<div class="floatleft">(http://fc07.deviantart.net/fs11/i/2006/223/f/6/Redhead_by_Chibiche.png)</div><br/>An hour, it had already been an hour prancing around the tavern and stirring up idle imaginations and curbed libidos. The more grains of sand in her hourglass, the swifter any one seemed to pass, and with a cool million hours to her tails already, this one had been the fastest yet. She hadn't eaten, but she had made plans to plant fairy seeds in the deep, dark forest with these women. Missy accompanied her new friends to the steps of the longhouse on the hill.<br/><br/>It pleased her more than most anything to inhabit a frontier like this. The stagnation in the tavern was a pimple on an otherwise robust endeavor. She filled her lungs with the air of newly turned soil and lumber mill sawdust and weatherproofing tar. Finally the way of the world had come around again to mortal man huddled in humble villages, before the brink of wilderness primeval, and Oinari coached her as a mediator between the two.<em>What would you do if one came answering your fairy flowers in the moonlight, </em>Ci'ona had asked her, and she knew, though she could not say. There was too much she left vague on the approach up those lofty longhouse steps, and her companions had every right to fear Mischievous Three Tailed Fox Goads Devil would tear the lords' pillows open with her teeth.<br/><br/>But Missy had met with human leaders before. She stood before the wise man and warrior-king of New Hearth with a courtly calm, and raised her tails like a gown bustle to accept the proffered seat. A pillow vanished beneath the breadth of her hips.<br/><br/>"May your rule be long Mayor Jacob, and your vigil safe Captain Isaac." Her name was in that book, after a fashion. They must have known who she was, if not her ginger-tailed race. She waited to learn the purpose of this visit, and scanned the body language to her left and right for who among them would speak for the group. Justine, right? It had to be Justine.