I'm just here to help!" he rattled rapidly, creaking voice going high-pitched. "Oh, gracious me, Death alive, Death Kitty, goodness gracious me, no, no! Well, yes, but no."

Eupa's thin mouth twisted into an irritated sneer. Brotz eased between her and Peck for damage control, keeping his back to Eupa. He didn't take his narrow amber eyes off the berobed thing.

Brina was fascinated with the new person, and was trying to lean out Brotz's hand to get a better look. Peck, once he saw her, fixed his gaze with his pointed nose directed at her, red gleam in the eyes on his staff and in his head getting brighter. His voice was no longer the harsh squawk but instead a high, breathless purr of a sound. "Chaos Child! It is good to meet you at last!" He began to shuffle closer with tiny steps, and he lowered his head as if approaching royalty.

Ro and Brotz and Eupa exchanged looks, and Brotz kept his gaze on Ro. Ro gestured at Peck with an open palm. "He's not a threat. He's got a spirit realm tie stronger than mine, and I'm pretty sure he's animated dead. He hasn't said anything that he doesn't believe, and I don't think he intends to hurt Brina. If that expression is anything to go by," she said, gesturing toward Peck where he knelt and gazed adoringly,, "he really is here to help her with whatever her fate is."

Eupa squawked much like Peck did. "Hoi, what do you mean he's animated dead?"

"You couldn't tell?" Ro asked. If anyone should know dead things, it should be Eupa.

"I mean, I noticed the smell and no blood, but dead shit normally doesn't move so much." 

Ro tried to keep the look off her face, but she couldn't help the confused expression. They fought an army of animated corpses before, all three of them knew full well that death didn't always mean unmoving, even if they didn't come back to life. This one didn't seem to have come back to life, either, and Ro was still relatively certain that the creature itself was not one formerly living thing but several packed into a single being. Either way, Eupa knew better.

And she didn't appreciate the look. Eupa sneered at her wild-maned twin and rolled her eyes. "That was one time, why would I make it the new normal? Fucking pixie better have returned to where Hell and the Feywild started fucking."

Brotz knelt to let Brina and Peck closer to one another. "No touching," he said to both of them as Peck shuffled closer and Brina leaned more and more towards the little thing. "You like the goblin-bird?" 

"Oh, goblin, was that the original shape?" Ro asked. "You took on rather a lot of ravenoid qualities while you were dead."

"The fuck are you talking about?" Eupa demanded, but Peck's nose started bobbing fiercely to Ro as the rictus grin returned. Brina seemed to like the nose, and she giggled as she swatted at it playfully.

"Oh, my, yes, I was dead for quite some time, quite a long time, even to us dead ones. I was dead before the Queen was the Queen, the first Death was in power when I died!" he laughed. "Oh, my, my, my, yes. I lead the flock!"

Ro's brows shot up. "Oh, wow. Is Brina important?"

"To the Queen and the rest of the gods, oh, yes," Peck agreed with more head wagging. The hood finally fell back and revealed the gray-skinned bald head, mottled discoloration spread over the tight, thin skin stretched over the bulbous skull. The second eye, the empty one, was covered with a patch decorated with a few jewels, confirming Ro's suspicion that the eye on his staff was also his. 

Brina lunged quickly and caught Peck's nose in her hand and wagged it. He cackled and used his thumb to pry the little hand off, and kissed it gently with cracked blue lips. "Hello, Chaos Child," he said charmingly. "Hello, hello, hello, it is lovely to meet you."

"Gech!" Brina replied. "Gagagaga! Gabada!" Her little baby arms flapped happily against Brotz's hands.

"She's getting chatty, but she's not talking words, yet," Brotz explained. "She's got a few noises for things we know, she can tell us she wants a drink and stuff."

Peck cackled gleefully, but the eye in his head still focused eerily upon Brina, glinting like a diamond in the sun. Brina continued to make noises at him, and Peck began to make ravenoid noises back to her.

"Hey, hey, DeadFeathers! Don't get distracted! What's the prophecy?" Eupa demanded, standing tall and wagging the knife at him. "I ain't having this shit with magic, don't like it."

"The baby's magic," Ro argued, but Eupa was glaring down at the feathered undead thing until he noticed. Eventually, he caught her looking and he grinned at her the same as he had grinned at everything else. He wasn't afraid of Eupa, yet, and seeing that made Eupa set her feet more firmly. Unlike Ro, Eupa was actually terrifying on her own, and the whirling of her knife seemed to catch Peck's attention.

"Oh, I don't know the prophecy, all sounded like a mess, but the Chaos Child, I remember. And Death and the Undying." Peck began to rock between his feet, looking uneasy and turning his gaze between the trio. 

"Death and the Undying?" Brotz gave a wry smile to Eupa. "Well that'll be you and me." He redirected to Peck, who stopped shuffling, and disturbed the raven atop his staff when he leaned on it. "Ro in it?" 

The ravenoid grinned at Ro sheepishly. "Nope! But without The Hunter, we would not have Death." Peck hummed cheerfully, high voice wistful. He seemed to get distracted and his gaze wandered slowly sideways, away from the clearing entirely. 

The twins both looked to see the other's reaction and Ro considered all the ways things could and should have gone wrong and separated them. Eupa was thinking the same things, apparently, because she looked like she'd eaten something sour and both of them had dropped into more defensive postures. 

Brotz grunted at him. "Alright. So what's your plan here?" 

Peck snapped back around to level the one-eyed stare onto Brotz. After a few moments of thinking about it, he lowered his bulbous head into knobby shoulders with a slow shrug, turning the empty hand palm up. "I don't know. I wanted to find the Chaos Child and find her I did. Can I stay?"

Brotz stared down at the little knobbly not-monster and then looked to the twins and stayed looking at Ro. Ro shrugged again, indicating that she couldn't think of any reason not to. "I'll let him, 'til I think I shouldn't," he said, and he looked to Eupa again to see her glaring at him with her strong arms crossed. The knife was dangling at her side between two fingers. She could probably throw it into Peck's eye from there. 

"S'your house, the fuck are you looking at me for," Eupa spat. "You obviously didn't wait for my input before you said he could stay here!"

Brotz gave her a flat look as he barked the command, "Don't stab him."

Eupa's open-mouthed expression was one of pure indignation, as though Brotz had accused her of something she would never dream of doing. "I'm-- look, even if I do stab him, he's dead already. The fuck am I gonna do, break him? What're you gonna do if it is time to put him out? He's dead!" She gestured at him so fast that Peck sidestepped to avoid the anticipated attack. 

Brotz rolled his eyes at Eupa and got to his feet, looming over the not-a-goblin with every bit of his old gladiator prowess on display. "I'll crush his legs, I don't have to kill anything to make it go away." Brotz held a massive hand up demonstrably and closed his fist. 

Peck cackled and shuffled backwards quickly, startling the raven into circles overhead. "Oh, no, no, we won't need to do that, I mean no harm whatsoever, won't hurt anyone, don't even kill to eat, just eat the dead." 

Brotz gave a rumbling growl as a warning and he turned toward the cottage. "Alright. Now we've got that settled, I want lunch."

