Sarah opened her eyes. The storm began to lessen. She stood up, yawned, and stretched. "I must eat something," she said, "and then rest."
Sarah unrolled a cloth filled with roots and berries and dug in.
"How long can you keep this up?" asked Davion.
"I’m low on energy," she said, "but that doesn’t even matter. I can’t keep doing this for long. I’m throwing off the balance. I’ll do more damage to the forest than their woodcutters will if I make it rain for too long."
Davion looked at the ground and rubbed his chin. He thought for a few moments as Sarah devoured her food. Kulth-Ing sauntered over. Davion scratched the cat behind its ears. Kulth-Ing gave him happy cat eyes.
"What about the star folk?" he asked. "They seem more than willing to help you defend this place."
"They are," said Sarah, "and they were happy to help us kill a dragon. They are less enthusiastic about indiscriminately killing soldiers, most of whom haven’t done anything wrong except follow the leader."
"Right," said Davion. "Knowing them a little better now, I can’t imagine them doing that… but aren’t there other things they could do?"
"Such as?"
"Well," said Davion, "They’re invisible, right? They could easily sneak into the enemy camp and sabotage some things."
"They could," said Sarah, "but it would be dangerous to them. Those dragons could hurt them, if they knew how. There’s a lot of metal in that camp."
"I remember you saying they are fearless."
"True," said Sarah, "they would probably help if I asked them to. But sabotage what? I doubt all the fairies in the forest could destroy all their food and weapons."
"The goal isn’t to defeat the soldiers or the dragons, right?" asked Davion. "Not really. You just want to stop them from razing the forest."
"Yes."
"So… couldn’t the star folk destroy just those tools most important to the task? They could sabotage the woodcutters' axes, saws, and drills. There are far fewer of those than weapons or supplies."
Sarah looked at Davion with narrowed eyes. "That," she said, "is an idea." She stared at him for a moment, then sighed. "I hate to ask them to do something so dangerous to themselves, even if they have no fear."
Davion shifted uncomfortably and said, "I’m on friendly terms with a few of them now." He took a deep breath. "I’ll ask them."
"No need," said a disembodied voice above them.
A small star appeared, then expanded to reveal Michael.
"We heard you. A good plan. We’ll do it."
Sarah looked up at Michael. "Thank you," she said. "I know it’s dangerous."
"Existence is dangerous," said Michael.
Another of the star folk appeared — the rainbow-winged serpent called Quetzal.
"Dragons found your camp," he said to Sarah. "Forest folk have been warned."
"Unfortunate," said Sarah. She looked over and Elu and Davion. "Looks like we’re staying here."
She summoned the storm again the next morning.
Nahash and Sirajuddin sat in the rain for an hour.
I don’t think anyone’s returning to camp in this storm, said Sirajuddin.
Nahash fluttered his wings to toss the rain away. He looked annoyed. Let’s head back, he said.