George's Writing Section

The Tavern goes silent when Q'uonan enters with Woodberry. Over a dozen  people dressed in combinations of cloth, leather, and metal are seated at each table: Some alone, some in groups of two or three. Colorful weapons rest in holsters slung over the backs of each chair. The scent of sizzling, charred meat hovers all around. Fat candles housed in glass lanterns line each table, multiplying the orange warmth of the room. Stuffed heads, horns, and antlers of exotic animals hang from the walls all the way up to the second floor, where a wooden balcony separates the tall ceiling from a row of closed doors. The Tavern Chef sneers from a doorway behind the polished wooden bar on the right. He vanishes  with a grunt and calls for someone. Woodberry spots the girl from the window sitting alone at the farthest table in the left corner: Glaring at us with large, unblinking eyes framed by long brown hair. She wears a tattered red dress which may have been quite beautiful a gene...

Woodberry leans against one of the chains holding the Tavern sign up. She swings it back and forth. WOODBERRY: "Mama always warned us that humans were strange. They smell funny, demand gifts from you, ask all these questions..." NUGGET: "I assume most people haven't interacted with Faeriekind very often." WOODBERRY: "For good reason! Look over there. That one's been staring at us for the longest time." NUGGET: "Who?" WOODBERRY: " That girl, scrunched in the corner of that window. She isn't blinking. I think she wants to eat one of us." NUGGET:  "I doubt she sees me. It is no help that you are drawing attention to yourself." WOODBERRY: "I'm bored! This is the longest I've ever waited for anything in my entire liiiife!" ???:  "Oh? Looking for some adventure, little one?" Woodberry jumps behind the chain. The sign stops moving. A lean man with a chiseled...

The dirt road gives way to stone bricks divided by gravel. Q'uonan panting slows as he ascends the final slope to Bryn Colledig. His  gaze fixes on the dusty logs at his feet,  half-buried in the hill to form shallow stairs. Q'UONAN: "Do the people of the south not fear waste? They use many trees for building." WOODBERRY: "Isn't that what all humans do?" Q'UONAN: "The clans from which I come, we build with ice and stone. Wood is much valued for fire only, no building." Q'uonan slaps at his leathers, then ruffles hair violently, producing a cloud of dust, leaves, gnats and twigs. From the East, a delicious scent rolls down from a two-storied building with windows stained in the colors of sunset. Q'uonan stumbles toward it, passing Sir Soanso in the center of town, who faces a tall stone Monument, as promised, with his arms crossed. We hear the Barrel Knight muttering underneath his helmet. SIR SOANSO: "Hmm... Dom...

WOODBERRY: "Giddyap, Horsie! Leg it!" Q'UONAN: "Yaaaahhhhh... ugggghhh..." WOODBERRY: "Mush!" Q'uonan's sandals clap against a dusty road, surrounded by an ocean of overgrown hills. He groans climbing each slope and thunders down with careless stomps. At the summit of one especially steep incline, Woodberry shades her eyes with a tiny hand. WOODBERRY: "Look! Way over there, at that smoke! A real-life human village! At last! I tell ya, after all this sitting and bouncing, I could certainly use a break to stretch my wings..." With a primitive grunt, Q'uonan's pace intensifies. WOODBERRY: "Hey! Watch out!" The exhausted mount slams his full weight into what appears to be a scarecrow, wearing a barrel and an old war helmet, standing watch on the other side of a summit. SCARECROW: "OOF!" Q'UONAN: "AUUUUGH!" WOODBERRY: "EEK!" Lifting Nugget awa...