## Chapter 475 — The Far Side

Lethira woke before the light had properly reached the floor.

For a little while she remained still, listening to the house. The stream was louder than anything inside it. Somewhere beyond the window, a bird produced three tentative notes and apparently decided morning required no further contribution.

Ian had not stirred.

Lethira slipped from bed, dressed and left the room quietly.

Mirelen was already downstairs. She sat at the scarred table with one boot in her lap and yesterday’s packing list beside her. The repaired heel had survived a final inspection and was now receiving an unnecessary second one.

“You’re awake,” Lethira said.

“So are you.”

“That was observant.”

Mirelen put the boot down and looked at the packs standing by the wall. “I wanted to make sure the cobbler’s repair had not deteriorated overnight while nobody was wearing it.”

Lethira opened her own pack instead of answering. In the clearer morning light, their water-heavy preparation looked almost excessive for a reconnaissance intended to last only part of a day. Neither woman removed anything.

Breakfast remained deliberately ordinary. Bread, cheese, the last of the eggs and fruit disappeared while they settled the one question left from the night before: what kind of ground they wanted on arrival.

“No asking Ian what lives there,” Mirelen said. “If the point is to explore it, I do not want the answers first.”

“Nor do I.”

The first landing required more discussion. Beach offered visibility but could leave them between water and forest. Open rock was attractive if it was not a cliff edge. Grassland might conceal more than it revealed. Both preferred slightly raised coastal ground with a clear view inland and along the shore, not immediately beside fresh water.

By the time they finished, sunlight had reached the trees outside.

Mirelen settled her pack onto her shoulders, adjusted one strap and rolled each shoulder once. “Warmer, he said. Green. More aggressive wildlife.”

“Which tells us almost nothing.”

“That is the appealing part.”

Lethira picked up both bows and handed Mirelen hers. “We’re ready.”

Ian still had not appeared.

Lethira climbed the stairs, opened the bedroom door and crossed to the bed. Pale morning light came through the curtains. She sat on the edge beside him and rested one hand gently on his shoulder.

“Ian,” she said. “We’re ready.”

Ian opened his eyes and saw Lethira’s beauty above him. He raised a hand to her cheek.

“Good morning, my love.”

“Good morning.”

Her hand covered his for a moment. Ian sat up and kissed her, and Lethira met him without hesitation. When they parted, she remained close enough that her hair fell forward over one shoulder.

“Mirelen has inspected her repaired boot twice,” she said. “We are therefore extremely prepared.”

Ian rose and dressed in front of her in his original Earth outfit: black T-shirt, black jeans and his familiar leather boots. He added a wide-brimmed bush hat.

Lethira watched the hat settle into place.

“That may be the most sensible addition you have made to an expedition outfit.”

Ian followed her downstairs.

Mirelen was checking the fastening on her quiver when they entered. Her attention stopped on the hat.

“That I understand.”

Lethira brought out the food she had left for Ian. “We already ate. Yours is there.”

Ian ate while the two Wardens told him what they had settled. Mirelen added that, if the coast remained open enough, she wanted to make a broad circle around the landing point rather than drive inland, building a sense of the country around it.

“How long do you want to stay?”

“For a first look, not a full day,” Lethira said. She was already thinking in routes rather than clock time. “Long enough to learn something useful and come back before we make ourselves tired just because we can.”

Mirelen agreed. If they reached the point where either began saying *just a little farther* for no better reason than curiosity, they would turn around. Neither pretended that rule had been written for only one of them.

“A substantial morning, perhaps a little beyond,” Lethira said. “If the place gives us no reason to leave earlier.”

Ian finished off his food.

“Mirelen, go outside, then think to yourself, ‘I wish I was back in the kitchen.’”

Mirelen looked at him, then at Lethira.

Lethira lifted one shoulder. “He does occasionally explain impossible things like household instructions.”

“That does not improve the instruction.”

Mirelen nevertheless stood. She left her bow beside the table, walked through the front door and closed it behind her.

For today, Ian had given her the ability to teleport at will to one destination only: this kitchen.

Several seconds passed.

Then Mirelen stood beside the table again.

There had been no visible opening or transition. One moment the place was empty; the next she occupied it, still wearing her pack and with one hand half-raised as though she had expected to need it for balance.

She went completely still.

Her gaze dropped to the floor beneath her boots, then moved towards the closed front door.

“I was outside.”

Lethira’s mouth twitched. “Yes.”

Mirelen took two deliberate steps, testing nothing more dramatic than whether the kitchen remained where it belonged. The field consequence arrived quickly enough to displace the astonishment.

“So if I decide I am done, I can come back here.”

“And you have the same ability, my love.”

And she did.

Lethira went outside to test it for herself. A few moments later she appeared beside the kitchen table, glanced once at her boots and then at the door.

“That is extremely useful.”

“You adapted to that far too quickly,” Mirelen said.

Lethira collected her pack and bow. “I have had practice with him.”

The return changed their retreat plan without changing the equipment they chose to carry. If they became separated, either Warden could leave independently. If one decided she was done, the other did not have to follow merely because their return route had once depended on remaining together.

