Roll for Initiative!

Jarreth gulped at the beast before him. He knew he shouldn’t have come this far into the caverns on his own, but it was no use berating himself over the choice now. He gripped his sword before him, settled into a wide stance, and stared directly up at the looming monster. It wasn’t that big. Merely twice his height. And it only had six arms. Or six legs? Jarreth couldn’t really tell. They seemed to all have hands on the end, but several were being used for standing on… And the creature’s skin probably wasn’t really made of stone or it wouldn’t be moving so easily, right?

The monster smiled. With its huge, protruding teeth, its smile wasn’t exactly comforting to Jarreth.

“Roll for initiative,” a voice called.

“What?” Jarreth blurted, his eyes flicking to the ceiling the voice seemed to come from.

The monster picked up one of the odd shaped rocks before him and gave it a toss. The rock had a lot of sides, each one with a number written on it. “Fifteen,” the creature said as the rock came to a rest. The monster then looked up at Jarreth like it expected him to do something interesting now.

Jarreth shifted. His arms were getting tired already.

The voice returned. “The human forfeits his right to roll. You go first, Hubert.”

“The human did what?” the human asked, but everyone ignored him.

“I swing my pitchfork in his direction,” the monster announced. He rolled the rock again. “Curses. Nat one.”

The ceiling laughed. “Okay. You swing your pitchfork at the human invader, but you hit the ceiling by accident. A chunk of rock breaks off and falls on your head. Roll a D8 for damages.”

“A D8? Sheesh.” The monster rolled a different rock and let out a relieved breath. “Two.” He picked up a piece of chalk and made a mark on the wall. I’m down to 20. Could have been worse.”

“Okay,” said the voice. “You’re up, human.”

“Um…”

“I assume you’re going to battle him,” said the ceiling in a leading sort of way.

Jarreth took that to mean he should be taking action. Attacking made sense, so he took a swing at the beast.

“Hey!” The monster jerked back with a hiss and stared at the line of blood that bloomed on its arm. “You swung your sword at me! What the hell, man?”

“Aren’t we battling?”

“In D&D, dude!” The monster put another few feet between them. “What kind of asshole actually swings a literal sword? Did you even bring your dice?”

“Um… No. I don’t own any dice.”

The monster gaped. “You went into a D&D dungeon without any dice? How do you expect to beat anyone without dice?”

Jarreth jiggled his sword around. “Well, I kind of thought I’d use this.”

“Dude!” The monster plopped down on its rump. “This isn’t that kind of dungeon. This is a D&D dungeon. Didn’t you see the sign at the entrance?”

“No?” Jarreth thought back to his entering the dungeon. “No signs… There was a painting of some kind of serpent.”

The monster sighed. “That was the D&D logo. You know, Dungeons and Dragons?”

“Never heard of it.” Jarreth finally allowed himself to lower his weapon. He didn’t seem to be in danger and his arms were seriously aching.

“It’s a game,” the monster explained. “It allows people to fight without getting hurt. Which is better for everyone, don’t you think? You can win without having to get buff enough to actually hold that sword properly. Or you can lose without actually dying. It’s pretty fantastic. You can take my treasure, or I can stop you, but either way, everyone gets to go home and no one has to bleed all over the place.”

“Huh…” Although he’d never heard of this, the idea was intriguing to Jarreth. It wasn’t like he enjoyed working out or having his skin pierced by things like pitchforks. And he was absolutely certain he wouldn’t enjoy dying. “And everyone abides by this?”

“Oh, yeah. If you don’t, the Dungeon Master will smite you.”

“Come again?”

The voice from the ceiling popped back in. “You play by the rules or I kill you. Since you clearly didn’t know any of this, I’m giving you a pass on hurting poor Hubert here, but if you swing that stupid blade of yours around anymore, you’ll get a lightning bolt to the chest.”

Jarreth wasn’t altogether certain the disembodied voice could summon lightning, but figured it probably wasn’t worth taking a chance on. Instead, he slid his sword into its scabbard. “Sword’s going bye-bye.”

