May Sticks and Stones Break your Bones

The crown of the Behemoth swelled with every step. Even standing still, it looked like the mountain was leaning toward them, its jagged spine bristling against the sky. The Wyrmspine range bled out from its flanks – ridges stacked in slate-grey layers, the kind that could swallow whole valleys in their shadows.

Vesh walked ahead of the cart, tail swinging, voice carrying back along the dusty track. “From here, the road hooks north for half a day, and we’ll be in the low skirts of the Wyrmspine shoulder. There’s a trade stop before the pass – Wimshir. Good place to pick up spices, restock rope, maybe hear some news.”

“Shoulder? Like, of the mountains?” Tia asked.

Vesh answered, “Yes, like we call Renwin its head or the plains its wings.” He pointed at the mountains near end.

Tia pulled her gaze away from the mountains. “So… we’re going there?”

“Yes and no,” Vesh said. “We’ll stop nearby, but the cart stays out. Easier that way.”

Balthan snorted from up front. “Easier, cheaper. Roll this in and they’ll slap us with pass-through taxes. Call it ‘market tolls’ if you like, it’s the same racket.”

“Taxes?” Tia repeated.

“Anything with wheels and a load gets treated as if you’re selling,” Balthan said. “Doesn’t matter if it’s sacks of grain or jars of swamp water – you pay.”

Corin made a thoughtful noise – too casual – while studying the sky. “Mmh. Cities can be… crowded. And loud. And crowded.” He scratched his jaw, suddenly fascinated by a passing cloud. “Probably best if I just… hold down the fort.”

Rika’s ears perked. “Hold on, so who is going? We can’t just send Vesh alone.”
She turned to Balthan first. “You’ll come, right?”

He just gave her a single, heavy glance.

“Yeah, okay,” she said, tail flicking. “I know why that’s not gonna happen.”

Her eyes darted to Corin. “You then–”

He coughed loudly. “Oh, no, no. I’d just slow things down. And I, uh, have… important jar-organizing to do. And Balthan needs me if he can’t reach stuff again.”

Rika squinted at him but moved on. “Tia?”

“Sure, why not?” Tia shrugged, curious herself.

Before the idea could settle, Vesh glanced over his shoulder. “No. You two stay here. Humans don’t get the warmest welcome in Wimshir. Out here, suspicion’s more polite than a thrown stone, but in the city?” He tilted his head. “I’d rather your first taste of the Wyrmspine not be spoiled by someone else’s bad manners.”

Rika made a face, but turned toward Kethra anyway. “Wouldn’t you like to see the city? Hm?”

“No,” Balthan cut in. “More weight, more taxes. And Kethra’s not for hire.”

Kethra’s head swiveled toward her, blinked once, then huffed and deliberately looked away. Rika tugged gently at the fringe of scales along her cheek, and got a slow, unmistakable tail-flick in reply.

“See?” Balthan said, dry as a stone wall. “She agrees with me.”

Kethra lowered herself back into her harness with the kind of deliberate ease that said she would not be budged – not by pleading, not by taxes, and certainly not by Rika’s enthusiasm.

Vesh slowed to walk next to Kethra, "So you're thinking rope?”

“Rope, nails, empty jars,” Balthan replied. “And if the price on lamp oil hasn't gone through the roof, two tins.”

“You’re dreaming,” Vesh said. “Firstly, should I bring a few cupboards for your empty jar collection too? And a spare cart as well?” he chuckled.

Balthan just looked ahead at the road.

Vesh continued, “Sorry, Balthan. As for oil, Wimshir’s been charging miners twice market rate since the south tunnel collapsed. Supply wagons can’t get through.”

“That’s why you bring coin that spends everywhere,” Balthan said. “And you two are the best hagglers I’ve met yet. Carefully planting the seed, once the interest sparks you pour fuel to the fire, and the ending is always that brutal ‘take it or leave it’.”

From the sounds of it, Vesh didn’t fully know whether to feel honoured or insulted.

Their voices drifted in and out under the creak of wheels. Tia stayed perched in the back, watching Rika as she leaned with the sway of the road like she’d done this her whole life.

“Not gonna pace?” Tia asked.

Rika shook her head, smiling faintly. “Gotta save my legs for when it counts. Besides, up here you can see everything,” she tapped the air above the sideboard, “birds, clouds, who’s following us.”

“Is someone following us?”

“Nope. But if they were, I’d see them,” Rika said, grinning wider. Then she rubbed the back of her neck, ears flicking once. “Honestly? I just like the company. Road’s quieter when you’ve got people to talk to. Or even just sit with.”

