Most of the gathered hunters stopped grumbling as the door swung open, and the rest followed suit when the baron's red-haired advisor stared at them with silent threats in her eyes. Once all was quiet, the woman cleared her throat and held back a cough at the body odors in such a confined space. "Ahem. Presenting Baron Hadrian Tennel." The rugged group rose as one, and a young man with short hair, sharp black eyebrows, and a sharper goatee entered the meeting room with a sheaf of papers in his hands. With a wave of his hand, the rest of the participants retook their seats, and the woman at the door closed and locked it behind her.

"Good morning, ladies and gentlemen," began the baron as he held up the topmost page. "This is a purchase agreement for grain that I signed with the Coalanth Merchant Group last night." His expression darkened as he set the contract down. "I did not get a good price."

"This," he continued with the next loose leaf, "is the full account of Greenholme's hunting reports for the past week. Those who are familiar with this report may be surprised to see that it fits on a single page." Murmurs started to wander through the ranks of the casually seated troupe, but stopped again when the woman in the back coughed.

"Finally, this is a writ of deputy." Baron Tennel separated the bulk of the paper pile and placed it in front of the nearest hunter, a balding man with a scraggly beard full of tiny twigs. "Take one and pass the rest. This writ authorizes you to question and detain any Naturals you happen to encounter in our barony's forests. If they are armed, or do not cooperate with your investigations, you are encouraged to return them to the soil." The man set his fists on the desk, leaning down onto whitened knuckles. "I don't care if you find those two legged beasts poaching, frolicking, or even rutting with the animals that remain. I want them out of my land. A bounty will be paid for every left ear you return with. Once you've signed your name on the contract, you are dismissed to your new duties. Carlyle, Savrah, Garrett, Annamelia, remain. I have a different job for you."

"Ooh, the price of competence," winced Garrett from the back row, his deep voice masked by the hubbub of a roomful of other discussions. "More work."

"More paying work, you mean," Savrah tilted her head as she watched the stack of papers wend their way around the room. "I don't blame him, Briello's boys are even poaching the females. I saw a greyhound-looking Natty with a yearling doe on its sled a month ago, and I doubt they've stopped since then."

"The scherzando are killing them anyway, and leaving the carrion to waste." Carlyle shrugged, and then frowned at the other three sharing the table as they all looked at him. "What?"

"Nothing…" The other three elite hunters picked at their nails or pretended to doze until everyone who wasn't a baron had vacated the room. Everyone who was a baron pulled a fifth seat over and sat down with the four, giving Carlyle a hard stare before he clasped his hands in front of himself.

"Firstly, I want to thank you for your efforts to feed my people. Sworn men or not, we couldn't do without your hard work." The hunters acknowledged his appreciation with quiet nods, and Hadrian Tennel turned to his aide. "Please lock the door again, Leigh."

As the latches clicked shut, Hadrian produced a jar of honey and a loaf of thickly sliced brown bread. Garrett and Annamelia both reached for the spoon handle as soon as the baron's hand left it, with the latter winning the race. Hadrian chuckled at the contest between the pair wearing his colors of green and white.

"It's been a while since we've seen honey, hasn't it? All those busy bees, working hard to make something sweet. Help yourselves, all of you." He gestured to the others at the table. "And let's talk about how tragic it is when a bear rips into your home and steals everything you've worked so hard to create."

"I thought you had beekeepers," muttered Carlyle. Hadrian laughed.

"Indeed I do! They know how much honey can be harvested without harming the hive, and they protect those hives from predators who would love to gorge themselves on the golden prize within. I just gave four dozen of them writs of deputy and sent them to work." The baron put his elbows on the table and steepled his fingers in front of his nose. "I had something different in mind for you four. I've already informed the huntmaster that you'll be taking some time off from your normal duties."

"Wouldn't it be terrifying if bees could actually shoot and reload their stingers, though?" Annamelia mused as she kept her eyes closed and her face tilted upwards to bask in the slight warmth of the springtime morning sun. Her companion shrugged.

"I guess? I don't think he means to be taken quite so literally." Garrett yawned and leaned on the saddle of his waiting horse, using it as shelter from the light breeze. "He probably thinks he's funny, calling us the B Team."

Annamelia cracked an eye open. "Whines the man who dressed himself in black and yellow."

Garrett defensively grabbed his knit scarf. "Hey, yellow happens to be my favorite color, thank you!"

Savrah jogged up to the duo, both her ocean blue braid and her crossbow bouncing against her back until she stopped to catch her breath. "Hey… great, I'm not late. Any word from Carlyle?"