"Nothing of mine!" Eupa yowled stubbornly. "Every piece of dinosaur and cheese in the house is mine and I'm not sharing!" 

"Yes, yes, yes, yes, Death Kitty!" Peck cheered happily, dancing along behind Brotz, kicking high in front of it, hopping from side to side and skipping.

"And don't call me that!" Eupa roared, following them into the house.

Eupa adapted to Peck most easily, being used to permanently-distracted spirit-realm-dwellers and unclear communications. 

Brina loved him. The pair were roughly the same size, and Peck enjoyed playing tag with Brina around the den and around the cottage, and the raven often joined in the outdoor games. The dedication was eerie, and everyone insisted on keeping a careful watch on the goblinoid, but he had nothing but gentleness and love for Brina from the moment he saw her. 

Ro didn't like him. He still made her ears itch and he no longer confused her (the spirits were absolutely right about what he was, being a collection of partial-spirits that had lost chunks of themselves in Kadeket, the Death Realm.), but he did make her uncomfortable. He could talk to her spirits in a way that she couldn't, and her spirits told her about how gross the ravens were on a somewhat regular basis. Carrion eaters weren't beneath her, so to speak, but she still found them to be unpleasant.

Brotz eventually got used to ignoring his constant muttering. He was not as used to distraction like this, and he had to get Eupa to help talk to Peck when he needed communication.  

Everyone was grateful to have the extra set of eyes on the baby and on the cottage. Peck could be seen perching on the roof or in the trees when Brina was outside even when he wasn't playing with her. His raven would follow anyone traveling with her, at least for a certain distance from the cottage.  

He had several strange tricks, being a magical dead construct. The first was summoning the giant ravens. It could be likened to nothing so much as a snake eating in reverse. He would throw his head back as if on a hinge, hugely grinning mouth falling so far open that one could gaze into his malformed gullet, and he would hack and cough until the raven he was summoning could work its way out, struggling as if swimming out of the extended maw, flapping wings and scratching talons. 

Another was a single squawking noise that Peck made for emergencies. It sounded so much like Brina that even Ro was fooled the first time. His raven could make it, too. It was very useful for sounding the alarm when Brina was into dangerous things, or when Brina needed help with doorknobs. Even after they all told him to stop doing the noise for things that weren't immediate threats.

A third was the indestructibility of being undead. When Peck was hurt, he could burst into a full flock of ravens and ascend to the trees. The full flock was enormous and made an unholy racket that annoyed the adults and fascinated Brina, who would run in circles below him and make the same sort of creaking cawing noises while the many parts of Peck would swirl and swarm in a tornado over the clearing before amalgamating back into the berobed dustball. 

The fourth was also his indestructibility. Eupa knew she was not going to be able to kill him, as he was already dead. Dead things didn't die, they could only stop moving. He had a brain and organs, but he lacked her preferred target, the circulatory system. Her previous experience with animated corpses told her that there was a key to killing him. She was relatively certain it was in the shining eye, but she resisted the urge to investigate this further.

For a while. 

She waited 'til there weren't any witnesses. Brotz had taken Brina to town with him and left Eupa and Peck at home alone. Okay, she didn't wait 'til there weren't witnesses, she waited 'til he woke her up and no one was home. Okay, it wasn't waiting, he just hadn't pissed her off that much until then. But either way. He didn't fall down like Eupa expected. 

Instead, Peck dashed away from her with her knife sticking out of his eye. "That tickles, Death Kitty!" he cackled gleefully.

"Oh, fucking fuck you, I knew you wouldn't die, I didn't think you were still gonna be walking around!" she cried, lunging after him. "Give me my knife or I'll get the sword and see if you grow pieces back!"

Peck flapped his skinny arms as he hopped from the stone floor to the table, from the table to the rafters. His feather cloak flew out behind him as if helping carry him through the air, and he looked like a three foot tall flightless bird in a long robe. Eupa leapt from the floor to the rafters after him only to have him flap his way down, then out the back window with a surprisingly nimble hop that set him in the air and well away from the house. Eupa leapt hands-first out of the window after him, already grinning, clearly enjoying this new 'game'. 

After the first attempt, Eupa became more determined to see if she could find the animating force and poke a hole in it, but she wasn't really trying. Most of the time she simply satisfied herself with wedging the knife in his eye so he'd run away and she'd have an excuse to chase and menace him. 

Brina loved the game. She was often witness to the violence, and would jump on Brotz's chair to cheer as she watched, or chase after Eupa and Peck herself until they outran her or leapt out the windows or doors. Brotz didn't appreciate it much, but it had a sort of sweet family unity to it that he knew was part of the only bond Eupa could share with anyone, so he left it alone.

Until, finally, he had a good reason to call an end to it.

Eupa was asleep, as she often was in the mornings after work. Brotz was usually pretty good about trying to keep Brina outside or at least quiet, as he still expected Eupa to find an excuse to try and kill the baby. So it surprised her when he knocked on the heavy birch door three times real loud and sharp. 

Eupa stayed quiet and considered going back to sleep and letting him cope with whatever it was. If he knocked again, she was going to go out the damn window, he was on his own, she was tired. Except he didn't knock again. Instead, Brotz popped the door open, breaking Eupa's lock off the top.

Eupa got the first shutter set unlocked and open, but the moment it took her to get the second ones gave Brotz the opportunity to grab Eupa by the back of the head. He was probably the only person in the world fast enough to stop her like that! The knife she swung at his chest hit his arm instead, and he grabbed her hand to squeeze around the hilt painfully. 

He dug his fingertips into her temples, into the hinge of her jaw, and into the top of her head, and he ignored all the high pitched objections as he dragged her out of the room. He wasn't as much taller than her as both of them felt, but he could certainly hold her so that she couldn't touch the floor. Eupa had only been able to slip his grip a few times in their seven-ish year relationship, and trying usually hurt more than it was worth. "What the fuck is your fucking problem, I work, I stay away from the kid, I haven't been caught in Tinian yet, I haven't even let anyone-- Ah." 

It would have been cute if Brotz wasn't so mad about it. Brina in her little smock and leggings was chasing after Peck just like Eupa, waving a stick overhead. Peck was hopping and dashing around but obviously taking it easy on the toddler. He led her under the wooden table and between the chairs and he made her chase him from the floor as he hopped over the hearth. He landed on Brotz's chair and stuck his green tongue out at her to taunt her up there. No sooner than she got onto the seat, Peck hopped over the back and flapped away, leading Brina to drop back down and continue to chase.

"That is not my fault," Eupa said sharply, but she was failing to fight the smile. She could feel Brotz glaring holes into her, but she couldn't actually look to see him. Probably for the better, as he'd try to slap the smile off.

It really was cute, though. The toddler made a three-toned sound that was recognizable as 'get back here', if only because Eupa said it so often when she chased Peck. As if to fan the flames, Brina then tripped over Brotz's boot and announced "Fuck!" distinctly when she hit the floor. Everyone was silent for a moment as Brina looked to Brotz to check his reaction, and she grinned to see Eupa, but she was busy. She clumsily got to her feet to continue the chase.

