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The Ask: What if, instead of picking up the sword, Gloreth ran away with Nimona?
We don't know why she picked up the blade. To send her former friend away into the dark, but to protect a village that destroyed itself, or a girl that refused to fight back?
Suppose Gloreth had turned, when picking up the blade. Not pointing it at the girl with scraggly brown hair, but at the adults that were trying to protect her.
"I'm leaving," she said, "and I'm not coming back."
The girl with scraggly hair lets her take the sword. There are much worse things in the woods than her, and you have to learn how to kill to find your prey. A sword allowed for a clean slice.
There was a lot that Gloreth had to learn. What herbs were safe, how to gut a fish with a stolen knife. Nimona got her the blade from a traveling blacksmith. The right way to weave wood and leaves together for making temporary shelter. Gloreth worked with patience. She even did things Nimona hadn't learned, like how to spread seeds and chew on dandelions.
She didn't want Nimona to hunt and gather for their food all the time. Gloreth wanted to pull her own weight. She wanted to learn a trade that would earn them bread and butter. But learning such skills meant rejoining a village. Not her old home. She had meant every word she said.
Gloreth forbade Nimona from following her. Not out of fear of her friend, but remembering humans with torches. Sometimes she had nightmares about it, and Nimona would see her twitch. Nimona also twitched, changing into cat form.
She would go, posing as a foundling. Sometimes she would use natural dyes to darken her eyebrows and cover her hair. One could not be too careful when few had light-colored tresses. Then she would work on a farm for a day in exchange for bread and coin. Years passed, and she stayed longer.
This Gloreth never founded a city, out of a desire to protect her people or her friend by demonizing the latter. She did learn skills, to build a life. Because she knew, some part of her, that the time in the woods would not last forever. She kept changing and growing.
Nimona had never had to take care of another person before. She hadn't even had someone who was willing to stay. No fish, deer or bird had thought to stay by her.
There were things that had to be done, so that Gloreth would not leave her. Give her friend a place to stay that was safe from the rain and winter. That meant choosing which trees would fall down easily with beaver teeth, learning from the wasps how they carved their homes.
Food was another thing. She made sure to hunt, so that Gloreth would not starve, and gather. Nimona was not a gardener and knew it, for that required patience. Gloreth, however, knew a few tricks. Soon they had a garden that required only water from the stream, and negotiation with the wildlife. A scarecrow helped.
When the snow came, Nimona had fashioned a large lodge in beaver form. There was even room for campfires, with the firewood that she had gathered in the last days of fall. She had hunted enough that Gloreth had plenty of furs to keep warm. No matter how far they traveled, they would return to that lodge. Gloreth would paint on the wood, and Nimona would pin drawings made from wasp paper that she produced in wasp form. Occasionally she would add rolls of parchment or papyrus as well, if there was a fortuitous season.
Sometimes, however, she was not company enough. Nimona knew when Gloreth made maps of human villages on sheets of wasp paper that Nimona provided, using charcoal from the fire. She never touched them. Gloreth said she would leave her village. But she still needed conversation, the occasional tankard of ale, and clothes. That was the one thing that Nimona had not mastered; spiders were not meant to weave silk beyond webs, and she had no desire to boil herself as a silkworm. For better or worse, they needed humans.
So Nimona let her go, and rarely asked where she had been. Sometimes Gloreth returned with little trinkets, bottles of ale or wine or new dishes. One night they had a giant roll of cheese, and Nimona playfully chased it in mouse form. They made a game of eating a feast that night.
Nimona sometimes went as well, posing as a wary traveler. She had gotten better at imitating people. Sometimes she posed as Gloreth, to find out what her partner did in villages. Idle curiosity, not spying.
It was a lonely life, but it would have been lonelier without Gloreth. Nimona could handle random stings from bees that didn't agree with her bear form or kicks from a deer that would not go down.
Did they fight? Of course they did. Nimona would not tell Gloreth who she was, where she had come from; she would make up wild stories. Gloreth found out about the shapeshifting into people, and argued with her about taking their form. Sometimes Gloreth would complain that she knew no trades, and was useless. Or Nimona would shed fur in the wrong place and Gloreth would remind her that cats always clean themselves. Nimona in response would headbutt her in the knee, claiming it was a sign of affection.
Still, when Gloreth found her place far from Nimona, there was no arguing. Just a long talk into the night, while they curled up with hot chocolate and mead, a new drink. Nimona had learned to make chocolate, and Gloreth had brought the mead. A sweet combination with bitter undertones.
Nimona knew it was time. So many years passed, her body finally growing for the first time in ages. They had both changed, growing together and then growing apart. It still hurt when Nimona asked to escort Gloreth to the place where she would stay, at least for the night. Just to make sure that her oldest friend would make it safely.
A pink owl wailed that night after Gloreth had made it to her new home. She would work at a mill, grinding flour, later starting farms and community gardens that would work with nature rather than destroying it. Not as glorious as being a queen or a hero, but a job that would feed others. It fed so many over the years, long after Gloreth had passed.
Nimona still visits the first garden. She makes sure to leave a map there when she leaves, a recreation of what Gloreth made when she was young and curious. It was painful to visit, but also wonderful. They had a life together, short as it was.