Both Annamelia and Garrett grimaced. Garrett spoke up after a second. "I'm pretty sure Carlyle won't be joining us. The baron said he had a few more questions for him after last night. The less said about that, the better."

"Ah." Savrah chewed on her lip and then put her hands out reflexively, catching a gently tossed coin pouch. It was unexpectedly heavy.

"Operating funds." Annamelia grinned as she belted Garrett's saddlebag closed and jumped up onto the horse behind him. "The big bonus comes when the baron hears about the shit you stir up. Sting 'em hard, okay?"

"No sweat." Savrah transferred the bag to her own pack, and waved at the pair a few times as they continued their saddleback discussion on the way to the gates of Greenholme.

"I think you suggested the bee thing to Hadrian in the first place."

"And if I did? Are you gonna break out in hives or something?"

"Will you just stop doing that for a single hour?"

"Aw, and I was just starting to wax poetic, too…"

"Yeah? Poets walk."

"Fiiiine."

The blue haired woman laughed to herself as their conversation faded into obscurity and belted her crossbow down a little more firmly. "Well, at least they're generous on this side of the border. Hm hm hm, la la laaa… there once was a Natural bar, where they all wore fine feathers and tar…"

A hiccup interrupted Savrah in the middle of the poem, but she finished the stanza anyway, to the amusement of her listeners.

"Said the brew man 'There's tricks

When a feather unsticks

I just give 'em some more from this jar!'"

Savrah pantomimed upending a bucket of feathers using her almost empty mug, and the other human travelers around the fireplace of the Stallion and Scallion erupted into laughter. Her beer was quickly refilled, and she sank into a chair with her drink in her hands while other conversations took her place.

"Madame Lilei's place has a new girl, I heard she'll let you touch her ear frills…"

"...mean by that? You gettin' me started like that, you see if I don't come over there and…"

"...fifteen, maybe twenty on a good day. It's exhausting."

"...the hay early and get started at dawn. They sell like fire once you're 'cross the border, yeah?"

A portly merchant-looking fellow in red fur-lined robes and trousers tilted his head back and polished off his wine goblet, and accepted a companion's help getting out of his chair before wobbling towards the upper floor of the Stallion. Savrah pretended to listen to an unfolding argument as she inspected her mark for concealed weapons and valuables out of the corner of her eye… until a steaming plate of poutine clattered loudly onto the table next to her, followed by a quieter song.

"There once was a girl from the ponds and the rivers,

They say no bolt flew askew from her quivers…"

Savrah's attention immediately shifted to the tall figure taking a seat in the nearest chair. Their hair caught her eye first, a blend of ocean colors even deeper than her own, and a tube top and loose fitting pants that matched it. The diner grinned at her and finished the verse, seemingly ignorant of the tipsiness fading from Savrah's eyes or her hand sliding towards her sleeve.

"She sailed away and she challenged the sea,

You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.

Where she found what she sought and then set it all free."

"Nice tune," Savrah sarcastically complimented, after the singer paused their song to collect a curd-covered potato wedge onto their fork. The fat merchant was gone up the stairs now… a wasted opportunity for some extra coin, thanks to this loudmouth. "Who the hell are you?"

"Oh, please call me Marovo! May I call you Savrah?" Savrah's arm whipped out towards an exposed throat the instant she heard her own name.

It connected with the newcomer's fork as they raised a bite of poutine to their mouth, leaving Savrah blinking at the tiny chime of utensil against weapon and this alarmingly informed stranger's lack of a hole in their neck. Her confusion compounded when she saw a cheesy potato stabbed onto the end of the bayonet in her hand. "It's a northern recipe, I've heard it's really good. Try it with me!"

Marovo sounded so sincere that Savrah was briefly tempted to eat that bite. She pushed the food off of her weapon and onto the floor with a finger instead, and gently placed the gravy-slicked blade next to the plate. "I need to know how you know me, 'Marovo.' If you'd gotten my name from anyone I trust, you'd know what you should say." She spoke loudly and glanced around for support from a few familiar faces, but they seemed uniformly oblivious to her call for help, glued to whatever they were doing.

Savrah glanced back at Marovo's spritely grin and prepared to throw her chair down as cover, for when she bolted for the kitchen exit. A moment later, Marovo held up a hand.

"Apologies, Savrah. I don't mean to alarm you. Don't worry, I don't have any ill intentions toward you, though you don't seem like the type to believe me… ah well." Marovo shrugged and continued eating. "Out of curiosity, what do you think of the hero business?"

The woman frowned and kept her hand on the arm of her seat. "I don't. No one does. And I don't have any long lost uncles or aunts. How about you go find your own hair color, and then go find someone else to scam right afterwards?"

