She didn’t know what trick the “politician” mask was hiding, but after a beat of thought, Varie took the invite like picking up a thorn and stepped out the door.

“You two aren’t coming?” She glanced back at Tela and Hos, their stares like knives glinting in the dark, and her ear-fur pricked like a startled cat. “...Fine, I’ll swing back in a bit, bye.”

Remember, don’t stay long; curfew’s coming—those farewell words rang like a bell with a hollow echo, and she heard the meaning tucked under the lid. Even so, she chose to follow the “Politician,” like wading into a cold stream, because this trip home was to find old friends and plot how to pry the chieftain from a prison of stone.

The road with him felt nothing like Tela and Hos’s warm hearth; it felt like walking beside a wall of mist. She tried to spark a chat, but he answered in that maddeningly respectful tone, keeping a scripted distance like a silk cord. The dynamic sat on her skin like lice, itch by itch, until even words felt tasteless dust.

Truth was, she shouldn’t be here yet; the brothers and sisters who slipped in with her were still pieces mid‑placement on the board. She came back early because stewing in the city and getting tangled with that long‑eared nuisance soured her mood like sour plums in rain, and she wanted a breath of another wind.

Varie snorted, a coal of breath flashing at her lips, and dragged her mind off the burrs. She looked around like a hunter reading trees.

This was the Nacha Tribe’s temporary roost inside the Elven Realm, the place she’d lived the longest like a bird staying with one nest. Yet the street now was a faded painting, nothing like her stored memories.

Back when the two peoples ran warm, this was a town like a sun‑warmed blanket. You’d walk and the pothos hanging from pale yellow walls would brush your ears like green ribbons, and when you looked up there were red and violet blossoms beading dew. The dew caught the sun and tossed rainbows like thrown glass.

That picture, though, had been folded and put away by time like a letter left to yellow.

Now the streets weren’t ruined, but they felt shuttered like a mouth clamped shut. No window gaped open to the breeze; planters held only blackened stems like burned grass. Paint puffed and cracked like mud after floodwater, and everyone hurried home as if the street itself growled like a wolf.

She didn’t gape in shock; she’d seen this on her way to the Inventor’s and the Jinx’s places, like scouting a field twice. But no matter how many passes she made, seeing her kin penned into this weather chewed her mood like grit in flour.

She clicked her tongue, breath hissing like steam. “[Nacha curse], damn long‑eared bitches—only happy when you stir the pot and make us gag, huh—”

Her usual rant at Elves broke on a different rock when she caught a small girl by the road, the child’s eyes wide and clear as dew under night. The dark couldn’t hide that soft curiosity, bright as a firefly in a jar.

Varie’s heart loosened like snow under sun. She wouldn’t say it, but she liked kids; otherwise she wouldn’t have matched that purple‑haired human girl with Adelaide, threading red string between two lives. She weighed a heartbeat, then stopped, ready to do a classic face‑change trick like flipping a mask in firelight.

Before her hand rose, a mother rushed out like a windstorm, scooped the girl, and slammed the door—lock clicking like a snapped twig. Varie froze, because in that mother’s eyes she’d seen fear as sharp as winter ice.

Was she…afraid of me?

For a blink, confusion and loss pulled at her like two tides. Then another thought flickered, a second shadow behind the first.

She turned to the “Politician.” He lifted his shoulders and let out a sigh thin as smoke.

“You’re exactly right,” he said, voice smooth as lacquer. “Blame those high‑perched long ears. That’s why our noble people have fallen to this—yet luckily, you’re back.”

A nerve of instinct in her head thrummed like a plucked string. “Luckily what? What are you saying?”

“Hope for a new life, Hero.” He dipped his head like a reed in wind. “Come, we’re almost there. I’m sure you’ll love the grand gift your brothers and sisters prepared like lanterns for a festival.”

He stopped at a plain building, dull as a rock from the road, but muffled voices hummed inside like bees under a lid. If even Varie’s ears couldn’t pick words, the walls were padded like a drum.

What needs a house sealed this tight, like a chest with a secret?

The answer came as the “Politician” opened the door, the hinge whispering like a knife on silk. Beyond the frame swam near a hundred faces, some known like old trails, some new like fresh leaves—and hers lay bare to all of them like a moon over water.

Silence hit for a blink, a held breath before thunder. Then the cheer broke like a sonic boom, wind and heat in one roar.

“It’s the Hero!”

“The rumors were true—she’s back!”

“Great! We can put the plan in motion!!”

The noise crashed into Varie’s sensitive ears like gravel in a river, and pain sparked like needles. “Stop, stop—I said stop—too loud!”

