Aupti

Aupti awkwardly pats Shad's shoulder, trying to comfort her. Maybe someone else will help?

...
Later, over the next year

Aupti returns to his tiny nameless hamlet. He tells his parents that the fighting over the winter solstice was exciting, safe, and relatively uneventful. "We stayed behind the walls and dealt with enemies that slipped through the rest. I felt pretty safe the entire time." They are relieved to hear this, and aren't opposed to him going back the next year.

He continues learning more nature magic and book learning from Yupik. She seems bothered by his more accurate recounting of the fighting, but refuses to say why. Aupti's not able to figure out what is bugging her. He spends about two weeks a month traveling in the woods, hunting, gathering, and generally supporting himself and finding valuable herbs and mushrooms to sell. It's not what most people from the city would go for, but he's always known it and doesn't mind sleeping rough.

He has another reason to be out in the woods, though. Out of his little hamlet and the ones around, he's the only one to have participated in the defense against the undead, and just about the only one to have been to Coldwater. He is now a young man who is battle-tested, relatively well-traveled, and who seems to have a future in front of him. At the very least, he'll probably be a regionally respected druid. This makes him stand out from all the other young men, and more than a few parents are subtly or unsubtly steering their daughters his way. At feasts and holiday gatherings, he has a full half-dozen of them or more each wanting him to try the food or dessert they've made... twirling fingers in their hair... happening to be around him. Dropping things in front of him by accident. It's exciting and interesting but also a lot more attention than he's used to.

Not everything with his new status goes quite so well, though. A day or two to the north, Fridrik, the local knight, has his herd of horses escape. Aupti is able to help find them and calm, leading them back to the stables. He is paid for this, but when Fridrik invites him to dinner and quizzes him about the fight in Coldwater, Aupti forgets some of the manners he's been taught, and also makes some unfiltered comments about Fridrik's horsemanship and how horses are a luxury item, not a necessity for growing food like oxen, and how they're mostly good for riding down bandits, not defending the walls. Although objectively true, this bluntness also means that Fridrik is cold to him by the end of the meal, and he is not invited back.

Aupti continues to learn more and deepen his connection to the natural world. In late fall, a young adult owlbear moves into the region, killing livestock and mauling a fellow hunter who barely manages to climb to the tip-top of a tree to get away from it. Owlbears can climb, but they're heavy, and smart enough to not climb so high that they cause a tree to break. He goes after it - with his brother and sister each carrying a bow as well - and they are able to down it. Owlbear fur is a bit tough for use in regular clothing or blankets, but he has another purpose in mind. Aupti skins it, and over the next two weeks, he gets some help sewing the pieces of hide together, ultimately resulting in a striking set of fur-covered grey hide armor that is slightly magical, somewhat warmer, and also more difficult to clean. The worst part of the process is that there are three young women who all offer to help, and they bicker almost incessantly, trying to one-up each other around him. He has no idea how to stop it.

The winter arrives, and although he can create magical fire to stay warm at will, that's not the source of the chill, or the dreams that come. It's almost time to return to Coldwater again...