Chuso does not think his appearance is unusual, of course. He's not thinking verbally at all at the moment, since he's ducking under his opponent's swing and trying to push forward, only to be painfully headbutted by sturdy horns, knocking the wind out of him. He quicksteps back, knowing that a sweep of his feet is next, but isn't fast enough, and is quickly flat on his butt, his opponent's weapon at his throat.

"Yield! Yield. Fuck, I think that bruised my tailbone."

His opponent winces and pulls his wooden spear back. "...Sorry."

Chuso waves him off. "No, don't be. You always get mud*. Good fight."

Well, he lost that one, but he's been doing better than before. All that practice in the woods with Nuuk is paying off! Even if they get carried away and bang as often as actually practicing, he's seeing results. Short, one to two minute bouts is the norm, quickly rotating between everyone present without much of a break between bouts. Practice weapons, of course. Everyone has to stand ready in case something comes after the town, but outside of the occasional duel or official challenge, it doesn't do to cause too much harm.

The pair next to them waves, two women with russet fur and dark horns. "Wanna swap foes, guys?"

"Nah, sorry!" Chuso calls out. "I'd better go. My cousin Vrigu's daughter is having her baptism at sunset."

"Oh, that age already?" One of the women replies.

"Vrigu's that woodcutter, right?" The other asks. "She's up to three now? I wouldn't think a woodcutter could have kids that easy. Ah yes, my mighty foe growing stronger for a hundred years, shall fall to my axe this day..."

"Maybe the well just likes her," Chuso shrugs, trying to ignore the spike of jealousy. "Anyway, yeah. I wonder what her name will be..."

"Well, have fun!" Someone calls out to him as he leaves the hall. He simply waves in response. He knows Vrigu's just as surprised as anyone else about her continued fertility, not that she's complaining.

*An expression roughly meaning "it can't be helped" or "just the cost of doing business".

Vrigu's place is five minutes' run outside the wall, a big two-story manor made, of course, entirely out of the various fantastical kinds of wood she chops down and cuts, saws, and sands into shape. He can hear the party from a minute out, and hurries to join in.

"You're late, coz!" Vrigu shouts at him, waving broadly and grinning over the infant form in her arms.

"But I'm here now!"

"Come get a drink and a haunch. And say hi to Klorlas for well's sake, you hardly ever visit anymore!"

"As you command."

He mingles for a bit. Lots of extended family are here, at least everyone less than a few days' travel away. There's singing and sparring and dancing and lots and lots of meat. He enjoys the party for a while. Says hi to Klorlas, who's growing up fast.

"Like a weed! You've gotten another six inches since I last saw you!"

"That's because you never visit! You're always off with your girlfriend."

"Aheheh... We do a lot of sparring and tracking practice out in the woods."

"Sparring, right." Klorlas glares. "You do seem like the kind of guy who goes 'sparring' a lot, Chu. I wasn't baptized yesterday."

"Anyway! How's your school been going?"

"Well, we're doing practicals soon and I'm still not sure if I want soldier track or, like, masonry..."

"Growing up grumpy, too," Chuso complains to himself quietly, once the conversation is over.

But it's a celebration. There's dancing. There's old stories from their past lives. Chuso even shares one from his- The thrilling tale of how he participated in the mass revolts when the Black Emperor went too far and everyone suddenly knew, as soon as they heard the news, that it was wrong and his 'progress' needed to stop.

When he heard the phrase 'the Empire is burning down the deepwoods', it was like ice and fire suddenly ran through his veins. A vicious, righteous anger, that NEEDED to be expressed. So he joined the mob. He was a grunt of course, but it was suddenly terribly clear that the Empire was - horror, deepest utterest wrongness, blasphemy, for the Dwellin themselves to break the balance of the world. The Empire needed to be destroyed. Somehow, most of the Empire's soldiers still stood together - refusing to listen to their instincts and the whispering of the Well, an utter blasphemy.

They stormed into the city, the streets already slick with blood. Fellow rebels were passing out weapons. They stormed concentric rings of stone defenses at high losses, paying a ruinous price in blood to take each one. One they were all willing to pay to make things RIGHT again, knowing very well that they'd return from the Well eventually. They tore down the Empire's buildings and workshops brick by brick, and all of that was, eventually, wiped clean... Though not forgotten.

Chuso doesn't remember any fine details of it anymore. Just a vague sense of exhausted, bloody, thrilling fury. A jolt of elated vicious relief at righting a terrible wrong, destroying the things that would have destroyed the world. He died of his wounds some time after the fact, but survived long enough for the well to keep the memories. It's always a hit, that old story.

The sun is getting lower, so the party goes on for a while. The honor guard watching for monsters changes out, and the kid's father and aunts and uncles get replaced by other family members so the first set can enjoy the party a bit. Chuso gets a bit drunk.

The gossip around the tables shifts away from valorous deeds and towards scandal.

"We got sent to the Fens to look for a missing caravan. Found their bones, which is too bad, but we also found some kind of hermit's house to raid," a woman he barely knows says in a grinning voice, "Little bastard hiding in the middle of nowhere, somehow hadn't been eaten yet. Ran off, but we got him with a lumenbolt. And I found the most awful thing... Go on, ask what."

"What did you find?" Chuso obliges, leaning forward in interest.

"A book."

There are a series of shocked gasps and curses around the table.

"Burned it, of course. Right away."

"What kind of hermit writes things down?"

"Well, I mean, like trail signs, or 'keep out'-"

"A whole book though!"

"Are you sure it wasn't a, like, a sketchbook?"

"We paged through a bit to check. Absolute wall of text."

"It sort of makes sense if he wasn't going to a Well on the regular, but... Ugh. How would you even manage to read a whole book without freezing up?"

She shrugs. "Hermits are insane. It's gone now."