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Chapter Text

The witchling Darcy, a bright little lassie for her age, has just five years to her name the first time she hears a tale of dragons. 

The tale of dragons. 

The one told to all bright little witchlings as a warning against wandering far from the clachan all alone.

Her eldest sister still living at home, the one who has two and ten whole years, whispers so only their witchling cove foraging in the wood may hear the tale of how feral dragons are tamed only by a witch’s charms and highly skilled enchantments. 

And only ever after that witch has been kidnapped from all she knows and loves. 

Spirited away from her own dear maman and père to some damp and dreary cave to be locked away inside it along with the dragon’s great hoard to await a future of drudgery as a fearsome and snarling dragon’s obedient wife. 

Just what, her eldest sister demands, does Darcy think has happened to their three eldest sisters who all went off into the wood one day, each of their own accord, and vanished ever after, never to be seen or heard from again?

Does Darcy think the faeries come and took them?

No.

It were dragons, her sister says. 

And they’ll come for wee Darcy one day, too, mayhap even sooner than the rest as Darcy’s the only sister they’ve got who’s Samhain-born, the night of the year when the veil between the worlds of the living and the dead are at their thinnest. 

And Darcy were born on that cursed day. 

It’s why their maman always says Darcy is the strongest in her Gift. 

The Gift of magic. 

It sends a shiver down Darcy’s little spine, it does. 

And so, obviously, Darcy wishes never to be stolen away by a dragon, nor stashed away in the dark with a dragon’s great hoard. 

Wee Darcy makes an impossible wish and casts an inconceivable spell so that the terrible fate that awaits all witchlings can never happen to her. 

Darcy wishes for two dragons who are already in love to take her away to an enchanted life in a high castle where she will be a mighty sorceress-princess one day and they never expect her to be hidden away in a musty cave with their great hoard of treasures. 

And a wife is the very last thing they’d want.  

And they both have … witches’ eyes like Darcy’s (Darcy’s are true witches’ eyes—one blue-green eye and one violet). One of the dragons will have steel-blue eyes, the color of a stormy sky, and the other will have eyes the color of a palmful of flashing silver coin with flecks of leafy green.

And one is tall—more than ten and eight hands—taller than any great drafthorse! He’s fair of skin with freckles just like Darcy, and he’s most artful with … a bow! And an excellent … swordsman … with a gift for fighting with double swords, too! Like Robin of the Wood and Scarlet Will combined. 

And the other dragon is quite short, and dark of hair with a darling dimple in his handsome chin. He is most skillful, as well, with both crossbow and dagger, and facile with long staff, too, and loyal to a fault, akin to Little John of Robin’s Merry Men. 

In fact, they are great longbow archers, both, and most weary of a hundred long years of war. 

(Robin of the Wood is Darcy’s favorite bedtime tale.)

And neither of these dragons actually want a wife. 

So Darcy can be free as she so wishes. 

And never a fearsome dragon’s drudge. 

And never, ever left in the dark, all alone. 

Chapter Text

So the first time Darcy is kidnapped by dragons, she is most dismayed to realize there are, indeed, two of them.  

A bit of chance at work is all. 

She hopes. 

They aren’t true dragons at all yet, in fact, but mere pups.

Drakes.  

And at least they don’t carry her off and stuff her into a cave to be hidden away properly with their gold and gems. 

She is deposited, instead, in a tiny, rough-hewn cottage of some kind, up high in a tree. But there is no ladder and the tree’s limbs are much too thick for little Darcy to grab upon to make her way down to the ground from so far up in the great highland treetops. 

The drakes huff and grumble, using their snouts and wings to motion her inside the little cottage that must have been built by faeries as it is just the perfect size for a wee witchling like Darcy. 

Inside, the wee cottage is … enchanting, though Darcy is loathe to admit it. There are colorful toys and books of all titles with beautiful illustrations lying all about, building blocks for castle play, and baskets and caskets of wrapped sweetmeats, too. There are even cards and table games she’s never before seen! All about the small room are scattered baskets of beautifully carved and bejeweled wooden daggers and little piles of colorful arrowheads, and lovely, handhewn arrows are stacked and piled in every nook and cranny. There is even a device that looks like a very small crossbow, meant to be loosed crosswise with a mechanical thingamy that launches darts. And in one corner, a very large, long piece of luxurious, shining, indigo-violet cloth with a fascinating trim that dangles along its whole edge has been tacked crosswise high up near the ceiling, and then folded back on itself and tacked up again lower down, making two large fabric slings, just big enough for one drake each to climb into for a bed off the floor and to stare at wee Darcy. 

It is the staring that finally does it. 

Darcy bursts into tears. 

Because she’s so very high up with no way down and these are wild dragons and this must be their nest!

Darcy wishes to be anywhere else but here!

“Is this it? Hae ye already kidnapped me then? And stolen me away from me own dear maman?” she weeps. “I din’na want tae be a wife tae a dragon. I am only jest a wee lass of five years! I haven’a any magic or wiles or enchantments yet tae spell ye properly and make ye intae proper pets or some sech. I want me maman!” she cries, covering her face with her hands. 

She weeps for all she will lose. 

Her home and the deep, dark, lovely wood that is her second home. 

And her own corn husk dolly. 

Her beloved maman and her père.

And even all her big sisters. 

Though she’ll certainly miss her big sisters less than her dolly. 

As she weeps noisily and blots her tears with her grubby apron, she does not hear one of the dragons—the more greyish one of the two—who tumbles from his high fabric perch and shuffles along the floor. 

Darcy startles when he noses at her with his snout and drops an arrowhead gently in her palm as if to say it’s alright and don’t cry now and here, have this pretty thing if it will make you quit crying. 

The arrowhead is beautiful, she will admit, like a piece of violet glass plucked from the chapel windows folks who know say can be found in a great manor house or castle-keep. 

“Fer me?” Darcy asks, sniffling and confused. She looks up into the grey drake’s eyes and startles. 

His eyes are the color of silver coin with leafy green flecks. And there’s even a dusting of freckles across the bridge of his snout. 

Just like she wished for. 

All black with a slick sheen to his scales like a rainbow’s ribbon, the other drake tumbles down to the floor, too, and shuffles close. In his mouth, he carries something as well. Instead of placing it in her hands, he sort of spits it into the cradle of her apron in her lap. 

It is one of the many beautifully carved toy daggers she admired on arrival. 

But it is also different from the rest. 

A blue-green stone is set in the hilt as decoration. And the dagger has been cured and fired to harden and hone its sharp, wooden edge. Someone has oiled it, too, to keep it in very best condition. 

