In fact, someone did try to mess with Gator later that night. She’d gone out to dump the dirty, bloody water out when a figure approached from the side of the Tavern. He must have thought he was sneaking up on her, she thought, but Gator spotted him instantly.

“Back for more Garth?” she asked, not even turning around. “He was right you know. I’d nip your pecker off without even thinking about it. Sure you want to do this again?”

The figure retreated into the night without a word and she chuckled. If truth be told, she had actually been a little frightened. She was still a small kobold. But he was no warrior either. Had she not retracted her claws before that kick, she would have eviscerated him. And that, she thought, would take a real miracle to recover from.

Fortunately the two weren’t seen again in town, but the scrappy little kobold’s reputation certainly gained some appreciation. She noticed she didn’t get as many butt-slaps as she had before. Oddly, she vaguely missed that. There was something weirdly comforting about knowing the patrons well enough, and them being that at-ease around her, that they could take that liberty. It was a small price to pay for the newfound respect she had gained, she supposed. It wasn’t the last fight she got into, but it was the most serious. Nick and the others didn’t worry about her anymore. She clearly could handle herself.

Over the next two years, she did become a minor celebrity of sorts. She still stayed off the streets during the day mostly, more to avoid the direct sunlight than to avoid the townsfolk though. She also got her boobs, at least a little. Nothing like the human women of course, but she felt good that she actually had a little something to cover with her blouse finally.  The monks continued to avoid her, but that was to be expected. She’d heard rumors that the Abbot had died and the new Abbot had a strict prohibition against any fraternization with her or the Wicked Kobold.

She had done the favor that Red had requested so long ago as well. She had posed for a new sign above the door to inaugurate the official name change. If the woodcutter’s work was somewhat idealized, she didn’t mind. Alright, she thought, idealized was being generous. He definitely had not modeled her body from life, but from his obviously oversexed imagination.

Once again, though she hadn’t expected it, she’d found a home again. People were in the main, good. Life was good. And if sometimes late at night she would lie awake and wonder what had happened to her old friends at the Monastery, it didn’t bother her overmuch.

And then, one evening late in the year, as the leaves were beginning to fall and the temperature began to cool, she was walking back to the Tavern from buying some produce at the nearby market when a whiff of smoke caught her nose. Far in the distance, she thought she heard a bell ringing. Automatically she turned towards the woods that separated the town from the monastery and saw a dark cloud rising from beyond that would have been invisible to humans. She hurried to the tavern.

“What is it Gator?” Red asked, seeing her worry.

“Something’s happening at the Monastery. A fire or something.”

“Well, that’s not your business anymore, is it?” Ashley said, putting away the vegetables Kreet had brought in.

“I… I guess not. No, you’re right. It’s not my business,” Kreet concluded.

An hour later, it came through the door and became her business in a big way.

She recognized Karl instantly, though he’d grown a beard since she’d last seen him. If the limp didn’t give him away, the eyes certainly did. With him was a man clad in steel, a rarity in the rural town. An Adventurer. She knew him too.

“Mekelson. What are you doing here?” she asked, scowling.

“Demon raider,” he said between gulps of air. “At the Monastery.”

“Another Demon raid? For Pelor’s sake, why aren’t you back there fighting them?”

“Gone,” Karl said, and for the first time she noticed the wild look in his eyes.

“Gone? Then what…”

“They took my boy, Kreet. They took little Paulie!”

“WHAT?!”

Mekelson shook his head, “They didn’t just attack the Monastery, Kreet. They took Karl’s boy. His wife’s in a bad way too. Kreet, we need you.”

“ME? Why me? Go after them!”

“We will, but only you can guide us. Kreet, they came from your old warrens.”

“Wait… how can you know that?”

“Brand,” Karl said, the light in his eyes looking desperate.

“Brand told you? How would he know?”

Karl shook his head. “No Kreet, Brand was with them. Brand took my boy!”

