Violet just crossed her arms and waited, trying to keep how annoyed she was from showing.

Tani, meanwhile, just kept laughing and laughing, as if it was the funniest thing she’d seen all week. “You’re such a kobold! Bwa ha ha ha!”

“Yes, yes, laugh it up,” Violet said, tapping her foot. “Just get it out of your system now.”

Violet was grateful, truly she was. The girl had agreed to take a few hours out of her day to help her with this task, even offering to drive her up to the town for just gas money and buying her lunch. It was frankly a pretty great deal, she knew she couldn’t complain. But she still wanted to strangle the girl for laughing this much. It wasn’t that funny.

“How long until you get wings?” Tani asked.

“I don’t think I will,” Violet said, her cheeks going a little redder.

“Oh, lame. That would have been cool. At least it’ll be easier to get in the car,” Tani said, then, somehow, the grin on her lips got even wider. “Just be careful, okay? I don’t want your horns to gouge the dashboard. Hee hee.”

“I don’t have horns,” Violet said quickly.

“Are you surrrrrre?” Tani asked. If her grin got any her face might split.

Violet rolled her eyes and reached up, touching her forehead. “I don’t have-- I have horns!” she shrieked. Tiny little stumpy horns hidden in her hair. “Why do I have horns? I didn’t have horns before! Did I? Aghhhh! How did you even notice these?”

Tani burst into a fit of giggles once more and Violet just sighed. Still better than taking a cab. Barely.

“Ugh, whatever,” Violet said with a huff. “So can you just unlock the door and--”

“Oh, right, h-hold on,” Tani said with another snicker. “I grabbed something on the way here. It’s in the back seat.” She opened the back door and pulled out what looked like a, well…

“You got me a booster seat,” Violet said, her eye twitching slightly. “Did you really spend money to make a short joke?”

“No, it’s not a booster seat,” Tani said before giving a few small chuckles and snorts now. “How do you think you’ll sit with your tail?”

Violet opened her mouth to object, only to pause. She glanced back at her tail, then the seat. “I uhhh… hadn’t considered that.”

“Exactly,” Tani said before tossing it to her.

Violet stared at it. It was a booster seat, kind of. Except it was open down the middle, pushing her up but allowing her tail to slot in beneath her and then go either to the left, right or under her. “… This is so demeaning.”

“Cars aren’t made for tails,” Tani said. “You should be thankful you warned me ahead of time, otherwise you’d be trying to buckle up and jamming that thing into the cushions. Or maybe laying on your stomach in the backseat.”

Violet gave a soft groan. “Promise to never, ever, tell anyone?” Scarlet would never let her hear the end of it, she was sure.

“Only if you let me take a few pictures of you like this,” Tani said with a snicker.

“Fine, whatever,” Violet said before opening the passenger door and sliding her new seat into place. The worst part? It was oddly comfortable to sit in, once she managed to wrangle her tail into the slot. Afterwards she just gave a sigh. “You know, when they talk about the dangers of curses, none of them mention special car seats.”

“You know, all joking aside, you seem to be taking this in stride,” Tani said before sliding into the driver’s seat and starting off.

“Eh,” Violet said with a shrug. “I’ve had worse. I’ll find a local shaman or something this evening and see about having it removed. Most curses aren’t that hard to remove these days. They’re only really a nasty problem if they attract something to you.”

Tani shook her head. “Still, I don’t think most people would just put on a likely cursed necklace.”

“I didn’t THINK it was cursed,” Violet said with a huff. “I must have done the spell wrong.”

“So what’s it like?” Tani asked.

“Being a dragon? Not too bad,” Violet said with a shrug. “Though I feel more like a kobold to be honest. Scarlet insists I’m a dragon.”

“Scarlet?” Tani asked.

“Oh, right,” Violet said before glancing back. “Vampire, I’m helping her get registered. She owns the manor.”

“Ohhhhh, I was going to ask about that,” Tani said. “I mean, I was surprised. If you were living somewhere that fancy, I’d have thought you’d have a vehicle of your own. Surprised you didn’t.”

“I don’t stay most places long enough,” Violet said. “If I need one, I usually just expense a rental and charge it to whoever hired me, or take a cab. Taking a car to different countries is just too much of a hassle. Thanks for this, by the way. You didn’t have to actually take me.”

“And miss an opportunity to see lil miss dragon and have you owe me big? No way,” Tani said. “Besides, it sounded like fun and I didn’t wanna stay home all day. Boring. So come on, give a little bit more. I’ve never met a dragon, what’s it feel like?”

“Weird,” Violet said with a shrug. “I’m better than everything else, except now I just kind of know it. Except I know, logically, that’s not true. But I just know it is? If that makes sense? Also, it is SO HOT. Everywhere I go! I thought lizards were supposed to be cold blooded? I want to just rest in a pool of ice.”

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“Can you breathe fire?” Tani asked.

“Maybe? I haven’t tried,” Violet said with a shrug. “I’d rather not try. The house is nice enough from the outside, but it’s realllllllly in terrible shape. One match and I imagine the whole thing goes up.”

“Also, I don’t think dragons are cold blooded,” Tani said. “At least, not all of them. I think some live in cold places, some live in hot places. Depends on the type. Judging by the scales, I’d say you’re an arctic, probably one of the amphibious variants. It’d be hard to say the breed, though, without wings.”

Violet blinked and then just narrowed her eyes on the girl. “What?”

“Everyone needs a hobby and dragons are cool,” Tani said.

Violet just shook her head, but she couldn’t help smiling. “Good to know.”

