Whitefish River Every Sunday's getting more bleak

Okay, so he'd found a place and settled in. The days passed and Raimo busied himself with whatever life threw at him: patrols to get the lay of the land right in his head, trips along the river to gather some fish for the caches, the careful perusal of the claim and its inhabitants. Nothing struck him as "out of the ordinary" throughout it all. There were fat, happy women waiting to give birth to fat, happy children; the leader who had shepherded Raimo in to the collective was busy in her own den and nursing her newborns.

He did his best to adhere to her rules... Namely, to stay away from the newborns and their mothers. He was still too new, too unknown to them. Just as well, he thought—Raimo had his fill of children back home, he need not bother inserting himself in to that same role here. No, his interests were different now. Raimo wanted to learn all he could about the Wilds, to collect stories as his adventuring kin had already done.

The man wanted to confirm that the sleeping dragon on the coast truly coiled itself beneath the mountains, find the nesting phoenix in its forest, and one day perhaps confront the hydra too; all these fantastic things filled Raimo's mind as a child and now that he'd come to the Wilds himself, he was eager to seek out the truth. But, he had duties to perform. Tasks that needed to be done, and eyes always watching him. So he did what came naturally - kept his head down, stayed the course, and worked quietly.