Eupa fought the battle against the laugh while Brina was still getting up, but as soon as she had the cover noise of Peck and Brina's game, she gave up and laughed wildly. Brotz slammed her into the floor hard enough to hurt her and moved his hold to the back of the neck. "She just swore and is chasing Peck with a stick, don't--"

Brina made another Eupa-sound, a triumphant roar as she tackled Peck and started whacking him with the stick over and over, shouting as she did it.

"That last thing isn't me," Eupa objected quickly, still failing to fight the grin. "Its form is all off and I don't yell and I don't even really hit him that often, especially with the knife."

Brotz shook her again and squeezed her neck so hard that her vision went spotty, ending all the laughter. She swatted at him and scratched the hell out of his arm, but he didn't let go. "The fuck do you want me to do about it? It's yours! You fix it!"

Brotz hoisted Eupa off her feet and put their faces together. "You are the one that told me she learns by copying, and you gave her awful shit to copy," Brotz rumbled, pointing aggressively at Brina and Peck. "If I have to break your jaw and use you as a puppet to get you to teach her better, I will."

Eupa tried to escape his grip and he only tightened it more. It was real easy to stop feeling guilty for scaring her that badly.  It wasn't as easy to stop feeling guilty for how good it made him feel to see it. She kept looking past him to search for her weapons like she could do anything to him right now. "Look, dammit, I stay dead and you're scaring me, let me the fuck go. I'm ss. Sorry," she snapped. "Fuck. Shit."

He squeezed tighter and she cried out, but he let her go and shoved her toward the pair where they were 'fighting' on the floor.

"Brina," Eupa called hoarsely, kneeling and holding her gray-skinned hands out. Brina didn't have to be told twice. She loved her Eupa, after all. The baby threw herself into the werekin woman with no hesitation and hugged her tight. "Oopa!" she said cheerfully, her 'name' for Eupa. She brandished the stick proudly. "Mife!" she said, an attempt at the word 'knife', and then she whacked Eupa with it. "Ya!"

Form was all the way off, Eupa couldn't help thinking, but instead of correcting that like she felt she should, she took the stick out of Brina's hand gently. "No knives for you, not yet," she said firmly. "No stabbing Uncle Peck." Brina whined and pointed at Peck and babbled at Eupa. Eupa's lip curled unwillingly and she gave a sincere and stern frown. "No, that's never okay, not even when I do it." 

Peck shuffled up, grinning far too wide, and he cackled as Eupa looked at him with nothing but disdain. "I'm sorry I stab you, Uncle Peck. I'll stop." She added a silent 'in front of the brat' in her head, but she was comfortable guessing that Brotz and Peck both knew that, too. 

"Tell Uncle Peck you're sorry," Eupa commanded.

"Sah-ee," Brina mumbled. She rubbed her head against Eupa's collar and started petting her arm, burying her hands until the short soft fur. 

Eupa stood up, ignoring the objections of the toddler, until she hugged Eupa's leg and continued to rub her face on her fur. "Oh for fuck's sake!"

"Fuck!" Brina agreed.

"Eupa!"

Eupa got her leg away from the baby and stormed into the woods.[] The high screaming of one-year-old outrage followed her, even after she shut the door. She vaguely heard Brotz trying to comfort the baby before she lost earshot of the cottage.

The forest was still unfamiliar, but she had parts of it learned. There was little to use as a point of relation, and Eupa had to find particular trees to remember, but Eupa was at home in the woods. She knew where she belonged, where everything was, she could hear and smell and see it all. Ro marked off the bits where the feywild started taking people, so she avoided that, but otherwise Eupa had a good few miles to wander with nowhere to accidentally end up. She could wander for an hour and never backtrack on herself, and she didn't feel out of place doing it.

Of course, having wandered into nowhere for an hour was why hearing the squeaky little voice in the distance was distressing. It wasn't the emergency scream of Peck, but that didn't take the fear out of it. It was also very quiet, and Brotz's wasn't accompanying it at all. 

Eupa listened to see if she heard it again. It could have been something else, maybe a fox? 

The sound echoed through the trees again. Nope. That was definitely the kid. The fuck was it doing out here? Was it lost? Did Brotz have it? Why did it sound so upset? Did something steal it to eat it? Did the Faeries kidnap it? Did they kidnap Brotz?

Eupa considered her options. 

If she let the little shit freeze to death, they could go adventuring again, leave Peck behind, go be themselves and normal. Eupa liked the bed and the bath house but she missed the dumb decisions and new locales and fresh blood. She also didn't like professional assassin work. She missed being able to get seen at least a little, and wiping out whole groups instead of this one-at-a-time restraint, never allowed to get even a little caught. It wasn't impossible, but it was twice the work for half the reward at best. They could do that until she got too old and then try the settling thing again, or they could go on their ageless ways and Eupa could stop when she was ready.

Except Brotz would be devastated, and he was no fun at all when he was devastated. Tended to get a real scary mix of suicidal and homicidal. And if Ro ever found out that Eupa actively decided to let Brina die, she'd snitch. She'd made it pretty fucking clear that Eupa would be severing something important if she killed the brat, and this would count to Ro. It wouldn't be the same as murder, but Eupa could easily find the baby and take it home, and choosing not to and knowing it would die was definitely on Ro's list of 'responsible for someone's death'. For whatever stupid reason. Brotz called it murder on those grounds. Eupa happened to know it didn't count as murder, she had done all kinds of experiments to determine what counted as murder, she had a very special sense of murder. Choosing to let die didn't count. 

Okay, fine, it doesn't matter what I think. Ro will snitch and Brotz will maim me. 

Remembering his many, numerous threats, some of which she had taught him herself, made Eupa deeply uncomfortable, and the fur along her spine rose. 

That left finding the brat and taking it to the cottage. Doing that would chain herself to this life for the next twenty years. She would have to cope with being a professional assassin, survive on those little sips of that euphoria until her knees went bad and got her killed in town. Find the pleasures in domestic life and let those five years of adventures be the fun bits she looked back on, let the five be the end of it. Hells, maybe they were right, maybe she'd be able to keep up with the eternally young assholes long enough to take the kid adventuring with them. Let her forty-year-old knees kill her on the road. 

Fucking jerks, forgetting she was still mundane.

The kid screamed again, high thin voice bouncing through the trees, barely reaching Eupa's ears. Eupa stood in the barren forest and thought about it. Maybe Brotz would find it. Maybe it would die while she was still thinking about it. 

"Ooopaaaaaaaa!" 

Eupa groaned with frustration and spun in place, putting her hands over her face. By fucking name. She hated how much the kid loved her in the first damn place, she had put effort into avoiding the little shit, and here it was calling her for help when it was in distress, or even just looking for her.

Dammit, I hate children! 

It took Eupa about twenty minutes to track the kid down, which was pretty bad considering how far out she was already. She didn't have any trouble tracing the crying, but it surprised her how far away from the cottage the toddler had managed to wander. When Eupa found her, she was waddling along in her leggings, socks and smock. When Eupa got close enough, she could see that it was dragging Eupa's cloak behind it, too. It was shivering, and the little lips were blue. It was looking around pathetically, wide eyes wet with tears, and it sucked a huge breath in to call, "Oooopaaaaaaaaa!" 

