...that travelling and exploring was amazing, but it was always nice to return home, to sleep in your favourite bed of moss and be simply very appreciative of the corner you knew so well. New experiences and discoveries had taken Dwin's mind off the never-ending list of chores and duties, given her proper mental rest and restart. She returned home tired, but happy, not least, because Frolic was also back in one piece and now there were more pairs of eyes watching her and making sure that she did not get into (lethal) trouble. 

Brecheliant had managed well in their absence and not much had changed. Which gave Dwin confidence that in a while they would have to make another trip - either East or North or - really - wherever their hearts desired to go. She had had some polite exchanges with the adults, had teased and laughed with the kids and then left it to Frolic to tell everything. In the meanwhile she raided the nearest cache, had her fill and decided to catch up with her sleep routine. 

It was mid-afternoon, unusually sunny and warm for the time of the year. Dwin had curled up on a grassy spot right at the foot of a tall tree, sleeping soundly and venturing the dreamscape, where the desert landscape she had seen in life mixed with the one that she was used to, creating the craziest, most colorful dreams. At times she was all on her own, enjoying her solitude and in others she was running after Frolic, who had yet again decided to take a leap of faith somewhere. It felt so real, that upon waking and blinking the sleep away from her eyes, she wondered, if her younger sister had the supernatural ability to scout other people's dreams with the same ease she scouted the lands beyond Brecheliant's boarders. 

"If Frolic ran off again, I am not going looking for her," Dwin mumbled, lifting her head, giving Maia a sleepy look and a yawn. Eyelids still heavy, she rested her head on her paws, sighed and caught the last fluttering remnants of her dream. The imaginary younger sister had taken off to haunt other dreams and the rest of the image lost shape, blurred at the edges and then simply disappeared. 

She blinked her eyes few time, tipped her head back to stretch her neck and yawn again. Then she slowly pulled herself up. There was some stiffness in her back and limbs, it took some stretching out to deal with it. Then she met her mom's gaze and felt surprised to see her in person. Somehow the earlier interaction had not felt right. 

"Hi," she asked and yawned. They just kept coming. "Everything okay?"

Maia always seemed to manage the boisterous kids so well that Dwin had been under assumption that this was something she enjoyed the most in the world. Why else had she quit scouting and travelling? Why else she would no longer have time for proper story-telling? Yet here she was telling that she was no superwoman at all. Tired the same way her daughter was. There was a little devil inside her that was glad to see that her parent had just as difficult time with managing the household as Dwin had, but the gratification of this felt wrong and she quickly discarded it from the library section of valuable life lessons. 

"I thought you did not want to step up. Like ever again?" Dwin was now confused and a little uneasy. Under assumption that Maia did not enjoy leading and would not want to take the mantel of Auspex now, she had asked Amalia about the joby. With how things had turned out now, she felt a bit like a fool. "Or is it just one another adult thing adults have to do?" she sighed, glad that for now she was too young and immature to be asked to join the ranks. Because her inner child had been neglected all summer and autumn long, while she had been busy being that responsible person, who made sure that the kids did not get lost or killed and that they had something to eat. And by ascending to the leadership ranks she did not wish to give away, what little left of that kid was. 

"You will be glad to know that me and Frolic went to scout the new lands in the East and, though there were some blunders - nothing too big, of course - I brought my sister back here in one piece," she informed, because it had been so hard to convince them to give Frolic that bit of freedom that she so craved. "If she has lost any piece after that - I take no responsibility. That kid has penchant for getting in trouble. And so far - getting out of it too."

Maia had meant well by stating that she had never doubted their ability to go and return unharmed. The reason, why Dwin suddenly wanted to yell - it is EXACTLY, what you should be doing! - was that she had seen Frolic do stupid and reckless things and considered her mom's confidence foolish, even dangerous. Because of this Dwin had spent all this summer herding the rowdy bunch and had missed, what felt like a good chunk of her life. But a little, calm voice in the back of her head told her that this was not exactly true and that she should not voice her pent up frustration with everything related to involuntary child-care. Mom - after all - had experience, while Dwin had had none. 

"I guess so, but the world is a more boring place and events sounds so much better, when they are retold by a good story-teller," Dwin remarked and yawned again. Her brain had not yet full woken up, therefore the thought process was also slower than usual. "Well, there is a whole dry and hot and super-peculiar land east from there. I am pretty sure that there was a wall of mountains there before, but now - they have somehow broken and created a passage and that land is quite different from, what you have ever seen before," she rambled. "There are prickly, hedgehog like plants. And... Frolic fell in a hole of water and we had to figure, how to get her out. And - I met some weirdo - but he was like truly crazy. He claimed gods had spoken to him and that he had seen an equivalent of an apocalypse, if he did not stop the wedding. No... coronation?" she looked up at Maia. "Oh, yeah - and about that. Did you know that Akashingo over there has royalty like in fairy tales? I did not think that was real, but they really do. And there is going to be a coronation and I think - I may be wrong - there is an invitation to a party?" she finished with a loud sneeze. 

