The Allunga are a big clan, and harmony is harder to keep the more people you have around. Before we joined, they had three Yavinaha wanderers, one in each of the three oldest sibling groups. Halaavi made a fourth. The Yavinaha wanderers kept council together, not in any official way, but when they spoke together, they were awarded authority. They were together most of the time; Halaavi was the only one of them who had paired. The rest were oddly isolate. They welcomed Halaavi. Halaavi came back from conversations with them a little dazed. “It brings back my childhood,” ve said one night as we lay together. “We wanderers, we’re a different breed than the clansfolk. Just a little different, not so different you notice if there’s just one of us. But with four of us…you can see it plain.” And ve was right: the Yavinaha kept their elaborate, unofficial council, and the Allunga waited to do anything until they had Yavinaha guidance. Like the Avolayla, they built consensus slowly, inch by creeping inch, but it was a more directed thing. The Allunga had a clearer sense of hierarchy, and the Yavinaha were at the top. Halaavi very quickly became the voice of the Yavinaha. The other wanderers saw something in vim. The Avolayla had seen it, too, I think, but with less clarity. The Yavinaha wanderers of the Allunga clan regarded Halaavi with a sort of reverence I had not realized the Droma were capable of. One night, at dinner, I happened to wind up next to a Nalunghai wanderer. It was deep winter, and some of the antelope were struggling. A group of emergent leaders were trading stories, circling around and around the question of whether to cull the herd. Each time one told a story, everyone in the group looked at Halaavi. The Nalunghai wanderer pointed at Laavi. “Your pair, ve is only half elf. Halaavi is one with the land; ve feels its beating heart, its pulsing blood. I am a wanderer, yes, but Halaavi is a voice. Rare as a flower in winter.” The wanderer took a long look at me. “Someone so Droma, and ve paired with you, Boonu Ariah. The world twists like a grass snake.”

“You say what Laavi does is rare?”

“Oh, yes.”

“Then it’s not so strange we’ve paired. I know a thing or two about gifts others don’t understand. I know what it is to be odd. I know what it is to want someone who does not understand that you’re odd.”

The Nalunghai wanderer made a noncommittal noise, half-snort, half-laugh, and glanced me over. Ve raised vis eyebrows and shrugged. Let the world twist, vis shoulders said. Let it twist into knots only to unwind again.