The incredibly powerful contract killer took it better than expected.

Which was to say, still not great. But at least Momo’s horns were still attached to her head.

The dokkaebi crawled out of the jar like a wet fruit fly, then rapidly grew in size until she had returned to her full, lanky form. Her typically pristine gothic attire was wrinkled and torn; her bangs, too, looked like they’d just endured a small hurricane. All in all, it was as if she had put her clothes in the washing machine before remembering to take them off.

She snarled at Momo.

“You’re lucky Valerica knows my home address,” Nyk spat, dusting off her sleeves.

Momo just laughed nervously. When Nyk said nothing more, Momo pointed to the mechanical wolf lying in wait on the shores.

“How about I make it up to you,” she said. “You get to ride in the front seat?”

—

Momo had never seen four people ride atop a single wolf before, but then again, she had never seen anyone ride a wolf, period. Previous to her life in Alois, she had never even seen a wolf. And certainly not one that was reflective, or with nostrils like small steam engines. There were a lot of firsts for her here on this terribly unusual planet, and the breakneck pace at which they arrived never seemed to slow.

But, back to the wolf. Due to his modular design, Vra’ta’s torso could seemingly adjust in length to account for the amount of people riding. For just one passenger, he assumed his typical lupine shape, but every time a person climbed aboard, his body elongated, until he looked like a perplexing cross between a dog and a gold-plated snake. Handlebars also emerged on the surface of his coat, making him technically more similar to a rollercoaster cart than a living, breathing animal.

“Does that not… bother him?” Momo said to Grimli, gesturing to the wolf’s body as it expanded once more to account for another seat. Momo personally couldn’t imagine herself enjoying the sensation of adding another seven inches to her torso every time somebody needed a place to sit, but she had also never been a mechanical wolf. So it was a bit like apples and oranges.

Grimli gave her a disbelieving look. “Of course it doesn’t. Vra’ta is designed to carry entire hordes of dwarves into war. At his maximum capacity, he once carried an entire city atop his back, with a built-in nursery for the newborns, a dormitory for the tired, several taverns with various ales on tap, and one bathroom.”

“One bathroom?” Momo said, her throat suddenly dry. She all but fainted at the mere concept. A city with one bathroom sounded like her personal hellscape.

“I mean, it’s a moving vehicle, your highness. If you really need to piss, you just jump off and take a wee in the woods,” he shrugged.

“I…” She stared off into the distance. “Nevermind.”

She boarded the wolf, tucked herself in behind the handlebar, and stored Dusk in the backpack. True to Grimli’s words, Vra’ta’s mechanical biology accommodated for every need that arised; when Momo had no place to store her backpack, a storage bucket was produced from the wolf’s side. Then, sometime later, a cup holder for Nyk’s gin canteen, followed by a headrest for Kasula’s aching neck, and a roof to block out the blazing desert sun. After a few hours, the wolf’s back had transformed into something akin to an aircraft cabin.

Unfortunately, the wolf-cabin did not come with air conditioning. The desert heat was dry and terrible, burning Momo from the inside out. Desperate to distract herself from the aching burn, she let her mind wander somewhere typically forbidden, a niche in her mind so precious and protected, she didn’t allow a single visitor – even herself. She thought of Sumire.

Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

It wasn’t that she wanted to avoid thinking of her. Quite the contrary. She quite badly wanted to fill her mind up with the most perfect distraction there was: the one girl who could tolerate her. It was just that everytime the woman graced her mind, with her ridiculous smile and her murderous sense of humor, a deep, fitful worrying dug into Momo’s gut like a parasite. An anxiety that left her paralyzed.

It was like drinking a poisonous elixir: it just so happened that the most precious human she’d yet to find in this deranged realm also happened to be the de-facto leader of her people. A decision she had made, of course. It had made sense originally; if Sumire was her highest confidant, that meant they could spend more time together: scheming, giggling, drinking tea and making geopolitical decisions. But, as with most of Momo’s rash, hormone-guided impulses, it came with the bitter aftertaste of unforeseen consequences.

