Coming Home

Fate

THE PLAN

After much deliberation, misunderstanding, and clearing up of misunderstanding, a plan is finally settled upon.

1. Daina grows plantimals.
2. In the dead of night, Daina takes her ARMY OF ANIMATE HEDGES and lays waste to the nearly-built factories.
3. At the same time, Aaren and her ARMY OF SKULL PEOPLE uses the distraction to slip into the rabbit hutches and then slip out with the prisoners.
4. During this time, Nora curses the Chlovak soldiers with non-fatal but nonetheless debilitating symptoms. (Nausea, heartburn, indigestion, upset stomach, diarrhea—YAY PEPTO BISMOL!)
   (5. Meanwhile, the refugees continue intercepting correspondances to and communications with the Motherland Domochlovek.)
5. A couple days later, Slavina wanders into town in the guise of a traveling priestess, lends a sympathetic ear for the C.O.'s misfortunes, and then gently suggests they surrender.
6. ???
7. PROFIT

8 Zorromes (Day One)

In a bold move, the Spring's Eve party is postponed. The idea is to celebrate once everyone is reunited.

Daina begins growing blackberry wolves, blackberry bears, and blackberry kingfishers. They are like normal blackberry critters, save NAPALM BLASTERS molten sap projectile... um... ing.

Meanwhile, Aaren takes time to get everyone healed; and Slavina offers a hand around the camp, teaches Nora English, and catches up with Vanya.

13 Zorromes (Day Five)

Daina's plantimals are grown, troubleshooted (troubleshot?), and deemed ready for their first campaign.

Everyone gets ready to move that night.

The moon is nearly gone. Just a sliver in the sky. Soon it'll be overcome entirely by She-Who-Hungers's... well... hunger.

Star sheep glitter, bright in the face of the dark. And shadow is cast over the night, shadow hardly kept away by torchlight. Hometown is asleep, mostly, save the Chlovak patrols.

All the better, then, for those who travel under cover of darkness.

There is nothing amiss in this place about the whisper of leaves. There is nothing amiss about the groaning of branches.

And yet, there is still something that doesn't feel quite right. Private Doležal can't help but constantly look over his shoulder, scan the line of forest that surrounds the town, only half pay attention to the card game that his fellows are currently whupping him at. There's some inexplicable thing that almost sets his hairs to standing on end.

But it matters little. The town is slumbering. The factories are, as ever, silent and dormant.

Matej jeers at him for losing, prods him to pay up. This is enough to occupy Private Doležal's attention, for now.

Daina

Daina looks at her ‘troops’ and sighs a bit. She really would rather not use her ability with plants to destroy, creating was much more fun. However if she has to then she was going to do it to the best of her ability. She once more goes over the plans with the creatures ensures they will be careful not to harm people or animals unless they must for self preservation or to protect.
Hopping up onto one of the wolves that she’d grown a sort of saddle and pommel on for just this purpose she waits for the word from the others that they’re ready for her to go forward. She leads the creatures stealthily through the woods till there’s no way they’re going to stay hidden.

Fate

Okay! Fertility + Command, with the troops rolling to oppose.
Each of them got 1 success. So... beat 1.

Daina

4

Fate

There you go!
The card players are none-the-wiser as doom swoops in on wings and pads in on paws. Not even the squirrelly Private Doležal looks away from the game.

Daina

Then they attack hard and fast.
The peaceful night is broken by cawing and screeching as the flock swoops down at the humans as well, intent upon chasing off the guards so they’re not harmed by what’s coming. Diana adds her own voice yelling at them in Chlovak to run and save themselves from smiting and cursing them in several languages as she guides the birds with a sweeping motion of her free hand. She sends a few sparks of fire at their hind ends that are meant to fall short of hitting them at all and only to send them running faster. Once the people are out of the way... Daina sort of gets a bit of a grin on her face. OK now is time for the real attack, let’s get this affront taken out!
Daina whistles loud and the birds swoop down and start to break any cords and ropes holding up parts of construction. Meanwhile the wolves approach from four sides with flaming sap spraying from their maws and the bears dodge these attacks and start bringing huge paws to bear on the already constructed building before adding their own sap based attacks to the onslaught. Sweet smelling sticky based heat lands on the building and slowly drizzles down the sides, melting and burning as the building before reaching the ground and starting to harden.

Fate

Suddenly, the night explodes into fiery chaos.

A forbidding voice cracks through the darkness. Birds swoop from the sky. Bears and wolves descend on the factories.

