All motion ceases besides that of Myra drawing her silver blade from her hip.

I brace myself, unsure whether to strike her first or get defensive.

This is it, I think. This was the plan all along, wasn’t it? Your Glenmaidens told you to off me, but you thought maybe the big birdbrain could do it for you. Didn’t want to get your hands dirty. But now that its over, and I’m spent, you’ve got no choice.

The gleaming tip of her blade blinds me as the sun glints off its surface. She’s brandishing the blade in a wide stance, just like she did when she was challenging me before.

I keep my eyes trained on her face. Every beading sweat that gathers just beneath her fringe. Every slight twitch of her nose. Every movement of her pupils as they inspect me for weaknesses.

Alright, Myra. I thought we’d bonded a little over this little ‘hunt’ of yours. I thought that, when you talked about ‘honor’, you might have thought it was more than just a word. But if this is the way it has to end, then let’s go.

[Glittering Thrust]

READY

I don’t know if I can strike first. I’m nowhere near as fast as she is. But I have to try. I have to live.

With my heart thus resolved, I tighten my grip on my rusty blade’s hilt and get ready to pounce.

That is, I would have, if Myra didn’t plant her sword in the ground and begin laughing like a child.

“Alright, Glovera!” she yells to the Cockatrice. “That will be all.”

…

…

…Eh?

I feel the hulking mass of flesh and feathers rise behind me.

“Thank goodness for that! I’ve taken quite the beating from this one.”

Myra shrugs, ignoring my spaced-out face. “Well, this one had a good teacher.”

“Indeed, my dear. Indeed, he has.”

An otherworldly golden glow throws itself across my form, and I turn my head in utter disbelief to see the Cockatrice’s wounds seal themselves up as though being knit by some invisible force within her golden aura. All her glorious feathers return from the naked patches we seared into her body, as though we did no damage at all.

“Yaaaaay, mommy!” the chicks cry. “Did we play well?”

…play?

“Ah,” she sighs. “You played your parts excellently, my little ones. But I think we performed a little too well this time. Gracious!” she exclaims, pecking at my undercarriage with her great beak. “We really did do a number on you.”

I’m not even able to move a muscle to stop her prodding, and then feel a sense of intangible warmth spread all the way up my body from the tip of her beak. I watch in mute fascination as my own bleeding wounds simply close themselves back up, leaving my fluffy belly virtually untouched.

“Wh-wha…” I mutter.

“Forgive me,” the giant bird says. “I am bound to perform my duties for the Glenmaidens of Palka. But I admit I sometimes take these a little too seriously. Golly gosh! My throat is absolutely killing me!”

“I’m afraid it’s me that really owes the Lightborn an apology,” Myra chuckles behind me. “After all, I really had him believing this test was a case of life and death.”

…test?

“Myra…” I stammer. “You’re not telling me…”

She glances down at me with a thin, secretive smile spreading across her face.

“What? That this entire excursion was just an exercise in testing your Lightborn abilities? And – more than that – if you have the right temperament to stand against the evil that you must face?”

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“Myra does love to be a little naughty sometimes,” the Cockatrice giggles with a distinctive *cluck* “Though she likes to hide her girlish nature with her cool, cold demeanor, she is still a girl, you know.”

Myra’s smile instantly dissipates.

“G-Glovera!”

“Oh, let your hair down every now and then, girl,” the Cockatrice replies with another torrent of sputtered laughter, and I have to suppress the instinct to draw my sword just thinking about the instant-death that could bubble out that throat any minute now.

“You two -uh- know each other?”

I still keep my tail tucked between my legs. I mean, I’m not saying I believe a dog can experience PTSD, but I was literally staring into the jaws of death only minutes ago…

“Glovera has been a friend to Glenheim since a century at last,” Myra replies through her still scarlet face.

“Oh Myrathellon,” the Cockatrice bristles. “You never reveal a lady’s age!”

“Not a problem for the near-ageless,” Myra replies. “You would not think that we would leave the defense of our ancestral home to just our own huntresses? With the constant demands the Lightborn have placed upon us over the years, we knew we could not rely on our own people to continue to guard us. Glovera here is our ace. She made a pact with Mistress Palka herself to guard Glenheim from all potential threats to its sanctity.”

“B – but you – you said she was -y’know – stealing oxen!”

“All prepared ahead of time,” Myra replies.

“What about those?” I say, pointing a shaking paw at the grisly statues. “Aren’t they the remains of brave adventurers?”