She bellowed and shoved the door shut; wood slammed the frame with a toll like a swinging iron bell, drowning the room in one deep note. Only then did their mouths close like clams.

Yet even with silence curling, their gazes—bright and worshipful like incense flames—didn’t blink out. Wrapped in those looks, her ear‑fur fluffed again like a hedgehog bristling.

“Ahem.” She cleared her throat, a dry leaf sound, and pointed one by one like counting stars. “‘Crossbow.’ ‘Fisherman.’ ‘Hawk’… Hah, not a single one missing. Everyone’s flocked here like geese.”

These weren’t the drifting kin who’d traveled rough with her; these were the ones who’d grown up by her side like trees in one grove, the same kind as the Inventor and the Jinx.

When she and the chieftain talked through the night and chose self‑exile like walking into fog, she’d avoided picking these close friends as followers, not wanting to drag them into the same wind and rain. That’s why she could shrug when “Beanpole” and the others called her Hero like tossing a title into the air—but hearing this lot use the same honorific made her skin crawl like ants.

Worse, the chill up her spine deepened, because from their fevered tones, she seemed to be the only one who felt that wrong note, like a lone drum off‑beat.

She wanted to bump fists and knock shoulders like ten years ago, rough and laughing, but her gut said they’d stand still like carved wood. She smothered the crawl under her skin, opened her hands like laying down a blade, and tried to steer the air.

“So, what’s with the big show?” she said, voice light as a pebble skipping water. “I heard there’s a surprise for me.”

“Of course, Hero,” the “Fisherman” cried, palm thumping the table like a wave. “But before business, let’s pop a bottle and celebrate!”

A dark bottle, full of red like crushed berries, slid into his hand as if reeled in on a line. He eased the cork free, a soft pop like a seed bursting, and then came a show of Nacha muscle, smooth as dance.

Nearly a hundred kin needed pouring, every cup its own shore. For humans or Elves, that’d be ten long minutes of drip and spill; for Nacha control, it was wind and rhythm. The “Fisherman’s” hands blurred to afterimages like dragonflies; wine arced and was caught mid‑air like rain in leaves. Cups flew to waiting hands with just‑so force, momentum setting them down within reach like fruit dropping in grass. Not a drop spilled, and every pour matched like twins—save one cup, full by half again.

That lone exception was set for Varie like a red moon.

She eyed the rippling surface, a tiny pond quivering, and her mouth twitched. The “Politician” was already lifting his glass like a blade offered, gesturing to clink. “Please, Hero.”

Dozens of eyes pinned her like stars pin a traveler, all waiting; she couldn’t refuse without flipping the table. She nodded stiffly, raised the cup to her lips like lifting a shield, and tipped her neck, swallowing it in one pull.

“Cough—cough! Damn, that’s fierce—cough!”

The burn spread from her throat like wildfire, hacking coughs shaking her ribs like shutters in wind. The aftershock hit a heartbeat later, a hook from under the jaw, and her skull filled with a thousand centipede‑kings crawling like a writhing crown. Her thoughts nearly snapped like a bowstring, and she grabbed the table for balance like clutching a rock in a stream.

The proof wasn’t even high; Elves had a head start against liquor by blood, but even Adelaide or Mira wouldn’t reel like this. Among Nacha, whose strength makes alcohol bite harder like spice on a raw tongue, Varie was infamous for a cup that toppled her like a stiff breeze.

More than once she’d made losing bets while drunk, and her beloved longbow—guarded like a dragon guards gold—had been tricked away three times like a fish slipping the hook. The chieftain had stepped in thrice, too, declaring every drunk word she spoke void, hammering that decree so it finally stuck.

Still, these were old friends she hadn’t head‑butted in a decade, and the chieftain wasn’t here; a little drink should be fine—she thought in broken waves, propping up her foggy head like a lid on a pot. Around her, cheers rose like sparks, and cups lifted like a forest of reeds.

Beside her, the “Politician” downed his wine in one shot like a stone in a well. Color bloomed on his cheeks like dawn, his beast‑pupils widened like storms, and something caged lit up like dry tinder catching.

That wrongness crept back like a draft under a door, but her stomach churned and her mind stumbled; she forced herself to breathe and asked through the surge, “So… this surprise… where is it?”

“Right here, Hero.”

He pressed a button on the table, the whir of gears rising like locusts, and the round tabletop split like a shell. From the seam, a complex model rose like a city carved in bone.

Varie squinted through the haze, mind lining shapes like stones. “Uh… is that a map of this place?”

The “Politician” nodded hard, eyes shining like oiled steel. “Yes—but not just a map. It’s our hope to win back our dignity, like a banner in wind.”

