FSE

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All characters depicted in this work of fiction are of legal age of consent.

I

Pauric wished his day had started to deteriorate when the sheep went missing. At least that would have been like ripping off a bandaid.

It had been going so well too. As the village of Den's main merchant, he arbitrated many deals that saw an influx of gold and goods into the local community. That morning had been particularly good for business. A travelling caravan had passed through, offloading some luxury goods and gold in exchange for supplies grown, hunted and foraged by the people of Den. It was all the sleepy village had to offer, but it was enough to earn them a decent bit of coin that would help them get through this year's fast approaching winter.

Then Pauric had been tackled off his high mood by a distinct ringing bell, the sound that had been the bane of his existence for nearly a week.

More embarrassing was the voice that coupled with it.

“Wolf!" the familiar voice yelled. “Wolf! I saw a wolf in the fields!"

With a sigh, Pauric had packed in his day's earnings and with an irritated grumble and made for the door. As he did, his wife barely lifted her eyes from the book she was reading, knowing full well where this was going.

“Don't be upset," Catherine said simply in that tone Pauric was sure could disarm a dragon's fury. It did wonders for his anger anyway, and he felt the stress practically leap from his body. “You know he's doing his best."

“Ah, quit coddling the boy, woman," Pauric said a little more tersely than he intended.

Wincing, the man paused by the door to realise Catherine had lifted her gaze. Glancing back, Pauric sighed.

“Fine. I know he's doing his best."

And then that cry again, shouting loud enough to crack his own voice: “Wolf! Wolf in the fields!"

Pauric's eye twitched and even Catherine's kind tone failed to defuse his ire. The village merchant shut the door behind him before his wife drained him of all his desire to dole out some good old-fashioned discipline and moved to the source of the ruckus.

Den was a small place, a dozen families give-or-take. Some large, some small, they worked as a tight knit community to overcome all obstacles. Everyone had a role, everyone pulled their weight. They had farmers, hunters, foragers and the customary business-savvy trader – yours truly.

And then there was the boy.

A small conflagration of locals who weren't either out hunting or on the farms had gathered about the square in the centre of Den. And in their midst stood a boy, still yanking at the alarm bell reserved for only the most dire emergency, still crying out at the top of his lungs.

Pauric's resemblance to the boy was uncanny, as was his irritation with Silvius.

When Silvius had been born eighteen harvests ago, Pauric had thought to himself: Aha! Finally! After two girls, I finally have a son!

Pauric had been so proud. He'd grown old and chubby with plans of how Silvius would grow up into a great man, ready to take over as the charismatic leader Den needed when Pauric was no longer around.

Then Silvius turned out to be a dimwit with a hyperactive imagination. Of course, the 'dimwit' part was a father's harsh over-exaggeration in his disappointment in his son, but Silvius's hyperactive imagination was beginning to get out of hand.

It had been cute when he was a little lad, toddling about in his onesie and swinging a wooden sword at imaginary monsters. But when he was doing the same at age twelve – sans onesie at least - Pauric had begun to get worried.

On top of that the boy seemed incapable of fitting in anywhere. As mentioned before, Den was a small place. It's continued prosperity, and by extension surviving the winters that seemed to be growing steadily harsher with each passing year, relied entirely on everyone pulling their weight. So, when the other boys in Silvius's generation started farming and hunting, taking the fancy of girls and readying themselves to raise a family of their own, Pauric wanted nothing more than for Silvius to prove himself useful.

Unfortunately…

Firstly it seemed hunting wasn't in Silvius's blood. He was a decent enough shot when Pauric taught him to shoot a crossbow, but he was clumsy. After his first day out he'd driven the other hunters to the point of insanity for the amount of deer that slipped their grasp.

That was fine, and Pauric had held onto his optimism. But then Silvius continued to fail.

Farming turned out not to be his calling either. For all his theories about crop rotation and his silly diagrams about optimised field shape and size, Silvius could barely drive a plough. He already didn't have any friends, and he quickly became a laughing stock of the girls who helped their mothers pick the fields or forage in the forest when he couldn't even do that right. His sisters didn't help much in that respect, but then he should have at least been a man about it and stood up for himself.

That was probably what bothered Pauric the most. Some of the other men in the village were talking about their concerns that Silvius might be 'special.' And being 'special' in a small countryside place like Den was never a good thing. Pauric had seen his fair share of the world, much of it had made him uncomfortable enough to want to avoid civilisation as much as he could, hence settling down in Den.

Pauric had tried to defend Silvius. He tried to nurture the academic that seemed to be brewing in the boy. But then there had been the incident in the shop. Pauric had returned to his store after leaving Silvius in charge for a few hours to find a travelling merchant had passed by. And in a fit of excitement Silvius had made a number of very poor investments, a mixture of adventuring gear, dungeoneering equipment and half a library of books following the epic tales of old heroes. Not exactly the type of things that were particularly useful in a small farming community.

In the end Silvius had been handed the simpleton task of herding the sheep. But after just a few weeks it seemed he was proving inadequate at even just a menial task. Case-and-point, he was ringing the emergency bell for the fifth time this week shouting about a wolf. In fact, this was the second incident today!

Pushing his way to the front of the small crowd, it was easy for Pauric and his sizeable bulk, the father closed a hand over the brass bell to halt that infernal ringing.

“Alright, Sil. What is it now?" Pauric managed in his most patient tone. In his own mind he was imagining Catherine was looking over his shoulder. The woman's supernatural ability to keep people calm preceded even her physical presence.

Silvius looked up at his father, then pointed off in the direction where he'd left the sheep to graze. “I saw it again. A wolf!"

Pauric sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose. “Sil, wolves are not native to these parts. You know that better than anybody."

“It's not a normal wolf though!" Silvius cried, raising his voice just a little again. “I got a better look at it this time. It was walking on two legs like a person. I think there's a werewolf in the woods!"

That seemed to be the magic word. In a moment, as soon as Silvius said 'werewolf' all talking stopped. The less than covert utterances between the townsfolk ended abruptly and the silence that followed was thicker than the clingy drizzle.

Glancing about and noticing the looks crossing several faces, Pauric cuffed his son upside the head. Not hard enough to hurt, but enough to snap Silvius's head forward and get his attention.

“Don't be stupid, Sil. You should know, especially after burying your face in all those books of yours, that werewolves haven't been seen since the Age of Heroes. They're extinct!" He started counting off on his fingers. “Just like dragons, vampires, gorgons, blights, goblins and many more."

