Spring was blooming and the Wood was bustling with celebration, though its inhabitants were the only ones who knew why. Most markets started selling supplies for the festival at the new year just to get a head start. They really needed it, too. All corners of the Wood took part, keeping it up long after they had cut all other ties with one another. The proceedings went something like this:

Gather at noon around the site of Dun Willum’s old home, burnt down by his treacherous friend, Daro. Eat. Move at three to the very center of the Wood, as far from the border as possible in honor of Pok, his friend who had been killed there. Eat. Move again at ten to the old drinking hall where Dun first drank upon his arrival. Drink. And then eat. Continue until midnight and disperse over the next few days.

It was the anniversary of Dun Willum’s return, and everyone was invited.

Dun Day, as it was called, was simple fun for complicated folk, who really need it the most. But the fun caused problems for those not attending, as fun tends to. Of course, there was the matter of the youngins and elderly, who simply couldn’t - although the children snuck in more times than not - and the early-to-bed types, of which there were few.

Then there were the red-headed Willums. Poor old Duge and Para, and their son Dako and his wife Bami. The Willums lived on the land where Dun’s house once stood, so they had to endure the noise of stragglers far into the night and next day. The Willums celebrated privately, as all Willums had since he’d returned.

But none of them suffered quite as much as young Dylk. Dylk, son of Dako and Bami, who wished above all else to join the festivities and leave his stuffy family behind. But it couldn’t be. He had been a child for a long time - or, at least, had been treated like one - longer than anyone he knew. What a sick joke.

On one Dun Day, which cruelly lined up with his birthday (19 that year), he was being taunted by the noise outside. Old Duge had a tradition of boarding up the front facing windows, which only focused Dylk’s listening. At quarter to noon, he heard far-off signs of the first group of the day, led by none other than the councilman¹ himself. Dylk rushed to the planks on the wall to listen more closely.

“What a fine day for the celebration, my fellow citizens! What a beautiful day, indeed!” There was a roar of responses and a short burst of clapping. “We have celebrated this particular occasion in this particular way for as long as I can remember! I recall being a child, same age as you there,” he said, pausing to acknowledge an unseen youngster, “and doing the same thing! Jee, isn’t it great?”

Dylk did think it was great for that overgrown dung slug to have enjoyed it while he was stuck inside. He really did, too. He didn’t even like the councilman, either. In fact, he really hated him. But the celebration seemed so great that even the walking, talking poster boy for corrupt government deserved to have a piece of it.

It wasn’t long before the actual celebration started, if you could call them that. The whole thing was mostly people Dylk’s age partying for the sake of partying. Most of them didn’t even believe Dun to be a real person. What a strange sight that was, hundreds of halflings celebrating a person they didn’t believe in, while an almost identical copy of him sat inside listening to them. That’s what Duge had told him, anyway.

“I bet you’ll look just how I remember him when you get to that age,” he had said. Dun had been an old, wrinkly cornstalk when Duge was a child. Far greater in years than anyone had any right to be. “He was good, he was good.” Duge’s marble pouch was growing looser by the day.

Dylk was taken from his train of thought by a bash on the window. No shattering sound this time. Last year was terrible for that. The Willums had to hire out every glassmaker in the Wood to replace them. They’d only been able to because Dylk never asked for anything on his birthday, only some peace and quiet to listen to the party. It was cute when he was seven, maybe. Now it was strange, but they didn’t question it. They needed the money anyway.

“If only them no good kids would pay to be here!” Dylk’s father had said one year. “We should petition the council for an entry fee!”

He remembered thinking at the time that it would never work, and agreed with his former self.

The celebration, or most of it, had moved to the center of the Wood before he knew they were gone. He had been thinking and came back to silence, or something close to it. There was always some degree of noise in the Willum house. This time it was mom and grandma arguing again. Surprise, surprise.

“Petunias are blue, dear,” Nana said. “I’m shocked someone of your age doesn’t know that.”

“THEY’RE WHITE, YOU HAG!”

Another screaming match between the world’s most intelligent halflings. But that was common fare for the Willums.