“Though, if you’re currently living with a vampire you might want to be careful,” Tani said. “I hear dragon blood is a gourmet treat for them. Well, fresh. Apparently it was a real problem at one point and it’s one of the main reasons dragons and vampires tend to not get along well.”

“Do vampires get along well with anyone?” Violet asked.

“Well, no,” Tani said with a shrug. “I guess that’s kind of what happens when you give a bunch of jerks immortality and special powers and let them try to find other people who are just as big of jerks to give the same thing to.”

Violet gave a small nod. “Probably. Scarlet’s cool, though. Weirdo, but nice. Though that explains a lot if she’s been imagining how I taste now. Well, more than normal.”

Tani gave a light chuckle before glancing over at her again. “So how’s the seat?”

“Distressingly comfortable,” Violet said with a sigh. “I figured the hard plastic would be terrible, but I think the scales on my butt keep it from hurting. You know, if this was something by choice it wouldn’t be so bad. If I could just turn it off.”

“And not have to drive anywhere?” Tani asked.

“Yeah,” Violet said. “Who knows? Might be useful. I feel stronger and tougher.”

“You’re pretty optimistic about it, aren’t you? This why your nickname is ‘Hunter of Curses’? You go around and try to find useful ones?” Tani asked.

“Eh, some aren’t so bad,” Violet said. “Like, sure. Mummy rot is miserable. But there are a few that are just inconvenient. I had one for a bit that made it so whenever someone tried to take my picture, the photo wouldn’t develop. That could have been sold as a bonus. Most kind of fall on that range of being annoying. It’s the ones that are all murdery that I usually have issues with and those ones, at least, tend to not stick very well. They usually have such a high rebound effect on people who do them that most don’t even try.”

“You know, if you’ve been affected by so many of them, you’d think you’d be a lot better at detecting them,” Tani said in a teasing tone.

Violet’s cheeks went red and she quickly glanced out the window. “Well, I, you know, shut up. It’s hard, okay? Magic isn’t an exact science.”

“Isn’t it literally that now?” Tani asked.

“Okay, fine. it is sometimes but shush!” Violet said, her cheeks burning. “It was just a small mistake with the ritual, I’m sure.”

Tani snickered before glancing over again. “Want me to turn the AC on? The cold doesn’t bother me.”

“Yes, please, I would love you forever,” Violet said sheepishly.

“No need for that,” Tani said. “I’ll just lay claim to your first born.”

“Good luck with that,” Violet said. “I’m a lesbian.”

“First cat then,” Tani said.

“Oh, that’s evil, you’re evil,” Violet said, unable to stop herself from snickering. It might not be her idea of a great way to spend her day, but at least the company was nice enough.

------

“I’m pretty sure I’ve seen this town in a horror movie,” Tani said once the town was finally in view.

“Which one?” Violet asked.

“All of them,” Tani said.

Violet would have rolled her eyes, but honestly, she couldn’t really argue. The town looked like it had almost been abandoned. The streets were empty, the woods around the town grew up against the buildings and most windows seemed to have their blinds closed. The only business seemed to be the small gas station. She tried not to focus on how easy it might be to have two people drive to this town and just disappear, never to be seen again.

Well, except one of them was a ghoul and the other a well-armed and trained hunter. “So, where to?” Tani asked.

“Uhhhhh…” Violet took out her phone. To her surprise, she actually DID have a signal out here. “I guess go to the gas station.”

“Are you sure this is the right place?” Tani asked.

“Werewolf,” Violet said with a soft sigh. “Probably a whole town of them. Nice and isolated, not a lot of people to bother them.”

“Isolated is right,” Tani said softly. “I wouldn’t want to come here if I didn’t have to.” Slowly she pulled into the gas station. “Do you think the pumps work?”

“Maybe,” Violet said before reaching towards the door. She then stopped. “Actually, maybe you should do the talking.”

“Right, you’re all scaled now,” Tani said. “Though, if they’re werewolves that might-- HOLY SHIT!”

Violet whipped around and barely suppressed the urge to shriek when a werewolf came lumbering out of the gas station. She fumbled for her knives when it came closer and closer and--

And lightly knocked on the window. Tani blinked and slowly rolled the window down. “Yes?” she asked sheepishly.

The werewolf pointed towards the pump they had parked in front of. It had a small, white sign on it that read ‘Out of Order, please use other pump’.

“O-oh, my bad,” Tani said sheepishly before turning the car back on and pulling forward. The large werewolf then lumbered away, disappearing back into the shop and passing a man on his way out.

“Hey, sorry about that, I was busy in the back,” the man called out to them. “You here about the tour? One minute and I’ll get you filled up.”

“Tour?” Tani asked.

------

Violet just sighed. Of course. She really should have expected this. After all, in her experience most monsters and creatures of the night loved to lean into their aesthetic. Vampires loved their old castles and manors, fey loved their mysterious shops and wagons, werewolves loved old abandoned towns in the woods.

So why not turn it into a business?

She stared at the brochure. ‘Guided tours through true, authentic werewolf hunting grounds and dens’, it promised. ‘A howling good time’ and ‘A once in a lifetime experience’. Could it really count as a once in a lifetime experience if they had daily tours?

Worse, the gas station attendant had been kind enough to direct them a few miles out to the main part of the town where ‘non-were’ people usually went. It was far, far less wild and looked more like a sparkly entertainment district, it even had a restaurant with a massive wolf mascot on the front.

On the upside, she now knew where to go and, as the pair pulled into the gym, she felt more silly than ever. It seemed she was right. Ami was a wrestler, of sorts.

She wasn’t sure how much she wanted to interrupt a professional fighting werewolf at work, though. But hey, at least in a town filled with werewolves, her scales probably wouldn’t get more than a second glance.