Wy-Naught and the Many Mothers

In which our Beast of Bad makes a Nun of None.

Written and illustrated by James Craven (Dinmenel) with art from Jenna Burjoski (Toesock)

Undercliff’s Itch LLC, 4E14

Rhonda the grimtoad heated her hiney atop the cap of Nana Nibblet’s toadstool tower. Her smoke belching lonely without Wy, she squirmed atop the squished chimney and let the ugly chimes of the commotion taking place below waft up to her ear holes.

“WY-UH-LANDREEUH, I ‘CLARE TA Y’FFRE!” Nana shrieked at the little girl. “I don’ know what I’m gonna do with you!” Wy dodged the swipe of a meaty paw and scampered away to her oregano nest.

“Leave off, Nana!” she shouted back. “It was just a bit of fun!”

“Oh, woeissme!” her Nana answered, and collapsed back onto her pouf. “Just a bit of fun, she says. Face-snakes buzzing at my door after her sorry skin, and she says it were just a bit of fun to KILL THE LAW!” She spit a bit of imported chewing mint into the fire. The salamanders hissed and dove after the treat. “And with your Uncle here, and all… what he must think of me, rearin’ a Bad Beast like you…”

“He knows exactly who to blame when a child is a beast,” said Uncle’s deep voice from the bear-back chair. “And blaming the child is a lie and a shame,” he finished in a mutter, and puffed on his pipe.

“Yes, yes, I suppose you’re right,” Nana went on. “Bad Blood brews a Bad Beast, however we good, kind creatures try to prevent it.” Uncle choked on his smoke.

“Well, I did what I could for the little cretin, the Mara help me,” Nana grumbled on, glaring at Wy, “but you’re determined to be Bad Beast Number None just like your parents.”

“Number None?” Uncle asked.

“Aye, Number None. Beasts so foul the Law has them unwritten. And she’d go the same way, with what she’s done, if she weren’t so young and pitiful as to make the face-snakes question the Rules. Instead she gets Exile.” Wy’s breath caught. Leave the forest forever?

“The girl is banished, Nibbles?” said Uncle, his voice gravel.

“Aye,” answered Nana with a flash of savvy eye. “Cast out for the good of the forest. And for her good too, I shouldn’t wonder.”

Ash fluttered as the fire shifted a spent salamander. Then Uncle said,

“Come here, girl.”

Wy crawled reluctantly out of her nest and stood in front of the old animal. He was an Orc, with tusks glinting butter yellow and a mice-nest beard rustling like parchment.

“Do you know what a library is?” he asked. Wy shook her puckerbrush head, and the Orc sighed. “Does she read, at least?”

“Of course I read,” Wy snapped. “I’m not bosmer.” Nana scowled.

“You must know something of books, then. Your Nana helps me acquire them, now and then, though she does not care for them herself,” the Orc went on. “I care for a place with more books than there are trees in this forest. It is my library. Would you like to see it?”

“You mean, ‘Do you want to live there?’” Wy said. “And I don’t want to leave.”

“They have banished you,” Uncle growled. “If you stay, they will kill you.”

Nana hissed, “They’ll unwrite you.”

“Or maybe,” Wy replied, scowling blackly, “I’ll unwrite myself.”

“You will not,” barked Nana. “Urag, she’ll go with you. She’ll go, or I’ll get my worth out of her from the meat traders in the Weald.” Uncle just looked at Wy. The little elf grimaced, and shrugged resentfully.

“Very well,” Uncle allowed. He stood, and took Wy’s tiny hand in his huge soft one. “Nibbles, we should go. Thank you for the book.”

Rhonda let out two loud, mournful croaks as the tower door slammed open. Wy looked glumly up at her smoking buddy as they went, and the grimtoad nodded morose sympathy down. Her Nana, however, snatched up a fallen apple and chucked it at the great larval lump. It stuck in her hide, to fester with the rest of Nana’s chastisements. “Hideous thing,” she shuddered, and beckoned them on.

The forest bristled with good riddance around the shore of the river Strid where Urag’s water chariot was tethered. Elves and eagles stared down in disgust at his squawking, squabbling team of race-geese.

Nana Nibblet bent down and pressed an awkward hug around Wy. “Be good, for once,” she said gruffly, pressing a Kiss at the End on her nose, and then leaned in to whisper in the girl’s ear. “And always remember: every elf’s trash is any Orc’s treasure.” Wy blinked in confusion, and her Nana flashed her a wink as she straightened up.

“Bless you for this, Urag,” she said. “Bless you both.”

“Thank you, Nibbles,” Uncle Urag replied with his big hand on Wy’s little shoulder. “But we are both beyond blessings now.” He helped Wy into the chariot, and took up his race-geese reins. “Say goodbye to Samantha John for me!” the little elf cried out to her lost Nana as Urag whipped the flock into order. The fat bosmer nodded, and the churning feet of geese sped the chariot off down the river.

“You will miss it,” growled Urag, as the shores blurred by. “But all fruit must fall in its time.”

And as Wy whispered a hot-eyed goodbye to her no-longer home, cindered-out salamanders slithered up her Nana’s chimney and onto Rhonda

who croaked her last smoky croak
as her heart burned out
and fell.