A Little List

Monette held the bow at full draw, her arm and shoulder shaking. She was up in the bough of a tree, her hair a stringy mess, and half her face mud and blood. Her eyes were fixed and water droplets gathered on her lashes as the rain fell. The old iron head of the arrow swayed softly as Monette held at full draw.

“Come now,” spoke a voice whispered amongst the raindrops “You think one of the younger races can match the least of my kin in field craft or forest lore?” Monette’s breath fogged before her lips and faded in the chill. Her shoulder was cramping and her stale sweat seemed too close in the hood. “You ran as far as you could, as fast as you would, and now . . . an ending.”

The faded silhouette of a Hunger Elf appeared though brush, slowly walking towards the tree in which Monette half-hid. The Elf reached out and touched a branch, and gave an insufferable smile as she flicked her nail where needles had been freshly broken. Its opalescent eyes looked down at the mossy stones and leaf strewn earth the tell tales there to see.

The rain-cold fingers released and the arrow and string snapped with a spray as they shook themselves free of the rain and raced to the Hunger Elf. The Elf looked up and brought her hand around and caught the arrow, the tip a handspan short of her breast. “Almost”, and then the arrow tossed aside.

Monette reached to her side for another arrow, the fear and wrath giving her speed. The Hunger Elf had been fast, and faster still as she covered the thirty yards in great bounds, snarling and hissing. Mo raised the bow again and loosed as soon as she saw the shot. The Hunger Elf snarled a smile as she twisted out of the way and the arrow popped and skittered off of the stone. Monette reached for the next arrow faster and the Hunger Elf’s hard nails found the bark of the tree. With long armfuls it scampered up the trunk like a spider, its maw parted.

Monette twisted her body as she tried to line up the next shot, the nock straining to find the string. The Hunger Elf’s nails claws furrows in the wood as it threw itself upwards. The bow was still being drawn when the hard hand found Monette’s ankle and tore, ready to cast her prey to the forty-foot fall.

There was a loud sound, a hard hit, and a moment of confusion. The Hunger Elf paused and looked at the human woman she had chased and fought for days. Then she looked at the dark thread that was tensioned across her own shoulder and arm, and followed it back. There was still a wiff of smoke from some metal thing lashed to a small pine, and the smell of Sulphur in the air. The report echoed along the valley.

Monette took her time and set the nock to the string, and the Hunger Elf turned and began to speak. But its words were just flecks of blood and lung. It began to cough and cough, and its grip on Monette’s ankle loosened and as its eyes faded the Hunger Elf fell. There was a crumple on the hard and wet stones below. A puddle of steaming red flowed from around the body as the borrowed elf found escape in death.

Monette looked over to where she had lashed her revolver to the pine, and then down the figure on the ground. She lowered the bow and reached back to massage her shoulder. Looking up though the leaves she sighed wearily to the gray skies.

In the distance there was the crashing his of the Rain of Fire, and the boom of crump of distant cannons.  The skies overhead clashed in reflected reds and greens, painting color onto the Wintery clouds. Below in the gloom Monette forded the shoalwater on horseback. White foam breasted before them and the sound of horse in wash competed with the winds in the leaf-bare trees.

Monette looked back, her hand on the broad back of the young charger. She wore the cowl low, and her light-brown eyes glittered in the darkness, like a frozen over mud puddle. She frowned and turned to gather the reins. Her charger bounced her head as she came up out of the river, and Monette shivered as the drenched leather kept the numbing cold to her skin.

The horse gave a nicker as she came up out of the waters. Monette’s teeth chattered. “Only a half-day more, then we are somewhere just as cold.” The hooves crunched on stone and gravel, and the pair shouldered into thick brush, winter wilted. A bowshot away was a soot-stained ruin, the bawn surrounded by an stone wall. It still had grandeur with its pale blue domes, and the glitter of ley crystal. In the dark windows or the ruin drawn elvish faces peered out and then disappeared. Mo turned her head from the ruin and to the field behind.

