“Hadrien, these vegetables you brought back are delicious, but we do fine enough. You could have donated these to the town.”

“I know, Ma. I just like to make sure you and Pa are taken care of.”

“Well, we appreciate it, dear. Is everything ok? You’ve barely ate.”

“Yeah, life just got kinda complicated kinda fast, ya know”

“How so, dear. Tell me about it”

“Well, the gathering got kinda intense. Someone almost died. The spirits are asking for blood to cleanse some corruption, or replenish lost spirits, or something. I don’t know. And it sounds people are really willing to just give into them. And later I met some werewolves from a circle that just moved in. And they are kinda staying as wolves way too long, and killing people and things all willynilly. But they seem to know to balance the spirits more than us. But I the mother kinda had this hunger in his eye when he looked at me, and I was scared and tried to keep distance from him, which I think he took as weakness and then he scared me into staying still. And I think I held myself pretty well, but he could smell the fear. And then later someone got a vision on how to get closer to finally killing the witch king, and it meant we all had to gather basically inside him. It smelled real bad. There was some lady named Gabrielle who was apparently a saint. She seemed real mad though. And one of our spirits was there, and she seemed real scared. There were dead plant monsters. And then there was this beast that looked like he ate magic. And a lot of the town was getting hurt, and I had to keep a guy from bleeding out. I wanted to be there, but I also didn’t know why I was staying and not just running away.”

“Oh, honey. That’s a whole lot. If you don’t wanna go back, we aren’t gonna force you”

“No, that’s not it. The weird thing is that I really have come to care about the town, and I wanna help them. I have thoughts and feelings about what is going on. Our circle needs to consider how the town fits into Vecatra. And there is a just created sprit who apparently had limitless potential that some people in the town are trynna to make into a spirit of community. But the trees think they it’s corrupted and shouldn’t be accepted. But I don’t think that’s right. I think the town needs a spirit to look over it since the town is so much of apart of our life. And I was able to provide a bunch of materials to the town to help with projects, and to help feed us. But it just feels like I should be doing so much more. I should be speaking up more. I have friends who see a problem and just run at it with all of their strength, and believe, and give it their all, and I am scared just watching them in a corner.”

“You know with the way you two talk you could raise the dead. And we already have enough malefic around here.”

“Sorry for waking you, Pa.”

“Don’t worry about it, the bigger problem is you not getting up and doing something.”

“Huh?”

“You say you have all these feelings about all the shit going on around you. Get off your ass and do something about it! You’ve seen a woman when her skin cut off, bee operated corpses, werewolves, undead plant things, magic eating shits, a fucking crazy saint woman. And you can’t tell me you couldn’t have just walked off and avoided all them. You wanted to go to that shit, and you say you wanna brave all this and do what you can for the good of the town. But don’t just show up, fuckin do something. Obviously you are in good hands out there. Seems like you fell in with a good crowd, and no one’s died yet. Learn something from them, get good at defending yourself, and speak up. You can’t just stand in the corner and empty your pockets at people forever and think that’s good enough. Get off your ass and do something.”

“But what if….”

“No buts about it. You have more guts than you know, son. You’re life’s been full of scary shit. You had to grow up too young. You just have to learn that you are stronger than you know. You just gotta put yourself out there and trust in yourself. Follow your friends’ examples.”

“Hmm……..I think I know what I gotta do. I gotta go see someone. Thanks, Pa!”

Hadrien runs out of the house.

“You’re too rough with him, Sylvain.”

“And yet now he’s doing something about it. Now pass me his plate, no need for that food to go to waste.”