Kreet’s mouth dropped open, not believing what she was hearing.

“Come on kid,” Mekelson said, “We can’t waste time here. We’ll explain on the way. But no one knows those caverns like you do. We’ll never find them without you.”

Kreet looked at her friends around the tavern. Ashley looked worried, as did the rest of them, but Red nodded. “Gator… Kreet. Follow your light. Do what you can. But be careful!”

“I will. Thank you all, for everything. I’m no Adventurer, you know. If I don’t come back…”

“You’ll come back,” Cherry said. “We just changed the sign!”

They all laughed nervously for a second, then Kreet said her goodbyes and ran out with the other two. Another man stood outside. A man she knew.

“Kevin? From the bakery?!”

“Hi Kreet!”

Mekelson looked from one to the other. “Kreet, you know Kevin?”

“Know him? I have to slap his hands away every night! Kevin, what are you doing here?!”

“He’s the best tracker around,” Mekelson explained. “Now let’s go!”

A month later, the promise became moot. Ashley came to her one morning, before the others had risen. She was not pregnant. Kreet tried to share her relief as best she could, but inwardly she could not. For a month she had seen a future that looked as bright as any she could have imagined – at least without Brand. But the child was not to be, and it left Kreet feeling depressed for a few days. Eventually she got over it though, and as she took a tray of ale to a table of travelers, she saw Ashley flirting with some locals and realized that something had, after all, come from the incident. Kreet now had a sister. The two had become inseparable.

She smiled at the men as she delivered their mugs, thinking about how Pelor worked in ways she could never comprehend.

“Hold on there, miss!” one of the men said, grabbing her roughly by the wrist.

“Why certainly sir! Something I can get for you?” she squeaked.

“Not much up top, girly, but that mouth looks nice and wet,” he leered.

The stranger’s partner scowled, “Garth, she’s a fuckin’ lizard! She’d nip your pecker off.”

“Naw, she’s a good girl, aren’t you?” the first said, running his other hand over her neck and shoulder. “Smooth like a snake. You wouldn’t hurt my snake would you?”

Kreet cringed. It wasn’t like she hadn’t met the like before, but this guy was really holding her tight. She tried the coy approach first.

“Sir, as much as I’d like to, I don’t think you’d fit! And I’m afraid my teeth are pretty sharp. Sorry, I’m just not really built for…”

“Nip your pecker off, I tell you,” the other man said, interrupting her.

“Ah well,” the drunk said and loosened his grip. “You’re probably right. Tell you what, you look like you’ve got a plenty big ass. I bet you could take us both!”

Suddenly his other hand went to her crotch and her eyes glowed instantly red. This was well over the line.

Across the room, she heard Red ring a bell. It was Nick’s alert and he was rounding the bar, but the other man had risen behind her.

“Now that I could go for!” he said lewdly and ran his hand along her tail.

Instinct, reflex and training took over before she even consciously knew what she was doing. Her tail lashed viciously and with full speed at the head of the man behind her, sending him sprawling against the wall, but not before she ripped a bloody gash in his thigh with a talon. She spun out of the first man’s grip and kept the arc of her tail going. It crashed against the other man’s back, rolling him to the floor. Nick was barely two steps away from the bar by then as Kreet rolled to the side and the man called Garth got to his feet. The other man began to scream, holding his leg while dark blood spurted from around his fingers.

“You goddamn lizard,” Garth spat, wiping a little blood from his own mouth. She watched him advance from her back on the floor, her tail underneath her. His arms were outstretched, preparing to grab her bodily. Her tail could do no direct harm, but she used it to push her waist high into the air. The man wasn’t prepared for this and he stopped for a moment over her.

At the last millisecond, she retained just enough sanity to retract her claws. Even so, the kick she delivered, backed not only by her powerful legs but by her tail thrusting them forward, literally threw the man off his feet and across the room to hit the door. The impact was hard enough to break the latch and send his body out into the night beyond. She was breathing hard as she sat up on the floor, trembling with rage and adrenaline.