It had been days and there was still no luck. The feeling of being watched had slowly built, and she had been riding and walking for days. There had been no sign of a pursuer as they crossed rivers, no sign in tall grasses, no sign silhouetted against the skies, and no sign reflected in fires. Monette kept the horse walking though the field, veering towards the ruin. Perhaps those furtive faces might object to whatever followed. “I am starting to think it is just in my mind.” The horse gave a back glance. Monette caught the horse-sign and nodded with a sigh.

Behind them there was the sound of strained roars, and bounding out of the ruin were loping and clawing elves, drawn and wan. Their white teeth and opalescent eyes caught what light is in the gloomy skies. Mo touched her heels to the charger’s sides and she picked up into trot. Mo took them into a circling course though the field. The addicts had speed born of desperation and the charger had to speed to a trot to keep ahead. Mo looked around and saw a tumbledown stretch of fence; she turned the charger and made for it. Behind them was a closing chorus of hunger.

With a slow leap horse and rider made the jump and found good footing on the other side. Monette turned the charger and the pair made across the fields beyond. She looked back, her eyes seeing a few of the slower on the uptake elves come over the wall. Monette reached a hand up to steady her cowl and looked to see the fields were open for as far as she could see. Monette kept the charger in a gallop and they put distance between them and what followed behind.

The horse was a cold-blood the Tauren had gotten from somewhere. Its breath had steamed in the pen they had kept it in. It was November here in the North, and the weather was closing in and the cold was making itself felt in the shadows of the mountains. Monette had played her hand over the horse’s face and neck, introducing herself to the beautiful thing. The horse had not been brushed out in months, and she was starting into her winter coat. Monette lightly laid her hands on the tack and adjusted it from whatever had ridden it before.

“I am sorry if we get caught up in something, it is just the way things are” Monette confided as there were creaks of leather in the cold, and the quiet chime of loose brass and bronze. Monette made note to fix those clinks with thong or braid when they camped tonight. She looked over her shoulder as her hands worked on the buckles; the Sun was behind the mountains and the shadows of the valley were deep purples and blues.

The horse turned her head a fraction and kept Monette in view. She adjusted a hoof and turned a faction more. Mo reached up and put a hand on the horse’s warm hide and smoothed under the Horde-crafted halter. “I know what you might have heard, but you can call me Mo ,” she soothed and slid her hands over the firm flesh and the horse gave an exhale.

Monette walked over to the heavy bedroll and came back to lay it on the tack and began to lace it down “We have to get back over the Frontier, I remember the way. Once we get down past the river we’ll take the River Road down and around . . .” Mo paused as her eyes caught the faint brand on the Horse’s flank in the rising light “ . . . and maybe get you back home”. The horse was painted in the manner of the Highmountain tribes; terra cotta dye upon her flanks, crescent moons on her shoulders, and white bars across her nose. She was a long way from her foaling place, Mo thought. Maybe. Who could tell any more.

“That isn’t what was discussed,” said a voice from the shadows. The horse flicked both her ears forward at the voice and shifted her weight, a forehoof lightened for a spook. Monette started, but then after a moment she leaned over and took up the bow scabbard and quiver and set them across the horse’s tack. “I know,” Mo told Quai’s shadow “and I don’t trust one word of this or them. Maybe I’ll take the gryphons or whatever, but I aim to get there by another road.” Mo walked over to the waterskins and feedbag and settled them across the horse’s shoulders. Quai sighed and Mo paused, then Mo returned to the knots.

“This might be for the best. I pray to someone who will listen that I will be in a position to help when the time comes . . . I worry that this is just the way to get rid of the only one that . . . that . . . “ Monette sighed and paused. She worked the bags and skins and Quai stood in the shadow. “Quai, I love you. You are the sister I do not deserve. I know you can take care of yourself . . . “ Mo glanced out the stable door as the relentless pace of time brought the Dawn and her time to be away “and all of them.” She looked at her hand and walked over to the heavy raincloak and took it off its peg. “I hope this is not a trap. I hope this . . . Senior . . . Owl-ee is legitimate. I hope that when the inevitable betrayal happens I’ll be in a good place to help.” Mo held the heavy cloak for a long silence, and then she looked to Quai with that moonlight-white face of hers in the shadow “ . . . if I . . .we . . . don’t. . . . , next life, okay?”