Dylk walked slowly toward the shouting. It was coming from the small kitchen which also served as the family meeting place.

This meeting was not going well.

He could recognize a nasty one from the first glance. Besides the arguing women he’d heard before, Dylk found the men in fierce debate.

“Dako, you must tell them this time is the last time! I’ve had it up to here with these people!” Duge said, raising a flattened hand above his head.

“Pa, you know I can’t convince them. You weren’t able to. Gods, even Dun couldn’t do it. They’re like pests!”

“You’ll soon be the man of the house and you must-”

“I’m already the man of the house!”

“Excuse me?”

“Ahem.” Dylk cleared his throat loudly. Everyone in the room turned to him. “Why don’t I go?”

“Don’t be stupid, Dylk,” his father said. “You won’t be able to do anything about it. Haven’t you been listening?”

“He sure as hell has been! He wants to be the man of the house! You want it to skip a generation, Dako?”

“It hasn’t and it won’t!” his father yelled. “It’s hopeless, boy,” he said to Dylk. “We’ll just have to live with it.”

“Oh, stuff it!” Duge said. “If he wants to try, let the boy try! Maybe he’ll do it after all.” Dako gave everyone a stink eye.

“I’ll uh…I’ll just be going now…” Dylk was feeling the tension thicken by the second.

“If you go, don’t come back!” Dako yelled.

“Nonsense!” Duge said. “You may be in my house whenever you wish!” Yeah, thanks a lot, he thought, and sprinted out the door before anyone could object, or interject, or yell, or scream, or…

The front lawn wasn’t emptied completely, as was tradition. There were still some young halflings, some of them much younger than himself.

“There he is!” one of them yelled sarcastically. “It’s him! Dun! You can tell by the red hair!”

“What? No, you idiot, I’m one of the people you knuckleheads have been harassing!”

“Hell yeah!” another said. One of his friends punched him in the shoulder. “I mean… that wasn’t us!”

“Yeah, Dun! Leave us alone!”

“Leave you alone? How about you leave us alone?”

“I’m good,” one said, looking around for confirmation.

“Yeah, me too.”

“Mhm.”

“Yeah, I’m good.”

Aggravating. Dylk had to walk away before he started a fist fight outside his own house. You don’t know how good you have it, he thought as he went down the road. It was to be a long walk; he wouldn’t be able to catch up to the councilman, so he would have to go all the way to the center. Three hours walk, he thought, this’ll be boring.

It was. He arrived at seven o’clock to the hustle and bustle of a raging second location. Apparently, it was barren most of the year, but you wouldn’t know it from the absolute atrocity that was the Dun Day crowd. Duge once told him, in fact, that no one ever went there before Dun’s return. Too far out of the way. Now, there were pop-up tents and vendors selling awful Dun Day staples like forest jelly and grilled toad. Horrible stuff.

And at the center of it all was a huge pillar marking the exact middle of the Wood (or so they said). It was a great big beautiful, green-striped monument to the stupidity of it all. Some had petitioned the councilman to make it the new flag, though it never went farther than committee. Dylk saw a massive swarm of halflings crowding around it, everyone trying their hardest to touch it like some sort of religious object. It was coming to that for many. The people need a hero, I guess, he thought, but there are already too many gods.

Dylk surveyed the crowd and found the councilman, whose name was Pilt. He tried to get through the crowd to him before giving up and just yelling at him:

“Councilman Pilt!”

“Oo, who was that?”

“Dylk Willum, sir… over… over here, sir!”

“Ah, the Willum boy! Make way for the youngest Willum, everyone!” A cheer came from the crowd and they parted like the Emerald Sea. After the cheer came a deafening silence.

“Well, Dylk, what can I do ya for?”

“Hm, you see councilman…” He had the undivided attention of the crowd, to his great dismay. “Well, I just wanted to say… how honored we Willums are for this celebration! Thank you all!” A great cheer went up. “Now,” he said, “let’s get this party back up and running!” An even greater cheer sounded and morphed into the general noise of the party once again. Dylk wiped the sweat off his brow and cursed himself for his cowardice. For a moment he thought the curse had worked, because when he looked back up, he saw the councilman standing right in front of him, smiling that terrible, fake smile.

