The table was covered in finger foods. Pointing at one that looked like it was peaches in a steaming purple sauce, the dish floated up and came over to me, putting a single piece of fruit on my plate. Using my fork I cut off a small piece, and gave it a taste. As it melted in my mouth, it had an odd flavour of a sweet peach, and a slightly sour taste that worked really well together, keeping both flavours from being too strong.

Everyone was eating, trying the dozens of foods, commenting on what they liked, and just enjoying the new taste sensations. Ivy was sticking to the dishes that looked like meat, and was gnawing on a bit of jerky that had nearly broken my teeth when I'd tried it. Calci was going back for another chunk of edible clay. I'd had a bit, it was very nutty flavoured. It wasn't bad, but knowing I was eating dirt made me avoid going for a second helping.

“This is really different from back home,” Calci said.

“What do you mean?” Naomi asked.

“Well in my clan, meals are carefully planned so that every dish fits with the next. There's a theme and purpose. It's all about how the whole is better than the sum of it's parts. This is a lot more...” the Dwarf struggled to find the right word, “chaotic.”

Mrs. Stirling nodded in understanding. “The Emerald Islanders have a different perspective then many other clans. They think that each piece should be able to stand on it's own. And instead of looking for unity and conformity, they enjoy a bit of chaos. I've heard some of them say it adds spice to their lives.”

Calci looked very uncertain about that, but finally admitted, “It is interesting.”

My heart jumped into my throat when Mr. Stirling looked at me and asked, “Petra, how are you enjoying the island?”

“Um, it's...” I stumbled, not sure what to say for a minute. I wanted to scratch my hair or rub my chin, but that would mess up my hair and makeup. “It's interesting. I've never been to a tropical beach.”

“Where do you usually go for vacation?”

“My parents stick pretty close to Holy Springs, so it's a lot of camping, going to resort cabins, and a few trips to the safe beaches along Madness Coast.”

“The heat must be hitting you hard. I don't think you get these types of temperatures even in summer.”

“It's a bit of a challenge,” I admitted. “The breeze helps a lot. And Ella made sure we all got clothes that wouldn't be too hot, so I'm not melting. But I'm not complaining, it's nice seeing the sun outside of combat class.”

His eyes widened a little, as he looked me up and down. “You're in Doom Valley's combat class?”

“Yeah, I wish I wasn't.”

Naomi decided to join in the conversation. “Ivy and I are in it as well. Petra isn't the best, but she's a pretty good runner. And she's getting better at dodging, everyone has trouble catching her now. Except Ivy, she can catch Petra in less than a minute usually.”

The werewolf smiled very toothily at me, before going back to her food.

“I needed to get good at it, since Angel Slayer keeps making me the combat dummy,” I muttered.

Mrs. Stirling looked up in surprise. “Angel Slayer is still alive?”

“Yeah. Why?”

The hero smiled faintly. “I met her three years ago. It was during one of the annual wars between the Demonic Cities. I stabbed her in the chest and was certain she'd died. She's a very good fighter, but needs to work on her defence.”

“She's alive,” I said with a sigh. “And she likes torturing us every chance she gets.”

A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

Naomi looked at Reginald then at me. “You'd think she'd actually like you, since you beat Reginald.”

The sound of shattering glass brought the conversation to a halt. Reginald was sitting there, his hand wet with juice, bits of glass had fallen onto his plate. The smile he'd had for most of the night was gone, replaced by a stone faced look of anger.

“Sorry,” he said, his jaw barely moving. “I seem to have gotten a bad glass.”

The server came in, replaced the plate and glass, used an enchanted cloth to wipe up the juice, drying and cleaning the table cloth at the same time. Silently she left the room.

“I should go get cleaned up,” Reginald said, following the server.

“Sorry,” Naomi said, blushing and biting her lip.

“Don't worry,” Mrs. Stirling. “Reginald needs to learn to relax a little.”