Mo stood for long moments and walked over to Quai. They embraced for a long while. Their final words were in their handsigns in the dark. Monette turned and got up onto the Horse with shining eyes “Tell them I love them . . . “. She turned the horse about, and between Mo and the horse the two were pointed to the door.

“I will.”

An hour later there was the jangle of harness and a beat of hooves and Monette had gotten up into the pass. She turned and looked back to Highmountain, and under her the horse was remembering she was a Charger. From there she could not see her friends and companions, now motes down in the rising smoke of the campfires and gray boulders at the foot of the mountain. Monette looked up to the path that they were to take and her eyes narrowed with worry and promised vengeance. The horse took a few steps for a tuft of grass, and Mo reached up and ran the back of her hand carefully under her lashes to take the warm tears away. The Horse shifted under her and nickered. Mo tried to smile “That’s what you think Horsie, but you are hardly a June.” She looked back down at the foot of the Highmountain, and then deliberately turned her horse to the trail and gave the charger’s sides a touch of her heel. “And we need to figure out your name.”

The mount and rider started off at a good clip, it was going to rain. Behind them a shadow shifted from the shade of the rocks and began to stalk them.

I am no longer part of Black Bay. My time there was wonderful. For all those I role-played with, even in difficult times, I thank you all from the bottom of my little black and twisted-up heart. Quai has a wonderful group and I am sure that they will continue to sail along into adventure. Quai is my best friend, and I want to thank her and wish her the best.

adult situations and language

Monette saw stars as she was struck hard across the face. She was lashed to the mast of a fishing smack somewhere out in the Northern Currents between the Broken Shore and the Howling Fjords. The little boat flew the snapping Alliance Colors as it coursed over the five-foot swells. Monette turned her head back to the Man in the Dark Coat, who was holding on to a rope to keep his balance in the swell. Monette looked black and blue, but the Man in the Dark Coat looked distinctly green.

The side of her face was numb and the rocking and pitching of the boat had her nauseous. The punches to her guts did not help either. Monette’s eye had swollen shut, and wrists chafed as she worked the rough salt-ropes. The cold sea wind had frost forming on the rails and had Monette shivering; her hair a dark flutter before her.

The Man in the Dark Coat sneered, “I am going to ask again,” he shouted over the winds “Where is Doctor Wellson or Quai Mason now!”

“I don’t know,” she called back.

The Man in the Dark Coat backhanded the other side of Mo’s face.

Mo shook her head and tried to put things together through the maze of pain and the early stages of cold-sickness, the deck was deathly cold. “This man does not know how to interrogate proper,” Mo complained to herself “he doesn’t even know to wait between . . . ;” Mo’s thoughts were derailed as he grabbed the back of her hair and twisted her face to his. Mo had studied his face intimately over the past half-day’s interrogation, and now Mo knew he liked garlic shrimp.

“Answer me woman!” shouted the man, and he gave a superior-sneer as Monette shivered in his grip. He started to speak and Monette cut him off.

“Don’t ask stupid questions!” she shouted back over the winds “Why don’t you ask me a question I can answer? Do I Have to conduct this this interrogation my-“ but her reply ended with Monette getting another punch to her breadbasket. She doubled over as far as she could go, the coarse rope biting against her skin, and a stream of bile and breakfast came from her lips. Mo coughed hoarsely.

The Man in the Dark Coat shook his head in exasperation. Behind him the hatch came open and the Lieutenant came forward unsteadily, his hands reaching for one rail, and then the other. He was still in his fighting leathers of the studied non-descript variety. Behind him an Old Salt kept the tiller true as he studied the skies as the fishing smack crashed through waves. He dressed in a warm woolen coat and puffed a pipe.

