Wicks are insane. I hate them. I should never have left.

It had only taken four short months of living with the Red Crows for Tristaan to come to this conclusion. After they had found him, exhausted, cold, and starving on the road from Vienda to Muffey, he'd welcomed the attention, food, and smiles from the strange, slightly wild, people. Now, the scrawny, barely sixteen-year-old passive was convinced that it was the most ridiculous thing he could've done in his entire life, short of running away from the textile mill or even being born the non-magical son of a galdor at all.

Guaril was old and crazy, shoving weapons into his hands and attempting to win him over with stories and toothy grins. The gnarled wick had enthusiastically volunteered to be the boy's caretaker, though Alioe only knew why. Tristaan wasn't used to sleeping more than a few hours at a time, and while he was quite indifferent to being struck, he'd never been given the proper opportunity to strike back, let alone with a blade.

The past four months had opened floodgates to feelings the awkward youth never knew he was allowed to have. Mostly anger in a variety of shades and colors, and the overwhelming friendly generosity of the wicks had just reminded the passive of how entirely isolated he felt. They seemed completely oblivious to the terrible danger they were in in his very presence. Every day.

They were all stupid, but where else did he have to go?

"Ridiculously mu-uh ... stupid ..." Muttered the boy to himself as he chucked rocks into the river the tribe had been camping by, watching the flat ones skip with his limited sense of accomplishment. He had very little concept of spare time, and it was infuriating to have nothing to do. Even if it hadn't been too cold to swim this far into autumn, Tristaan had little interest in revealing his various scars from past beatings for his peers to stare and point at, let alone his tattoo.

He might have once been underfed, but after four months, his body held promise of filling out and growing up into something other than gaunt and pale. All the swordplay and physical labor Guaril concocted didn't seem to be doing him any harm either.

With a sigh, the passive tossed his last rock across the still waters, smirking as it skimmed far over the surface before sinking. He knew he should be wandering back to camp. Someone had been thoughtful enough to volunteer him to watch the bochi again. He was sure whoever that someone was must've really hated him. He just wished he knew who.

Huffing his now-unruly black hair from his eyes – his hair hadn't been trimmed in months – he turned on his heel and scuffed his way petulantly back toward the camp. Wick children were nothing like the factory kids he was used to; wick children were free and they knew it.

It was ... terrifying.


((Besides Calli, other Red Crows are welcome, just take note of the date since this is past-RP.))

Calli had been turning cartwheels when she'd caught sight of Tristaan, walking back into camp. Immediately she was upright, chasing after him like an obedient puppy. Even at ten she had long legs and it only took a few easy strides to bring her up level to him. After that she had walk fairly fast to keep up. She was angular for her age but the sharp inclines of her face were still softened by childhood and a layer of puppy fat. She was cute in the way lamb was, fluffy and bumbling.

"Hesta Tristaan!" Calli said, air whistling through the gap left by her missing front teeth. "What are you doing today?"

Calli was, quite frankly, very intrigued by the older boy. He had the allure of the exotic. He was often grumpy and untrusting and he'd come out of nowhere, just found by the road. He'd clearly gone out and done exciting things that Calli suspected she would not have been able to handle.

Then there was the fact that he didn't seem to want to be her friend. Calli was stupid, she was aware of this, but she seemed to be fairly likable. She'd heard some not nice things said about her in the past but fundamentally, if she sat down next to someone, she would at least be tolerated. Possibly even welcomed, most of the time.

This was not always so with Tristaan and she was determined for it to change.

"Hel-er-hesta." The boy muttered, not looking at the young witch right away. He dreaded her persistence, despite always finding himself disarmed by her obvious, childish cuteness. He'd often found himself judging his wick peers based on his personal assessment of their survivability in a factory, and in his heart, Tristaan knew Calli would be one of those children who would've withered and faded quickly in the face of such oppression.

He was not at a point in his life where he could admit to finding that endearing. He only found that sort of realization further isolating.

The passive considered speeding up his pace, but his strides were already brisk and he was not in a particular hurry to be swamped by children. Though he might have lived in crowded conditions during his previous life in Vienda, he had begun to enjoy the solace of being alone. Perhaps too much.

"Someone volunteered me to watch all of you ... you ... bochi before dinner." He struggled with Tek, but mostly because Tristaan was unwilling to admit he found the new sounds intriguing when they rolled off his tongue.

"You wouldn't know who did that, would you?"

Calli twirled her finger through a pigtail and thought about it, now skipping to keep up. She didn't recognise that Tristaan was looking for information with a personal agenda. She'd always been taught to be honest to fellow wicks.