It doesn't take much. The card table flips over, sending the cards flying. A crossbow is fumbled into a soldier's hands, but it requires too much cranking. There's not enough time. It's soon dropped, and he joins his fellows in fleeing.

Their baying rings through the night. But it's soon swallowed by the splash of thick liquid, the roar of fire, and the groan of metal being warped by heat.

Hometown will not be asleep for much longer.

Daina

Daina cant help but cackle at the fumbling retreat but soon she's directing her babies to 'do the destruction'. As the sap builds and burns away the wood and the metal starts to heat and warp and bow they end result is a mass of cooling sap with twisted metal bones inside and empty hollows where wood used to be as well as large spaces that had been rooms. The remnants of it becoming ash that mixes with the sap and darkens the hardening mass. The ceiling drips with cooling goo that starts to form stalactites inside the husk that was going to be a factory and is now... something else all together, though one would be hard pressed to say quite what...

Fate

Meanwhile...

Aaren

It's quiet around the rabbit hutches. Guards stand at the enterences, and occasonaly pace through—ignoring the occasonal groans of the prisoners.
The hutch has been modified to be more secure. Enterances closed off, locks attached where latches had served before. The night is dark. There are torches lit inside the hutches, and the guards that stand outside have lanterns.

The sky is clear and still, only a sliver of silver from the moon dimming Star-Bringer's glittering sheep.

Aaren and her company move through the sleeping town. She sings the songs of stealth and silence. No one stirs in their beds. They reach the last hill, feet moving in silence through the long, spring grass. They settle in position in the dark outside of the ring of light that surrounds the hutches.

And then, the explosions start. The air seems to rip in half. The sky roars. The horizon lights up for a moment, and then again. The sergant-of-the-guard shouts orders, voice rising above the roar, and then above the ringing silence that follows. Men run off, to see what is going on.
Others stay, gazes flickering uncertently to the other side of town.

Aaren waits, singing the songs of stealth still.
The town grows louder, but it is quiet still, around the hutches.

Fate

While chaos roils beyond the hutch, around here it's quiet. Quieter than before, even.

There's a chill on the air. In midsummer. The Undersergeant quietly signals for everyone to keep alert and be prepared for anything. Eyes and ears are strained.

And then Private Zima sneezes. Everyone jumps. Then, like that, the tension's gone. One jeers at Private Zima and gives him a good-natured shove. The Undersergeant laughs, despite himself. Another says, "Be healthy!" through his chuckles.

Aaren

And then Aaren sings to the lanterns, to the torches.
They flare, and go out.
She drops the stealth song.

Around her, her people become noticeable.
To the guards, they appear one by one- as quietly, as gently, as the dew.

The bone shines, in the moonlight. Skulls of men and animals and other things besides. Great wolves with antlers that scrape at the dark, still sky. Men, too tall to be men, with teeth like knives. And in the back, her eyes glowing with the moon's silver, bones hanging from her skirt, tall and twisted flesh streached so tightly across her skeleton there is nothing hidden—

Aaren lifts her voices in the song of the Skull Witch, of death and fear and fleeing.
The Skull People walk forward, not heeding the guards, as the doors fall open infront of them.

Fate

Like that, the air is sucked of life and warmth. Laughter dies in the throat. Blood drains from pale faces. Pulses pound with the unheard beat of the myriad footsteps that surround them.

Here a brush of cloth.

There a brush of hair.

A click of bead. A clack of bone.

For a moment, in a sea of skulls, the five troops stand paralyzed, eyes bulging and mouths dry.

And then, by the Undersergeant's ear there is a rasp which sounds like the last rattle of a dying man.

"RUN."

(Were there any Hometowners around, they might be able to recognize the resonance, inflection, confidence of Noi-Noi. Even through the distortion playing on the voice. But there are none.)

— RETREAT! — calls the Undersergeant.

No one needs to be told twice. The ocean parts, briefly, and swells around them. They erupt free, as if discharged like offal.

Aaren

They were the last problem. The skull people hurry into the hutches, as Aaren turns her songs to unlocking things and getting everyone in a position to walk as fast as she can. She counts songs, matching each one to a missing person, looking for her father.

In less then fifteen minutes, everyone is either being carried, in a stretcher, or walking on their own two feet. Aaren sings them back into stealth, and they creep away into the woods.

Fate

In one hutch, a prisoner starts out of a fitful sleep as the door opens. She scrambles up as quickly as she can, heart catching quickly, fluttering irregularly.

