"We wound up with markers on our auras branding us as thieves," I tell Estelle. "I don't suppose you can remove them?"

"Hmm," Estelle says, poking my aura with a spirit tendril lightly, then shakes her head. "I'm afraid not. You will need to find an expert in curses. Perhaps that goblin [Elder Witch] that lives in the caves to the northwest?"

"Good idea," I say. "If anyone knows curses, it's Griza Grubwick. Though she was unaware that reincarnators don't need to sacrifice people in order to become Necromancers."

"It is likely that she had never encountered a reincarnator before," Estelle says. "But you would be wise to assume that no one knows everything. Not me, not you, not even if you interrogate every one of your past lives."

I nod. "I know. Regardless of what name and face I bear, questioning everything is in my nature." I close my eyes and take a deep breath. "But now? I want to be Drake and I want to fly."

Once everyone has gotten their fill of puzzling and fighting creepy crawlies, we head back to Corwen. Far from having burned off any energy, the Griffin is still high-strung, maybe even more so now. He stands at the prow with his wool scarf flapping and wooden sword raised dramatically.

"Sit down, Griffin," Basil says. "The boat might have its own gravity but you'll still fall if you go over the rail."

"I fell out of a tree and was fine!" Griffin insists.

"Yes, thanks to your [Soft Landing] skill and me healing you," Basil points out. "We're much higher than that tree was. And you would need to walk back, since there isn't enough room to land here."

Grumbling incoherently, Griffin sits back down.

"There's a ship at the docking tower," Basil says from the prow as we approach Corwen.

"Who is it?" Anise wonders, peering over in that direction. "Did the HOA send someone to our doorstep? Looks like the same sort of ship that crashed."

"Whoever it is, I'm sure Aunt Savannah and Uncle Winter will keep them from causing trouble," I say.

I fly us in over the walls and park the boat in the village green. The gaggle of children scatter once we've touched town, with Rowan, Jade, Colt and Poppy going off in different directions and we Corwen kids making for the square.

"Mom?" Anise says, her eyes falling on a figure coming in from the dock.

The black-haired woman wearing green traveling garb looks like the spitting image of Anise with a couple of decades added on. She adjusts her satchel and gives a broad smile when she sees us.

Name (Bird?) Corwen Tempest Tiganna Category Person Race Human Gender Female Class Peregrine Wizard Rank Heroic Aspects Wind, Frost Mood Happy Disposition Friendly

Skills increased: Clairvoyance (Naming), Discipline (Focus), Tending (Babysitting)

Oh. Right. You might not know it from how I've hardly ever seen her, but I do in fact have a grandmother. It's been years since I've seen her and even more years since I looked at the family tree mural. I make a mental note to shove a bird book into my [Mental Encyclopedia] later so I can use my new [Naming] skill to convince relatives I haven't seen in ages that I remember their names.

"Sorry I'm late!" she says. "I wanted to be back in time for my grandkids' naming days but there was a small emergency and my flight out of the Zenith Nexus was delayed."

"You made it!" says Willow. "It's still our naming day!"

"We flew to the Spooky Grove!" Griffin adds.

"Ah, good!" says my grandma. "I had the right day! Congratulations on reaching age 7! What classes did you pick?"

The twins are silent for a moment, and exchange looks. "We're 8, Grandma," Willow says.

Grandma's smile falters. "Oh. Ah… Very sorry. Well, hopefully the presents I've brought will make up for being a year late."

"Presents?" the twins say in unison.

"Though first I'll need to know what your classes and interests are so I know who gets what. Let's head into the Hearth, shall we?"

"Let me unload my boat first," I say. "Aunt Hazel packed way too much food and we didn't eat it all even through Griffin ate five sandwiches."

"I'm a growing boy!"

Grandma trails along with me instead of going straight to the Hearth to take a look at my new boat. "So you have your own skyboat now."

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"Do you know much about the Honest Order of Aethernauts?" I ask.

"Smugglers, pirates if they think they can get away with it," Grandma says. "Have they been causing trouble?"

"We stole this boat from a Heroic gnome named Carter Maligar Flux Tiganna," I say. "He was bringing floj into Amroth."

Grandma nods along as if I were telling her how I've been doing in school. I describe our recent exploits as we're unloading the skyboat and carrying the extra food and supplies back inside.

"So that's why there's suddenly a really big tree in northern Tempest?" Kestrel says. "I saw it on the way down."

"It's hard to miss," I say.

"When do we get to see our presents?" Griffin asks with half of a sixth sandwich in his mouth.

"Kestrel returns to the nest," Aunt Savannah says, approaching as we're putting the food away.

"Savannah!" Grandma Kestrel goes up to hug her. "Good to see you."

"You appear to have a couple of grandkids stuck to you looking as though they wish to start shaking you down for presents. I do hope for your sake that you've brought something suitably impressive for prospective wizards, rogues, and sky pirates."

"I do, I do! I brought something for all four of them, but let's start with the name-day kids."