"I thiiinnkkkk..." She started, drawing the word out for a long while. "I think, I think, I think it was your Da."

Calli was now holding a pigtail in each hand and pulling on them slightly. She was a bundle of energy, almost manic at times. Tristaan had seen her running laps of the camp once when her mother had gotten to the end of her rope and had needed to find something for her to do. Calli also assumed that since Guaril looked after Tristaan, that he'd become his father. She didn't even consider that he might take issue to that.

"Say, Tristaan, want to play a pina jump rope with me?" Calli said, her inflection high and hopeful towards the end.

Tristaan's wirey frame went taut like a bow ready to fire, strained and bent. He stopped walking and glared at Calli, every inch of his terrible sneer revealing his galdor heritage from underneath the shaggy mess of rich dark hair. He was silent for her statement, but exploded at her unrelated question, unable to contain the wave of emotion her innocent implications had sent roaring through his mind.

"That crazy old man ent my father! He isn't! He's not my da, neither."

There was conflict in his gray eyes, even at his words, as if he was torn between accepting what he had been given by these wicks or continuing to live the way he always had on his own. One was familiar and comfortable, but it was also heavy and painful. The other was new and terrifying, but it was also interesting and kind.

The young passive exhaled, narrow shoulders loosening, and he looked away from the little witch, realizing he'd just yelled at the one girl he shouldn't have. Tristaan gnawed on the inside of his cheek, slowly unclenching his fists and turning back to Calli with a sullen sort of apologetic expression, aristocratic features softening once more.

"Pina?" His slim eyebrows came together in confusion over the word he couldn't remember, and he felt a rush of relief at the opportunity to change the subject, "What's that?"

Calli's lower lip began to wobble.



Calli burst into tears. Small fists coming up over her eyes as the tears spurted voluminously from her eyes. She wailed as well, in that disconsolate manner that only grief or childhood could engender.

"Nnnnwahhhhh!" Calli cried, switching between small and insistent sobs to great gulping cries.

"You're mean!" She shouted, earning Tristaan some looks the ranged from sympathetic to disapproving.

"Oh gods, I am not. Don't cry. You're the one who said that ... that ... ugh."

The young passive was thoroughly chagrined. The sight of Calli wailing was crippling, slicing through Tristaan's angry reluctance like one of Guaril's many blades. He stood there awkwardly, hands hanging helplessly in the air, half-way between the two of them as if he wanted to reach for her own.

He hadn't meant to upset her. Why'd she have to say that? She really didn't know any better ... but still. Tristaan didn't want family. Didn't need family. Didn't deserve family. Why couldn't anyone else see that but him, anyway?

"Calli. I'm sorry, okay?" The young passive faked a fleeting smile, waving his outstretched hands in continued helplessness. He tried changing the subject entirely, if only to avoid continued glances in their general direction, "You don't need to cry. We can jump rope instead."

Calli's crying subsided into little hiccoughs. She looked up at Tristaan, her big doe eyes now quite red. Her little face was blotchy.

"Wanna hug..." She said, miserably.

It was fairly clear that this was not a request but more a condition. Calli may not have seen it as blackmail but the fact remained that one response was going to lead to her compliance while the other would lead to more tears. She was sensitive to yelling, she rarely got yelled at unless it was an attempt to make her hear from a reasonable distance. From family she accepted it, from others she did not take it well at all. Her family was generous with hugs and she was a tactile child.

To hug or not to hug?

The young passive stared. Surely this girl was more highly aware of her choices in words than she let on; she had a mysteriously terrible knack of pushing all of his currently over-sized, sensitive buttons. Tristaan was smart enough to know that there was really no choice in this matter; anything short of complying would simply lead to more loud, embarrassing tears.

He sighed, not hiding the frustration from his slightly delicate features.

"Yeah, yeah."

The boy spoke quietly, gray eyes softening while his face was still set into something neutral and only marginally afraid. Calli was helplessly cute. Her broken little breaths were whistling through the gap in her teeth. Tristaan knew she was the kind of child he would've taken beatings for, and he hated it.

With the smallest hints of a genuine smile, the young passive swept the younger witch up in his arms, lifting the girl up and off the ground with ease, "Sorry, okay? Let's go." He might have laughed, but it was a small sound of unpracticed joy. He'd never really had a reason to laugh much; it was still an alien noise.

Tristaan didn't put Calli down, holding her there with unspoken invitation to be carried. He wasn't about to tell her he didn't mind the contact, "Where's everyone else, hmm?"

