Before the Fell Calamity, when the magix were still new in the four worlds, there once lived a young zealot named Ionis. A twist-horn Yenyi by birth, she called the Skipskep Isles home. They were little more than a smudge on the map where the K'azni Dominion met the Visehkt Dynasty. But to Ionis, the tiny island village of was the most important place in all the worlds. The Isles didn't even have a firemount, as most Yenyi lands boasted, but she didn't care. For Ionis knew, her beloved village held the true Set'glo faithful. They alone held the secrets of their god Siklata

But her mentor, Invisor Nilithi, was too small-minded and simple for Ionis. He did nothing but hold the faithful and Ionis back.

"Yes, Invisor Nilithi," Ionis said. "I understand. You've well prepared me."

"Have I?" the Invisor squinted down at the young woman, his red eyes heavy with age. She stood unmoving, scowling back up at him in utter defiance. She expertly kept her tightly braided mahogany hair tucked into a thick knot at the nape of her neck. Flecks of red were still filling out her eyes and seeping up into her budding horns, as they had since her initiation.

Nilithi sighed and shook his head, placing his dark, wrinkled hand on the smooth bronze skin of her shoulder. His grip was of iron and ice. The old man's twisting horns were such a deep scarlet they were nearly black. Had age not begun to cloud his vision, the scarlet gems of his eyes would make the proudest ruby pale with envy.

"There are reasons why we keep to the edges," the old man repeated the same tired lesson to his stubborn pupil. "If you are to take up the mantle of Invisor, you must understand this and protect the Set'glo. The faithless walk in light, but we must embrace darkness. If they knew where we..."

"We shouldn't be afraid!" Ionis' long fangs flashed in her snarl. The old Invisor didn't flinch. "They should be afraid of us!"

"They are, little Firebrand," Nilithi nearly purred. A cruel smile hardened his lined face, revealing his own sharp teeth. "And we need to keep it that way. You have your task. Go and find them. Take one. Drink. Bring me a token of their flesh to prove you have completed the Task. We will offer it on S'iklata's altar together to seal your calling to him. See that you are not seen, so fear and confusion spread terror in the land. This is our strength and our cloak."

A deep scowl sat on the young woman's brow, and her lips pressed into a thin line. She nodded without a word.

The last shred of the sun dipped below the horizon as the two walked along the seashore, silhouetted. The dying light painted the sea and sky a bloody red to match the eyes and spiraling horns of the two Yenyi villagers. Behind them came the evening sounds of the village, mingling with the soft hiss of the waves. A quiet chatter of gossip floated through the darkening sky. A sharp spat of boys fighting, then the bark of a man's clipped demand for peace. Laughter rippled towards them following a quip that did not carry on the wind to the beach.

"And after," the Invisor continued, "you will work with the other novices to track bleeders and learn the proper way of gathering them to us. It is a delicate thing, the bleeder hunt. But we all depend on it's success. And it's secrecy," the Invisor said. "But before fall, I expect you will be the finest novice hunter of a generation."

He looked sideways at her as they walked, gauging her reaction or lack thereof. Ionis only nodded.

"You must trust me, Firebrand," Nilithi tried to catch her eye. "I know this is not what you imagined. The hunger is still fresh upon you. But this is the way of things, for generations. You will understand in time. You will grow accustomed to it."

"Yes, Invisor Nilithi," Ionis said mechanically. "I will do what is asked of me."

A muscle twitched in the old man's jaw, and he frowned. Then scowled.

"Then go," he snapped. Ionis startled but immediately hid it. She bowed, pressed her thumbs and index fingers together in the diamond sign of respect, and then turned away from him and the village.

"Ionis," the Invisor's sharp tone caught her. She paused, looking over her shoulder. "If you are seen, do not return. If you bring them upon us, I will drink you dry myself."

The words were a cold promise she knew he would keep without hesitation. She turned away from the man who had blessed her as an infant, away from her parents and brothers, away from Carnswon, and did not look back.

She didn't have to.

Ionis knew she'd return by tomorrow's dusk, a full day before they expected her. She knew Invisor Nilithi would admit he had been wrong and afraid of shadows. He'd laugh in delight at the offering she would bring to their god.

They all would.

The night song whispered through the craggy coastal trees as Ionis silently made her way along a deer trail. Her anger faded with each step, but she remained convinced that the Invisor's warnings were unfounded.

