Mumma-Daguha and father-Ked couldn't have been in possession of Hettie's work-cloak for more than a few 'mouts' when Hettie at last understood that the word 'mouts' really meant 'moon-outs', the cause of their darkest nights in the bog. She'd also learned a surprising bogh skill existed. It was not easily noticed at all. It turned out, given time and intent, that messages could be deliberately slipped into the 'smell' of a wandering fog.

The first time Hettie saw Ked do this, he extended his tounge—as long as her arm. Then, the message came out like a mist and floated away, fog-borne, in between trees. The Untags just couldn't keep the good news to themselves, in spite of their plan to be clever and wait. Naturally!

So, the word went around the underground—a complete stench in the sucking mud of putrescence—that each tulag home could have a turn to see for themselves the new richus of Ked.

The robes' unspecified rumour-mill route slithered itself on the brume all throughout the Bog-wah network, demanding special attention for treatment from everyone, lest these soon-to-viewed robes should become soiled and lose their "much richus".

Hettie bemoaned the loss of her robes. She hadn't liked them much to begin with, but now that the Bog-wah were stealing her remaining connections to home, it held a great deal of attachment for her. 

The cloak, which was  made of multiple layers of 'her robes' had been kind of magnificent, really, and now her suddenly-prescious ceremonial wear was laughably going on 'tour' (her word, not their's) and even these filthy creatures were bound, in their ogling joy, to keep them as clean as they could.

For a few darks, things seemed to settle. Nothing occurred. The family's depressing lives, at this point, were enhancing the dimness of Hettie's own mood, so in spite of the loss she herself felt, she was almost as glad for whatever option kept everyone's hopes up. The robes were Ked's proof of the Untag family place in the 'hun', and that was supposed to mean something better could happen. She accepted the robes would have to go on their journey.

Many nights of chorusing frogs later, Hettie truly despaired with increased comprehension. She could no longer get back to her village and friends. My own Lost Times, she thought. Not even Kreelah, in all her kin-spirit, could 'hear' her right now. I have nothing left. Only my insight and vanishing brain.

But another grouping of darks after that, the night was a mout to drown out all mouts—a night at it's absolute darkest—the truest mout of the cycle. Moon cycles were different, here in the bog.

(To be more specific, on the topic of mouts: mouts in the bog consisted of a progression of time units that, to bogh, would be broken by groupings of nights without moon, and nights when there was moon—and thus some light, which was mostly avoided. The sight of the light through the wandering clouds was not something any proud bogh would relish.)

True mouts were few, although varied in length, due to unpredictable clouds (as we noted) lengthening them in their duration, so that these longer, combined mouts were closer to each other than the human cycles of moon in Wandoor were thought to be. From the bogh point of view—those blackest mouts were most deeply cherished.

Is that clear as darkness? Then, the story goes on...

Oh, what raucous parties the screeching devils had on true mouts—when words (of course, grunts and echoes dampened by slop) spread through the tulug and all through the burrows, till, at last, the Stick-wah, their elder, was brought. And alas for the Untags, the Stick-wah arrived a great deal sooner than they would have wanted. 

Hettie was brave enough to peak through the rounded mouth of the burrow.  She saw the top of a hooded figure stride in. She watched the peaks of the boghs' pointed ears, gathered over a fallen marsh trunk. 

The Stick-wah who was taller than most, moved to stand behind a tree, mostly upright, so she could no longer see much of him there. From her viewpoint, safe inside the tulug, she sensed Ked and Daguha were frantic. She could only just make out the Untag parents begin to hop up and down in attempts to look pleased, while the boggles looked worried hopping beside them. "Ee-gish!", Eg-geek!" the children both cried.

The elder Stick-wah's entrance felt theatrical to Hettie, more like an encore in a play than a logical role, but Stick-wah's appearance had foiled the Untag's desperate plans—and that was their fault. It left them in ruins. Hadn't they thought?

The Stick-wah demanded the robe and the wills. "No—there is more than this veil," he krawked. "I hear you have other. You had a plan for more richus— scratched into very thin bark?" (Yes, he had somehow learned about Ked's copying trick.)

It seemed, father-Ked had unleashed his tongue without discernment for content. Of course he'd done that! I can see where Bluster gets his bogh charm.

"My hop get big, Ked-wah?" asked Bluster, trying to comfort his father.

Ked's withering frog smile twisted in pain, as he tried to look dull and honest. It couldn't take much to give that impression really, could it? He jumped limply at first, then up and down. He tried. He didn't answer his son. But he couldn't resist the impulse to protest. "Untag hun hun-an! Robe need in Ked home!" Ked squawked, in spite of himself.

"Un 'hun'!" ribbeted Spuds, a little late to catch on and in her attempt at applause, she jumped up and down with her family, assuming all well—or so she did until she was squashed onto a root by an alarmed and hurdling mother. Hop. "Brrluck." Hop. "Arklack! Ked hun hun-an!" Hop, hop.

Two boggles grew serious then. Their parents eyes bulged out in their heads. Something was wrong. Every Bogh round the swamp-hole was staring. Realizing their job was just to appear normal, they did what they could to make it look so. "Stick-wah no pleased?" Bluster asked Ked, on an up-jump, parallel to Ked's head, but received no form of an answer.

Being a true diplomat and 'local leader', the Stick-wah now spoke enough to reward the Untags for—'such a good plan for the Clan'. "Your efforts I'm sure shall be acknowledged."

His clearer hun-an sounding language provided a shock for Hettie, but she suddenly had a clue where Daguha and Ked had learned their own words—and why the children had not deciphered quite as much 'hun-an' as their parents had done.

