Lilly looked gloomy but she still smiled gently at me as she passed by.

She was on the first wagon in our little caravan, being followed by four more. I was standing up on the hill that they were slowly rolling by, overlooking the road we were traversing. Off in the distance I could still see the town we'd just passed by. A small farming village a few hundred strong, which now had a large cloud of gray smoke which told me they were all cooking their dinners. The sight of such a thing made me want a snack myself.

We'd been on the road for two days now, and it has been slow going. With more wagons I had kind of expected us to travel at least at the speed we'd traveled to get here, but it turned out we were even slower. We were after all only as fast as our slowest wagon… which was the first wagon in the group, the one Lilly was driving.

Watching her pass by, Merit and Lellip rolled past next. Lellip happily waved at me, to which I waved back, and I wondered why their wagon was so much better. It was the one that Lellip and her grandfather Nebl had made, so I had of course known all along it was well made… but I was a tad shocked to see just how much more so it was to all the other ones. It was almost startling the difference in not just the wagon's speed, but the quality of the ride as well. Lellip's wagon barely rocked or jolted at all as it rolled along while the other ones were so bad I almost didn't want to get on any of them because of it.

The next wagon in the line was our smallest. An older human woman, Klass, was holding the reins to the single horse which pulled it, and she simply nodded at me as she passed by. She wore traveling clothes, but was actually a member of the cloth. She was one of Randle's associates, one who was going to help us set up the new church and orphanage. She had her son with her, but he was currently sleeping in the next cart to roll by.

Nessa also waved at me, though not with as much gusto as Lellip had done, and I knew why. She was very conscious of the man sleeping in the back of the cart she rode. He wasn't much older than her, but it turned out they'd never met before… and well…

I smirked softly as they rolled by, as I wondered if Nessa's plan to join us as to find a husband would fulfill itself before we even got to our destination.

"What're you smirking at…?" Angie asked.

Glancing to my right, and down a bit, I smiled at my little friend. "Nessa. She's still red in the face even though he's fast asleep," I said with a small gesture at her and the wagon she rode. I did so with Vim's spear, which I held in my left hand as to not accidentally bump Angie with it.

Angie groaned at me, but said nothing more.

The final wagon was the biggest, being pulled by two large oxen. Randle sat on it, holding the reins with his single hand. I noted he had wrapped the reins around his wrist and forearm, as if to make sure he could hold onto them if needed.

I gave the priest a small wave, to which he nodded at. He seemed to be doing better, honestly. He had a bit of a fire in his eyes, as if he was excited to be on this adventure.

"He's glad to be gone finally," Angie said softly.

"Mhm… I am too to be honest," I admitted. Although I had enjoyed our short stay in Telmik, I was very glad to be out of there. The Chronicler, likely thinking we were all happy and friendly again, kept inviting me to dinners and meetings… even though I had not wanted to get involved in them at all. Between her strange insistence, and the prophecies Merit and I found… and which I promptly burnt afterward, had been too much at once for me. I felt as if I needed a break.

And this slow journey was perfect for it, it seemed.

The two of us watched our little group slowly roll away, until they got far enough that I decided to start walking again. I stayed on the hill, since the road stayed beside it for some distance, and Angie and I slowly made our way along it until we were ahead of the wagons.

"Do you know who we're going to meet?" Angie asked as we headed downward. The hill rolled a bit, so for a moment we walked down the hill and then headed back up it.

"No. Just someone that helps Randle out, you never met him?" I asked.

Angie shook her head.

"Huh…" I found that a little odd. Supposedly Randle had sent one of our members, a real one who was non-human; to check the city out we were heading to a few months ago. He had done so not long after being banished and after Vim had mentioned it as an idea. Which meant Angie, who has been at Telmik for almost a year now, really should have encountered and known who he was. Especially since Angie had gotten involved in the orphanage, to which Randle and this man had been involved in.

