“Maybe what?” Trixie asked when Penelope didn’t continue speaking. “Come on, Penny, don’t leave me hanging!”

“Shh,” Penelope had to shush the other woman so the others wouldn’t overhear. It was actually strange that they hadn’t heard anything already with the two women gradually getting louder and the men being strangely stoic.

The concern was considered and dismissed in a flash when she decided she didn’t really care if they overheard. It was just more fun to try and make it a secret. “What if he was showing off… for Ash?”

“They’re brothers,” Trixie hissed back, pushing herself up on her tiptoes to spit the words in Penelope’s ear. “Not a chance. Keep your voice down and stop making rude comments! King’s law forbids marriage between siblings even when they’re both the same gender. Not even Noir is stupid enough to ignore King’s law.”

“You sure?” Penelope asked as she finally let go of Trixie’s arm. “I thought for sure there were looks between them.”

“Everyone knows the only people Noir really cares about are his father and Ash. I’ve got ten silver on them sharing a bed - just a bed, nothing more - before winter,” Tom cut in quietly, slowing his pace just enough for his whisper to be heard. “Now could you please stop before they really overhear you and think it’s something more than just gossip? You’re messing with my odds!”

“Wait, there’s a betting pool on this already?” Penelope asked. “Since when, and why wasn’t I informed about it?”

Trixie’s jaw almost hit the floor. “And why? Don’t you know what a high-risk game gambling is? You’re just asking for them to take your money!”

“George at the bar has bets on almost everything,” Ash cut in from behind. He had his only arrow knocked on his bow, but he didn’t have it drawn. “I wouldn’t recommend using him for bets, though. I’ve lost more than once and he can be a real jerk about it.”

“I swear he messed with the odds once, and I never trusted him again after that,” Tom said with a sage nod of his head. “No one likes a cheat to hold the kitty. There’s this lady at the guild though - holds herself like a real lady mind you, even if she’s not - who runs a bit of a game now and then. Low-stakes, usually. She won’t let you bet more than a gold at a time, and she mostly focuses on relationship gambles.”

“Too chancy,” Ash said with his nose scrunched up. “People can lie, and that screws with the system. But what are you gambling on with her?”

The conversation stalled for half a second and Trixie was the first to recover: “I honestly think this is just a mountain cat lair and not a nest,” she said. “The puma is probably just a really large mountain cat. Isn’t this quest too new for them to making bets about it?”

Ash almost tripped trying to walk backwards, keep an eye on the surroundings, and follow the conversation. “There’s been mountain cats in the area for years,” he said with a shrug. “They keep the snake population down, and help with rodent populations. This many is a problem though. When they run out of food they’ll go for the livestock and the people crossing through.”

“Getting the puma will keep the breeding down,” Tom explained when Ash finished. “Since they tend to cause the spike in babies.”

Ash gave a small shrug and turned to face forward. “She’s probably just re-running one she’s used before and hoping to snag a few gold from people. Wait - Noir - don’t get so far ahead!” he called out as he started trotting forward after his brother. “What if another monster shows up?”

They hadn’t realized how much they’d slowed down as they chatted, and now they all walked a bit faster to catch up. It wasn’t safe for any of them to be caught alone; the mountain cats would pounce once they thought they had an advantage.

Trixie squeaked as they caught up and saw Noir holding a dead cat up by the tail. It was dangling in a twisted mass of black fur, the distinctive purple color charred from a flame spell and the body so brittle it might break at a touch. “We can’t even use the meat for nutrients anymore,” he pouted, unaware of how disturbing he looked. “I told you fire was dangerous!”

Trixie was looking for a place to set her eyes, but between every tree was blood, a corpse, or more trees. Penelope bumped against her shoulder to cheer the smaller woman up even as Tom joked: “I didn’t think trees ate meat.”

“We do,” Noir said with a sage nod of his head. He was as oblivious as ever to the disbelieving tone. “Trees are able to eat almost anything. Blood is easier of course - soaks into the roots like water - and buried bodies last longer. Less likely to be carted off by creatures before we can manage them, since they take so long to absorb. Smaller pieces are easier to manage. As a snake I ate a lot of meat. Mostly what father cooked for me once I snagged him as my human since that was more palatable than taking in a bunch of waste the snake body couldn’t digest. Human bodies are also strangely inefficient with nutrients. This is beyond cooked, though. Father would never let mother see it if he pulled this off the grill. Do you think the guild will still want bits?”

Ash clapped his hand over Tom’s mouth. “Trixie’s uncomfortable with you holding the cat like that. Why don’t we start by gathering the arrows and separating everything into salvageable, maybe salvageable, and tree food? If we bury the really damaged ones the trees can still eat them, right?”

