Barrow Fields You don't have to worry

Cadeau slowly cocked her head to the side the more Maia described what these creatures were, more and more puzzled when she try picturing such beasts existing. "Where did you learn about these things?" Cadeau asked with a blink, straightening up so she wasn't so awkwardly positioned. 

By half girl... did Maia mean a human? Did Maia know what a human was? Cadeau wasn't sure she would want to take her chances with a mermaid then, inwardly wincing as she recall the abuse at the hands of humanity. She would rather face the fire breathing dragon on a bad day, mermaids sounded like bad news if they were anything like the humans back home.

From my mom, Maia answered, and she felt a little less of that familiar sadness this time.  She used to tell us all kinds of stories about all kinds of things.  That's why I'm a storyteller, and my older sister is too.  She dreamed of being as good as Osprey someday, and remembering the fun of her mom's stories helped a lot with the still somewhat-raw feeling.  She never would have dreamed her last time seeing them would have been her last.

Did your parents tell you any stories?  That had to be upsetting if not, Maia thought naively.  Even Dante had told them every so often, though his hadn't been nearly as fun as her mom's.

Cadeau couldn't help the somber pang that poked her heart at the mention of family, she hid it as far as she could into her very bones. She missed them with a passion, a thirst that couldn't be quenched and it killed her knowing she would never be allowed back home with her mother and brother. "So I take it story telling runs in the family business huh?" Cadeau quipped in a light, wistful tone. 

At the question, she nodded her head. "Mama and papa told me and my brother bed time stories often, my favorite was about the butterfly that soared into tomorrow." Cadeau recalled the story vividly, it had been one her father told more times than she could count... mostly because she demanded it often in her youth, wanting to hear about the lowly caterpillar who found its wings to forge its way to a land of promise. It was strange how she felt kinship with the butterfly now that she was out here alone as an adult wolf. "Papa knew a lot of them, not that mama didn't but papa definately was the one who was really into making and telling them. I don't know how he was so creative, I think I'd run out of ideas." She shrugged with a nostalgic gleam to her eyes and smile.

Yeah, it does! It seems Osprey had started that tradition and maybe, someday, she'd continue it.  She didn't totally hate the idea, it was just super weird to think about without a person.  Thing.  Yeah.

As an almost officially licensed storyteller, I gotta hear that sometime.  Just so y'know. She replied with a light laugh behind it.  The way it works too is I tell you one in exchange, kinda like trading! So everyone leaves with something. And everyone leaves friends, she thought silently.

Cadeau wondered how one became an official anything out here in the wilderness, she knew humans had something called 'records' where they kept info like that for other humans. How did wolves keep track of all these official this and that by memory alone? She squinted her eyes, overthinking as usual before she returned her attention solely back to Maia.

"I wouldnt mind telling you about it, I'm sure papa would have been happier knowing others got to enjoy the story," Cadeau told her with a honest tone and smile, nodding her lithe head.

Oh good.  She'd had a few times where the other wasn't interested and it always made things pretty awkward.  She never understood keeping stories private... then they died with you, and in her opinion, there was nothing sadder than that.  Every story deserved to live on.

Awesome, she replied, smiling in anticipation of what hopefully would be a good tale.  As she did, she wondered which she should tell back.  Not the star wolves like Illidan, or the valkyries like Charon.  Cadeau seemed more of a fable person.  How about a dragon? She'd told a good many, but never to someone who didn't know what one was.

Cadeau took in a breath as if to get into character, her cheeks puffing out mid huff. She hadn't heard the story in such a long time, not since Snowy passed away all that tragic time ago. She hoped she could ensnare Maia in the tale like her father had when she was a sapling. 

"A long time ago, when the land was young there an egg was laid among a cusp of trees. They lived on a isolated forest in the middle of the sea. It was alone there but surrounded by others of a similar kind to the egg." Cadeau paused, not wanting to rush her tongue in telling the story. "It hatched alongside the other eggs but there was something... different about it. It was a caterpillar among mothlings. The other moths were sure to remind the caterpillar of this. They teased him, they isolated him, just because he wasn't like them. He didn't understand though, weren't they similar enough?" 

She looked at Maia and continued with her story, gesturing with her paws in a kind of coming together motion before breaking apart to flap imaginary wings. "Time passed and before they all knew it, they'd changed. The moths were envious of the butterfly's beauty, his colorful rainbow wings when all they had were brown. They made him feel ugly."

Cadeau paused, straining her memory for more of the tale, recalling the white face of her father as he smile eagerly at her bedside in the night. "The butterfly didn't stay on the island, even though many said there was nothing but sea for miles and miles, that he would surely tire and drown into the water mid flight. But he wanted to belong somewhere... anywhere. So, one day he flapped his wings and flew towards the direction of Tomorrow."