"Coward," she mumbled, ducking under a low branch. It was no wonder that S'iklata had barely blessed the old man. The Devourer god required holy Invisors who were worthy of the blessing. They should be fearless and unstoppable to prove they deserved to lead the faithful. Not frail old men who trembled in shadows and darkness.

She paused, took a drink from her costrel flask, then huffed with an annoyed grunt. Without realizing it, she had instinctually stopped in a dark shadow. Her navy novice wrappings blended perfectly into the darkness, rendering her nearly invisible. Had fear been so deeply ingrained in her?

Defiantly, she stepped into a puddle of moonlight, then turned and made a rude gesture to the shadow. Only the crickets laughed, but she did not understand their song, so the young woman continued on the trail. It was a new path to her feet, but she had studied the maps well. Two more hills thick with woods, then the village of Waiste waited just beyond a field of square meadows and a stream. Ionis had never seen a bleeder alive, let alone an entire bleeder village.

She screwed her face to one side and slowed her steps, then gave into the instinct to hide as she crested the hill. Her pride complained with every shadowed step she took. She kept low to the shrubs and flitted between the last trees of the forest until she found an opening at the top of the hill to survey the land below.

The village of Waiste was a dark smudge on the landscape beyond low meadows cut into an ugly patchwork of unnatural squares. The bright thread of a stream reflected the moonlight in the darkness of the predawn chill. To her surprise, the village already had pin-pricked lights shining from distant windows. She realized with a pout that the bleeders were already awake. No doubt they were rising before the dawn for their early morning chores. This ruined her plan to take her prize and be back before nightfall.

Waiste was smaller than she had expected. Maybe ten waddle and daub houses hid behind a wood stake wall. Perhaps fifteen. Certainly no more than twenty, along with what looked like a long, low meeting hall.

Ionis blinked at it, and rage stirred in her heart.

This is what she was supposed to be afraid of? A few dozen people, half of them children or aged. These are the horrible bleeders to be so careful around? They likely only had a handful of fighters, and none had the blessing. She was the best fighter Invisor Nilithi had seen in decades. She had heard him taunt other novices years older than her, mocking them to redouble their training to attempt besting her in combat. None had. Ionis thanked S'iklata every midnight for his out-poured blessings upon her. She would not waste them.

No.

She would follow S'iklata the Devourer, not the coward Nilithi. Her first rite would be the greatest novice offering of an age. Perhaps of all generations. The Devourer had blessed her greatly, so her offering should match his blessing.

A gentle pink spread through the morning haze as she took in every speck of information she could about the village of Waiste. It would be their last sunrise.

The perpetual canopy of clouds that hung over the Yenfleyt world shielded the stars from witnessing the slaughter of Waiste. She took them all, from the first farmer to fall without a cry in the fields to the final pleading old woman who failed to escape to the forest because of her weak knees. Ionis didn't think; she just did what she had always done and became her twin blades. They were not an extension of her, but rather she became one with them. She was the cord that bound them together and served them.

As last the old woman collapsed onto the broad path that led west, Ionis laughed. Nilithi was wrong. Incredibly wrong. There was absolutely nothing to be afraid of. It had been easy. Easier than she expected.

She left the old woman's body on the road and turned back to the village. She knew precisely which bleeder she would drain first. Her first taste. Ionis had left him alive, barely, so she could finally taste the lifeblood she had yearned after for years. Ionis found him where he should be, struggling to crawl into hiding like the beast he was. He was young, perhaps only a few years older than her, and in his prime. The villager was the only one who had put up a decent fight, though many had tried. He had earned the privilege of being her first live bleeder.

The man saw Ionis and began cursing her, screaming out his hatred in a torrent of jumbled words. She only leaned against the edge of a well and wiped her blades clean carefully. His words were the words of an evil monster. She barely heard them. Nilithi had been right about that, at least. The doomed bleeder called down every hex, curse, and vile thing he could imagine upon her, invoking the name T'set over and over. Ionis did not know or care who T'set was, but she was savoring her victory over these horrid people who would say such things. Perhaps S'iklata would bless her even more for this cleansing.

She sheathed her blades and grinned, her tongue playing over her long fangs as she took a step towards the man.

