“WHO ARE YOU THAT WOULD STAND BEFORE ME!?”

This is said by an oversized, golden-beaked, and very, very mad chicken.

“Mommy, mommy! More food? We want the fluffy one!”

That’s its children talking.

You know something? Maybe I should have less sympathy for them…

Myra charges headfirst into the center of the field with her flaming longsword burning bright, bellowing a direct challenge to the Cockatrice as it rears up and readies itself to beat its great wings and blow her off her feet.

And, damn it, I guess that’s my cue:

[Glittering Thrust]

The power of the thrust stops me in my tracks. Myra’s right – the scimitar just ain’t a weapon made for this kinda thing.

But the fire that’s coating its shimmering surface is making an impact on that big bird, alright, the screech of the chicken-momma as the gleaming, infernal light impacts her left wing tells me two things.

One: she’s hurt.

And two?

She’s pissed off.

She turns her head and belches a torrent of gas, and I watch it crawl towards me while Myra aims her own thrust.

[Tailcopter]

I ‘copter up and avoid the gaseous cloud that instantly causes the weeds and trees behind me to turn to stone.

“YOU DARE!” the Cockatrice screams. “YOU DARE TO TAKE TO THE SKIES IN MY PRESCENCE!?”

“Ooooooooh,” the kiddies in the nest howl. “Mommy’s mad!”

Myra presses her attack and her fiery strike smashes into the thing’s beak, breaking it apart and coating her feathered head in threads of brilliant flame.

“For Glenheim!” Myra shouts. Then her voice reaches me: “Now, Raziel! Finish it!”

I hover just above the reeling, gargantuan creature and ready my blade for the final blow.

My sword’s tip gleams.

[Glittering Thrust]

The handle is itching in my mouth.

The flames are licking round my tongue.

“Mommy!” the children cry. “Look out!”

She’s not listening to them. She’s reeling back, screeching at Myra and sending her petrifying gas towards her, all the while trying to shake off the flames traveling down her feathered body. She hasn’t seen me.

The searing light creeps up my sword blade.

But I don’t let it fly.

The handle vibrates in my mouth as my teeth begin to chatter.

“Mommy! Mommy!” the chicks cry. “Please be careful!”

Myra’s taken cover behind the petrified ogre, holding on as the bird begins it’s wing buffet again.

“Raziel!” she cries out in its storm. “What are you doing?!”

…

Damnit…

You’re an ugly mommy, I think, looking at the rage filled eyes of the cackling cockerel. But you’re still a mom…

Then those eyes find me.

CAAAAAAAW!

She turns her fury my way and the wind blast she sends towards me sends my tail spiraling out of control. I spin without any other option, letting off a random [Swallow Swipe] when I see the thing lunge at me with its claws out the corner of my eyes and, when I finally hit the ground, I see its talon broken and bloody beside me.

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“Raziel!” Myra shouts, but her voice is instantly lost in the billowing windstorm.

“BEGONE ELVEN WENCH!” I hear the bird screech in pain. “THE DOG IS MINE!”

I watch as Myra is blasted right out of the field, hits her back against the hard stone bark of what was once a tree, and falls unconscious. Her blade’s fire dissipates as it falls beside her.

I…Damnit!

Who’s the real idiot here?

The big bird roars through its windstorm, and I feel myself picked up and thrown across its lair like the dumb mutt I am.

The flames from the Ambergrut are blown away, too, and I’m left staring like a moron at my perfectly ordinary, rusty-ass sword once more.

I stagger up with a pant as it turns back towards Myra.

“THIS ONE HAS SHINY SHINY CLOTHES!” It cries. “IT WILL MAKE A WELCOME ADDITION TO MY NEST”

“Yay!” the children echo. “More pretty baubles! More sparkly shinies!”

You’re a dumb dog even if you are the Lightborn, Raziel. When the moment counted, you hesitated.

Just like with the Jagged-Clan wolves. And just like with Aethel…

“I WILL ENJOY CRUNCHING ON YOUR PALE BONES, ELF!”

Well, not this time.

[Repulsive Bark]

My roar (that’s what I’m calling it, ok? I can be cool, too) smashes into the side of the cockatrice and I watch her fall to the ground, becoming a heap of thrashing talons, teeth, and feathers.

And when she looks back up, she sees me racing towards her.

“You’re not the only one who can push people around!”

She manages a flap of her right wing and a quick [Blink] takes me to just behind her neck.

My sword swings out to make the cut – just above where her jugular should be.

“MOMMY!”

…DAMNIT!

I end up cleaving through her wing as she brings it up to defend herself, forcing her body to move through the pain and claw at me with her whole talon.

I block her, using Myra’s techniques. Again, she comes down. Again. Again. I’m being forced back here.

