Goss

It was the morning after the landslide. The steep side of the valley had a livid, mud-colored scar down it, on the upstream side of the little steep ridge that sticks out into the riverbend. Whole trees lay roots-upward in the mess. Not little hazels or wispwillows, either; these were big, solid-looking hemlocks that had been here long before we were. It made my heart turn over to look at it.

But it wasn't time to mourn. I was across the valley with Goss and some of the other younger dragons: Lachre, Ysolte, and the tiny fae Gaultheria. We had a job to do. We were collecting plants for compresses. There were a lot of injuries in the slide, some worse than others. Goss hadn't slept - I could tell - but she was still moving energetically across the hillside, directing us as to which plants to pull.

"Arrowhead leaves. Round stem. Is that a round stem, Ysolte?"

The young Guardian flinched backwards at the snap in Goss's usually jovial voice. She pulled away from the plant she'd been about to pick as if it had burned her. Goss turned from her without a word and stalked towards Lachre, who was plainly at a loss.

"Here, let's get some cleavers," I murmured Ysolte. "Woodruff. You know how they stick to things? My coat, mostly? Good for wrapping things. Let's get a big bundle going and we can supplement the bandages. Nettles, too, I see some over there where that tiny stream comes down and joins onto the river."

Ysolte was unusually quiet as we moved along the damp patch under the little stream. I would have asked what's wrong, but I knew that what was wrong with her is what was wrong with all of us. You can't ask a clan to act normal after half the lair collapses on everyone. But she kept sighing like she wanted to say something, and finally I round on her, just wanting her to talk about it.

"What do you keep sighing about?"

"I'll stop if it bothers you," she replied peevishly.

I felt my teeth grind together. "If you have something to say, just say it, that's all."

We all went through the slide. Did she think would get special treatment if she complained? Was she trapped down there like I was? I don't think so.

"I've just never seen Goss like this," she said, half in a whisper.

This was sufficiently unexpected that I felt silly for standing there with my hackles up. "Oh," I said, deflating. "I guess I haven't, either."

"Did you hear her shout at Gaultheria a minute ago? She has no idea what she's doing, she's only little."

Now that Ysolte mentioned it, I had taken note of that episode. "Yes," I said slowly. "I heard."

Ysolte sighed again, looking at the nettle stems we'd processed and wound into a coil around her thick-skinned arm. "I've never heard Goss yell in my life. Have you?"

"Ysolte, you're older than I am."

We both gave little halfhearted snorts. Neither of us had the energy for actual laughter. I looked over at Ysolte and as I did, I realized what was wrong with Goss. "She hasn't told a joke since it happened," I said, feeling like I was revealing the greatest plot twist of the age. "I haven't seen her smile, either. That's what's off. That's why her behavior is so upsetting."

Besides being our expert in propagation and land stewardship, Goss is a passionate prankster. Hardly a quarter of an hour goes by when Goss doesn't laugh at something. She plays improvisation games with Sere, Tau, and Lawen, and frequently acts in short comedic skits. On top of that, she's taken it upon herself to teach the basics of plant identification to clan hatchlings, which requires patience, flexibility, and an unfailingly good attitude, or at least the ability to hide a bad one. To have Goss working on the far valley slope, among the plants she loves, without a song in her throat or a joke on her tongue, was like having a day where the sun didn't rise: theoretically possible, able to be imagined, but a massive indicator that something was wrong.

"Goss, we gathered some cleavers and nettle to add to our bandage pile," I said as we went back over. It was partially to test how deep her irritation went, but even then I wasn't prepared for her answer.

"Did I ask you to gather cleavers and nettle?" she said sharply. "Or did I ask you to gather willow bark and dock?"

"Willow and dock, but..."

"So can we find some of those things?" Goss finished pointedly. Then something else caught her attention and she turned away. "Lachre! Not the young chicory sprouts! Leave those there!"

Ysolte and I shared a look. Goss had never been that short with either of us.

"Hey, G," I called to Gaultheria. She looked up and I beckoned her over. "Are you doing okay?"

"Yeah." Her tiny face was so deadpan all the time that I couldn't tell whether she meant it.