Dwin did not have problem with being a babysitter. She had a problem with being expected to be that good older sister. That as such she was supposed to be excellent at her job and enjoy it as well. This had not been voluntary, she had seen it as only a one way street under the circumstances they had been in. Namely, kids outnumbering adults greatly and the rest of the previous year's litte had buggered off right before the new litters were brought into this world. Very convenient. Dwin intended to do the same at some point, before this year's bunch also decided that - hey - if Dwin did such a good job at babysitting, she won't mind doing it another year, right?

"Well, my words do not do that place justice. I am not good at telling it the way I saw it. The facts always lack the whole spectrum, in my opinion," she countered. She had come to a conclusion that she would not make a good story-teller after all. She did not have the memory, the talent of weaving those items together in a coherent plot and her vocabulary was equipped with practical terms, less poetic and descriptive ones. The only thing she had inherited from her aunt and grandmother was her love to talk, talk, talk and ask a lot of questions. "I suggest you go there yourself and take Glee and Callahan with you too - they were not happy that Frolic got to go, but they did not," she said, glad really that Maia and Eljay had not been over-confident in her ability to herd the bunch. One Frolic already was an equivalent of three puppies. 

"The one I met had a super-weird accent, but she seemed good-natured enough. I did not take her word for it, you know, because, what do I know - maybe they were headhunting for slaves and such," she shrugged. "Yeah, well, Sorana did not seem to enjoy much of anything, while she lived here," Dwin remarked. Her relationship with her - cousin? leader's daughter? - had been very formal, but even that was too generous to call it that way. The older girl had always seemed weird and distant, and in the end she had had a vibe about her that had given little Dwin chills and made her want to avoid her at all costs. And this says a lot, coming from a kid, who as all Blackthorn children did not fear anything. 

"Nah, that weirdo was just not right in the head, I think," Dwin replied. "I mean, if you prance around telling people that you hear voices and have prophetic dreams, it is the first sign that all is not good. I mean, the only voice you should be hearing in your head, is your own. Period," she said and stomped her forepaw to emphasize her opinion. "But, he seemed very content to be, where he was, and, if that makes him happy, then why not? Maybe he is a very lonely dude and that voice in is head is his only friend," she mused. "This reminded me - when I talked to him and he was all about, how a god had chosen to share his body and so on, I thought - what if he was the only person that the god to talk to? And no one else? That kind of makes you feel sympathy for them too. So - to sum it up - they are in a happy, harmonious union. Them against the hostile world that is filled with heretics like me," she laughed. 

"I think I will check out that wedding of theirs. Different culture, customs and - who knows - maybe I will really meet a god of theirs? That would definitely make a good story, don't you think?" she asked. 

"Yeah, I don't think I will be going around the crowd yelling their names out loud," Dwin dismissed Maia's idea of finding people, who could provide a safety net for her in case of trouble. "I mean, it would be kind of weird - first - and - second - they know you and they do not know me and... yeah, good luck with not having Frolic get in trouble," she chuckled. Even The Second Coming or any event of equal importance would not deter Frolic from misconduct. To think that a coronation party would be enough reason was very naive.

Lilitu's story that was sad from, whichever point you looked at, was not met with any sympathy from Dwin's side. From what little details Maia had provided, she concluded that 50% of the blame lied with the girl herself and her misguided ambitions. And this was just another reason in a very long list of arguments on why Dwin never intended to marry or have children. She was so comfortable with her inner-Dwinness that she was too selfish to let anyone upset that balance. Did not matter if you claimed to be a prince or a lowly thief or the impersonation of god him-/herself.

"We will be fine. We are Blackthorns after all," she shrugged. 

Dwin - in fact - was not the one to refuse a hug and a kiss from her mom. Wrap it in a praise too and this made her heart swell with pride and happiness. Maia was her favourite person in the world. They have grown apart recently and her daughter did not trust her with everything anymore either, but this was a natural change in a relationship that would last for a lifetime. She may have felt grudge and anger and frustrations with mom during this summer, hardly any she had voice out loud. And now enjoying the warm embrace and the closeness she felt towards her parent, she was glad that she had not. How could anyone be angry and say stern things to someone as wonderful as her mom?

"I think there are a lot of people I would have liked to meet. Your dad, for example? Dante sounds like having been such a cool guy. Or that great-great-great-great-something quite legendary March Owl. It's her fault we have bird names as well and the reason I am named after an owl, ain't I?" she chuckled. "And you can educate me on other noteworthy mentions in our family tree over lunch. I am starving!" she suggested.