“Holy shit!” Nick said as he got to where Kreet sat, looking around her as if to find another target in range.

Cherry arrived next, looking to the man screaming, his leg bleeding badly. “Red, get a towel. Quick! He’s passing out.”

Kreet glared at Nick as he approached, her eyes still bright red with rage. He backed up a step, “Now wait a minute Gator! I’m the good guy, remember?”

Her lips curled around her teeth involuntarily, but Ashley took her hand. She looked at the familiar face with alarm at first, but then recognition took it’s place and the fury dimmed.

“GODDAMMIT RED! WHERE’S THAT TOWEL?” Cherry screamed.

Kreet steadied herself. Slowly she began to comprehend what had happened.

“Cherry, let me see him.”

“Gator, I think you’ve killed him,” the blonde woman said, looking up at her, blood staining her hands and face.

Kreet put her hands out, kneeling to touch the man’s leg. The bloodied shreds of his pants clung to the wound beneath, and the dark blood had stopped flowing.

“No,” she said. “Not yet.”

She closed her eyes and sought the power of Pelor. Like an old friend from a lifetime ago, it came back to her. She had learned a lot in the years since Karl’s fall about the healing arts. Most was not magic, and had a lot to do with cleanliness and rest, but not all. She heard the sound of the girls clearing out the tavern – at least of those patrons who hadn’t already left on their own. But she was focused on the man laying underneath her hands. She felt the wound closing and the heart, though deprived of too much blood, relentlessly doing it’s job with what remained. The wound closed and the bleeding stopped.

Now she began the more miraculous step. Inside his veins, blood reproduced and increased. The red water that was his life was replenished under her hands. She visualized it. She believed it. She KNEW it. She opened her eyes, and her patient opened his.

Cherry gasped. She had never seen the Cleric’s art performed before. No one here had.

“A miracle,” whispered Ashley in awe.

“It is,” Kreet confirmed, not taking her eyes off the man. His eyes focused on hers. The new blood that pumped within his veins was pure and he was no longer drunk.

“Who are you?” Kreet asked.

“Trace. My name’s Trace. What happened?”

“You got a little drunk Trace. You and your friend,” Kreet said calmly, then suddenly looked to the door.

“He’s okay,” Red assured her as she stepped up. “Staggered off apparently.”

“You’d better go find your friend, Trace,” Kreet said, helping the man to his feet.

He nodded, but kept looking at Kreet.

“It’s okay, Sir. You’re okay. Go on, your friend is out there somewhere. You’ll recognize him as the guy with the big bruise in the middle of his chest,” Kreet chuckled, adding, “If he hasn’t broken a rib. If so, send him back here. I can help with that.”

“I… I will,” the man named Trace assured her, then he walked out into the night.

“Well, that’s a tale that’s going to be around a while,” Red said, sitting down with Cherry on the floor.

“How do you think it’ll go?” Cherry asked, taking the towel and wiping her hands.

“Oh, pretty well I think. One thing’s for sure, no one is going to be messing with Gator anytime soon!”

“I’d say not. Gator, you know who’s going to have to clean up this mess, right?” Cherry said, but she was smiling now.

“I’ll go get the mop,” Kreet sighed.

Kreet settled into her new life at the Wicked Serpent quickly enough. It didn’t take her too long to learn most of the drinks and food on the menu, and she had fashioned three identical and quite interesting uniforms for herself as well, using the other girls’ outfits as a model. If her chest didn’t exactly fill out the blouse that topped the bodice, it at least gave the impression of more underneath than was really there. Cherry and the other girls were delighted with it, and Red even gave her approval. It didn’t take long to figure out the relationship between Cherry and Red, but they took ribbing from the younger girls well and Kreet began to feel comfortable with her new family.

