Reluctantly, I began the arduous process of extricating myself from the kids’ clutches. My reluctance did not come from a growing appreciation for the brats. They were maddening, infuriating, completely incomprehensible creatures. They were needy, clingy, selfish, annoying, and were constantly arguing with each other. I failed to understand how anyone would ever want to voluntarily conceive even one of these things. Let alone two of them.

No, it was Gery’s arrival that had served to remind me of the growing feeling of dread that had been plaguing me for most of the afternoon. I could not keep ignoring it, could not keep postponing. The longer I waited, the worse things were going to get.

The time for hiding behind the façade of a lonely little hunter girl was over. I could not keep pretending, not after waving my claws in Winter-workout’s face. Not after my disastrous talk with Rafe. I had confirmed some of these people’s suspicions. That news would travel. It was only a matter of time now before all kinds of new facts would be invented on top of it.

The longer I hid away like this, the less control I would have over the truths people chose to believe. I did not want to engage in more awkward conversations. I did not want to confront people and force answers and assurances out of them. I did not want any confrontation at all. All I really wanted were happy moments like these with Meg’s family. Yet I had set this course myself, and now I would have to deal with the consequences.

First, after excusing myself to Meg and Gery, I paid another visit to Uncle Tare. The old man was not just awake this time, but was even sitting up in his bed. He was still in obvious pain, and under the influence of some kind of medicine, but was nevertheless lively enough to talk.

He had questions for me, far too many questions. About his own health. About where I was staying. If they were feeding me properly. That it was a cruel world where little angels like me were forced to wander from town to town, doing jobs that even grown men dared not undertake. Yes, he even phrased that last one as a question, as if I would have answers to the philosophical musings dredged up by his drugged mind.

Soon I got the impression that the rumors about me, that I was a vicious, bloodthirsty monster, had not yet reached him. The blacksmith genuinely believed I was human. I could not bring myself to dissuade him of this misconception. Luckily he was still a little addled, unable to keep a train of thought or focus on a single subject for long. It helped me in dodging and dancing around the most obviously damning of questions.

Once outside again I took several long, slow, deep breaths. I did not need to breathe, but the slow, rhythmic rise and fall of my chest calmed me down anyway.

Aaaah… he called me his sweet little guardian angel.

I was not an angel, and I was not sweet, and I was most assuredly not little. But most of all, he would never call me those things again, not after he learned what I really was. I let the evening sun wash over me, welcoming the pain as I calmed myself down, welcoming the weakness and the struggle to keep my body animated.

To help steady my emotions I fed and brushed Fern, then fetched my by now mostly dry laundry. Finally unable to postpone any longer, I entered the bunkhouse, laundry in hand. The slow murmur of conversation dropped off as people struggled not to look my way. I did not let the anxiety I felt show on my face, gave the six people sitting around a table a curt but friendly nod as I passed by, and continued up the stairs.

I resisted the urge to hole up in my room. It was tempting though. I had hoped for there to be at least one person in the common room I could sort of trust. I had assumed there would be even. Getting people to trust me would be so much harder without Meg, or Gery, or – I was mad for even thinking it – even Reya.

The group of people that sat at the table downstairs was especially bad for me. It included the four that had sat there yesterday: Limn, Winter-workout Cadge, the Tempered-steel woman, and a fourth man. The other two were Moldy-leather and an unknown woman. Limn, I actively distrusted. Cadge and Moldy-leather were likely to be afraid of me. The Tempered-steel woman had been part of the ones keeping me in the river for half an hour. That only left the two unknowns, and I had trouble believing in them since they associated with Limn.

Most likely I was being highly unfair and judgemental to some of these people. Then again, I hadn’t lived this long by giving people I distrusted the benefit of the doubt.

Working my way down the stairs I settled on a new, slightly more cautious plan. I would get myself something to drink, would sit down at an empty table, and settle in for an evening of observing. I would only insert myself in a conversation if I had no other choice.

Like so many of my other plans, this one fell through mere seconds after I had made it. This was a bunkhouse, not an inn or tavern. There was no counter, no innkeeper, no tavern master, and thus no drink to be had. Sitting at a table with nothing at hand was going to be awkward.

Right. I guess I was looking for a conversation starter?

I eyed the group sitting around that one table. Their conversation had once more mostly dried up. Only the two women were desperately trying to keep it going. Everyone else was trying not to focus on me, and failing at it.

I cleared my throat to grab their attention. Obviously, there was no need to grab it. I already had it, but at least this way I would be spared all of them pretending they had not noticed me when I asked my question.

“Any one of you know where I can get some– …ale?” I asked, correcting myself at the last second. I had almost said ‘something to drink’. With so many people here convinced I was a vampire, the way I phrased certain innocuous things was unexpectedly becoming far more dangerous than I had anticipated.

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“Just knock on the door,” the one man I did not know, the one whose aroma shimmered like a frozen lake contemplating the whims of the sun, answered with surprisingly little hesitation. “Rafe or Eryn will help you out with whatever you need.”

I thanked the man and knocked on the door to procure my drink. It was the Chicken-broth woman that answered. Eryn apparently. I accepted my drink from her, after having to refuse an offer of food at least three times.

Nursing my mug I wandered towards the nearest of the two empty tables, wondering where her husband had run off to. He hadn’t been in their living quarters just now. I could not figure out how their tenancy of this place worked at all. Yesterday, Erin had appeared in charge. This afternoon, it had turned out that Rafe ran things, and Eryn had been missing. And now Eryn was serving drinks and Rafe was nowhere to be found. It was puzzling.