“You don’t like being on your own much, do you?”

Rika hesitated, then shrugged with the kind of nonchalance that looked a little too practiced. “Grew up in a caravan. Noise all the time. If you’re not talking, someone else is. Out here, it’s different.” She combed her own tail with her fingers.
“Guess I need a little noise to know I’m not alone.”

The road rolled on beneath them, dust rising in lazy swirls under the cart wheels. Their very own, small Behemoth plodded over the dirt path, the lower ridges and the Wyrmspine loomed wider with each bend.
Conversation thinned to the occasional remark from Balthan or a low whistle from Rika when something shadowed them overhead. Corin didn’t say much at all, though he seemed to study Rika’s profile more than the road.

By the time the sun dipped toward late afternoon, they crested a low hill, the land spilling away into a patchwork of fields and woodland. A faint smudge of rooftops marked Wimshir, still a good hour of walking away.

They pulled the cart onto a small clearing. Camp came together in practiced motions – harness off, water skins filled, cookfire laid.

Vesh gave Kethra’s scaled jaw a fond tap.
“Keep an eye on things, hm? Anyone pokes around, you give ’em that look you do.”

Kethra blinked slowly, then flicked her tail once, as if in agreement.

Rika and Vesh had barely rounded the bend in the trail before the campsite felt quieter. Not lonely, exactly – just missing two pairs of footsteps. Tia found herself watching their backs a moment longer than needed, then turned her attention to the slope ahead.

From here, the city of Wimshir wasn’t far. Maybe an hour’s walk if you had a reason to hurry, but far enough that its walls looked like a child’s building blocks.

Corin sat in the cart, elbows deep in some mysterious bit of packing. Kethra stood in front of the cart poles, still harnessed like they might take off any second. Her tail flicked lazily, the picture of a creature both patient and vaguely judging.

Balthan was rummaging through the smaller crates next to the fireplace when he glanced over his shoulder.

“Corin. Small box, third shelf from the left, middle stack. Not the red cloth one – the other small one.”

Corin looked into the cart like he’d just been asked to solve a murder.

Balthan turned to Tia instead, holding something out. “Here.”

Tia blinked. “Uh… what?”

“A farglass.”

“Oh. What’s that?”

He just put it in her hands. It was a small brass tube with lenses – nothing mystical, just… well, a little telescope. She smirked. “Thanks. You really are a slowburn, you know that?”

He didn’t respond, which she took as a yes.

Through the farglass, Wimshir sharpened into a proper city. Thick walls. A few towers capped with curved roofs and little poles where flags shivered in the breeze. She thought she saw mostly lizardfolk moving about, stalls covered in awnings bright enough to be seen from here. The main marketplace looked like an open splash of colour between the streets.

Then she noticed… people lying down in the square. Resting? Sunbathing? Dead? She shook the thought off and shifted her view. The houses looked plain enough, like they had been built to last – not to impress. Timber and stone, uneven roofs – except for one – tucked up against the mountain wall, its roof tiles a deep green and lined with decorative spikes. City hall maybe.

She even caught a glimpse of two small shapes trudging toward the gates – Vesh and Rika, maybe a fifth of the way there.
Out of the corner of her eye she noticed Corin pretending to rummage in a crate, but he was watching them too.

By the time she lowered the farglass, Corin was still wrestling with Balthan’s “third shelf, middle stack” riddle. Tia wandered over to Kethra, carefully approaching so as to not scare her.

“You’ve earned a break too,” she murmured, scratching the scales under her jaw the way you’d scritch a very large, very solid dog.
Kethra tolerated it with a slow blink. Maybe she even enjoyed it, though definitely not as much as Tia.

“Balthan?” she asked, “Can I bind Kethra loose for a bit? She’s been pulling all morning.”

Still piles of tools he grumbled, “Sure. I trust her enough to not abandon us.”

“Yaay~” Tia responded as she freed her new best friend from her harness.

Kethra padded to a sunnier patch of grass and dropped herself there with the deliberate laziness of someone who knew she’d earned it.

Insects hum all around as Corin edged around the cart, clearly keeping a barrel between himself and Kethra. Like a kid insisting he wasn’t scared of the neighbour’s dog – but also never standing within arms reach.

Balthan finally gathered his tools – a few knives, empty jars, a magnifying lens – and set off toward the woods.

It was either listen to Corin sigh at barrels and pet Kethra some more, or see what plants Balthan would point out today.
She followed him toward the bushes and tree trunks.

Now alone with Kethra, Corin shot Tia a look that could only mean don’t leave me for long.

