The incessant screaming of the demented child kept me up. It warbled, unhindered by the wall, straight to me.

I couldn’t blot it out by covering my ears or by my simple and more common approach of pressing them down against my head. Nor could I cover my head with the blanket and blot it out, it wasn’t stopped by walls, a thin bit of bedsheet wouldn’t stop it.

I simply lay there next to Anna, still as a corpse, waiting to somehow fall asleep.

I didn’t know if my bedmate was still awake, she was on her side, right next to me, but facing away. We were close enough for me to feel her body heat underneath the thin sheets.

I leaned over to whisper to Anna, “Are you awake?”

I waited for a moment, hesitantly. I didn’t want to keep her awake if I could help it, but I also couldn’t get to sleep. It didn’t stop. Trying to fall asleep near this thing would be like trying to fall asleep while a dark tide was going on. An endless tide of screaming that passed through the walls, and I alone could hear. All I could do was wait for what felt like thousands of years for Anna’s reply.

When what was in truth was a few moments later, Anna turned around to face me, the sheet scrunching up between us, and I felt a massive relief. It was dark, the starlight only lighting everything with contrasts, I could barely make out her face and the other lighter colours from the darker ones, like her hair. I could barely make out her eyes from her face, but I could.

We were so close my eyes were the only source of immediate light, and it let me see a slight reflection of it in her eyes. Distorted flames reflected in her brilliant eyes, the light and the dark green contrasted in just the right way to make it look like she had glowing lichens in her eyes.

“Can’t sleep. Can you?” I asked.

“No, too many questions, my head is practically spinning. What’s keeping you up?” She whispered back.

“The thing hasn’t stopped screaming, the walls don’t stop it. Can I help answer questions?” I asked her back.

If I can at least help Anna get to bed, that would be preferable. I don’t want to keep her up, and keeping my mind off the thing while talking with her is a win-win in my book.

“Yes, I have other questions too, but mostly just about you.”

“I’ll answer, we can both give one, get one, is that ok,” I asked.

“Yes, but I asked first.” She instructed.

I nodded to her both because I was trying to get her to go for more and act a little greedy and because it was a perfectly valid way to start. Then I agreed out loud because I was feeling dense enough to try non-verbal communication in the dark, apparently.

She stayed quiet, her eyes taking a squint, the flicker of my eyes in hers narrowing slightly in the dark. I expected her to go right for my age, but like always, Anna surprised me.

“Where are you from?”

“I was born here and have never left,” I told her truthfully before continuing, “my turn… how old are you.”

“Twenty-seven,” she told me in a quick, almost practiced, reply. “You don’t act like your age, are you really as old as your status claims?”

I decided to take a page from Anna’s book and just told her, “Technically.”

It wasn’t a lie; I had just spent most of my time asleep. I was technically that old, I just didn’t feel it. She squinted at me, but I couldn’t help but smile a bit at it, even with the annoyance of the screaming. I felt right after asking Anna out like I had let go of the weight of it; it was freeing.

“What’s your level? If that’s not too much.”

“28,” she told me in a slightly sodden tone, “What would you consider your age then.”

“24, I would consider myself 24.”

I thought for a moment about what to ask.

She’s asked mostly easy questions, but I feel like I need to know…

“Does my age matter? Is it a… problem?”

“No… I just was taken off my guard, is all. You asked to court me, which was something I was hoping to happen, and then I saw the age and thought that I might have been taken for a ride. I know it doesn’t make sense, but it still worried me a bit.” She admitted, placing her hands in front of her.

I moved my hands over to hers and held them lightly, so she could remove her hands from mine, but she didn’t, she held onto my hands, feeling them, questing around to check my hand. I felt hers in return, small parts that almost held callouses but were otherwise soft. Her hands were smaller than mine, not comically small, but small enough to just fit in mine. Short nails with little in the way of tears around the edge or chips. Her fingers were flatter than mine and thinner in the forefinger, as opposed to mine, which could extend my nail into a claw.

Mine were slightly tougher, callouses like pads on my fingers, and significantly less soft than hers.

“I didn’t mean to scare you. If you’re concerned, tell me. I want to be better and be worth what you have given. Need something, you can ask. Concerned, you can ask. If I can help, I will try, and if I can’t, I will still try because trying and failing is still important. I can tell your good people, and it makes me want to be better than I am now.” I told her, “I think it’s your turn.”

“It is, and you asked two questions, so I guess I’ll ask two too. Why did you stay with me? And why court me?”

I chuckled at that. “I did it by chance, I was looking for a place to wash myself and ask for shelter and food. I came upon you by chance, but I knew you were safe because they land liked you. Then you offered me a place to stay, and I just… decided to stay. And as for why I would court you. Why would I not? I got to know you a little and found you attractive, and more than just physically, I want to be around you and know more about you.” I told her.

It had been a totally random occurrence that had grown into something far bigger. Most things were tough. Small desperate things could alter a much bigger thing if a part of them aligned.

Real life was not a fairy tale. I didn’t see Anna sitting on her porch and knew I loved her. But I supposed that was what falling in love was. It wasn’t a sudden thing, you didn’t crash into it, you fell in love.