Then... it reveals Skull People, shadows and moonlight playing on their bones.

Aya swallows, hard, with a dry throat. She balls her hands into fists.

And then one, with a raven's skull, steps forward with a rattle of bones. It's still for an eternity, as if paralyzed... ? From within its robes a hand comes out, then towards the skull. It lifts up, revealing...

The word sluggishly rises to the surface. It's feels strange. Full of foreign meaning. "Mom?" Aya rasps, with a voice long unused.

In the space that Jordan makes to take an unsteady breath to respond, Aya faints.

"Shit!" Jordan says. As she releases the skull to plop back over her face, she turns and begins to gather people to help her get her daughter out of there.

Elsewhere in the hutches, as the Skull People are hard at work...

Dad's song carries through the corridors. It's a miserable-sounding song. Hungry. Thirsty. Feverish. But all that's overshadowed by a terrible kind of loneliness, one so complete that it even seeps into the senses, warping them, twisting them, seeps into the very basic foundations of the song, rippling out to change the rest so drastically.

There. In a hutch with some fencing which was deformed so long ago by the kicking of a particularly restless Warm Rabbit.

Aaren

Aaren doesn't like the sound of that at all.
She pulls her songs to her father, not bothering (not remembering) to ask, and begins to put him back the way he belongs, the way she wants him to be.
"Dad!" She calls, and she kicks the door open with her huge bones and her steel-cord muscles.

Fate

He looks up from his place huddled against the wall.

There is much diminished about him. She could already hear that in his song. But now she can see it, too. He's thin, caked with filth, and his long hair and patchy beard are brittle.

He tries a song. It doesn't come out right, trying to be too many things at once, too lost to end up being anything at all. That and his throat is tight and dry.

But it comes back, painful, surging through her song, squeezing through him. Tears stream down his face, unheeded.

"Aar-bear," he sings, off-key.

Aaren

Aaren picks him up. Its too easy.
"Yes." She sings, as she swoops back out of his cage, as she ignores the anger building at the back of her throat. "It's me. I'm here. I'm taking you to mom." She swallows. "Here," She sings, "This is what you should sing."
She's realizing she doesn't know how to begin to heal him. She stops herself, and tries again, and sings for him the song of We're-Together-Now.

Fate

"Mom," he repeats. It's on the cusp of being a question and just a trying out of the word.

But then he begins to sing, as instructed.

It's hard. He doesn't remember how to stay on key. It's accompanied by a strange sort of joy, a jagged, ugly sort of joy that feels like it's ripping a wound through him. But he sings it, regardless of tunelessness or hurt, because he needs it.

Aaren

"Yeah, mom. Jerri." Aaren sings along with him. "You got her pregnant again." She adds, even though right now he probably won't understand. "She misses you a lot."
She strides along the halls, lending her voices and her knowledge.

Fate

There's no response. He simply sings.

Soon, a Skull Person works their way through the crowd and quickly sheds the skull she wears, handing it off to someone else after a brief exchange. It's Geraldine, her face (and song) etched with deep lines of sorrow and tribulation.

"Ash," she breathes.

Ash falters in his song. Again, the words don't come, the song doesn't come. So weeping begins, raw and irregular. Frustration and relief and loss and that ugly joy again.

It's not long before she's alongside Aaren, reaching up to take his hand. She looks up to Aaren, singing an inquisitive measure. Will he be okay? it asks, without so many words.

Aaren

Of course he'll be okay. Everyone heals eventually.
Aaren continues to sing, "Yes. He will need time to heal, but he'll heal."
She doesn't let herself doubt that. There isn't time now.

Fate

Some of the bone-weariness pulls away from Geraldine's expression, drains from her song. She says nothing more. Aaren would know.

As quickly as they came, the legion of Skull People leave, carrying the prisoners away with them. And they leave behind silence—the silence of the dead.

Fate

Destruction wrought, the plantimals withdraw.

Prisoners rescued, the Skull People return towards the refugee camp.

Somewhere in that time, Nora slips away from the refugee camp—hours later, she returns, purple clay drawn in strange lines all over her flesh. For a while she smells of the sourness of illness, making her very unpopular indeed. But eventually, with a sit in the makeshift sauna, it goes away, along with her eldritch markings. (The sauna is the one thing that Nora unequivocally approves of.)