“But I saw it!" Silvius insisted. And before Pauric could say anything more, the boy was leading the way towards the edge of town, waving people to follow. “I'll show you! It was loitering even as I ran here! It's probably still there! C'mon!"

It was a fairly chill, miserable day permeated with a sticky drizzle of rain. Nobody really wanted to follow Silvius out to the fields, but then if they didn't they weren't going to nip this behaviour out at the bud. With some hesitation some of the folks began to follow. Then more. And then before Pauric knew it at least a group of twenty men and women, some carrying pitchforks (just in case) were following his son out past the edge of town.

Groaning tiredly, Pauric rolled his head into his neck, punched at the air in frustration, then quickly set off after them. As mentioned before he wasn't the young man he used to be and any time he could avoid a long hike into the hills he took it. Unfortunately there didn't seem to be getting around this one.

So in his attire better suited for tending to the store, Pauric hobbled after uncomfortably, his slick flats slipping on the wet grass and his leather apron the only thing offering anything in the way of protection against the rain.

The herd of sheep were being kept in the foothills near the forest's edge about five minutes out of town. The route there took them over a rocky path that wound between and over the hills, oceans of gorse stretching on for as far as the eye could see. And then the dark, twisted deadwood trees came into view. The forest was the subject of much superstition, so thick it was almost supernatural in nature. Only the town's hunters dared go in there, and even then only when game was scarce and when they had to, never too deep.

It was no wonder Silvius thought he saw a wolf stalking among those trees, hyperactive imagination such as his.

The sheep, twenty of them, pudgy with stark white wool, were idly chomping on the young grass shoots that grew in the clearing between the rocks and gorse on one side, and the treeline on the other. At least, initial count showed there to be twenty.

As Silvius was trying to convince people of where the wolf had been stalking, Pauric did a second, then a third count of the sheep. He kept getting stuck at nineteen, then couldn't find the last sheep.

Finally, he realised that was because it wasn't there.

“Silvius, where is sheep number twenty?" Pauric asked.

Sighing in the middle of his explanation over how the 'wolf' had been stalking him and the sheep, Silvius paused, the finger he was pointing at the treeline sagging slightly. “It's 'Sil,' dad."

“Boy, do I look to be in a mood?" he pointed at the sheep again. “I count nineteen. How many do you count?"

Silvius was quiet for a moment as he, and the others, counted for themselves. Slowly but surely, Silvius's expression began to drop. He finally mumbled something.

“Speak up!"

“Nineteen," Silvius snapped a little sharper than he intended. Pauric could tell, regret wincing across his face even as he said the number. The regret was almost immediately replaced with realisation. “The wolf! The wolf must have attacked while I was getting help!"

Pauric cuffed the boy one. Again, not hard enough to harm, but enough to make him hold his tongue. “Don't be stupid. If a wolf attacked why would the other sheep just stick around? And do you see tracks? Where is the blood?"

Silvius seemed to have an answer for that too. “Like I said, it was a werewolf. And they can be wily creatures. When the great hero Aldric of Vuursridder took on a pack of them he had to-…"

“I'm talking at you seriously, boy!" Pauric shouted, losing his temper now. “Now is not the time for flights of fancy! Those sheep were being reared for blankets to spare us the cold this winter, and meat if we get desperate enough. This is important! Where is the last sheep?"

Silvius didn't have an answer. It was one of the older townspeople who answered, sighing terribly and leaning on his pitchfork as he did.

“Gods, it must have wandered off while Silvius went to ring the bell. Pauric, we're still reeling from Silvius's poor investments with the town's gold. We'll be stretched to afford a new sheep this close to winter. And even then most other towns have already sheared. A sheep isn't going to grow a full coat for us to shear then grow another to protect itself over winter in the time we have left."

“Calm down, Daryl. It's just one sheep. It won't be the death of us," Pauric told him. And yet, something snapped in the man.

Every parental instinct in him went blank. Finally, he was done with patience. Finally, he just gave up trying to defend Silvius.

“Daryl, is your boy busy?" When the older man shook his head, Pauric said, “Have him take over as shepherd." He added to one of the women, “Go fetch the trackers, maybe they can figure out where the sheep headed. It can't have wandered off far."

“It'll be dark soon," the woman said.

“All the more reason to move quickly." Pauric was already forming a posse to search ahead of the hunters in case the sheep was still nearby. They had to move quickly, but also carefully so not to accidentally trample any tracks that might prove valuable in finding the missing animal. In that moment he noted Silvius was still standing beside him waiting for instructions.

As he had the attention of his peers, he paused then threw Silvius a glare. The boy had done enough for one day.

“Go home to your mother, Sil," Pauric said, some of the fatherly patience returned to his voice at the mention of Catherine.

“But I can help. If the hunters find the werewolf then-…"

“Damn it all, Silvius, there is no damned werewolf!" Gone again was his patience, and the disappointment in his voice was palpable.

“But, dad-…"

“Did I stutter, boy!?" he growled sharply

Silvius stared for a tense moment and forced through gritted teeth, “No, sir."

Then turning on his heel, Silvius started the lonely trudge of shame back to Den. With a mope, he spared a single look back at the treeline… and saw nothing.

II

Sil's room was more akin to that of an inner-city teenager than a country boy. His walls were adorned with paintings and paraphernalia from the age of heroes. His bookshelf was filled with tomes chronicling epic quests, journals about monsters and how to slay them, and even hand-painted resin miniatures of heroes, villains and all kinds of fantastical beasts doing battle in-between.

His favourite books were laid out over his desk, which was where Sil moped. He slouched over the table, face resting in one hand as he gazed out the windows into the dreary evening. A boy his age was briskly wandering from house to house, lighting the oil lamps dotted about Den. And he was doing it without messing up in some way like Sil might be expected to at this point. The only reason Sil didn't get that chore to try out was the townsfolks' collective worry that he'd set Den on fire.

Sil let his gaze creep back to the pile of books on is desk, some journals of his favourite hero who had fought all sorts of monsters not even thirty years ago. In the twilight years of heroism and adventure, Aldric Vuursridder had performed his greatest feats. The top journal was his latest, where he chronicled his last stand between the very last known pack of werewolves, a convoy of innocent commoners looking for land to settle on, with naught but his trusty swords.

After that, Aldric had disappeared. Some said the werewolves had bested him, but then how was it the creatures were extinct? Sil believed he merely retired into a world where the need for heroes and adventurers ran scarce. Likely he had changed his name, settled down, perhaps even started a family.