Cadeau knew the ending of the story was a somber one. Left to interpretation if the butterfly found what he was searching for. "Nobody knows what he found, just that Tomorrow is a place you discover yourself when Today feels like it might be the worst. That... Tomorrow is all around you, so long as you take the plunge to see it for yourself."

Cadeau looked faraway a moment. "I like to think he found other butterflies to enjoy tomorrow with."

Her story was very different, but she didn't need to worry about attention... both as a rule and as was her nature, Maia was always spellbound when a story was coming.  They weren't just her trade... they'd been a part of her life, a big part, as long as she could remember.  And they were something she could share with her family, the last part of her mom that she could cling to forever.  They were home.

She'd not heard many like this one, without an ending.  She'd guessed correctly though when she estimated it would be a fable.  It was weird that the moths could make the butterfly feel ugly for being pretty, but she supposed the moral was that differences divided.  Until the end, where it seemed the moral became a bad situation lasted a day, not a lifetime, and sometimes moving past it was best.  At least, how she read it.

I think definitely whatever he found was better than what he left.  Maybe nicer bugs too. she replied with a grin.  Ones who appreciate some good color.  It was good to think he maybe found family though.  So you choose your ending.  That's cool.  They'd played games like that, but generally her stories that didn't end continued rather than falling off like that.  She wondered if Cadeau's endings had changed then, as she grew up.

Cadeau cracked an amused smile at the joke of the moths having bad fashion sense over the butterfly's more extravigant coloring. "Yeah, maybe. Least I hope so, everyone should feel like they belong." She wondered, had her father crafted that story solely for herself, predicting that maybe his child would be born into a world that didn't want to accept her differences? Cadeau didn't linger on the thought long, instead dragging a paw through the sand. 

"Papa didn't like stories that just ended," Cadeau mused at the memory, having asked him why she never got to hear about the happily ever afters and the whatnots. "Me and my brother use to hate him for it," she chuckled softly, shaking her head as she recalled the doleful faces of two small half wolf pups begging their father for the final details of whatever story he told. "He didn't believe that stuff finished that easily, that or maybe he was a lazy story teller." She couldn't help tacking on some humor to it, smiling.

It was a good sentiment, but it probably didn't quite echo with Maia like it did with Cadeau.  Ever since she was small, Maia had never grown up in any way doubting that she belonged among her family.  She might have felt less than them, but never so much so that she didn't have a place there.

She giggled too when Cadeau joked, and nodded.  When my mom would tell those, it's because she would ask my brothers and sisters and me to finish them.  We'd try to outdo each other on endings, so they always ended up super crazy.  Sibling rivalry at its best, especially when they got a little older.

She thought a minute.  How about the story of the dragon that lost its scales? She asked, liking this one because it was also a fable and would help introduce Cadeau to the nicer side of dragons.  The afternoon was getting rather long, and Maia knew if she was actually leaving she needed to head out soon.  But she'd promised a story, so would deliver!

she can tell and we can wrap or we can wrap now and start another, I'm game either way!

The halfling smirked in amusement as Maia spoke of what her own mother did in her youth, it sounded like it could get hectic depending on the story and those eager to finish the ending. "What were your favorite kind of endings then?" Cadeau asked her with a curious tilt of her head.

When Maia offered her a story, Cadeau knew it was more than polite she accepted the sentiment to listen like Maia had done for her. Besides, she was truly interested in just whatever these dragon things were, the scholar in her itching for a resolution to the questions bouncing around in her mind. "How did the dragon lose its scales? Do they shed like snakes?" Cadeau perked her ears, knowing snakes shedded but it wasn't as if they entirely lost their skins... scales... whatever you could call them.

[I'm fine with either, just lemme know on discord what you choose to do bra]

Um, all of them, Maia answered, a little caught off guard by the question but honest.  She liked the happy ones, but the sad ones tended to make her feel more, and sometimes that was even better.  It just depended on the day.

Cadeau didn't seem to be in a hurry to rush off, so it seemed she would be giving a story after all!  It wasn't a long one, though it might be a little bit more than the one she'd told.  Probably because it had an ending.  Okay!  She smiled and took a breath to prepare, but didn't answer the question.  The story would do that for her, of course!  She couldn't spoil the ending before she even started. Well, once upon a time there was a giant dragon that lived in a biiig, old forest.  He was the guardian of the trees, and when he breathed out, mist would completely cover the entire place.  He was super big and super strong, but he was best known for his scales, which shone like golden fire in the sunlight.  She took on that same, faraway look she usually got when she told stories, though maybe moreso now.  She'd never told this story herself.  Last time she heard it, it had been Osprey telling the tale.

