Hana rocked the boy back and forth; trying to remember how she'd held her half sister. Of course, the moment Clothilde began to squirm, Hanabaptiste passed the infant to the ready nursemaid, who'd whisk the child away in coos and affection. She had not spent much time with children. So all she had to compare it to was her own childhood, of being taught to keep any bad thought from crossing your face, of always being pleasant. Of how resilience and duty were the highest virtues, and a woman's weapons were her grace and beauty. It was not a place to hold shifter boys who were sobbing in anguish. But she remembered what it had been like, having to cry without being held, being loved. She rubbed the boy's back with her hand, tucking her chin over his head. She continued to hum, softer now, it was the chorus to one of Uban's songs. Catching the nervous man's eye, she looked pointedly down at crying Rio. Catching her breath, she continued to hum.

----
Wheel rocked back on his heels in response to the big mans blow. It probably irked the hell out of him that he couldn't send Wheel flying. When the gate swung open and the towns leader stepped out, he wondered how the scrawny man had survived the raiders. He wouldn't have made a very good oarsmen, so maybe they spared him. Ha, the man looked like he'd have everything taken away from him. He'd die in five or ten years, bitter and begging for someone who'd died just yesterday. The heart remembers the best things only to torture us with them. Good memories made the best lash for lonely nights. 

"A galley? Or were there others?"

Wheel started openly picking his teeth when the man began to talk again, the hatred catching in his voice and making it swell with emotion.

"Just one galley. They'd taken a few children in secret at first, once a week at first. It grew quiet, like they'd taken what they wanted and left us. But they came back all at once, armed to the teeth and without mercy." The man grasped the crossbow tightly, hands shaking. "We... I... ANCESTORS DAMN IT THERE WAS NOTHING WE COULD DO." He cried, bending inwards like he'd been punched in the gut. He straightened slowly, his face composed. His eyes seemed to be wetter, and the lines creasing his face had grown. 

"We had been fortunate in the past. We were just a fishing hamlet, and pirates never bothered to steal the fish we sold to outside merchants. But now these slavers have started to arrive, and we've never seen them before. They've been terrorizing the rest of the New Mulst islands for months now, but we never thought they'd attack us. We were foolish." The man looked Berlin directly in the eye. Shifting his gaze to Wheel, he scowled and lifted his crossbow, "I'd like you to leave."