“That was fantastic, kid! Is there anything I can do for you? Anything at all?” Dylk thought about what to say. C’mon Dylk, say it.

“Yes, councilman. I’d like you to change the starting location for Dun Day next year.” The crowd went quiet again. There were even a few gasps. “And for all those after.” Even more gasps.

“Ha, well,” Pilt said, wiping sweat off his own brow, “I don’t think we can do that. Maybe we can come to some other agreement?” His eyes were pleading.

“No, Pilt. I’ve got to know that my family won’t have to board up the windows or replace them if they break, or deal with everyone’s noise!” Dylk stepped closer to him, almost nose to nose. “Promise me, councilman.” His voice was grim, and the crowd was silent.

“Haha, yes! Why of course we will, right everyone?” He smiled. The crowd didn’t. There were grumblings and murmurings all around. “And now we’ll have more time for drinking next year!” The crowd was again on his side and festivities resumed.

Pilt looked at Dylk with the eyes of someone who just had to tell a group of idiots they couldn’t party outside someone’s house. One of the worst looks of all time.

“The prince will be told of this,” he said, getting close to Dylk’s ear. “Good luck finding a new house.” He walked back the way he came. That went fairly well, Dylk thought, probably won’t remember it next year, though. But the prince? The prince was a problem. The councilman’s good salesmanship was the only thing keeping the halflings of the Wood from ripping the prince limb from limb. But he was powerful. If he were to hear about it, he would be a problem.

Before he knew it, Pilt was gone. Not just from view, but from the party. Dylk looked everywhere he could think of but he was well and truly gone. Big problem. Good luck finding a new house?

Biggest problem.

Dylk sprinted back to his house for a minute and walked the rest of the way. It was ten, and dark by the time he got there. Dylk almost laughed when he saw what awaited him there.

“He did it,” he said to himself, laughing. “He really did it.”

The house was on fire. It was almost beautiful how it glowed with the color of his family’s hair. He saw a cloaked figure with a torch standing near the front of it, looking at him. “The prince grants your request,” the figure said in a familiar voice. Dylk saw red, and also he was really angry.

He ran in the front door past the figure and began searching frantically for his family, heat blasting at his face. He pushed past the burning wreckage of that nook on which he sat, past the kitchen where they’d all stood just hours before. But he couldn’t find them. No matter where he looked, he couldn’t find them anywhere. But the heat was too oppressive to endure. His decision was made.

A piece of roof nearly flattened him before he could get out, blocking the front door with a flaming gate of orange and red. He dove through a gap in the wood, and fell to his knees when he knew he was clear of it. Feeling the cool grass on his knees, he started to cry.

“My…”

“It’s alright, son.”

“They’re gone…”

“Huh? We only have one. Well, had one”

Dylk turned to see his father standing over him; the rest of the family stood behind him.

“Do you know anything about this?” Duge asked. There was no malice in his voice.

“Pilt didn’t like what I asked him,” Dylk said, sniffling.

“So that’s Pilt? Over there in the cloak?” His father pointed to the figure away in the treeline.

“No!” the figure said, and ran away into the forest.

“Guess not,” his mother said.

“He said he told the prince,” Dylk said, standing up and wiping his schnoz.

“The prince? What’ll the prince do?” Duge asked. All of them looked at the smoldering ruin behind them, then back at Duge.

“I’ll fix this,” Dylk said. The metaphorical fire inside him burned brighter than the actual, non-metaphorical fire beside them.

“And how do you suppose you’re going to do that?”’ Duge asked.

“Huh… I guess I’ll rob him.”

“Rob him?” They all looked to the north, where the cloaked figure had run. Silhouetted above the trees, nestled on top of a hill in the great distance, was a castle.

“Yeah, I’ll get money for a new house and he won’t have anything to pay Pilt with anymore. Everyone will hate him again!”

“Sounds like a terrible plan,” his grandmother said.

“Shut up, it’s a great plan!” his mother yelled. His father patted him on the shoulder and sighed.