Her husband nodded in agreement. “He's grown up hearing too many stories about heroics and took them a bit too much to heart. We hope he hasn't caused you too much trouble.”

They looked so earnest, and they'd been really nice so far, I decided to do what I could to help smooth things over. “He's been nice. And he saved my life when I fell on the street.”

The blush on Mrs. Stirling's cheeks let me know that she knew exactly what had happened. I suddenly wanted to kick myself. Embarrassment welled up and I felt my toes change. The heeled sandals I was wearing turned out to be a blessing, my new cat claws didn't destroy them.

“He told us about that. We're glad you weren't hurt.”

“Yeah it was a close thing. He was very quick, and, and strong. It would have been really hard- uh bad! Bad if I'd gotten trampled by the dragon.”

Oh gods, what was I doing?! I felt my hips and butt get larger, stretching the dress. I was really glad Ella had insisted on getting me a dress that was stretchy. Reginald's parents were both looking uncomfortable and unsure of what to say.

“I, uh, I need to go to uh, powder my nose!” I blurted out. I got up and tried to walk with some dignity to the door.

Heading for the bathroom, I tried to calm down. Forcing myself to take deep, steady breaths. I just had to shut up, smile and not say anything and the rest of the night would be fine. I could do that. I really, really could.

I wasn't looking when I slammed into something big, warm and well muscled. Looking up I saw Reginald looking down at me. Once again my body was pressed tightly up against him. My breasts got bigger, crushing themselves into him.

“What are you doing?!” he demanded, stepping back.

“I don't know!” I tried not to cry. Nothing was going right, and my emotions were all over the place.

“Are you trying to seduce me?”

“NO! I don't even like boys. At least I didn't. But now I'm getting weird feelings that I don't want, and I keep embarrassing myself. And I just want to get through one single day without being humiliated, or bruised, or set on fire! And I'm really trying to do everything right because I don't want you trying to kill me when we meet up again. And I know we're going to meet up again because that's just how my luck is. And your parents are really nice, and they haven't tried to kill me or torture me, which is more than most of the adults I've met can say. And everything is going all wrong!”

Reginald was looking at me like I was some weird monster that had crawled out of a dungeon. Then he slowly reached out and patted me on the shoulder, which made my heart beat faster. “Go get cleaned up. And take your time, my parents won't mind.”

Sniffling, I stared at the floor, not trusting myself to look at him. “Thank you.”

Going into the girls bathroom, I washed my hands, wishing I could splash some cold water on my face. Leaning on the sink, I looked at myself in the mirror. Why couldn't things be normal? Why was everything going wrong? I was a pretty good. I wasn't great, but I didn't do anything really bad. Until I'd gotten to Doom Valley the worst thing I'd ever done was play some tricks on teachers, cheat on a few tests, and skip class once in a while. I really didn't deserve all of this.

A few minutes later I felt ready to face everyone. Stepping out into the hallway, my foot connected with the leg of our server. The Dwarf fell to the floor dropping her tray of drinks, splashing it all over herself.

“I'm so sorry,” I said, rushing over to help her. “Are you OK?”

“I'm fine,” she said, quickly putting the spilled drinks onto the tray. “I need to clean up, your food and drinks will just be a few more minutes.”

As she hurried away, I wondered what else would go wrong.

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Emerald Merrydelver hurried to the kitchen. She'd changed and cleaned herself up as quickly as possible, but the idiot human had messed everything up. Her entire uniform had been stained and if she'd tried to serve anyone her manager would have thrown her out.

She just had to hope nothing else would go wrong.

Reaching the kitchen she didn't see the expected trays of food. She began feeling sick to her stomach. “Where's the order for the Stirling's?” she asked.

“You got it already,” Steel Forgebane said from his prep area. “Didn't you?”

“No! I had to change my uniform.”

The head chef looked up from his pans. “Ruby dealt with the order. Now both of you stop wasting time and get back to work.”

Emerald and Steel shared a look of horror. There were two salads for the Stirlings', one of them was poisoned. It was now up to fate to see who would die.