Eupa wanted to stop herself, but she couldn't bring herself to actually do that. Instead, she swept down on the kid and scooped it up, not even breaking pace as she turned back to Brotz's cottage.

"Pa!" Brina squeaked. Eupa didn't respond to it, didn't even look at it, but she could feel the baby looking at her. She could even feel the love and admiration and gratitude without looking. She threw the cloak over both of them, wrapping it over her own shoulders and over the top of the baby's head. Brina normally didn't like having her head covered, but this time there was no objection. Eupa got it wrapped up with her as much as she could, and she put her arms under the baby's smock, put one arm along its spine and fingers on either side of its clammy neck to warm it up. She did have to stop to take its dampened leggings and socks off, but that just helped Eupa cradle it closer and get more skin to her fur so it would warm up better. Brina only helped, barely objecting or fighting at all and making adjustments to settle better into Eupa's hold. 

The amount of time it took for Brotz's voice to carry to Eupa's ears only proved how far the baby had come, and how long it had been after her. Eupa couldn't even shout back, she wasn't loud enough. Brina didn't know this, nor did it care, because it picked its head up and fought with the cloak while it shouted, "Daaaeeeee!" 

It took a few more minutes before Eupa figured she was close enough to call back to him. She heard his surprisingly fast sprint thundering toward them immediately after that. Eupa considered putting the baby down, wondered if he'd kill her for that even if she left it where he could easily find it. 

Well, if it was Eupa's lost kid, she'd kill her, so Eupa decided not to do that. Instead, she continued her even pace back to Brotz and helped get the cloak down enough that Brina could see out of it. Brina called back to Brotz as he came into view and he got faster when he saw that Eupa had her. Fucking sap had tears visible from here. Eupa braced herself for impact. 

It was good that she did, 'cos he hit them hard and took Eupa off her feet, throwing his arms around both of them and holding them so tight that Eupa had to protect the baby. "Daaaeee!" the baby cried, struggling to get out of Eupa's cloak and to Brotz's chest. "Daaeee!"

"You scared me so bad!" Brotz cried, slowly getting a hand to Brina to hold her and let Eupa down. Eupa scratched his arm viciously and kicked his leg (and hurt her foot more than he felt anything). 

The dark woman waited for the disgusting reunion to end. It was funny, Brotz could still hold Brina in both hands and Brina could barely get her arms around Brotz's thick neck. She still didn't let go, even when Brotz relaxed and finally opened his eyes to look at Eupa, who was glaring so hard that her pupils had gone narrow. 

The gratitude was not as satisfying as the following shame, and he shrank back and lowered his head. "Thank you, Eupa," he breathed softly. "Where was she?"

"In the middle of fucking nowhere!" Eupa roared. "Ro's not even on this plane of reality! What the fuck were you doing?!"

Brotz clutched absently at the baby. "I had to pee, I thought Peck had her, it was just a few seconds!" 

Eupa threw the wadded up cloak at Brotz and Brina in a fit and started to stomp off. "Here, fuck you both. Fucking fuckshit."

"Oopa!" Brina called, and Brotz caught the baby as she lunged at Eupa from his hands. "Cote!" She grabbed the scarlet cloth off Brotz's arm and held a corner out at Eupa. "Cote!"

Eupa stopped and peered back at them and shook her head. "No. You keep it," Eupa insisted. "You're cold, I have fur."

Brina grunted and pushed it toward her again. "Cote! Oopa cote!" 

Eupa felt her face relax as she realized that Brina had followed her with the intention of giving her the thing. She looked at the pair, the brunette toddler with her mismatched eyes in her smock held by the enormous man with the enormous hands, both out of place surrounded by the ancient trees stretching into the sky. Brina might have been the same size as Brotz's two fists together. That imploring puppy-faced gaze finally melted Eupa and she stomped over with a sigh. "Thank you, Brina. Don't try and find me by yourself ever again. Okay?" 

"Tay," agreed Brina. "Wabbu." 

"She says she loves you," Brotz said, but he sounded mildly distressed by that. Looking at his face, he was flinching.

Eupa grunted in response and she stumped away, putting her cloak around her shoulders and fixing her cowl over it. Kids.

That bit of kindness ruined Brina. Over the next few months, through the winter and into the spring, she latched horribly, frequently knocking on Eupa's door to "talk" to her, 'helping' with every household task (including building the fire and laundry), as well as trying to steal Eupa's dresses and knives when she got big enough to reach. 

And the whole time, Eupa had to be nice about it because Brotz loomed behind her, flexing his meaty hands. He pissed her off acting like this, he was bullying her. She was the bully, dammit! 

Brotz had always been capable of killing her, Eupa knew that. He'd tried more than a few times before, but he was not a murderer in his heart, and he often stopped short when he got close. He loved Eupa dearly and knew she loved him, too, and it saved her ass from the first moment he found out what atrocities she committed and liked committing. 

He was willing to get over that for the kid. He was not only willing to get over it for the sake of the kid's safety, but also for her happiness, and there was a real bold line with several other smaller ones on one side that Eupa wasn't allowed to cross. Being mean to the kid was not allowed in any sense. At best, Eupa was allowed to be direct and curt. The rules about swearing alone were too strict, and Eupa spent a lot of time ducking away from him just because he moved too fast. She hated it.

The part that pissed her off most wasn't so much that Brotz was ready and willing to kick her ass or kill her for being mean to the baby, but that she really didn't want to. She even caught herself doing it, she didn't want to get attached and she was doing it anyway. Brina's self-given permission to wedge herself under Eupa's wing, whether or not Eupa wanted her there, was irrevocable. The kid would not be removed by force or even by will. 

Eupa did hold out for a month before she let Brina start taking baths with her. 

One spring morning, around the anniversary of Brina's finding, the bronze-skinned toddler stopped eating breakfast to look at Eupa's empty chair. Eupa was normally in to eat after work and then gone again, which had been accepted by the child as the natural order of things. Today, Eupa had either eaten in town or made a particularly big mess of herself and needed to take a bath before breakfast. "Oopa?" Brina asked, looking at Brotz with wide eyes.

"She's taking a bath," Brotz said. "Eat your egg."

Brina hopped off the chair immediately and raced to the door. "Baff! Oopa!" She couldn't quite manage the handle (Eupa had to rebuild them after the wandering incident), and grunted unhappily at it for several moments.

Brotz grunted at her firmly. Brina turned to look and blinked the enormous eyes at him, and he gestured at the eggs pointedly. Brina blinked again, then dismissed him and ran to the back window to call out it. "Ooopaaaaa!" 

"Breakfast!" Brotz repeated, finally getting to his feet. 

"Paaa!" Brina replied, trying to climb into the windowsill. She got both her hands planted on it and hopped repeatedly. "Paa!"

Even being an immortal gladiator didn't prepare Brotz for the inevitability of a determined toddler. Somehow, Brina hopped high enough to get bent over the windowsill, and Brotz barely caught her ankle before she hit the ground outside. 

Brina seemed annoyed with having been rescued. "PA!" she reported, kicking, and Brotz lowered her to the ground to allow her to totter to the bath house and knock on the door. "OOPA!" 