The truth of it was — she had left her most cherished thing in the perfect place to die. It was quite like abandoning your favorite teddy bear out on the lawn while your dad charged up the mower.

She sighed, and on an impulse, fetched her sketchbook from her bag. However serendipitously, it opened to the drawing she had been sketching the day she died on Earth. The incomplete portrait of some television actress. She could remember the visceral way her heart jumped in her chest when the skeleton snatched it out of her hands. She had been more embarrassed than concerned back then, but looking back, the crux of the emotion had been very similar to the one now coursing through her chest—

He had something important to her, arguably the most important thing, and it was probable to perish in his bony little hands.

She turned the pages again and again, until a blank canvas stared back at her.

For as long as Momo had been able to hold a pencil, art had been her only way to remember. She had never been good with words, and even worse with writing them down. Her brain was as clouded as a midnight in Paris. A jar of still-lit cigars. Her therapists claimed it was ADHD, anxiety, OCD. Whatever. To her, it had always just been a fact of life. Sketching, and sketching alone, let her focus everything down into a single stroke of detail. While her mind was always apt to betray her, her drawings were as honest memoirs as she could get.

So she dipped a quill into ink, and drew.

—

Momo awoke to the sound of raucous cheering. She groaned, her eyes painfully adjusting to the blaring light of desert day. Once her corneas recovered from being deep fried, they revealed a series of decadent archways. Paisley-patterned sandstone that served as the outer layer surrounding what could only be the Vagrant Dunes’ capital city: Karahtan.

“What’s all that noise?” she muttered, rubbing aggressively at her eyelids. She noticed that she was the only one still on the vehicle – err – the dog. Dogicle? Grimli and the rest had gathered around the city’s entrance, the foremost archway that was barricaded by beige-colored guards. Their armor was camouflage, and it worked well. Momo could barely distinguish them from the rolling sand dunes. They were equipped with halberds much like the ones that the Knights of the Sun carried. It occurred to Momo that Jarva’s men had left Alois without their weaponry. It only made sense that they had to borrow more than just the local’s hospitality – but their armories, too.

“There seems to be some kind of event happening in the stadium,” Kasula observed. “It’s probably a rockball tournament. Biggest sport on this side of the world.”

Nyk, her face frozen in an expression of permanent annoyance, turned to one of the guards.

“Are you going to let us inside, or what? It’s hot out here.”

“It’s hot inside, too,” the guard responded neutrally. Nyk groaned.

It seemed that due to the event, a queue had been enforced outside the city. Passports and visas were taking longer than usual to process, and the hellish manual system meant that Momo and her flock were looking at a twenty-six hour wait time, at least according to the magically-enhanced bulletin board floating above the gates.

“Alright, smartass. How about you answer this – what teams are playing in the tournament? Because if one of them is the Louisville Lipid Litigators, I better be compensated with front row seats after all this wait time mess,” Nyk said, pressing a fiery finger to his chest. He looked completely disinterested in helping her. Momo didn’t blame him – he was probably suffering from permanent heat stroke standing outside in all of that armor.

But it did amuse Momo greatly to learn that Nyk was apparently a… sports fan? She hadn’t seen the dokkaebi respond with anything other than apathy to pretty much every subject Momo raised. She hadn’t expected her kryptonite to be a bunch of mortals kicking a rock around, but then again, people were hardly predictable.

“It’s not a rockball tournament,” the guard answered, skipping over the vaguely shrouded threats. “It’s a paragon tour. Our first one since the Dark Calamity. The only reason I’m working out here all day is so I could afford to buy my sister tickets,” he sighed, shaking his head. “She’s obsessed with that new hotshot elf Zephyra. Zephyra Ren.”

Before the name was halfway out of the man’s mouth, Kasula screamed bloody murder.

“My fucking sister is here?”