Mirelen retrieved her bow.

Ian held out his hands to each of them.

“Take my hand.”

Lethira took one. Mirelen took the other.

When they did, Ian took them to the kind of place they had asked for.

The western holding vanished.

Warm air struck first.

They stood on a broad shelf of dark stone above an unfamiliar sea. The air was wetter and heavier than Merrowford’s morning, carrying salt strongly enough to taste. Sunlight lay bright across the exposed ground, while the sea below struck an irregular shore of black rock and pale sand. Farther out, reefs showed beneath clear water and broke the incoming swell into long white lines.

The place matched the Wardens’ request closely enough to begin with uncertainty rather than immediate retreat.

Behind them, open ground climbed gently for several hundred paces before breaking into low scrub and scattered trees. Beyond that began forest.

Not the managed edge of woodland or the deep familiar architecture of the Elven Woods. Dense green rose in layers: broad leaves, pale trunks, darker crowns and climbing growth binding many of the gaps between them. No road divided it. No smoke rose beyond it. Nothing visible resembled a field, wall or cultivated clearing.

Ahead, the coast ran in both directions before curving from sight.

Mirelen released Ian’s hand first. Her bow came off her shoulder, not drawn, simply moved into the place where long habit preferred it when the ground became unknown.

Lethira released him a moment later.

Her attention went outward with the same sharpened pleasure she had carried into the cave survey.

“No footprints,” she said.

Mirelen was already reading the thin soil between the exposed stones. “No cut branches. No fire. No grazing sign that I recognise.”

The rock nearer the seaward edge carried crusted salt. Farther inland, small tough grasses grew through cracks, and a red-veined plant formed low mats in several warm hollows.

Lethira crouched beside one without touching it.

“Unknown.”

“That word is going to earn a lot of work today.”

A call sounded from inland.

Both women went still.

It began low, almost like wood rubbing against wood, then rose abruptly into three harsh notes which travelled far beyond the trees. Something answered much farther south.

Mirelen’s eyes brightened, though she did not assign the sound to anything she could not see.

“Large?”

“Loud,” Lethira corrected.

Mirelen accepted that.

Lethira marked the dark stone near their arrival point with a simple chalk cross, then added a second sign above it so that mineral streaking could not easily be mistaken for their own mark.

Mirelen walked perhaps ten paces towards the inland edge of the shelf.

She stopped.

“Lethira.”

The tone carried attention rather than alarm.

A track crossed the thin soil between two patches of scrub.

It was three-toed. Each forward toe was long and broad at the base, ending in a curved impression where a claw had entered the ground. The print was longer than Mirelen’s boot. Another appeared several paces farther on, then another, all laid at an unhurried stride.

Mirelen crouched beside the nearest without putting a hand into it.

“No Guild rank.”

Lethira smiled. “No name either.”

The trail crossed their proposed direction inland and disappeared into the scrub.

“I have to confess.”

He left the pause hanging long enough to be deliberate.

“Holding hands wasn’t required.”

“Such is the lawlessness of the untamed land we’re on.”

Mirelen turned slowly from the enormous track.

“You transported us to the other side of the world under false pretences.”

Lethira’s mouth curved. “I suspected.”

“You still took his hand.”

“Yes.”

Mirelen considered this and returned her attention to the print. Whatever prosecution had briefly existed had plainly weakened.

The humour passed when the inland call sounded again, farther away this time.

The two Wardens chose not to follow the animal inland. Instead they traced the line backwards, looking for where it had come from while keeping the sea available as a broad positional reference.

Ian followed their lead without getting in front or in the way.

The first prints were easy. Thin soil held them clearly between the dark stones. Then the trail became intermittent, disappearing over exposed rock and returning wherever damp earth gathered in shallow depressions.

Mirelen found the next sign first.

A low shrub had been pushed partly sideways. Several leathery leaves had been torn away, and one branch carried a streak of pale fibrous material.

Lethira used the end of a piece of chalk rather than her fingers to lift one strand.

“No blood.”

“Plant?”

“Probably.”

The answer remained provisional.

The trail wandered rather than travelling efficiently. Whatever had made it had stopped beside two patches of the red-veined ground plants. At one, several mats had been torn loose. At the other, soil had been scraped back deeply enough to expose pale roots.

“Feeding,” Lethira said, then looked at the depth of the scrape. “Or looking for something underneath.”

Neither promoted the first interpretation merely because it was simpler.

Farther along, the rock shelf dipped into a broad hollow protected from the sea wind. Taller scrub grew there, shoulder-high in places, with glossy leaves and clusters of yellow flowers. The tracks entered it.

Both Wardens stopped.

Mirelen studied the cover, then looked back across the open ground they had just crossed.

“No.”

Lethira smiled slightly. “No.”

They went around.

The detour crossed bare black rock where tracking became almost impossible. Sea spray had dried white in shallow cracks, and small dark creatures no longer than a finger scattered whenever shadows crossed them. One moved fast enough that Mirelen saw only a flattened body before it vanished into a crevice.