“Sir?” The Lieutenant addressed the Man in the Dark Coat, while eyeing the woman lashed to the mast. The Man in the Dark Coat turned and swayed on the rope, it helped neither of their lunches to rest easily. “What do you want!”

“Why is prisoner naked?”

The Man in the Dark Coat was taken aback by what he felt was a stupid question;  and then he leered “This brown bint is going to go to the men if she does not answer my questions.” He looked over his shoulder “Arent’cha?!” Monette was too busy gasping for breath to retort.

The Lieutenant nodded and leaned close. “Sir, according to the file provided, the prisoner avails herself of various treatments and potions for the various venereal diseases . . . like children.” He still had to shout over the wind “. . . many of our commando do not! I would rather that we not have to see to them getting treated!” There was only wind on the deck for long moments. “. . . and, I do not think your prisoner will last long out here. We’ll put the Tanari below decks . . . “

“SHE ESCAPED!” he bellowed, “The real reason she’s naked is she still got out of the fetters! Okay!” The Lieutenant looked to the Man in the Dark Coat and then to the prisoner and then back again “Prisoners do that.” The Man in the Dark Coat glared at him.

The Lieutenant nodded “Let me get the prisoner out of the weather, let her take time to realize her pain, then we can question her properly.” The Man in the Dark Coat shook his head and looked to the horizon and his stomach flipped over, finally he nodded “Your responsibility if she goes over the side, or ruins this mission!!!”

“Sir.”

Mo watched the Lieutenant come up to her. She glared at him, but he raised both his hands to her neck in a peculiar way and squeezed. Mo began to gasp for breath and her eyes went wide. She tried to keep her calm but she could only hear her heartbeat. Mo’s head rolled back as strong hands held her throat tight, and overhead the blurry winter clouds overhead came to blackness.

  Monette came to gasping for breath, “No, No, NO!” she cried. She looked to her arms overhead, twisted, and pulled. She strained like a madwoman in the long moments as her senses found her and the headache filled her mind after the fear had receded. Mo breathed as she left the panic behind her. She was in a tiny cabin, her arms secured over her head as she sat lotus on the floor. The Lieutenant looked up from the stack of parchments he was reading by the shark-oil lamp. The lamp and the pale winter glow around the aft windows were the only light in the room. It wasn’t the oubliette, and it smelled of old fish.

“A bad dream?” The Lieutenant set the yellowed parchment down, and pushed them into the folio on the table next to a long leather wallet, where both promptly slid to the ridge at the edge with the wave.

Monette’s eyes snapped to the Lieutenant, like a frosted cat. “So, you get first whack?” The Lieutenant chuckled shyly “No.” Monette looked down at herself and judged what they might have had done to her while she was out. After realization dawned, she carefully looked at her surroundings in worry; at least they put her in a shirt. Unbuttoned, but a shirt. Monette could tell a man had worn and worked in the shirt since it had last been washed.

The Lieutenant turned on the bench and leaned forward with his elbows on the armored leather of his thighs “But, you know how these things work. Or at least your record hints that you do.” He reached out carefully and put a hand under Monette’s chin. Monette looked to the hand and raised her head a fraction. She ached, it was still cold, and she was hungry and thirsty. Her un-swollen eye bore into his.

“So, tell me, where do you think this Doctor Wellson and Quai Mason might be?”

Monette shook her head in his hand “I don’t know.”

The Lieutenant reached back and opened up a leather wallet. From there his hand slid out a small metal tool the end of which was a small steel hook, the type that gnome dentists used. He turned it easily in his hand and brought the sharp tip up under Monette’s cold-hardened nipple. Mo flinched and raised her chest to escape the drag of the steel bite.

Mo’s face was then twisted in the Lieutenant’s tightening grip. He looked at her teeth appraisingly as he unhooked her nipple and brought the dental instrument up her forced-open lips.

