Caravan Master.
Two from the core crew.
A Warden named Durandal.
And me.
The air changed before the land did.
Heavier.
Warmer.
It settled against the skin
and did not leave.
Durandal spoke as we moved.
“This is the Fringes.”
The outer edge of the swamp.
It did not feel like a place meant to be entered.
Only passed through.
Water gathered around our steps.
Shallow at first.
Then uncertain.
The ground did not always answer the same way twice.
There were structures here.
Not built to last.
Raised wood.
Rough edges.
Some still held smoke.
Others already sinking back into the wet earth.
Nothing felt settled.
As if everything here had arrived too quickly
and would not remain long.
Caravan Master stopped before we moved further in.
He did not turn fully.
Only enough.
“Whatever happens—do not panic.”
Nothing more.
We continued.
They came before I saw them.
Three figures.
Large.
Weapons held low.
They moved through the water without sound.
One stepped forward.
Close.
Too close.
Its face lowered toward Caravan Master.
Breath first.
Then the sound—
tongue against teeth.
Clicks layered over breath.
I could not understand it.
I did not try.
Caravan Master answered.
As if nothing about it was unusual.
The exchange was brief.
Then the figure moved on.
To Durandal.
To the others.
Then to me.
It stopped directly in front of me.
Closer than I thought I could endure.
The smell reached me first.
Wet musk.
Old mud.
Something sweet—
but wrong.
Something beneath it.
Faint.
Metallic.
My breath caught.
My body did not move.
I held onto the pouch at my side
without realizing how tightly.
My fingers went numb.
The sound came again.
Closer.
Then it was gone.
No signal was given.
No words I could follow.
But something had been completed.
We were allowed to pass.
More of them appeared as we moved deeper.
Watching.
Some made the same sounds.
Others only observed.
None approached again.
We reached a wider clearing not long after.
If it could be called that.
The ground held more water than earth.
Structures gathered close together.
Temporary.
Uneven.
There were many of them here.
More than I had expected.
I noticed the smaller ones first.
Moving quickly between the structures.
Unsteady.
Uncontained.
They ran without direction.
Until a sharper sound pulled them back.
Larger figures turned toward them.
The motion was familiar.
The reaction—more so.
I found myself watching longer than I intended.
They were not… the same.
But not entirely distant either.
Caravan Master had already begun speaking with one of them.
The sounds passed between them
without shape I could follow.
I recognized none of it.
And yet—
it did not feel like noise.
Durandal stood beside me.
His eyes did not leave Caravan Master.
“I had heard the stories,” he said quietly.
“That he could speak with them.”
There was something in his voice.
Not doubt.
Something closer to confirmation.
“He speaks Dragonkin as well,” I said.
I do not know why I added it.
Durandal looked at me then.
Only briefly.
But the surprise remained longer than the glance.
When I looked back,
the conversation had ended.
Caravan Master returned to us.
No urgency in his steps.
No change in his expression.
“We go further,” he said.
“To the Scalechiefs.”
There was no pause after that.
We moved again.
Deeper.
The air thickened with each step.
The ground gave less warning.
What held us a moment before
did not always hold the next.
There is no path back from here.
Not one that feels the same as before.
I follow them anyway.
And as I do—
I find myself holding two thoughts at once.
They are not like us.
And yet—
they are not as far as I once believed.
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