Duendewood: Children of Ruin, part twelve

"Excuse me," said Morrigan, "I need to go catch up with my sisters."

"Of course," answered Julien, with a courteous nod. He fell back as she strode forward, covering ground quickly and gracefully despite her comparatively short legs.  

At his slower pace, it took only a minute or so for his brother Jacques and the True Elf cleric Tybalt to catch up to him. "Well," he said, "that was interesting." 

"How so?" asked Jacques, with that half-concealed smirk that indicated that he knew more than his brother did. Jacques was perfectly capable of deceit or false politeness with people he didn't like, but with his siblings he always gave way to that expression. 

Julien pretended that he hadn't noticed. "Well, Morrigan isn't wearing armor, and that guisarme she's carrying is too big for her, so I suggested that if we went into combat she should stay behind me and make her attacks from there."

"Ah," said Jacques. Beside him, Tybalt had turned his head away to study the brush along the side of the trail. "And how did she take that?"

"She seemed to think it was funny," Julien admitted. "She said that fighting in formation was never a bad idea, but I swear she was trying very hard not to laugh." He looked past his brother to Tybalt. "Is she a powerful fighter? Because she looks, well..."

Tybalt glanced at Jacques. "I am so, so tempted to tell you to wait and see, just so I can see the expression on her face. So... permit me to test you a bit?"

Julien might have bristled at anybody else trying to test him, but Tybalt seemed... More like he's jesting with me. And with Jacques. It seemed good-natured. So Julien said, "Very well."

"I want you to work out a puzzle," Tybalt told him. 

"And Morrigan is the puzzle?" Julien asked. When Tybalt nodded, he said, "As you wish. She does not wear armor. She carries a warrior's weapon, so presumably she's trained with it. That fairly well rules out her belonging to one of those orders that fight without weapons or armor; I don't know of any of them who teach polearms. On the other hand, her clothing is loose and flowing, with plenty of extra cloth..." He blinked. "She turns into something, doesn't she? Something larger than she is right now." 

"There you go," Jacques congratulated him. "Tybalt says she's a werebear."

"Truly?" Julien didn't try to conceal his shock. 

"Truly," said Tybalt. "Born to it, and werebears are not vicious in the way that some other lycanthropes become. But she learned fighting from both her mother and our father, and she's easily as formidable as Risk."

"Ha!" Julien laughed. "So it would work, especially since she could swing that thing right over my head." He chuckled, then added, "But I can see why she thought it was funny that I was trying to protect her."