“Good,” said the voice. “Now… We’ll pretend you rolled what just happened. How bad’s your cut, Hubert? About a point of damage or is it worse?”

“I don’t think I’ll need a bandage or anything,” Hubert responded. “So certainly not worse than a point.”

“Okay. So you lose a hit point, but so does the human.”

“Why me?” asked Jarreth.

“Because you strained a muscle. Moving on… Hubert?”

“I pick up the rock that fell on my head and try to bash him with it.” Hubert grinned and rolled a die. “Yes! Nineteen. I assume that hits?”

“Yeah, that hits. The human obviously has a low armor class. What the damage?”

“Blunt damage…” Hubert rolled a rock. “Six.”

“Nice. Human, you lose six hit points.”

“Okay. What are hit points?”

Somehow, Jarreth got the impression the disembodied voice was rolling its eyes. “Okay, we’ll say you had fifteen. Then you lost one to the strained muscle. And now six to being bashed with a rock. So you’re down to eight. You need to grab a copy of the Player’s Handbook before you come back. Now, what are you doing to do?”

“Stab my sword into his eye! The left one!” Jarreth felt clever for coming up with that.

“I don’t suppose you know your agility stat?”

“You would be right.”

The voice sighed. “Okay, well, as you can clearly see, he has tiny little eyes and the lighting in this room isn’t great and he’s a lot taller than you. So you’re pretty much going to need a nat twenty to do that, but go for it.”

Jarreth shook his head. “How? I mean, you told me not to really use my sword…”

“You roll,” said Hubert helpfully. He held out a twenty-sided die. “With this. You can borrow mine.”

“Thanks.” The die was larger than one made for a human would be, but Jarreth managed to toss it anyway. It tumbled a few times, then landed with a one pointing upwards. “One! That’s the best, right?”

Hubert gave him a pitying look as the voice asked, “Were you not paying attention earlier? Twenty is the best. One is the worst you can do. It’s so bad that you’re likely to hurt yourself failing. In fact, you just did. You rush toward Hubert, intent on spearing him in the eye, but you trip and fall onto your sword yourself. Roll for damage. Piercing with a sword is a D6.”

Jarreth rolled the die again. “Twelve.”

“That was a D20,” Hubert said. He held up a cube. “This is a D6.”

“Doesn’t matter,” said the voice. “I’ve realized he pierced his own eye instead of yours and the sword sliced right into his brain. He’s dead.”

“But!” Jarreth threw his hands up. “That’s not fair! I can’t be dead just because you said so.”

“Dude…” Hubert waved four of his hands around. “Drop it. Accept what the DM says and come back with a stronger character next time. Maybe a party. Definitely your own dice. Using your opponent's is bad luck.”

“But-”

The lightning bolt that land right next to Jarreth’s foot got him to shut up. “Okay,” he squeaked. “I’m dead. I’ll leave.”

“Great!” said the voice, suddenly sounding friendly. “There’s a cute little shop in town called Leaves of Adventure. There’s a woman there named Amanda who can sell you all the stuff you need and get you up to speed on the rules.”

“Amanda’s great,” Hubert put in. “Tell her I said hi. I’d go with you, but the townsfolk tend to freak out when we dungeon dwellers show up on Main Street. And they don’t play the game out there, so people get hurt for real. It’s pretty sad. Not to mention barbaric.”

“Right.” Jarreth nodded. “Go find Amanda at Leaves of Adventure.”

“Oh!” Hubert straightening in excitement. “And can you bring some ginger sparkle-sweet when you come back? And maybe some of those cherry sugar ropes they sell at the candy store down there?”

“I guess, sure.”

Hubert waved as Jarreth turned and left the dungeon. By the time he made it to the entrance, he had himself half convinced the whole thing had been a hallucination brought on by some kind of gas in the cavern system. But there it was, the painting on the rockface of what he now realized was a dragon twisted into an ampersand. And when he made it to town, there really was a place called Leaves of Adventure. A book in the window had the same picture as the cavern entrance and it was sitting beside a pile of wildly colored dice in a variety of shapes.

Not sure how his life had gotten to this strange spot, Jarreth nevertheless went into the shop and asked for Amanda.

