I woke up early today, fully intending to reach the cooks before they started my breakfast. Unfortunately, I achieved my goal a little too well. I wasn’t entirely sure what the time was, without a clock or a window, but when one considered my habit of sleeping till near noon… Perhaps it shouldn’t have been a surprise to find that the majority of the kitchen staff hadn’t bothered to come in yet. In fact, there was only a singular figure in the kitchen. She was perhaps a little on the small side, standing at about five foot three. She had long orange hair that ran all the way down to…

I stared at the horned wolf girl in my bed, hardly able to believe what I was seeing. My mind was reeling with the implications – had the wolves I fought actually been demons?  …No, I was sure they weren’t. While there were varieties of demons who could transform, they always reverted to humanoid form after death. In fact, I was willing to bet that sleep was what undid Bailey’s transformation. But why hadn’t she transformed earlier? Why hadn’t she even tried to communicate her true nature? And what was a demon doing in the outside world, living among a pack of monsters? I had endless questions, and only one…

I stared at the bear before me. It was something like nine feet tall, standing on its hind legs. It had dark brown fur, with lighter brown spikes extending from its spine and elbows. They looked remarkably sharp, but I doubted they were that sturdy. Nothing I couldn’t snap off if things got really desperate. The creature didn’t move during my examination. I could almost imagine that it was looking me over, in turn, trying to decide whether I was worth feasting upon. Not an impossibility, actually, if it was anywhere near intelligent as the wolves. “You do not want to fight me,” I warned, letting some of the magic…

Standing in a bedroom far too small for the three people in it, staring at the heroine’s hand, I felt the sudden urge to laugh. In fact, I was laughing. No. Giggling! It was a manic, panicked sound that bubbled up from deep within my being, clawing its way up my throat and forcing its way past my lips. It was a sound of horrified amusement. Of all the people who could have answered this village’s call, of all the adventurer’s across all the world – who would have thought that the heroine herself would appear? I’d hoped to spend this entire life without seeing her, yet there she was,…