It is a true dagger, the kind a young witch like Darcy might carry into the wood in her apron’s pocket for foraging or protection. 

Or to draw sigils and spells in the soil. 

Darcy does not own anything half so fine as the offering before her. 

When she looks up at the drake to ask if he means to gift her such a fine dagger, she sees that his eyes are blue-grey, the color of the sky just before a storm. 

She gasps. 

Oh no. 

Has she done this? With her own clumsy magic?

Has she wished these two drakes into existence just so?

“I fear I hae done something terrible,” she admits, her chin wobbling. “And I know not how tae fix it, only that I din’na deserve such fine gifts and I din’na want tae be stolen away.” 

She tries to put the drakes’ gifts upon the game table in the wee cottage, to give them back, but the drakes whine and fuss, and then they use their snouts to push their gifts back into her hands. 

It is an impossible situation. 

Darcy is only just a lass of the wood. She knows not how to fix what she has done by accident!

So she cries. 

She cries for her maman.

The drakes look startled, their wings flapping in discord and their back legs churning as if they cannot escape Darcy’s flood of tears and noisy weeping fast enough. 

She covers her face with her soil-stained hands and cries loud and long; she cries her little self to exhaustion. 

Until, eventually, she cries herself to sleep upon the table. 

“What’ve ye lads gone and done this time?” a strange voice later whispers, but Darcy is so very tired. 

Her eyes won’t open. 

She can’t lift her head. 

“We thought ‘er lost, Mam.”

“She were lost in the wood and then she cried!”

“And she had’na e’en a proper plaid tae keep ‘er warm out in the wood all alone!”

“She might’a froze or caught ‘er death of chill out there, Mam!”

“So we brought ‘er tae our nest—”

“A lads’ tree house is’na a nest, me Jamie,” the woman gently corrects the lad. 

“But then we gae ‘er me favorite arrowhead.”

“And me favorite dagger!”

“But she tried tae gie them back!”

“And then she cried!”

“Och. She’s just a wee bairn, yer witchling. Look at the lassie ‘ere in yer mess, puir thing, wi’ ‘er face stained pink wi’ tears. She must’a been terrified, snatched up b’ a young, feral drake pair,” the woman says, her voice soft and lilting, but cautioning, too. 

“We did’na mean tae scare the lassie.”

“Only she were in the wood, alone, collecting fungus in ‘er apron.”

“And she’d no plaid about ‘er, only the little apron. So we thought ‘er lost and hungry on account of the fungus! She might’a ate it, Mam!”

“Witchlings din’na get lost in the wood, me lads,” the woman explains. “She were probably jest out foraging wi’ ‘er witchling cove wi’ a set task from ‘er mam tae test ‘er skill tae choose the right fungus.” 

The woman tsks.

“I suppose ye’ve left ‘er precious fungus behind, too, aye, me Clint?”

“It weren’t safe!” someone argues. 

“Mayhap nae for ye, my lads, but witchlings know which are safe and which are nae. Ye must’na interfere in ‘er lessons in future.” The woman tsks again. “We can only hope ‘er family has’na noticed ‘er missing yet. Ye can’na jest snatch witchling bairns from the wood. This is why the villagers on the borders are always on about hunting dragons wi’ their torches and their pitchforks,” she hisses. 

A chorus of reluctant ‘sorry’s follows, along with a bit of shuffling. 

Darcy is lifted up and cradled close to a warm body not so different from her own maman. She yet sleeps, her eyes so terrible heavy, but remains aware enough to listen with all the extra senses she doesn’t yet understand. 

“What will ye do wi’ ‘er now, Mam?” one of the young lads asks. 

“We’ll pretend we found ‘er sleeping in the wood and we worried she were lost,” the woman says, and just as Darcy thinks to protest that she’ll tattle, a sleepier, even more dreamy feeling steals over her like a soft blanket. “She’ll think it all jest a lovely, strange dream when she wakes agin in the bosom of ‘er family.”

The lads make noises of disbelief. 

“And ye two will promise tae stop kidnapping lost witchlings,” the woman says sternly. 

“We promise,” the lads chorus grudgingly, though anyone who knows anything knows a promise from two lads of young years is only worth about as much as words weigh. 

Which is to say not very much at all. 

They stand nearby as the witchling is carried off home by the woman with their gifts—the violet arrowhead and toy dagger with the blue-green stone, exact matches for the mismatched violet and blue-green colors of their lassie’s witch’s eyes. Their offerings are tucked safely away in the witchling’s front apron pocket.

“We can still watch out fer ‘er, Bucky,” comes a whisper to Darcy’s ear on the wind. “And keep a hawk’s eye on ‘er so nae other dragons get any unfair ideas about takin’ ‘er first.”

“But ye heard Mam, Clint. We’re nae tae kidnap ‘er agin.”

But Clint reminds Bucky, “That does’na mean we can’na look out fer ‘er, though. The wood is’na safe. Everyone knows that. So who knows when she might need rescuing agin? Or a friend?”

“Or two friends?” Bucky agrees, catching on with a naughty grin. 

“Or two friends?” Clint repeats, his grin spreading wide as if he’s just had a fantastical idea. 

Chapter Text

The second time Darcy is rescued, she’s been sent by her maman into the farm town to market with two baskets and a short list of ingredients to buy that can’t be foraged in the wood of home nor traded for with passing witches. She’s even got two coin to pay that rub together pleasantly in her front apron pocket. 

She’s skipping along the farm road when she hears the strangest sound from above, like a great bird’s wings flapping. 

When she glances up to see what’s all the racket, she gasps. 

There are two drakes flying right over her head on the farm road!

One silver and one black, they look almost … familiar to Darcy. 

Not that dragons in flight over the wood are the rarest of sights. Darcy has seen plenty of dragons from the relative safety of the wood before, hidden as she were by the thick treetops. 

But it’s not everyday a witchling sees two dragons and is ever heard from again. 

The silver one curves out in a wide loop, circling around to the right while the black one makes a wide loop left, circling around on the other side until they come in for a clumsy crash landing not even a stone’s throw to the rear of where Darcy’s just been stood. 

She scampers off the road into the safety of the wood’s edge, only peeking her head out when all the great flapping and squawking’s stopped and the drakes have sorted themselves out and untangled their wings to rise up and chatter angrily at one another. 

When their argument draws to a close, they remember themselves and their audience and look to Darcy. 

Who remembers. 

“Hae ye come tae kidnap me agin?” she demands when she recognizes the same drakes, still feeling fresh about the last time. She knows they used some kind of magic because she remembers being scooped up and flown into the treetops, but …what come after were a bit fuzzy. 