The above image is by Guy Davis. More of Mr Davis's artwork is on his website at https://www.guydavisartworks.com/ 

It was offered as a prompt on my Wording Wednesday project. Other responses to the prompt may be shared on the official Wording Wednesday blog.

The Tangled Tentacles of Fate

Agata swam under a sign labeling her as a eyhnu and blinked her many eyes, wondering for the zillionth time why it was that humans have such a hard time refraining from using flash photography. It’s not like there weren’t signs next to each display at The Zoo Aquatic reminding people not to use it. The worst part, Agata believed, was that since they were taking photos from inside submarines, there’s no way a photo taken with a flash was ever going to show anything other than a burst of light. Which meant Agata was constantly being blinded by people wanting a selfie with the giant tentacle “monster” but actually taking images of them next to a blinding light instead. Some humans, Agata was left to assume, were just dimwitted.

There was a petition going around the displays, as the creatures who acted like zoo exhibits were called, to insist that the human submarines coat their windows in something that would prevent the light from passing out. None of the management really seemed on board, though. Perhaps it was time to consider a strike.

It amused Agata to imagine the angry explosion Mr Apolusa, the owner of The Zoo Aquatic, would engage in should the displays decide they were tired of performing for minimal recompense and under conditions that were deteriorating, not rapidly but certainly with great regularity. The over-use of flash photography was just one of the complaints that could be filed. There were also concerns about the quality of food provided in the cafeteria, the inefficient fuel usage of the submarines, and the long hours during which displays where expected to be in their enclosures without bathroom breaks. The last one really got to Agata, who refused to do what some of the displays did and simply pee in front of everyone.

Nursing a headache, Agata went straight to her apartment as soon as she clocked out of work, stopping just long enough along the way to pick up a fresh algae pizza for dinner. It wasn’t, she knew, the healthiest choice she could be making, but who has the energy to hunt down fish while fighting off a migraine?

Normally, Agata would put something on her screen to binge watch, but she couldn’t deal with the backlighting, so brought out the novel she was reading, a romantic comedy about an orca who fell for a guy from the wrong side of the Puget Sound, or the Eei@ieey!!ie, as it was called natively.

Sometimes Agata dreamed of living in her own romance story, even though her previous attempts had been disastrous in the extreme. And when I say disastrous, what I mean is that of her five exes, only one had survived.

It was the survivor who knocked on her door this evening. “Oh, Paulo,” she said as she beheld him floating outside. “Why today?”

He moved about half of his tentacles in a struggle to stay put against the weak current. Half the tentacles he moved were solely to counteract ones that had moved erroneously, either in the wrong direction or with too much power. Paulo had always had difficulties staying put when he was nervous, which he appeared to be now if his pale pink pallor was anything to judge by. “Why not today?”

“Because we’re two weeks into tourist season and my head is trying to split in two even without having to deal with you.”

Paulo’s two largest eyes, the ones in the center of his head, dropped in discouragement. “Oh. I’m sorry. I’ll go away.”

As he started to turn, Agata was stricken with guilt over how mean she had been. Paulo really wasn’t a bad guy. That’s why she broke up with him rather than eating him like she’d usually do with a lover she no longer wanted. “Wait,” she said. “It’s okay. Come in.”

With a weak smile, Paulo adjusted course again and managed to navigate through the door. Agata’s apartment was decorated to be as close to a cave as possible, although the walls were far too straight and served to make people a bit uncomfortable with their uncanniness. This was the first time Paulo had seen it as he hadn’t visited since she moved our of their shared place last year. He tried not to stare, but a few of his smaller eyes did anyway. The apartment was so oddly boxed-shaped, he almost couldn’t process it. It reminded him of a picture he’d seen of a human dwelling, and he was puzzled as to why anyone would try to recreate that style underwater.

Agata closed the door and shifted in the uncomfortable silence. “How have you been?”

“Um… Alright. You?”

“Fine I guess. A lot of headaches. I think I’m getting more sensitive to light.” It was a common sign of aging, so Agata moved on quickly rather than discussing it further. “Still at The Zoo, but starting to think I might look for something a little deeper.”

