Ugh.
Halfway to my dwelling, Kestria intercepts me. Grabs my arm. Steers me toward the far wall without asking, which is very Kestria.
"Sit." She pushes me down against the wall of a dwelling. Drops beside me. Our shoulders touch.
We don't talk. Don't need to.
The sun's dropping. Colors bleeding across the sky. Somewhere a wolf howls—long, low, answered by another. Not a warning. Grief. The sound of it settles into my chest and stays there.
Nugget finds my feet. Still pink. Still pecking at nothing. Completely unbothered by the army, the battle, the dead. Chickens don't grieve. Must be nice. Keer Jr. comes around the corner, locks onto Nugget, and stations himself approximately one inch from her tail feathers.
"Your chickens survived," Kestria says.
I look down.
"They are everyone's chicken."
"Nugget sleeps in your dwelling."
"Yeah. You got me there."
Keer Jr. puffs himself up at a passing wolf. Neither the wolf nor Nugget acknowledges him.
"That rooster is indestructible," Kestria says.
"He's too mean to die."
"Maybe that's his survival strategy."
"Being so annoying no one wants to deal with him? Yeah. It's working."
We both laugh. Tired and raw. It hurts my throat and I do it anyway.
The clearing is quieter now. Fires crackling. Wolves huddled in pairs, in groups. Someone is cooking—I can smell grain and salt and something that might be the last of the dried meat. Across the clearing, Keer is moving between the wounded, checking on everyone, holding everything together while his whole body is a map of fresh injuries. The wound on his arm is still bleeding. It's driving me insane from here.
Near the dwellings, the new humans who stayed behind are sitting in a loose cluster. Quiet. The patchy-beard kid is hugging his knees a little ways off. The middle-aged woman is gone—took half her people back through the trees an hour ago to start collecting families. The ones left don't know what to do with their hands.
Kestria's eyes track mine. She sees them too.
Neither of us says anything.
Tomorrow's tomorrow.
"Do you think they'll actually come back?" I ask. "With more soldiers?"
"Probably."
"That's optimistic."
"I learned from you."
"I'm not optimistic. I'm just too tired to be pessimistic."
She laughs. Softer.
"Go find your brother," I tell her.
"What?"