“Ho…pe?”

Maybe it was the alcohol, but her thoughts lagged like feet in mud. The “Politician” flowed on like a river after rain.

“See these gray flags?” he said, finger tapping a marker like a drumbeat. “Each one stands for a squad of ours, a spearpoint in the dark. Every unit is ready—arms sharpened, strength coiled, resolve iron. We’re far above those long‑eared fools, and at your word, we’ll make them learn the Nacha aren’t stray dogs to be kicked, but wolves with teeth.”

He pointed to a small flag, fast as a hawk’s beak. “Look, Tiger Squad sits by their curfew patrol point, crouched like a cat. When we start, they’ll move along this line—”

His hands flew over the panel, and the flags glided across the map like ghosts, leaving afterimages like pale streamers in Varie’s vision.

“Then the Jackal Squad will break their cordon like teeth through hide and slip into their district—”

“—Stop!”

At last, through his flood of words, Varie clawed back a mouthful of clarity and slapped the table, the thud like a judge’s gavel.

“Hold it… Are you saying you want to start a war with the long ears?”

This time, bafflement spread over the Politician’s face like frost on stone. “Of course! It’s our second baseless lockdown and curfew. They storm our homes like boars through brush. Are we to let long-ears keep grinding our honor into mud?”

The words hit, and Varie’s answer flared first as feeling, then as speech—a spark off flint. “But so far, no one’s actually bled, right? And for something this big, shouldn’t we save the chieftain first, then decide?”

“The chieftain?” He snorted, a cold pebble rippling a dark pond. “That old fossil… Hmph. He only blocks our plan. He’s a sunset behind the times.”

“Exactly!”

“That spineless old thing should rot in prison!”

Voices surged like a storm tide, each wave louder, drumbeats pounding her temple. Varie’s dizziness split into a white, needling ache.

What are they even saying? The thought buzzed like gnats at dusk. She wanted it to be a hallucination, a heat-mirage. But the room’s fever—their hatred for the chieftain—wouldn’t let her lie.

When their curses wished the chieftain dead, her chest tightened first, then her foot slid back. Fear rose like cold fog, and she stepped away.

She looked. Their faces were masks cut from strange bark. Every feature familiar, every soul unfamiliar.

“Hero, we don’t need a coward now. We need you—a Hero who’ll lead us to victory!”

The Politician stepped in. She tensed, ready to slip his grasp. Instead, he dropped to both knees like a zealot at an altar, and knelt before her.

“Join us. Lead us. Your birth now is the will of Goddess Isylia. You’re destined to restore the Nacha Tribe’s glory!”

Varie froze, stilled like a deer in snow. The Politician’s sermon flowed on like oil. In his eyes she saw fervor, saw faith, saw madness.

But she did not see her own reflection.

In that heartbeat, two truths lit up like twin lanterns. First, the mother on the street feared not her, not the Elves, but them. Second, they hadn’t forgotten their time with her.

They remembered her weak tolerance. One cup, and she’d promise the moon. This room was bait—an arranged rite to pull her in, to make her their totem, their spark for the crowd.

A knife of cold climbed her spine and bit her skull. Clarity snapped into place like ice.

What do these people… take me for?

“You know the plans in your mouth will get our kin killed, Matenia.” It was the first time in years she spoke the Politician’s full name. His eyes wavered for a blink, then hardened like cooled iron.

“By Goddess Isylia— for honor, any price is acceptable.”

“Honor? What the hell kind of joke is that?” Her anger hit like thunder over ridges. “If it’s honor you want, go fight the chaos-spawn beyond the border. Those are the ones who drove us from our homes, aren’t they?”

Silence dropped, sharp as a knife on stone. Not remorse—shock. Their eyes on Varie were puzzled, clouded, even disappointed, as if she were the one raving.

“Hero… will you, like the chieftain, bow to the long-ears?”

Her mouth opened. The retort caught like a fishbone in her throat. Talking to them now would be pouring water into sand. That certainty tightened into a fist.

She seized the Politician by the collar and hauled him up like a sack. “Take. Your. Damn. Surrender. And choke on it, Matenia. Some ‘Politician’ you are.”

She spat each word into his face, then flung him aside. She turned, the air around her wind before rain.

“All these years in exile, I kept thinking.” Her voice was a low blade. “And now I finally see how right the chieftain was to send me away.”

Her kick landed. The door boomed open like thunder splitting a cliff. Dust poured in, a gray tide swallowing the room. Everyone threw up arms and coughed.

When the dust thinned, only a warped doorframe crouched in the doorway. Varie was gone.