Once they reach Estbryn Forest, Heppa puts off taking Alric to her house for as long as possible. She is partially helped by how carefully he moves in this foreign environment. Although he has spent plenty of time with falcons—Aderyn is entertaining herself overhead as they go—he is not used to the wilderness itself. He sees none of the trails and pathways through the undergrowth that Heppa does, but he jokes that they are not so different from cluttered alleyways.
She shows him a few key areas of the forest and points out prominent places in the village. Heppa is eager to share her world with Alric, but she is also conflict-avoidant. She really wants him to feel comfortable, but she also knows Damal’s deception and withholding of information caused grief in Alric’s own family. So eventually, after much delay, she admits to Alric that she has not yet taken him to her home because she is not sure how her mother will react. “I’d like you to stay with me, but if it gets too uncomfortable with my mother, there are scout quarters for visitors, and you could stay there.”
“Well, if you’re not comfortable, you’re welcome to stay in the scout quarters, too,” Alric tells her, seeing how nervous she is.
“That’s a good idea!” she says with a smile.
“But I’m fine with going and meeting your parents, if that’s what you want,” he adds.
Heppa, though, is already leading them to the scout quarters. Mother and Daddy can wait until after Alric has dropped off his bag and settled in. When they reach the huts, Heppa is surprised to find that in the next one over, Tric is similarly helping his sister. “Oh! Hello, Terwaen! I didn’t realize you’d made it here,” Heppa greets her. Terwaen has eaten in Alric’s bar, but even though they are ostensibly part of the same Dunefolk clan, they do not really know each other. Heppa makes polite introductions. Alric gives Terwaen a cordial handshake and offers Tric a friendly greeting.
Terwaen steps back into her hut to unpack, but Tric stays outside, his mind immediately going to mischief and pranks. “Hang on, hang on, let me rig up some more light,” he says, harkening back to his first performance on Alric’s stage. Instead of operating some crazy contraption, though, he just pulls back a branch to let a ray of sun into their shady area. “Ah, perfect! That’s just the right spotlight on you. Behold the great elvish invention, natural lighting.”
“The great elvish invention of no ceilings?” Alric asks with a chuckle. That might explain Tric and Heppa’s fondness for the rundown manor along the River Weldyn. These thoughts of South Tower and the performing space at his bar remind Alric that he has brought something along with him from there. He steps over to Butterbell’s laden saddlebags and pulls out a bottle.
“Oh, we’re going to have to tax that,” Tric says, totally deadpan.
Alric takes the news in stride. “Do you tax in kind?” he asks.
Tric looks at him blankly for a moment, and Alric holds out the bottle. Tric realizes he means taking a percentage of the goods, rather than money equal to a percentage of their worth. Tric’s purpose in all of this was just to play a small joke, but things now seem to be escalating. He takes the bottle. “Uh, yes, we’ll need to sample the wares to see if they’re sufficient…” As usual, Tric does not know when to stop talking. “Yes, uh, let me take one for now and I’ll check with, uh, the high lord.”
“It’s a cider,” Alric tells him. “Joli Rouge is its name.”
“All right, Jolly Rogue, it is,” Tric says, and then he hastily excuses himself, mulling over what to do with the bottle. He supposes he could give it to High Lord Volas and say that it is a gift from a visiting human merchant.
Once Tric has left, Heppa tells Alric, “I don’t know what he’s going to do with that. We don’t have taxes. I thought he was joking.”
Alric offers her a sly smile. “Well, then it’s a good thing I didn’t tell him about the blaand.” He steps around to Butterbell’s other side, where the saddlebag contains bottles of one of Heppa’s favorite drinks. “This is for you. The ciders are a gift for your family, a new taste for you and one that doesn’t hit too hard.”
Tric later returns after giving the cider to Nasir. He sheepishly holds his coin purse out to Alric and apologizes for the prank. “I don’t know if Heppa told you… we don’t even really know what taxes are. How much do I owe you for that bottle? I already gave it to my dad—he’s going to love it, I know. And don’t tell me my money isn’t good.” Alric graciously allows Tric to pay him.
“Did he do it right?” Heppa asks Alric. “Is that how taxes work?”
“I appear to have taxed Tric,” Alric observes with a grin, as he pockets the coin.
They joke some more about needing a ribbon to show that the taxes are paid, like the distilleries and breweries of South Tower bear on their walls. Alric already has one of the blue and gold ribbons from Estbryn Forest in his own bar, of course. And now that he is in the elves’ village, he can see much larger versions of it; butterfly-shaped banners flap above windows and similar flags fly from poles. Alric affixes one of Tric’s scout ribbons to himself to show that he is “elf-approved.”
“Ah, so now you’re a safe place for elves to stay,” Tric jokes. Seeing Heppa blush at that, he then excuses himself once again, leaving his cousin and her boyfriend to themselves.