If she kept her eyes shut, would the sunlight be able to fry them through her eyelids like a freshly cracked egg? Zunuha scrunched her nose as she considered the question, eyes still squeezed shut in the vain hope the sun would promptly piss off. A moment later, she surrendered.

“Fucker,” Zunuha growled, her voice hoarse. She turned back over in bed, slinging a blanket over her head. Five minutes—no, ten. Ten more minutes and she’d be ready.

Of course, now she couldn’t get back to sleep. That’d make for a shitty morning, indeed. Sometimes, Zunuha was glad to be an early bird—she could feed the goats and chickens, get the water, and all her other chores done before anyone woke up. She could train all day then. Panting, sweating, and cursing her way through stances and drills from the baking summers to the mild winters. But this was not one of those days where she was glad to be an early bird.

With a grunt, she pushed back her blanket and sat upright, scratching her chest. Through spotty vision, she stared balefully at her apartment. Not much more than a big wooden crate, really. Her closet door hung open, clothes spilling out of it like puke. Nothing fancy; that’d require more money than she’d earn in a lifetime. If her mother saw that closet, she’d have the fit of the century.

Cool air carried in the smells of the street , and Zunuha caught the murmur of people shambling past her window; The morning flush.

Her toes curled as they touched the cold floor, and she adjusted her wrinkled underwear as she ambled over to her desk. She took the letter waiting there, but found her attention on the leather sheath hanging on the wall. Worn from repeated use, covered in slashes. You couldn’t always draw the blade fast enough when a fight began, and so the scabbard had taken some wounds over time. It was a sturdy bastard though, if not a bit ugly, and while people had offered her newer and better ones, there was an inherent beauty to the wear and tear, to the chips and chinks. Old weapons had history. Experience. Hers, Telmaria, had stood the test of time for over three hundred years. At least that's what her father told her. Speaking of:

Hey, little cub, the note began.

Rozsa misses you—well, everyone does, but her most of all. She packed up her clothes, toys, a pot, and the dog, in the wagon and planned to drag it all the way to the capital. Your mother was laughing for hours. Rosza was kicking and screaming when I had to carry her back. Hells, I can only imagine how wild her plans will get when she’s your age. God have mercy on her. And me.

I hope you’re making the best of the guild, even if it doesn’t live up to the stories. Knights make a lot of money, you know. More prestige, could even get your own piece of land once you're up the ranks. They’d carve your name in the books. Imagine: Master-Commander Zunuha of the Redfolk.

The Heroes stopped mattering long ago. Honestly, I can’t tell the difference between them and the sellswords. Glorified mercenaries, both of them.

Come see your mother and sisters, they all miss you. So do I. We can’t agree on some things—God knows, a lot of things—but you are still my little cub. Even if you aren’t so little anymore.

With endless love, Daddy.

The paper fell back onto the desk, drifting in the air until it landed on her inkwell. Part of her wanted to smile, but the other wanted to crush the paper into a ball. Her daddy was frustratingly good at making it hard to choose. A question nagged at her: Did she respond this time or not? This letter was a damn sight better than a lot of his previous letters. Those had shown less concern and more anger. Much more anger. And he wondered where her supposed temper came from.

Zunuha opened her window, pulling up the shutters to reveal the alley. People were passing, some she recognized, but she ignored them in favor of taking down clothes hanging on a rack above. The last one was a dress, and since she didn’t feel like sorting through her closet, she put that one on for the day.

White bell sleeves ended above her elbows, the shirt itself a part of the dark brown vest she fastened around her waist. The laces of the vest snapped when Zunuha tried to tie them and she tossed them to the floor in a huff. Now she needed a new one; more money to spend that she didn’t have. She patted down the skirt of her dress, a dyed brown cotton that ended at her ankles. A red lock of hair fell in her face. Instinctively, she ran her hands through her curls, tipping at her shoulders like a lion’s mane.

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"Up early there, girl?" Robert greeted from the window of her crappy little shack. He was a big man, a full head taller than her. A gut hung out of his stained shirt, over his belt, and he was unknotting the laces of an even filthier apron. His thick mustache and beard hid the entire lower half of his face, obscuring his lips. Hardly mattered—you could hear the man bellowing all the way from the back of his restaurant. Rough old bastard, but he could warm when he tried.

Zunuha rested her arms on the sill and yawned. “Wish I wasn’t.”

Robert gave a snort. "You’re a real machine. I thought you'd sleep in with how late ya left last night. You didn’t need to stay.”

Zunuha waved a dismissive hand. "And leave you to clean the kitchen yourself? You’d just give me shit about it later."

"I won’t deny it. Which reminds me, you’re off for the week."

She knew this would be coming, damn it. She worked in the kitchen in Robert’s restaurant alongside apprenticeship in the Heroes’ Guild. But work at the latter could be inconsistent, and she needed a stable income. "Can’t. Rent doesn’t pay itself."

"I’ve made up my mind,” Robert got the last of the knots untied, and started tying it around his belly. “You’re a good worker. But you’d drive yourself into the grave if I let you have your way.”

"I’m fine.” She was exhausted really, but her landlord was either born a tyrant, or was related to one. That grubby bitch robbed her at every opportunity.

"And I didn't ask your permission. Pout all ya want, but you won’t be doing so in the kitchen." Robert pinched her cheek, and Zunuha glared at him. "Get a little sun while you're at it."

Zunuha swatted his hand away. "I'm dark enough. More sun'll turn me into charcoal."

"It's good for more than just your skin."

Zunuha sighed. "Well, if I get some missions soon, then I'll be getting all the sun and rain and wind I could ever ask for. You should go. You'll be late."

Robert touched her face more gently this time. Zunuha had to admit it felt nice, felt like her mother's. "Rest, you hear? I swear, girl, last night you looked like you might fall into the pot."

“You make it sound like I wouldn’t taste good!” Zunuha feigned offense, “Redwoman Stew—you’d have every fleshwitch in World East here in a heartbeat.”

Robert laughed her off, then strode away, disappeared into the city traffic. Zunuha pressed her back to the windowsill, legs giving way so that she slid onto her ass. Her bed called for her to return, the decrepit old shit. Bits of straw and chaff poked through the sheets, and her skin itched just looking at it. She needed new stuffing, and a new bedstead before long. The legs were old and it was showing, the wood had darkened months ago and it was a miracle they hadn’t yet snapped. And rent needed paying, and food needed buying, as for what was left over, well, there wasn’t often much.

What the hell was she going to do with herself for the week? Zunuha mulled it over for a moment. She hadn’t visited the guild in a while.

That had been why she came to Gransmede. A mix of wanting to escape home and making herself into the hero she’d always seen herself becoming. No tale more tired, that one. The wide-eyed country girl comes to the big city in search of a dream. Adventure, discovery, and heroism lying beyond a star speckled horizon. That was the ideal, that was the fantasy, but it wasn’t quite the reality—two years in the capital had shown her that.

Captain Mazrur and Toothless were probably around, and while it would be nice to see them, something kept her rooted to the floor. Why go back? There wouldn't be anything for her to do. Or rather, there wouldn't be anything important she could do. Assignments were either grossly unfit for a hero-in-training or disappointingly nonexistent. Less fighting bandits and monsters, more finding pets and carpentry assistance.

A toad croaked in her belly. The bakery wasn't far and the guild was around the corner from there.

No, there wasn’t a point. Zunuha closed her shutters and jumped back into bed. Robert said to get rest anyway and she could eat later. She most definitely would not visit the guild today.

And she kept telling herself that even as she hopped out of bed and grabbed her boots.