“Hiya, Heemee,” Glen called from the front door of Heemee’s.

“Aye, Blom. Glen. Sorry. Glen. Slip o’ the tongue there.” Heemee approached the door.

“Ain’t nothin. Got some wine for us?”

“Aye. A few barrels if ya can take ‘em all! Little late for this week’s pickup yeah?”

“Somethin’ like that,” Glen answered in his evasive way that gave all acute listeners a small sense of the uneases.

“Come ‘round back, I got four barrels of My Finest if we want to figure out a way to get ‘em back to Blom and the Maiden.”

Glen met Heemee in the back of her property where all her hands were hard at work grindin’ away the grapes or whatever you gotta do to make wine. The Autumn Storm had long sent itself off to the east and so her whole operation had to get in when the gettin’ was got. No rain in the Autumn was an opportunity to earn a few extra dracoins.

“Okee mind if I borrow Yugujehheh for this?” Glen indicated Heemee’s packhorse nibbling contentedly on packhorse food: greens basically. “He’ll haul the cart right happily I reckon!”

Heemee eyed Glen all slantways-like for a mite longer than mayhap she should have, for Glen picked up on the suspicion that crept into her eyes like YAH a Jibberjab o’ course. Lots of folk be comparin’ anything unfavorable to the Jibberjabs in these parts. Someday we’ll get around to that story one of these times but the past is the past. A sign reading “THE PAST IS THE PAST” had been hammered into the ground at the entrance to Gilba Gilba. Folk didn’t like the pokin’ questions. Anyways whatever.

“Hergman,” Heemee called. One of the helpin’ hands perked up.

“Hey?”

“Help our fella Glen Blomgrin take his order o’ My Finest into town — Gilba Gilba, that is — for a delivery to the Ragged Maiden, care of Blom and & Glen Blomgrin of the Ragged Maiden in Gilba Gilba…”

“I gotcha, boss,” Hergman nodded. He was just a regular ol’ guy.

“GLEN.” Heemee’s sharp voice cut through the workin’ mens’ grunts.

“Huh?” Glen shook his head as if he’d been startled awake, which after a manner of speakin’, he was.

“Yeh’ve been starin’ like that for 45 minutes!”

Glen rubbed his eyes with a hand and sighed out loud. “Sheever, guess I have! Got lost in me thoughts there.”

“Aye, Glen, here’s Hergman goin’ help with the wine haulin’. HERGMAN! Have my empty cart and Yugujehheh back afore nightfall, or the next Storm… whichever hits us first.”