Hoofbeat Hill (not a fantasy)

[Nautipus]

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Not all small towns welcome expansion. As a matter of fact, most don't. Not all small towns are entirely openarmed to new additions into their community, either. Some towns wont accept newcomers until several generations down the line. Then there are the towns that, while completely unaccepting of new blood, arent entirely unfriendly. Though these towns do care for their new citizens, they are loath to allow them into their most inner circles.
But there is another type of place. One with a heart the color of noble's silk, and just as smooth. They stare down from their high branch onto the outsiders, and, if they cannot push these people out, they remove them focefully. They do away with them the way a gardener might remove a weed: with precision, speed, and brutality, a single fluid event. The only thing that could indicate a former prescence is a small patch of disturbed earth, one which a skilled gardeder who is long practiced in this activity could remove easily. Though these places reject outsiders, they also hold onto their own with bonds of blood and steel. Their hold on some runs deeper than the roots of the mountains, and is just as stable and lasting.
Sometimes, though, a few do get away. And sometimes, these towns are hostile for a reason. Sometimes they have something to protect. Sometimes they have secrets in their closets. Or under them. These secrets are sometimes never revealed until their protectors are long gone, or they are done protecting it. When that happens, the scattered seeds of these places are called home.