"T'set!" he screamed, his rage turning to terror at the sight of her teeth. The man failed to scramble back from her on hamstrung legs. "T'set I have served you! Save me! T'set!!"

"The gods don't work that way, you pathetic bleeder," she said. "You must be worthy of their love. And who would love a thing like you?"

His screams grew more frantic as she knelt beside him. He flailed weakly at her, but she easily batted his one unbroken arm away, then knelt upon it.

"Shhhh," she whispered in his ear. "Don't worry. You'll meet your T'set soon."

Tears streamed from his eyes as his voice broke and failed. Ionis dropped her head towards his neck and opened her mouth. The smell of his blood was intoxicating in its potency. This was why she lived.

Something massive crashed into her side and flung her off him. Her body slammed into the well, a dozen paces from the broken man. She gasped for air; the sharp pain of broken ribs shot through her chest. But she was on her feet instantly, spinning and drawing her blades in one fluid motion to face whatever fool had dared attack her.

The village's spiked log wall collapsed inward, crushing a house like twigs and tinder. A creature like nothing Ionis had ever seen calmly made itself comfortable on the fallen wall. Its reptilian head was the size of the destroyed house, and its body alone was longer than the main street in Ionis' village. It furled mountainous leathery wings tightly against its body and tucked clawed talons, each the size of a man, under its chest like a house cat. Ionis could not see how long the tail stretched behind the creature. It clicked massive tusk-like mandibles as it took in Ionis' work with slitted glowing yellow eyes.

"T'set... T'set...," the man wept, crawling towards the colossal thing. "You came... T'set..." he blubbered.

Ionis' eyes grew wide as she realized that this monster, this T'set, had flicked her away with a single taloned finger. Just a flick had hurled her over ten feet and broken several ribs. Her swords wavered in her hands as she tried to ignore her throbbing side. She couldn't fight this... could she?

The creature's eyes narrowed as it studied her body language.

"You would lose, little Set'glo," it said.

She froze. It knew what she was.

"S'iklata would avenge me!" she said, willing strength to her trembling voice. "He could defeat you."

"He certainly could," it chuckled, then leaned in close. "But S'iklata doesn't know you exist. And if he did, he certainly wouldn't avenge you."

"How dare you! Monster!!" she screamed, trembling more now with rage than fear.

"Oh, I'm the monster?" T'set said. He laughed and the deep sound of it vibrated through her entire body. But then his voice grew cold. "You know nothing of S'iklata. Your hunger has twisted you, and your Invisors have long since forgotten the true path of the Devouring Entropy."

Her mouth hung open, appalled.

"Destroy her, great dragon," the wounded man reached for T'set, unable to climb any closer to the beast. Ionis' eyes darted all over the monster again, seeing it truly now. The Invisors taught her that dragons were profoundly evil creatures who must be destroyed or avoided. Reasoning with dragons was impossible; they only brought death. But she had never heard of one this colossal.

"Great Afke T'set!" the broken man pleaded, "destroy them all! If these Set'glo have lost their way, then end them! Look what she did to my village," his voice broke. "My family! End her!!"

"Indeed," the dragon sighed, clicking its tusks. Ionis felt no bigger than a gnat. "This is what the other two Great Afke wish me to do. S'odza has demanded that I wipe the Set'glo from the realm of the living. For the Set'glo, they are mine, as are all K'azni. Yes, little vampire," T'set sneered at Ionis' dumfounded gaping. "You and all the people of this land belong to me. And all of your faithful as well. You know next to nothing, and most of what you think you know is incorrect."

Her body grew rigid at the insults, but what could she do? She had heard the dragons spat liquid fire hotter than the lava spew of the firemounts. No plan of victory or even escape offered itself to her mind.

"Then just kill me and get it over with," she tightened her grip on her useless blades. "If it is to be death, then I go to S'iklata."

"Do you?" it said, looking at the death that surrounded them. "You think S'iklata is some sort of death god?"

She stood motionless, not knowing what to say or do.

"Oh, so the little Firebrand perhaps doesn't know everything after all," the dragon said.

Ionis took a step back at the nickname, her mind spinning.

The wounded man collapsed before the dragon, passing out from pain and blood loss. The dragon's glowing yellow eyes fell upon him.

"Heal him," it commanded. "Don't let him die."

"What if I refuse?" she scowled.