“Really?” The question came quickly and contained an eagerness that threw Agata off.

“Maybe…”

Paulo looped a few tentacles through the water as he settled against a rock that was probably supposed to mimic a natural formation but was really just a singular rock sticking up from a flat floor. “It’s just… I’m moving down to i!eea@. My dad wants help with the hatchery.”

“That’s cool.” Agata mentally poked herself, trying to figure out what the emotion she was feeling in response to this was. It seemed almost like disappointment that he’d be further away. That couldn’t be it though, could it? They weren’t dating anymore, weren’t even really friends. What did it matter if he moved fathoms from her?

“Is it?” he asked softly, a few of his tentacles turning toward lavender. “You don’t sound certain.”

She wasn’t. But she could hardly tell him that. Instead, she shrugged a few tentacles. “Probably the headache.”

“Yeah, probably.” Paulo looked around the room, taking in the details. Whoever had built it clearly hadn’t had eyhnus in mind. It was built for something smaller, something more content to float in the empty spaces rather than wanting to cling to rocks. And it was too warm. And the pressure was too low. And there was too much light thanks to having a window, of all the bizarre things to have. He felt certain he’d have a headache just about every day if he tried to live somewhere like it, but he also knew that Agata wouldn’t welcome comments on the matter, so said nothing.

“Say hey to your dad for me,” Agata said. “I always liked him.”

“And he liked you,” Paulo responded, allowing sadness to weave through the words. “My whole family did.” He let it go unsaid that he had as well. That he still did. That, in actual fact, he adored her completely and wanted nothing more than to whisk her down into the depths to breed a new generation of eyhnus. He was certain she didn’t want to hear it now any more than she had wanted to hear it the day she left him. “Anyway… I just wanted to say goodbye.”

Later, Agata would blame the headache for the way she had just smiled and let him go.

It was the next day before she realized that he hadn’t come to say goodbye at all, that what he had actually wanted was for her to protest his leaving.

It was the day after that before she realized she had wanted to protest, that she still did want to protest. But it was too late, wasn’t it? She’d already let him go and now she was just going to have to live with that.

It yet another day before she realized that maybe it wasn’t too late, that maybe he would still want to be with her even though she had let him go the other night. And maybe, she realized, even if it was too late, that didn’t mean she shouldn’t try. She knew, with suddenly clarity, that if she didn’t find Paulo immediately and tell him that if he was going into the abyss, then so was she, that she was going to… Well, not die. Probably. But certainly regret it for a very long time.

She decided she’d go after work. Then another flash went off and she said to herself, “Self, this is crap. I’m outta here.” Even though the day was only half over, she flipped the sign over to the side that read, “Creature not on exhibit. Try back later!” and quit The Zoo Aquatic without notice.

When Paulo’s eyes landed on her as he swam outside his cavern giving it one last look over before turning his key over the landlord, his whole body went still. “You look awfully pink,” he told her, his own body portraying a pleased deep purple hue even though he had been a shade of green that bordered on white just moments before.

Agata stared at him for a moment as her hearts raced each other to see which would explode first. “It’s not cool,” she said.

Paulo tilted his head. “What isn’t?”

“You moving.”

A small smile skirted across Paulo’s lips. “Oh, it’s not?”

“No.” Agata realized she’d been drifting closer and was now near enough to Paulo to grab a hold of some of his tentacles, so she did. “Not if you’re leaving me here.”

“Is that so?” Paulo was grinning now, his skin now so deep a purple as to be almost black. “Well, the landlord already has a new tenant lined up for this place. So are you asking me to move into your weird box?”

“No.” The answer was quiet, blending into the rush of a school of fish that passed nearby. “I’m telling you to take me with you.”

Paulo’s tentacles rubbed against Agata’s, bringing a feeling of comfort and awakening a desire that she’d nearly forgotten. “I’d never be so foolish as to disobey you, my love.”

“You would too,” Agata said, smiling herself as her color rushed from pink through to navy blue.

“Okay, I would. But not about this.”

The pair brought their foreheads to rest together, the eyhnu version of a passionate kiss.

