It was another glorious day on Surwood isle. The temperature wasn't insanely hot, but fresh and warming at the same time. Flowers seemed to spring about people's feet like laughter, and the slow drone of honey bees mixed in with the usual chatter that filled the small island during this time of year. It was practically impossible for anyone to be annoyed, or unhappy.

But Surwood isle had not counted on the powerful force that came from a small passive who was sitting on a log. Her shoulders were slumped, a scowl was formed on her face, and she looked positively taciturn. Wendy was painfully aware that the festival was going to be over at some point. This knowledge was with her every moment of the day, every hour, every second. That this place where her race didn't seem to matter (although Wendy was still not entirely convinced of this fact, and continued to be suspicious upon meeting new people, which did not add greatly to the quantity of friends she had made) was going to vanish.

And still, no jobs to be had. She looked, and asked (and avoided asking, a lot of times-- Wendy had a hard time approaching people about this and had been turned down so many times she felt splendidly discouraged) but wicks were poor, and had many mouths to feed. They didn't need the added weight of a passive whose only use was to be able to clean. The very idea was laughable.

Wendy scowled at a particularly happy looking flower and picked it resentfully, planning on giving the nasty little thing to Petra later.

If I have to go back to Brunhold I will kick and scream my way there. She thought petulantly.

"Well, hesta there, sourpuss!"

The cheerful, eternally perky sound of Jerzy's voice wafted across the camp, and Wendy saw him bounding up out of the corner of her eye. He sidled up beside her on the log without asking and clapped her gently on the back - he remembered that girls didn't like being manhandled, for the most part - with a grin.

"How's the day findin' ye, Venadi?" he asked.

Viator turned a corner just as Jerzy appeared. He had been... walking. As usual. Grinning at his friends, the older man slid across from them, folding himself to the ground easily.

"Aye! Ye seem t'be suckin' in all th' sunshine, Venadi m'gel" He noticed Jerzy's light pat, and the passive's dark eyes took a questioning slant. He was protective of his little Wendy, just as much as Adalare had been at school. But where she had been subtle, Viator found that part hard. She was his charge, no doubt about it. Yet he kept his grin wide and his brows straight. If Se liked Jerzy... well, he was a good bloke.

A breeze caught his hair, blowing it in his eyes, and as he brushed it away he reached forward and poked Wendy's arm. "C'mon, a lil'smile wouldn't kill ye."

"Viator, how goes it?" greeted Jerzy, happy to see anyone at all, really. He liked the look of the man; he was strong and very protective of Venadi. The fact that he was a passive hadn't escaped Jerzy; he expected that the wicks would be seeing a lot more passives in the times to come. Everyone wanted out of the cities.

Viator grinned brightly at the man, noticing the warmth in his bright eyes. For some reason, it made the passive's face warm and the friendly greeting he had been about to speak died on his lips. Instead, he smiled rather stupidly for a moment before coming back to a semblance of reality.

"Haha, it goes. Ye know how it kin be." Yep, if Wendy chose Jerzy he wouldn't be upset at all. he had a kindness and a wit to him that many lacked, and a good-natured stance. He was an all around upstanding young man. He shook of the warmth from his cheeks, lips half curled in a grin, half puckered in confusion that he'd blushed at all.

Turning back to 'Venadi,' Viator leaned back on his elbows and prodded her foot with one of his own, just for the hell of it. He liked getting Wendy riled up; at least then she wasn't mopey.

It was the foot nudge that did it. Her fist flashed out and hit Viator in the arm. "Ass." She spat, glowering at him and folding her arms. She decided today would be a good day to ignore him.

"The day, Jerzy," She began, swiveling her head "Is finding me as it usually finds me." She fixed a bright brown eye on him looking something like a sparrow. A sparrow with blue hair. "Worried. The festival is ending soon...Or it will. And I can't go back to--"

Wendy paused. With a small shrug she went on, "Y'know. Brunhold. I can't risk it. The others that've run off haven't...done what I did." She twirled the flower she had picked quietly and sighed. Her hair was starting to get in her eyes. She had briefly considered cutting her hair again and maybe doing something interesting, before she remembered she wasn't actually a wick, and that her hair would most likely look quite ridiculous like that.

And Alioe knew she was tired of ridiculous.

"I don't know what I'm going to do...Clock it..."

