“There are a few in here,” Limpkin shouted as he pulled the makeshift wooden trap from the muddy water. Three shrimp and a lobster protested the change in environment, but the boy paid them no mind. Uncermoniously, he dumped them into a sack that was tied to his waist and trailing in the water. There they would survive until the group returned to the community and the meal could be served. The trap was dumped back into the murk.

A hundred feet away, Minnow had left the water and was climbing a cypress, her nets dripping. There were a few fruit left in the canopy and as lovely a treat as that was, that tended to mean there would be birds and monkeys to take home as well. This was the hottest part of the summer, which meant that autumn was near and it was time to begin collecting and curing what extras the hunters could get. All round, clouds of smoke could be seen coming from each community in the swamp as they all prepared for the frozen months.

Minnow’s tail curled around the tree to help her keep hold as she scaled it, claws digging into the wood. She ignored the splinters she was collecting between her fingers and toes, instead focusing on the sky above her. Although it was always there, the ker who lived here, who collectively referred to themselves as “swampies” rarely saw the sky. Greenery was usually in the way, except for during the frozen time, and that was when they spent as little time outside their homes as possible.

After about fifteen minutes of climbing (with Pyre at the base of the tree yelling incredibly helpful instructions, such as “don’t fall”) Minnow was as high in the tree as could bear her weight. She pulled what fruit she could easily reach free from its branches and tucked it into her own sack before wrapping the split ends of her tail around the branch and standing. Even without being able to hear, the woman knew the burning bone aja was frantic. They’d been through plenty more dangerous adventures together, but there was something about heights that Pyre wasn’t fond of.

With a quite glance around her, Minnow spotted two monkeys a dart’s blow away and several parrots who were not paying attention. They would need to be first. There was little shifting of weight, to minimize the shaking of the tree as Minnow pulled her pipe free from the rope around her waist. Each dart was laced with a toxin that would paralyze, kill and then degrade out of the meat. Each dart hit its mark, though the last bird had flown away before the ker could get the pipe to her lips a fourth time.

She took quick, confident leaps to the dead birds, and yanked them free from the three limbs, and they then joined the fruit in the bag. Minnow glanced back to the monkeys before grabbing the fruit that the parrots had been eating.

“Minnow, get back down here!” her younger cousin shouted, scaring the monkeys away.

Minnow swore under her breath. The mammals had more meat, and she should have tackled them first. “I’m coming,” she yelled down to Limpkin and proceeded to give her aja a nervous break by taking the short way to the water: jumping from branch to branch and then splashing into the mud. She hadn’t noticed or taken into account of why Limpkin had called her back down; she didn’t see the stranger or the spitter or who was accompanying this new person.

“Minnow!”

The girl winced and turned around to face the mud-covered disciplinarian. The family matriarch. Her mother. Minnow shrunk back and offered an apologetic smile that had worked when she was little, but had become less and less effective the older she got. “Oops?”

“You are not a tad, anymore, Minnow. You have bonded an aja, you’re a skilled hunter. It is time you stop the foolishness.” Birch said with very little emotion. Minnow could hear the bite beneath the words though. She knew the only reason she wasn’t in pain was because of the stranger.

By 15, ker were supposed to be mature, adult citizens. They shouldn’t be yelled at by their parents or punished. At least, that was how it worked on the mainland, or so Minnow understood. In the swamp, the matriarch was in charge of the entire family, and could and would discipline even adults in the community.

The girl bit her tongue to hold in an argument and, looking only at the water, waded back to the community of wooden houses on sticks. Not only did she and her mother live here with Lumpkin, Lumpkin’s mother, who was Minnow’s aunt, and all of her children lived here. So did the families of five other female siblings of her mother, and many of Minnow’s older sisters had children who all lived in the community as well. The boys moved away when they were deemed great enough to father children, and a few men still lived in the village to help hunt and protect, but the communities were mostly women and children.

Both her and Lumpkin’s sacks were pulled onto a dock, of one many jutting in all directions into the marsh, and Pyre headed into the center of the small village to start a fire for cooking. Although she was a rarity in the swamp, a rarity anywhere, really, a child of fire and death, the family was getting over the sight of her. Like the mud and the water and wood aja that were practically everywhere in the swamp, Pyre was just starting to fit right in. Visitors usually were far more interested in the aja, however, and Minnow occasionally became jealous.

Birch helped the stranger clean himself up before calling the adults into a meeting. Minnow, busy sorting out what would be cooked and what would need to be smoked and stored, needed a kick in the side from her older sister, Fern, to realize that she was now a part of this meeting as well. Minnow beamed as she stood up and handed the rest of the sack to one of her nephews and followed Fern into the common hall, shutting the door behind her.