"What do the borderlands types make of the war?"

"Mostly they wish we'd have it somewhere else," says Charm.

"Seems difficult, that," says Ebb.

"Do you have any kind of diplomatic channel with the south? Ceasefires and stuff?"

"Mostly not," says Button.

"The borderfolk pass things along sometimes," says Charm. "And - the way it shifts with the seasons - when everyone knows Day's going to keep the upper hand all summer, you don't try as hard, and neither do they, so we just sort of scuffle all season until autumn when Night makes a push, and then in winter it's the same thing backwards."

"Maybe this makes more sense to people who are from here."

"Could be," says Charm. "Does it not make sense to you?"

"It really doesn't."

"Well, what about it?"

"Maybe you're calling a 'war' what I'd call something else, but I think wars are very bad and you need an extraordinary reason to have one - even the ones that are had over economic stuff on Earth are at least about economic stuff that affects a ton of people - it sounds to me like everyone would be best served if the Queen issued a conditional surrender at the end of fall and everyone just stopped doing the thing."

"...but you couldn't just - then we'd be surrendered to Day and they'd probably want us all to, to, live in buildings and fill out forms," says Charm.

"I said a conditional surrender, you could insist that the Queen get to keep ruling you and not demand forms or at least not very many of them. The timing would be so if it didn't go over well you wouldn't be in much trouble if you they made a fuss about the conditions and you preferred to keep fighting."

"Well that wouldn't really be a surrender, then, would it? It'd just be a - a 'go away and stop bothering us'," says Charm.

"Exactly. But they'd probably be more likely to go away and stop bothering you if they got to say they won, right? And all the important things like not having to fill out forms would still be here for you and you would have fooled them."

"...well, maybe," Charm says dubiously.

"And what's to stop them from nodding along and then coming back next spring?" wonders Ebb.

"Oh, you'd probably want to guard the border for the next year or so to make sure. If you wanted to be really sure, you could propose that there could be immigration between the countries and then you could have spies there and hostages here if they violated the terms."

"We'll see what the Queen thinks, I suppose," says Ebb.

"I don't wanna surrender to Day," says Charm.

"Maybe the war is much less bad than I am imagining and is not at all what happened to Starlight's eye and nobody ever dies in it."

Starlight shuffles.

"Oh, people do die in it," says Ebb.

"I don't wanna surrender to Day either," says Starlight.

Sigh.

The rest of the forage break is somewhat quieter. They press on.

When the sun begins to peek over the horizon in the southeast, Button locates a cozy cave in which to sleep through the day. Scouts pile in.

May finds a shady place where she will be able to sleep in spite of daylight.

And the sun rises and the sun sets and everyone wakes up and goes for an early evening forage. Nuts! Berries! Rabbits! And, much to Charm's enthusiastic delight, wild-caught roast cricket!

May doesn't sleep all day long; she tiptoes out to do some writing before the forage. But then yes! Nuts! Berries! Rabbit!

And after an hour or so of further travel, they find the road to Silver Falls. It's a dirt road, but a pretty smooth one, in reasonably good repair. Reflect puts down the wheelchair.

And May rolls along. "If it gets even smoother than this later I can walk and lean on the chair, that's faster. Meanwhile if anybody wants to push me go for it."