<strong>Tiny Threats</strong><br/>Ishi had six silver coins all ready. She hesitated bestowing dispensary duty to Zebbie, or Enkh, when an argument seemed ready to break out over shares. Many of the same kinds of things that ended up broken over an adventurer's skull during a tavern brawl were also found in her home, in a far more delicate form. She left the coins on the table. "Pixies, huh? That's even worse. Owls don't even eat pixies, They end up with saddles on them and tabards cut out of your dishtowels, and one day you find the chimney blocked off because it's now an aerie for owl-knights to wage war against redcaps. Thanks for taking care of that."<br/><br/>The look she gave Enkh was probably too nuanced for him. It was part<em>looks like you hit the jackpot, inumimi, </em>part<em>but this jackpot is blood money, </em>and part<em>I can literally see the whip, I'm looking at it right now. </em><br/><br/>"Yes, I bought this old heirloom seed from a traveling merchant. It finally bloomed this year after, oh, two years of trying?" Ishi rotated the little pot. The tiny white sprig within shook pitifully from the lightest disturbance, like a shivering hair. "When I was born, good old dad planted a cherry tree so it could grow with me. My sister got one of her own, but she didn't live for very long. We took pretty good care of that tree in her memory, and one year the two sort of leaned together and merged. Have been like that ever since." She closed her book. "This is a member of that same thorny family, so I'll love it no matter what it turns out to be."