It's a long night. Daina and her plantimals are the first to return, borne as they are on sets of four legs or on powerful pounding wings. She's lauded, celebrated, hugged, kissed, and cried on. Victory fills restless hearts, but does not calm them.

It's a longer morning. Tension strings the air tight in the refugee camp. Even the rainbow trees seem to be in on it, not making a single sound.

Lesh is among the first, as he catches the whispers and scents of the forest. Wordlessly, he gathers up some relevant people to be there on arrival, a subtle mix of trepidation and excitement written in his expression.

The forward group arrives. With help, Kelly passes along orders to those who are waiting, to prepare for the arrival of the prisoners, and a report to Vanya of the states of the various prisoners.

And then the rest of the group returns. Once more victory floods the refugees, feeling most like relief than anything else. And cautious hope.

The next couple of days are busy indeed. Vanya struggles (with some success) to keep everyone focused. Jerri supplements Aaren's songs with more conventional means. Dragomir runs back and forth between the two, assisting how he can. Singing shifts begin; and what's left of the alcohol begins being passed around, despite how much more work remains.

Aaren

Aaren spends the days healing, taking only the briefest of rests for herself.

Daina

Daina is there to help out and with the request of 'Daina warmth' she's easily enough swayed to give it over. Spending time helping where she can, trying to get more food growing for the people that are newly arrived and working on the medicinal plants. She spends what time she can making the Plantimals more resilient if she's able and otherwise making herself useful.

Slavina

The morning after Daina and Aaren launched their big attack, after just enough time to cheer and welcome the returning escapees, Slavina leaves camp to go to hometown by a roundabout route. It's a carefully picked path that has her emerging from an entirely different direction than the one used by the raiding parties, one that takes a day and a quarter of travel.

She's changed during the trip. Slavina is still unquestionably Slavina, but seen through a different glass. She has the same features, the same panther-tongue voice, the same whisper of wealth and knowledge and power in her gait. (A whisper only because someone of Slavina's caliber doesn't need to shout).

What she isn't—not now, not for now—is Liudzi. Gone are the garlands, gone the facepaint, gone the scarves and bells. What remains is a Bakersfield woman of middling years, too hardworn and lean to be pretty but beautiful none the less, draped in the travel-worn colors of her god. She picks her way over roots and rocks towards town along a little used forest path, pausing only briefly to re-adjust the pack over her shoulders. Slavina sings to herself as she goes. Nothing serious, just catchy streetcorner songs to entertain herself on the road. The song dies in her throat when she tops the slope and town comes into view.

"Ho-leeeeeeee shit," she breathes, eyes wide.

She sees someone nearby and waves, jogs their way. "What the fuck happened here?" Slavina asks in Bakersfield-accented hometown english. Then she draws up short when she sees the battered and burnt (but clearly chlovak) uniform, takes a second to 'process,' and tries again in very slightly accented Chlovak. "Excuse me officer, what happened to this town? Was there some kind of... of... disaster?" She's clearly at a loss to understand what could have caused this type of destruction.

Fate

Junior Lieutenant Smutný looks the newcomer over, face pale and eyes darkened with feverish sleep. A regulation scarf is tucked into his coat, which is buttoned up tight—an odd sight, considering it's summer. But sweat does not bead on his brow.

"Chernobog knows," he says. Then he listlessly makes a warding motion over his eyes. "Papers, miss?"

Slavina

Slavina blinks her surprise. "Uh. Hold on a sec, I'm going to have to dig for them. I didn't realize this was an incorperated territory, when did that happen?"

As she speaks she shifts the pack off her back and roots through it, shuffling aside the blankets, foodstuffs, herbs, and ritual bowls until she finds the waxed leather document folder that contains her various papers and letters of recommendation. She hands over a rather old but still-valid travel permit, along with a letter of reference from the head of her union hall.

Fate

The Junior Lieutenant makes a show of looking it over, but it goes in one eye and out the other.

"Eh... some months ago." He grunts and returns it. "Welcome. Lucky you. You came after all the excitement." For a moment he searches his sluggish mind for protocol. "Be sure to report to intake. You will be interviewed: answer honestly and concisely and do not make jokes to the... the..." He blinks almost drunkenly. "People. Interviewer." Then he offers her some slightly muddled directions.

Slavina

"Right." She nods. Then her brows lower with concern. "You don't look well. Do you need some water? I can ask them to send you assistance at intake....."

Fate

His shoulders sag slightly. "No, ma'am." He taps the waterskin at his belt. "I am one of the ones who's better off. Just a mild fever." He motions her onward. "Take care."