The air changed within a dozen paces. Cooler, and damp in a way that clung to the skin. Somewhere high above, sunlight broke through in narrow gold curtains, catching on motes of drifting pollen. The smell shifted too – sharp green leaf mixed with a faint citrus tang, like someone had cut into a lime miles away.

“You’re following me,” Balthan said without turning, voice flat.

“Mmhm.”

“Good. Thought you’d have wandered off already. People who rush through forests never notice the good things – or the dangerous ones.”

He crouched beside a low patch of moss, thick fingers brushing it aside to reveal a scattering of pale gold mushrooms, their caps fluted like tiny trumpets.

“Pepperlings,” he said. “Edible. Best fried until golden brown. Taste like nuts and a pinch of pepper – not the bite, just the warmth.”

With a thin knife, he sliced them cleanly just above the soil, sliding each into a jar.

“You cut clean, they grow back quicker. Tear them out, you’re just a thief with bad manners.”

They moved on. The forest floor tilted upward, roots knotting over the path, birds chattering about their arrival. Tia slowed beside a towering tree whose bark spiraled in twisting ridges. She snapped a narrow, bright-green leaf from it.

“Never seen a tree like this. What is it?” she asked, thinking: Though honestly, finding my schoolyard’s oak here would be more surprising.

Balthan glanced over, eyebrow lifting as if surprised she’d spotted it at all.
“Verdant Spire. Boil the leaves, you’ll be awake for two days. Tastes like drinking green fire. Bark keeps insects away, so villages hang it in strips over their doors.”

Tia tucked the leaf behind her ear without thinking – maybe as a souvenir, maybe just because it looked nice against her hair.

Then Balthan paused in a small clearing, a root thick as a ship’s mast, its bark gnarled with age. Clinging to the wood like frozen honey, something gleamed in a hollow – a shard of amber, not gold but deep as sunset, threaded through with thin rivers of light that pulsed faintly, like a heartbeat.

Balthan stopped dead. For a long moment, he said nothing. Then he crouched, careful as though approaching a wild animal.

The veins flared once, almost like the tree had noticed her.
Tia felt her hairs on her arms rise, the air suddenly colder, heavier – like the forest was holding its breath with her.

“Ancient sap,” he murmured, and even his low voice seemed too loud here. “Conductor. Carries mana clean as rain down a mountain, ideal to craft mighty scepters and staves. You don’t find this – it lets you find it.”

He halted briefly before reaching out. Balthan touched two fingers to the bark in a slow, deliberate tap – a greeting, or a thanks – before sliding his knife in. He cut the sap free as if it were glass, cradling it in both hands like it might remember how it had been part of the tree.

When the drop of amber separated from the tree, its veins of light dimmed, and the forest seemed to lean closer. Not in sight or sound, but in a way they felt in their chest – a listening, waiting pause. The air was thick. Heavy with something she couldn’t name.

Then it broke – leaves shivered, the damp scent of moss returned, and the world began breathing again.

And… a faint, rhythmic whisper overhead? Not quite a beat. More like someone flapping a heavy carpet over and over.
She blinked up through the lattice of leaves overhead. Shared a look with Balthan, then a shadow skimmed over them so quickly she almost thought she’d imagined it – until Corin’s high, startled cry confirmed she had not.

“Stay here,” Balthan said automatically, though she was already jogging back toward the camp.

“Yeah, sure, stay here,” she mocked. “Because ominous sky shadows always take the hint.”

Corin was on the ground next to the cart, pointing upward with the kind of panic usually reserved for tax collectors.
Above them, circling, was a pair of wings far too large for comfort – but not large enough to be the kind of horror Tia had imagined when Vesh had spoken of the Wyrmspine being a life wyrm. No, this one was... slightly bigger than Kethra, with the restless, testing wingbeats of a predator not yet sure of its prey.
Which, unfortunately, was still very much too big for Tia.

Its wings caught the light when it blanked, showing membranes thin enough to see the sun bleeding through. Sandy copper traced with veins like stained glass. The body was all lean muscle and slate grey scales, the kind of colour that could vanish against a cliff.

It gave a sharp, raspy cry that had everyone’s attention peaked. The sound bounced off the distant ridges and came back doubled, as if there were two of them.

Kethra stirred, eyes snapping open and hissing upward, tail flicking in slow, deliberate arcs. She moved closer to Tia without letting the intruder out of her sight.

Tia’s knees were shaking like crazy, but her head on auto-mode, her hand closed on the nearest projectile in reach – a stick – and she promptly decided that was inadequate and grabbed a fist-sized rock as well.