And then she were just home. 

With beautiful treasures in her apron pocket. 

And no memory of how she got them. 

But she remembers the dragons. 

Drakes, really. 

They’re just clumsy pups, they are. 

The drakes have the grace to at least look ashamed of themselves. They shake their heads ‘no’. 

“Then I’ll assume ye come tae help,” Darcy decides. She shoves a basket each at them and waits while they decide how helpful they mean to be. 

With more skill than she expects, they each take up one of her baskets by the handles hooked over their muzzles behind the little nasal horn they’ve got at the front. 

“Will ye walk wi’ me tae town?” she asks, wondering if they mean to try at making friends or are just biding their time. 

But no. 

Their eyes widen and they look at one another as if they’re … frightened?

“Are ye nae allowed tae walk wi’ me on the farm road?” she asks, though she’s not sure how or why—she just knows that’s the problem. 

They shake their heads, but they look a bit relieved to her eye. 

“We could walk there through the wood, I s’pose,” she says, but she’s nervous, looking deeper into the wood from her spot on the edge of the road. She doesn’t usually venture far into the wood without an adult or her witchling cove for safety. She’s not really dressed to go traipsing about in the wood, either, in her tidiest apron and her freshly laundered hemp dress. And she’s wearing her good town shoes rather than the sturdy boots she usually wears to lessons with her cove in the wood. 

Besides, the sunshine doesn’t reach the floor of the wood and she hasn’t even a cloak to keep her from freezing without the sunshine warming her shoulders. 

“I hae forgotten me cloak at home,” she confesses, feeling foolish. It'll be a cold night walking home if she does’na find hospitality somewhere at a kirk along the road. “I’ll catch a chill if I wander intae the deep wood wi’ ye.”

The black drake steps forward to nuzzle at her arm and she’s surprised by the touch. 

“Yer warm!” she realizes happily, leaning in to stroke at his muzzle and down the shining scales encasing his thick throat. 

Not to be ignored, the silver one pushes in between them, demanding attention, too, like an impatient young hound. 

“I s’pose this is yer way of telling me I’ll be perfectly safe and warm s’ long as I stay with ye,” she teases, but the drakes shake their heads as Darcy gives the silver drake equal attention and scale scritches. She looks at them, confused. “I din’na understand.”

The black drake sets down his assigned basket and nudges Darcy closer to the silver one, who stoops down low. Darcy yelps with shocked laughter when the black one puts his head down low, too, and boosts her with his head under her rear end, pushing her up and onto the back of the silver one. She settles in his withers, before his wings, her legs astride as if she were riding her very own fat, wee pony. 

She worries for a moment that he means to fly off with her as a prize, but instead, he lopes off into the wood while the black one retrieves his basket and follows right after like ducklings in a row. 

They don’t venture far from the farm road, but they do stay just off the beaten path where they three can disappear completely into the wood if a stranger happens along. 

The silvery drake carrying her is warm like a toasty fire on a cold winter’s night. She’s almost glad she hasn’t worn her woolen tights this day. She likes the smooth feel of his warm scales against the skin of her legs. 

The black one nuzzles in close, warming the outside of her leg on one side sometimes, too. 

“I know ye still mean tae kidnap me first chance,” she teases with a smile, but the black one doesn’t rise to her teasing. He just pushes in under her hand for more pets. 

She’s warm and relatively safe, even in the wood, with her two dragon protectors. The walk to the farm town is long and the motion of the drake carrying her is soothing. She nearly falls off twice when she startles and jerks awake. After the second time, they all stop. The black one leans in and lays his head over Darcy’s with gentle pressure, urging her downward. 

“Down?” she checks, sleepy as she is from all the dragon heat. 

The black one nods. 

Like a person. 

She blinks, thinking. She’s heard dragons are great changelings. 

So she slumps forward at the drake’s instruction, half-wrapping her arms down the sides of her silvery one and grateful he hasn’t yet grown any spikes down his back that would make her ride impossible. 

“Like this?” she asks, but she’s already growing sleepy from his warmth against her cheek. The walk is still a long one even from there, but Darcy doesn’t mind. She’s so very comfortable and warm. 

And she isn’t afraid. 

Not for right now, at least. 

Mayhap she even dozes off. 

When she wakes later, it’s sudden. She’s neither as warm as she was with her new dragon friend so close, nor rocking any longer. 

She’s curled up, instead, on her side on a blanket of green moss. There’s a thick tartan folded double over her, tucked in all about her edges. 

And her dragon friends are gone. 

In their places are two lads, perhaps one or two years older than Darcy. 

One is tall and fair with spiky, golden hair in an unusual style with the sides cropped very close to the skin of his head and a long braid trailing down and over one shoulder with two clay beads on the end. The beads are inscribed with sigils for blessings and protection. 

The other lad is a bit shorter, with long, brown hair, some of it braided on one side, and threaded with clay beads bearing additional sigils of protection and blessings. 

Both are wearing long, dark blue tunics with darkly tanned brown buckskins, their clan tartans pleated neatly and wrapped about their waists with fine, brown leather belts. The brunet lad has the tail of his tartan open and pulled up over his head like a cloak. The fairer lad has the tail open just over his own shoulders to keep away the chill in the shade of the wood where they rest inside the treeline. 

“The market is just there,” the darker haired lad explains, pointing through the trees toward the sounds Darcy recognizes now of the village farm market. 

“Thank ye fer the…” Darcy doesn’t know how to finish her gratitude, though. They’re lads now, not dragons, though she’s no doubt it’s been them who’s been walking with her to the market all this time. She’s a bright little witchling who’s heard stories enough of changelings and dragons to know they might have changed while she’s slept. “…fer keeping me comp’ny,” she finishes, unsure whether it’s polite to even acknowledge she knows about their other selves. 

They nod and murmur appropriate returns for lads of their high station. 

For Darcy sees that they are dressed very well in their fine boots and clean, matching clothes, with their shining badges of clan rank gleaming, pinned to their tartans. 

“And I thank ye fer the loan of yer tartan.” She sits up and, though she knows she’ll shiver without it, she pulls the tartan off her shoulders to fold it as well as she can considering its large size and her small one, and reluctantly hands it back. That’s a clan tartan she’s been loaned to keep her warm while she’s slept. Even at just five years and six moons, Darcy knows no witch wears a proper clan tartan without saying vows. 

Not that clans are known to welcome witches as either wives or nuns. 

It’s why Darcy’s own family lives in the clachan on the edge of the wood. 

It’s where witches belong. 