Aunt Savannah gives some highly objective details about Kestrel's grandkids, our classes, and our interests. The twins are entirely too excited about the prospect of what their absentee grandma has brought them to even be offended at being outed as little troublemakers.

We gather around a table as though we were splitting treasure after an adventure. Grandma Kestrel reaches into her bag of holding (bigger than mine, no doubt) and pulls out a small, simple telescope.

"For our [Perceptive Child], this will help you see things far away," Grandma Kestrel says. "Careful not to break or drop it."

Willow takes the metal cylinder and turns it over and over in her hands, examining it from every angle before putting the large end to her eye. "Huh?"

Grandma Kestrel grins and gently turns it the other way around and shows her how to adjust it.

"Oooh!" Willow peers through the telescope, pointing it every which way around the room. "I can read the labels on the jars in the kitchen from here!"

"For our [Sneaky Child]…" Grandma Kestrel reaches into her bag again and pulls out a stethoscope. "If you stick these in your ears and press the pad against something, you can hear sounds inside it."

Griffin awkwardly puts in the ear buds as directed and presses the pad to his chest like every child ever does when encountering a stethoscope for the first time. "I can hear my heartbeat!"

"Were you just hoping one of us would become a healer, Grandma?" I ask.

"It might have been aspirational. But I haven't forgotten you or Juniper. I still have more things."

"This is cool," Griffin says. "But not 'haven't seen you in years' cool."

"He's going to shake you down for every missed naming day and Hearth Day, Mom," Anise says. "A right little highwayman in the making."

Grandma Kestrel chuckles. "That's fair. Don't worry, I'm saving the best for last."

The twins might be indignant, but they're also easily distracted. While they're trying out each other's presents, Grandma Kestrel rummages through her bag to find some more knickknacks to distract children with.

"I was going to give you a present in a few weeks, Juniper, but seeing as I'm already almost a year late I may as well give you something now."

"And then another present on my actual naming day," Juniper says.

Grandma Kestrel groans. "Yes, alright, alright." The next object she pulls out of her pocket is a sturdy ball point pen. "You like to write, right? You seem like the quiet sort. This sort of pen is better for when you care more about the content of your words than how pretty your letters are."

"Thank you, Grandma," Juniper says placidly as she takes the pen.

"I'm not sure what a [Psychic Child] might need but I heard you like building things." Grandma Kestrel pulls a trowel out of her bag and puts it on the table in front of me.

I'm the sort of 9-year-old who won't complain about getting a trowel for a belated 5th birthday present. I could actually use one, and it's made of good steel too.

Between Grandma Kestrel and everyone else, a pile of presents slowly builds up around the name-day kids, supplying them with a year's worth of clothes, toys, and books. After the frenzy of gift-giving, Grandma Kestrel gets up and heads into the kitchen area with a wink and a coy grin.

A large apple cake shaped like a boat flies out of the kitchen on its own, delicate sails of frost glittering with magic. Anise quickly sweeps aside some presents to make room for it.

"Whoa…!" the twins gasp in unison as it lands in the middle of our table.

A single glowing sigil made of frosting has been drawn on the top. I recognize it as one of the sigils I've been staring at on my boat for hours, just enlarged and sweetened. Examining the aspects in the cake, I realize what it must be. The sigil of flight.

Skill increased: Clairvoyance (Aspect Analysis) Skill acquired: Language (Mystic Sigils) Description: The arcane conceptual writing used in Wizardry.

The cake doesn't taste any different from usual, for all that it was briefly enchanted. My grandmother did not learn any Wizardry that could improve Aunt Magnolia's already-excellent cooking.

With the cake devoured, Grandma Kestrel spends the evening telling us about the places she's been and the things she's seen. The sort of adventuring she does involves more making friends than hitting things, but she does her fair share of hitting things as well.

"Zenith has a spire in the middle many kilometers tall," Grandma Kestrel says. "Higher than Tempest's Black Mountain by far and much narrower. There's a city at the top of it where skyships from all over the Crystalline Heavens come."

"Cool," I say. "A lot of engineering problems go away when you can just ignore gravity. Wish I could see it from here. I'll have to visit someday."

She looks over toward the twins, who have nodded off over her stories despite their best efforts to listen. "And I think it's about bedtime for novice adventurers."

Once the twins have been tucked away in bed, Aunt Magnolia asks, "How long will you be in Tempest, sister?"

"At least until Juniper's naming day," Grandma Kestrel says. "And the naming day of the next little one. When is Hazel due? She didn't say."

"Late March," Aunt Magnolia says. "So not long now and you will have another greedy grandkid rummaging through your extra tools. Do you plan to give him a wrench to use for teething, too?"

"I can probably find something more appropriate..." Grandma Kestrel says.

I say, "I'm planning on heading out in a few days to visit Grubwick to see if [Elder Witch] Griza can remove a thief marker."

"I'll head along with you when you leave, then, if you don't mind," Grandma Kestrel says. "I'd best say hello to Hawk and Falcon while I'm here. Maggie will never let me live it down if I don't."

"I'm sure they'll be thrilled to see you," Aunt Magnolia says.

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