That was what romanticised the heroes of old for Sil so much. They weren't characters in a piece of fiction (though some of their unofficial biographies made them out as such). Sil knew that at their core, heroes like Annike the Sharp, Frodd Hammerfeld, Bane Chillwind and even his idol Aldric Vuursridder were regular people. Normal men and women, humans with wants and dreams and desires. Individuals with the courage to set aside their own selfish motivations and fears to stand up for those who couldn't when the plague of monsters had been at its worst.

The door creaked as it opened, drawing Sil's attention away from the books. His mother walked in. The spitting image of the women his older sisters were growing up into, the resemblance between them was still noticeable. If his father was to be believed, Sil got his lean build from Pauric, and his rounded features and fair hair from his mother.

Whereas Catherine's hair was left long with elegant curls rolling past her shoulders, Sil's hair was clipped short. His mother was also a tall, leggy woman indicating she'd been very agile in her youth, and she had a scar running along her delicate jawline that she never talked about.

“Your father told me what happened," she said gently, walking over to where Sil moped. She set a hand on his shoulder, but it only made the boy mope even harder. “You know he was right to be hard on you."

Sil didn't say anything, sticking to his opinion. The alternative to losing a sheep could have been the wolf making off with more than one sheep, or worse: starting a killing spree right in the midst of Den.

At least now the hunters were out looking for that missing sheep. With luck they'd happen upon the wolf and kill it. But Sil wasn't holding out much hope.

Catherine knelt down beside her son and sighed, looking at the journals he'd collected over the years, sometimes blowing months of his allowance on commissioning traders to track the books down. Honestly they were historical things that belonged in a national archive, but Sil had insisted they were safer in his hands.

“Sil, you're so distracted all the time." She reached out and laid her hand on the pile, her slender fingers following Aldric's name embossed in the leather with a sense of familiarity. “Your father really wants you to look forward to the future. Not bury yourself in bygone flights of fancy."

“These things happened," Sil protested pointing at the journals. “Monsters existed, and heroes fought them. It's history."

“That's right. It is history."

“And you always taught me to remember history, so we can learn from it!"

Catherine nodded calmly, her demeanour calming Sil by extension. “That is true. I told you to remember history. Not live in it."

Sil went back to pouting. Sighing again, this time with a grin, Catherine ruffled the boy's hair and placed a delicate kiss on his temple.

“Your father is in the tavern. I'll be out helping knit blankets for winter. Don't go to bed too late, okay?"

Sil nodded, then listened for his mother's footsteps. His ears followed them all the way to the front door, then when he heard the lock turn he stood up. His fists were clenched, knuckles set on the wooden surface of the desk as he went over the silent epiphany his mother had given him.

History had plenty to teach. How to be better than your past self. How to avoid making the same mistakes again and again.

And in the case of facing a monster that ought to be extinct?

Sil flicked open Aldric Vuursridder's journal to the page where he'd sketched out the anatomy of a werewolf and clearly marked the points to attack to best kill the beast.

In the case of facing a monster from the past, history could teach how to best kill monsters.

There was little time to waste. Sil went about his room like a whirlwind, whisking up his knapsack and what few adventuring supplies he'd cobbled together over the years. He packed a tarp, bedroll, survival knife, flint and steel and anything else he could find. Then he ran down to the pantry and collected some supplies he was going to need for an extended camping trip.

One last stop before he left the house, Sil went into his parents' room and took his father's crossbow and quiver of bolts down from on top of the wardrobe. Pauric had taken Sil out shooting a few times, and had been surprised at how good a shot he'd been.

Lashing the quiver to the side of his loaded pack and hanging the crossbow from the sling over his shoulder, Sil slipped out into the night. Crossing Den in the dark turned out to be easy. Many of the men were in the tavern, music and raucous laughter spilling out into the rainy night. A few lights were lit in the houses, but the streets were empty.

Sil only paused once as the hunters came in out of the rain from their fruitless search for the missing sheep. And their complete number along with a distinct lack of werewolf slung between them indicated they hadn't faced any excitement either.

Good. More for him.

Pausing at a corner he waited in the shadows for the hunters to disappear before he made a dash to the familiar goat's path leading towards the forest. Towards there the sheep had gone missing, and towards the wolf.

He was going to prove to everyone what he had seen, even if he had to drag a werewolf's carcass back to the village himself.

With a groan, Sil wished he could curl up into a melodramatic ball and simply cease to exist. This whole adventure had been running less than optimally.

One might even argue it was a total disaster.

At the end of the first day, Sil got soaked to the bone in a freak rainstorm before he could even get his crappy camp set up. The wind made off with his tarp, his fire didn't light, and he spent the night mostly sleepless under a bush, fat drops of rain rolling down his neck.

By the end of the second day, still no wolf in sight and worse still, Sil ran out of food. Realising a loaf of bread and some slices of ham made for crappy camping rations, he went to bed (in a metaphorical sense, as he was supremely missing his bed at this point) still hungry.

Wet, tired and hungry on the third day, it was with a sense of failure that Sil decided to pack it in. But that's where Sil found himself in a particular quandary that made the heart beat just a little faster. He was lost.

Somehow, he'd gotten turned around, and with a grumbling stomach, aching limbs and a deep sense of foolishness, Sil figured he was wandering in circles. Every part of the forest looked the damn same, and despite how far he walked in what he perceived to be a straight line, the terrain seemed to force him into constant U-turns. He'd come to a sheer cliff, or a chest high carpet of thorny bushes as far as the eye could see.

And now a rocky chasm cut across his path, too wide for him to leap across and stretched on for infinity in either direction. It was like the wilderness was alive and somehow conspiring against him.

With a grumble, Sil kicked a loose stone into a nearby rocky chasm. There was a clatter that echoed slightly as the stone bounced into the yawning darkness below. What the hell was he thinking, gallivanting off into the wild thinking he could track and take down a wolf!? A werewolf no less – if his eyes were to be believed.

Rubbing the same eyes he was starting to think had betrayed him, Sil figured his father had been right to be disappointed in him. What the hell was he doing with his life? He wasn't getting anything right. He couldn't even do the simplest thing, like watch the sheep so they didn't wander off.

Stewing in self-loathing, Sil picked a direction and kept on trudging. It wasn't as if he could get any more lost. However, lucky for young Sil, there seemed to be some light at the end of this miserable tunnel.

After nearly thirty minutes of following the chasm and avoiding patches of violent looking thorny bushes, Sil came to a clearing. The forest came to an abrupt halt and gave way to what had at one point been the saplings of civilisation. That had been a hundred years ago going by the faintly familiar architecture that still stood moss and ivy plants seemingly having replaced the mortar between stones.

