Heart Of A Fighter (Book 4): Magic In The Valley

Chapter 13: Trinket Trading

A week had passed since the day the apprentices had gone to the Golden Rose Cult, and it was safe to say all of them were still scarred from everything they had seen.

The Titanpaws were quieter, more obedient and performed much better than usual out of fear, and the Starpaws found themselves actually putting in the effort to try and make themselves useful.

Some of them even had night terrors from seeing Dovetail's half-rotted head, with Foam, Snake and Rain having to wake up at night to console the apprentices who awoke with the horrible memory in a panic.

Wren herself had oddly not been too affected by the situation. She hated her mother from young and seeing her dead in such a disgusting way was oddly her... closure.

Sure, it was horrifying and disgusting to see, but at least now she didn't need to continue to live in her sister's shadow any longer with someone to keep reminding her of it.

Swanpaw still carried a haunted look in her eyes from that day on. She seemed to have stopped complaining almost entirely, willingly going about doing her tasks obediently without protest.

Maybe she was afraid one day she'd end up like her mother, dead with no one she loved around her.

That day was a particularly calm day, though Wren couldn't exactly put her paw on where the tingle of excitement in the air was coming from.

As she finished off her mouse from where she was perched on a large tree, away from the bustling clan, she heard approaching wingbeats and glanced up to see Hickory.

The three-legged tom fired her a warm smile and meowed, "Hi, Wren. You excited for today?" The cream and brown she-cat tilted her head curiously. "Excited for what exactly?"

Hickory laughed. "It's the day you'll see the trinket traders. They're coming soon and they'll stay here till twixt time selling their wares they got from other islands."

"Sounds tedious for them." Hickory chuckled as he landed on the branches near her. "Well, they do it for a living. You'll never catch those two cryptids in one place permanently, might as well make a living out of it."

Before Wren could reply, a gentle warbling song began drifting its first notes through the air, stringing them gradually into a single beautiful carol.

"It's the carol!" someone shouted. And a cheer went up. The two trinket traders were approaching and their caroling threaded through the sky.

The warble of a cryptid was known as a carol and was like no other type of song in the world. It was beautiful, with a certain lull in it that seemed almost hypnotic.

Wren heard the rest of the tribes now, swooping down through the branches to the base of the tree where Francis and Dixie would set up their wares.

They were carrying drawstring bags of their latest "collection," as they called the wares. "Want to go down, Wren?" Hickory called out from where he perched on the branches beside her.

Wren, of course, nodded excitedly and got up to follow him, nearly stumbling midair in her excitement as she leapt off the branch to catch up with Hickory as he took off.

She recovered her flight skills almost immediately and the two alighted on the ground together as Francis and Dixie spread out the collection.

There was a festive mood with much noise coming from all the different Valley Cats, with loud and excited chattering coming from each and every direction.

Wren caught a glimpse of Angler, one of the Guild leaders, barrel forward and give Dixie a great hug with his wings that nearly knocked her over.

Francis and Dixie looked nothing like Wren had expected. Their feathers were mostly black and the sleekest, blackest black she had ever seen, but Dixie did have some streaks of white.