Yiie

When Yiie first arrived at Clan Ninereeds, he noticed a beautiful treesap nest affixed to the cliff wall.

What a nice place for a nest, he thought to himself, and before nightfall had constructed one of his own next to it.

"I wouldn't stay here if I were you," a voice said, and he peeked out of his nest into the face of another Fae.

"Why not? This is a lovely location for a nest!" Yiie gestured at the patchwork quilt of orchards, pools and fields spread out below. "I'm surprised there aren't more of them!"

"There used to about twenty of them. Now I'm the only one left, until you came along. Nests here tend to meet a... bad end."

"All the way up here? What can possibly - "

Unbeknownst to him, Gallowmere and Valdere had just finished pushing their trebuchet up the hill, along with half a dozen overripe pumpkins that the kitchens couldn't use before they spoiled. They might no longer be good for pie, but were the perfect consistency for pumpkin chunkin', which was the perfect way to let off some steam after a hard day's work. "Ready? ... FIRE!"

It all happened so quickly. One minute Yiie was chatting with his new neighbor, and the next he was spluttering and swimming to the surface of the Maren pool.

"Does that answer your question?" the other Fae asked.

It did, in a sense, but raised several more. Yiie was about to voice some of them when Valdere and Gallowmere came rushing over, all concern and profuse apologies.

"I don't know what went wrong!" Valdere wailed. "I triple-checked the gravitational acceleration and everything! Oh, hi," he added, noticing Yiie. "Who are you?"

But the Maren were getting restless, so the introductions had to wait until everyone was drying on the bank. It had been a glancing hit, and Yiie's nest was still mostly intact. A little more sap would make it as good as new - well, it WAS new, it hadn't even been 23 hours...

"I don't bother getting attached to them anymore," Zach said morosely, watching the shattered fragments of his own nest still bobbing in the water. The creatures living in the pond would make short work of them, and be glad of the sweet treat.

"I just don't understand it," Valdere said. "It's almost as if they're attracted to your nest like some sort of magical magnet!"

Everyone was silent for a moment. Back in Yiie's homeland that would've been silly, but here in the Starfall Isles it was entirely possible.

"Incidentally, I can't help noticing that you chose an evening when York's not here," Zach said casually. Valdere looked away, suddenly very interested in the brass fastenings on his bag.

"That's pure coincidence! Um... can you not tell him when he comes back?"

It was late, and Yiie's nest repair would have to wait until morning.

"You're seriously going to rebuild your nest where it was last night?" Zach asked, as he rebuilt his nest and placed it where it had been the night before.

"I don't see why not!" Yiie called back cheerfully. "Surely it doesn't rain pumpkins EVERY night!"

"No, not every night," Zach admitted.

The next evening Valdere decided to experiment with melons.

(There's a rumor going around that he got his name from the sound he makes whenever his nest is knocked off its spot on the cliff face. "Yiiiieeeeeeeee!" That's entirely false, although he is a bit of a shrieker. You'd be, too.)