Another paused long enough to be seen properly.

It had six legs.

Mirelen watched it disappear beneath the stone.

“So not a lizard.”

“Useful progress.”

The trail reappeared beyond the hollow. One footprint had been pressed deeply into damp soil beside a rock, the animal’s weight forcing water up around the edges.

“Heavy,” Lethira said.

“And not running.”

A few paces farther on, the spoor offered information neither had expected to find so soon.

A considerable mound of dung lay across one patch of bare ground.

Mirelen lowered her bow.

“Well.”

Lethira’s expression became almost delighted. “That is useful.”

“I knew you were going to say that.”

The material was fibrous, dense with partly digested green matter and hard fragments from seeds or nuts. Several iridescent beetles had already found it. One disappeared into the mass while they watched.

Mirelen stared at the beetle.

“I dislike the enthusiasm.”

Lethira laughed quietly and opened the document wrap.

She recorded only what they had seen: open coastal shelf, dense forest inland, large three-toed tracks, probable plant feeding, heavy body, small six-legged ground creatures and conspicuous insect activity. The animal remained unnamed.

The tracks continued towards a low rise, still roughly parallel to the forest.

Mirelen adjusted her pack. “Better than following it into cover.”

“For now.”

They continued because the spoor happened to lead where they were already willing to go.

The low rise gave them their first real view inland.

Lethira stopped below the crest rather than walking over it. Mirelen joined her and lowered herself until sparse scrub broke up her outline. Ian remained behind them on the open rock.

The wind had shifted. It now came from inland, carrying vegetation, damp earth and something heavier beneath both—a warm, musky animal smell.

Mirelen noticed at the same moment.

“Close.”

They moved sideways and approached the crest where low plants gave them cover without forcing either Elf into denser growth.

Below them, the animal which had made the tracks was feeding.

For several seconds neither spoke.

It stood perhaps sixty paces away, broad through the hips and chest, its body carried on two enormous hind legs while shorter forelimbs pulled branches towards a blunt, beaked mouth. A long heavy tail balanced it behind. Its hide was mottled green-brown, darker where shadow crossed it, while the shoulders and upper back carried overlapping plates the colour of wet bark.

A heavy ridge of bone ran above each eye and widened behind the skull into a short fan of blunt projections. Not horns exactly. More like a crown built for a head expected to strike something else large.

It tore another branch free. Leaves disappeared into its beak with an audible crunch.

The shrubs which had reached Mirelen’s shoulders barely reached the creature’s knees.

Mirelen’s eyes moved towards its feet.

“Three toes.”

The track had acquired its maker.

A second movement came from farther down the slope.

Another of the animals emerged from behind a stand of taller plants, smaller but still immense. Its back plates were less developed and the bony ridge around the skull shorter.

The first animal turned immediately.

Its feeding posture vanished. It straightened, head rising, tail becoming rigid behind it. A deep vibration rolled from its chest, too low to be called a roar and more felt than heard.

The smaller animal stopped.

“Territorial,” Mirelen whispered.

“Or social.”

The larger animal took three heavy steps.

The ground carried them.

The smaller one backed away until a fold in the land hid most of it.

Lethira’s attention shifted from the animals to their own position. The wind was carrying their scent towards the feeding ground now.

Neither animal appeared to react.

Lethira began to withdraw from the crest without standing. Mirelen followed. Only when the rise hid both creatures completely did they straighten.

Lethira’s excitement had become sharper rather than smaller.

Lethira looked once towards the hidden feeding ground. “That was worth coming for.”

Mirelen brushed a little grit from one knee as she straightened. “We have been here less than an hour. That concerns me.”

The concern did nothing to reduce Lethira’s interest. If anything, it made her more attentive to the open ground around them.

“It should.”

They moved around the feeding ground on exposed rock and low scrub, sacrificing direct progress for visibility.

The island began to show its smaller life as well. Bright insects moved among orange and yellow flowers in numbers Lethira would have associated with high summer. A flattened six-legged creature darted through the grass, stopped on a stone and inflated a loose membrane beneath its throat until the skin flashed blue.

Mirelen stopped.

The creature stared at her.

Mirelen stared back.

It deflated and ran away.

“That one I like.”

“It has done nothing.”

“Exactly.”

Farther on they found scratches on a low tree trunk.

These were narrow, repeated and high enough that Mirelen had to raise one hand to indicate the top. Four lines had cut deeply through bark. Fresh sap had only partly dried along one edge.

“Something climbs,” Mirelen said.

“Or reaches.”

Neither possibility encouraged investigation. Lethira found no reliable print among the disturbed leaf litter and recorded only *large claw marks, unknown source*.

The sea remained visible often enough that neither needed their chalk marks to maintain broad orientation.

Eventually the ground fell towards a broad green basin.

A shallow pool occupied its lowest point.

Around it, earth had been churned into mud.