"Go away!" 

"Paaaa!"

"I'm taking a bath!"

"Baff!" Brina replied. "Paa! Baff!"

Brotz came around the corner of the cottage to see Brina standing at the door and trying to get at the handle, jumping and grunting as she struggled to get hold of it. "No, Brina," Brotz said gently, and he scooped her up. Brotz heard Eupa's irritated moan as Brina shrieked and flailed in an attempt to escape, and he carried her back into the house. 

The next day, Eupa came in like she was supposed to and disappeared, but Brina went to check in the bath house. 

And then Eupa didn't have work and Brina still checked the bath house. 

She didn't give up even after Eupa skipped her bath and broke the routine. Even the second time when she did it two days in a row. (She hated that.) 

The fits were short-lived, but Eupa was not known for her ability to handle stressors unless she absolutely wanted to, and even she was irritated to know how many things would dampen her will. Including having her baths interrupted and her growing love for the tiny asshole human.

"Fine! Fine! Let it in! Gods! Fuck!" Eupa cried, and she finally opened the bath house door. 

Brina sprinted in with no hesitation and raced to her kit of bath supplies to fetch a washcloth and a bar of soap. Brotz tried not to look at Eupa as he eased his way in, stepping lightly on the tile floor and watching Brina splash in Eupa's full bathtub with her washcloth and run around the room in circles. 

The round room was centered by a cauldron up to Brotz's hip and the embers were still glowing beneath it. The room was filled with blood-smelling steam. Eupa's setup for the laundry still impressed him, being three or four smaller metal tubs, a couple of wooden buckets, a pair of low tables and stools to go with both, as well as several shelves of colorful pastes, liquids, and powders. 

Eupa slammed the door shut and startled Brina into freezing where she stood. The toddler gazed sweetly up at the irate woman as she stormed back to her stool with her tub and a couple of bowls of water and soap. Her fur was clumped from head to toe with pink soap bubbles. She would never get the blood completely off. Eupa's gray skin was only visible in small spots on her ears and hands and feet, and Brotz saw a spot where the fur had never grown back over a scar on her inner arm. She normally kept the skull-shaped brand hidden under her bracers. One of the times she was caught. 

Eupa sat heavily on her stool. Brina raced over to Eupa's wash bucket and Eupa caught her hand just before she dipped the washcloth in. The corner touched the water and the white cloth was tinged pink.

"Not that one," Eupa warned, and she lifted the terrycloth up to wring the blood-water out. "That's Eupa's nasty work bucket." She put her own away and got another one to place in front of them. "There, that one's for you. Can you undress yourself?" 

Brina tried, first lifting the brown shirt and getting it stuck at the elbow, but she got the trousers off with no difficulty, even managing to undo the button at the hip. Eupa snickered and helped Brina with the shirt.  

The curly-haired toddler stared at the black-furred werekin woman expectantly, round eyes wide and mouth slightly open with wonder. Brotz stared similarly, not sure what any of them were going to do now. He wasn't going to let Eupa put Brina in the tub with her, but he didn't think she was going to try.

"Now what?" Eupa asked. She sat back on her stool and looked at Brotz, who shrugged. Brina looked back at him and waved sweetly, and Brotz gave her a half-hearted wave back.  "You got a routine?"

Brotz shook his head without really looking at her, keeping his eyes on Brina even as Brina turned back to face Eupa. "We didn't do bath tubs or anything, I just clean her off at night, make sure nothing stinks or is sticky."

Eupa rolled her yellow eyes and looked down to see the kid still staring up at her and waiting. "Guess not. You know kids need to learn to wash themselves, right? You're supposed to let them do it and correct the bits they do wrong. And try to sound happy about it." 

Brotz hadn't realized that Eupa would know how to raise children. Ro said she did, but he didn't believe it. 

Eupa dismissed him and slid off her stool to sit on the ceramic tile floor with her legs folded. Brina giggled and pet at Eupa's soapy fur, but she put Brina's washcloth back into her hand and picked up her own. "Alright, look." But then she didn't say anything. Instead, she dipped her cloth into the new, clean bucket. Brina took a second to copy her, but she placed her hand into the bucket with Eupa's, washcloth grasped. Eupa nodded firmly and swished it around in the water until Brina did the same. Finally, she withdrew to put soap onto the cloth. Brina held the washcloth out and grunted. Eupa held the soap out and Brina rubbed the cloth onto it as prompted. The bigger one helped after a moment more, the little hand wasn't strong enough to provide the friction. After they finished and Eupa put the soap aside, she managed a sincere sounding, "Good job, Brina."

Eupa started on the backs of her hands, making sure Brina could see, and Brina copied, moving in a circle. Eupa took Brina's hands in her own and carefully (watching Brotz the whole time) guided Brina to get between her fingers. Then Eupa showed her how to wash her arms and they worked their ways over to the other arms and got their necks and faces and then worked their ways down. Eupa wasn't sure what to do about Brina's hair, yet.

Brina kept up fairly well, and there was little talk, even with Brina normally being much more chatty when she was with Eupa. The toddler focused on what the surly adult was doing and copied her intently, her face scrunched similarly with her tongue sticking out. 

Ro peered in the door, having heard what was going on and wanting to see it for herself. She found Brotz looking very green off to one side, visibly uncomfortable with Eupa's nudity. She was done making fun of him for that but she still thought it was silly. 

She had better prey to bring down. "Honestly, Eupa, what are you doing?" she teased as she made her way into the steam-filled room. She knew the answer and wanted to hear the response, wondering how well Eupa would hide her love and how far she would go to try.

"Giving the fff- Chaos baby a bath!" Eupa snapped, not even bothering to look at Ro. She showed Brina how to get between their toes. "You knew that, fuck you for asking!" Not well and not far, Ro determined. Eupa had not been fighting it off very well, but Ro didn't expect her to crack this easily.

Ro paced into the bathhouse to Brotz's side, enjoying the smell of the steam, the sweat, the blood, and the flowers and lye of the soap. "You can run, Brotz, I won't let her hurt the baby," she told him kindly, and she sat next to him against the stone wall. He was gone before she got comfortable. 

Ro waited 'til she heard him back in the den. Eupa was very deliberately refusing to look at her, and was still trying to help the baby clean between her toes. "So are you done pretending you don't love her?" The tones were casual, but Eupa's ears twitched and she lowered her head as if she'd felt accused of something she might have done.

Eupa stopped herself from answering and the fur on the back of her neck bristled. "That's a trick question." She was washing herself slowly, making sure Brina kept up. "Arm up, kid, lemme help, your arms are still too short."

"You love the baby," Ro insisted. "It's not a trick question, it's just not a question you can answer the way you want to."

"So?" Eupa demanded. Not far at all. That was a lost fight anyway, but Ro didn't expect it to take less than a full year. "Who the fuck cares?" 

Ro was smiling with her whole damn body, her posture had gotten taller and her ears were pricked up and her ribbons were flapping enthusiastically. "You the fuck care!" She was even swinging her feet a little where she sat, and her hands were patting her lap playfully. Eupa was getting visibly annoyed with how happy she looked, fur continuing to bristle and eyes darting over her soft spots. Ro knew Eupa wouldn't kill her for this, but she didn't think she could push it much further.