Much of the village had crumbled away, but some of the structures still stood among the dilapidated ruins and clusters of rubble that had once been houses. Many wooden supports and much of the thatch had rotted away leaving just a few standing stone structures in a rough approximation of a family dwelling here and there.

Shrugging the sling of his crossbow a little higher onto his shoulder, Sil set out into the knee-high grass. It didn't seem like there were any signs of life. Peeking into a well situated near the edge of the ruins he noted the muddy earth below. All the buildings he inspected were totally gutted, by either time or looters. Aside from that he didn't note any tracks in the tall grass, the first indicator that anything, human or animal, had passed through.

In fact, the air was deathly silent here. Disturbingly so.

Pausing, Sil noted there were no bird songs, nor chirp of crickets. Even the wind didn't seem to make a sound here, as if even the elements didn't want to loiter in this dead place.

A little unsettled, Sil decided to pass through quickly and move on. But something stopped him.

As Sil was making his way to the opposite edge of the clearing, he spotted a figure standing in the shadow of a building that still partially stood upright. The figure was clearly humanoid, dressed in grey and was facing away.

Cocking his head, Sil stopped in his tracks and changed course. Maybe someone lived in these ruins after all, no doubt a vagrant of some sort. It would be worth asking for directions.

“Hello!" Sil called out, raising a hand in greeting.

No reply. The man didn't even shift.

“Uh… hello?"

He started moving closer when silence met him again. And very quickly, Sil came to realise why nobody answered his call.

Rounding the figure, Sil realised this man was made of stone. A statue, just a little taller than he was, cracked and faded with age. The statue was holding a short sword, his worn features twisted into a focused snarl as he seemed pressed into a partial attack.

Sil scratched his head. This wasn't an effigy to any hero he recognised. And frankly, without a pedestal to mount the statue on, this seemed a strange place to put a statue, in the shadows instead of a centralised square equidistant from all the community.

Reaching out, Sil gave the statue a light knock with his knuckles. The stone was cold and brittle, and before Sil could even begin to regret his actions, the statue began to crumble. Slowly at first, the part he touched at the arm turned to gravel and crumbled away. Then as it fell apart, the collapse picked up momentum and in large chunks of featureless grey stone the effigy to some unknown hero became a shapeless pile of rocks in the grass.

Sil was swearing in a way that would have made his father laugh and his mother cuff him one, trying to hold up the statue and put pieces back even as the thing reduced practically to sand.

“He was very old," a voice said suddenly, singing from seemingly nowhere. The tone was gentle, but its sudden appearance nearly made Sil leap out of his skin.

Jumping to his feet, Sil span on the spot trying to spot where the voice had come from. Then he eyed the darker shadows within the nearest ruin.

Sliding out to meet him came a woman, as if formless one second then materialising from the darkness in the next. She had her hands on her hips which swayed seductively as she moved, snaking forward in a way that was hardly human.

But then as her features resolved before Sil's widening eyes, she was revealed to be fairly far detached from humanity.

From her hips up was the sleek mocha skin of a ravishing young woman. She was clearly older than Sil, in her mid-twenties somewhere. Her hourglass figure and lovely features reminded him of Tasha, his eldest sister's BFF. A woman Sil had a mad crush on. When his sister found out, Sil wasn't sure what had been worse. Every girl in Den laughing at him, or Tasha being ever so nice about it, reminding him why he had a stupid crush in the first place.

This creature's similarities ended with the soft, friendly gaze however. What terrified Sil despite the charming friendliness behind her aspect, were the bundle of snakes that formed her hair. Shoulder length and emerald green like her eyes, the hissing tresses watched Sil with voracious interest. It was enough to make him gulp, the discomfort having nothing to do with the fact the only shred of clothing this part-human woman wore were two strips of light silk covering her breasts and forming an X over her chest before wrapping about her neck. The bumps of her nipples were very clear to see between the folds and ruffles in the scant garb.

Wrapped about her wide hips was another length of light material, like a short skirt, that gave way to the powerful and enormous tail end of a snake. Over a dozen metres in length by first glance, her serpent body was covered in more emerald scales, with pale brown visible on the underside.

She slid effortlessly forward, swaying in a serpentine pattern, her eyes fixed on his and an intrigued smile on her ruby lips.

“But you," came her kind tone, crackling ever so slightly like embers on a fire. “You are something new, aren't you? I haven't had visitors in such a long time."

Sil took a step back, his hand drifting down to his crossbow. It was with a pang of regret he realised he hadn't loaded it yet, and wished he had a bolt notched and ready to go.

The creature however noticed the motions towards his weapon and looked hurt. “Oh, there's no need for that, dearie." Her voice was sugary sweet and soothing, but that gaze of hers failed to put Sil at ease. “I'm not going to hurt you. Why would I do such a thing?"

Sil eyed her serpentine features and figured the answer should have been obvious. “I seem just the right snack-size."

“Silly goose." With a giggle the woman darted forward with unsettling speed.

It was like a striking snake, she moved so fast it made Sil's heart stop for a second. But instead of pouncing she whipped around his side and coiled about his back. Her tail flexed to circle him lightly and he felt her slender digits press through his shirt on the shoulders.

Pressing him from behind she gently stroked her cheek against his, her flesh silky smooth to the touch and sending eclectic shivers of joy down Sil's spine. “Why would I eat such a handsome young boy? I'd much more enjoy your company for a while."

Sil slowly turned on the spot. Though as he did her unabashed proximity brushed her ruby red lips against his. She pressed in a little trying to make firmer contact, but Sil leaned away awkwardly. Despite the kiss slipping away from her, she managed a giggle at the blush on his cheeks.

“What's your name then?" she asked lightly. “Mine is Stheno."

He swallowed before answering and rubbed his neck trying to avoid her gaze. “Sil."

As he tried to move Stheno bobbed back into his field of vision, her large emerald eyes never wavering from his. “Such a lovely name for a lovely boy. And what brings you to my home, Silvius?"

That was an astoundingly good guess for what 'Sil' was short for, but it didn't stop him from uttering his customary correction. “It's just Sil."

She weaved to capture his gaze with a hand on his cheek. The forked tip of a serpentine tongue was just about visible as it ran over her lips. “Whatever you like, darling."

In that instant Sil lost his motor function. His muscles stiffened, and for the while he still had the ability to consciously try, Sil couldn't seem to break whatever hold was enveloping him. But even those attempts were short lived.

