The warm summer air blew through the small pass that sheltered Thundermist Village and all its inhabitants. Rhylea brought a large hand to his striped brow as he gazed across the expanse of the rolling fields to scout for any signs of attack. The caravans that had pulled through the village several days before had brought with them murmurs of a planned attack by the centaurs, but no sight or sound of them could be found by neither Rhylea nor Bron in the days since. Not even the earth could tell him anything as Rhylea laid his ear to the ground, save for the frustration that weighed down the stomp that Bron had just firmly planted into the ground.
"Where are they?" Bron shouted. "Where are those damned beasts?"
Rhylea merely yawned and sprawled out in the cool grass, letting Bron throw his tantrum. From the way he had been acting the last few days, Rhylea was beginning to think he wanted the centaurs to come. It had, after all, been quite a while since the last time Bron's blade had tasted blood. Had it really been a month since he had arrived at the village? Rhylea could hardly believe that such an amount of time could move so quickly.
"Isn't it a good thing that the centaurs might not be coming after all, Bron?" asked Rhylea as he slid his arms behind his head and stared up at the sky.
Bron simply grumbled in reply and kept his eyes on the horizon. "Bah, of course it's a good thing, kerran. But it bothers me that it has been so quiet for so long, now. Not one attack, not a single one, since the day you showed up."
"Perhaps Beda was right," smiled Rhylea. "Maybe I am a good luck charm after all!"
Bron grunted and kept his eyes to the horizon. "Perhaps, Rhylea, but it can't hold out forever. I fear this may well be the calm before the storm."
The tip of Rhylea's tail rose and fell half-heartedly in the thick of the grass and he thought of the friends-no, the family-that he had made there in the village. He thought of Ekoko too, wondering what she would think of him now that he was free, hoping that she would be proud. And he thought of the places he still needed to go, and the journey he still needed to make, and all he could do was sigh. Bron was right; he and whatever luck he had brought could not remain there forever. Perhaps he was right about many things, but the skies looked clear from where he was laying.
"And what if they do come, Bron? What then?"
Bron gave a snort. They both already knew the answer to that question. "Then I will fight, kerran, as I always have."
"And perhaps you always will," Rhylea muttered under his breath, and was surprised when Bron turned to face him.
"Perhaps I will," replied Bron. What bit of his face that wasn't covered in his dark mane of hair was lined with age, but his eyes shone like his daughter's, filled with the determination to survive-the same will to live. "And so it will be, for as long as they come. You have to choose your battles, Rhylea-find something that's worth fighting for. This is my home, just as much as it is Brianna's, or Beda's, or even yours." He paused then, watching as Rhylea tried his best to mask the struggle within him that his face refused to hide. Bron merely shook his head and turned back to the open fields, masking his own struggle to keep from smiling even just a little.
"You'll find your way, kerran," he whispered to the wind as it coldly passed over his dry, cracked lips. "You'll find it."