"Then I will bring the slaughter you wrought here upon Carnswon and all the Set'glo, leaving you alone alive to drown in suffering," the dragon said with a yawn, displaying a mouth full of teeth, each bigger than a man. It smacked its lips contentedly as if it knew Ionis' heart had frozen in her chest. Her village? All the faithful? All?

The dragon waited, watching her struggle to remember to breathe, let alone think.

"I... I don't know how to heal him."

She lied.

T'set remained motionless, save for a tiny shift in the light of his eyes. She couldn't fathom what the beast was thinking.

"Well then," it looked away from her, suddenly bored. "It seems I have work to do."

The dragon pushed its colossal body off the ground. Logs splintered and snapped as his weight shifted..

"Wait," she said, but the beast opened its leathery wings bigger than any sail Ionis had ever seen on distant ships. "Wait, no!! Wait! Let us talk first!"

"Too late for words, Firebrand," T'set pumped his wings, sending dust and debris everywhere. "You have already spoken too loudly with your actions."

The windstorm tumbled her away from the wounded man and flattened what was left of the village's stake wall. In a moment, the great dragon was in the air. It twisted east, towards Ionis' village.

The instant she could, she sprinted towards the fallen man and skidded to a stop beside him. She took in the wounds she had dealt, noting the gray pallor that clung to him. It was a look and smell she knew. Death was close.

"S'iklata, hear now your follower. I invoke the rite of balance," she rattled out the ritual as fast as she could. "You take, but you can also give. I give so he can take. Give him of me,"

The young Set'glo cut open her palm and drew with her own blood on the man's forehead with shaking hands. A triangle, then a circle around the triangle, then a square around the circle, nearly screaming the final words over and over as she did. "S'iklata! Heal him! I invoke your power! I invoke you!"

She stood at the man's head, then sliced her palm open and let her blood flow onto the intersecting scratches in the dirt over his head.

"I invoke you," the words caught in her throat. "Save him and save your people. Your faithful. Save us....."

The blood from the ground suddenly spiked up and lashed around her hand, yanking her down to the soil. The dirt sucked more blood from her body, and her pounding heart gave it freely. Her relief matched her fear. The ritual had worked. S'iklata had heard her prayer and pulled out her life force to heal the man.

"T'set...." she called weakly, fighting to stay conscious as her life drained out for another. "T'set... stop... please..."

Ionis' eyes rebelled and closed against her will, even while she searched the empty eastern sky for the dragon.

Ionis jerked upright from a dreamless sleep and instantly regretted it, gasping at the sharp stab of her broken ribs. Her mind swam, and the world tilted dizzyingly. Even the night moonlight was painful to her red-flecked eyes. She turned away from it, pressing her hands to her throbbing head. Memories of the previous day flooded back to her in an instant and she forced her eyes open again, despite her pounding headache and aching side.

The bleeder village sat as it was in the night's darkness, now rigid bodies scattered here and there where they fell. The timber wall still crushed a tiny home, but Ionis found herself on the opposite end of the village on a low cot bedded with stale hay. She sat beneath the awning of a wattle and dob thatched roundhouse.

Her stomach churned as the wound on her palm stung. The young Set'glo had lost far too much blood. Weakly, she stumbled towards the nearest body, checking it as she had been taught. If the corpse was too old, it would be no good to her.

"Thank you, S'iklata," she whispered as she saw it was still safe for her to drink. There was no glory in this, drinking from a stiffening corpse, but it would sustain her, as old blood always had. She dropped to her knees beside the body, fell upon its cold neck, and fed. Her head stopped pounding, her hand burned less, and even the pain in her side dulled. In moments, the blood satiated, and she felt clarity return.

Where was he?

She stood and slowly turned, taking in more details of her surroundings. Everything seemed exactly as it was, save for two things. The man was no longer lying before the flattened house, and someone had dragged away the bodies of two, maybe three, of the villagers. Only a few dried pools of spilled blood remained where Ionis knew she had triumphed over several bleeders.

Ionis shook her head, scowling. She didn't have much time before the bodies became utterly spoiled. These other mysteries must wait if she was to survive. Clenching her jaw, she made a quick plan and set to it. She couldn't think about anything else right now. She didn't know how long she would need to stay in this stupid village, so she needed to prepare. Survival first.