“Think harder.”

Monette heard the thunder rumble over the fall of the heavy winter rains. She and Quai had pulled off the road and sheltered in a copse when the skies had grown threatening in the afternoon. The skies had opened up around dark. They had gotten up under the wagons an lit a small sentinel fire. One of the mule’s hooves pawed and splashed as they sheltered with canvas, steaming under their blankets. Thunder rumbled again, and Monette blew warm air over her fingers. Spiders, she decided.

Sitting against her saddle, Monette fiddled with the blankets and adjusted her grip on the new-fangled revolver. Quai was snuggled up beside Monette, snoring, but her angry-mouse squeak snore was lost in the heavy rains. The hunting spiders native here the size of big angry dogs, so pretty manageable. Monette’s tummy rumbled and she shook her head in the dark. Quai shifted and mumbled something, and Monette soothed her with a couple of pats. Monette put hunting spiders on the most-likely-dozen list of things to look out for right now, between blind Forsaken serial killer and Black Rock wolf pack. Nodding in the dark she adjusted her hand back against the wagon wheel and looked up at the bottom of the wagon. Amongst the generous pile of pungent manure they were hauling, were things wrapped in oily rags made by worse than almost everything on Monette’s little list.

Monette pulled her feet in a little more, and resisted putting them on Quai’s. She blew warmth across her fingers and then tucked both her hands up under the blanket. In the dark she let her hands get used to the revolver, carefully pointing its muzzle somewhere over her hip. Hammer forward, and her finger away from the trigger. Four years ago she could not conceived of using such a contraption.

The rain kept falling, and Monette lost track of the time. The little touch clock that Fielton had made for her before the assault on Other Draenor was lost when Jinx sank in the waters off the Broken Isles. Her mind drifted along with the rain gusts, newly remembering and sorting out old things she needed to do. The cold and sound of rain brought her to the Westfall, over ten years ago. She was laying in the miserable damp, holding little Atya close to her. The gang was around them, and they were trying not to breathe. Off not a furlong in that rain-dark afternoon cloaked soldiers were in a line, the rain riling against their steel armor, their horses’ breath steaming as they clomped though the dismal fields.

Clement eased over from sighting his poacher’s crossbow “They’ll hear us . . .” he hissed under the rain. Monette could feel the old shortbow in her hand, and knew her hip quiver had five tatty arrows, the rain turning their calico fletching into drooping flowers. Her daughter Atya was half under her, sniffling and crying. She was two years old and it was not her fault she had a bad cold, it was not her fault that she was out in a hedge row in early March rains, it was not her fault she was sick, and cold, and tired. Monette soothed Atya’s head with her mud-stained hand and held Atya’s head to her breast, wishing better than this for her. Monette lifted her head and glared with blind hate at that line of soldiers combing the winter rows for the Westfall rebels. If it was just her, she told herself and then looked to gang. If it was just them, she reasoned . . . she looked down to her child whom would not stop crying, and who could blame her.

Monette’s hand left Atya’s head and reached for one of those soggy-fletched arrows, preparing to set it to the string. Clement reached out and grabbed her arm, hard. “That” he gestured carefully with his loaded crossbow “is eight to one . . . armor, horses, mud-frost ground”. Monette turned her head cat-swift, and Clemet flinched back with a look of alarm. He glanced away and then amongst the others before he leaned back in “Even if you get your five; that is still a whole troop of cavalry . . . forty in all.” From along the ditch Mikhail whispered “We can’t get taken in . . . they’ll string us up as soon as they find a branch tall enough . . . all of us.” Monette felt the assent of the rest group, wrenching her eyes shut, her arm still held from nocking the arrow. Atya gave a wail, and Monette dropped her bow and held Atya close to her breast, half-smothering her while cooing softly and trying to wordlessly reason with a sick toddler. Clement let go of Monette’s arm and took up his own crossbow and sighted with grim desperation. One of the searching soldiers looked up and pulled his rain-heavy cloak from aside his face. Pausing his horse, his horse responded with a frustrated flick of its tail, sending a spray of raindrops like a short-lived cloud. No one dared breathe.