The dark-haired lad looks confused when he holds a hand up to forestall her words and her return of the finely woven wool, his palm facing her when he murmurs, “It is’na loan, witchling. It’s given. A gift from the heirs tae the Clan Barnes.” 

Darcy sucks in a sharp breath. 

“Ye should’na tell me that,” Darcy whispers. Clans don’t just give their tartans to anyone. “Yer mam would be cross. And what would yer da say?” she demands. 

“Our chieftain would tell me it’s jest good manners tae keep a friend warm when they’re cold and tae keep ‘em company when they’ve a long walk alone otherwise.” He rolls his lips in and bites at them with a glance to the fairer lad, then explains, “This tartan was sent by our mam tae share should our … new friend hae need of it.”

“Is that what we are now?” Darcy wonders. “I thought ye’d come wi’ plans tae kidnap me and spirit me off tae yer cave tae hide me away there until I come of age.”

“Why would we do that?” The lad looks as bewildered as Darcy feels. 

“It’s what the faerie stories say will happen tae all witchlings. I’ll be kidnapped b’ a dragon when I am yet young enough tae tame because me witchling magic is worth such great coin. And I’ll be caged up wi’ yer dragon’s hoard and held there until I’m made a proper dragon’s wife so nae others can steal me and hae me magic fer themselves.”

“I hae Clint fer comp’ny,” the lad says, motioning to the golden-haired lad, his friend. “What need hae I of a wife? I’m seven,” he says as if that explains everything. 

Clint, the fair, golden one with eyes the color of silver coin with leafy green flecks says, “And I’ve Bucky here and I’m seven, as well. Whatever would we do wi’ a wife?” 

He looks as bewildered as Darcy feels about it all. 

“I din’na know,” Darcy must confess, squirming where’s she sat on the soft moss. “I would’na know what a husband were for, either. I’ve only five years so far. And six moons.”

“Maybe a wife is what adults call their good friends?” Clint supposes and Darcy nods. That makes sense. You would have to be good friends to want to train up witchlings or drakes together from babies, she thinks. 

“Do ye e’en want tae hae good friends and make babies wi’ ‘em fer yer clan one day?” Bucky asks. 

Darcy thinks about it. 

“Maybe,” she decides, “but nae today. Today, I hae tae go tae the market.” She picks up the tartan they’ve said is a gift and goes to set it down in her basket, but the darker-haired one, Bucky, makes a noise like a ‘tsk’. 

“Can I show ye how tae wear it proper?” He gestures to the tartan. 

Darcy doesn’t mean to wear it, though. That would call attention to her. She thought she’d use it as a blanket when she grows cold. 

Later. 

When she leaves the farm town. 

“Yer sure I’m allowed?” she checks, nervous at the idea of stepping out into the village in a tartan from a clan to which she doesn’t belong. 

“If we din’na hae the right tae gie ye permission tae wear the Barnes tartan, almost no one else does.” He laughs as he unfolds her tartan and starts pressing it into neat, equal folds. “These’re called pleats. Me mam says they keep yer wool tidy so it’s nae all bunched up about yer waist.”

The fair one—Clint produces a fine leather belt with a jeweled, silver buckle. Together, he and the one called Bucky wrap her in the tartan and belt it about her waist (after a wee scramble to remove her apron so she’ll have access to the pocket). The tail of the thing is left hanging while her apron is put back on (and she checks she hasn’t lost her two coin). Then, they bring the tail of it up over her head, like a hooded cloak. It makes a cozy pocket of warm air all about her when it’s fastened under her chin.

“Oh…” she says softly when she’s all wrapped up and cozy inside. She closes her eyes and hums happily. “I’ll be so nice and warm fer the long walk home t’night.”

“T’night?” Bucky’s head comes up so fast, his tartan falls off the back of his head. “Ye’ll be off safe tae home long a’fore then, won’t ye?”

“I’ve ne’er walked this far a’fore,” she confesses. “It would hae taken me two days wi’out yer help tae get ‘ere, though. And it’ll still be another day and night, at least, back home from ‘ere, I think? Maman says I can always ask fer hospitality at a kirk along the road. I meant tae do that,” she says, but she’s not as sure of herself now. She doesn’t think she’ll be home before dark tonight and it’s a worrisome thought, facing the farm road again, but alone in the dark and cold of night without her dragon friends for company. “I’m sent tae purchase ingredients fer me maman. T’is a lesson. I’m tae learn something important this day.” 

She grins despite her worries for later. She loves her maman’s lessons. 

“We can stay,” Clint offers. “Think how much shorter the walk home will be wi’ us agin.”

“Safer,” Bucky grumbles and she hears something unexpected—the dragonish second voice beneath his own, a growl within a voice. 

Clint elbows him and gives him a look. 

“Sorry, witchlin,” Bucky promptly apologizes, looking shamefaced. “I did’na mean tae growl at ye.”

“I forgi’e ye,” Darcy swears. “And me name is nae ‘witchlin’. T’is Darcy. Darcy Louis. I’m from Clachan Braelynn. T’is a witches rath in the wood nae far from the sea.”

“A rath…” Clint rolls the word around in his mouth like it’s new to him. 

So Darcy explains, “A … ringfort? T’is made of terrible thorned vines in a great ring about our homes with thorny trees to make it stand tall, and it protects our wee village in the wood.”

“Like a castle fortress?” Bucky asks, still sounding confused as if he’s never seen a rath. 

Darcy laughs. “Nae, nothing so fine as a castle or e’en a fortress. We’re only witches there and none will bother us, not really. We’ve only some seeds and herbs of any value. Nothing that can’na be foraged in the wood.”

“We’ll stay here wi’ ye and walk ye home after, Darcy Louis,” Bucky decides. Then he steps close to her again and adjusts her tartan so her new belt is mostly hidden. “I meant tae gie ye me clan badge tae close yer tartan against the cold, but now I worry tae send ye home wi’ such valuables if ye din’na live in a proper fortress.” He looks up at Clint and Darcy feels the worry in the air between them. 

“We’ll talk tae Mam about it t’night,” Clint murmurs as they direct Darcy to the market. He tells Darcy, “We’ll be right here, nearby, so we din’na interfere wi’ yer lesson. Only call out if ye need us. We hear real good,” he promises. 

“Okay.” Darcy jumps up to stand on the tips of her toes and presses a kiss to Clint’s cheek in thanks. She does the same to Bucky. 

Their faces are bright red when she scampers off to the farm market and glances back to check they’re still there. 

They are. 

Nearby, right where they said they’d wait for her. 

Chapter Text

Darcy is rescued the third time at the farm market. 

