Our days were spent in a weird space between anxiety and masquerading happiness. LoPa distracted us with songs and HoPa walked us through the garden, naming plants. He named the birds he heard and even the insects and trees of the forest. He showed us the pregnant rabbits that would produce our food as long as we cared for them.

  We lived as if we were never leaving, as if nothing would change, though we knew everything was changing.

  At the forest’s edge, we were the first to see the other clans walking past. Parents carrying or dragging their children. Parents carrying or dragging their lives with them. Everything they could hold and take along. Where they were going didn’t matter. They were just running from the dragon’s path.

  I won’t say we saw them all pass or even that I took note of which clan was which. By that autumn, we stopped even looking as they trudged along, carrying their whole lives with them.

  Mother returned that night and we ate in silence. The laughter we forced during the day disappeared. Mother sat there, sword in her lap, staring into the fire. When I sat beside her, she softened. “My little moon.” Her arms folded round me, pulling me in. Her heartbeat so loud, the only sound I wanted or needed. It made the rest not matter so much. Made it not hurt.

  When we crawled in for sleep, mother put a hand on my shoulder, “Go to your brothers.”

  “But—”

  She pressed her face against mine, nuzzling me. “I need your fathers tonight.”

  I slid in beside my brothers. They held hands, folded into one another. Eyes open, staring at the ceiling, sharing their silent language, their never spoken thoughts.

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  We heard them comfort one another with their bodies. The grunts and gasps, the slow, quiet slap of skin on skin. There was no laughter though. Just touch, passion, love. The need of bodies.

  I smiled, hearing them, knowing they were still in love. Still needed each other.

  Then the whispered words. So many of them unheard, but sometimes entire exchanges would reach us.

  “We can’t stay.”

  “I won’t leave.”

  “Please—”

  “This is our home.”

  “Kalna, talk to her. Say something!”

  A long sigh, “The clan won’t fight with us?”

  A snort, “Vandu’s a coward.”

  “You can’t fight it alone.”

  “My mother would have.”

  Then the conversation fell away from me, though I listened as hard as I could. My brothers did too. I could tell. The way they didn’t move, the way they held their breath. We strained to hear but there was nothing.

  When the whispers stopped, LoPa lay beside us. Akmuo and Medis clung to him but I walked to mother and HoPa and lay between them. Their skin still sticky with sweat.

  The nights repeated like this, and though I couldn’t sleep, LoPa always woke when I tried to leave so I never saw if Whaaloo really left or if it waited to say goodbye one more time.

  Summer fell into autumn like this. Countless arguments. Mother spending the day fighting with First Mother at the MothertTree, explaining herself to LoPa and HoPa in harsh whispers we couldn’t fully hear. But they always shared their bodies. Maybe out of need or something beyond words.

  I like to think there was no more pain for them. That they came together in love and shared every moment they had left together to the best of their ability.

  I never questioned why LoPa chose to sleep with us all those nights and he never kept me from sleeping with HoPa and mother. But we spent many more nights watching the stars.

  I imagine the conversations they had, the ones I didn’t hear. About love and pride. How my fathers wanted to leave but would stay for her. How my mother cried at their touch, at the love they shared so powerfully. How my mother told them the real reason she stayed. Not from pride or duty but because she longed to see the gods again. She wanted to hear the ancient songs of the world that had disappeared.