"Stop. Stop right there." Karl slammed both hands onto the table hard enough to rattle the cups scattered across it. The room instantly quieted, though several people still looked far too proud of the crimes they had committed against language. "These names are terrible," he declared with complete despair in his voice. "Absolutely terrible. The Whispering Grove Stalkers? Eldertree Marksmen? Moonshadow Hunters? Are you all trying to make us sound like failed theater actors?" His gaze slowly swept across the room like a judge preparing executions. "These are names we will carry for the rest of our lives. Our children will carry them. Their children will carry them. So kindly stop naming our future faction like a group of twelve-year-olds discovering fantasy novels for the first time."
"That sounds oddly specific," Arin muttered under his breath.
"I heard that."
"Of course you did."
"And you," Karl snapped while pointing accusingly toward his own children, "should be especially ashamed of yourselves." The accusation lacked any true venom, but the sheer disappointment in his voice somehow hurt more. "I raised you better than this. One of those names literally had the word 'shadowfang' in it. Shadowfang! What does that even mean?" Instead of looking embarrassed, his children somehow looked offended that their artistic genius was being attacked. Worse, several of them even crossed their arms proudly, as if expecting applause for their terrible creativity.
"Well," Teun said with a shrug, "if our names are so bad, why don't you come up with one yourself?"
The room instantly burst into agreement.
"Yeah!"
"Go ahead then!"
"Show us how it's done!"
Karl immediately recoiled as if physically attacked. "Absolutely not," he replied without hesitation. "Your mother banned me from naming things decades ago." Several people burst into laughter while his wife nodded firmly from the couch. "The last hunting dogs I named ended up being called Doomfang and Bloodclaw," Karl muttered defensively. "Those are excellent names." His wife merely gave him a look powerful enough to silence further argument.
Seeing he was losing control of the room, Karl suddenly straightened his back and clasped his hands behind him in an attempt to appear wise and dignified. Unfortunately, everyone present knew him far too well for the act to succeed. The result looked less like a grand sage preparing to deliver ancient wisdom and more like a grandfather trying very hard not to throw a slipper at his descendants. The younger members of the family were already grinning in anticipation, their expressions carrying the same energy as those of people attending a theater performance expected to fail spectacularly.
Karl ignored them with the dignity of a man refusing to acknowledge his own downfall. "Very well," he announced grandly. "It seems none of you understand the importance of names. Therefore, I shall educate you." The room somehow looked even less convinced. "To explain why names matter," Karl continued while pacing slowly around the fireplace, "we must first discuss how our family received the surname Sonnenberg." At that, several older members groaned immediately, while the younger generation leaned forward, curious. Family history lessons rarely ended normally.
"As most of you know," Karl began, "our ancestors did not originally use official surnames. They saw no point in them. We lived in forests, traded where necessary, killed who needed killing, and minded our own business."
"That sounded oddly threatening," Tilly whispered.
"It was," Bertho answered immediately.
Karl chose to ignore them and continued speaking. "People called our family many things over the centuries. None of them were particularly flattering. But officially? We had no surname at all. That only changed when Napoleon conquered the Netherlands and demanded every family register one."
Several younger members nodded since they had learned that part in school. What they had not learned was why Karl suddenly looked personally offended by two hundred-year-old bureaucracy. "Now," Karl continued while rubbing his forehead, "most families were told to choose their own surnames. Many believed the system would disappear after a few years, so they picked ridiculous joke names." A few people snorted knowingly since plenty of modern Dutch surnames still carried the scars of that collective prank. "Unfortunately for us," Karl said darkly, "the officials responsible for our area were too terrified to enter our forest and ask our ancestors directly."
That earned several amused chuckles from the older generation.
"So instead," Karl continued, "they chose a name for us."
"Oh no," Arin murmured.
"Oh yes," Karl replied with the bitterness of a man still somehow offended centuries later. "Based on rumors, stories, and frightened reports from surviving nobles, they named our family Sonnenberg. Sun Mountain." He practically spat the words out. "Not only is it German instead of Dutch, but it also has absolutely nothing to do with our profession." He pointed accusingly at everyone present. "And none of you ever questioned how absurd that is."
"I thought it sounded cool," Tilly admitted innocently.
Several people nodded in agreement.
Karl looked moments away from suffering spiritual damage.
"That," he declared while pointing dramatically toward the ceiling, "is exactly the problem."
The room quieted slightly as Karl's expression gradually lost its comedic frustration and became more serious. "Our ancestors didn't like the name either," he said quietly. "In fact, they hated it enough to hunt down the official responsible for assigning it." Several adults immediately winced because they knew enough family history to realize that sentence could only end badly. The younger children, meanwhile, looked fascinated in the way only children hearing potential war crimes could.
"Let's just say," Karl continued carefully, "there are still ghost stories in parts of France about a spirit that steals surnames from people during the night."
"…Grandpa."
"Yes?"
"…What did our ancestors do to that man?"
Karl coughed awkwardly. "That is not important right now." Which, naturally, confirmed everyone's worst assumptions almost instantly.
"The point," Karl continued while pretending the room was not staring at him in mild horror, "is where the name came from." His expression darkened again as he stared into the fire. "The 'Sun' part came from the aftermath of our raids against noble estates during the old wars. Our ancestors attacked silently at night, and people only discovered the destruction when the sun rose the next morning." The room became noticeably quieter. "And the 'Mountain' part…" Karl paused for a moment before sighing. "That came from the piles of corpses left behind after battles."
No one spoke after that. Even the younger members, who normally treated old stories like entertainment, looked unsettled now. The older generation looked worse. They had read the old records before. They knew exactly which massacres Karl was referring to and why the family eventually retreated into the forests afterward. Their ancestors had survived turbulent centuries, but survival had come with blood attached to it.
"This," Karl said quietly while rubbing his temples, "is why I care about names." His voice lacked its earlier frustration now. "A name survives long after the people who created it are gone. Sometimes it becomes something you can never escape." He looked around the room slowly before forcing a small smile onto his face. "So I would greatly appreciate it if our new faction name did not sound like a children's adventure club or a death cult."
The silence lasted for several seconds.
Then Bill slowly raised his hand.
"Yes?" Karl asked cautiously.
"What about… Forest McForestface?"
The entire room exploded into laughter while Karl stared at the ceiling as if questioning every life choice that had brought him to this moment.