She’s nearly done acquiring all the items on her maman’s list and she’s just enough coin remaining to go search for the final item when a woman makes a noise like an injured bird’s screeching and a wall of angry faces and tall bodies forms around Darcy. 

“What’s a wretch like ye doing wearing the fine tartan a’ the mighty Barnes clan?” the woman demands. “I ken that clan and ye’re a wicked wee stranger tae me, lassie. You’ve nae claim tae that tartan,” she spits, then lifts her skirts with purpose as if she means to come tear the tartan from Darcy’s body. 

“It were a gift.” Darcy stumbles backward and clutches the halves of the tartan together with one hand, her basket shoved up to her elbow full of the goods Maman sent her for. The second, empty basket is held in her other hand, so she hasn’t even a hand free to cast a charm to calm the woman or the gathering, angry crowd. 

Then she remembers—she’s only to call out for help and it will come.  

“Bucky? Clint!” she calls out over the din the strange woman is still making, but Darcy is nae verra big and hae a wee voice tae match. 

So when Bucky appears suddenly at her side and shifts to stand before her, puffed up and protective and all, Darcy is awash with a feeling she’s never felt before. 

Overwhelming relief. 

Clint takes a place at her side. One hand gently alights on her back in support and … reassurance? “All’s well, lassie. We’ll sort this out,” he promises. 

But Bucky has stepped between Darcy and the madwoman. 

And he’s growling. 

“She din’na lie tae ye, madam. The wool were a gift from me and m’ own brother,” he spits at the woman. “Ye say ye din’na know this wee lass as a member o’ the Clan Barnes, but ye claim tae ken the clan well, so m’ face should be familiar enough tae ye.” Then he raises his voice, “I’m Laird James Buchanan Barnes, Marquess of Buchanan, heir tae Clan Barnes and the Duke of Buchanan’s eldest son, and I say clearly now fer all tae hear that this bairn is under m’ protection.”

Then he turns about to face Darcy with a soft smile just for her, and he pins something to Darcy’s tartan to keep the halves closed so she has a hand free. 

“It’s m’ clan badge,” he says softly. “If anyone e’er asks again, yer tae tell ‘em the badge and yer tartan were a gift from yer chieftain’s heir, James of Clan Barnes, alright, m’ Darcy?”

She can only give him a tearful nod of understanding while Clint steps up with words of his own for the gathered crowd. 

“I’m Clinton Francis Barton-Barnes, Earl of Buchanan, the other heir tae Clan Barnes—”

“The dragon-born foundling!” someone behind them exclaims in a voice too loud for the whisper it should have been.

“Aye, the Duke of Buchanan’s dragon-born foundling and his acknowledged second son. That’s me,” Clint says so proud and clear like a grownup. “And this braw lassie is under m’ protection, as well,” he adds with a growl so there’s no mistaking the market crowd isn’t facing down a pair of mere lads. 

There are dragons among them. 

And they are not happy. 

“Hae ye found everything on yer maman’s list, m’ Darcy?” Bucky checks, ignoring the crowd to kneel down to talk directly to Darcy face to face like she’s the most important person in the whole market. Clint kneels by his side to pin his own clan badge to Darcy’s tartan at the top of her apron where it will hold the halves tight together like a cloak. 

They’re a fortress wall between Darcy and the angry woman. But Darcy is still frightened of the crowd’s angry faces all around, their glares harsh and accusing even after Bucky’s declaration of protection. The market seems so big now and the people much less friendly. 

Darcy shakes her head as a tear escapes, wetting her lashes and falling on her new tartan. 

“There’s one more,” she whispers, shaking.

Clint’s hand at her back tightens, like he means to hug her to give her the fortitude to continue with her task, but when Darcy glances up, he’s glaring at the crowd. 

“That’s alright,” Bucky says and chucks her under the chin. “We’ll help ye take care a’ the last ingredient on yer list before we all start off home together.”

Darcy nods, but she’s frozen to the spot, too frightened to move, terrified that she’ll call even more unwanted attention to herself by trying to complete her task and shop for witches’ ingredients for her maman. 

“I’m afraid,” she confesses to her new friends. 

Bucky’s hand slips into Darcy’s, lending her some of his great dragon strength and making her want to cry even harder. 

She wants to be brave like him. 

“James, perhaps I can help,” a kindly woman wrapped up in a completely different tartan says as she approaches, laying a hand on Bucky’s shoulder. She has a different clan badge pinning her tartan closed like a hooded cloak, too. 

“Darcy, this is Lady Sarah Rogers, Marchioness of Brooklynkirk,” Bucky introduces the woman with the kind face and golden-red hair. “She’s m’ best friend’s mam.”

“Hae yer mam sent ye here with a task, wee witchling?” the kindly woman asks as if she knows. 

Darcy nods. 

Another tear falls on her tartan. 

“Oh, little one. Some lessons are the hardest tae learn.” She gathers Darcy close in a hug. “Yer tae call me Sarah, alright?”

Darcy nods and sniffles into Sarah’s neck. 

Sarah smells like home. Like herbs and a pot of hot brew and … Darcy’s maman. 

“Her maman sent ‘er wi’ a list. She’s nae finished it yet,” Bucky tells Lady Sarah, who relieves Darcy of her baskets and assigns each of the young lads to carry one for Darcy. 

“Mind ye din’na spill.” Sarah warns them. “It’s our job now tae help Darcy complete this task, I think.”

“Is tha’ allowed?” Clint checks with the lady as she lifts Darcy like she weighs nothing and sets her on her own hip to start walking. 

“Oh, yes,” Sarah answers, her tartan billowing behind them. “The moment she called out tae ye lads for help, she accomplished the purpose of ‘er lesson, I think. The task were just the carrot on the stick, but in case her maman does need it, we should fetch the last item. What is it, darling?” she asks Darcy.  

Darcy pats her pocket to check for the list and her last coin. The list has a drawing of…

“Witch’s Butter?” Darcy says it aloud like a question because it’s not an ingredient she’s very familiar with. 

“Ah. T’is a jellyish yellow fungus that only grows in the wood on shores along the sea tae the east. It must come a long way in less than two days tae remain usable. We’ll find some ‘ere, sure enough, but we’ll only purchase it from a vendor who’s got a reed basket packed wi’ chilled moss tae keep yer fungus fresh fer the trip home.”

“She says she were meant tae walk home tae her family’s raft near the sea … t’night,” Bucky tells the lady. 

“Tosh!” Lady Sarah exclaims. “Ye’ll all ride wi’ me and my own clansmen back tae the border village and take me up on my fine hospitality t’night. We’ve the wagons ‘ere and there’s room aplenty fer a few more riders. We’ll jest send a missive ahead tae yer mam so she din’na worry, wee one.”

