Tolui dot-Temujin blew a red-fletched dart at the smallest yhaoginli in her herd. It promptly collapsed, all eight legs curling in to protect its melon-sized belly. Jari, though the senior-most apprentice currently serving the Gardener's Temple, recoiled with atavistic disgust. He still didn't understand why his High Priestess had sent him on a pilgrimage west into the heathen highlands. Unfortunately, he did know she would want more details about what he'd just seen, no matter how vile. "Is it dead?" he asked, hoping for an answer in the affirmative. The skies, grey all morning, opened up. Rain flattened Jari's finely coiffed hair against his head, but Tolui, unpainted and unbound, barely seemed to notice. "Oh no, she's just broody. Won't like it much when we go poking around in her egghole, but we need the milk." "For what?" Jari asked as green pigment smeared down his cheek. Tolui gestured over her shoulder to the sling where her child sat bundled, munching happily on a vermillion-veined lump of something soft. "I'm not eating that," Jari hissed over the steady drizzle. Tolui rolled her ink-dotted eyes. "It lasts almost as long as aethergrain in storage, doesn't rot in the wet, and your priests won't need any magic to process it. If your choices are starving and eating cheese, Jari, you'll eat cheese." He'd once served his Temple through three years of bitter siege. He knew she was right. He still hated spending Temple coin on something so foul.