It took her longer than she wanted to find a good length of rope, but eventually she set up her workplace in the biggest barn in the village. Calling the large hut a barn was laughable, but it would have to do. She strung the rope over a beam, and buckets stood by. Then she paused and sighed as a realization struck her. She wasn't strong enough to carry the bodies to the barn by herself, let alone hoist them high enough to drain properly.

A shadow fell across the doorway. In an instant, her blades were drawn and pointed at the figure standing backlit by the moonlight.

It was the man.

"What are you doing?" His hoarse words felt empty.

"I..." she hesitated, then changed her mind. "You are healed, yes?"

"By the powers, what are you doing?" he said, but his demand was thick with exhaustion.

"Preparing to bleed them," Ionis glared at him. "Drain their blood before it spoils and is wasted."

"And then what?"

"Find wineskins for the blood and store them in the stream. It should keep much longer there."

"Then what?"

"...Bury the bodies?" she looked at the shadowed face sideways, failing to see his expression in the darkness.

"Why?"

"Because I need blood to survive and rotting corpses bring disease. Are you stupid?" she said. "I'd prefer to drain your blood, but maybe that horrid dragon hasn't destroyed my village yet. So I don't want to risk it."

"He didn't," the man said, leaning against the doorframe. "He came back minutes after you passed out reviving me. The afke wanted me to congratulate you on your magix," the man smirked, facing away from her. "He also said not to bury the bodies and that he'd be watching."

A weight she didn't know she had been carrying suddenly lifted. She visibly wilted, glad he was looking away. In an instant, she stood proudly again and rolled her shoulders back, sheathing her blades.

A moment passed.

He didn't move. She could feel the night passing and almost hear the corpses rotting.

"Well?" she finally huffed.

"Well, what?" he said flatly.

"Do something, or move at least!" she nearly shouted at him. "I need to deal with these bodies!"

"So do it."

"I... I can't," she hated the sound of the words on her lips. "Not alone, anyway. I've never done it alone."

The man turned back towards her, his face nothing but a black mask of shadow and darkness.

"That's too bad for you, then," he said. "I'm sure you won't let me just bury them all, but I refuse to help you... bleed them." He spat the words at her, then turned away and stalked across the small square. Her eyes followed him to a small thatched building. He went inside and slammed the heavy door behind him.

"Curse him to the stars and the depths and the four ends of all things," she muttered, pacing back and forth. Each second mattered, but of course he wouldn't help her. Why would he even want to? She had given him every reason to hate her and then some.

She stormed outside, and inspiration struck. A tired-looking pony was tied to a hitching rail not far from the man's hut, munching contentedly on some hay. He must have been out with it somewhere and hadn't bothered to stable the animal. She hurried across the square towards it and felt eyes watching her. Ionis' hands went to her swords, but she didn't stop. Let him try to stop her. They both knew how that would end.

With the pony's help, she worked quickly and efficiently. It wasn't as clean as she would have liked, and there was far too much wasted blood, but the task was done. She had raided the huts for wineskins and barrels, empty or full, and had filled enough to last her for a week. She knew the blood would spoil after that, even chilled in the stream, so there was no point in draining more. Back in Carnswon, there were multiple ways to preserve the blood of the dead, but a cold stream was the best she could do here.

Ionis washed her hands in the frigid water, stood, and stretched. Only one task remained; then she could rest and finally think about what to do next. She headed back towards the barn, where she had left the bodies in animal stalls, but her quick steps soon slowed.

The man said the dragon didn't want her to bury the bodies. She had been so relieved that T'set had not destroyed Carnswon that this small instruction had not quite registered. It was tradition to bury or burn the bleeders. Tradition, and simply good practice for decaying flesh brought scavengers and disease. And unwanted attention. All Set'glo knew this and were taught the importance of disposing of bodies early in their training.

It was their third Tenet:

Flesh and Bone

must wed

Dirt and Stone;

the unliving body

unites with

the unliving land,

thus life begins

again.

Surely T'set knew this, didn't he? He must know of the Tenets if he knew so much about the Set'glo. If not that, the afke dragon certainly knew of the problems with not burying the dead, for there were many. Ionis stood at the barn door, looking inside as the man had done. Shadows and silence filled the barn in the still just before the dawn.