They make short work of finding a vendor who meets Sarah’s exacting standards. Now Darcy has a huge cache of the jiggly yellow fungus stashed away in her basket inside a sizable woven reed box packed with chilled moss. And in short order, she and Bucky and Clint are tucked up cozy in the back of the marchioness’s wagon with Darcy’s little handbaskets full of purchases and the lady’s own goods from the market. 

The sun is low in the sky when they set out, and Darcy is so cozy and warm wrapped up in her wool tartan between her new friends. She feels safe and cared for and like there’s nothing to be afraid of anymore. The farm market is no less scary, but she knows now that she can always ask for help and someone to go with her. She understands now that there’s real safety in numbers, not just in staying close to your bigger sisters in the wood. 

And she knows that she can trust Bucky and Clint. 

They promised to stay close without being right underfoot so she could complete her task, and they said they’d come if she called to them. 

And they did it. 

They spoke up for Darcy to the unkind woman. 

And they looked after her in a strange and scary place.

The whole day long. 

Even now, in the bed of the wagon, Bucky and Clint have rolled up a spare blanket for Darcy to lay her head upon as they all doze atop sacks of something called wheatberries and dried fruits. Lady Sarah insists on tucking them in beneath even more blankets for the ride back to the border village as the sun drops low and the evening grows cold, so Darcy is mayhap the warmest and most comfortable she’s ever been in the whole of her short life. 

Darcy knows she comes from a humble home in a poor and tiny clachan. Her père suffers from an old injury that even her maman’s magic cannot cure. And her maman came here to this land from a far away place with no family of her own. Darcy’s père had no family, either. It is just them and their small collection of other witch families in their raft. They keep just enough sheep to provide blankets and a new dress and cloak for her maman each year (to be carefully cut down to size as needed into hand-me-downs for Darcy’s growing big sisters). And foraging in the wood usually provides food enough for them to scratch by. 

They eat roots and fungus at near every meal, and they drink herbal tinctures and boiled brews of all sorts to keep them healthy. 

And there’s a boiled egg for breakfast most days… 

But there’s never an extra blanket to be had on a very cold night. 

Or a warm, new wool with a leather belt to hold it up and wear it as a warm cloak.

Or even enough food to fill a grumbling belly when roots and herbs and a few eggs can’t stretch far enough to feed them all. 

They’ve been growing a new ringfort to add to the raft to protect a space for a garden so they can grow enough vegetables one day to have extra to put by. 

But the thorny vines and trees they need to expand the ringfort grow slowly and the extra supplies they need to build a garden run slim. 

And Darcy’s already heard her three eldest sisters were taken afore she were old enough to even commit their faces to her remembory. Each went into the wood and disappeared without a trace one day, or so she were told. And after, Darcy’s tiny dinner portion increased just a little, on account of there being fewer mouths to feed. 

But no one ever told Darcy where they thought her sisters had gone. Though she’s heard talk, of course, word in the clachan of massive, many-headed dragons who stalk the wood, looking for easy pickings, witches with no family or little means to come after them. 

A woman in their clachan said as much once, that it were one of the Bad Ones, a many-headed dragon who’s learnt there be easy pickings in the wood around their home, witchlings with no great connections and of hardly any means for their folks to get up a proper search party or to petition the local sheriff for help. 

It worries Darcy quite a bit. 

Will a Bad One come for her and she, too, simply disappear from the wood one day?

Chapter Text

Tonight, Darcy is still a bit sleepy when she’s carried into a warm cottage at the end of their wagon ride, cradled close like a swaddled bairn by a big man wrapped in wool that matches Bucky’s and Clint’s tartans. His shoulders are broad, and his hair color and its long length match Bucky’s. 

He talks real quiet over Darcy to Bucky and Clint, “Din’na fuss, me lads. She’s nae exactly th’ first bairn I’ve e’er carried. I will’na drop yer Chosen; I swear it.” 

Bucky and Clint do fuss over her, though, tucking in the edges of her tartan again and draping a lap blanket over her hands that’s been backed in thick rabbit’s fur. 

So she's sleepy and warm, all tucked and wrapped up tight, and she feels so very safe with her new dragonish friends and their clan, and maybe she should pay closer attention to what’s being said, but she only has five years and doesn’t understand everything Bucky’s and Clint’s grownups say. 

But it’s okay. 

She’s warm and she’s safe. 

And her new friends have offered her their kind hospitality. 

So she can rest. 

Bucky and Clint knuckle their own tired eyes and call the man ‘Pa’ when the hinges of a door creak as they all walk into a warm cottage and the man they call Pa lays Darcy on a cot near a warm kitchen stove. 

“When ye sent that raven ahead wi’ word of who ye were bringing, I told George ye could’a knocked me over wi’ a feather, ye could hae,” a new woman’s voice murmurs as Bucky’s Pa stoops down to give the lads their own quiet instructions. Darcy doesn’t know the new woman at all, but she seems to be in charge of things. “I’ve hae the maids warm yer stove here and we’ve brought some fresh bread and roast boar and extra meat pies and all down from the keep’s kitchens. There’s roasted root vegetables in the dish wi’ the boar and an apple tart fer dessert or breakfast. Are ye sure there’s naught else I can do fer ye this night, Sarah-love?” the pretty redheaded lady asks her friend. 

“Nay… We’ll be jest fine ‘ere in th’ border house fer th’ night, I think, wi’ our Rogers men tae keep th’ watch an’ our Steven feeling well enough tae join me fer our market trip. The storm chased us right up th’ ben t’night, through th’ hollow, and intae the glen, it did. We only got ‘ere a minute afore it started thrashin’ upon the ben. And we’ll hae Steven and Bucky and Clint all here tae help if the bairn wakes confused or feeling lost. Our lads’ll hae a high time of a sleepover altogether in the nursery, I think, but mayhap don’t expect me up t’ yer place fer the morning meal or early prayers.” She laughs, looking into pots and crocks and dishes of all sorts warming on the stove as she speaks. “Oh, if you could’a seen her today, Winn. The way she sang right out fer the lads and asked fer their guid help. Her mam would be proud as a cock.”

“Was she very frightened?” the lady called Winn asked. 

“There were a few scary moments there fer ‘er, puir thing, but she pulled right through. And she’d already bearded yer lads twice b’ then, so we know the fear won’t hold ‘er long. She’s a brave, wee lassie, she is.” The woman smiles for her friend. 