“Brave?” Glovera shouts. “Ha! These are little more than petty opportunists. Plunderers come to find and assault the stronghold of the Elves. They cannot, however, resist the attraction of attempting to slay a Cockatrice like me. I hear that my feathers are a valuable alchemical resource, you know.”

I gulp. “So I guess your breath isn’t part of the act…”

The bird grins at me. “Us creatures of Arwyll must abide by our Pacts, as you well know, dear Lightborn. I’m afraid that these gentlemen wouldn’t take a polite ‘no’ for an answer. Rest assured, when I am old and grey, I shall deposit them back in their crude little villages and reverse the petrification process. Though, it is a shame,” she adds with a wink. “They do make such lovely sculptures. Now, forgive me, but my young one’s are in need of some of mommy’s milk.”

I watch the bird flutter over to her chicks and then turn back to Myra with a shudder.

“I don’t get it,” I tell her. “What was the point in the test? Wasn’t I supposed to kill her?”

She kneels down, coming level with my sniveling nose. Her hand stays steady on her sword’s hilt.

“A warrior must know when to take a life and when to show mercy,” she says softly. “Your predecessor believed the whole world owed him its allegiance purely by dint of who he was. Those who got in his way he crushed without…without remorse.”

I see her choke out those last words, and again my dog senses begin to kick in.

But before my tongue can flick out, she continues.

“You are…different,” she says. “Not only because of what you are, but who you are. You were willing to show a beast that wished you harm mercy, even if when you were told it would serve the world to slay it. This is not the Lightborn we have known. Nor, I think, is it the Lightborn the world has ever known.”

She stands up, proud and tall, her bangs ruffled by the natural winds as she watches Glovera feed her chicks, smiling lightly as they snuggle up to the warmth of their mother.

“A warrior must follow their convictions, even if it goes against their master,” she says. “A warrior must be willing to stand alone. For what does it benefit any warrior to live a lie…to live as nothing more than the servant of another…”

I watch her face twitch again like it did last night. Something’s happening there, behind those strong eyes. Something in her words strikes me. It’s like it’s not just me she’s talking to here at all.

“Myra,” I begin.

“Hm?”

“Next time, can’t you just give me a multiple-choice test or something?”

She stares blankly at me before her cold exterior gives way to laughter again, and I smile to see the girl that’s behind all that armor come out. Even for just a few seconds.

“Myrathellon!” Glovera shrieks. “I believe this concludes my duties for this month! I think it’s time for a well-earned vacation, if you don’t mind.”

“Well deserved, old friend,” Myra replies through a chuckle. “Raziel, we have one last stop before our day is done. Are you ready?”

“Yay!” the chirping chicks scream in unison. “Holiday! Sun! Sea! Mountains! And yummy treats!”

At the mention of ‘treats’ I feel my belly twist, but I tell Myra to wait a moment.

I potter over to the great bird as she makes ready to dismantle her nest.

“I – uh – thanks,” I say. “Y’know, for a bird, you aren’t half bad.”

Glovera throws back her head in a cacophonous cackle.

“Ha!” she screeches. “Same to you, my dear four-legged floof! Sorry for calling you a rat. Part of the act, you understand.”

I smirk. “Pretty good act.”

She bends down to address me quietly, watching Myra out the corner of her eye.

“That girl…” she whispers with a few sharp *clicks* of her beak. “You know, she’s not one to just place her trust in anyone. And she definitely trusts you, little Lightborn. I know it as one woman of any species knows another.”

I feel my cheeks blush in the face of this monster.

…ok, maybe ‘monster’ is too harsh. Things in this world aren’t quite what they seem, after all. I’m learning, alright?

“If you’ll take the advice of an old maid like me,” the Cockatrice continues. “That kind of trust doesn’t come easy to her kind – and especially not to her. Don’t make the same mistake the previous shining light did: don’t throw her away when you don’t need her.”

I spare a look back at Myra as she watches us intently like a silent, stalwart owl fascinated by something it doesn’t understand.

“I won’t,” I reply. “Not now.”

You know something crazy? When I say it, I actually mean it. I actually make a promise to a bird of all creatures that I intend to keep.

And when she rises with a beat of her massive wings, taking her clucking little chicks with her, I walk back to Myra with a smile.

“Goodbye, Miss Myrathellon!” the children cry. “Goodbye, Mr Lightborn!”

“And good luck!” Glovera adds as she takes flight through clear, cloudless sky. “May light reign over Arwyll again!”