"S'iklata..." The words caught in her throat. "Are you... I believe you are the Devourer of Life, the Lord of Death. This truth was handed down through the Invisors, and was passed to me. But this monster called you the Devouring Entropy. Entropy is not death. Doubt, it pulls at me. I... don't know what to think... Show me what is truth. Show me..."

A rooster screamed its morning cry, shattering the silence of the moment. Soft light prickled the back of her neck and a feeling of exhaustion flooded her body with the dawn. She pulled the heavy barn door shut, then rolled a barrel over to block the door.

"Let this place be a tomb, S'iklata, I pray," she whispered. "I consecrate it to you, a place of holy offering."

She was fairly sure she had no authority to consecrate anything. Still, she whispered the required prayers anyway. Making the sign of respect to the barn tomb, she backed away, bowing the four required times before turning.

Wincing at the rising sun, she randomly chose an empty house, found a waiting bed, and instantly fell asleep.

"You know," a man's low voice jarred her awake. "If I take my life, then T'set would destroy all her people. Now, there's a thought."

Ionis' heart pounded loudly in her chest. The man had purposefully spoken loudly just as he passed the window where she slept. She knew it. He had meant it as a threat.

"I don't see any downsides for me," he said, his voice growing quieter as he walked away. "What do I have to live for now, anyway..."

She sprung to her feet and flung open the door to the small thatched hut she had claimed, wincing at the midday sun.

"You cannot!" she said. "I would just heal you again!"

"Perhaps," he shrugged, continuing away from her. "I cannot beat you in a fight. But perhaps I can hurt you in other ways..."

His tone was soft and his words were calm as he went about his business.

"At least look at me when you speak, you coward," Ionis said.

He did not obey, nor did he respond. He simply continued working. Only then did she realize that he was slowly clearing away the rubble the afke had scattered everywhere.

"This was widow Reytoni's home," he said casually, as if she was a visiting friend. "It was in bad shape, so it won't be worth fixing. The stubborn old hag wouldn't let anyone touch the place or help her." He chuckled knowingly, with a shake of his head. "But hopefully, we can get the wall up again in a few weeks. We'll need to head to the city for some supplies, though..."

"Who is this 'we' you speak of?" Ionis crossed her arms in amazement. "You didn't help me, so why should I help you?"

"Do you have something better to do?" he heaved a beam aside. "And who knows, perhaps if we work together, we can find a different way for you to survive that doesn't require murder and bloodshed. With you as my bodyguard and healer, I'm pretty much immortal," he smirked.

She answered only with a scowl.

"And if I refuse?" she asked incredulously.

"Well, then," he turned to look at her fully. He smiled, but his steel-grey eyes held no mirth. "The blood of my friends that you drained will spoil soon. Then you get weaker and weaker. And eventually, you won't be strong enough to stop me, and I will kill you. Or, even better, I'll kill myself. You'll be too weak to heal me, and you'll die slowly, knowing it was your bloodlust and then your imbecilic stubbornness that brought the wrath of a dragon down on everything you love. It will be all your fault."

"You manipulative, horrible, selfish bleeder!" she screamed. He rolled his eyes and turned his back on her, continuing his slow work. "How dare you, a talking blood bag, give me orders! Twist me into doing your bidding? Your mother never should have borne you! You wretched, asinine excuse for a man! You..."

It suddenly struck her that she didn't know his name.

"Oh, and if you just leave, I've thought of several ways to make it look like my death was your negligence or your blade," he said helpfully, his back to her. "Though T'set didn't seem like he would need much convincing to wipe you all out. He was almost looking for an excuse. Not surprising, really. Your people must be entirely evil if they are all like you."

She screamed in rage and kicked out his knees. He howled and crumpled to the ground, then rolled over, laughing through his tears. "Yes, please, abuse me! The crickets will tell T'set everything. I'm ready! Keep me an inch from death! The afke will certainly understand and be merciful."

The man was laughing, shaking, and speaking through clenched teeth. He held his knees close to his chest in pain and shielded his head with his arm, waiting for blows. Ionis just looked down at him, her jaw hanging open.

After a moment of nothing, he lowered his arm and looked up at her.

"What is your name, bleeder, that I may curse you properly?" she said coldly.

"You don't get the honor of knowing my name," he slowly righted himself. "And I don't care to know yours. You don't deserve a name."

Grimacing and rubbing his knees, he stood and continued his work with a pained limp. She did not help but spun and returned to the hut she didn't want to call home.