The fire burned bright, providing me with plenty of illumination on my journey.  There was no cover aside from footprints left in the dirt, so I did my best to dart quickly between them.  Every rustling leaf made me jump, and the slightest movement in the shadows caused me to hit the dirt.  Casual talk of some creature carrying me away in the night had gotten to me, and though I could not die I did not want to find out how much fighting against one would hurt.

I had just stepped into an indentation left by Sondra’s heel when a loud thud from almost on top of me stopped me in my tracks.  To my left and right I saw tanned ankles, and I looked up a pair of legs the size of pillars.  They came together under a short green skirt that led to a slender, twig-like body.  Narrow black eyes glared down at me, and brown hair mussed by wind was piled at the very top of the tower.

“Hey, Bushwack,” I called up to her nervously.  “Can I help you with something?”

“Not so confident without your giant humans around for protection, are you?” she teased.  “Oh wait, they’re normal sized and you’re just puny.”

“I’m… sorry?” I replied, backing away from her.  I had not said a single word to her that whole day, so this sudden upswing in hostility was a surprise.

“Yeah, you are sorry,” she retorted, probably thinking herself clever.  She must have noticed me retreating then, since she barked, “Where do you think you’re going?”  The venom with which she said it startled me, and I froze mid-step.

Bushwack hardly needed an opening, but giving her one made it much easier for her.  She leaned forward and swiped an arm at me, striking me on the whole side of my body with her palm.  My feet lifted off the ground and her fingers wrapped around me in a tight grip, keeping me from flying away.  The only thing peeking out from her fist was my head, and the sudden stop made it lurch to the side.  When she jerked herself back up my head snapped back, and it felt like my insides were left behind.

Once the whirlwind of movement came to an end, I was in front of Bushwack’s face with her glaring at me, one eye on either side.  I tried to fight against her grip, but with her fingers constricting me I could do little more than wiggle.  She laughed, covering my head in a cloud of warm air, and said, “Some great warrior you are.  Overpowered by a pixie using one arm, and not even a particularly strong one.  We’re truly lucky to have you with us.”

“I don’t know how else to explain this to you,” I began, “I never expected to keep being a warrior at this size.”

Bushwack squeezed her fingers tighter, not enough to break anything but definitely enough to make me stop talking.  “And since you can’t do anything else, you decided to start taking my roles and asking to get cut in on the loot?  If you just stayed small and out of the way I wouldn’t have any problem with you, but you’re trying to force your way into the party and I don’t like it.”

Most of what she had just said was false, but I figured it was best to pick one thing so I could finish speaking.  “But I didn’t ask for either of those things!” I replied.  “You were there when Kiri suggested launching me into the camp, and I didn’t even talk to Margret today, let alone about loot”

She squeezed me again, then pulled me closer to her face.  No matter where I looked in front of me I saw some part of Bushack’s face, and her grip kept me from turning in any other direction.  “Sure, you didn’t talk to Margret about loot,” she said.  No matter what I said, she could find some way to misinterpret it.  “You humans like to talk though, and I know you spent the whole day with Sondra.  You asked her to bring it up, and Margret happily obliged.”

“But I didn’t!” I protested.  “Your group has already agreed to take me in and do what you can to help me, and I can hardly spend money like this.  Why would I try to take any more?”

Bushwack brought her free hand toward me, her middle finger cocked against her thumb.  When it was near my head she released the tension, flicking my head hard enough to leave a lingering, throbbing pain.  “Because humans are greedy,” she answered as though it were a common fact.  “And it’s a step toward insinuating yourself into the group.  First you get the loot, then you start taking credit with us, and before we know it you’re getting your own room when we stop in a town.  With two other humans backing you up, you figured you could get your way, too.”

“Why do you even think I want to be part of your group?  When I get back to my original size, I’m going to do whatever I can to put this whole incident behind me.”

She tilted her head forward so she was looking straight down at me, then pressed the tip of her thumb against the side of mine.  “What, am I supposed to believe we’re not good enough for you?” she scoffed.  “It’s simple math.  You saw a group with two humans and two fey, all living in harmony.  If you join, you’ll swing it so the humans have a majority, extending your dominance a step further.  It wouldn’t be long until we’re doing everything the humans want to do, maybe throwing us a bone every now and then.”

I was getting tired of her constant accusations.  “You seem to think humans are part of a hive mind,” I began, “but we’re not.  We’re just as capable of having our own thoughts and decisions as anyone else.  On the other hand, you and Lell have had it out for me since the moment you picked me up off the ground.”