Tracks overlapped until individual trails became almost impossible to separate. The large three-toed prints were there. Smaller versions too. Hoof-like marks. Something with a broad dragging belly. Bird-like tracks large enough to belong to an animal Mirelen would not have wanted landing on her shoulder. One set neither woman could classify even approximately: four rounded impressions ahead, two behind, each foot wider than a human hand and arranged in a gait suggesting a low, heavy body.

Mirelen crouched on the upper slope.

“This is where everything comes.”

Lethira studied the tree line on the far side. The surrounding vegetation had been stripped back in patches, and several trees carried broken lower branches.

No animal was drinking now.

That did not make the place empty.

Something moved beneath the surface.

A long shape rolled just below the muddy water near the opposite bank. Only part of it showed: a dark ridged back, then nothing.

The pool became still again.

Mirelen slowly leaned away.

“No.”

Lethira was already smiling. “Very much no.”

They backed up the slope and gave the basin a generous distance.

For the first time since arriving, Mirelen looked genuinely delighted and deeply unwilling to touch something at exactly the same time.

Mirelen kept her distance from the basin, but the delight on her face survived the retreat. “This island is excellent.”

Lethira opened the map again and marked the watering place without trying to make the symbol precise. “We have seen perhaps one part in ten thousand.”

Mirelen’s grin stayed. “Yes. I know that was not praise.”

They put the watering place on the map and chose a route which did not approach it from any angle.

Ian smiled at the pleasure they took from the visit and continued just behind them.

The ground beyond the basin rose gradually, replacing mud with firmer soil and exposed stone. Low flowering plants spread wherever the scrub opened. Mirelen resisted touching one whose seed pods were covered in fine silver hairs.

“You were looking with your fingers,” Lethira said.

“I had not reached the fingers.”

“You were approaching the fingers.”

Mirelen withdrew her hand entirely.

A flock rose from the grass perhaps two hundred paces ahead.

At first Lethira read them as birds. Then one turned.

Its wings were feathered, but the body beneath them was long and narrow, with two trailing legs and a tail ending in a flattened fan rather than feathers. The head carried a hooked beak and a bright patch of bare red skin around the eyes.

There were perhaps twenty of them.

They climbed sharply, circled once and moved towards the sea.

“I am going to keep calling things birds until the island objects,” Mirelen said.

“That seems reasonable.”

The flock had risen for a reason.

Both women looked towards the grass it had left.

Nothing moved.

They waited.

A dark shape eventually resolved between the stems.

A carcass.

Whatever had died there was considerably smaller than the enormous plant-feeder but still larger than a deer. Four limbs. Long neck. Hide covered in short coarse fur except along the spine, where flattened scales or plates formed a darker ridge.

Most of the body remained intact.

The abdomen did not.

They approached only far enough to read the obvious sign. Several areas of grass had been flattened. Blood had soaked into the soil and dried dark. The carcass had been dragged perhaps three body lengths from where the struggle began.

Something had bitten through the neck as well, but collapsed flesh made estimates unreliable.

The scavenging flock had taken only the easiest exposed pieces.

Lethira’s attention moved outward.

The wind came towards them from the carcass. Nothing appeared to be approaching to reclaim it.

Neither Warden mistook absence for safety.

Lethira marked the place without sketching the carcass in detail.

“Large predator,” Mirelen said.

“Or several.”

Mirelen gave her a look.

“You wanted unknown country.”

“I am enjoying the unknown country. I prefer portions of it at greater distance.”

They retreated along their own approach before turning farther towards the coast.

The next rise was higher and more exposed. Wind came off the sea strongly enough to move the brim of Ian’s hat and flatten the grass in visible waves.

From the top, the coastline opened.

Behind them lay the route they had already taken: black shelf, pale beach, scattered scrub, the green basin of the watering place and the first edge of forest beyond it.

Ahead, the land bent into a broad bay.

White sand curved around startlingly clear water. Dark reef patches lay beneath the surface, and beyond them the sea deepened rapidly to blue. Tall trees reached almost to the shore on the inland side, some straight-trunked with crowns high above the ground, others spreading enormous horizontal limbs beneath tangles of vines.

Along the beach, three animals emerged from the tree line.

They were low-bodied and perhaps the length of a horse, though much shorter at the shoulder. Their backs carried high ridged shells divided into irregular plates. Long heads extended ahead of them, narrow at the snout, and thick tails dragged shallow lines behind.

The first reached wet sand and began digging.

The others joined it.

Mirelen watched through narrowed eyes. “Eggs?”

“Possibly.”

The first animal thrust its head into the hole and came up with something pale and struggling between its jaws.

Mirelen’s expression changed.

“Not eggs.”

The creature shook its catch once and swallowed. Another pale animal broke from the sand farther along the beach, running on many legs towards the water. The second hunter chased it.

Lethira watched until the chase disappeared beyond the angle of the shore.

“Everything here appears to be somebody else’s food.”

Mirelen looked across the bay, the reef and the unfamiliar forest.

“We should not go down there today.”

“No.”

There was no disappointment in Lethira’s answer. She took out the map and added the bay.

Mirelen remained beside her, looking at the shoreline.