“She’s so young,” the lady, Winn, frets. Her dark hair glows red by the light of all the candles about the cottage kitchen. “George did’na come fer me til I were six and ten, at least. And I ken ye and Joseph did’na wed until late.” She sighs like the weight of all the Highlands rest on her own shoulders. “Ye ken I carried ‘er home meself the first time the lads brought ‘er back tae our lands?”

“Ye told me,” Lady Sarah confirms. 

“Every time I’ve met this child, ‘er wee belly were growlin’, Sarah. I din’na think she’s gone tae bed wi’ a full belly ‘er whole life. She says she hae five years, but she must be underfed. She din’na look like she hae more than three years, the most.” The lady, Winn, rubs a hand over her eyes like she’s overtired. “And the raft she come from, Sarah…”

“How bad?”

“The roof keeps the rain off, I s’pose, but t’is a puir, wee home to fit so many. And she hae another five witchling sisters still at home, at least, growin’ up under the same roof in that one-room hut. Three girls grown and gone already, her mam hinted at the one time we met, though she din’na say whether Chosen or jest missin’ or married off or what. With the state a’things there, I jest could nae tell ye. It isn’a e’en a proper cottage, really. Just a converted cow’s byre, if I hae tae guess, like I said, wi’ a roof and packed earth floors. Nae food stores or cider, nor e’en a wellspring inside as I could see it, and nae root cellar doors anywhere outside. I think they’re livin’ day tae day off th’ forest, at best. There were naught but roots o’erhead in the rafters, dryin’ in the kitchen over t’ hearth, and no preserved ham or goat, nor pickling jars anywher’ about. And the packed floors smelt more of manure than soil the one time I were there.”

“So we know yer lads’ Chosen hae grown up a bit rough,” Lady Sarah agrees, but her voice is so soft and kind. She’s being so very gentle with the Lady Winn. “She would nae be the first dragon’s duchess or marchioness—or even countess—to’ve toddled on leading strings acrosst a dirt floor, Winn. Nor to grow up a bit hungry.”

“There were nae wheat in the fields about their raft and nae cattle grazin’ either, Sarah, because her da’s so badly injured. He can’na walk more’n a few steps at a shuffle, th’ puir wretch, s’far as I could tell, much less work the fields or manage a bull. A few sheep grazed on scrub grass in a wee area of the wood that hae been cleared at least twenty year ago fer ‘em, wi’ no upkeep since, from the look of it.” The Lady Winn pulls on her hair above the ears and moans. “If I’d known afore we left that first time, I’d hae taken baskets a’food and grain and all tae gie ‘em, but I din’na know and in I went, lookin’ like a great damned duchess an’ all, and empty-handed like a damned fool, tae boot, but fer th’ bairn. Honestly, Sarah, I din’na think the child’s e’en hae bread in her belly before. If I sent ‘er home wi’ bags a’ wheatberries, would ‘er mam ken what tae do wi’ it? Does she hae a man in the ringfort e’en able tae fetch and tae cut firewood enough tae fire ‘er oven fer bread? Hae she a proper mill or oven, or a hearth or stove?”

“We can teach ‘er to mill wheat and bake bread in a pot o’er a campfire, if needs must, and we can send plenty a’ chopped wood fer her fires, Winn-love. And food tae fill empty bellies, too, if needs be.” Lady Sarah hugged her lady friend. “Ye’ll hae dozens a’ clansmen linin’ up tae go there an’ help as soon as ye tell ‘em who Darcy is an’ what she’ll be tae them all someday. We’ll send a cow and clansmen to milk it and grain tae feed it, if it come tae that.” 

“I should jest hae George move the whole family here, part and parcel. They’ll join the Barnes clan soon enough, and we could help all ‘er wee witchling sisters make good matches in time wi’ old dragon families like ours, wi’ our strong clan connections. Our men could build them a proper house inside our walls where t’is safe. We could get ‘er da the care he needs and ‘er mam the help she needs raisin’ all them wee witchlings,” the lady, Winn, frets even more. “Send fer me in the morn, Sarah. I’ll hae a stack a’ blankets and a wagon a’ firewood readied tae send home wi’ her. It’ll be cold agin soon.”

“And the wheat. If we send wood, we can send wheat and a table millstone,” Lady Sarah insists. “Her mam will’na ask why ye’re being so generous. She’ll know already the lass is Chosen when half the clan arrives tae help.”

“We’ll send cider, pear wine, dried fruit, and a dozen live fowl, as well,” Lady Winn decides, then ceases her pacing to open the door and look out. “And I’ll work on George coming ‘round t’the idea of bringin’ ‘em all tae us ‘ere.” She flips a long braid behind her back and leans farther out. “Where did our lads run off tae already? I meant tae send ‘em up tae the keep tae tell Cook tae pack up crates of carrot, beetroot, and turnip tae send back wi’ the bairn, too.”

“I sent ‘em up tae th’ keep meself,” the man, George, says as he steps back inside the cottage with an armload of firewood to dump beside the hearth, “tae fetch one a’the girls’ nurses to help our Sarah t’night and tae find a sleepin’ gown and wrapper tae fit the lass. But they’re young’uns, our pups. They can make two trips. It will’na kill ‘em tae fly up t’the keep twice.” 

More clansmen with all their knobby knees on show follow, four of them in a row, each with a whole day’s wood in his arms to set beside the hearth and the fancy stove in the kitchen. They make that trip, all of them, three more times each. 

Darcy is tired and a little fuzzy, but she’s quite sure she can’t remember ever seeing so much firewood in one place at one time. Not big pieces like these that will burn for many hours. Darcy and her sisters usually gather fallen sticks, dead limbs, and dried leaves from the forest for their little hearth at home. It’s their first chore of each day. 

“Sarah,” George, the big man says as he grasps Lady Sarah’s hands in his own and brings them to his lips to place a kiss upon her knuckles like a real prince in the fairies’ tale, “we thank ye fer yer kindness to the witchlin’. We never imagined our lads would Choose so young, much less the same braw lassie , so we’re already wrong-footed here and scrambling tae catch up with those two. If the care of ‘er ever gets tae be too much fer ye during yer stay here on the border, yer tae say the word and we’ll bring the whole lot of noisy buggers up tae the keep tae let the nurses deal wi’ ‘em in the nursery, alright?”

“I’m sure we’ll be fine. She’s a bright, wee witchling. I doubt she’ll be any trouble ‘t all.”

“Famous last words,” Lady Winnifred chuckles about something Darcy can't sort out. 

“We’ve had word from a patrol on th’ border ‘ere that there’s strange footprints in th’ wood far tae th’ south and stranger noises, like a large animal, but we ken nae dragon would dare cross Barnes or Rogers lands wi’out leave, so it can’na be that,” a man near George in a tartan that matches Lady Sarah’s says. 