"As long as it doesn't take too long," Angie mumbled with a sigh as we reached the top of the hill again. We were now a tad behind Merit and Lellip's wagon, which just further confirmed how slow they were going. Angie and I weren't walking slowly, but we weren't rushing either.

"Can't take any longer than we are as it is," I said simply.

The plan was to meet this man in a town not far south from our actual location. I wasn't really sure why we were meeting him before and not simply at our destination, but I had no complaints. It was along our route so it didn't matter.

"Do you and Vim travel this slowly? Surely not, right?" Angie asked.

"No… I've come to realize that we actually travel rather fast. I in fact noticed it back when we had traveled together, Angie, to Telmik," I said. That trip had taken us almost three weeks, and Vim and I had just gone from Telmik to Lumen in less than two weeks and that included several stops. Ones that had been multiple days in length.

"Hm… do you two run? Or ride horses?" Angie asked.

"Nope…? We just…" I thought about it for a moment, and then started walking at the pace that I was used to. The one that kept me side-by-side with Vim.

"Ah…" Angie made a noise as I left her behind, even as she tried to hurry up as to join me. I didn't go too far ahead, as I eventually stopped and turned to smile at her.

"That fast, about," I said.

Angie huffed at me as she returned to my side. "That's nearly a run," she complained.

"Seem so, doesn't it?"

Honestly Vim and I didn't always travel that fast. When we were talking, especially about important things… we slowed down. Sometimes even coming to complete stops as to focus on the conversations we were having.

I smiled at the memory of some of them, and had to quickly stop doing so since they made my heart hurt.

I missed Vim.

"Do you not like to travel, Angie?" I asked, hoping to find an interesting topic to distract my heart.

"I don't like the food. We only eat dried stuff or at best stew," she said.

Oh. Right… "Well… it's hard to cook on the road," I said. Should I tell her we planned to have stew tonight? I had overheard Randle and the Klass talk about it this morning. They, like many of their fellow cloth members, lived simple lives. And it showed in their clothing and diets. It made me realize that if I wanted to not suffer a plain meal everyday once we got up north that I'd have to take matters into my own hands, otherwise…

"Your stomach just made noises," Angie commented.

"I know… Vim isn't here so I'm hungry more often than usual," I said with a sigh. So she had heard it! I had thought it had been quiet enough to have not been noticed, but that was silly of me. She wasn't just a pure-blood like me; she was also the perfect height to hear such a thing. Hear ears were right where my waist was.

"Was… that a dirty joke?" Angie asked, sounding unsure if she should huff at me or not.

"Huh…?" Ah. I smirked as I understood her meaning. "No. I meant it. Vim often gives me snacks randomly, especially as we travel… and well…"

"Without him here, you've been without. Hm…" Angie nodded, understanding. She seemed happy that it hadn't been an innuendo.

"I think since because he doesn't need to eat, at least not nearly as much as we do, he likes to watch me do so. As if he enjoys the food through my own enjoyment of it," I said.

"Okay, you're bordering on flirting territory, let's talk about something else," Angie said with a sigh.

I giggled at her and reached over to ruffle her fluffy hair. She allowed me to do so, but groaned as I did. "I was trying to not make it sound like that just for you, you know!"

"I'm sure…! And I'm happy for you, gosh, but if I don't put my foot down you'll instantly start talking about such stuff you know?" Angie complained.

Would I…? Possibly. I actually didn't like to talk much about Vim's little love languages, since I knew for many of our members hearing such things made them sad. Even if they wanted to hear it, to tease me over it and watch it, they also didn't.

It was why Lilly sometimes didn't want to be around us when we did such things. It wasn't just the fact she found it weird or something, but also because it made her self-conscious. She and Windle were actually very close, and loved each other dearly, but the two were… well… As far as I was aware they didn't flirt much. Kissed? Sure. Longed for one another? Definitely. But at the same time the two could go days, even when together, without touching one another or saying little things that typical partners did. Vim blamed their pure-blooded bloodlines for it, but I on the other hand blamed something else.

