Agatha and Mira
24–26 January, run asynchronously over Discord. In-world, the evening of the 27th of Autumn, after dinner with Ylva. Present: Agatha and Chieftain Mira Ashford.
The yurt
The flap was held open by a young woman with the same jet-black hair as the chieftain — a daughter or a niece — who gestured Agatha in without a word.
Warmer inside than the autumn evening. A low fire in the central pit, smoke curling up through the roof opening, dried herbs. Thick carpets in deep blues and greens — river colours — and cushions in a rough circle around the fire.
Unlike Ylva's yurt, there were personal things here: a fishing spear mounted on a support pole, a string of freshwater pearls by the entrance, and a child's carved wooden toy half-hidden under a cushion.
Mira sat cross-legged across the fire, black braid over one shoulder, out of her formal clothes and into a simple deep-green wool dress. She had tea prepared — lakeshore herbs, nothing fancy.
"I imagine dwarves appreciate things that do their job without pretense."
Then she got to it:
"I invited you because in two days, this council will decide whether my people march alongside corpses, and I need to know if you and your companions are actually useful… or just interesting strangers who wandered into something they don't understand."
Thornback the Badger
Agatha made her case: the Iron Circle, the Spider Queen, the trolls. Mira listened without interrupting, acknowledged them as real accomplishments, and then told her a story.
Thornback the Badger lived at the edge of the great forest. So did Moros the Bear — huge, ancient and cruel, who claimed the forest and took tribute from everything in it. Thornback survived as badgers do: by being too much trouble to eat for too little meat. He paid his tribute. He stayed small. He watched his children learn to bow their heads when the bear's shadow passed.
Then a wolf came — strong, clever, scarred from many battles. The wolf was offended by how things were. "I have killed bears before. Stand with me, and together we will drive Moros from this forest."
Thornback wanted to believe. His children wanted to believe. So they stood with the wolf.
But Moros was not other bears. He had ruled that forest longer than wolves live, and he knew every path and every place where the ground was soft. The wolf died as wolves die — teeth in his enemy's flesh, throat torn out all the same. Brave. Futile.
And Moros came to Thornback's burrow that night. Not to kill him; that would have been a mercy. He took his children instead, one by one, season by season, as payment for the badger's disloyalty. Thornback lived a very long time after that. The bear made sure of it.
"The wolf's grave is dug with good intentions, but the badger sleeps in it."
Her point, delivered without cruelty:
"You have killed spiders. You have killed trolls. You have scattered mercenaries. These are real things. But Gulthias is not a spider. He is not a troll. He has taken a city. He has besieged another. He raises our ancestors from their graves and makes them walk against us."
"Korrath and Tormund and even old Valdris — they have all seen wolves before. They have all buried wolves before. And they are tired of being the badger who pays for the wolf's courage."
Tormund Gravebane has had to destroy his own grandfather with his own hands. Mira's anger showed there, barely controlled.
"If you want the tribes to reject Gulthias, you cannot simply tell them he is evil. They know he is evil. You must show them that standing against him will not make things worse. That you will not make things worse."
The two asks
Agatha argued the party would not be alone — "we aren't just the badger and his children, we are the forest and her friends" — and that if the tribes did not fight now they would be undead before they got the chance.
Mira called it a good image, said she had a poet's instinct, and set it aside.
"The chieftains don't care what you've done. They care what you can do now. Before the council votes. Before Vareth's honeyed words settle into their ears for another two nights."
She named two things that would work:
| Ask | Why it works |
|---|---|
| Break the siege of Nenlast | Surrounded a week, people going hungry — and Leander is trapped inside. "If the people of Nenlast walked free because of you? That is proof that you can hurt him." |
| Protect the Shadow Bear burial grounds | Destroy the things wearing Tormund's ancestors' faces. "Tormund would weep with gratitude. And he would never bow to the creature that made him a kinslayer." |
This is how Agatha found out Leander was in Nenlast. She had not known.
"I am not asking you to win a war in two days. I am asking you to do something. Something real. Something that happens in the world, not just in a conversation around a fire."
The stall, and the warning
Agatha committed — partly on the merits, and openly because of Leander:
"Leander is a friend who has helped us in times of need and I cannot leave him to Gulthias and his forces."
Mira's respect was visible. "He's tended to our sick, blessed our boats, asked nothing in return but fair dealing. If you go for him, you go for the right reasons."
Then she explained the real clock. The council officially convenes on the 30th, "but that's just when we sit in a circle and pretend we haven't already been arguing for days. The real decisions are being made now, in yurts like this one."
Normally: a day or two of formal speeches, then a vote. She could slow it — raise objections, ask for clarification on terms, stir up enough disagreement that Korrath could not ram it through. "I might be able to buy you an extra day or two beyond the 30th. Maybe three if Valdris decides to be ponderous about tradition, which he often does."
And the warning:
"If you ride out of here promising to break the siege and then fail — or worse, if you simply don't return — that is not neutral. That is proof to Korrath and everyone else that southlanders cannot be trusted."
"I'm not saying don't go. I'm saying succeed. Or if you cannot succeed, come back and tell me before the vote so I can adjust. Do not leave me defending an empty promise."
Agatha made one firm commitment: "I will return to let you know either way."
She then went to the group, told them what had been discussed, and asked them to go to Nenlast, leaving in the morning.