“Go mommy! Go! Beat the bad poopo dog!”

…poopoo?

These little brats are the reason I’m hesitating. Really?

With her next strike I send another [GLIMMERING THRUST] up to sear through the sharpened blade of her nail and manage to take out one of her eyes as my spear of light pierces through it.

There’s the heart. Her chest is exposed. Go for it!

I look up once at her screaming, bloody face, and aim my sword’s tip at her breast.

Alright…g -!

A windblast from my right flank sends me flying. This time my teeth finally lose their grip and I watch my rusty blade skitter across the ground towards the younglings who are up in arms, flapping their tiny wings relentlessly.

“We help, mommy! We do good!”

I stagger up, ready to [Blink] towards them when I feel a piercing pain radiate up my back and under my belly.

She’s got me. She’s got me in her claws.

And only when I look down and see the nail embedded in my gut, do I scream.

“YESSSSS,” the voice of the wounded cockatrice screams above me as she takes into the sky. “SCREAM FOR ME, LITTLE DOG!”

“Yay, mommy! Yay!” her children cry. “We do good?”

“YOU DO GREAT, MY LITTLE ONES. MOMMY THINKS YOU DESERVE A TREAT.”

She hovers over her little ones who look up at me with open mouths – mouths full of saliva-coated teeth.

I watch the blood from my gut drip down into their waiting mouths.

“USUALLY, I WOULD MAKE A SCULPUTRE OF YOUR SCARED FACE, LITTLE FLUFFY RAT,” my captor says as she lowers me slowly into the jumping faces of her chicks. “BUT MY LITTLE ONES ARE HUNGRY TODAY!”

I see the bloody bones of the ox scattered around their nest.

I…I…I need to –

[Blink]

BLOCKED

Cannot be used when under status effect(s):

“OPEN WIDE LITTLE ONES! FIRST THIS ONE, THEN THE ELF FOR DESERT!”

“Yaaaaaaaaaay!”

No sword…no way to escape…

…except…

“YOU WILL DIE LIKE THE RAT YOU ARE!”

…I’m a dog.

My hazy mind starts to form an idea, and despite everything a smile smears across my face.

Could be just pre-death euphoria kicking in. But I know one thing right now: sure, I’ve got the blood of a human running in my veins, but I’m still a dog.

And there’s at least one weapon I haven’t used in a while.

“GOODBYE, YOU LITTLE PE-“

[Bite (foot)]

“AHHHHH!”

The Cockatrice screeches as its bleeding claw detaches from me and I feel myself plummet into towards its younglings.

But beside them – my sword’s right there.

[Blink]

In the next second, I’m back on my feet, blade in my mouth, and send a [Swallow Swipe]flying towards this oversized chicken.

The Cockatrice takes it in its chest as it falls, and now it’s the one that flies across its lair, crashing through a selection of its grisly statues.

This time, it doesn’t get up, and with a huff of frustration I begin to charge towards it.

“MOMMY!”

Don’t listen.

“Mommy! Please get up. Please get up, mommy!”

Nope. Not listening. La la la la laaaaaa…

“Mommy…we…we promise we’ll remember you. We’ll keep the nest good. We…we’ll make you proud, momma!”

OH, COME ON!

As I now stand upon the heaving breast of the brutalized, bloody beast, I look down into its good eye and open mouth. It does nothing but watch me right back.

Then its cracked beak opens one more time.

“T…Take care of them,” it whispers as tenderly as a bird can. “Please…”

I stare into her eyes and try to ignore the voice in my brain.

For a split second, I swear I see the last Lightborn flash through my mind. The glint of his sword as he drew it to slice through Palka’s claw…

Then I spit the sword out of my mouth and sit my butt down.

“No,” I say. “You know what? I can hit you, I can beat you till you’re bloody, I can make fun of you for being a blowhard birdbrain till the cows come home. But…I can’t kill ya.”

I hop off and watch the thing as its eye follows me with eerie precision.

“Don’t get me wrong. Killing you would solve the problem for the humans down there andwould make me feel good right now. But at the end of the day,” I add with a little sigh. “I’d just be killing because somebody told me to.”

The thing’s amber-clad eye closes gently, and it stretches out and gives a little shake, as if accepting my mercy. I don’t even hear Myra’s footsteps as she approaches us.

I turn to meet her gaze. A scowl, as usual, but I don’t let it weigh me down.

“Sorry, Myra,” I say with a shrug. “I’m just not that kinda dog.”

In the moment of quiet stillness that then stretches between us, I almost wish for the bird’s winds or screams. Myra’s eyes narrow to piercing slits, darting from me to the wounded beast that still lies behind.

Then, slowly, she draws her blade.