I eyed the Tempered-steel woman. Instead of reacting to my intrusion on their conversation in a similar way as the others, she had cut straight to the chase, asking me if they should fear me. Curiosity and determination outlined her Tempered-steel taste when she posed me that question.

Yes, the group dynamics were unfolding much as I had suspected. The Contemplating-dope’s calm demeanor ensured group cohesion and provided a gentle, steering hand that most of these people probably weren’t even aware of.

Meanwhile, it was this Tempered-steel woman that provided the public face. Her words and actions were what people would rally behind if things got heated. And right now, the burning focus she portrayed, the set of her broad jaw, the slant of her eyebrows over her narrowed eyes, it told me she would not appreciate if I tried to deflect this question.

“Speaking as a hunter, I would consider you batshit crazy if you did not show an appropriate measure of fear for… things like me,” I admitted with a slight tilt of my head. “Speaking as a person, I would appreciate you giving me a chance anyway.”

“A surprisingly more sensible answer than I expected.” The Tempered-steel woman leaned back in her chair as she considered my answer.

“You should probably thank Reya for that. Without her council I would spend all evening sitting in that corner over there, glowering at you people.” I gave a quick nod of my head towards the table where I had taken my chair from.

“Sensible? Strangest thing to call sensible I’ve ever heard,” Moldy-leather interjected, his wrinkled frown accentuating the distrust present in his scent.

“Krav, don’t you dare start now!” The Jagged-stone-sky woman sitting to the left of me planted her hands on the table, sat up straight, and glared past me at the man sitting to the right of me.

“He’s right though. Don’t trust me but trust me? That’s a bit too easy,” the Contemplating-lake countered with his usual, gentle passivity. “No offense girl, but life doesn’t work like that.”

“Fine, so you do not trust me. What do you want me to do about it?” I offered, pulling up my shoulders. “Sit over there so you can feel a little less scared?” I jabbed a thumb over my shoulder, at one of the empty tables.

“No. You’re going to stay right here, no matter how scared some of these chickens here get,” The dope replied. “I want to get this over with, before we go to bed knowing you’ll be across the hall.”

When the Tempered-steel woman rolled her eyes at him he merely shrugged it off.

“Right.” I shrugged in turn and took another sip.

“Tyro, by the way.” The dope introduced himself to me by raising his mug and downing it in one go. “You already know Cadge, the brash chick is Ambi, and the smoldering hunk sitting next to her,” he gestured towards Limn, “is going to start by apologizing to you.”

He had introduced everyone except for Moldy-leather and the Stone-sky woman. That confirmed another suspicion of me. The group of four was together. Moldy-leather and the woman were the extras.

I turned to Limn, and to my surprise he did apologize. It was not the most spectacular of apology. All it amounted to was ‘Onar showed us things’ and ‘we were swept up in his rhetoric’. It was far too suspect. I would need to dig deeper into his excuses.

But not right this instant. I did not even point out the weaknesses in his argumentation. The atmosphere was still far too tense to ask probing questions now. There would be a time for those, later on in the evening, when they were getting ready for bed, when they had all lowered their guard and were too tired to put up much resistance. I would simply have to wait until then. Pushing for answers right now, that was far too risky.

Once again, I was forced to admit that Reya’s advice was justified. This entire situation was tense enough without me further antagonizing people. Vulnerable instead of threatening and all that. Or to put it in more strategic terms, I was playing the long game. This was just like a hunt. They were prey, scared, threatened, flighty after having sensed the circling predator. If I struck now, I would get meager pickings. However, if I waited just a little longer, their vigil would waver.

So I did not protest at the weak apology. The sooner this whole thing could move on to a normal dinnertime conversation the better. And it did. We talked. It was awkward. Neither of us trusted the other side enough to be entirely open. Even completely harmless subjects turned out to be utter disasters, like when they noticed I wasn’t eating. All of my usual platitudes did not work. I sidestepped where I could anyway. They mostly pretended not to notice I was doing it.

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At least embarrassing hunter tales still worked to ease the tension, even if that meant telling these people how I had wasted three weeks fumbling about with a mimixcoa worm infestation. It was relatable, I suppose. Everyone knows at least one person that had to deal with mimixcoa. The pests were absolutely everywhere. Besides, the tale was a nice way to paint myself as vulnerable.