"I shall be honoured to keep the promise of richus!" the Stick-wah spoke clearly.

Stick-wah was older and somehow appeared he'd had more exposure to humans than the other clan-families, which gave Hettie the slightest of pauses, but she stayed focused on what now transpired in the swamp.

The the robe and the wills both were to be taken—"kept safe" by Stick-wah—for the sake of all marsh-wide Bogh-tulag populations and "what it means to be Bogh", the Stick-wah announced.

How could the Untags even protest? They could only stifle their screams and muffle their screeches. Their plan had been completely co-opted. And the Stick-wah vaguely reminded Hettie of, well—almost of Hettie! Humph—.

Hettie observed whatever details she could before the Untags returned and would chase her inside. The crowd all murmured as they shifted aside to give Stick-wah his space. The Stick-wah stepped forward.

Being of height, he  looked quite like a stick, but had two small piercing closely-set eyes that leered—one might notice, wisely—from under his veil-hood, or so Hettie could just manage to discern between the hopping of Untags. She noticed the Stick-wah wore a dirty-green-brown veil cape. Unusual fabric! —all full of holes. But Hettie grasped more later what these holes were about. 

Quick! The greeting was over. They are heading this way! She didn't fancy Ked's mood after this. Hettie scuttled back to her dark inner crevice, wincing in stiffness, and stilled.

The group shuffled in, one after the other.

"Daguha, honour—" Ked nervously croaked. But Daguha looked sullen and made not a sound. She lumbered, quite slowly, taking up the complete width of the entrance as she led the way for Stick-wah to follow her in—but at her own pace.

Hettie almost felt sorry for them. (But then, a brief moment later, she no longer did.)

"Outbog!" Ked brushed off the boggles to keep them away. Daguha, bring cloak—!" Ked voice was far louder than normal. He tried for bravado, but Ked was no actor. Daguha hadn't rushed, so Ked fetched the robes. "Ked is comply with distinguish 'guess'. Ked is offer of robe for—the clan—." 

Sounds like he's choking, thought Hettie, suppressing a grimace (that was a more like a grin).

Ked halted and held out the regal weight of all the material that made up Hettie's robes. "Is very good cover." He looked at it sadly. And then in a last desperate, almost hopeful move he added, angrily, "—Of Queen."

Ah, good. He's at least going to make something of this. He's not giving up credit. He wants it clear that he means the robe was to go to the Queen. I'm sure this is no original thought though.

The Stick-wah peered at Ked curiously for a moment. He seemed to be considering something, then he just said, "I see" and nodded only once briefly, looking to Daguha with a slightly displeased frown. Then took a fast glance around the main tulug cavern and put out his forelimbs—they did look like arms—for Ked to pass over the robes. If he noticed Ked's hidden reluctance, he didn't show much.

Naturally, also, there had to then be more kerfuffle of children in getting Stick-wah back out of the den, until Ked, at last, waddled behind him and Daghua couldn't help but let out what sounded like the gasping of anguish; when she refused to go out.

After the Stick-wah had gone—embracing Hettie's robes and the parchments together, and not so much as a glance in her direction at all—Hettie remained utterly certain Stick-wah was acutely aware of her presence. This much she felt sure she could tell. 

He knew! He knows I am here! And he did not even break his awareness of me when he then left to go on his way, out of the grotto. But before she could track his movements onward, Spuds and Bluster flew in.

They chose a bad moment, their parents bereft. Misery reigned in the tulug's frog-hollow. Hettie must wait for endless sad Untags to subside in their wails. Yet, she could feel Stick-wah still sense her so far and so long after he'd gone. His curiosity probed—sent out it's questions—but Hettie studied him back with her ever-developing shrewdness of mind and realized Stick-wah was mostly annoyed by the Untag's embarrassing farce. And she lost the connection.

And then she listened to the family's lament, thinking, I must not wallow like this ever again! It sounds so horribly maudlin!

She thought a bit more though. This need for the cloaks just seemed to be the paranoia of Bogh, more than any real dangers that could live in the muck.

From what Hettie had seen of Stick-wah's hole-veil, a wearer must be thickly caked in mud underneath, so that when one put it on, what was muck seen through holes made a three-D effect—a blend with the swamp—for possible hiding—? Could this be it? This won't keep them warm! What's this about? What could present more unpleasant danger than the bog-weevils themselves? She couldn't imagine a thing, but at least this explained their heirachy somewhat. And she wondered what else did live in the swamp.

The wails had now reduced to snivelling snuffles.

When she did hear talk shortly, she got a surprise. I wouldn't have thought it—they do hide from themselves! The uneven mud, she learned, was indeed to be slapped on under the Bothelesq veils. The vines of the mesh have to look raised, causing the Bog-wah or Bog-wenh to just disappear—to even each other. And then they, who were accustomed to being UnSeen, but sensing could no longer remotely make out one another—unless a veil were to move, attracting perceptions.

But she hadn't heard talks of attacks amongst any clan-Bogh. They're just way too hostile, I will admit, but that's all they are--bluff and no bite. This is all'posture', I'm fairly certain.

The Bogh are already UnSeen. Just not entirely—. And she supposed with a long lifetime of bogh-skills, one could indeed learn to 'sense' nearly as much as the Stick-wah had done. I thought this 'sensing' was only me. I guess if they have to hide from each other, the veil could be useful. How has Stick-wah come into such refined skills?

Could it all be caused by the 'unflux'? But she herself was relaxing, adjusting—gaining in further degees of imaging sights. She sighed. So far I've only learned this much, however. It is taking so long.

And what can they make of my will? Likely nothing.

≈≈≈/