As for the customers, she was the darling of the tavern. It had taken her some time to get used to them. There was always someone who got a little too touchy-feely as the night wore on, but they soon learned her tail made a pretty stinging whip and she wasn’t afraid to use it. She also was surprised to learn that Nick only rarely had to come out from behind the bar to wield his muscle. Both Red and Cherry were quite capable of handling all but the most aggressive drunks. Of course there were occasional fights that broke out, and Kreet quickly learned why the furniture, mugs and cups were built so sturdy. It was the girls’ belief that when fights broke out among the patrons, as long as the steel stayed sheathed it was just as well to let it play out inside.  That took some getting used to for Kreet.

“You have to understand,” Cherry was saying after they’d closed the tavern and were sweeping up the mess, “that a lot of the fight is just the way they let out their aggression. I’d much rather they do that here, where we can intervene if it gets too serious, than outside where they’re likely to pull out weapons.”

“And,” Ashley put in, “there’s usually some relative or neighbor here to keep things under control anyway.”

“But… that one guy lost a tooth!,” Kreet said while mopping the floor. She seemed to get most of the floor-work, she noticed. Cherry had said it was because she was the closest. She liked Cherry.

“Ah, it happens,” Ashly said, pounding a mug back into shape with a small hammer. They’ve got more.“

Wynda spoke up from the lavatory, "Ty doesn’t have that many more! Goddammit Cherry, why don’t we just install a giant funnel in here! I swear there’s more piss outside the hole than in it!”

“Hey, I already told you the best solution,” Kreet pointed out. “And it would work too! Just install some holes in the door with tubes to direct it to the cesspool! Then they can just stick their things in, get the job done, and no mess.  Clean, practical… what’s the problem with that?”

Wynda stepped out of the lavatory carrying a bucket to the door. “Sounds like a good idea to me!”

“Never work,” Nick said. “Guys don’t like to whip them out in public.”

“BULLSHIT!” Cherry scoffed. “I see more dicks every night than that lavatory does!”

“Well… they don’t like other guys to see ‘em I guess.”

“Why not?” Kreet asked.

The three girls looked at each other and began laughing.

Red managed to recover first. “They all are convinced they have the smallest one in the room!”

“Oh! I see.”

The door reopened and Wynda came back in, her bucket full of fresh water and returned to her labors in the lavatory.

“A funnel, I say,” she repeated. “Big… BIG funnel. Oh fuck! I swear to Pelor somebody hit the ceiling! Oh, sorry Gator.”

Kreet laughed, “Pelor isn’t offended by anything like that.”

Cherry and Red went to the lavatory and looked up.

“Impressive!” Cherry said.

“A bladder of heroic proportions!” Wynda laughed, but Red stood on the bench and reached up to touch the ceiling, then sniffed her finger.

“Not piss. Water. Nick, the roof’s got a leak.”

“Oh crap. Okay, I’ll get it in the morning,” Nick called.

“No, you’ll get it now. Take Gator. She can hold the lamp. If you wait till morning it’s only going to get worse and the floor will be flooded.”

“As if it’s not already flooded with piss,” Wynda complained.

Nick sighed and motioned for Kreet to follow. They went in the back room, got some tools, and went up to patch the roof.

“So, Gator. What do you think? Is life at the tavern everything you expected?”

Kreet held the lamp while the bartender began pounding nails. “Nothing like what I expected actually. But the girls are nice.”

Nick nodded, not looking up from his work. “They are.”

“You like working here?”

“Sure! Where else can I hang out all night, beat up drunks, look at beautiful women and get paid for it? What’s not to like?”

“I suppose when you put it that way, you’ve got a point.”

Nick packed up his tools and started down the ladder. “The way I figure it, Gator, all jobs are shit. But they’ve all got their plus sides too. There’s a hell of a lot worse out there than pouring drinks and rousting drunks.”

“There is,” Kreet agreed as she followed him down the ladder.

“Um… Gator,” he said as she hopped off onto the ground.

