"Consultant?" Freya asked,"And I was certain that they would attack us."

River led the group away from the field they’d arrived in.

"Yes. It's important to work out codes for what you're going to do in a crisis."

Sela stalked behind them.

"The warchief wanting to see all the druids is worrying though," Sela said, "mundane authorities are not supposed to order druids around."

"More of a reason to bring this back to the circle. The poor things don't want a magical war."

The crunch of their boots on the ground gave Freya time to see how Rivers' stocky cat shape had formed. Her pointed ears were distinct and the azure of her eyes drew Freya's attention. Her coat looked dusty in places, but it was a solid midnight black

There was no sound except their movement as they passed a wooden fence. Freya's cold digits warmed up on the vault over it.

The make of the fence looked similar enough to her pens that she paused as River climbed over as well.

"Does this look familiar to you?" Freya said pointing at the fence.

"I have never really paid attention to proper fences…"

The cats looked at the fence before turning away.

"That's half the design of your pens, isn't it."

"Come to think of it, yes. I knew… wait, are the badgers catching things?"

River shrugged.

"It could be that the aristocracy here favors a menagerie and the cats being here have whittled down … the available food."

Freya walked another ten steps before she was overcome with a gut wrenching realization.

"No….they wouldn’t."

"Things are different outside of Yellowrock. For some creatures, it's survival."

Sela frowned.

"This seems suspicious though, druid. We just show up and they know we are magical?" He said.

Ahead of them a ridge crested as the road continued.

"Who else would appear in a field like that?"

"If we are being honest,"he said,"Ragamuffins. Or Inujag."

"That's…problematic. Did they teach you that in training Sela?" River replied.

"They hinted about hidden abilities. I fully expect that would be a part of it.”

Freya catted along behind the pair, hoping that they would reveal more secrets. All of these little tidbits made her wonder what the actual schooling would be like in the valley of red mist.

“I’m just saying, the training made me think…”

Sela trailed off as a squad of cats marched in their direction along the path. Sela slunk into River’s shadow, waiting for something. Freya held her breath, but they continued on in the same direction the squad was coming from. The lead cat's head bobbed towards them and River bobbed past.

It wasn’t until she was certain that she couldn’t hear them in the wooded path that she wheezed out. Up close, they were fearsome.

“This is a terrible idea,” Freya said.

“Indeed,” the druid replied, “But sometimes the change has to come from without.”

Sela groaned.

Freya took stock of herself. Her cloak was still intact, and thankfully not singed. She rummaged through her rucksack. It felt the same weight, but some of the volume on the top was missing.

“My feathers? Oh Raven, my feathers must have fallen out in the run through the burrows.”

“Nothing to do about it now. I suppose you have enough arrows ready though, correct?”

The side pouch of her rucksack held her thirty odd arrows and shafts upright.

“I’ve only got five configured for use. Blast that wyvern for doing this to us,” she said.

“We’ll have to work around it. They’re for defense anyway,” Sela said.

Freya raised a paw at the defensive use of arrows but then retracted it.

***

River moved through the crowd. The prestige of being a known druid was unique among the Marquisate, and it had opened many doors and mouths.

She had a secret that none of the cats knew. All of the cat druids she had ever met belonged to the Miru house. None of them could change their shape like her, so far as she knew. Druids were long lived, and she had never asked why certain abilities had only occurred in certain species.

Of the four houses, the only one that had species of all was Miru. The Raven house had most of the species, and the Nithe house had a majority of them. Only the comparatively smaller Change house had the closest number of species, if not the amount.

This made every cat around her trust her explicitly.

She likes the explicit trust as it broke down a lot of easy doors. Another side glance at Freya and her otter got an approving nod from the hooded otter.

"Bar badger, another round for my new friend here," she said laughing with the crowd, "because I would love to hear more about the problem with roaches."

The cats barked a laugh at her.

"Indeed druid," the tabby cat began, "for this is a tale of love and loss and wagon wheels."

A groan passed over the immediate crowd, as they accepted their fate.

***

“I can’t even relax here,” Freya whispered to Sela at one of the few booth tables in the Badger’s Burrow, a large standalone tavern well behind the cat lines.

The boisterous crowd was an altogether different feel from the somber feel of their

“You must be able to find calm in the void. Once you can still what is going on inside yourself, true mastery of the inside will lead to mastery of the outside.”

“Is that true? That sounds… off?”

The otter, his cowled hood in place, sat back sipping on his tea.

“Think about it like firing an arrow. You need to concentrate on your target. The target is being calm, cool and collected. Panic is not becoming of a lady druid.”

“Winter seems to be well unbothered by this whole situation.”

“That she does, Little Knife.”

River, working as Winter the black cat druid had been gathering information, bouncing between groups of badgers and cats.

"This whole situation seems strange. I can't imagine that even a queen would order a druid around," Freya whispered,"how is the warchief doing it?"

"Possibly she doesn't know what is and isn't proper. I imagine that explains what I saw."

Freya couldn't see the otter's face or eyes, but she got a sense that he was unnerved by the assertion. He had seen the problem with his own eyes and he still didn't want to speak about it too much.

"Sal, I… what is that smell?"

The otter sniffed. The strange smell held a whiff of cinnamon combined with that of a sack of flour.

"It's sweet. Almost too sweet to be this far out from civilization. Winter will notice. Wait for her to move."

The doors to the tavern opened, admitting a small, rough looking cat. With dark bloodshot eyes, he looked far worse for wear than any of the other cats in residence. All of the cats present had been given the label, rear echelon aristocracy, in Freya's mind. This one looked like a common cat.

In fact it looked so normal that she couldn't keep her eyes focused on it.

"It's one of them…"

Freya turned to Sela, seeing his teeth gritted. He was holding his bread knife like he intended to use it.

She coughed, which was a harder thing to do purposefully than she'd thought. A little hairball poofed up her throat and out, jarring Sela from his attack mode.

"There will be time," she said.

The otter relaxed his grip, but kept the knife next to his reach.