From Nuishe's journal:

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The Spiral Urnula rescued is, unsurprisingly, going to stay in Sporefall Hollow. It's probably for the best - she's still so young. She probably couldn't find her way back to her home lair, and as we've discovered, there's no way she'd survive long on her own. I wonder why she was out alone to begin with. Was she sent to fight for a deity before she could handle a single harpy?

Urnula apparently wasn't expecting her to stay, and was planning to return her to her home clan once she'd recovered enough to handle a trip to go looking for her birthplace. But, since there was a change in plans, Urnula was put in a bit of a predicament. He wanted to take the little Spiral in as his own, but was unsure of how his husband would react to the possibility of suddenly adopting a hatchling. He didn't want to spring something like that on Crinipellis, but didn't want to let the Spiral go either.

I know all this because Urnula's process for making this decision involved lots of quiet fretting in the library, using Inocybe as a sounding board to bounce ideas and worries off of. He had to be covert about it, because the Spiral - who took the name Lentinula once she was fully infected - spends quite a bit of time in there as well. Whenever I was in the library, I did what I could to help Inocybe talk Urnula through his troubles, but my real usefulness came from distracting Lentinula whenever she happened by while Urnula was in the middle of another worrying session.

Finally, Urnula worked up the resolve to talk to Crinipellis about adopting Lentinula. Inocybe and I offered all the encouragement we could as he set off towards the kitchen with shaky legs, then immediately started planning what we would do if he came back with bad news.

When he bounded into the library with an ear-to-ear grin plastered across his face, it was quite the relief. Apparently, Crinipellis was surprised he’d even bothered asking. He'd assumed it was a foregone conclusion that Urnula would adopt that hatchling, so all of that worry was for nothing.

Urnula's over the moon. He can barely contain himself. He’s going to spoil that Spiral rotten.

I'm very happy for all three of them.

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Lentinula considers me an uncle, it seems. We did spend some time together because of, well, all those times I distracted her while Urnula was overthinking his problems. She sometimes comes to talk to me - usually when her fathers are too busy (or not in the lair) to occupy her - and has taken a particular interest in my journal.

I won't let her read it, naturally. It's full of things far too personal and frightening and downright mad for a hatchling. I'm sure she wouldn't enjoy reading about how the seemingly benign fungus all over the lair is growing inside her brain, or about the time said fungus puppeteered one of her parents into eating a living deer. Maybe I'll have to write her some lighter material in separate little booklets so she'll stop wondering what sorts of "stories" I've got in my big book.

Or maybe she'll just write some books of her own. She has an active imagination, and daydreams up stories in her free time. She's thrilled by the idea of recording those stories so they can be remembered forever, and is even more thrilled that her other "uncle" Inocybe is willing to teach her how to write. I won't be surprised if she ends up a dedicated librarian someday, given how excited she gets over the idea of books.

I've recommended that she join Kensinjia's Writer's Guild. I bet this little hatchling could create more compelling works than all of the current Guild members combined.

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