“Hmm?”

“There’s one thing, about your uniform…”

“I know, I know. Jeeze, sorry to flash you. I’m still working on how to get the tail hole to work with a skirt. It’s not easy! Robes are so much simpler.”

“Okay, but till then I suggest no more dancing on the table for you. No wonder those guys were all crowded around!”

Kreet wasn’t able to blush, but her eyes did glow a bit pink as they went back inside.  "Oh yeah. I forgot about that.“

It was just getting dark when Brand and Kreet knocked at Karl’s door. The husband-to-be opened the door and Kreet saw that all his earthly possessions were neatly stacked up in a crate in the corner.

“Ready to go?” Brand asked.

Karl smiled sheepishly, “No, but we might as well get this over with.”

“Well, it’s your last night of bachelor freedom,” Brand said as Karl got down his cloak and they proceeded out of the room. “You wouldn’t want to spend it alone in your room would you? Or meditating in the chapel?”

“Don’t you like ogling women?” Kreet asked innocently.

“Ogling? Gator, where’d you get that from? Brand has been smutting up your language again I see!”

“Oh, like you don’t,” Brand laughed.

“Hey, just because I do, doesn’t mean I have to admit it! Yeah Kreet, no doubt I do. But after tonight I’m supposed to only ogle Vosa!”

“Are you sure it’s alright for me to come along? I’ve never been in a tavern before.”

Both Brand and Karl looked at their little friend. “Never?” asked Karl.

She shook her head.

“Well then, it’s high time you did!” Brand said. “We’ll look out for you. True sometimes the drunks can get rowdy, but the Wicked Serpent is a pretty decent place. And you’re fairly well known around town, even if you don’t go there often. Not many places can claim they have a tame kobold living nearby.”

She glared at Brand. “I’m not tame,” she asserted. “And nobody ‘has’ me.”

“Sorry Gator. I didn’t mean it like that. But you are a minor celebrity around here. You’ll be fine.”

“Besides,” Karl went on, “It wouldn’t be the same without you, Kreet. The three of us together for one last adventure before I retire.”

“Karl,” Kreet groaned, “You’re not even 20 years old yet. I don’t think you’re ready for retirement.”

“Oh, you know what I mean.”

They arrived at the tavern in town near the Monastery and Brand opened the door wide. The warm firelight and sounds of voices inside drew Kreet in behind Karl.  The three walked through the place, eliciting little notice. Certainly some heads turned and conversations changed at the arrival of the kobold, but they soon returned to their business when nothing further happened.

Brand and Karl sat on seats at the bar with Kreet between them. While she stood all of four feet tall by this time, she still could barely see over the counter. Brand indicated the bar top and suggested she sit atop it instead, which she happily agreed to. Once there she could see everything. The frown from the bartender was quickly taken care of when Brand set some coins on the bar beside Kreet and ordered three rounds of ale.

Kreet scanned the scene. She was actually surprised and delighted to find that the place, rather than being filled with weapons-and-armor clad adventureres, was peopled more by the local farmers and merchants. Four serving wenches were busy delivering drinks and receiving rather bawdy attention from the male patrons as well as the occasional slap on the rump or worse. One of them came over to Brand and greeted all three of them warmly.  

“Brand! I see you brought your friends too! So this is the young man who is getting roped?”

“Yup! Red, this is Karl, Acolyte of Pelor and soon-to-be husband. I’m hoping you and the girls can show him a good time tonight. Remind him of what a foolish thing he’s doing tomorrow!”

“Oh, I think we can manage that,” the woman named ‘Red’ smiled warmly, taking Karl’s hand. “I think we’ve met before, haven’t we?”

Karl nodded, “I used to come in here sometimes,” he admitted. “Before I met my fiance.”

“To get drunk and look at us I wager,” Red laughed, not letting go of his hand.

Karl nodded and she pulled his hand underneath her loose-fitting blouse, “Well, you’ll do more than look tonight young stud!”