Knowing so little annoyed me. To survive all this I needed to know how the power structure in this town worked, yet the more I learned about it the more it felt like I was only just scratching the surface. I needed to get more insight, fast. Pulling back a chair I hesitated.

Far too often I avoided interacting with people. I made excuses for why I did it. Endless excuses. In the end, all those justifications always came down to the same thing. I did not think like them, so engaging with them was tiring. It was what made sitting down at this empty table and observing so tempting. On the other hand…

Can’t make it much worse.

Yes, it would be a shame to let the opportunity go to waste. I had already done that this afternoon with Rafe. I could not afford to make that same mistake a second time. “Mind if I join?” I asked the group of six, pulling the chair over and straddling it without waiting for a reply.

Straddling the chair might not have made the most conventional of sitting poses, and it wasn’t very ladylike, but coming over as conventional and proper was low on my priority list. Being unhindered by the chair's backrest allowed for a swift exit in case things got less than pleasant.

For now, that swift exit didn’t seem necessary. The reactions I received were a blending of shock, befuddlement, and general wariness. It was a far more dramatic response than what would usually be warranted for a stranger showing up at your table, but at least nothing overly rash or violent happened.

The most extreme reaction I received from the unknown woman seated directly to my left, with a taste of rainbows over a jagged stone sky. She swore, jumped back in obvious terror, and nearly fell out of her chair. It was very much an understandable response to my intrusion. While the others had at least sort of seen me coming, I had basically snuck up from straight behind her.

“Apologies, bit forceful there,” I excused myself to her with an apologetic wince. I wasn’t really sorry. My sudden and forced entry had been entirely intentional. I had needed it to gauge their reactions, to see who would be most frightened, and who had the highest chance of turning aggressive. Their behavior would also serve as a good starting point for my mental map of their social dynamic. I focused my initial assessment on the unknowns of the group.

The reaction of the Tempered-steel woman seated across from me was as sharp as I had expected it. The others glancing her way confirmed to me that she had some hold on this group. Despite all that, she was the last to show sympathy to the frightened Stone-sky woman next to me. That meant the two women of this group probably weren’t as close-knit as I had initially assumed.

Moldy-leather, seated to the right of me, was exactly as shocked and scared as I had expected him to be. He also became excessively fussy with Stone-sky, even more so when she recovered from her shock faster than he did. It did not take long for his fussing to set her on edge, making her forget her fear of me. These two clearly had some kind of relationship.

Compared to all the frightened reactions, the Contemplating-lake man who’d told me where I could get a drink seemed overly relaxed. His heavy brow and large ears gave him a slightly spacey look, and the way his faraway gaze only barely broke when I had sat down almost reinforced my impression of him as a dope. Almost. He was too relaxed, nearly to the point that he appeared to exist outside the power structure of this group.

“Thanks again.” I raised my mug at the Contemplating-dope and took a quick sip. I used the gesture to study him further over the rim of my mug. His fragrance betrayed that he was not as relaxed as he projected himself. Still, it was a remarkable feat of control. If my instincts were right then this man would be the key to this group.

“Yeah, no worries. Join up, I don’t mind,” the dope answered my earlier question with a smile that didn’t quite reach his eyes.

It was an invitation to stay. Perhaps not a sincere one, but an invitation nonetheless. Now, I waited to see if anyone would go against it, and if so, who. Maybe the Tempered-steel woman would. She had been awfully quiet so far, as had the long-haired snake Limn.

When no one protested to the offer to join, I scooted my chair a little closer to the table to judge reactions to that. It was an awkward maneuver and I instantly regretted it. My feet wouldn’t reach the floor so I had to get off first.

Not short.

Not!

Moldy-leather startled and hissed at Jagged-stone-sky to keep her distance from me.

She hissed right back at him in exasperation. Tired of his frightened fussing, she only moved over the bare minimum politeness would allow.

Moldy-leather really was scared of me, I decided. On the other hand, I found I needed to reevaluate my impression of the woman. Initially, she had been the most shocked of all of them, but by now she was one of the least wary people at this table.

Meanwhile, Cadge decided that having only Moldy-leather between him and me was not sufficient separation. He started scooting over to his right until he was practically sitting on the lap of the Contemplating-lake dope. Ironically, his evasion positioned him in a way that made it that much easier for me to keep an eye on him.

When Cadge encroached a little too much into the dope’s personal space, he received an annoyed elbow and a headshake. The small head gesture was the biggest display of facial expression I’d seen from the dope so far.

Cadge’s fear was another sobering contrast. Compared to how carefree he’d interacted with me earlier in the day, it was disheartening.

Reya was right. Really shouldn’t have waved my claws in his face like that.

“I am sorry for earlier,” I admitted to Cadge. “It was a retardedly unproductive way to not get you to be scared of me.”

As much as the constant stream of advice Reya had lobbed my way had annoyed me, now that I had had the time to think about it, I was forced to admit that she had a point about the way I had snapped at Cadge. Lashing out at people just because I could not tolerate them being terrified of me was not smart, especially when their fear of me was so sensible. I was just as terrified of them calling the Inquisition on me, so I should maybe put in some effort to empathize with their side.

Cadge sort of nodded at me without really looking my way. In fact, he was trying very hard to simultaneously not look my way, and not lose sight of me. That slight nod, I was certain, was more an automatic response to being addressed, than an actual acknowledgment that he had heard and understood my words.

In the absence of a more pronounced reaction from the man, an uncomfortable silence settled over the table. The Tempered-steel-blood woman used that opportunity to seize control of the conversation. “Should we?” she asked. “Not be scared of you, that is?”