Even if we didn’t like everything the other did, it was simply a matter of if we fell more down towards one another or farther away, and you never really knew until you fell. I liked Anna, and presumably, she liked me, and that was all there was to it. One day we would find out the answer; if we loved one another or couldn’t stand each other.

“Is that ok, or do you want to know more?” I asked.

“I want to know more, but I can wait.”

“You said before you wanted to know about me, that’s why you hosted me. But why did you say yes to courting?” I asked her. I honestly didn’t know the reason why, it’s not like I had set the mood with my speal.

“At first, I was just interested generally. I like to fix things, doing things to change a bad situation is fulfilling, and you were also mysterious, so I figured I could help. Another part was that you were bigger than me.” She paused for a moment, and her cheeks got darker.

“I don’t know why, but I’ve always been attracted to bigger, taller women… I have always been drawn to the idea of being held close, it’s… comforting somehow, and I just never really got that from anyone. You were a big strong woman that I could help, and maybe it could be more. The longer you’ve been here, the more comfortable I am, and I’m more comfortable now than I have been… well, ever. When you asked me to remove the strange wall between us, I jumped on it. The comfort and supportive feeling gave me the grounding I needed to push a little more, help a little more.” She sighed.

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Her hands let go of mine and pulled back towards herself. I could tell there was more to it, so I waited for her to tell me. “I… I feel I’m a bit contradictory. I want to care for and help people, which is supposed to be selfless. but I want to be cared for back… but that’s selfish. I feel like I go back and forth like a pendulum… By the trees, I’m helpless.” She sighed.

I could see her tension, so I reached out. I was on my side, but I could get one arm around her, pulling her in and planting a kiss on her head.

“I don’t know who put it in your head. But selflessness is a virtue. Virtue, when taken to the extreme, is a self-destructive act. Selfishness is the opposite, it is, taken to the extreme, destructive for others. Your selflessness is a good thing, but giving without any support, without taking care of yourself, is just going to hurt you. It’s not selfish to want someone to care about and support you, and it’s not a bad thing to get it.”

I could feel my shirt get a little wet, then I heard a sniffle, and I recognized rather quickly that she was crying. I shimmied my pined arm out from under me and held Anna.

“It’s all right, Anna. It will be all right.” I told her instinctively.

I held her close, as close as I could, not squeezing but holding her, my hand gliding across her back and the back of her head.

I didn’t know why Anna was crying, I didn’t know what emotional scar I had picked open. I didn’t even know if this was a good cry or a bad one if this was an emotional release or a breakdown, but my best guess was good… I hoped.

I held onto her until I felt her stop jerking, her breath returning to a more normal pattern.

I gave her some room to breathe, there was only so much air she could get when she was being held against my chest tight enough that my undershirt soaked up her tears.

“Are you… ok?” I asked her, shifting down a bit so as to look her in the eye, forehead to forehead, nose to nose.

Her eyes were more reflective, glistening in the low light of my little twin flames. I brought my hand back in front of Anna and whipped away the tears from the corners of her eyes.

She went to talk but was caught off by a sniffle. “I… I’ll be ok. I don’t even understand why I cried.”

“That’s fine. It’s your turn if you want to keep going.” I told her, cupping her cheek in one hand.

I could feel her press into my hand a little, relishing in the physical contact.

It occurred to me then that despite the fact that Anna was human, despite the countless generations between when I had gone to sleep and woken in my tomb, that Anna might have a little bit more mouse in her then made sense. She had scurried, and I knew she was a Mynes, that she was probably Aymes descendent, and so I had thought, ‘wow she’s like a mouse,’ but I hadn’t ever truly considered that there might be other things that she picked up in addition to that.

Kobolds like physicality, a pat on the head, hugs, holding hands, and sleeping next to others. Closeness was important. We liked being around others and being close. And that was universal. I was relatively low on the scale of ‘how much comforting do I need.’ Mice were more. More social, more closeness, more-more-more. Big families, lots of kids, and some mice even had slightly larger beds so they could stack up closer to one another.

Something in my head clicked with that thought. Something about feeling her lean into my hand. The smallest thing, just some pressure, but that tiny thing recontextualized quite a bit about Anna, who had been living out here alone, who had gotten very little in the way of physical affection or closeness. Who had to hide away things as simple as her status.

For a human, that might have been a normal thing. A human might be able to get away with that without problems, I had no idea. I had very little insight into a human’s state of mind, but I did have a decent understanding of how a Kobold might feel.

If Anna is like a Kobold, then I should be able to check. The head massage was one thing… maybe I could check some other things.

“Anna, can I check something?” I asked softly, thinking about what I could do to check my theory.

“Check what?” she asked, sniffling a little.

I stroked her cheek a little, “Nothing bad, nothing … inappropriate. Normal touching, if you're uncomfortable, I will stop, but I had an idea of something that you might like.”

I could feel the warmth of her skin and the movement of her muscle under her skin with my hand. I could feel the tension with the tips of her fingers. I could feel her nose through my nose, her slightly discordant breath on my face. We were close enough that I could tilt my lips and kiss her if I had the guts to do it.