I wasn't sure when it had happened, but I've started to be conscious about how I act and talk around and about Vim with others. Especially certain members. I knew the feeling of exclusion, or at least the feeling of wanting what I was seeing at a distance, and knew it well. Back before joining the Society I used to watch people from afar, the families and communities of humans I saw or mingled with occasionally, and used to long to join them. I used to wish, and still do, that my own family had been like so many others.

There was little doubt that many in the Society had similar feelings. Maybe not the lack of community, since we had each other, but rather the lack of companionship and family. Many Society members were… alone, or just a single person or two away from being so. Though hopefully that will change with our numbers doubling here soon.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

Honestly it was too bad humans didn't live as long as we did. I think if humans didn't die so early the divide between us and them wouldn't be as big. If humans also lived a few hundred years on average, even if just double or triple their current lifespan, I bet a lot more members would be friendly with them. But I suppose that would just result in more members mating and paring with humans too, thus thinning the bloodlines even more… Such as Less, who recently became pregnant with a human, that pirate Vim was friends with…

"Oh… Angie," I remembered that one human girl I'd met at the Cathedral and paused a moment. Angie and I had gotten ahead of the wagons, so it was time we stopped to wait for them anyway.

We paused near the end of the current hill formation, where soon we'd have to descend the hill as to walk along the road or on the road itself since we were approaching fields of wheat. "Yeah?" the young bison asked as she tilted her head of fluffy hair at me.

"Do you know a Renka?" I asked.

Angie frowned at me, though for a moment, and then shook her head. "No…? Is that someone we're going to meet?"

"No… I met her at the Cathedral before we left, she seemed to have something to say but I'd been busy… I had thought she was one of the orphans, so figured you might have known her," I said.

"There was no one by that name in the orphanage, or involved in it. But they might have been one of the convent members, why?" Angie asked.

"She knew my name. I had intended to find her before we left but no one knew about her, not even the Chronicler or Randle," I said. I had reasoned it away that she had just been one of the kids, but if Angie didn't know her that was rather alarming. "Actually, she might go by a different name," I realized. She had introduced herself oddly, saying Renka had been what her mother had called her. "She was a little taller than you, about Fizz's height, and had a lot of freckles. She also had somewhat pointy ears, at least for a human," I said as I pointed at my own human ears. They were currently hidden by my long hair, but I knew Angie got my meaning.

"Hm… nope…? There had only been a few girls in the orphanage that height. That's about the age they start getting sent off to be apprentices, or start joining the church proper and thus become those protégé nun things," Angie said.

Protégé…? "I see. Maybe she was one of those," I said.

"Or maybe just a visitor…? A lot of humans come and go there daily," Angie suggested.

"Possibly…" I wasn't sure if I believed that. She had been wearing their robes after all…

I should have investigated better. I know I had been busy, and my mind had been very occupied with all the stuff going on, but now I'll likely never know. It could be years before I returned to the Cathedral… by then she'll likely have either completely forgotten whatever she had wanted to ask me or will have moved on in life.

Yet I'd always remember. Another memory that will occasionally just pop back up in my head at random points, reminding me I had failed somehow. I hated that. It made me feel terrible… hopefully whatever the girl had wanted had been simple, something that hadn't been important.

"Something wrong, Renn…? Did something happen?" Angie asked, likely noticing my worry.

"I don't know… if there is, there's nothing that can be done about it, at least," I said.

Angie hummed at me as I turned to watch Lilly and her wagon start to pass us by. She still had that gloomy look on her face, and this time she only glanced at us as she passed.

"Is she upset…?" Angie asked softly.

"No. Not really. She's just worried."

"Over Lellip…? The two seem to get along," Angie said.

"They do. Lilly's just worried about other things. A few of her children are being rebellious, and she's starting to worry it's progressing into something worse," I told Angie honestly.

"She should spank them then," Angie said simply.

Oh…? She had said that rather seriously. "Did you get spanked a lot?" I asked.

