Reap the Wild Wind

Epilogue

APOD BURST, ITS BRITTLE shell no match for the urgency of life. Rastis seedlings spilled forth in a determined confusion of reaching roots and stalks. This was a race, after all. First to grow meant first to the light. Fail and starve in the shadow of others. These sprouts had an unusual opportunity, for their pod lay on a mountain slope, dropped in a dispute between greedy wastryls. Though they lacked the cover of a wing, nothing grew here to challenge them. Rastis need only a roothold and light to conquer.

But Cersi was a world meticulously divided and ruled. Rastis belonged to the lands of the Tikitik, not in the mountains or plains of the Oud.

Sensing the lush young sprouts, other life roused from slumber and began to move, equally determined. Working together, slow and sure, they smothered the young rastis before the first fronds could open. Over time, they digested all flesh, even the splinters of podwood, until only rock remained. As it must, by the Agreement.

Others would dare trespass. Some quick and hard to corner. Some with strange tastes and unfamiliar machines. Some hidden behind barriers and within walls.

None of this will save them, when their time comes.