Noir took a long time to consider the corpse. “Given enough time, yes, I think you’re right. Let’s do that then. The trees deserve a feast! Maybe there is something fire magic is good for…”

Ash pulled his hand away from Tom’s face and hissed at the other man: “Don’t ask questions about stuff like that. Do you want to be hearing stories until next week? Because he’ll do it.” He grabbed Tom’s wrist and pulled the swordsman a slight distance away from the others. “Help me look over in this area. Trixie, Penelope, why don’t the both of you keep watch since I see the cats are already watching us?”

They walked to opposite sides of the small area (Trixie finding her way to the spot with the least amount of gore. It never seemed to bother her until the fight was over and Ash was grateful for that much, at least.) while Ash tried once again to explain his brother to Tom. “My brother is very proud of Dad’s achievements. Give him half a chance and he’ll be telling stories until the end of time.”

“He doesn’t think he was really a tree, does he? Or a snake?” Tom asked as he retrieved an arrow and handed it to Ash. “He knows it’s a story.”

“Maybe?” Ash inspected the tool before adding it back to his quiver, and Tom wasn’t sure if the answer was about the arrow or about Noir. “Mom and Dad were telling Noir stories about what happened since before he was born. Mom thinks that might have twisted how he thinks a bit. That skill he used earlier? He calls it roots. Dad got an appraisal tool after he saw Noir use it the first time because he was worried about how it worked.”

“You have an appraisal tool?” Tom asked, jaw dropping. “Can I see it?”

Ash shook his head. “It was a one-time-use deal. He couldn’t afford one of the good ones. He used it to look at Noir’s stats at the time.”

“And found out his ‘roots’ skill is basically a low-level heal, just like Trixie’s?” Tom asked.  He knew the way the world worked enough to know it was possible, he was just still stuck on why.

“No, it’s not the same,” Ash said sadly as he pocketed another arrow. “I would be happy about that. I wonder sometimes if the gods really did curse him.”

“It wasn’t roots, was it?” Tom asked, “because that’s just…”

“HP share,” Ash said drolly. “One of the rare healing spells that’s as much a curse as a blessing.”

“So it’s not a tree skill at all.”

“Trees don’t have skills,” Ash said sternly. He looked back over at his brother who was happily sorting through the mess without realizing what a mess he was turning into. This was one of the reasons why Ash avoided taking his brother on group quests: Noir’s sense of appropriate behavior was almost non-existent. “HP share is one of the most dangerous healing skills. It’s a combination of HP Steal and HP Give.”

Tom was familiar enough with those two spells to put the rest together. “In other words he can either give his injuries to someone else or he can take someone else’s injuries,” Tom explained as he handed over three more arrows. The cats he’d sorted as they agreed. Clean up was messy work, and they still had to keep one eye on the forest in case the rest of the pack returned. “Not really a healing skill at all.”

“Right,” Ash agreed. “So don’t ask him to use it.”

“Wasn’t going to,” Tom said. “It weirds me out the way he does it like he’s a tree.”

“The way he talks about being a snake is weirder,” Ash huffed. “The stories he made up about before he met Dad? If an actual snake went through like that, they’d be dead ten times over. Think about it! Just learning how to eat he would have starved at least three times. And a half starved baby snake can’t run from a mountain cat.”

“It’s just a story,” Tom said in a somewhat gentler tone, deciding not to tell the younger brother that snakes usually only ate once a week. “Why does he think he’s a snake though?”

Ash sighed. “If I knew I’d tell you. And I don’t know why Mom and Dad don’t make him stop either. Is that the last of the arrows?”

“Over here, yes,” Tom said. Penelope handed over five more arrows, and Trixie found two. Ash almost commented that they didn’t need to when he realized Trixie had put up a shield again and were working together.

Strangely, the two women were giggling and smiling as they handled the cleanup. Ash was curious what cheered them up but got distracted by his brother before he could ask. “Noir, don’t -“

But it was already too late. Noir had his hand on a tree with a large gash from a cat’s claw, and he’d activated his skill again. The wounds from earlier bloomed back into place on his hand.

“Trixie,” Ash huffed, “can you heal my idiot of a brother?”

“This is nothing,” Noir grinned as he gave the tree one final pat. “You should have seen how badly I’d get scraped up slithering around on the ground. Do you know how many sharp things end up underfoot?”

“No, but I’m sure you’ll tell me all about how you learned about fighting while I heal your hand,” Trixie said with a stern tone.

Noir brightened with the thought that someone was willing to listen. “It’s like I was saying before! Trees take in all sorts of nutrients from the world, but other bodies are horribly inefficient. And eating has some undesirable side effects as well…