Some dragons are mean and steal from other creatures.  This dragon, though, was super wise, and the trees were the only thing he wanted.  As long as they grew big and tall, he was happy, and the anyone living in the forest was welcome to so long as they followed his rules.  Everyone was happy until a new stranger entered the woods.  Here she came back to herself a bit, and a touch of amused suspense entered her tone as she said this last part.  Hopefully Cadeau was enjoying the story so far.... she contemplated asking a question, but figured if the girl hadn't even known what a dragon was, probably best to just tell this story and build participation in next time.

Cadeau shifted her weight so the halfling was more comfortable sitting, letting her bushy tail drape across her paws. She focused on Maia with intent eyes and ears to listen to her story, intrigue lingering on her face. Cadeau tried to picture the great beast Maia was describing, shutting her eyes a moment as if it would let the image form better within the depths of her mind. Cracking an eye open, she looked at Maia again once she had something of a proper image. 

Well, if a flying snake with wings was close enough, that was... "A stranger?" Cadeau inquired, cocking her head with a arched brow. What could a stranger do to upset a giant great beast like a dragon?

This was a pretty cool twist in Maia's opinion, so she paused a second to nod to Cadeau's question.  A stranger, she confirmed, called imbalance.  Haha, now see there!!  It wasn't a person after all!

The forest was always in balance, but soon it became clear that something was upsetting it.  The first sign was the trees.  The dragon had a favorite grove to lie in and enjoy the shade, but one week he came and half the trees were stumps.  She shook her head.  He was, like, super upset.  So he followed the trail to where it came from.  When it ended, he found a huge family of beavers working on this totally massive dam. The dragon asked why they had taken so many trees, and they said it was because there were so many new beavers, they had to expand their dams a ton to fit everyone.  The dragon couldn't really ask them to like, not build homes.  So he offered them his spines instead, which wouldn't break down like trees eventually did and were almost as massively big as trees.

For a while, things went back to normal.  But then, eventually, the trees started dying.  What could be causing it now, the dragon wondered! It couldn't be the beavers again, their homes were built.  So he waited and watched one of the groves.  This time,  eventually, a massive herd of deer appeared.

They were eating all the bark, and the trees were left completely open to bugs and stuff that would kill them.  The dragon couldn't believe there were so many deer as well now in the forest!  So he asked why they hadn't left.  The lead deer said they would, but the world was too dangerous for a poor deer to travel so far without cover.  The dragon considered that a minute, then asked if he gave them a way to defend themselves, they would leave.  They agreed, so he gifted them his horns, his teeth, and his claws.  Now the leader and many of his followers had sharp antlers to use against anything that wanted to hurt them.  It was weird to think of teeth and claws becoming antlers, but with magic anything was possible.

Now was the last part.  Without teeth or spines or claws or horns, the dragon couldn't do much to protect his forest.  All he had was his size.  So before too long, a whole bunch of birds began coming and nesting in the trees.  The flowers started dying, and the dragon couldn't figure out why, until he found a whole nest of bees hiding in his cave.  He asked them what was wrong, and they said with all the new birds, they were either  getting eaten or having to sting them, so a bunch of bees were gone now.

The dragon was ashamed, because he knew it was his job to keep the forest safe.  He was so proud of his scales and their bright golden color, but he knew what he could do to help the bees warn the birds to stay away.  He gifted the bees his scales, and they grew bright golden stripes that would tell anyone who wanted to eat them about their dangerous stingers.

Maia sighed, then continued a little sadly.  The dragon had protected the forest again, but now he had nothing left.  He was super depressed and figured that everything was over now.  He disappeared in his cave in a puff of mist, and no one in the forest saw him for a long time.

Now she began to smile, because the ending was the best part of this story and she loved telling it so much.  Fortunatey for him, the forest god had been watching the whole entire time, and he couldn't believe how much the dragon loved the forest.  So he decided to give him a reward, and showed up in his cave. He was a giant wolf with silvery-green fur and glowing yellow eyes, and he greeted the dragon with a soft voice, almost like leaves rustling.  He told him 'thank you for watching my children for me, but the work is not done.  For everything you've given, I have a gift - I will give you the ability to always watch the forest and to preserve balance.'  The dragon was amazed, and he felt himself changing.  He shrank down, but he grew sharp fangs and claws again, and a beautiful coat of golden fur.  He was no longer a dragon - he was a wolf, just like the god.

And ever since then, wolves have hunted, keeping the balance in the forests and protecting them!  Never taking more than they should, and always the weak.  She finished with a flourish, then laughed.  It's an awesome story, right?  Cool to think we come from something like dragons.  She had no idea how much Cadeau had or hadn't liked the story, but while that mattered some, what mattered more was how amazing it was to share Osprey's stories.