As soon as they could pack up Agata’s belongings, they moved to the depths and found a lovely little cave that was close to, but not too close to, Paulo’s father’s cave. Paulo helped his father at the hatchery, later taking it over completely, while Agata started a small business selling items imported from the human world. Occasionally she gets a camera, and she always removes the flash.

Above image is Sea Creature And Sub by Malvy Westbrook. This and other paintings by Westbrook can be purchased on Fine Art America.

It was given as a writing prompt by my Wording Wednesday project. Other responses can be found in the comments on that site.

There's Nothing Like the Slither of Little Scales

Kumar has taken the birth of his baby sister in remarkable stride. He did ask me at one point, “Mama, why is she a snake and I’m not?” but he was satisfied with my answer that while sometimes the child of a nagi will be born in human form and later develop the ability to change into a snake, other times the child is born as a serpent and has to learn how to turn into a human.

I wish I could say my husband took Aditi’s birth as well, but he stared at her egg in horror when I birthed it, watched her hatching with pale apprehension, and has yet to pick her up. Don’t get me wrong, he’s still saying the right things. He acknowledges she’s his daughter and claims that he loves her just a much as our human-born child. But to say that he’s freaked out would be an understatement. Likewise, I’d be lying if I didn’t report that he asks me at least three times a day, “So when will she turn human?”

Back when we were still dating, I did tell Jamil that giving birth to a snake was something I could do, and that, in fact, I myself was born in serpent form. He’d made a thoughtful sound at that before declaring that I certainly looked mammal enough now. I’d laughed, because my human form has a bustline that really does make me look extremely mamaline. But in answer to my husband’s question, I can only say that our daughter will never turn human. She will develop a human form, but she will always be nagi. Just like her mother and her elder brother.

“Look, Mama!” Kumar calls from next to his sister’s terrarium. “She’s giving me nose kisses!”

Sure enough, as my son move his nose to press against the glass, my daughter raises her head to touch her face against his. My heart swells as I try not to die from the adorableness of it all.

“Tini loves me!” Kumar proclaims, the words filled with a level of happiness known only to young children. He has already nicknamed his sister, saying that “Tini” is the perfect shortening of her name because of how teeny she is. “And I love her! Can I hold her?”

Smiling, I cross the living room to Aditi’s enclosure. I’m currently in my between form, with a body that is half human and half snake, so the traveling is more of a slither than a walk. I revert to scales when I’m upset, but thankfully Kumar hasn’t asked me about that. “If you promise to be careful.”

“Of course I’ll be careful. She’s just a baby!”

Tears tease my eyes over his earnestness. He really does adore her, and doesn’t hold her scaley form against her in the slightest. What did I do to deserve such a sweet kid? Two kids so sweet, I correct as I watch how eagerly Aditi moves from my hand to her brother’s. The kids both smile up at me, although I suppose you have to be pretty familiar with snakes to recognize what one looks like when smiling.

The floor creaks behind us and I turn over my shoulder to see Jamil watching us. His expression is harder for me to read than Aditi’s. He’s definitely not joyful like she is. He looks a little less horrified than he has lately, though.

“See how good Kumar is with the baby?” I ask him. “Aren’t you proud of him?”

“Very,” comes the easily given answer. It’s easy for him to show affection for the human-looking offspring, something I try not to feel bitter about. I know he’s trying not to be a narrow minded git; it’s just that it’s apparently more challenging than he expected. “He is an excellent big brother. She’s lucky to have him.”

Kumar nods solemnly, but doesn’t look as pleased as he usually does over Jamil’s praise. He may only be four, but he’s caught on that his dad has been acting weird about the new addition to the family. “She’s a very good little sister. I’m lucky. She doesn’t even scream like Claire’s baby brother.”

Jamil’s reaction surprises me a little. “She is a good baby, isn’t she?” He moves closer, his eyes caught on where Aditi has wrapped herself around Kumar’s little arm like a decorative bracelet. He pauses next to me and meets my eyes for a moment. Whereas there’s been a distant look in his expression for days, his face is suddenly filled with affection for me. “And she’s as gorgeous as your mother. Her scales have the same coloring.”