Brina turned to Ro and gestured aggressively with a pointed finger. "Wo!" she shouted first, and then she released a series of angry word-like noises, amongst which "Oopa" and "no" were discernible. 

Eupa thought she was going to be sick for the way Ro's face lit up. "Oh, eat it up, all that shit, it's poison, every fucking syllable," Eupa mumbled, redoubling her focus on the baby.

"Oh, that much cute, I think you might be right, just on sheer dose! She's defending you! That's so sweet!" Ro laughed merrily, ignoring the baby continuing to tell her off. 

"Fffff--ck off!" Eupa snapped, trying to avoid any more swearing from the kid. She stood up and waited for Brina to stand up, then she picked up her water bucket and waited to see what Brina was going to do. Brina stared expectantly up at Eupa. "Think you can pick up yours?" she asked, gesturing at the bucket they'd been sharing.

Brina tried and failed twice before Eupa said, "Alright, let me help." Brina let go and Eupa stuck her bottom lip out with her nose curled. "No, I said help. I'm not doing it for you."

Brina obediently 'helped' Eupa pick up and carry the bucket to the edge of the room, grasping the rope in one hand while Eupa carried it low. They got to the side of the room where a drain opened into the irrigation ditch around the garden. "Ready?" Eupa poured her own water over her legs and rubbed away the soap bubbles. She helped Brina follow suit, picking up and pouring the water over the baby's chubby legs. She poured her own over her head, and she tried not to dump it on Brina's, but Brina grabbed the bucket and 'helped' Eupa dump it onto her hair. Then their arms and torsos, and then shaking themselves when they finished. Brina giggled wildly, and then Eupa led her back to the bathtub. 

Eupa stopped and frowned at the bathtub itself. It was too high for Brina to use, even if it wasn't too full. Brina knew what this was and tried to jump in, grasping the sides and giving a hop and pulling herself up. She got stuck at the hip and tipped face first into the water and Eupa snatched the coughing baby out of the water. Brina continued to cough, and she turned terrifyingly purple as Eupa put her under an arm and held her horizontal and face down, trying to help the baby get the water up. 

"Well shit, kid, if you just want your dad to turn my bones inside out," she cried. The panic was over quickly. Brina recovered with bloodshot eyes and a wobbly smile with some left over coughing. 

Ro got one of the spare laundry tubs and put some bathwater into it. "Here ya go, special bath for you."

Brina pointed a chubby hand at Eupa's tub and babbled unhappily, but Eupa shook her head once more. "Nope, sorry, not 'til you're as high as the sides. We'll get you new ones for Finding Day, 'kay? Get you one for this Finding Day, too." 

Ro did hide the smile this time. She was the one that had decided to make Brina's Finding Day a thing, as it had been a big day for all of them, even if Eupa didn't find that out for another week.

Brina continued babbling and threw a small fit when Eupa sat in her own tub and pointed at Brina's. Brina insisted on fighting until Eupa finally got out, put the small tub next to her own, and put Brina into it. Brina gave a few more half hearted cries of indignation but it wasn't long before she began to splash merrily, and Eupa sat back into her own.

Ro snickered when Brina watched and then imitated impeccably as Eupa sat back with a contented sigh. 

"Oh, shut up," Eupa snipped again, closely echoed by the angry-sounding nonsense syllables of the baby. "And you stop copying me, your dad's starting to get mad."

Brina looked at her black-furred idol as though she understood, and her little brow furrowed just like Eupa's as she babbled in response, even waving and flapping one of her arms. 

"I mean, I get that," Eupa said, smiling coyly at herself. "But you can't go around copying just me, you have to copy everyone. I'm a bad person. If you go around copying me all the time, no one will like you."

Brina back-talked at Eupa again and Eupa gasped and put a hand to her chest, mock-offended. "Hey, hey, hey, there's no need for that!"

Told Brotz she liked babies. It was a relief to see, Ro had started to wonder how much of her sister had been lost in the years of murder.

That became routine, too, and over the summer months, it was almost as though there had never been anything different. 

Eupa began to talk to Brina more, would play and care for. She let the baby boss her around and she play-argued and taught to do headstands. Brotz slowly began to relax around Eupa as they both became okay with her part in the life of the child Brotz had adopted. 

He forgot how much Eupa could look like an admirable person. Before he found out that she was a literal murder fiend, he had thought very highly of her, and he'd forgotten until now. She was a good not-parent. He stayed on her ass about what she ended up teaching Brina, but even she didn't seem to want Brina copying her worse habits. He double checked every food item that Eupa offered, but Eupa never offered anything she thought would harm Brina. He did catch her sneaking Brina treats, but they were just that. 

He wouldn't leave them alone, even for baths, though he did get to where he would only sit outside the bath house and listen in. Eupa had started a game of naming body parts and explaining what they did (though he knew she was talking over Brina's head), and sometimes she'd do it in the other language that she and Ro spoke. Listening to Eupa gave Brotz better ideas of things he needed to do with Brina, like letting her do things herself and cheering her failed efforts. "Almost! Let's try again!"

There was irony in his being uncomfortable because he was comfortable with her. Ro assured him repeatedly that Eupa really was past her urges to kill Brina, and that she wouldn't if only to spare herself the hurt feelings. He just could not bear the idea of leaving them alone. He even knew he was being irrational, there would be nothing he could do to stop Eupa if she was holding Brina, but he couldn't bring himself to give Eupa anything that looked too much like an opportunity to get away with it.

The following fall, a few months after Brina turned two, she got sick for the first time. She'd had little sniffles before, even a couple of mild fevers; but this one was a real sickness, not just the running nose and sneezing. 

The fever gave the poor baby the chills; she slept constantly and didn't move when she was awake. She coughed horribly, wet and deep in her lungs, and the fits got so bad that she would suck air between them. She would even try to cry and fail, it was just too much work. Brotz could feel the wheezing even when he couldn't hear it. She wouldn't let Brotz put her down, and even when he tried, the coughing would start back up. She would hardly eat or drink anything, she didn't want it. The only way Brotz could get her to eat at all was to feed himself and let her poach. 

Ro had given Brotz herbs and things to help with sicknesses, there was one fever medicine with five ways to deliver it, but he couldn't get Brina to take any, not even the tea for the cough. Brina was pathetic and clinging and quiet, Brotz didn't know what to do. 

He didn't realize he was staying up all night with her until the fourth day when he finally got hit with a wave of exhaustion. He was tireless, or so the twins had always called him--that stress and a sick baby would be the thing that pushed him to his limit was almost funny. He couldn't bring himself to sleep. He was worried that Brina was going to get worse instead of better. Every time he tried to lie down or even just cradle her on her back, she would have a coughing fit. The twins had told him that three days was time to worry and it had been five. He went through every lesson Ro had given him, but he didn't remember half of them and wasn't sure of the other half. He didn't want to ask Eupa. He hadn't really seen much of her, so he figured she was avoiding them. 

He didn't mean to sleep when he finally did. He fell into his chair and he only meant to blink, but as soon as he closed his eyes, even for the moment, his head rolled back and he drifted off.

