changed into my nightshirt. I dragged my bag to the side of the bed and crawled on to the mattress, bundling myself in the blankets I had taken from my house. For a moment I sat there, delighted in the memorable scents of home. Then I dove into my bag, digging around for my flask.
I took a sip, knowing that the liquor I had drunk earlier was not supposed to mix well with it and not caring. Soon I would be out of buttertap, too. I sighed to myself, looking out the frosted glass window. Though it was dark from the storm, it was only early evening yet. I patted my near-empty stomach for a moment, and then frowned. I would have to resign myself to not having dinner in order to preserve the little money I had left. I would have to use one of the many books I had packed as a distraction from the gnawing in my belly.
I loved books. They were the best way to experience all I was missing without ever leaving home. Of course, now that I had left home they were the best way to remind myself that the rest of the world was not entirely terrible, and the host of a great many things besides the bad.
However, I could not help but scowl at the first book I came to. It was an illustrated collection of old faunish stories I must have mistakenly packed in my haste. Sighing, I began to flip through the pages absently.
I knew all these stories by heart: old fables that our elders had told us time and time again to try to make us grow into their ideal vision of faunkind. It had not worked for all of us.
I scowled as I landed on an image of a beautiful woman dancing with a circle of faunlings, her green eyes glowing with power and knowledge. Readimina, the namesake of the village I had lived in for so long, was the patron goddess of fauns. Her story was one I knew all too well, having had it beaten into me over and over again when I was a child.
There were four gods and goddesses in the old texts: Readimina, of course, was the first and eldest. A kind, gentle goddess who respected nature and all that resided in it.
I turned the page to an image of a thin man, long silver hair spilling over his shoulders as he regarded the sea with similar glowing blue eyes. This was the god Tahninym, who was credited with the creation of the merpeople, a race of sea-dwellers almost unheard of nowadays. Rumors told that they all died out or went