"Breathe."
I take a breath. He goes back to hammering.
I straighten up. My back makes a sound it shouldn't make. Twenty-two and creaking. Excellent.
The clearing is full of working bodies. North end, Keer's raising the third dwelling. Two wolves on the long beam, four humans bracing the posts, a fifth human up top with the lashings. Keer at the load end, taking most of the weight himself because he's Keer, and that's what Keer does. The beam goes up. He guides it into the notch. His shoulders move under his shirt. A bead of sweat slides down his spine and disappears into his waistband.
I watch.
I keep watching.
Bram clears his throat.
I look at the rail. I look at Bram. Bram looks at the rail.
"I refuse to engage."
"Didn't ask."
"I'm refusing anyway."
He grunts. The grunt has flavor. Specifically, the grunt that means he is thinking something he is not going to say and wants me to know he is not going to say it.
"What."
"Nothing."
"Bram."
He gets back to the rail.
Across the way, Axan's running a chopping crew at the tree line—three young wolves and two humans, all working through what was meant to be one pile and is now four, because Axan delegates by pointing. Kestria is halfway up a roof with two pups handing thatch up the ladder one careful armful at a time.
The woman with the slate at the central fire is the one who stepped forward at the standoff and said they'd come back. Minette, she said her name was. She came back the next morning with the families and she's been running them since.
Three children at the edge of the work. The boy from Minette's group, the small girl with the chipped tooth, and one wolf pup who has decided he is in charge of all of it. The pup has Nugget under one arm. The boy has a fistful of grain. The small girl is in charge of moral support.
"Don't squeeze her," I call.
"I'M NOT!"
"Support her bottom."
"She HAS a bottom?"
"All chickens have bottoms. That is in fact where the eggs come from. We will return to this curriculum at a later date. Support her bottom."
The pup supports Nugget's bottom. The boy holds out the grain. Nugget accepts the grain at her own pace, with the dignity of a queen who has decided this peasant's offering is acceptable. She's appointed herself their pet. Hens with jobs don't run away. I support hens with jobs.
Keer Jr. is six paces off, having opinions about thechildren's procession. He is pacing. He has decided his hen has been kidnapped and he has decided he is going to do something about it and he has also decided that the something is going to involve a great deal of strutting and zero actual confrontation. He paces. He bobs. He stops. He stares at Nugget. Nugget stopped acknowledging his existence two days ago. He paces some more.
Then he commits.
He hovers near Nugget's nothing-pile—a small mound of feed-sweepings she has been guarding for personal reasons no one understands—and edges closer. Closer. The pup sets Nugget down. Keer Jr. arrives at the nothing-pile with the air of a creature who has decided to be tolerated.
Nugget pecks him.
Square on the comb.