Brotz woke up slowly, groggily unable to remember where he was. Rafters. Fireplace. Cluttered den. Oh right, I have my own house now. Quiet. 

The fire was low, early dawn's gray light was just visible out the window. Eupa had been cooking again, the table featured scattered herbs, vegetables, and a handful of spilled rice. He could smell the boiled liver in the pot on the cooking grid, and the dandelion root. Next to the pot, one of their metal traveling cups held clean water. Peck was hobbling creakily around, muttering conversationally to himself in pleasant tones.

Brotz went to look in Brina's door, expecting to see Eupa in the rocking chair with her. The room was empty and strangely clean. Brina's bed was made and bedclothes folded. Her curtains were drawn, her clothes were folded and put away.

"They're in the bath house," Peck creaked simply, and he flap-hopped up to his hammock. 

Brotz reminded himself again that Peck wouldn't allow anything bad to happen to Brina, but he was never really sure he knew what a threat Eupa was to the toddler. It was hard not to panic as he went back to the bath house. It was too quiet. It would be very easy for Eupa to kill Brina here and clean up the mess and pretend she went missing, or maybe 'accidentally' drown her…. It was too quiet… 

Or maybe Eupa hadn't done anything wrong, and Brina had just gotten too sick. They were in the bath house to try and hide from him while Eupa tried to bring her back to life.

Would Peck know if Brina was dying? Would Eupa be able to hide Brina from Peck? Eupa could hide from anything…

A blast of mint-smelling steam hit Brotz when he opened the door, and it took a moment for him to see through the mist. They were at Eupa's laundry tables across the room, Eupa on her stool and Brina in her arms. Both faces had turned to look at him at the same time. Brina's expression lit up with a weak smile and she rasped, "Daddy!". 

It set an ache in his heart, and he managed a wobbly smile back. "Hey, Brina," Brotz finally managed to say lovingly in return, but he was already overwhelmed and couldn't say anything else.

Brina was wearing only a pair of short pants and she had a folded towel resting under her chin. She was holding Eupa's cowl in both hands on her lap. The brown curls were puffy and wild and damp, the angelic face was red-blotched and relaxed. A wooden bowl of amber liquid rested on the table alongside another metal traveling cup. 

The calm look on Eupa's face was foreign, and Brotz could see the relation to Ro for the first time in a while. He'd forgotten what she looked like dressed without her cowl. Her neck was skinny, and being able to see it with the rest of her 'disguise' made her look smaller. Brina fixed her head back into Eupa's arm so she could continue eating. 

The mess in here showed him how clean the house was. He hadn't even thought about it, but for some reason seeing this clutter reminded him of the cleanliness of the house. Spent matches next to the firepit, dirty laundry spread between three tubs, the room needed sweeping. He could see the Eupa's efforts to comfort and help Brina. The bathhouse was strewn with every toy Brina had, several items of gear (Brina liked bracers, especially Eupa's old studded ones), a couple of empty glass jars, and a wooden spoon. The huge cauldron had been swapped for a cooking grid over the fire and a much smaller cauldron filled to the brim with stones and boiling water, topped with some mint leaves and a few other things Brotz didn't recognize. He had never seen anything like it before, but it was producing the fragrant steam effectively.

Brina gave a soft cough, still a wet one but not nearly so deep, and only a few times instead of the wracking hacks from the last several days. Her lungs didn't rattle when she breathed in to do it again, either, she didn't fight to drag the air in. She didn't try to cry after she was done.

Brotz didn't realize how worried he had been until now. Brina was recovering. He sagged to his knees, unable to stay up. He could hardly breathe. All the thoughts of Brina dying like that came back and he almost choked on it all. 

"Trick to getting them to take that tea when they're this big, you can add honey to it," Eupa stated airily. She wasn't looking at him. She was focused on Brina. "The mint and the mullein and the steam help get that shit out of their lungs. Got a lot of good shit in this broth, but it took nearly a damn hour to get her to where she'd eat it. She likes ginger. Which is good, 'cos the coughing made her throw up a lot of that gunk. You could have asked me to get the fever paste in her mouth, too, I know you didn't do it because you're afraid to hurt her with your bigass hands."

Brotz tried to catch his breath, still overwhelmed. He could weep. He could leap for joy and kiss his murderous companion. He had to blow a breath out before he could even take one in. That might have been the steam. He finally leaned toward the floor to get his head out of the heat. 

Eupa continued, apparently not minding his state. "If you'd told me you weren't sleeping, I'd have helped sooner. When they're sick, you're supposed to sleep when they sleep again or else you run yourself dead when they're not asleep." He saw her glance at him, but she returned her focus to the baby before he could meet her eye. 

"I heard her squawking in the middle of the night, not like normal. She was trying to get out from under your hand, was stuck. You were out. She was pathetic, too, cuddled right up to me after I rescued her. She did try and wake you a few times, but I didn't want her to take your eye out trying to open it. Brought her in here to let you sleep, and to help me get her better. I've been kinda trying to stay back 'cos I thought you had it and I didn't want to catch it. Kept it to trying to feed you stuff I knew would be good for her and keeping the house clean-ish and the fire going. Should've asked if you needed help, I'm an idiot for that, I know you won't ask for help, about won't tell me you need it when I offer. Didn't know how bad it was." 

He never asked for help because Eupa's help had the cost of coming from Eupa. If she didn't volunteer, she was going to let you hear about it until you did her a favor that she deemed a favor. Brotz kept the thought to himself and instead watched Brina take the rice-smattered broth as though she hadn't thrown a bowl of mashed peaches when he tried to feed her yesterday. 

"Peck told me what was going on, sort of, he said Chaos Child was sick and wouldn't eat and stuff, normal sick stuff, we've all seen this." Eupa dabbed some of the broth off the baby's neck. "Took me a while, but I finally got enough honey in the tea to get her to take it. Took me a while to get this recipe right, too, but it's good for her and you need to give the rest of it to her for lunch. Bunch of stuff that sounds gross to you, bunch of organs and roots, salted and dried stuff, but it's what she needs to get the fever out." She gestured at the cooking grid over the center fire, and he noticed a few other things next to the cauldron, including a small cast iron pot. "It's more like watery rice than broth with rice in it, she'll need food-food by then. Maybe toss a vegetable in, it'll be nice and mushy by noon, carrot or something, let it sit on the fire, I was kinda busy when I brought that in here." 

Maybe it was the peace on her face, and how it made her look like Ro. Maybe it was the steam lit by the warm orange light flickering in the firepit and filtering through the short wide windows high on the walls, but for some reason Brotz felt like he was dreaming. 

"Broke the fever a little after the first bowl, about half-to-light. She hated that, I had to take her back in there to put her back on your lap and let her cuddle both our hands for five minutes. Fuckin' pitiful, whimpering and shivering and sweating. Wondered if you were gonna wake up, and you kinda did, you put your other hand on her to hold her better. She liked that, but I had to pick it up off her. She couldn't even cry." 

Half-to-light was Eupa's phrase for the point between midnight and dawn, and Brotz realized that he had been asleep for the better part of ten hours and Eupa must have been taking care of Brina all night. "When did she wake up?" 