Slavina

She doesn't comment but the grimace on her face conveys all the sympathy one could desire. Slavina hastily re-packs all but her documents folder and makes her way directly to the intake center. Wherever that is. She ends up heading to the place that looks the most official, with soldiers at it.

"Excuse me officers, I'm looking for traveler's intake?" Although adressing the crowd at large, she directs the question primarily to the highest-ranked soldier.

Fate

The officer in question furrows his brow.

It's clear he's been at this for a while, given the gray that streaks his dark hair (done up in an impeccable regulation bun) and the creases at the corners of his eyes and mouth—although that may be more stress than anything else, given how he looks just as exhausted as the Junior Lieutenant from earlier (except perhaps more lucid). There's a tight air about him.

"Intake?" He looks to each of the others, who offer varying unhelpful wordless responses. Then he turns on the newcomer, taking her in wholly. "Did you not hear that Domochlovek's borders are closed?" Then he turns and says "Kursant. Go remind Smutný of this fact, and tell him to unclench his asshole so that he can finally get some fresh air." With a 'yes, sir' one of the officers breaks away and starts off at a jog. After a moment, the older fellow eases slightly and holds out a hand. "Let me see your papers."

Slavina

"Here they are... uh..." she takes a closer peek at the insignias. "...Major." Slavina hands him the same papers she'd given the first guard. "I heard about the borders, just didn't know that this town was on the Chlovak side now. It's been..... gosh, six or seven years since I've been this way."

Fate

He looks over the papers with a much keener—and much more practiced—eye. After a bit he gestures, and the officers form up, flanking Slavina. "What is the purpose of your arrival, Gloria Bozihostavik?" he asks, not looking up.

Slavina

She looks slightly uncomfortable about how intense they're being, but on the other hand it's not unexpected after some kind of catastrophy. She speaks in a practiced, calm manner of someone who's gone through customs intake a billion times. "I'm an itinerant priest. I'm here to provide services to people in isolated villiages. My specialty is conflict mediation and ritual cleansing, but I'm also able to provide any other services under the normal purview of my goddess."
Her goddess, of course, is spelled out clearly in the letter of reference.

Fate

"Well. You have two options. Either consent to a thorough search and questioning, or leave now and don't come back until the borders are open again." Finally, he looks up, folding the folio decisively with a soft pap. "If you choose to stay, you will not do anything—especially conduct rituals—without my official approval. If you do, you will be classed a sorcerer and detained. Do you understand?"

Slavina

Slavina puts up her hands in an oh-well shrug, with an unhappy grimace. "Understood. I guess I'm staying. I don't have enough supplies to make it to the next town right now anyway." So saying, she hands over her belongings to be searched.

Slavina

The interview goes smoothly. She's clearly not a suspicious character, just one of the many traveling workers common in the hinterlands. She's also clearly a tad exasperated with the red tape, and can't help slipping into a more conversational tone as it drags on. By the end of it she's on a patronymic basis with most of the guards, and they're exchanging travel "horror" stories in between rounds of interviews.

When they finally release her, Slavina is... well, mobbed would be the best way to put it. She doles out hugs for the older folks who actually remember her, introductions to the children too young to know who she is. And, naturally, she gets the WHOLE STORY of what's happened over the last year (and even more details about the last week).

Once things are a little less murky (so the next day at minimum), she goes to both Vir and the CO (ideally at the same time) to see how she can help. It's an open-ended offer: she's a priest, so priestly things are on the table, but they're also clearly short on able-bodied individuals and have a lot of work to do.

Fate

At first the C.O.—the Major—is distant. Vir, on the other hand, has no trouble putting Slavina to work. The town is sparse of soldiers—many of them are bedridden, which makes much work for the medics and the Hometown healers.

(Slavina does indeed come across Quinn throughout this time, tended to by a Gramma Lavern who is working very hard to not be at the end of her rope. Quinn looks nothing like Logan anymore—her features are too thin, demeanor too set with seriousness, eyes too hard.)

Soon, though, once Slavina proves herself useful—not to mention well-liked among the troops—the C.O. reservedly commissions her for certain morale-boosting purposes. As this proves more and more effective, the C.O. eases and trusts her with more crucial tasks, especially those that require coordinating with the Hometowners. All told, it's only a few days before the Major accepts Slavina's informality as a matter of course—and another couple after that before the Major himself is on informal terms with Slavina.