He lost himself in Stheno's beautiful eyes, a magic sort of pulsing to them that was almost hypnotic. Sil felt a little drowsy, but suddenly totally at ease. His blush faded and he wasn't ashamed of looking at the bare parts of her body anymore.

Stheno placed a slender hand on her neck and gently slid it down until her fingers teased the soft valley between her breasts, drawing Sil's eyes downward.

“Do you think I'm pretty, Sil?" she asked, a hint of a coy tone.

“Um… yes?"

Stheno bit her lip, like a predator eying her prey or a young woman sighting a desirable partner, Sil couldn't tell. Though both comparisons seemed to work.

“I'm glad you think so. Would you like to stay with me?"

“I… I really should be going."

“Oh, but why?" She pouted, looking hurt again. If looks could harm, Sil was pretty sure he would have been laid out and eviscerated in the grass. “You can just stay here with me. It's dangerous to be out in the woods all alone. But if you ssssssstay…"

Her voice took on a sultry, low hiss that was like silk to Sil's ears. The tone made his head spin. The glow in her eyes fixed his attention and made his knees wobble. All his worries about the sheep, the wolf, being lost in the woods; it had all passed, and all that mattered in that moment was Stheno's voice, the touch of her cool, marble smooth skin…

Stheno reached back and unclasped her bra, the garment sliding smoothly about her neck and falling into the grass between them, forgotten forever. Sil could feel his cheeks begin to burn, but couldn't look away as Stheno moved closer, lips slightly parted and breath hotter than the fires of a smith's forge on his face.

One of her hands caught his wrist and forced his palm against her ribs, guiding him up along he gentle curvature of her firm flesh. The hard edges of her nipple grazed over his hand and Sil felt himself shudder with a mixture of relief and joy again. There was a feint ringing somewhere in the centre of his brain, drowning out all sound bar Stheno's soft words in his ear.

“I'll keep you sssssssafe." The softness of a serpentine tongue teased at his earlobe. “Forever."

Every muscle in Sil's went stiff… every muscle. He could feel the strain on the front of his pants, and then a grinding of the fabric as Stheno's hand drifted down to his crotch. She grasped the rigid pole of flesh with a coy smile.

“For me?" she teased. “Silvius, you're such a flatterer."

Sil wasn't sure what put him off more. The fact he was totally at the mercy of her touch, or the fact he was screaming in his head 'It's Sil!'

Stheno pushed him to the ground. It didn't take much, just a light shove and stiff as a board Sil keeled backwards. He didn't land with a thump though, as Stheno caught him at the last minute, and next thing he knew he was looking up at the beautiful woman portion of the snake framed by the dull sky above as she straddled him.

She planted several kisses on his face, her soft lips pecking a trail down his cheek then along his jaw while he snake tresses watched with rapt interest. He felt one of her hands slip under his shirt and work its way up over his chest while the other kept a firm grasp on the rigid prize she seemed to adore above everything else laid before her.

While athletic, Sil was no hard-bodied hunk like the other boys in Den. He had some fatty trimmings. But Stheno seemed to relish the feel of him never the less. He'd become something of a banquet to her desires, every inch of him something new and exciting for this stranger to molest and enjoy.

Sil was rather thick skinned. He had to be, considering his track record. But whereas having a ravishing woman so close would not generally bother Sil, the fact he was powerless to rebuke some of her grossly decadent promiscuity was becoming a grave concern.

“Ohhh~, it's been so long since I've had the feel of warm flesh." One of her hands slid down the sleek curves of her own body. Sil couldn't see wat she was doing, but going by the heavy lidded bliss in her gorgeous eyes and an ecstatic hiss escaping her full lips, he could hazard a fairly good guess as to where her fingers had gone. “I'm ssssssso lucky you fell into my lap. I'm going to take my time with you, my little darling."

With her hands planted in the grass to either side of Sil's head, Stheno arched her back and ground her pelvic region against the bulge in his pants. With all his muscles tensed, Sil couldn't look down to see exactly how Stheno was going to make this work logistically. He wasn't some innocent young lad who didn't know where babies came from, but at the same time he wasn't totally up to scratch when it came to the subject of serpentine reproduction.

Luckily for him, he didn't have to learn the hard way – a second later Stheno was brained by a flying rock.

The woman tumbled sideways, falling off of Sil and coiling in the grass with pain. Her hands gripped the side of her head where the stone had hit, several of the snakes in her hair going limp and hissing angrily. At the same time, Sil's muscles relaxed as he broke free from her enchanting gaze, and he wasted no time in scrambling away while looking to see where the rock had come from.

Dashing towards him came a furry grey streak. It was swinging a sling with one hand and unloaded another rock into Stheno, making her cry out and slither away for cover. The figure stooped in its run, free hand scooping up Sil by his arm and pulling him to his feet, before dragging him away and shoving him over the top of a low wall.

As Sil was righting himself where he'd landed upside-down, he noted the furry streak land beside him, catching her breath and loading the next rock into her sling.

The sight of her was almost as surreal as Stheno with her snake features. Only this girl was covered from her wolven head down to her feet in gradient shades of light and dark grey fur like a natural camouflage pattern for shadows. She had alert triangular ears and a bushy tail completing her humanoid, but at the same time wolven appearance.

The first word that popped into Sil's head was 'werewolf.' But this was more of an anthropomorphic wolf for lack of any other better description. The girl was clad in slightly tattered clothes, but not to the extent one would expect from the exponential growth from human into a hulking werewolf. In addition to that, she didn't have an imposing, rippling musculature, quadruped legs and oversized killing claws generally associated with werewolves.

To put it bluntly, she was very much of human. Sil's height, approximately his build. Her black hair was clipped short, kind of boyish as it seemed to have been chopped short with a knife by herself rather than a hairdresser with a pair of scissors and an iota of skill. Her figure was lean and she seemed flat chested and tomboyish, not many feminine curves despite her well fitted clothes.

Her shirt sleeves were rolled up to the elbows, her pants were tightly fitted over her long legs and she had a pair of boots with protective leather plates over her shins with a similar carapace vest protecting her torso and hips. Slung diagonally across her back was a wooden sword with a pouch on her belt for several rocks for her sling.

She was still unlike any wolf – or girl – Sil had ever seen before.

“W-what?" he stammered, staring and caught between the decision to stay in cover or turn and bolt, taking his chances with Stheno.

She caught on to his urge to run by the way he scrambled and grabbed him by the shirt. With a yank she effortlessly pulled Sil back down and said simply, “I'm Tayen."