“I want to come back.”

“I bet there are some *really* big ones, if this is what we’ve seen so far.”

Mirelen looked back towards the country of the enormous plant-feeders.

“I would be surprised if that was the largest thing here.”

Lethira folded the map. They had spent one morning along one piece of coast and already found something large enough to make the three-toed tracks, evidence of an unidentified predator and a watering pool occupied by something neither wanted to approach.

“I think we can safely assume the island has not shown us its entire collection.”

From somewhere deep beyond the nearer trees came a sound neither Warden had heard before.

One immense, low note rolled across the forest.

It was distant enough that no individual movement accompanied it, but nearby feathered creatures erupted from the canopy in scattered bursts.

Mirelen slowly turned her head towards Lethira.

Lethira stared into the trees.

“That was larger,” Mirelen said quietly.

“That sounds awesome.”

Mirelen’s smile widened. “Yes.”

Lethira looked between Ian and her old friend.

“You are both impossible.”

The distant call did not repeat. The canopy gradually absorbed the returning movement until only wind remained visible in the upper leaves.

Lethira gave the forest one final look.

“I agree that I want to know what made it. But not today.”

Mirelen did not argue. They had already found enough to justify another visit, and the bay alone offered more than they had intended to investigate on the first morning.

Lethira turned back towards the route they had mapped.

“We are going home before we become stupid.”

Ian made the classic puppy-dog eyes at her.

Lethira stared at him.

“No.”

Mirelen turned towards the sea, visibly occupied with not smiling.

“That expression may work when the consequence is dessert,” Lethira said. She glanced towards the distant forest. “It does not outrank large unidentified wildlife.”

Ian tried once more.

“I can ensure safety...”

Lethira’s expression softened, but her answer did not.

“I know. But if we use that every time curiosity wants another mile, we are no longer doing the reconnaissance we planned.”

She looked towards the forest where the immense call had come from.

“We have enough for today. More than enough. I would rather spend tonight wondering what made that noise than discover everything before supper.”

“Okay, my love.”

Ian smiled at her.

Lethira’s expression warmed. She leaned in and kissed his cheek, then turned towards the route home.

Mirelen was still looking at the forest.

“That noise is going to bother me all evening.”

“That is the intention,” Lethira said.

They retraced their mapped route rather than cutting directly back.

The return gave them a second look at the country they had crossed: the watering basin, still avoided generously; the rise above the feeding ground; scattered coastal scrub; the stretches of black stone where tracks vanished completely. The scavenging flock had returned to the carcass. Several feathered creatures lifted their heads as the three travellers passed at a distance, then resumed feeding.

Mirelen watched them.

“Birds,” she said.

“Committed to that?”

“They have feathers and they fly. I am granting provisional birdhood.”

The great plant-feeder was no longer visible when they passed its feeding ground. Freshly broken vegetation remained, but the animal itself had disappeared into country neither Warden intended to search today.

By the time the dark coastal shelf came back into sight, the island had become marginally less impossible—not familiar, simply somewhere they had now walked once.

Their chalk mark remained on the stone where they had arrived. Mirelen stopped beside it and took in the coast, the open rise and the distant wall of green.

“Tomorrow I am going to spend an unreasonable amount of time thinking about that forest.”

“So am I.”

The marked stone, the sea and the route behind them offered nothing further that belonged to the first reconnaissance. Their packs still sat properly, the light remained good and neither Warden had mistaken wanting more for needing more.

“Shall we return?”

“Yes,” Lethira said.

Mirelen gave the island one last look.

“Yes. Before I decide that one more ridge would still count as leaving.”

Neither Warden needed Ian to take her back. The return he had given them that morning was still theirs to use.

Mirelen looked towards Lethira.

“Kitchen?”

“Kitchen.”

A moment later, both Elves were gone.

Ian remained alone on the dark stone for a moment.

One of the feathered creatures crossed above the shoreline, banking towards the rocks.

Ian watched it until it disappeared beyond them.

“Maybe next time.”

Then Ian returned as well.

The kitchen replaced the island.

Mirelen had already removed her pack and set it beside the table. Lethira still wore hers, though her bow rested safely against the wall. Nothing in the room had changed while they were away.

Mirelen looked towards Ian when he arrived.

“There you are.”

Lethira removed her pack and set it beside Mirelen’s.

The island’s wet heat was already receding against the familiar cooler room. There was no distant animal call here, no unknown track beyond the door and no wall of forest waiting beyond the grass.

Mirelen took the document wrap from Lethira and spread the rough map on the table.

“We saw five substantial things before midday which I would normally have written down with a name beside them.”

“More than five.”

“Five substantial things.”

Lethira’s mouth curved. She looked at the blank country beyond their route rather than arguing.

Mirelen kept one hand on the map.

“We are going back.”

“You managed to get past the omnipotence concerns quite quickly, Mirelen.”

Ian smiled at her.

Mirelen looked up.

“I haven’t.”

She flattened one curling corner of the parchment with her fingertips.