Calli wiggled a little, the way baby animals did when they were settling in and getting comfortable. She made one last sniffle, holding onto Tristaan like a koala in a gumtree.

"Alrigh'." She said, still hugging.



Calli poked her head up and looked around.

"I'unno... Maybe they're having late lunch? I think Daaa is napping." Much of Calli's thinking revolved around food, it took a lot fo sustenance to keep her running. "I like that tree."

Such a leap of logic coming from Calli usually implied that something bad was about to happen. Tristaan probably only recognised it as a short attention span.

While still small-framed and not yet particularly tall, Tristaan realized Calli felt like she weighed less. Guaril's form of combat-oriented friendship was only complimenting the boy's previous life of physical labor. He tried not to wince at her settling wiggles; he had no padding of flesh to protect him from her grip.

The young passive began to walk again in the direction of camp, gray eyes wandering over the handful of trees they passed by, wondering which one in particular the young witch's short attention span was momentarily captured by. He was unaware it meant danger, figuring the girl was simply finding other things to say.

"You like which tree?" He offered in obliging innocence, simply playing along with conversation to make their short walk last a little longer. Tristaan hoped that by the time they got back, he'd be in more of a mood to watch the other children. Calli was usually more than enough for his limited, undeveloped patience.

It was a beautiful tree, with strong winding branches and leaves that were a perfect shade of green. It shifted on the breeze, like a slowly moving dancer. She could see the gnarly roots anchoring it into the ground. It was centered. It was strong.

Calli's inquisitive mind was already planning how to climb it.

"That one..." She said, awe in her voice. "The green one..."

They were all green but at least she was pointing so Tristaan would know which she meant.

"Can we go look at it?" She asked, a hint of a whine in her voice.

"You can't see it from here?" The youth offered, a typical mixture of subtle humor and quiet grumbling. He still walked toward the tree, obliging the young witch out of pure fear—he was completely uninterested in being subject to any more of her tears for the afternoon—but his expression was wary.

Tristaan stopped at the tree's roots, turning to one side so the little witch clinging to him could see better. He bit the inside of his cheek and looked upwards, realizing how envious he might have been at Calli's innocent curiosity. The young passive glared at the impressive branches, moving in the breeze, and knew that somewhere along the way between Muffey, Vienda, and wherever here was, he had been robbed of anything properly resembling a childhood.

"It's just a big tree, Calli."

The boy tried not to sound dismissive; he'd spent a lot of his life far away from trees in the Soot District. They were nice to look at—better than textile machines and decrepit buildings, that was for sure.

"Unless you see something I don't."

The moment he spotted her, Echo darted after. "Calli! Calli! Calli!" he shouted repeatedly, only beginning to quiet as he stumpy legs brought him close.

Though he was two years older than tiny witch, Calli was one of his favorite playmates. Somewhere between his gangly, awkward appearance and never-ending tall tales, older wicks, and even those his own age just weren't as kind. He pretended not to mind, and to prefer the smaller bochi, who didn't pick at his over-sized ears and teeth and scrawny figure. This didn't prevent him from continuing to pester everyone else, though.

Echo belatedly noticed that it was Tristaan carrying Calli. He abruptly stopped running and shouting, putting on a false show of maturity. Like the older boys of his tribe, Tristaan was a challenge. No matter how many time he was ignored, Echo continued to bother the elder boy with wild stories, hoping to impress.

His cultured act quickly subsided as Echo remembered why he'd come to bother Calli in the first place. "Calli! Ya won' believe it," he started, not even considering that this was how most of his tall tales began. "Daoa bought a magical kenser!"

Keiyra looked around the thick trunk of the tree she sat leaning against, brown and pink hair tied into a bun. She clutched her sketchbook to her chest as she saw who was coming. Tristaan! He couldn't see her doodles of love hearts and his name! Quickly, she closed the book and packed it up into her satchel along with her pencils. Jumping up, she brushed the dirt off her skirt and fixed the suspenders. Stepping out, she waved excitedly at the trio.

"Hey! Hi guys!" Picking up her step, she jogged to meet them, looking up with a smile at the older boy.

"Hiiiii Tristaaaaan." The twelve year old had a crush on him, but she'd die before saying anything.

Tristaan recognized Echo by his voice—he was always clocking running his mouth, anyway—and groaned inwardly. Calli, alone, he could handle, but Calli, with friends, was almost too much to bear. Just as he was steeling himself for an extra dose of childish rambling, just as he thought maybe he could dig up the patience from his tiny internal store, there was Keirya, too.