My breath rushes in. He’s praised my scaley forms before, always seeming to accept them without fear or repulsion. I’d never have said yes to marrying him, let alone had children with him, if he couldn’t handle all aspects of me. That’s why I was so sadly surprised over his reaction to Bitini.

“I love you,” Jamil whispers, too quietly for the children to hear. “I’m sorry I’ve been an ass.”

My eyebrows go up. “Who told you?”

With a chuckle and a shake of his head, Jamil puts an arm around me. “My mum called. Demanded to know why I’d married a snake if I was afraid of baby snakes. Then compared me to my dad.”

Together, we wince. Jamil’s dad had taken one look at his infant son, packed a bag, and moved out. He always sent his child support payments on time, but otherwise would have had to try really hard to be a worse parent.

“I’m not him,” Jamil says firmly.

“No, you’re not.” I reach up and grab his hand where it rests on my shoulder. “You’d never abandon either of your children.”

He gives my fingers a squeeze before moving away. “Hey, Big Brother, can I have a turn holding Little Bit?”

Kumar grins. “Ask nicely.”

“Please?”

“Alright. But her name is Tini, not Little Bit.” Our son turns his face to address his sister. “Tini, this our dad. He’s pretty cool most of the time.”

Maybe it’s the postpartum hormones or maybe it’s all the stress of the last few weeks suddenly breaking through, but I find myself having to cover my mouth to hold back the sounds of sobs as my son gently transfers his sister to his dad. Jamil takes the child with two hands, holding her like she’s made of glass but watching her with a wonder that’s definitely tinged with love rather than horror.

Jamil holds Bitini up to his face and tenderly rubs her tiny little head with a finger. “Hey, there, pretty girl. I’m your daddy. I’m sorry I haven’t been doing a very good job of it yet, but I’m going to do better from now on.”

“Dad,” Kumar interrupts, “she doesn’t understand all of that. She’s a baby.”

“I know.” Jamil smiles and lays a kiss against our daughter’s scales. “But I think she understands that I love her.”

Even as tears continue to torrent down my cheeks and goo fills my nose, causing me to sniffle, I smile. For the first time since I realized my second child would be born in snake form, I’m confident my little family is going to be alright. Maybe even more than alright.

My son quietly hands me a box of tissues and I wrap my tail around his waist while he leans into my side.

Yeah, we’re going to be better than alright. We’re going to be amazing.

The above image is called Look Mama! and is by Raissa Figueroa, who also goes by the name Rizzyfig. You can buy a copy of it on Etsy.

It was given as a writing prompt by my Wording Wednesday project. Other responses can be found in the comments on that site.

A Promotion in Hell

As Xed Dilman walks into the office of Hellpower Company’s Chief of Personnel, Mr Zarus smiles in a way that should make at least one of Dilman's heads nervous. Normally, the head in Dilman's stomach is quick to pick up on details, but for some reason he beams back at Mr Zarus without a hint of hesitation and it's Xed's upper head, the one on his shoulders, that shoots me a nervously inquisitive look as Vice President Mr Zarus grabs Xed’s hand and gushes, “Congratulations, Dilman!”

I bite down on the tip of my tail, which I just realize I've stuck in my mouth again. It's a really bad habit that I seriously need to break. The other day I read an article that suggested putting foul tasting substances on your nails to stop biting them and I'm thinking that would probably work for tails too. I just need to think of something that won't stain my white fur.

Alerted by the volume of Mr Zarus's voice, several of the office workers appear in the doorway to see what's going on as Xed's lower head thanks Mr Zarus without seeming to wonder what he's being congratulated for. Our coworkers' eyes go to the paper our boss is waving around as they likely wonder about that as Dilman isn't exactly the strongest member of the marketing team. A few of them look at me, knowing I would have typed it up the letter, and I try not to go be anything away with my expression.

Mr Zarus moves his smile to the creatures gathered outside his office. “Everyone congratulate Dilman! He’s just been promoted to Head of Human Resources!”

“What?” goes one of Xed’s heads. “Oh, Heaven, no,” blurts the other.