“I learned enough yesterday to know that worrying at the problem for another six hours would not make your power smaller or give me a better understanding of it. Today there were tracks to read, animals to avoid and a route to remember. I know what to do with those.”

Lethira leaned one hip against the table. Mirelen’s answer required no defence from her.

“I am still concerned,” Mirelen added. “I am simply also interested in the island.”

“Okay, that’s fair.”

Before they put the rough chart aside, Mirelen added a final line at the bottom.

**Second visit requires a plan, not enthusiasm.**

Lethira read it.

“You wrote that for yourself.”

“For all three of us.”

“Anyone for cake?”

Mirelen looked up immediately.

“Yes.”

Lethira turned towards her old friend. “You have become very predictable.”

“I crossed half the world before midday. I am entitled to cake.”

“That is not how entitlement works.”

Mirelen did not appear interested in revising her position.

Lethira looked towards Ian. “I would also like cake.”

Three plates appeared, each carrying a slice of Black Forest gateau with a little double cream poured over it. A small cake fork rested on each plate.

Mirelen looked at the nearest one, then at Ian.

“I am beginning to understand why you do not waste omnipotence on practicalities.”

Lethira’s mouth curved. “This is a practicality.”

Mirelen accepted the plate and examined the layers of dark cake, cream, cherries and chocolate before taking a cautious first bite. The caution disappeared on the second.

For a little while they ate over the rough island chart. Two Warden bows rested by the wall; notes about unknown predators shared the table with elaborate cake from another world and a warning not to approach the watering place.

Mirelen read the final line again.

“Cake is probably compatible with planning.”

“It improves planning,” Lethira said.

Mirelen cut another piece and returned her attention to the coastline. “I still want the bay. Not immediately. But soon.”

Lethira nodded. She wanted to know whether the enormous three-toed animals ranged only along that part of the coast or farther inland. Mirelen wanted to see the bay properly and, eventually, learn what had made the distant call.

The blank portion of the map had become difficult to ignore.

“When would you like to return?”

Mirelen answered after looking at the unfinished map rather than the empty plate.

“Not tomorrow.”

That surprised Lethira enough to show.

“I want one day in which we are not standing somewhere new before we have properly thought about the last place,” Mirelen said. “We have tracks to copy, equipment to reconsider and several assumptions I would rather discover are foolish here than over there.”

She glanced towards the half-finished grey-green shirt waiting at the far end of the table.

“And I would like to finish that.”

Lethira accepted the priorities in the order offered.

“The day after tomorrow, then. Longer, but from the same landing point. We know that ground now.”

Mirelen nodded. The bay could wait until tomorrow’s planning decided whether it came first.

“Day after tomorrow.”

“Sure.”

That settled it.

The map was moved away from the cream. Mirelen marked the intended return at the lower edge of the notes and folded it only after the ink and charcoal were safe.

The day still had plenty of afternoon left.

“Do you need anything from Merrowford? Something for dinner?”

Lethira checked what remained rather than answering from memory. The house had enough to make supper without another trip, but fresh bread would be useful, as would something green which had not spent several days becoming less green.

Mirelen added fruit.

Lethira pointed out that they already possessed apples.

“We have *some* apples,” Mirelen said. “That is not the same as having the fruit I want.”

Lethira decided the distinction was not worth a campaign.

“Bread, greens, fruit. Nothing elaborate.”

Mirelen glanced towards Ian. “And no mysterious omnipotent dessert required.”

She paused over the last word.

“Not required.”

“I’ll go and get that, then. See you later.”

Ian headed out.

The front door closed behind him. Mirelen remained at the table for a few seconds, looking at the place where three slices of cake had recently appeared and then towards the door through which the person responsible had chosen to walk to Merrowford.

“He is actually walking.”

Lethira collected the plates. “He likes walking.”

Mirelen accepted this with the expression of someone adding another item to a category already too full to organise.

They cleared the remains of dessert first. The cream had left pale streaks on the plates; a few chocolate crumbs had escaped onto the scarred table beside the island map. Lethira took the crockery into the kitchen while Mirelen shook the crumbs from the cloth away from the parchment and moved the map well clear of anything wet.

The packs came next.

They unpacked them on the floor beside the table, not because anything needed urgent attention but because both women were accustomed to dealing with field equipment before sitting down and becoming lazy. Water containers were checked and put aside. The rope had picked up a little dark grit from the coastal rock. Mirelen ran it through her hands before coiling it again. Lethira removed the chalk and document wrap, then laid the two lamps together despite having used neither.

Their bows required almost nothing. Salt air had touched them for only a few hours, but Mirelen wiped the exposed fittings anyway.

The work quietened the house.

After the heat and wet smells of the island, the kitchen seemed unusually mild. The stream outside was smaller than any water they had seen that morning and much more familiar. Neither woman had to wonder what lived beneath it.

Mirelen eventually sat with the rough map in front of her.

“We should copy this while we still disagree about what we saw.”

Lethira pulled another sheet from the document wrap and sat opposite. “Tomorrow we will disagree more confidently.”

That was difficult to contest.