The codger’s guest’s wet leathers hung over the back of the smoke rack, a tall brown half-orc woman and the short-haired girl. The two had stopped their wagons and negotiated with the old man for fodder and shelter. A housecleaning, clothes mending, and cooking were enough for a couple of days stay. The coins the women offered for taking away the old clothes were a kindness. The codger petted his old hunting dog and set his walking stick against the wall. A half an hour and he was asleep.

Monette leaned in and the needle bobbed in and out of the old calico dress, her thumb working to turn the weave to the firelight. Quai got up and went over to feel the leathers, and then bent over to gather up the Economical Kunai that the pair favored. “I wish we could wear our armor,” she sighed.

Mo looked up to reply, but the sight of Quai in a flannel shirt bent over in those orphanage-grade panties she wore, the firelight turning her ivory skin golden caused most of the words that were to follow to all get lost.  Mo blithely stabbed herself in the finger with needle. The pain managed to get through, and she sucked her finger and then shook out the pain.

Straight, Mo reminded herself, straight as a straight arrow fired by a straight shooter straight at straight-laced straight-arrow straightener . . . himself in dire straits. Quai guessed another couple of hours and took a double handful of the kunai and settled back down on the warm stones. Mo brought the cloth back up to her eyes and continued the stitch. “I know, but two steely-eyed leather-armored women festooned with stabby and shooty things, alone and steering two overfull wagons of pigshit screams smuggler.” She smiled in the firelight, Monette’s own brown skin burnished bronze. “Sooo . . . .” Mo held up the calico print dress for Quai to see. Quai looked up at dress as she got out the sharpening stone and pulled on her heavy gloves. “It looks nice, not me though . . . “. Monette let the dress back down onto her lap and bit the thread off. “You are . . . and latter is the idea. Farmer Brown and his . . .  skinny . . . dwarf . . . ward might just be found hauling pigshit overland”.

Quai took the rag and soaked it in mineral spirits. Taking up the first kunai she carefully wiped down the lacquered edge, leaving behind clean metal. Shaking her head, Quai turned the kunai over and carefully repeated the process. “You still going to try to pull off a guy?” Monette smiled to herself for some reason, and then turned the fabric in her thumbs and started a new dart to take in the top. “At least at a distance, padding the shoulders out . . . . the height”, the last part Mo mumbled “But the checkpoints, I don’t know. I have never carried it off . . . convincingly”.

Monette tossed her hair aside and raised the dress again. She knew at all the measurements, but there was measuring beyond measures. She held out the dress “Let me clean those while you try this on. Bloomers, blouse, and bonnet”. Mo waited while Quai looked at the dress, and took off the gloves. Mo let the dress fall to her lap and looked around the old upland cabin. The gray-haired owner was dozing in his rocking chair, and his gray-muzzled dog twitched an ear and looked between the funny smelling two-legged guests as they moved about. They had food, and they were nice. He closed his eyes and enjoyed the fire.

Quai took the dress from Monette and walked over to the corner and turned her back on the snoring owner and his dream-running dog in modesty. Taking off the flannel and set it away from the wet leathers, she pulled the dress up over her head and worked her arms into the sleeves, then tugging the hips down snug. Quai leaned over to get the bloomers and stepped into them “It feels good,” she assured Mo as to the fit so far, and then lifted the loose cotton up under her skirts, and tied the ribbons off. “It looks good on you,” Mo assured her. She took a bit of leather and rested a kunai in the crease. A dip of the rag into the mineral spirts and then a slow careful glide along the edge. Quai looked down and smoothed her hands down the fabric and then looked to her chest and frowned. Mo caught the motion, and she shook her head softly then reached out to soak up more spirits. “I can pad . . . if you want, it is just wool and scraps.”