Slavina

That's her cue. She lets herself sit on the informality overnight to make sure it's really taken hold. The next morning during her rounds of breakfast-deliveries (the normal busboy being laid out flat), she pauses for a longer chat with the CO. In a roundabout, natural-seeming way the conversation makes its way to the conflict they're having and the toll it's taking on him. On his men.

That's when she broaches the idea of surrender.

After all, if he'd been able to get communications through, that's what they'd have ordered him to do anyways, right? It's not like some podunk villiage is worth sacrificing a whole platoon. That would be insane. And she can see with her own eyes how devastating the attacks have been.

Fate

Roll, please. Charisma + Relate (Influence) ? Or something else you might feel is appropriate.

Slavina

what's the diff? or is it opposed?

Fate

Opposed.
Beat a 2

Slavina

I'll take an average. So 6.

Fate

Okay!
At first, the Major closes up. Hard. Dismisses her with a polite thank you, and does not call her back all day.

But, by nightfall, he calls Slavina and Vir in to a private dinner with him and his second. And discusses the possibility of surrender. Throughout the evening, "possibility" becomes "certainty". And by next morning, Slavina is sent to negotiate the terms of surrender with the refugees.
Okay!
Full refresh for y'all.

Fate

19 Zorromes–2 Castormes

It's a bittersweet homecoming.

A lot has changed. It's a quieter place—those who remained behind don't sing as much anymore. There's an odd tension which arises when the refugees sing, loud and unreservedly. Some Hometowners eventually join them, given a few days. Many don't, uncomfortable.

(Vir explains that the C.O. forbade singing, under pain of a day and a night of hard labor without food or rest. Eventually Vir was able to offer them a compromise, allowing them to sing exclusively Chlovak songs.)

Though being reunited with family comes with its own measures of relief and joy, there's a very clear rift between the refugees and the people who remained. A lot of growing apart happened in that longest of nigh-years.

But there is hope. Vanya and Vir work together to organize the whole town to build a feast for a party which, once it starts, will last for hopefully days. (They definitely ask Daina for help in this regard.) But even they are having trouble working with each other again. Vir has grown far too anxious, far too capitulatory—and a certain pragmatism has wormed its way through Vanya's modus operandi, which makes it difficult to not simply allow Vir to capitulate sometimes.

However, not everyone comes home. Lesh, Geraldine, and their daughters are among those who opt not to follow the rest of the refugees back. The wounds are just... too deep for them. For now.
As for the Arechavaletas... well, only Gramma Lavern, Grantie Lily, and Quinn remain of those who stayed behind. The house, though familiar, is suddenly too big, too hollow. It's eased, significantly, by the return of Jordan, Jerri, Harley, Ash, Aya, Pyotr, Tris, Aaren, Daina, Kelly, Logan, Jesse, Hana, and Tris's baby. It's tense for a while as each party struggles to connect with each other again while in the midst of trying to take care of Quinn, and Ash, and Aya, and the young children. And with Ash not fully functioning, it's very slow going.

(There's a lot of crying in the days that Aaren, Daina, Slavina, Kelly, and Nora stay in Hometown. It seems like every other hour there's something new to cry about. A lot has been lost, and much of that loss is only just being discovered.)

Slavina

Slavina takes it upon herself—when she's not needed more elsewhere—to act as grease on the bearings between Vanya and Vir, to help Vanya be softer and Vir sturdier until they can settle themselves better.

In between all that, of course, are the reunions. The more open ones, now that she's not under the scrutiny of the Chlovak forces. It's hard, and there is so much space between them now. Among other things that weigh on her mind. Slavina spends a good bit of time alone, so as not to lay her grief on people already overburdened with their own.

Aaren

Aaren spends her time helping Quinn to walk again, and working with Ash to figure out how best to help him heal.
When she's not doing that, or healing someone else, she takes long walks in the woods. She's trying to deal with her anger, or at least disguise it some what.

It flares up, sometimes. When someone who had to stay behind refuses to sing, when Vir has trouble standing his ground. When her father flinches at loud noises. She sings her learning song, trying to adjust, and tries to find her sad song, burried deep inside her anger.

Daina

Daina is eager to help grow things in order to get everyone fed. She also sends out the pack of wolves to hunt to bring up their stores of meet. Ensuring they know what not to hunt and how to hunt properly before sending them out.
She tries to enjoy the reunions even there are some pains involved in each one from some level or another.
She tries to help the people by making a dance based on hometown how it used to be and teaching anyone that wants to learn it.