You know how time sometimes lends a certain charm to things? What six years has done to the attic was the opposite of that. For one thing all the meat that had been there before had long since been eaten except for that one chunk of hats know what that’s apparently been sitting there since before our granduncle nephew’s grandmother’s time. Blankets became sheets of ice and the assortment of broken weapons were pitted with even more rust and frost than before. The same blanket I had taken with me all those years ago was still there because it was my only blanket, if it even deserved the title of by now. I’d managed to build a kind of cave out of the chunks of ice with things in them and snow so that at the very least I was actually actually able to wake up each morning. The gaps between the slats had widened, giving me even more material to work with, and- wait. My cave was occupied.

Gahg. Gagh gragh gaahg. If it was another frostfox it had better say goodbye to it's fur because I was going to shove it through that hole in the roof. I crept closer to my den. I was just out of view of the opening. I sucked in a breath and pounced. Please don't scratch too much, please don't scratch too much. I snatched its tail and hauled out a- a blanket. An old, faded, dark blue blanket. Wait, was that leather? I held it up. It was a shirt, my father's old one. It had a gaping tear in the left shoulder from when my father had won the axes and wrestling Snorfborf competition a few dark moons ago, but what was it doing here?

I spread it out on my lap and traced the familiar stitching. I'd mended every conceivable tear my father could make, from dragon claw to a sword slash. I’d mended the sleeve’s hem with darker cloth from a tunic even more desperate to patch the hole Chief Skullgut, the chief, had put there when he’d tossed my father off of a building in a friendly drunken brawl. At this point it was so threadbare as to be useless. I guess that made it perfect for someone even more useless. I pulled my head through the proper hole pushed my arms through theirs. I was swimming in the material, but at least it was something. In the morning I could braid a belt out of reeds to keep the material from catching the wind and sending me on a one way trip to the clouds.

I began to cry. The rock amulet was freezing on my skin, stealing the warmth I didn’t have. Of course I would cry. It was natural for someone like me to be unable to handle my emotions. My tear fell, shattering to a million pieces on the hard floor and another followed. Their breaking was like music, soft and tinkling, slipping down my cheeks like an ocean stream. I hugged the mass of fabric to my bones and crawled into my cave of hardened snow and curled up, pulling my knees close.

Sometimes, when I’m laying on the hard wood and watching the eddies of a storm swirl through the dark outside my little window to the house I let myself think. I don’t wish to be somewhere else, somewhere people love and want me. I know I will never win the Village tournaments so I will never be a hero. I know I am completely useless as the Whelp and that I will never lose that title. When I would watch the light that peeks between the warped floorboards from the embers below dance across the ice on my ceiling I could feel calm. Everyone was asleep, and I had nothing to fear. I could think my thoughts and breathe deeply. I was safe. Thunder cracked and rumbled. The storm was getting worse. The snow eddies became miniature gales but I knew where the holes were and was safe from the wind.

It was nowhere near warm enough because my cave was too big to hold any heat, and I felt it being ripped away by the fringes of the storm. Thunder roared again and I heard a scrabbling in its absence. Someone was up. They shuffled from the sleeping room towards the stairs of my loft and I put my eye to a hole in the wooden boards to see who it was. Our home had been raided by other Villagers before. It’s a sort of sport and luckily no Villager has ever gotten far in their raids on the Stonebone family. We, with the exception of me, were too tough a for petty violence like a mace to the skull as we sleep.

It was too dark to make out the features of the lumbering shadow but I recognized the gait. Viliai, my brother. He froze like a deer that saw a hunter at the next thunderclap, then scuttled a little faster when he had recovered. By the time he’d silently crashed up the stairs he practically tumbled into my little sanctuary and nearly broke my organs when he crushed himself against me in a bear’s hug. “V-Viliai!” I choked. Viliai looked up at my face with wide gemstone eyes and slackened his death grip a bit. “It’s not my fault you’re so weak.” He whispered. “You’ve gotten stronger.” I commented to make him feel better. He gave me his cocked head uneven grin, cheeks reddening at the praise. At the next peal of thunder he went white as me and bruised me in his terror. “Vil!” I squeaked. “I’m just trying to keep you together because the thunder might break you apart!” He squeaked, shame coloring his face and mingling with the pallid terror. I managed to wrest my arms from his hold and wrapped them around him. “Thank you, Vil. I appreciate it.” He hummed in satisfaction. “But,” he shrunk into me a little at my lecturing tone, “thunder can’t shake me much when I’m inside the Stonebone home, and while I always appreciate the company, I don’t want to you worry so much about me.” I shook a finger he couldn't see at him. “I’m not worried about you!” He shrieked. Luckily another thunderclap muted his words so our father didn’t hear. Father could sleep through the worst storm Osesh could throw at us but if someone so much as snorts in their sleeo he’s up and ready with his axe and capricorn horned helmet.

“A Villager despises the Whelp. I despise the Whelp.” He muttered into my shirt. I smoothed his dark hair and began combing out the tangles with my fingers. Villai settled himself more comfortably across my lap and floor and hid his face under his arm. When the next crash came he just squeezed me a bit tighter. It’s a wonder that I didn’t vomit my lungs. “I know you do, Vil. Of course you do." I comforted him when I'd gotten my breath back. " You’re strong. You will never be weak. But what’s more, you’re smart, and not every Villager is. Because you’re both strong and smart you’ll be able to beat anyone, and maybe even become chief.” I fished out a branch and put it next to a growing pile of rocks. “But Hlif,” Villai’s forest green eye peeked out and gave me a pitiful look, “how? Grubdirt beat me in wrestling today, and I almost lost to Snortbeak in the javelin throwing contest! And I barely managed to milk a bucket of milkrocks at training! I don’t know how I can do anything when I can barely do anything!” He hid his face again. I sighed. So this was the main reason he came here. The storm most likely was one reason, but poor, heart of gold, sensitive Villai had come here for comfort. “Vil,” I threw aside a couple acorns, “you’re nine. Grubdirt is twelve and Snortbeak is almost an adult. Everyone knows you’ll do amazing things. You don’t know everything yet, and Grubdirt’s been wrestling almost as long as you’ve been alive. How did he beat you?” Another handful of pebbles joined the growing pile of debris. “He got me in a headlock and bent my legs backwards.” Villai sniffled. I patted his back. “Then tomorrow you’ll work on your headlock defense and finger biting offense. Maybe even some mouthfoot attacks. Hmm?” My finger snagged a hole in is tunic. “Okay.” Villai murmured sleepily.