"Huh…? Of course not. That's my point. Children grow up better if the parent is strict. I'd have figured Lilly would have been that type, but maybe not?" Angie wondered as she crossed her arms in thought.

How amusing! I wonder if that was the reason Angie was so… mature for her age. Were bisons just that way, maybe? "So you'd discipline your own children like that?" I asked her.

"Of course? If they deserved it, at least."

Interesting… I wonder what Vim's perspective on that would be.

He was such an advocate of free-will that it was almost impossible to think he'd discipline a child, even his own, with force. Yet at the same time Vim was so… odd about certain things. And he's mentioned before, offhandedly, that his parents had punished him in odd ways… though if they had actually done so, or if that had just been him making silly little jokes, was something I was unsure of.

It was an interesting thought, and was now another thing that I needed to eventually talk to Vim about. One of many.

That list was growing rapidly… and sadly, a few of the big items upon it were things that I wasn't sure if I'd ever be able to talk to him about.

Could I ever mention to him the prophecies I had burnt…? The ones Merit and I had found? And if I did, to what depth and length…? Talking about such things with Vim was hard enough as it was when it concerned other people, let alone me… and even more so when it concerned something so serious.

Though did it matter…? It was tearing me up inside to know I should have been a part of the Society hundreds of years ago, and thus could have saved a lot of people, but to Vim would such a thing matter? For all his depth, Vim was actually very… simple when it came to certain things. Knowing him he'd just shrug and say, you're here now, and end the conversation there.

I sighed softly as I realized I was once again focusing on Vim. Even when I was trying so hard not to.

Lellip was now holding the reins of the next wagon. Merit wasn't sitting with her, but from the way Lellip was talking aloud I knew that was because Merit was rummaging around in the back of the wagon. I couldn't see her of course, since it was covered. Was she planning on sleeping again…? Hadn't she already had a nap this morning?

"Renn, can I ask something?" Angie then asked, and while doing so she grabbed gently at my sleeve. I turned to face her, a little worried over the way she was frowning. That was the same frown she had been wearing when we had left the Cathedral together. The one that had planted itself on her face once Fizz started bawling.

"Of course, Angie."

"Do you know anything about the coming disaster…?" she asked.

Disaster…? "Which one?" I asked. I had tried my best to not read any of the prophecies concerning myself, or the Society, that had yet to come to pass but I had inadvertently read a few. There had been one concerning a plague, which I wasn't sure yet if the one that had come from Landi's monarch had been, and a few others. None had seemed too immediate to worry about, at least as far as I understood them.

"The long winter," Angie said.

Long winter…? I frowned and shook my head. "Don't know anything about that," I said. None of the prophecies I'd read had spoken of that. Nor had I overheard of such a thing from anyone else either.

"I see… must be one of the things they're all keeping from you then," she said simply.

"Might be… mind telling me about it? Is it soon?" I asked.

"Happens in a few years. I overheard Randle saying if we don't settle in time it will be bad for us. Was just wondering if you knew more about it," Angie said.

"Hm… well, now I do, so I'll find out more. I promise we'll make sure to deal with it, whatever it is," I said.

A long winter…? To me winter wasn't something too dangerous. It was cold, and there would be a lot of snow, but… Maybe food would be a problem? Especially if there were a lot of us?

"Randle hadn't seemed too worried over it, but a few of the others are. They're preparing for it by storing a bunch of food and stuff under the Cathedral. Lots of it," Angie said.

"Oh…? Well… maybe we will too, then. I'll find out, I promise."

Angie nodded, returning to her typical relaxed and stoic state. If my promise had been what relieved her or not, I couldn't tell, but I had meant it.

I'd ask Randle about it once I had a chance. If anything I should do so before Vim showed up… since with him here those like Randle will become less open about such details.