"I just wanted to make sure Goss didn't freak you out when she yelled at you."

"She didn't."

I shared another glance with Ysolte. "We're kind of worried about how short tempered she's being," I told Gaultheria. "I'm going to take these over to the medical crew, and maybe see if I can get Maliberte to come over and calm her down."

G looked from one of us to the other. "Okay."

"Want to come pick the inner willow bark out? I can do the cutting," Ysolte said, offering one of her claws as proof as I gathered up the nettles and cleavers.

I couldn't find Maliberte. He must have been off doing something important. But Tephra was down there making upset humming noises with Vincente and Fiamme. I guess the three coatls needed to reassure each other, too.

I made the little throaty "Hnnngh" sound you're supposed to make to say hello to a coatl, but I'm afraid to report I butchered it horribly. To hide my embarrassment I turned to Fiamme, whose draconic was the best.

"We're worried about Goss," I explained hurriedly. "We can't figure out how to get her to calm down."

Tephra made an alert body movement when she heard Goss's name and whistled a question at Fiamme. I could tell it was a question, but she said it too quickly for me to catch. Fiamme turned to me.

"Tephra say, Goss upset is? Tephra notices," Fiamme translated. "Tephra notices much late night past," she continued, speaking smoothly over Tephra's humming. "Still?"

"Still," I confirmed.

Tephra gave a short snort from both nostrils and turned to me. "Rest," she said thickly. "Goss. Need."

"Much need," I told her.

"Come."

We went back across the valley together. As we approached, Goss actually bared her teeth and snapped at Ysolte, and even though she's much smaller than the young guardian, Ysolte shied away from the willow whose bark she'd been harvesting.

"Don't you know that if you cut the bark all the way around, the tree will die?" Goss reprimanded as we landed. "Do you want this willow tree to die, Ysolte?"

"All tree die, to come," Tephra interjected, drawing attention away from Ysolte. "More willow. Propagate," she added, showing that you don't have to have a perfect or even a vaguely decent grasp of your second language to learn specialized vocabulary in your field.

"Yes, but do you think if we went around thinking it was okay to destroy willows because there are lots of willows, that we will one day not run out of willows?" Goss countered.

I was amazed Tephra could follow this sentence, because I barely did, but she leveled a cool gaze at Goss.

"Break, no use? Maybe," she answered. "Harvest no break; harvest to use. Goss, look," she said, gesturing with her nose across the valley at the scar of the mudslide. "Harvest. Purpose. Careful. To come more willow. What for willow we propagate, if no for bad time?"

It took her a long time to get through all of that, but I could hardly have said it better myself. Silence descended across the hillside as we all listened to Tephra.

But Goss put her head down, ears laid back. "We can harvest from a willow tree without killing it."

"Yes," Tephra said. "But done. Now. Willow to come die? Yes? So use all willow. All branch. Harvest one tree. Others..." She made a rolling gesture to indicate continuation. "Others go still."

She was right, of course, and we all gathered around the tree which Ysolte had inadvertently stripped of its bark. With all of us working on it, the bark was stripped in no time, as far down to the narrowest branches as we could go. Lachre points out that someone might want the inner wood for something else, and she goes off to ask Danerah if he wants it.

Meanwhile, I had been listening to Tephra and Goss with half an ear.

"You're right, of course. We've got to use the entire thing now that it's been stripped all the way 'round the trunk, but the whole point of sustainable harvesting is not to kill the plants we take from."

"Goss, no problem willow. Yes? Only straw past?"

"Oh, you mean the last straw? Well, I suppose it was. It's just been so frustrating, watching these younglings trample over everything, not knowing what they're doing..."

"Young, past, not to make anger you. Goss, fuster... fustortion... anger tell you sleep. Need. Need sleep," Tephra corrected herself. "Goss sleep no night past. Notice. Sleep you," she concluded.

There was a long pause, but finally Goss sighed and I glanced over to see her sit up and scrub her face. "Fine," she finally agreed. "But you have to stay here and make sure at least some of our plants survive."

"They go. Now, sleep, no return but with joke!" Tephra gave her an affectionate Coatl headbutt to see her off to her den.