“Sil," he answered, the instinct for good manners overriding all his confusion and fear.

With a grin, Tayen grasped his hand and shook vigorously. “That's a nice name. Nice to meet you Silvius. Now run for your life."

Leaping to her feet and swinging her sling, she vaulted over the low wall and charged back into battle.

“It's Sil!" he called after her, slightly irritated despite everything going on.

Tayen didn't react. Not because she didn't hear him despite her blood being up and a dull heartbeat throbbing in her ears. She just had different things to focus on right now than get Silvius' name right.

Her sling wound up with a loud swishing noise before she unloaded on the run. A rock bounced against Stheno's forearms as the wolf dropped her ranged weapon and dashed in closer while reaching over her shoulder. Her wooden sword came free with a tug and she swung into a downward arc at the same time.

Stheno reeled to one side to avoid the first blow but was caught across the arm with a back-swing, her muscles going numb as the weapon smacked into her with an almighty 'CRACK!' She gave a cry and slumped to one side, pushing herself up and whipping out of the way with a serpentine motion, her tail lashing out at the same time.

Tayen dove over, tucked and rolled, landing neatly on her feet several feet away. Something from her utility belt now in her hand, she straightened and flung the object at the same time, hitting Stheno in the face.

The flash bomb exploded on impact, filling Stheno's lungs with acrid smoke and giving off a thousand-candela flash that left multi-coloured spots in her vision. She winced away, flailing wildly and blinking fiercely.

When the smears of colour resolved back to normality however the first thing she noted was a wooden sword coming at her face.

Tayen, having used the few seconds of surprise to close the gap, caught the woman in the neck with her sword, shoving Stheno into the deck before catching her in the gut with a powerful kick. As the woman reeled, Tayen brought her sword up over her head for a coup-de-gras…

At least, what she thought would be the ending blow. Her wooden sword came down when Stheno's hand snatched upward and caught Tayen by the wrist. Her head turned to look up at the wolf, a scowl forming across Stheno's features as the large bruises left by the beatdown shrank and then faded from existence.

“My turn," she snarled.

In one preternaturally smooth motion she rose up, twisting Tayen's wrist as she did. The girl cried out and was forced to drop her sword. Stheno then laid a fist into the wolf's gut, winding her through the carapace of leather, then swung an open back-hand across her muzzle to add insult to injury.

Still holding Tayen's arm, Stheno twisted her body and threw the girl over her shoulder. The world spiralled about Tayen, turning her gut for a queasy moment before gravity dragged her into a hard, uncomfortable embrace. Tayen groaned on her back where she was slammed with full force into the ground before Stheno caught her by the throat and lifted her clean into the air at arm's length.

At this point Sil managed to load his crossbow and dashed into the open to take aim. He had the weapon canted as he homed in on his target, then twisted with crossbow to line the sights cleanly up to the back to Stheno's head. The safety catch turned with a soft click and he squeezed the trigger.

The crossbow shuddered as the string was released and the bolt sped on its way, turning to a blur of black and silver. It moved faster than his eyes could track, but in the time it took his heart to beat once Stheno casually reached back and caught the bolt by the shaft.

She didn't even look as she caught the projectile. Her keen ears just picked up on the whistling sound the bolt made, and her preternatural reflexes took over.

Effortlessly she snapped the bolt in two and dropped the parts before nonchalantly flicking Sil aside with her tail. He tumbled through the air once, then landed with a pronounced thud and an “oof" in a patch of tall grass somewhere off to the side.

Stheno in the meantime smiled maliciously as Tayen kicked her legs feebly and tightened her hand about the wolf's throat.

“Out of tricks are we, little girl?"

Tayen gargled, gasping desperately for a breath that never came. Something forced past her constricted throat, but it sounded like gibberish. Curiously however, Stheno listened closely.

“F-ful… er… dho-re… dho-res v'nar…"

She couldn't get much more out when Stheno laughed almost apologetically, a look of pity taking her aspect.

“Aww, think you know the words of arcana? Fancy yourself a spellcaster, do you?" Pulling Tayen closer, Stheno gave a smug smile. The snakes in her hair snickered mockingly. “Go on then, fey-talker. Hit me with your best shot."

She loosened her grip, just enough to allow Tayen a deep, gasping breath, but not enough for her to slip the iron grip. As she was coughing and gasping, the girl tried again, her words less strained and more intelligible now.

Tayen said, “I cast FIST!" and decked Stheno in the face with the mightiest right hook she could muster.

It was enough to throw the woman's head to one side and make her scream with surprise, letting go of Tayen at the same time. The wolf dropped into the grass and rolled to absorb the impact. Before Stheno was able to recover, Tayen was off, dashing clear of the Stheno's flailing tail. Dropping to her hip she slid under a low, partially deconstructed archway and into the shadows of some tightly packed ruins.

By the time Stheno recovered, a thin line of blood trickling from the corner of her mouth where the punch hand burst her lip against her sharp teeth, Tayen was out of view. In a fit of anger Stheno started clawing at the loose rubble forming a barricade between them, weaving from side to side trying to find a wider access point and digging feebly at the source of her frustration. But even as the debris shifted and Tayen flattened herself against a crumbled wall to avoid the claws that lunged through the cracks at her, all Stheno could do was leave subtle rakes in the weathered stone.

As all this was going on, Sil had scrambled into cover, and with his foot in the crossbow stirrup he used both hands to draw back the weapon's string before setting a bolt in the breach. All the while he was mumbling to himself.

“By the Gods, I'm writing a book about the horrifying truths of adventuring after this shit."

Rolling to his feet, Sil stepped around the low wall he hid behind and butted the weapon to his shoulder. He feathered the trigger almost carelessly, letting loose the shot as soon as he noted Stheno's flesh in his iron-sights.

This time she was too distracted to note the whistling bolt scything towards her, and Sil's shot rang true with a thud of the bullet-tip embedding into her shoulder blade. The impact threw Stheno forwards against the ruins she was trying to tear apart and she screeched with pain.

Sil was about to let out a celebratory cheer when his stomach turned. Stheno reached back and effortlessly yanked the offending bolt from her shoulder. Her glare, more disappointed than angry turned to Sil now, the knot of blood left in the bolt's place rapidly healing and smoothing over as he watched.

Chuckling, the boy offered an apologetic wave… then quickly turned and bolted, swimming into his crossbow's sling and hanging the weapon by his side as he did.