“MAY STICKS AND STONES BREAK YOUR BONES, HA!” she shouted up at it, and only after her words were out did she realize she’d actually said them out loud.

The stick and stone too were subject to gravity and fell just as quickly to the ground as Tia threw them up.

The wyrmling didn’t look impressed, but it did tilt its head in a strangely owl-like way, wings flexing – like they were just an interesting new set of toys.

“Corin!” she called, still standing wide in the open. “Do something magicy!”

He was half inside the cart, wand in hand but no spell on his lips, and shot back a flustered, “I’m trying!” in a tone that suggested he very much was not used to trying under pressure.

Then his wand gave a reluctant spark. A bead of white light hissed out, wobbling toward the wyrmling like a drunken firefly – then burst a few arm’s lengths short in a flash and sharp crack.

The light splashed over the creature’s wings, making the thin membranes flare bright copper for a brief second. It gave a quick, rasping cry – not pained, more irritated and annoyed, like someone had tossed a grain of sand into its eyes.

Its head snapped toward Corin’s hiding place. The playfulness in its eyes had shifted.

Balthan’s voice cut across the clearing like a drawn blade. “Keep to the trees! It can’t reach there!”

He was already moving to stand under the thickest canopy, eyes fixed on the flapping shape several meters above.

With another screech the wyrm dropped down toward the cart’s top, clawed feet ahead.

It scraped against the sheets, ripping through to reveal Corin inside. The neatly sorted shelves and all the jars in them clanked as the cart shook under the beast’s weight.

Tia inched backward, to Balthan beneath the shielding tree tops and shouted, “CORIN! COME HERE!”

Corin sprinted across the camp as fast as his little legs could.

The wyrm gazed after him, like a wolf after a fleeing bunny.

He stumbled the last few steps, nearly colliding with Tia before skidding in behind her.

Kethra was already there, a low, rolling hiss rising in her throat, tail lashing slowly, her eyes following the wyrm.

Then standing in front of Tia and Corin Balthan planted his feet, drew a huge breath – and let out – a roar so deep and raw that they all felt it in their bones.
It wasn’t just loud – it was the kind of sound that made even the mountain’s spine prickle.

It flapped back with a startled hiss, tongue slithering out as if to taste their next move.

The wyrmling dipped lower, testing them.

As it hovered over the camp, Kethra thundered in, claws gouging the soil, feet stomping hard enough to leave her mark for decades. She rose tall on her hind legs, neck arched high, four arms spread wide.
Her chest swelled – and she spat out a hiss that split the air like dry lightning, carrying the promise of a hunter who didn’t need venom to kill.

And for a heartbeat, predator stared at predator.

Then the wings tucked, the shadow shrank, and the young wyrm spiraled away into the pale sky – but its cry still echoed off the ridges, a reminder it had not gone far, until only the sound of thumping hearts was left behind.

The silence after the wyrmling’s cry faded was almost louder than the fight.
Tia let out a shaky laugh, then threw her arms around Kethra’s thick neck like she was the world’s largest housecat.

“You’re a hero,” she whispered into warm scales, scratching just the right part, that made her rumble in what might have been approval.

She turned to Balthan next. “That roar – wow. I mean, if you ever get tired of plant hunting, you could clear battlefields.”

Balthan gave her a look. “I don't want to clear battlefields.”

“But you’d win,” she grinned. “Loudly.”

Corin was still breathing like he’d run to Wimshir and back, wand trembling in his hand.

“Hey,” Tia said, stepping closer. “You did it. You actually did it! Magic under pressure.”

“I– barely–”

“You made it flinch,” she cut in. “That was more than barely helping.”

A flicker of pride crossed his face before he quickly shoved his wand away like it might betray him.

Soon Balthan went back to prepping for dinner. Corin held his wand close to his chest and practiced more of his incantations. More determined now.

And Tia?
She laid by her big reptilian hero, petting and caressing all of Kethra’s favourite spots she found out so far.

And by the time the sun bled orange along the ridge, the smell of frying pepperlings drifted through camp. Balthan stirred the pan like nothing unusual had happened at all.

That was when Vesh and Rika appeared on the trail, packs slung over their shoulders, talking about something and laughing – until they saw Tia waving.

“You will not believe the day we’ve had,” she called.

Vesh frowned. “What happened?”

Tia pointed at the sky. “Wyrmling.”

Corin added, “Tried to take the cart.”

Balthan said, “It fled.”

Kethra hissed once, just to punctuate.

Rika blinked at them, then at the flattered cart’s top.

Vesh sat his pack down slowly. “We leave you alone for four hours–”