Karl’s face turned bright red as she fake-moaned, then released his hand laughing.

“But it will have to be later, we’ve got a full crowd here right now. They’ll start to thin out in an hour or so. Then we can open up the side room for you. Sound good?”

Brand nodded happily while Karl just stared at his hand.

“Is that ogling?” Kreet asked as she took her first drink of ale.

“That,” Brand said, downing a big gulp of his own ale, “is called ‘groping’ I believe!”

“But,” protested Karl, “is it ‘groping’ if she makes me?”

“I didn’t see a lot of resistance, Karl. And based on the size of that bump in your robe, I’d say the end result is about the same!”

Kreet couldn’t help but look. “Oh! Now I get it! It’s a mating ritual, right? He touches her breasts and that makes it….”

“Gator!” Karl hissed. “Shut up!”

“Oh… Sorry,” she said. “This is all new to me you know. There’s not many books in the library about this.”

“Actually, Kreet,” Karl said. “There are. But they’re locked away from the Acolytes.”

“Really?” Brand said in between drinks. “I never heard of that!”

“Oh yeah, I’ve seen them. I was in charge of the library last year remember. Pretty graphic stuff!”

Kreet was puzzled, “I don’t know why they’d hide them from us at this point. For heaven’s sake Brand, you’ve already gotten Vosa pregnant! What more could there be that you haven’t already figured out?”

“Probably some idea about keeping us away from that sort of thing. Doesn’t work though, obviously,” said Brand.

“And you’d be surprised at how much more there is!” Karl went on, getting into his scholarly mode again and seeming to have forgotten all about his hand now. They have books on specific races and customs! Even one on the mating rituals of Orcs if I understood the title correctly.“

"Anything on Kobolds?” Brand asked, putting his arm around Kreet.

Karl shook his head. “Not that I’ve seen,” he said, actually having to look up to the kobold, given her high perch, “Sorry Gator. I did look for one too.”

Kreet sighed and downed the remainder of her tankard in an impressive display given her diminutive size. “Oh, nevermind Gimp,” she said when she came up for air, “I’ll learn plenty of your rituals eventually I expect.”

A few minutes later another round of ale was delivered and Kreet began to feel light-headed.

“…and they really don’t mind?” Karl was asking Brand about the tavern girls.

“Those that don’t, don’t. Those that do mind, don’t do it. It’s that simple Karl. It’s not like they don’t get paid well. But no, they’re not forced to.”

“Wouldn’t that make them…” Kreet asked.

“Well, yeah, sort of I guess. But don’t expect anything Karl. The bartender made it clear, the girls will do what they want and nothing more. Right?”

“Hey! I’m pretty happy with just that grope!” Karl laughed. “Besides, if I drink much more I don’t think it will really matter much!”

“What about you, Kreet? Do you want to see some women up-close and personal? Just for research purposes of course.”

Kreet looked at Brand, her eyes a little unfocused. “I’d rather look at some men. A lot more interesting design-wise!”

“Pffft,” Karl scoffed. “A stick and some balls. Simple. But women! Now there’s COMPLEXITY! Why, they have a place down there thats…”

“Karl!” Kreet interrupted him. “You can turn off the instructor-talk now. Besides, I kinda know most everything I need to about women already.”

“She’s got a point Karl. You do tend to lapse into teacher mode.”

“What can I say? Since spending time with Vosa I’ve become something of an expert in the subject!” Karl laughed.

“Well sure, you’ve got experience with ONE, but I’m sure Gator can attest that no two are exactly alike,” Brand responded.

“I’m sure that’s true,” Kreet agreed. “Though I’m obviously a lot different than most.”

“Snowflakes. You’re all like snowflakes – every one different,” Karl observed, another tankard hitting empty.

“Well, you are too, right? I mean, guys all like things a little differently too?” Kreet said, starting to slur her words a little.

