Begrudgingly, everyone returned to the huts when the wind and rain returned, and Minnow managed to weasel her way into her own home and her own bed before anyone could protest. Most of her siblings had also been displaced and weren’t so lucky, but there were plenty of cousins and two aunts to keep her company here. Now more accustomed to the sounds of a storm, there was less fear in the room, but the tensions had risen. It seemed that during the break in the weather, several ker had begun to argue over space in the bunkhouse and who would get what pieces of food, which were dwindling. Despite being refugees, it seemed the rock and volcano and desert ker felt they had a greater claim to the food the swampies had gathered over the summer.

Minnow glanced down at Pyre, who was looking back. “I’m so glad I was born to the Swamp, Py,” the ker whispered. “We bicker, but I’ve never seen so much anger and hate and, and entitlement.”

“What’d you say, mud eater?” a woman demanded, yanking on Minnow’s wrist to pull the girl up from the hammock. “You got something to say, you better say it to my face. The Rock is a hundred times nicer than this dump you seem to love so much and don’t think we don’t know you frogs are keeping all the best food for yourselves and making us eat this salty, dry fish crap. Where’s the meat, bitch.”

What was there to say to that? Frightened by the Rock woman, Minnow stared at her in stunned silence before a fit took her and, unable to snatch her hand away, the younger girl couched directly into the stranger’s face. Pyre and a few other nearby ker and aja laughed hard enough that a light aja went to its knees and began to roll around on the wooden floor, kicking its hooves in mirth.

Anger at being humiliated by a child, the Rock ker swung a fist at Minnow’s face and connected with her nose . It didn’t break - apparently the technologically advanced society was less physically active than the hunting and nature-worn swampies – but it smarted just the same and Minnow’s eyes watered and her vision went blank for an minute as she recovered from the shock of the blow. Her hearing was as good as ever however, and before she could see it, she knew someone had come to her defense.

“You can’t just hit her!” he said, and when Minnow’s vision cleared, he was on top of the woman, having wrestled her to the ground. A circle of onlookers and would-be brawlers had gathered around the fight and, it seemed, several pockets of additional fights had also broken out. The tensions had crested and this was the result. Tads from every kingdom were shoved around, some ending up between attackers. Spitters were pulled from holsters and were fired openly, creating welts on aja and ker alike. Birch did what she could to break the duelers apart and already Minnow could see welts rising on her mother’s arms and face from the pebbles hitting her.

“ENOUGH!” she shouted, standing on the hammock with as much balance as she could muster. She was, quite likely, the youngest adult ker in the room, and shouldn’t have commanded the respect that she got, but everyone dropped fists and weapons to look at her, frozen in shock. Even Birch was looking at her daughter, curious to see what the young ker would do. Never before had she had so many eyes on her, and certainly none that had been older.

“We’re all tired, we’re all uncomfortable and we all smell.” It was a poor start and Pyre let her know that by prodding the sharp bone of her nose into the calloused bottom of Minnow’s foot. “What I mean is, no one is happy about this. Why make everything worse? What is there to gain by fighting?”

She’d started off poorly, and, although she’d hoped the question would be answered with ‘nothing,’ it seemed she’d underestimated the hatred that the rock and volcano ker shared with one another, or the disdain that the desert ker felt toward the vulcans. She was certainly made aware, however, when the shouting resumed, aimed both at her and at the rival factions. The air was filled with a cacophony of insults and slurs and fists and spit and rocks. The fighting drowned out the sound of the thunder outside. Hours passed and voices began to grow hoarse and only then did anyone notice that the wind had died down and there were voices outside the shelter. The hurricane was over.

The door was pushed open and the argument spilled outside while the youngest victims were left bawling over their injuries and stress in the room. Angry herself, Minnow grumbled and hopped off her hammock and began to kick around the belongings of several of the strangers. She wanted them out out out. She and what family members were in the hut began to pile up the foreign things and push them out the door and into the sunlight dappled walkways before exiting the stagnant air of the building themselves.

Theirs had not been the only home hit by fighting as the storm came to a close, but now that there was once again room to spread out a bit, the worst of the battles were over. Many were sporting bruises and welts, but were too tired to whine about the swampies not helping to put up the refugee tents once again. The “mud eaters” were too busy taking inventory of the damage that had been done by Lorraine’s wrath.

“The long dock was pretty torn up,” Minnow overheard Egret telling Birch. “And I’m not sure the all the traps survived, but there were at least 20 trees downed, by my count, so they can be repaired soon enough. But we have almost no food left.”

The matriarch nodded quietly as she planned out a work schedule.

“I’ll check the nets,” Minnow offered. “And the deep traps? And we can see if any of what little fruit was in the trees before all of this dropped to the ground.” Before any confirmation was given, Minnow walked back into the house to change to nets. It was less about helping and more about getting out of the cramped community and into the forest and water. She ran out and down the long dock out of hearing range before any other reports were made.