"Reckon moonhigh," Eupa said with a shrug. Midnight. "You guys were asleep since dark. I was in my room, I've half-ass kept an eye on you. I'm not surprised that being a father's what's pushed you this hard, but I didn't think it was gonna look that bad. You're as pitiful as she is."

Brotz was silent. She'd had ample opportunity to not only kill Brina, but to simply let it happen, just let him do it with inexperience and a fever. Ro was always on his ass about Eupa actually having family values, but he forgot what they looked like. 

Brina coughed again, and Eupa helped sit her up and patted her back. As the fit ended, the murderer held a small wad of cloth to Brina's mouth and the baby spat, then blew through her nose to clear that, too. Eupa gave an encouraging, "There ya go," and Brina responded with a grateful hum. They sat back again. 

"So. I get it," Eupa mumbled. Brotz could see Brina watching Eupa's black lips. He tried to sort the emotions as he watched his child learning from the worst person he knew. "I really do get it. I'm a horrible person. I'm a horrible, terrible person, I do horrible, terrible things and I smile oh so horribly while I do them. I get it, I know."

What, did she hear him? Brotz grunted, "Yes," after she paused a bit too long. He didn't have anything to add to that except more words to explain how horrible, and she always got obnoxious when he did that. 

Rather than doing her 'flattered' thing, she scowled and shot him a fleeting glare from the corner of her eyes. "Hang on, I'm working out the words, I had them and I lost them." 

She continued feeding Brina, who pointed at Brotz and said, "Daddy taw'ed." 

"Yeah, I know. Your dad's impatient. So am I, I get that, too." Eupa tapped Brina's nose with her fingertip, and glanced at Brotz again to make sure he was still looking. "But. Okay. I've got principles, I've just been breaking them half-ass the whole time because I didn't want this to be what we're doing. I really thought she was gonna die or get stolen or whatever before I started giving a shit. But now it's been, what, two years? One and a half? I was ready to put up with you being miserable and helping you through that. But I lost that race, and you're family and I can't leave family to raise a kid by themself, that's just wrong, you need the help and not just in the house ways I was doing before, and it's not like I can pretend your family isn't mine, too, even if we're not blood and shit, and I'll fucking help with the kid."

She started slow, but she was speaking so quickly by the end that Brotz couldn't take all of it in. He got enough of it to get the meaning after he cycled the words through. Accepting the settling. She hadn't wanted to, he got that, he knew from the beginning, but he thought she was past it before now.

She took the silence as not understanding, or maybe she was just uncomfortable and talking to herself. "I mean, I get it if you don't want me to help like this with hands-on anymore, don't want me taking over while you're asleep, I know you don't trust me with her by myself, and that makes perfect sense, I wouldn't trust me with her, either. But you can trust me to take care of the house while you focus on the baby. You can trust me to take care of you while you focus on the baby. I know how you neglect yourself when you're taking care of someone else, I've seen you do it. I don't know all the secrets of the planet like Ro, but we're fucking twins, right, we grew up together learning the same shit, we had Seekers that told our pride the things before we ever settled as villagers. We all know the simple stuff. I can't make the tea like Ro can, that shit is complicated, she mixes shit, but I still know the herbs and what they do."

Eupa was always cute when she was nervous, she babbled and got small. It was deceptive as hell and Brotz was certain that she did it subconsciously to seem like prey so her targets would get closer. "But, okay, no, I got sideways. I mean. Okay, the kid, that's what it was. You can ask, right? Is what I'm trying to get at. I expected to feed Ro's from my own breast, even if I didn't expect to have any of my own, and child-rearing was our thing in the village, it was that and hunting, I know how to do this. I'll help. Without going insane at you for asking. Too much." 

It gave him a warm glow in his heart when Brotz finally understood the grander point she was trying to get across. "Trying to say you're adopting Brina, too? Same way you and Ro adopted me?"

Eupa's nose flushed black and her lips twisted into an uncomfortable frown. "I mean, yes? I assume you mean in that way that I'm not really your sister and Ro's… Ro. You're the kid's dad, me and Ro are kin to you, so the kid's kin to us, too. Ro was already on that, but I didn't want to, so I didn't let it." She muttered something else that he couldn't discern after that.

Brotz lumbered to Eupa's side and put a hand on her shoulders. He felt her tense then relax, barely pausing in the feeding of the baby. He braced himself, knowing she was going to react badly, and said it anyway. "Thank you." 

He felt her tense under his hand again, but it was her freezing tic. Even touching her, it got difficult for his eyes to pick her out of the background. "Yeah, yeah, yeah, there's shit you don't let happen," she huffed eventually. "You need it, I give it, fuck. You're not allowed to get sappy, I haven't said anything 'cos I knew you would, and I don't want you getting sappy."

Brotz gently thumped the back of Eupa's head and she ducked like he'd punched her. Maybe he overdid it. "Woman. Say 'you're welcome'."

"I did!" she cried, slapping at his leg with her spoon hand. "You need it, I give it! Fuck! Same difference, your fucking language translation of that phrase is so fucking stupid, why the fuck don't you have a normal one!" She mocked his accent and made her voice as low as she could and said, "You're welcome" as sarcastically as possible. "Fucking welcome to what? The help? Means the same fucking thing!"

Brina was giggling and Brotz pet Eupa's back again and knelt at her side. "Quit swearing in front of Brina, she's going to be better at it than you are before she's five," he chuckled. Brina reached toward him, arching off Eupa's lap and grunting, "Daddy." He scooped her into his hands and cradled her to his chest. Her lungs still held a bit of the rattle, but he had to hold her to feel it. The fever was broken. He hugged his child close to his heart and tried not to think of the fear he'd been enveloped in the last few days. 

Eupa stood and wiped Brina's chin, easing behind Brotz's right side to thumb off the baby's face and run her fingers through her hair. He was surprised at how familiar it was to have her at his back, she hadn't been close to him much since they settled and stopped fighting alongside each other. "Hells with Eupa, right? Got your daddy, now, huh."

Brotz smiled sappily again and Eupa nudged him with another laugh. "Oh, gods, ew, don't get mushy on me now! I heard that!"

"Shut up," he laughed, and he sat next to Eupa's chair. Eupa handed him the spoon, but Brina called after her as soon as she walked away. 

"What?"

Brina pointed at the bowl and said "Want Oopa feed!" She lunged toward the spoon in Brotz's hand. "Oopa fpoon, Oopa feed!"

"I think she wants you to feed her while I hold her," Brotz chuckled. 

Brina said "Uh-huh!" and held her pink mouth open. "Ahh! Pwease!" 

Eupa pretended to look like she didn't want to, and then her expression softened into an uncharacteristically sweet smile for a moment. "Not like I had anything better to do, today," she finally sighed, and she sat in her seat and plucked the spoon back from Brotz's hand.

Brina made a satisfied grunting noise, and Eupa stuck her tongue out at the baby. Brotz nudged Eupa with a leg. "Be nice, Aunt Eupa."

The sharp glare Eupa gave him was worth it when Brina immediately said, "Anoopa!"