Over the course of their meal, I learned that this group of four were season workers, staying at the bunkhouse. It was a small group. Usually, there were more of them. The flood had decided otherwise. Too much needed to be rebuilt for the town to support as many seasonal loggers as it usually did.

The two other people, Moldy-leather Krav and his wife Jagged-stone-sky Rue were inhabitants of this town. They had lost their house in the flood. Unlike Gery and Meg, their place had not yet been rebuilt. It was actually the last home to be rebuilt. They were only simple loggers, so the lost farms, and the people with young kids like Gery and Meg, had gotten priority.

While Krav and Rue waited on the reconstruction work to finish, they had been staying with the Dregs, not that I knew who they were supposed to be. They ate at the bunkhouse to be less of a burden on the Dregs, or something like that.

I even picked up that the person the town had sent to Rivenston in search of a doctor and a hunter, was in fact their daughter.

Less than an hour of conversation, and I was learning more about this town than in all the days prior. My strategy was working. Sort of Reya’s strategy, in a way. I tried not to think about that too much. It stung that the village healer’s words had so much of an impact on me. It stung even more that it stung at all.

The sun was creeping ever lower, and so Krav and Rue left shortly after they finished their dinner. In places like these, people often went to bed when the sun went under. That made for excellent timing. With those two gone, The four remaining people were all season loggers, outsiders to this town. I counted on them being more likely to part with the town’s secrets than its real inhabitants. With Krav and Rue gone, and with everyone’s guard sufficiently lowered, I could finally dig a little deeper into the general aura of distrust and mystery that still lingered.

Yet mere minutes after Krav and Rue had left, while the already stilted conversation was still recovering from the sudden departure of two people, we got an unexpected visitor. Even silhouetted by the orange glow of the evening sun, the wildflower girl that appeared in the doorway was instantly recognizable to me.

“Shae?” I tilted my head at the young girl bounding my way.

“Shit!” Ambi swore behind me.

I had no time for further reflections. Shae jumped, flew at me in a bounding leap, and wrapped her arms around me. Her youthful enthusiasm flung me straight off of my seat. I hooked a foot behind Cadge’s chair and gripped the tabletop. Gripped a little hard. My claws cut through my gloves and bit deep into the wood, but at least I managed to keep the both of us from crashing to the ground.

Shock and fear flared in the air. Shouts and gasps filled the common room as people startled back from Shae’s leap. I hoped it was just that. It was better than the alternative, my sudden assault on the table.

No one noticed me gouging large rents in the table, right?

I failed to convince myself with this latest attempt at self-deception. I did not even need to look at people’s faces to know they had noticed. Their scent, the accelerating heartbeats, the way they had all jumped back from the table told me more than enough.

“Shae?” I nudged the girl on top of me with an elbow and fixed her with a stare. I focused hard on keeping that stare trained on Shae’s face. It was better than looking at the loggers, better than being confronted with how they had just been reminded that yes, I really was a dangerous predator.

“Yeah?” Shae grinned at me with a mischievous glint in her eyes.

“Get off,” I scolded her. “Or I’m letting go and then we both fall.”

“I’ve got you to cushion me,” she laughed.

Fine. Have it your way.

I gave her an angry scowl, but I wasn’t really mad at her. These antics of her were probably doing more to smooth over the sudden revelation of murderously deadly claws than anything I could manage. I let go. We both crashed to the ground. There was nothing even remotely elegant or funny about it. Cadge extended a hand to help us up, then hastily retracted it and looked the other way.

Definitely saw the claws.

I crawled up by myself and glanced at the table from the corner of my eye. It was ruined, marred by deep and unsettling rents. There was no way anyone could ever again make that table look like something other than the result of a giant man-eating monster tearing through it. My glove was equally unsalvagable. I quickly hid my hand in the band of my trousers and gave everyone what I hoped was a sheepish, disarming, and above all toothless grin.

Everything’s fine. Nothing to see here. Nothing happened.

Please don’t look at the table?

Shae noticed my quick glance and subsequent hiding of my hand. Her eyes darted from the table to me, and back to the table. She winced and her heartbeat accelerated in fear. Or was that excitement?

“Oops…” she mouthed apologetically at the startled people surrounding us.

Definitely excitement.

I hid my incredulity. She was accustomed to my claws, I supposed, but even then this half-bashful, half-excited tone of mischief was out of place. Her actions had terrified all the people here. Had made me accidentally terrorize all the people here. It was convenient that she was so casual about it, putting everyone at ease through her childlike innocence and indifference, but still…