#brightwindsbarony

He takes the stone and looks at it "Thank you?"

It's a piece of stone, blue with black and grey striations through it, and hand-polished. "It's turquoise, and I made it into a bead. It's not a ROUND bead, but the stone didn't want to be round. It would have lost the sparkles in that knobbly bit on the edge there. But Irene can put it in your hair if you want. She's good with braids."

He grins "She is.. thanks. It remindns me of Buck's necklace stone." a look at Irene "Would you?"

"Sure! Can you sit down so I can reach?"

Grete has sadly short hair, barely long enough to braid. And messy!

He goes down on both sets of knees so she can "I was told this is a heraldric position...dormant.. or is it Sarge-ent or..oh well"

"I bet Stu would know. But he probably wouldn't tell you the right one."

"He's the owlboy right? I met him. He says the library is haunted...that there's a ghost there that eats the thumbs off anyone who brings food into the library. I NEED my thumbs so went away until I was done with my PBJ"

"I don't think that's true. There might be a chimera that does that, but I'm pretty certain that ghosts can't eat things. You'd need to talk to a sluagh about that. They know ghosts best."

"It might be related to the Scissor man."

"The SCISSOR man?" His jaw drops open "There's a man, made out of Scissors?"

"The Scissor man? Sounds pooky."

She shakes her head. "My mom told me about him when I was little. He's a monster that comes after you if you suck your thumbs and chop, chop, will chop them clean off." Grete says matter of factly, though she also (quite coincidentally) shoves both of her hands into the safety of her overall pockets.

"Thumbsucking is inelegant and a sign of poor breeding." She frowns a bit as she parrots a line.

WIDE eyes.

And she absolutely believes it! What that might mean for the Dreaming...

"I don't want to lose my thumbs, neither!"

"WOW... how do you stop him? I mean, besides not sucking yourr thumbs?"

"I stopped." She says with a frown. "I don't like that story. It was before I was Grete the wichtel, but it gave me bad dreams."

"It's a mean story."

"Well, sucking thumbs IS babyish but really, who whacks thumbs off... cept maybe redcaps. " A determined look "This is nnot justice"

"He might be related to redcaps, The Scissor man has long red legs. 'The great, long, red-legged, scissorman.'. She repeats in a singsong voice. She can't quite help it.

"Grete! Sto-op!"

She blinks and ducks her head a bit. "Didn't mean to. Just remembered it, is all."

"Hey, you wanna go to the Fort?" She changes the subject abruptly. "We can show Ganbold."

Ganbold looks VERY Thougghtful, then blinks "you have a fort? Oh I heard you had a fort but I haven't seen. Yes please"

"Yeah!" She rolls up the cloth so that the stones are gathered within, and shoves it aside for now. "Wanna, Irene?"

"Yeah!"

A rock may have been pocketed before the sheet was gathered.

Annd they trot off, Ganbold WOULD race ahead, but.. he needs directions

Grete is not fast, but she is steady, plodding along at a decent pace.

And if she noticed that the rock went away, well, she knows where it is!

"So now I know a Witchtel" He nods

"AND a piskie!"

"AND a piskie!" He grins "And both seem cool."

"We are cool." Grete nods. "I am not sure if all piskies and wichtels are. But I imagine we are better than the average." A smile.

"Oh! Oh yeah!"

"Excellent, if I ever form a new Ggolden Horde I may invite you for help. I need exceptional people if I'm to rule wisely"

"I've met bad trolls. And bad sidhe. And YOU know about the bad guy who was catching up all th centaurs. But I haven't met any bad piskies or wichtel. Yet." She finishes honestly. "Golden Horde? Do you have a gold mine?"

"And archers!"

"Oh no a gold like that, though we might get one in tribute.. a horde is a great gathering of warriors, and that includdes archers" A nod to Irene

"Doesn't it make more sense just to use your people to mine the gold directly? Eliminate the middleman." She reasons.

"But less fun, maybe?"

Grete looks affronted. "What would be more fun that mining for gold?"

"Well, what about panning for gold? Plus, you can splash in the creek."

"OR you have people mining for gold AND archers winning tribute..."

"It's okay, that's what a good leader tries to do, find people who are good at andn like different jobs. Some can mine, some can pan, annd some can shoot arrows into people"

Grete considers that. "Panning looks like fun, too. But then you're at the mercy of the stream and luck. It's much more efficient to find a vein to min e directly."

As tthey close on the fort, he looks over it "You guys made this?"

"We did!"