They began with the coast.

The landing shelf went down first because it was fixed and easy. From there they reconstructed their route using changes in ground rather than pretending either had counted every pace: the low hollow of scrub, the rise above the large feeding animal, the watering basin they had refused to approach, the carcass site, the higher coastal ground and finally the bay.

The empty parts remained empty.

Mirelen wanted the marks for the large three-toed animal kept separate from the drawing of the creature itself. They had seen it eating vegetation and had watched one threaten another. That was useful without becoming a complete account of diet or social behaviour.

The unidentified kill received even less certainty. Something had killed a large animal and fed on it. The evidence did not tell them whether that something hunted alone, whether it had returned after they left, or whether the wounds belonged to one predator rather than several.

The watering pool took almost no discussion.

Mirelen wrote beside it:

*Many overlapping tracks. Large animal observed beneath water. Avoid until better prepared.*

Lethira read the last sentence and smiled. “That is much more respectable than my version.”

Mirelen glanced towards her. “Your version was just *do not approach*.”

“It communicated the essential point.”

Mirelen added a small mark beside the basin before setting the charcoal down. “This will still communicate it tomorrow after we have forgotten why.”

Lethira let Mirelen keep the longer wording.

They worked for nearly half an hour before either looked away from the parchment. By then the second map was cleaner and considerably more useful, but it remained a thin line of knowledge around an enormous blank.

Mirelen rested the charcoal beside the page and flexed her fingers.

“I cannot remember the last time I went somewhere and had no older Warden to disagree with.”

Lethira knew what she meant. Even unfamiliar routes in the known lands came with something: an old report, a shepherd’s warning, a village story, an animal someone had encountered fifty years before. Wardens spent their lives discovering errors in inherited knowledge, but inherited knowledge still gave them somewhere to begin.

“This part is good,” Lethira said.

Mirelen looked at the almost-empty centre of the page and smiled.

They put the field notes aside and returned to the shirts.

Mirelen’s grey-green one was close enough to completion that she could finally put it on rather than merely hold pieces against herself. The unfinished cuff remained loose, and the lower hem had not been turned, but she pulled it over her head anyway.

Lethira watched the fabric settle across her shoulders.

“Move.”

Mirelen raised both arms, reached forward as though drawing a bow, then twisted at the waist. The cloth pulled slightly beneath one arm but nowhere important.

“Good.”

Mirelen looked down at herself. “You sound disappointed.”

“I had prepared several criticisms.”

Mirelen took the shirt off again, folded it over her lap and returned to the cuff. “You may save them.” The old repaired shirt lay folded at the other end of the table, suddenly looking thinner now that its replacement had shape.

Lethira’s blue shirt was farther behind. She had completed part of one sleeve and enough of the body to establish that yesterday’s decision about looser wrists had not been a mistake. She settled into the work without trying to catch Mirelen.

The afternoon moved with them.

Cloud crossed the sun for a while, sending them closer to the window. The stream became louder whenever the breeze dropped. A small bird landed on the outer sill, discovered two Elves working a few feet away and left before either paid it much attention.

Mirelen had almost finished the cuff when she said, “I thought buying this place might make you harder to persuade onto a road.”

Lethira glanced up from the blue cloth.

“Why?”

Mirelen kept her eyes on the stitch she was placing. “You had spent a long time moving between work, court, family and whoever had a room for you. Then suddenly you had land, a house and six chairs. It looked suspicious.”

Lethira laughed and bent back to her seam.

The question belonged to more than a century of friendship rather than to Ian’s presence in the house.

“I like the house,” Lethira said after a while. “I also liked the island.”

Mirelen inspected the inside of the cuff, where her stitches had settled into a line she could tolerate. She had watched Lethira move between road, court and settlement for more than a century; one morning on an unknown island had answered more than an argument would have.

“I don't think the house will keep you from the road,” she said.

Mirelen lowered the cuff. That seemed to be the whole of her conclusion. She did not explain Lethira back to herself.

Lethira worked another few stitches before adding that she might stop doing some of the longer circuits eventually—not because the house had confined her, but because she had walked some of them for a very long time.

Mirelen understood that more easily. There were routes both of them knew well enough that a younger Warden might learn more from taking responsibility for them than either veteran could learn from another repetition.

“I have been teaching more,” Mirelen said. “Mostly because I am tired of discovering that somebody learned a bad habit forty years ago and nobody corrected it.”

“That sounds like teaching.”

“It is mostly correcting other people’s teachers.”

The subject drifted away without becoming a decision about retirement or the proper use of a long Elven life.

Mirelen looked towards the front door. “He can cross the world instantly and has gone to buy bread on foot.”

Lethira bit off a length of thread and secured the end. She knew he liked walking. Mirelen knew it too. Neither fact made the contrast smaller.

“I know you explained it,” Mirelen said. “It keeps being ridiculous.”

Yesterday’s conversation about his power had not gone away. It had simply acquired competition.

“I am still not comfortable with what he told me,” Mirelen said.

Lethira continued turning the hem of her sleeve.

“All right.”