But I wasn’t going to push Anna without asking, not even something as innocuous as things like petting her a little. I was about to do something that might push a boundary I didn’t know existed after all; I wanted her permission to do that.

It took her three long breaths before she answered me.

“Yes.”

That was all it took. She had given me her trust, and it was important to me not to betray that.

“Tell me how this feels, comfort wise,” I told her as I put both hands on the sides of her head and made my best impression of a lovey mouse. I had seen plenty of mice, and considering how many there were, a lot of mice comforting other mice. I applied it all, and I got good feedback.

She told me how she felt, and I moved on. Each of the ways I tried based on the mice I had met scored ‘more comfortable’ than the normal motions. There was some overlap, but only when the motions overlapped.

Anna was like a Kobold in the body of a Human. It was bizarre.

When a human had a kid with another race, when they got the trait at level 35, their kid would be half-human. Their half-human child could have kids with a human and could get traits from both parents’ races. When that kid had a kid with a human, they were generally seen as a human, they might get a trait, or a non-system-recognized thing, like scurrying or instincts. The halving of each generation would keep halving that again and again. Ayme was likely the last Half-Kobold, and yet, despite the impossibility of it, despite the fact that I doubted Anna even knew what species I was, despite everything, she had those mouse Kobold instincts close to three thousand years later.

And not just with that.

I asked Anna to pay attention to how she felt at different distances in bed. Not touching, in arms reach, close and touching and laying down on top of me.

The scurrying, the squeak she would sometimes give, like when I picked her up, the sadness of not having a kid despite the fact that she was still younger than a normal human mother. Most humans had a kid from their late thirties to fifty. Most mice had a kid before thirty, and I had seen more than one mouse get depressed at not having a kid.

I am an absolute moron. I have been treating her like a mousey human, not a human mouse. Hell’s, I’ve even imagined her as a mouse, imagined her with little ears and a nose and disregarded it because she was human. What a foolish idea.

I suppose I need to make it up to her.

I smiled a bit, moving her back to how we started, nose to nose, forehead to forehead. “You are definitely Ayme’s descendant,” I told her.

“I don’t understand, what did any of that have to do with Aymelin? How did that prove anything? What did any of that have to do with her being my ancestor?” She asked a little breathily, all hints of her tears gone from the non-stop chain of affection, not even bothering to whisper.

“Ayme was a half mouse; her mom was all mouse. And you act like one, I should have thought about it.”

“I act… like a mouse? Please explain,” she asked. She sounded a little bemused with me.

“Oh, yeh. I am Kobold, as you saw in my status, but many types of Kobolds. I am, or was, Deerfox, like a fox, but with long limbs. There were others, goats, normal foxes, and so on. There were also mouses. Ayme was half Mouse Kobold. You acted like you had instincts, but now I know you do.” I explained, a bit ham-fistedly.

“It's mice, and what makes you think that I have… mouse instincts?” she corrected, then asked guessingly.

So, I told her about what I knew about mice, how they grew up quickly, about how they liked closeness, the whole nine yards. When I was finished, there was a thoughtful quiet between us.

“Kobold,” she said it, like she was testing the feeling of the word on her tongue. “One of the first things I wondered was what you were. I thought you might have been half Beastkin. I don’t know how to feel about having instincts.” She said ponderously.

“I think it’s cute,” I told her, the idea putting a smile on my face, “bigger Kobolds like to protect smaller Kobolds. You remind me of my time, it’s nice to see a familiar thing.”

“Cute?” She said it with disappointment.

“You can be beautiful and cute,” I told her.

“No, you can’t,” she moped.

“Can too.”

“Nope.” She told me, pulling back and placing a finger on my nose.

She pushed a bit, and I craned my neck a bit.

“Yes, you can, your both right now,” I told her, smirking a bit.

She huffed, actually huffed, and retorted, “Your nose is wet.”

“Is that bad?” I only asked as a formality. We had been nose to nose for long enough that I doubted it.

She didn’t respond, deciding to pout a little instead.

“If you don’t believe you can be cute and beautiful, I will have to resort to desperate measures,” I told her.

“You can’t-” she started.

The moment she refuted, I reached out and performed my desperate measure. I started to tickle her. She started to object, but I wouldn’t hear it.

I moved to the side to get her finger off my nose, held her close while she was wiggling a bit, rotated her on top of me, and got to tickling her with both hands, each moment was accompanied by tiny spasms and twitches, she giggled a bit, uncontrollably, gasping as it went on. I kept tickling until she repented with some tears in her eyes.

“O- Okay. Yo- you can be cute and beautiful. Please stop.”

I did, and Anna fell flat, resting on me. It had taken her a while to crack, and she was obviously out of breath. I moved my hands from the tickling position to a hug, only lightly hugging her in case she decided to roll off of me, but she didn’t.

I decided to just ask a question. We had come quite some way from asking questions back and forth.

“What is a Beastkin? I understand the parts of the name, but what is a Beastkin? Never heard of them before.”

She breathlessly managed to give me my answer. “They… They’re like animal people. Stand upright, but they have fur and stuff, a snout.”

Animal people, huh? Wait a moment…

I let go and laid flat in disappointment.

“Goblins.”