Jerzy sobered up a little as he listened to her problems, blowing a tuft of red hair out of his face and nodding sympathetically.

"You 'n' me both, beata," he said. "Ent got any idea where I'm headin', 'cept that it ent with the Laughing Sky. I figure I'll travel around in my kint for a bit, maybe decide whenever I want to. Never did like deadlines. Yer welcome to stick with me for a while. I'll take ye wherever ye need to go. Spoke's honor." He raised his right hand and saluted.

He turned to Viator, nodding. "Ye takin' off to the sea again, brunno? Or will ye be treadin' terra firma for a while?"

Viator listened to Wendy's speech with a calm, vaguely concerned expression. The punch hadn't bothered him overmuch; he was used to Wendy's abuses. She was a very physical person, and her displeasure often found its mark in Viator's lanky frame.


Wendy's concerns were his as well. There was nothing for him to do after the festival; it had been whim that had brought him in the first place, and whim that he would allow to lead him now.

"Oi, what he said, Lassie. I'm wit ye til th'end." Jerzy's offer seemed like a good one, and though he'd let the girl decide for herself, his expression visibly brightened at the offer


Shaking shaggy gold hair, Viator met Jerzy's eyes with a shrug. "Nah, I ent thinkin' to go back seaside. I'm stickin' wit Venadi, where ever th'lass may go. I went ten years without her; if I can help it, I ent gonna leave til I haveta." He patted her knee warmly, eyes semi-penitent. "If she'll have an old codger like me fer a stalwart friend, that is." His eyes went between the passive girl and the wick, and he was quite certain that if they traveled together he would be a very content man.

"Oh, will you?" The passive brightened considerably before her face fell again. Take her where?

At Via's words she rolled her eyes. "You're a sap." Wendy grumbled, moving his hand off her knee. "And I'll not have it." Although she was, at times, comfortable enough to express her feelings, she could hardly do that in front of other people. Even if those other people were Jerzy.

"Why aren't you going back with the laughing sky, Jerzy? Aren't they your um...tribe?" It seemed slightly bizarre to Wendy when wick's left their tribe. Wasn't the point of a tribe to be like family? You never left your family...right?

Er...outside of Brunhold, that is.

"I don't even know where I'd have you take me..."

Jerzy looked very uncomfortable. "Eh, it's a long story," he said, smiling lopsidedly. He wasn't really in the mood to talk about his problems, but he felt it was his sworn duty as a wick to defend the concept of tribal life. "They're still me family, of course. I just need a bit of space right now. When I want to return, they'll welcome me back with almost all-the-way-open arms.

"Trust me, in the whole great wide world there are plenty of people worse off than your Jerzy, Venadi. You look to be one of 'em right now. But ye could do worse than Via n' me. There's all sorts of rougher ruffians ye could've fallen in with. Why, I could just see ye as a Bad Brother, beatin' pirates with a cudgel for coin."

He grinned. Wendy was most certainly his 'bestest friend,'as some of the lassies used to say to each other. She kept his head on straight when he wanted to get too mushy about the edges. She might break past the exterior and dredge up old hurts, but she also was a balm like no other.

They were family.


Viator looked at Jerzy, realizing that the man's offer was more than politeness. He meant it. He could go with them. Suddenly, the passive;s blood decided to go haywire, running hot and cold and electric through him. He was hard pressed not to fidget, and to still the twitches, turned about and located a twig and drew in the dirt.


Viator's face twisted in both humor and disgust at the mention of pirates and the Harbor. Normally, if it were any other group of ruffians he would have joined in the joke automatically. As it was he had to hold back some very disparaging comments. He dropped the stick with an unintelligible syllable and unfolded his legs, trying not to say something but having difficulty.

"Oi. Glad yer wit us, Venadi. If ye were a Brother I'd hunt ye down m'self and beat some sense inte ye afore anythin' bad happened t'ye. Bloody land sharks." He hated them, hated their greed and bloodthirstiness. They were merely coastal pirates. However, it was too dark a topic for the sunshine, and he quickly forced a grin. "But ye could do it, Lassie. I kin see ye oustin' Sparrow wit nuthin but a mop and yer apron."