Mirelen glanced at her.

Lethira flattened the cloth beneath her fingers before placing the next stitch. “You learned yesterday that he can do things which would frighten almost anyone who understood them. I would be more surprised if cake and one interesting morning had solved that for you.”

Mirelen leaned back.

“Good.”

She had liked Ian before understanding much about him. She liked him now while knowing considerably more. Neither fact obliged the other to disappear.

After a while she picked up her needle again.

“He was useful today. And remarkably obedient for somebody claiming unlimited power.”

Lethira looked up.

“Do not call him obedient. You will encourage him.”

Mirelen’s mouth moved. The joke ended there, and the next several minutes belonged to cloth.

By the time Lethira had repaired a section she had sewn too tightly while distracted, Mirelen’s shirt was finished enough to wear tomorrow. The hem remained plain, the stitching visibly handmade when inspected closely, and one shoulder sat slightly differently from the other.

Mirelen approved of it.

They made tea.

This time the island map stayed folded. Mirelen carried the cups outside, and they sat near the stream where they had read the ridiculous book the previous afternoon. The light had moved far enough west to leave most of the bank in shade.

For a while they spoke about the island’s smaller uncertainties rather than its spectacular ones: whether the yellow flowers had actually carried a smell of their own, where the feathered scavengers nested, whether the blue-throated six-legged creature lived in the grass or only crossed it.

Then the conversation wandered backwards.

They remembered a Warden circuit decades earlier where Mirelen had insisted a stream crossing was lower farther upstream and Lethira had insisted it was lower downstream. Neither had been correct. The crossing had been almost opposite them, hidden behind a bend and twenty paces of reeds.

“You blamed the map,” Lethira said.

Mirelen looked offended by the accusation despite the decades between then and now. “The map was poor.”

“You were not using the map.”

“That,” Mirelen said after a moment, “made its deficiencies more serious.”

Lethira laughed into her tea.

It was easy to picture the two women younger only in the limited Elven sense: fewer decades behind them, the same confidence and fewer examples of why confidence occasionally deserved checking.

Mirelen stretched her legs towards the water.

“Do you miss it?”

“What?”

“Being younger.”

Lethira took time over the answer.

“Some people.”

Mirelen looked across the stream, then nodded. The answer was not the one she had asked for, but it was the one Lethira had.

Long life had never preserved a single version of either woman. Roads changed. Friends stopped travelling. Some died. Some married, became teachers, took court positions, vanished into work for fifty years and returned as though a season had passed. Others simply became people once known well.

Mirelen lifted her cup. “I like what I do now. I may complain about the trainees, but I like it.”

Lethira drank before answering. “You would complain if they were perfect.”

Mirelen considered the possibility with visible suspicion. “That would be much worse. I would suspect conspiracy.”

Lethira smiled and drank.

Ian came up later only because Mirelen had been watching him closely for two days and was still fitting the impossible parts beside the mundane ones.

“I think the part about him I understand least is that he can apparently arrange almost anything and still seems uncertain about himself.”

Lethira looked at her.

“That is his to explain.”

“I know. I am not asking why.”

Mirelen turned the empty cup between her palms. She had seen enough yesterday to know there was pain behind some of his answers. She did not ask Lethira to open it for inspection.

After a while she tried a different edge of the question.

“Does that make living with him difficult?”

“Sometimes.”

Lethira looked towards the house behind them.

“He worries. He changes direction midway through things. He becomes embarrassed by perfectly ordinary affection and then suggests crossing the world over dessert.”

Mirelen smiled. “That last part was useful.”

“I did not say it wasn’t.”

Lethira drew one knee up and rested her forearm across it.

“He also goes away. I go away. We come back. At present, that works.”

There was nothing else to prove about it that afternoon.

They carried the cups inside when the light began to lean towards evening.

The map came out once more only long enough to be checked, not expanded. For once, the blank space was allowed to remain blank.

Mirelen turned the folded map once in her hands. “Do you think anyone else should know?”

“Not yet.”

“Aelira eventually?”

Lethira considered that rather than answering immediately. The island was not threatening anyone they knew, and no decision required a princess today.

“Perhaps.”

Mirelen nodded.

They folded the map and began dinner.

Lethira laid out what they already had: potatoes, onions, cheese, herbs and enough meat for three. Mirelen took the knife and started on the potatoes while Lethira worked beside her with the onions. They had prepared food together on roads, in Warden houses and under trees too many times to require instruction from one another.

The knife worked through onion. Potatoes went into water. Herbs were sorted.

After a while Mirelen said, “Bay first next time.”

“Probably.”

“Then farther along the coast if the bay is quiet.”

“Perhaps.”

Mirelen glanced sideways. “You are going to make me wait until tomorrow to plan it properly.”

“Yes.”

“That is cruel.”

“You bought a book.”

Mirelen considered this and accepted the available remedy.

The potatoes went into the pot.

For the moment, an unknown island could wait on the other side of the world, Ian could remain somewhere on the road to Merrowford, and two old Wardens had onions to cook before supper.