George nods. “I’ll fly down an’ take a look at these tracks meself once th’ women and bairns are settled in ‘ere. I’ll want ye tae keep an eye out in me absence ‘ere, though, Dugan.”

The man nods and bows his head like Bucky’s Pa is a very important man. 

“I can help keep th’ watch, too. Me maman says I’ve the strongest Gift in th’ whole raft,” Darcy pipes up, rubbing her eyes and sliding forward to sit up on the side of her cot as neatly as she can manage so late in the day. 

She’s very tired. 

But best manners are important when you’ve accepted hospitality, she knows. 

“What do ye think yer maman means b’ that, that you’ve th’ strongest gift?” Lady Sarah asks Darcy, squatting down to talk right to her, though Lady Sarah glances at the other adults for some reason only she knows. 

“She’s always said I’ve the brightest Gift of magic in the whole raft, the way Maman did as a girl, on account of how I’m the only one of ‘er own who’s sabbath-born like ‘er.” Darcy says. She’s always been pleased by compliments on her excellent magic, even if her sisters haven’t appreciated the darker edge of her Gift. “My père says there’s nae other witch tae match me in all of Scotland, but I din’na know about that. I din’na think my père hae been tae all of Scotland wi’ his bad leg and his limp.”

“Yer da’s got hisself a bum leg…” George says, but it sounds like a question maybe, so Darcy feels compelled to answer. 

“Yes, sir. He hurt it in the wars acrosst the sea.” That’s what Darcy’s overheard the adults at home say, anyway. 

“Is he nae Scottish?” George asks. He looks surprised. 

But Darcy has only five years and six moons and so doesn’t know what it actually means to be Scottish. So she smiles and shrugs. 

“That’s enough questions fer now,  I think,” Lady Sarah interrupts. “Lemme introduce ye tae Bucky’s and Clint’s chieftain, wee Darcy. This is His Grace, Lord George Barnes, Duke of Buchanan, Chief of Clan Barnes. He is also Bucky’s father.”

“And Clint’s?” Darcy asks because the Duke looks like Bucky, but not at all like Clint. Darcy wonders why. 

“Aye, I’ve taken our Clint in as me own. He were orphaned as a wee bairn younger th’n you, and his mother, Edith, were one of our own, too. It were my responsibility tae take ‘er boy in when she asked it of me as ‘er chieftain on ‘er deathbed,” Lord George explains. 

Darcy’s lip wobbles. “Clint has no maman?”

But what does Clint do now when he needs his maman? 

Or skins his knee? 

Or needs a hug to make it all better?

The darker-haired lady, Winn, stoops down to pat Darcy’s knees with her clean, pretty hands when she answers for them all, “M’ name is Winnifred, Lady Barnes. I’m Lord George’s Duchess of Buchanan, I am, and I’m Bucky’s mam and Clint’s mam now, as well. Clint is nae alone wi’ us, e’en now his own mam is gone.”

“Ye take care a’ him?” Darcy checks because it’s not the way of things back home in the raft. No one takes in more children than their own. No one wants another mouth to feed. Orphaned children are sent off to work for their place, living with distant relatives, or sold off, most usually, to work for their room and board with a kind enough employer who needs small hands to do difficult or very tedious work. “E’en though he isn’a yers? And he’s an’o’er mouth tae feed?”

“Nae, me love, an extra child’s nae trouble, bu’ a true blessin’ from Th’ Powers Th’t Be. Clint’s our own beloved, bonny son now,” Lady Winnifred explains gently to Darcy. “His mam, our friend, Lady Edith, knew well ‘er son would be cared for by us when the canker in ‘er belly took ‘er too soon from ‘im. There’s food aplenty grown here in our glens and lots of love and care to go ‘round, too, in a clan big as ours. We’d ne’er turn a lonely or a hungry child away.”

Darcy tips her chin down to think on that and to stare at the floor. It’s stone underneath, covered with a soft, patterned kind of padding. She slips off her cot to crouch down and look at it closer. 

“What is it?” she demands of the adults, poking at the soft, warm pad covering the floor. 

“T’is a rug, child. It covers th’ cold stone floor and helps tae keep the heat in a cottage like this one,” Lady Sarah explains. “Have ye … rushes on the floors ‘t home, instead?”

Rushes…?

No rugs or rushes or anything else covers the earth floors at home. It’s just packed dirt and, because of it, Darcy has to mind she doesn’t soil her stockings before she’s pulled her boots on and wrapped them for each day. 

Darcy shakes her head to answer the question, though. She’s fascinated by the prettiness of the rug beneath her dusty town shoes. 

“Oh no—I’m messing it,” she realizes with dismay. She scuttles to the edge of the room to quarantine her shoes off of the pretty, patterned rug. 

“It’s nae problem,” Lady Sarah assures a worried Darcy. “The housekeeper hae a special, wide stick tae beat the dust out of the rug when it needs cleanin’.” She points to a strange woven paddle hanging from a wall. “But I could help ye remove yer shoes tae get comfortable in yer cot if ye like?”

“Ye can rest a bit afore supper ‘ere, lassie,” Lady Winnifred suggests, pulling back the bedcovers on the cot and making it look most inviting. 

Darcy’s never had a cot all to herself all covered with blankets and her own pillow like this one. 

“I hae nae missed supper?” Darcy checks, yawning as she unstraps her shoes and yanks off her socks to dig her bare toes into the thick rug beneath her feet. 

It feels like heaven must. 

“Nae, lassie, I’m late returnin’ home meself and the weather’s turned sooner than I hoped, so me lad, Steven, and I will bide ‘ere in this cottage fer a time in the border village near our guid neighbors and friends, Clan Barnes,” Lady Sarah promises. “Ye’ve time fer a rest ‘ere by the stove where it’s toasty t’night, e’en, while I warm our supper through.”

“I must nae be late going home on th’ morro’. Maman will worry. Can someone wake me if I din’na hear th’ cock’s crow?” Darcy’s head barely touches the pillow and she’s almost asleep. She’s still wrapped in the lovely tartan wool and her little hands close over the two clan badges given her by Bucky and Clint to show she belongs with them. 

With Clan Barnes. 

“Oh, din’na worry,” Lady Winnifred tuts and tucks her in. “We’ll make sure yer awake fer yer supper this night yet, love.”

“Puir lassie.” Lady Sarah brushes the curls back from the wee one’s face as she dozes off to peer closer at the jeweled clan badges pinned to the lass’s tartan, front and center. The clanswoman glances up at her neighboring chieftain. “Who’s going tae tell ‘er, I wonder?”