He was avoiding the subject of the future, and he only hoped that it would be momentarily forgotten. For him, each day was a gift; he should have died in Brunnhold, and he knew it. He was already living on borrowed time, and when looked at like that, the future seemed a bit less important than today.

"I'm fine. I'm not worse off than you. I'm better off than I've ever been." She said, setting her mouth stubbornly, "I just happened to have hit a bump in this uh...road...I'm traveling on..." Oooo do another lame metaphor! You'll look real smart! Wendy was glad when Via took Jerzy up on the pirate thing. She snorted and then giggled. "Me?? A pirate? With a sword!? I'd more likely fly! You're both moony."

The image made her smile, even if it was silly. Her gloom returned soon and although her face was still smiling simply because she'd forgotten to tell it to stop, her eyes were distant. "Vienda..." She said suddenly, "We could go to Vienda. I met a girl from there a few days ago who I uh...may've... ticked off a bit..." Wendy looked guilty for a moment and then went on, "But she might point us in the right direction...if I asked nice and apologetic-like."

"I can drop ye off there," said Jerzy tentatively, "but they won't let me in the city, m'afraid."

"What?! Why not?" Wendy stared at him and then narrowed her eyes, "What did you do?" She asked suspiciously.

Jerzy laughed, tempted to concoct a wild story about how he played a prank on the city guards, and shook his head. "They banned the wicks from Vienda," he told her. "About a month ago now. Ye can only get inside the walls if yer a human or have a writ of residence. But you two'd pass for humans easy enough."

"I'm not human." She snapped, and then covered her mouth. "Oh. Sorry. Sorry. Bad um. Habit." Her face turned red and she cleared her throat, ashamed. Petra was right...she really was too defensive, sometimes. "Even if you just get us there I'll be more than in your debt..."

Wendy heard a sigh come from behind where she was sitting. She didn't immediately recognise the wick that had made it, as they were standing in a shadow. It was a very Black Handed way to behave, lurking and loitering. Something suspiciously like a sniffle danced through the air.

Petra took a step forward and the darkness was lost. The light shone off her red hair and she looked, perhaps for the first time since Wendy had known her, old. There was sadness in her eyes but she was smiling.

"Hey, Venadi." She said, looking as though she wanted to say more but was unable to.

"Yeah, hey Petra." Wendy said with a joyless half smile. She didn't have much to say either. "Just talking about y'know. After the festival."

[ugh sfsp]

"Oes, making plans and all." Petra was a fairly formidable looking woman, muscled and tall, but today she looked small. "No harm in that."

She moved to sit in front of the other folk that Wendy had gathered to her. She rubbed her nose in a very un-ladylike fashion and then snorted. She understood that Wendy couldn't return to Brunnhold. She just hadn't wanted her to run from Petra like she'd had to run from that awful school.

"Where're ye thinkin' of going, chip?" Petra asked, trying to look encouraging.

"Um..." She trailed off nervously, looking unhappy. "I was thinking maybe Vienda... Because they got a few rich gollies that'll hire me. And I can pass for human pretty easy." Her hands went to her hair and tugged at it anxiously. "Jerzy's offered to take me. What um....what do you think?" Wendy glanced at Petra anxiously. She truly cared for the woman, and didn't want her to think she was abandoning her...the memory of her stupid run away attempt still made her stomach twist.

Petra nodded slowly, waiting for her voice to return.

"Vienda would suit you." Petra said, biting her lip and releasing it. "It's a good town to get lost in. Lots of humans."

Petra tried to say it as though it was a good thing. She might have been in love with one but her heart belonged to the tribes as much as it belonged to Rosie.

"You'd write?" She asked, trying not to look too saddened about it.

"I wouldn't dream of not writing." She told her with another tight smile. This was getting embarrassing, especially with Via and Jerzy here. "Okay. I guess now that that's settled I'm going to um. Go take a walk." Wendy got up, blushing a little. She began to walk away from the trio quickly, stumbling a little when her bare feet would catch on rocks.

Jerzy glanced at Petra and Viator, not really sure what to do or say. He rubbed his hair, causing it to stick straight up in the back. Venadi was a complicated creature, and he wasn't entirely sure he had the fine-tuned tact to handle her right now.

"Maybe ye should go talk to her," he said to Petra, adding "ma'am" respectfully. "She loves ye somethin' awful. Must be feelin' a lot of pain right now."

((sfsp))