Those that know here would have to decide if they fit.

Rationality

You like clarity and intelligent simplicity and you get frustrated at messy thinking. This can make you seem unreasonably pushy to some, but it is actually a virtue: you are motivated by a horror at pointless effort and a longing for precision and insight into how things and people work. Your ability to synthesize and bring order is essential in producing thinking which is truly helpful.

Exhibitionism

There’s a strand in your nature which loves making an impression – perhaps with your clothes, or conversation, or in a self-revealing blog or a novel. You like to dramatise yourself, to pose as a unique, perhaps mysterious person, to joke or exaggerate your part in adventures. Though you might more than once have been called a show off, it is actually a generous tendency: you want to please and entertain others. It could be the start of good teaching and leadership.

Resilience

Jacki was bundled up in a thick fleece-lined coat, the collar open. She looked out over the airfield and watched the windblown snow whipped about. She had a fur lined hood over her head and the she had had her mouth and nose wrapped about in an old scarf. Little puffs of breath would race away lost in the wind.

In her sight a group of dwarves were manhandling a sledge, upon which were six stacked bombs. The bombs noses were painted red much like those of the dwarves and written in chalk were a variety of rude or pithy dwarven responses to the invasion. Jacki stepped up to the rail and put her mittened hand upon it as she shook her head in wonder. She was tough, but all of the dwarves were shirtless. Except for the two lady-dwarves, who were wearing tank-tops.

Eventually the dwarves had gotten the bombs to a biplane, and were hitching them under the wings. A little gnome had come out strutting in a leather jacket, googles, and a pointy-helmet. He conferred with another couple of gnomes, and they walked around and kicked tires and prodded at patches, and made note of glaring deficiencies of the biplane. Eventually the strutting gnome was presented a receipt from the chief dwarf bomb-chucker. With a flourish the transaction was complete and he mounted his flying contraption and gave a jaunty authorization to the gnomes at the propeller. The three gnomes set their shoulders and tried to get it to crank. And then they tried again.

One of the dwarves stopped, and turned. Snow was matted in his rich copper-red beard, and the winds whipped loosed strands across his face. Shaking his head he walked back the forty paces and waved the gnomes away from the propeller. Grumbling in the manner of his grandfathers and their grandfathers before them, he set his thick hand to the wooden prop. Turning it back a quarter, he spun it. There were a row of backfires and then the whole machine shook as the engine roared to life. The gnomes all scampered away and the dwarf walked back across the snows for the next load of bombs. The strutting gnome flipped a white silken scarf back across his throat and opened the throttle.

Jackie watched the whole thing unfold, and followed the flying machine with her eyes until it had disappeared into the far distance. She stamped her feet and moved about. Jacki was on guard duty, and as she had been told, that meant not staying too long in one place. She frowned under the scarf and folded her arms to hug herself and her blunderbuss as she walked around the rails of Jinx’s top deck. “Why are they even keeping me around, or paying me to just screw up”, Jacki thought. “They are assassins, worgen, elves, warlocks. . .” Her last thought stopped as she put her hand to her stomach and felt the cramps start again. After a minute she opened her eyes and shook it off, then kept walking on guard. “I am just a lumberjack’s daughter of Grizzly Hills, and afore that Elwynn . . .” she reasoned “ . . .“

“Ahoy Jinx!” was a shout that shook her out of her reverie. Jacki walked to the side and looked down into Jinx’s lee. A gnomish woman standing on a motorcycle looked up to her and smiled with a friendly wave.  Jacki waved back. The little gnome reached down into the sidecar and rummaged about and then pulled out a little sack. “Mail’s here!” she spun it about by its drawstrings and sent it in an arc up onto Jinx’s deck. Jacki watched it hit and then turned to talk to the friendly gnome, only to see the little gnome turn and drop onto the seat of the motorcycle and tear off across the snow.

Walking over to the little bundle she opened it up, and went through it. She stopped when she saw familiar handwriting.