"Ummm. Hi." The young passive grunted, shifting his hold on the littlest witch as if he considered putting her down. He didn't look at either of them right away, but had already seen the way the girl with pink in her hair looked at him sometimes. It was ... different, "Both of you."

"I love this tree..." Calli whispered to Tristaan, almost reaching out for the first branch.



Calli slid down from Tristaan's hold, like a blonde monkey. She paused to give Tristaan one last hug about his waist. She let it go on a moment longer than Tristaan was perhaps comfortable with but she savoured his attention too much to care.

"She did!" She replied to Echo, excited. "What can it do?"

She was bouncing on her heels now.

"Hesta Keiyra!" Calli said, as the older girl walked up, now skirting closer and closer to the tree.

Surely no one would notice if she just hopped onto the first branch.

Echo smiled proudly when Tristaan greeted him, then grinned and waved shyly at Keiyra until Calli drew his attention back.



He answered back in a voice no less animated. "He keeps dissappearin'! Daoa had 'im tied in the yard. Said she turned her back for a moment an' he was gone! Same happened to Da. An we found him in Adey's cart eatin' carrots...and the door had been latched. Da named him Vroo. He's writin' a song about 'im." Most of this came out all in one breath.

The young passive mostly tolerated the girl's lingering hug, shuffling his feet and looking awkward. It might have been nice. He seemed to relax once Calli let go, but only slightly. He was suddenly in a crowd of wicks, talking around him, but not entirely to him.

Out of the corner of his eye, he watched the younger witch slip towards the tree, touching it. She really was rather tactile.

Tristaan listened to Echo and tried to remember who the boy's parents were. He couldn't. If he thought the wick children were intimidating, the youth seemed to be even more timid and nervous around the adults, as if he was expecting to get in trouble for nothing.

"So," The passive's features might have registered confusion, but only because he knew that word. Magic. What he didn't have and everyone else did. He might have been teasing the younger boy, but it was hard to tell by his expression, "You think the horse is full of vroo an' your ... da ... named it Vroo? Isn't that, I dunno, confusing?"

Keiyra listened to Echo's story, eyes lit up with excitement. She had almost opened her mouth to exclaim how awesome and cool that was, when Tristaan spoke up.



The girl's expression changed from excitement to confusion, to match the older boys.

"Yeah! Confusing!" She parroted, shooting Tristaan what she hoped was a sympathetic roll of the eyes.

"I 'unno, makes sense to me." Calli said, from the second lowest branch on her tree. "He's like vroo that's kenser shaped."

Calli's legs swung in the breeze. A small arboreal rodent watched her warily from a higher branch. She was roughly two metres up, above Tristaan's reach.

"I like it up here!" She said happily. "How do I get down?"

Echo sank into a thoughtful pout at their disapproval. He was sure it had made sense earlier, but couldn't really think of how to explain it. It sent Echo into a highly unusual, momentary silence.



"Ya, like that." Echo followed Calli into the tree, but not nearly so high...or fast. Calli seemed to have her own magical talent for climbing and soaring at great heights that Echo just couldn't match.

Echo didn't know how to answer Calli's predicament about getting back down. He was still close enough to the ground to jump without getting hurt, but Calli wasn't. Though he was big enough to pick her up, he certainly wasn't big enough to carry her down the tree.

Tristaan had just been slowly thawing to the idea of putting up with the three younger wicks when he glanced upward. Any hint of a smile faded from the young passive's features: this could go one of two ways.

"You get down the same way you got up, Calli. You climb." He offered, trying to sound encouraging, but there might have been an edge of something like annoyance underneath it all. While it sounded logical to the older boy, he had no idea how the suggestion would register in the mind of a ten-year-old girl.

"Ohhh, alright." Calli said, grabbing a branch from above and pulling herself up.

She looked around curiously. She could see an old bird's nest and a ladybeetle. She looked down and realised she was now even higher up. Tristaan's head looked smaller and she could feel more of a breeze.

"Hey Tristaan, it didn't work." She called down, then looked to the side and saw a small sparrow looking at her. "Hello Mr Birdy..."

She started to climb even higher to get a better look.

"Oh clock, Calli. I meant climb down. Not up." The young passive scowled, now very worried. This would not end well. He considered climbing up to fetch the girl, knowing that if she fell, it could be dangerous. Tristaan glanced at Keirya, "Maybe you or Echo should go get your mo-daoa or da. Someone stronger than me. Who can catch. Just in case."

He tried not to look worried, glancing back up the tree and attempting to judge just how far up he could get ... and whether or not he could carry Calli down with him safely.

"Try coming down, slowly, okay?"