"I mean, I would, but there's two problems with that… the first of which being that it's terribly hard to scam someone without actually having a scam." With a sigh, Marovo put the fork in the poutine and pushed both to the side. "The second is that it's come time for me to find someone who has managed to keep their heroic soul alive, despite all odds. Don't worry about it too much. Here."

"Here what?" Savrah watched Marovo's hands and eyes with rising suspicion, right up until she felt a weight assert itself around her neck. Her hand clapped to her chest to find a key dangling from a cord, both of which were either clad in silver or composed of it.

"Here, that." Marovo nodded, obviously pleased with themself. "That's for you to do with as you wish. Are you sure you don't want any poutine?" They picked up their plate once more and resumed eating while Savrah tried to pull the necklace off. To her immense aggravation, the cord bit into her skin rather than breaking no matter how hard she yanked at it, and it got caught in her hair somehow every time she tried to remove it conventionally.

It wasn't long before the huntress turned back to the waiting diner with a snarl. "Get this goddamn thing off of me."

Another sigh escaped Marovo's lips as they chewed. "Can't say I didn't offer. You really should go swimming again, you know. The water misses you."

"What the hell are– what the hell?" Savrah started to complain when she realized she was talking to a suddenly empty seat cushion. Naught remained but the necklace and a bit of gravy-soaked potato on the table nearby.

A cold sweat subverted the warmth of the fireplace, and she shivered in her chair. "Shit."

A heavyset tough leaned an elbow over her chair, his booze breath partially masked by the sprig of mint between his molars. "Hey, Sav, you're lookin' kinda pale. You feelin' a'right?"

"Yeah, yeah Sten." Savrah tilted her head back to find the familiar bouncer eyeing her with concern. She swallowed the uneasy words she actually wanted to say. "I'm good. Just… a few too many refills tonight."

"A'right. Hey, write me down that little poem o' yours tomorrow when you're feelin' better, ey?"

"Yeah, sure." The huntress squeezed the bridge of her nose between two fingers and took a deep breath, then stood up on unstable legs. Her silver pendant swung forward and then back into her chest, reminding her of its presence. It was not a comfort, and she stuffed it into her shirt before one of the patrons in the tavern's dark corners decided to mark her for theft. "I guess I'll get some sleep."

"Sleep well, then." Sten pushed off of the now-empty chair and sauntered back towards the front door, searching for something else to help him fight his boredom. The trouble with being a door guard, he mumbled to himself as one of his favorite regulars tottered up to her room, was how dull it got after an hour of no one using the door.

"Point! Fighters return to your corners!" A cheer rose from around the sparring circle as an armor-clad warrior untangled his training spear from his lightly equipped opponent and helped him back to his feet. The lesser combatant took the hand and pulled off a sweeping sallet helm to let his long ears pop up. They were dripping sweat, just like his face.

"I'll figure out how to keep you from bowling me over eventually, Gabe." The fatigued pair walked together towards a stoat who stood ready with cups of water, as chilled as the rest of the northeastern mornings always were before the sun had time to rise and shine. "If I can dodge you once… hup!"

Heavy laughter roared from beneath a dark painted full helm as Gabriel Briello gave the hare a heavy shove. The duelist clipped his shins on a hardwood bench, twisted to avoid knocking over the water kegs, and tumbled arse over teakettle into a patch of dewy grass for his efforts. He lay there grumbling while the heavy fighter chortled. "That's your problem, you can't even dodge a bench!"

As the hare picked himself up, Gabriel turned to the water attendant that was ducking next to the barrels and pulled his helmet off, revealing brown ursine fur that had plastered itself with sweat to his skin. "Wash this out and fill it."

"Right away, sir." The stoat Natural was quick to sluice out the rank odor with a gentle swish of her rhythm, and then dunked the helmet into the open hogshead that she'd spent the morning filling. The water barely had time to sprinkle through the mesh that covered the eye and nose holes before Gabriel snatched it out of her hands and drank it down at a draught. When he was finished, he dunked it again and poured a helmetful of frigid water into his steaming armor.

"Much better!" The viscount boomed. "Who's next?"

"That will be all, boy." A crowned bear stood from the seat he'd taken to watch his son's training match. The other Naturals and the half breeds that had concealed him split apart like chopped kindling, with the latter group bowing obsequiously as he strode by. "You will be joining me today. I'm expecting a message from the lesser territories."

"Father!" Gabriel removed his clawed gauntlets as he met Count Briello halfway and sketched a quick bow. "How did I do? I think I'm getting good at-uah!" The young man went down in a pile of armor as the earth roared and lurched beneath his feet. A moment later, he spat out a clod of dirt and gravel and looked up to see the Count glowering over him.