Leaning into the corner, Sil booked it around a partially crumbled abode, digging deep so he wouldn't slip on the slick grass. Behind him Stheno overshot, drifting after him with a furious scowl and her hair snapping viciously.

While he ran he could hear Tayen call out in the background, and glancing over he noted she'd scrambled out of her hiding spot and retrieved her fallen weapons. “Nice distracting, Silvius!"

“That's right! I'm totally doing this on purpose!" Sil called back breathlessly as he planted his hands on a low wall and vaulted over.

He landed with a slight misstep and wind milled his arms for balance. As he did he heard the crunch of Stheno ploughing through behind him. Sil dared a look, then suffered for it.

Stheno's eyes were the first thing he saw, large emerald disks against a yellowed sclera and pulsing with magical energy… and murderous intent. Sil seized, his legs first. His muscles refused to obey his commands and he fell forward, slamming into the deck and sliding roughly to a halt on his side.

Stiffly he struggled to claw his way forward. At least until he felt Stheno's weight press down on his ankles and hold him in place. He didn't have to roll over, the woman's hand finding his shoulder and throwing him on his back with ease.

Fully exposed to that stare and the luscious naked anatomy of Stheno's gorgeous features, Sil stiffened like before. Every muscle in his body cramped painfully as if her gaze, now twisted in anger was sending a murderous intent rather than the seduction from before. As she held him down with one hand, the other tore away his crossbow and she towered over him.

One handed she crushed the wooden weapon, snapping it in two with the same lack of effort she had reserved for the bolt she'd caught in mid-air.

“I could have made all your dreams come true," she seethed angrily. “All you had to do was stay with me."

Her lips parted and Sil caught the glint of her sharp teeth… until another rock slammed into her head.

She winced from the blow and turned to spot Tayen standing in the doorway of a ruin, winding up her sling for another shot. With an angry hiss she shot Sil one more glare as if warning him to stay put, then took off in Tayen's direction.

The wolf unloaded another shot. Stheno anticipating it though darted to the side and avoided the incoming rock. Tayen hung the sling on her belt and retreated into the building, the snake-woman's significantly larger frame delving inside after her.

Many of the partition walls had collapsed already, but there was enough for Tayen to move about. She dodged by rolling over a crumbled wall, then ducked under Stheno's raking claws with a slide that carried her through a cubby-hole and between the coils of Stheno's knotting body. Furiously the woman gave chase, twisting and delving this way and that as Tayen jumped off one wall, darted in another direction and finally dove headfirst out one of the windows.

She curled at the last moment before smashing through the wooden remains of the window, splintering ancient supports and landing in the grass just outside. Her slight build meant she cleared the windowsill quite easily. But when Stheno pursued her larger size meant she only managed to get her head and one shoulder through.

She still managed to grasp Tayen by the ankle, her claws digging into the girl's leather boot with a victorious little “hah!"

“Got you now."

A sly smirk spread across Tayen's muzzle though. “Actually, I got you now."

Tensing, Tayen jerked back with her whole body. The action took Stheno by surprise and her whole body shifted its weight against the windowsill. Tayen hadn't picked this window to leap out of by accident. She'd chosen the main load bearing wall to make her escape through, counting on Stheno's blind desire to draw blood.

Stheno collided with the rickety wall and the structure made a crunching noise of boulders grinding against each other. She had just about enough time to look up with surprise and mumble an; “uh-oh," before the whole ruin collapsed.

As the dust settled, Sil had found his feet and rounded the now formless pile of debris. Tayen was standing triumphantly over where Stheno lay mostly covered up to the middle of her back in chunks of stone and mortar, with a few splintered and rotten support beams crossing over the top. She was alive and awake, clawing at the grass by Tayen's boots, hissing angrily and cursing in a language Sil couldn't discern.

As she thrashed her body, her snake tail sticking out the far side of the rubble, some of the rocks shifted and small avalanches of mortar slid aside. She was going to be able to dig herself out, that much was for sure. But by the time that happened, Tayen intended to be long gone.

She grabbed the bewildered human by the hand and dragged Sil away from the sorrowful wails of the pinned gorgon, back into the depths of the forest.

III

They had slowed their run to a trudge after several long, breathless moments. Then after silently resting for a bit, quietly moved on deeper into the forest.

It was maybe twenty minutes before Sil was able to form intelligible syllables.

“How is what thing when there back why-…" Sil stopped himself before Tayen had to, realising he wasn't quite at the point of calm to form intelligible sentences.

Giving himself another minute, Sil focused on keeping up with Tayen's long gait before trying to ask again. “What was that back there? What did Stheno want from me?"

Tayen laughed, then when she looked at him stopped, slowly realising he was asking seriously.

“Wait. You seriously don't know?"

Sil shrugged.

“Hrm… okay then. I hate to break it to you, Silvius, but dear old Stheno was going to molest you, then have her merry way with you as you turned to stone."

That blatant revelation took the boy off-guard. “W-w-what? Why?"

“Duh!" Tayen gave him an incredulous look. “Your mother never taught you never to talk to strange gorgons?"

“Stheno is a gorgon?"

Tayen frowned as if it should have been obvious, but to be frank Sil couldn't imagine how it could have been. Perhaps the statue and the ruined village could have given it away, but so far Sil could only recall gorgons from what little he'd read about them.

They were described as ravishing seductresses who could charm and petrify with a magical stare, but little else in the way of detail. The problem was, the only adventurers of old who had faced them never had much of a penchant for artistry, so were only able to vaguely describe the creatures in journals and letters. Any artist who laid eyes on a gorgon would surely be charmed and… well, whatever gorgons did beyond that. As such there were no pictures of the creatures.

“Nobody really knows what a gorgon would look like," Sil admitted, making Tayen shrug.

“Well, now you know."

“Knowledge is overrated." Something bothered Sil though and he piped up again. “Wait, hold up a second. Aren't gorgons extinct? Just like harpies, dragons and all other monsters like that. The heroes of old exterminated them all."

“Evidence, quite obviously, to the contrary."

“But heroes killed all the monsters. The fey world faded away after that."

Tayen threw him a look over her shoulder, a hand pausing on a thick curtain of hanging moss. “Are all humans so ignorant or are you just special?"

She pulled aside the moss, parting a curtain that hid a rocky archway from view. The archway itself was unspectacular, some crags and creases in the worn stone taking on the shape of alien runes Sil couldn't translate.

The world that lay beyond however hardly needed translating.

Dumbstruck, Sil followed Tayen through to a whole new world. The dull, bleak forest receded behind him like a blindfold lifted from his eyes, a kaleidoscope of summer colours bursting before him.

