Oakheim. Traveling along the adjacent highway that precariously bordered the overtaxed city, perhaps considered out of place this time of year,  was a slow, deliberate glint. This glint sparkled in the sunlight like a migrating burst of flame, flickering with an enticing brilliance that struck the eye of every rogue and bandit within half a league. The sun, shining in the distance, was casting its rays not upon a great traveling fortune, but upon a mess of bushy white fur. 

Of course, any good highwayman with a head on his shoulders and a brain in his skull - which was the majority of them if you were speaking purely biologically - was aware that this was not the right time of year for commodity traders to travel along this road. This was, so to speak, the off-season for skullduggery.  Most of their quarterly income was carefully coerced from a select few low-key individuals in order to tide the bandits over until the profitable months. Attracting too much attention during the meantime was akin to committing suicide. Only timely and ordinary robbers were tolerated in these parts, as there were a few too many headstrong justice nuts among the young and inexperienced adventuring populace. Make too much of a ruckus and you'll most certainly wake the hornet's nest called Oakheim.

So common sense dictated that this was not a target worth pursuing, only, it was just too much of an easy mark. A single teen, traveling almost tragically slow, as if a leper, was making his way down the highway without escort. The pack on his shoulders bulged with supplies and possible gains, as if he were screaming for their attentions. In his hand was a simple wooden staff, with no sign of sheathe on his waist. Every few minutes the young man would stop and travel off the road, setting aside his pack and foraging through the local flora. It was such a delicious meal that a few of the smarter bandits avoided this boy as if he really were a leper. They'd been in this business far too long not to smell a trap. This was not so true for the younger, wide-eyed predators prowling the roads. 

[b]"Look'it dis boys, a baby foun' its way ou'side, go home to yer ma and suck 'er tit fer a few more years 'fore you step foot on our road, baby." [/b]

It wasn't really that funny, but bawling laughter soon echoed from the group of seven, twenty-something-year-old men. Bulging muscles, unclean faces, tattered clothes. Yup, these were definitely bandits, and fairly desperate ones too judging by the quality of their accoutrement. Only, Youngest Brother didn't seem perturbed in the slightest. What kind of thief announced themselves so blatantly? This young man was a beastkin, with senses far more acute than an average human. His ears were sharp and his nose was even sharper, actively tracking the trundling footsteps of these oafish offenders for quite a few passing minutes. Maybe these men didn't notice it themselves, but how could the experienced bandit scouts possibly not notice from their bird's-eye perches along the length of the road? The young man had slowed his pace some time ago. His back was covered by the geography, and his front was cluttered with foliage. These idiots were already densely packed into a group, with no way to flank or ambush their query. Failures, the lot of them... nothing but stupid brutes desperate for an easy bit of coin. 

[color=#b87333][b]"Three seconds,"[/b][/color] the teen said, a sudden autumn gale lifting the hair over his golden eyes. A red glint, traced with green flecks, was already glowing within. 

[b]"Wha' was tha' baby?"[/b] one of the men asked, hand reaching for jagged, hip-belted machete at his waist.

The others had already followed suit, not a single flicker of regret showing in their eyes regarding the thought of cutting down a person that could only be called a child. 

[color=#b87333][b]"Two... one..."[/b][/color] Youngest Brother didn't drag his words out, three seconds passing by in an overbearingly precise measurement. 

[b]"Alrigh' tha's the las-"[/b]

Glowing eyes flickered with arcane implication, connecting the young man's very soul to gentle, throbbing breath of the world. Thin lips parted unhesitantly, tongue twisting in an intricate, perpetual motion. This oration was not some sort of incantation, but a meditation, restraining the effect of magical throes on the mind of the practitioner. It was incomplete in the extreme, but no less the results of a year's worth of effort and experimentation. Each syllable uttered seemed to move in tandem with the rhythm of the nearby magical energies.  

[color=#b87333][b]"Meh-bah-meh-meh-bah-meh-bah-meh-meh-bah-"[/b][/color]

[i]FWOOSH~ FWOOM![/i]

A rapidly expanding burst of scorched air rippled through the trees, unsettling a flock of resting birds. Clouds of avian activity erupted into the sky, quickly evacuating their perches in fear of the sudden concussive force. Autumn leaves, only lightly browning, fell to the ground in waves, nestling about the unmoving boots of the young beastkin. Another glint flashed through the hillside, once again alerting the keen eyes of the bandit lookouts. Only, this glint wasn't white. It wasn't even gold. It was red, and the hazy furor contained within spurred even the bloodthirsty hot-blooded bandits to shiver in fear at the sight of it. The same thought passed through the minds of each and every one of these cowardly men. [i]Thank the gods that wasn't me.[/i] For the rest of the day, the highway presented no more temptation to these thieves or their tired eyes. 

Picking up his body-engulfing pack and mounting it on his shoulders, the boy once again resumed his plodding journey. It wasn't that this Youngest Brother didn't want to travel any faster, but it was simply impossible for him. His feet couldn't grip the earth like a normal person, and he often wondered if it was because the earth was jealous of him. How could it not be? So deep was his connection to Sun and Sky that there was nothing that grew on the surface of this world that could withstand his destructive force. At least, nothing untouched by the hands of men. A precisely positioned boot steps over a sizable pile of smoking white ash, the grim dust scattering amidst the encroaching wind. It was in stark contrast to the cracked-dry blackened soil that occupied an area seven strides in diameter where the bandits once stood.
   
No sign of the men remained in this world, and in a year's time, there would be no way to know they had ever existed. Mother nature would soon reclaim this land with her renewed vigor, the foliage thicker even than before. After all, it wasn't as if Youngest Brother had failed to leave it a suitable fertilizer. Perhaps these bandits might have been immortalized in the mind of the beaskin youth, the pale, gaunt visages of the seven haunting his nightmares for years to come. Only, Youngest Brother had already long since forgetten this incident. Had he mercilessly ended a group of lives without batting an eye? As far as this boy was concerned, all he had done was spread a bit of dust along the side of a road. 

All that occupied the mind of this traveler was his destination, and every step along the way was carefully purveyed with the same appraising pair of golden eyes. Not a single pebble was missed in his observations, but at the same time, not a single pebble was remembered either.     

[color=#b87333][i]"Stone of Nine... you'd think they could have sprung for nine stones..."[/i][/color] Youngest Brother would think some time later, his slight form finally crossing the horizon of this ceremonial site. 

Not to mention, there were people here. People... how annoying. Was it like this every day? Sure, this was supposed to be an important place of pilgrimage, but Youngest Brother was under the illusion that this was the least likely time for traveling adventurer-wannabes to head in this direction. He'd even taken the scenic route in order to time his arrival precisely to the least crowded hour of the day. Yet, here were spectators all the same. A scowl was already spreading across the young man's face, and a flicker of red light was quietly subdued behind the cowl of white he called his hair.