Such an annoying system. He was the protector of the Society, and one of the few actually capable of dealing with such dire issues… yet at the same time was also kept in the dark about them thanks to his own rules. It was easy to see why Vim would, and could, fail when he was never even alerted to such problems in the first place. It was why so many blamed him for such failures, and thus the vote that was soon to come. Yet… who's fault was it really? The man who had those rules, or the ones who abides by them? There was a divide there, between Vim and those in the Society who needed help. Vim helped all he could, when he could, but could only help with things he knew about. And those who knew of the incoming dangers rarely, if ever, told him about them until they happened. And even when they did, they only did so sparingly and in little detail.

Like this long winter Angie speaks of… if they were already preparing for it, years in advance, that meant it was serious. And it also meant they'd not tell Vim about it until it was too late. Which was stupid. If Vim knew about it what could he do to forego any deaths or suffering from it…? Knowing Vim he might even be able to stop it or avoid it entirely! Yet he'd not be told. Not until it was too late. And in doing so they'd just blame Vim when people suffered or died from it.

Who was at fault, though…? Truly? Vim or the rest of us…?

Or was it me who was really at fault. For now showing up sooner, to act as that very bridge over that divide.

Gosh!

Sighing again, I tapped my thumb against Vim's spear… wondering what to do.

I had to get involved. I really did. Because if I didn't people would suffer. Yet at the same time…

There was a reason I had burnt those prophecies. There was a reason I had not read every single one.

It was such a fine line for me to walk. To know, yet not know… it made me feel almost like I was a hypocrite. The kind that Vim hated.

"Also, Renn, would you introduce me to Merit?" Angie then asked, snapping me out of my thoughts.

"Hm…?" I turned to look at the young bison, a little surprised to hear such a request. Had they not already done so? I had introduced her to Lilly and the rest the other day, hadn't I?

"Well… she's like me, isn't she? Small?" Angie shifted a little, looking away as she did.

"Huh…?" Oh. Wait… "I uh… guess so…?" I couldn't help but smile a little at the topic. Was she asking if Merit was young like her or something?

Angie shifted a little, and then shrugged a little. "She um… keeps to herself, so…" Angie said softly, which made me quickly remember the last couple days. We'd been traveling of course, but we have stopped to let the horses and oxen rest a few times… had Angie and Merit not talked to one another at all…? And had Angie tried, I wonder, to initiate a conversation?

Maybe, maybe not. Most of the conversations amongst our group have been simple, really, but it was a fact that Lilly and Merit did kind of keep to themselves. As did Randle and his group.

"I'd take you to talk to her right now, but she might be getting ready to take a nap," I said gently. Merit had still not re-appeared from the covered wagon, and it seemed Lellip had gone quiet. She hadn't spoken aloud for a few minutes now.

"You can do it later… I'd just like to talk to her. You and Oplar are the only predators I've met, so I'd like to talk to one who is like me if I can," Angie said.

Like her…? Small, she means? And a bison wasn't a predator… right? I had thought Vim had told me they were a kind of cow-like creature? "You can do so whenever you want, Angie. Merit can be prickly but she's a really good person, as is Lilly."

Angie slowly nodded. "I know… but I'd still appreciate it if you were there to help, Renn."

Reaching over, I gently ruffled her fluffy hair as I smiled happily. "Of course!" I agreed, without hesitation.

Angie groaned as I messed with her, but she didn't shy away. I teased her for a moment before stopping, and then watched Klass, the older human woman, slowly roll by us on the road. She was yawning as she passed, looking tired. And not just because what she was doing was boring.

Sighing softly, I tapped Vim's spear against the ground and gestured lightly at the woman and her wagon. "I'm going to take over for Klass for a bit," I said.

"Hm…? Okay." Angie agreed, and seemed to desire to join me for she accompanied me as I headed for the wagon.

Heading together to the wagon, I gestured gently at the wagon ahead of the one I was about to take command of. The one that Merit was currently sleeping in. "Actually before I do, I'm going to go grab some snacks… want some?" I asked.

Angie sighed at me, but agreed to join me. Which was good, because it allowed me the opportunity to properly introduce her to Merit as I did so. And it went well... at least until Merit huffed at the two of us and hid herself with a blanket, as to sleep.