"Get up." Forsath Briello gave his heir no choice, as he reached down and hauled the sputtering lad to his feet with one bulging arm. "Keep parading your victories against weaklings and mezzos… mezzos, Gabriel! Is that all you can win against? The field labor? When was the last time you tried to use your magic?" The Count sneered at the anger on his son's face. "You need to grow up, brush yourself off, and follow me. I don't need you looking more like a clown than you already do."

"Yes, Father." Gabriel growled through gritted teeth and did as instructed, looking around as Forsath turned his back for anyone mocking him. He found instead a wide area of empty space all around him. The few servants still within eyeshot were enthusiastically focused on whatever task they'd found to distract themselves. The young bear silently cursed them all and forced himself to swallow his bitterness for now, before hurrying after his father, a trail of mud and watery footprints left in his wake.

The subdued atmosphere only deepened as Count Briello barked at the unloading caravan. "Where is that worthless imbecile? You!" He grabbed a startled human daytaler off of one of the caravan wagons by the scruff of his neck, and lifted him up to dangle in front of his face. "There should be a human called Carlyle here. Brown hair, broken nose, with chimpanzee-looking arms. Where is he?"

"OY!" A feminine voice called out, and its owner walked quickly toward the scowling bear as he tossed the unfortunate laborer away. Savrah kept herself well out of the Count's reach when she neared to a more conversational distance. "You're the guy that Carlyle was reporting to? Idiot got caught. Good news though, Tennel's bleeding cash trying to find different hunting lands where your guys and the scherzando aren't killing everything out from under him, and it's not going well. I don't know if he was supposed to tell you anything else. I do know how much you pay him to spy for you."

"I see. And who are you then, human, his lover?" Forsath inspected the blue haired messenger up and down. Unsurprisingly, she gave him a disgusted expression.

"He likes himself a little too much for that. My name is Savrah, feel free to use it. Also, feel free to pay me. I didn't escape the baron and the gravy freak to run a charity."

The huntress looked around the lane and the bustling traffic that traveled up and down its length, giving her (but probably mostly the Count) a wide berth. What caught her eye amongst the throng was a line of downtrodden figures, lashed together with thorny vines around their ankles and draped from head to toe in muddy rags, denying her more than glimpses of their identities. The chain gang moved at a slow but relentless pace, indifferent to the last member of its coterie that was dragged over the mud and stones by its feet in their wake.

The lumpy, unfortunate soul struggled to regain its stability, but most of the Naturals that passed by the flailing figure seemed to make a sport of keeping the wretch off balance. It fell, again and again, with heavy grunts that suggested the figure was a man beneath his dingy shuddering cloaks. Occasionally, a large grey feather remained behind in the mud and was thoughtlessly trampled by uncaring foot traffic. Savrah would have regretted the loss of such excellent fletching, but flashes of thick silver beneath those rags unsettled her first, and she silently watched the poor feathered bastard keep trying to pull himself to his feet until the sight of him was swallowed up by the crowds.

"You want to be paid, do you?" Count Briello studied Savrah as she watched the miserable parade. When she looked back up at him, he nodded to his son. "I'll double what I used to give Carlyle for his reports if you can put up a good fight against one of my warriors. Triple if you beat him. Interested?"

"Fa… yes sir!" Gabriel Briello immediately snapped to attention and began studying Savrah for details beyond 'blue haired human female with a crossbow.' Details were important in a fight, after all… like her braid, which he saw was bound up into a tight bun behind her head. Human females like long wavy hair, right? This one is more practical. Her slim figure, darting eyes, and bent knees as she stayed out of his father's reach were another set of clues… it meant that she had definitely fought before, and would probably try to outspeed him. For all the good that will do her. No metal armor, shabby clothes, but good boots… and a silver key as a necklace? Is she rich, poor, or a thief? She shook her head before he could wonder more about it.

"I don't do duels, that's a game strictly for poncy noble boys. If you want us to fight, that's different…" The woman smirked infuriatingly at Gabriel. "But he's gonna wind up full of holes. I'm a hunter after all, and no insult, but bears aren't hard to take down. If you're alright with that, I can promise I won't aim for the face, but I can't promise he won't catch them there if he's stupid."

The younger bear snorted at the audacity before his elder could respond. "I accept. When I win, I'll claim that shiny little necklace of yours as my prize. I've never seen such a ridiculous looking thing." Both Savrah and Briello looked at him, then at each other.

"Four times, if I win."

"Hmph. Four, then." The Count nodded. "Prepare yourselves. I will start the match in ten minutes."

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