Karl and Brand looked at each other and started laughing.

“Oh, I’m sure some do, Gator, but as a rule we all pretty much like the same thing,” Karl assured her.

The woman known as Red came back up to them then and took Karl by the hand. Another came up to Brand and Kreet. “Come on! Red says you’re having a batchelor party! I love those!”

“Me too?” Kreet asked, unsure of what she should do in this situation.

“Oh sure! Come on along little kobold! Don’t worry, we’re just gonna have fun. No sex involved, I promise!”

“Awwww,” Brand cried, but picked Kreet up off the bar and they followed the busty wench, a little woozily, into a side room where Red already had Karl’s robe off from the waist up and was massaging his back while sitting on him.

By the end of the night Kreet had indeed learned a lot more about humans and their habits. She also learned that too much ale makes you vomit and pee a lot, not necessariliy in that order. As they staggered back to the Monastery, all three were singing a bawdy tune that Red had taught them.

“But now I’m all pent-up,” Karl complained after the last line.

“I know what you mean!” Brand agreed. “But save that for your honeymoon.”

Karl nodded. “Yeah. What about you? You and Gator gonna…” Karl said, making an obscene gesture.

Kreet laughed in her half-coughing way, “Are you kidding? Now I’ve seen you both erect! You’d split me in half! No, Brand’s going to have to handle it on his own.”

“Which he probably will! Did you see those boobs Brand?”

“On Red? Jeeze, yeah!”

Kreet suddenly was depressed in the rapid mood swings that alchohol often produced. “I don’t have any boobs,” she said forlornly.

“Aww, Gator, boobs aren’t everything,” Brand said, patting her on the shoulder.

“They are to you guys,” she said, practically crying now.

Even in his drunken state, Karl tried to revert to his scholarly tone, “Mammary glands are the most obvious external signal of a human female’s sexual maturity, Gator. It’s natural that they would interest us you know.”

“And kobolds get thunder-thighs. I suppose in my native culture these things would be hot stuff,” Kreet said gloomily, wiggling her butt.

“Yeah, probably so,” Karl agreed.

The three arrived at Karl’s room where Brand and Kreet said goodnight to the husband-and-father-to-be.

“Thanks again Brand,” Karl managed to say before collapsing onto his cot. “That was a hell of a bachelor party!”

“It was! Goodnight Karl. We’ll see you at the wedding.”

Karl groaned as they shut the door behind them and Brand and Kreet proceeded to her room. She became aware of a growing tension between the two, though she didn’t say anything. They stopped at her door.

“Goodnight Kreet,” Brand said, kneeling down to give her a hug.

“Brand… if you want to come in for a little bit…”

Brand looked at her directly. The look may have lasted a second or an hour. Kreet couldn’t tell. She only saw his eyes. They looked… deep.

“Kreet…” he began but she interrupted him.

“I, want you to Brand…”

But he shook his head and her world fell in on itself. She had revealed too much. She’d exposed her feelings for him. She would never have done it had she been sober or the night been earlier. Things would never be the same between them again, she knew. Why did she have to say that?

“I know you do, Kreet,” he said, but her mind was already leaping ahead and seeing the darkness in front of her.

“Kreet, I do love you, you know. In a way,” he kept talking, but she heard nothing. She wished he would just go away and let her die in self-pity.

“It’s not because you’re a kobold either, Kreet. But… this can’t happen to me now. It would be such a mistake…” he said, but he might as well have been talking to a brick wall. In Kreet’s ears she heard only the pulsing white-noise of the ocean or her heartbeat as her eyes turned purple and her vision wavered.

Finally he released her and she entered her room, stunned, closing the door behind her. She glanced over to where a short dagger lay in a drawer and considered it for a second. Then she looked at her claws. She didn’t want to kill herself really. But she did want to hurt herself for the stupid thing she had just done. She retracted her claws so as not to draw blood, and began beating herself on her flat, flat chest. Hard.