“How dare you,” Bushwack hissed, spraying me with a harsh gust of wind.  Apparently, the smallest whiff of an accusation pissed her off so much she forgot to hurt me.  “First of all, you will call her Llelwyl at all times, and be glad I don’t demand you refer to her as Llelwyl, Second Lady of the Birch and Knight of the Order of the Owlbear.  Second, we’ve been friends since before you were born, you little gnat, and we have a deeper kinship than you could ever comprehend.  Lastly, I haven’t exactly seen you humans breaking ranks ever since we picked you up, either.”

I wanted to tell her all about Kirinhalut, what her true nature was and how she was manipulating them for the sheer sport of it.  However, the succubus never slept, and I could feel her tendrils probing my mind throughout the conversation.  Whenever my thoughts went to exposing her my mind shorted out no matter how I approached the problem.  There had to be some way to stop the infighting without hitting one of her safety measures.

“Not everything’s a conspiracy against fey, you know,” I finally managed.  “Margret and Sondra really respect the two of you, and I wouldn’t want to disrupt the dynamic you have.”

Bushwack leaned her thumb against the side of my head until it rested on her knuckle.  “That’s exactly what you’d say if this were a conspiracy against fey,” she responded.  It seemed that, no matter what, I would not be able to reach her.  “You’re lucky, though.  Even Lell would be suspicious if you didn’t show up tomorrow, and I’m too tired to keep talking to you.”

I sighed with relief, figuring I had been spared several more hours of accusations and torment.  “I don’t suppose you’ll spare me the rest of the walk to Sondra’s tent?”

“Why, do you want to make googly eyes at her while she sleeps?” Bushwack mockingly asked.  “I’m not going to give you all night to work on turning her against me.  You’re coming up with me so I can keep an eye on you.”

“I thought you had a special religious bed that you had to sleep in?”

She rolled her eyes so hard I thought they would fall out of their sockets.  “I’m not going to explain how many ways you’re simplifying it to the point of being terribly wrong, but yes, I do.  And I’ll be sleeping in it so I can receive my daily blessing.  You’ll just be on the corner hoping you don’t fall off the side.”  I was not aware of that particular nuance, but I was hardly going to argue about her own religion with her, not the least because she could crush all my bones with just one sudden, powerful squeeze.

Bushwack launched herself into the air, keeping her grip around me tight enough that I could not move my arms.  Her wings furiously beat the air, putting off a thin trail of silvery dust in her wake.  The ground sped by far below, and she carried me past the tents the others had set up into the canopied wagon.  She ascended to her ornate bed made of twigs and leaves woven together, hanging from the ceiling.

Before Bushwack landed on the mattress, I looked down and saw Kirinhalut sleeping directly below her.  She was doing an excellent job pretending to sleep, and I wondered what she did to make it so convincing.  Them sleeping so closely together helped explain how the pixie had fallen so deeply into her influence over the past day, at least, and gave me an idea of what the succubus did all night.

Bushwack landed, then promptly laid down on the mattress stuffed with soft, gummy leaves.  She extended her arm and, as she promised, deposited me on the corner furthest away from her.  Her fingers finally opened, dropping me onto the sheets, and she withdrew her hand.  “Don’t get any dumb ideas,” she said, grabbing the top of her covers.  “I’m not into shrunken humans like some people in this camp.  If you even come close to touching me you’ll be splattered before you can scream.”  With that she turned over multiple times, coiling the blanket around herself like a cocoon.  This seemed less like part of her sleeping ritual and more of a way to deny me warmth for the night.

I curled up as tightly as I could without drawing any fabric over me and drew my knees to my chest.  It was a warm night, luckily, so I was not likely to freeze to death, but I still missed the weight of a blanket.  In a single night I had become totally reacclimated to it, even though it was such a minor thing.  Perhaps it was not the blanket I missed, but the idea that someone was considerate enough to give me one.

More than a simple square of cloth, I missed Sondra.  She and Bushwack seemed to be polar opposites as far as I was concerned, even if they had been wildly successful on their adventures together.  Whereas Sondra seemed to genuinely want to help me get better, I felt like Bushwack would have crushed me tonight if she thought she would get away with it.  Even Llelwyl was interested in keeping me around for practical reasons, and Margret’s concern for me extended past Kirinhalut’s urging toward chaos.  The only one here who explicitly wanted me dead was only a few inches away with the blankets bundled around her.

I hope you’re feeling welcome, Kirinhalut forced into my mind.  I’m doing my very best to make sure you feel at home with them.  If she wanted a response from me, she could tear it from my mind.  I closed my eyes, hoping that I would wake up to learn that tonight was just one more in a long series of nightmares.