Harvest is not measured by what remains in the field.

The Lughwyrm emerges only as the grain begins to bow its head, when summer first remembers that autumn is coming.

As the sun grows heavier in the sky, golden as ripened barley, the Lughwyrms appear. Their eyes burn the colour of late sunsets over cut fields, and the blush upon their flanks is the last warmth left in the season's fruit. Their breath as dry and sweet as an August afternoon.

It is said they never travel alone. Their strength, and their value, lies in abundance.

A city hunt in late June 2026. Three snaplings run ahead through city streets and heatwave, while a single elder follows behind, a quiet echo of a family, gathering those willing to walk the same path home. One final snapling is recovered from the market (shuck fest 26), completing the brood.

Now those same Lughwyrms rest in four different hands around the same table, each carrying a thread back to the others.

For a while, the story was told as one of greed. But stories ripen, too. May the story they tell instead be of the bonds found in bounty.

Those that encounter them report the feeling that, across seas and oceans, a family gathers whenever a Lughwyrm is sighted. They remind us that a harvest is never diminished by being divided among those who belong to one another.

Some blessings arrive one at a time.

But the finest harvest is the one gathered together.