Lush green grass covered the forest floor like a carpet, dotted with white late autumn flowers. The leaves formed a thick canopy of browns and yellows above, clashing with the stark white bark of the trees. Beams of grim light filtered from above and glinted on the various creatures buzzing through this enchanted part of the woods, the dim beams amplified into miniature suns all throughout the air.

Sil found himself in the midst of a fairytale.

Fairies, pointy eared humanoids in leafy gowns and sporting glassy butterfly wings made sing-song humming noises as they sped this way and that in drunken flight paths. A little way off to one side a stag chomped on some of the glistening grass, its antlers adorned with blooming, glowing flowers and crystalline leaves.

As Sil loitered in amazement, one of the thickest nearby trees turned as if mounted on a swivel. And etched into the bark was an old face, creased with age and mottled with patches of moss to form eyebrows and a bushy beard. The face in the tree twisted into an expression of consideration as dark amber eyes looked the boy up and down.

Swallowing, Sil quickly turned away from the tree-ent and jogged after Tayen.

She didn't lead for much further, and within sight of the moss curtain blocking this magical part of the forest from the dreary rest sat her reasonably comfortable camp.

In the middle Tayen had erected a couple of racks built from large branches and fallen trees, over which some tools and spare clothes hung beside a camp fire. The fire itself was reduced to embers in a stone ring and sitting on top of it was a black iron pot with a lid from which steam and a delicious smell of spiced meat was escaping. A few bags made of leather and closed with simple drawstrings littered the place, as well as a wooden barrel that looked to be for preserving perishables.

On the more sheltered edge of the camp close to a few tightly packed trees and where a large rock jutted out of the earth she had built a leaning shelter out of home-fashioned tent poles and a tarp not unlike what Sil originally packed. An unmade sleeping bag and bedroll lay bundled underneath on a patch of bare earth carpeted in fallen leaves.

With everything that had happened, a camping trip from hell and a subsequent fight with a gorgon, Tayen's base camp was a welcome sight to tired eyes. Sil was soaked and bedraggled with some errant leaves clinging to his sweaty, filthy face. He looked like the family dog who'd been dunked in the bath as punishment.

Funny enough, Tayen shook herself dry like one before moving towards the pot simmering on the campfire.

As she sat down and stirred the contents with a ladle, Sil gingerly sat down on the opposite side of the fire and set down his knapsack.

After a few moments of silence broken by the metal spoon scraping the pot, he finally asked, “Are you a werewolf?"

Tayen laughed. “I'm not a werewolf. Though I understand the confusion. The heroes of old were confused too, nearly hunting my people to extinction. Some, like my ancestors, managed to go into hiding."

That was actually quite awful, and Sil was somewhat surprised Tayen managed such a chipper tone as she recounted her peoples near eradication. She somehow kept that optimistic spring in her step as she jumped up and started undoing the buckles of her armour.

Realising something, Sil quickly added, “There's more of your people. I saw a wolf just like you stalking my sheep on the edge of the forest!"

“Err… no, not just like me."

“So, there is a werewolf here somewhere?"

“No. There's no werewolf. The wolf you saw was actually me. I was eying your sheep." She paused on the last buckle, then added, “Sorry."

The consequences of her statement made Sil feel worse for Tayen than the sheep. “So… so there's no more of you?" He glanced about the camp, reminded that this was a settlement set up for one individual. “You're alone?"

“Oh, there's plenty of us, just nowhere near here. I ditched my village, came out here on my own."

“Why is that?"

“Well, there's actually a number of factors to consider, but primarily because you should mind your own damn business," she answered bluntly, and Sil held up his hands defensively.

Tayen pulled her armoured vest up over her head, pulling up the bottom of her shirt a little. Sil swallowed as he caught a little more of her toned mid-riff. She was really quite athletic, and the grey of her fur seemed to cover her from head to toe.

Then she undid the top few buttons of her shirt and pulled that off too, as if just to confirm. Before Sil was able to catch himself, he was staring at the now topless wolf-girl's back. She wasn't wearing a bra under her shirt, and as she turned around she immediately appeared as well developed as the other young women in Sil's village at his age. It seemed the leather carapace had been compressing her bust a little. Out of her armour, her feminine curves were suddenly much more pronounced.

Unabashed, and seemingly unaware of Sil's cheeks turning bright red, Tayen walked past him towards one of the bags laying about her camp. He tore his eyes from her dark nipples poking through the grey fur on the firm nubile mounds and resolved to staring at the glowing embers under the pot.

“So, uh. Why did you save me?" Sil asked a little uncomfortably, shifting his eyes slightly for one more peek.

Tayen had her back to him again, however this time she bent over to look through one of her bags. As she did, her already well fitted pants pulled tightly over the firm globes of her bottom. Sil couldn't help turn his head for a better look, his widening eyes spotting the distinct outline of the cleft between her slender legs where the light fabric clung to her body like a second layer of fur.

Sil quickly looked away as he noted a similar stirring in his loins as when Stheno captured his gaze with her gorgon powers.

“I could hardly let that snake hussy have her way with you," Tayen said as she straightened up and pulled a woolly sweater over her head. Decent again under the baggy sweater that left all the luscious lines of her athletic body to the imagination, she turned to face him again with her hands on her hips.

“Besides, I'm a sucker for damsels in distress," Tayen added with a toothy grin.

Despite the implications of the statement, Sil smiled back. “Well, I'm glad. Thanks."

“I still owe you for taking your sheep though. Here."

Tayen knelt by the fire again and produced some cracked ceramic bowls, spooning what seemed to be a stew into one. Popping in a wooden spoon she handed it to Sil who was suddenly realising how hungry he was. He hardly blew at some of the steam to cool the meal down. Tongue burning, but numb to the pain considering his aching extremities, Sil scarfed the meal down gratefully.

He was halfway through his first bowl by the time Tayen poured herself one, and he stopped. Though not for realising it was impolite to start eating without his hostess. It was a wholly different, colder realisation that had him freeze and more properly consider the meal; noting a few wild vegetables and chunks of cooked meat bobbing in the dark brown soup.

“Wait. This is mutton," he said after a moment.

“Mmm-hmm," Tayen hummed innocently as she sat back to eat.

Sil stared, then looked at the stew again. “This is my sheep, isn't it?"

Tayen didn't answer. Her grin said enough.

… screw it. It was freakin' delicious, so Sil scarfed down the rest and went back for seconds.

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