Our boss narrows his eyes on Xed’s upper head. “No need to curse. Your work here has more than proved you perfect for this job.”

I hold back a whimper by sticking my tail back between my lips. That was an incredibly mean thing to say, even for a hellbeast.

“This calls for a drink!” announces Martinez, in whose opinion pretty much everything in life necessitates an alcoholic beverage. He clops a chipper hand on Dilman’s shoulder and pulls him toward the exit. “Come on, dude. First round’s on me.”

Forcing my tail from my mouth, I wrap its tip around my left horn as I watch Dilman leave. I’ll see him again, when he comes back to fill out his travel authorization. After that… Well, the last Head of Human Resources lasted a good month on earth, but she was a great deal more capable than poor Xed has ever been.

The version of me from my high school years would have been disappointed at the way I sit at my desk and quietly turn to my computer to print out the forms the widower of the last Head of Human Resources is going to need to fill out in order to claim the company sponsored life insurance payout. College me would have dipped her head in shame. Those versions of me still believed saving the world was something a lone demon could achieve if she just tried hard enough. College me would have stood up, quite possibly on the desk rather than behind it, and said it’s ridiculous that we keep sending people to die in the human world. And for what? The chance to sign a few more souls? Aren’t there enough souls in hell already? Don’t humans do a good enough job of damning themselves without interference?

Why is it, college me would have demanded at the top of her lungs, that we all take it as a given that we need to keep increasing the number of damned humans in the universe? Sure, their agony powers our energy grid, but itsn’t it about time that cheaper alternatives were explored? The humans have tech almost as good as ours these days and they’re not burning souls to power it. And Heaven is still operating, even though they have fewer souls than ever these days. Couldn’t that indicate that human ecstacy may be a more powerful energy source than agony?

Personal Assistant me agrees with college and high school me, but lost the energy to complain about it years ago. Last time I mentioned the possibility of running things off positive emotions rather than pain, my ex-girlfriend had rolled her eyes and told me to watch less human entertainment. Apparently they had a film where monsters learned that a child’s laughter was a more powerful energy source than a child’s terror. I haven’t seen this movie, but I have to wonder if it was written by someone from Hell who shares my opinion.

I take the printout, shove it in an envelope, and address it to poor Herman. It’s tempting to go ahead and print out a second copy for Dilman’s wife while I have the file open, but there’s just enough optimism in me that I don’t do it. The new job may fundamentally be a death sentence, but a million things could theoretically happen to save him. They probably won’t, but they could. In a universe of infinite possibilities, something could keep Dilman’s infant daughter from loosing her daddy before she even gets to know him.

My finger hovers in front of my screen for a moment before I close the file. I take a deep breath as I rub my horn with my tail. This job is robbing me of my sense of self… My eyes go to Mr Zarus. He sits at his desk with the empty stare of someone who has logged into a virtual reality program.

Nodding in silence, I open a new terminal and create an account at jobseekers.hell. Maybe I can’t save the underworld, but I can at least find a job that doesn’t involve cheerfully helping good-hearted demons die young.

The above image is from a text by fifteenth century Italian lawyer and bishop Jacobus de Teramo. I haven't been able to find the name of the artist.

It was given as a writing prompt by my Wording Wednesday project. Other responses can be found in the comments on that site.

Along Came a Spider and Sipped Tea Beside Her

When a person sees a picture of a spider pouring tea, most folks will assume that the tea pot is very small and the spider is “regular” size. Humans in general just don’t want to look at the image and assume the teapot is what is standard, because this would make for a spider of alarmingly large proportions. That’s what I assumed when I saw the sign outside the tea shop I just walked into.

While in school, I was told that giant spiders were impossible due to the weight of their exoskeletons. I remind myself of this while staring at the sight in front of me. Clearly, what looks like a spider with a body the size of a Great Dane must be something else. A robot maybe? But everything about the spider seems so... organic.

“It’s called Victorian Rose,” the spider says, talking about the tea she just offered me in a posh and melodic voice. I’m assuming she uses female pronouns due to the sound of her voice, but maybe that’s prejudiced of me. For all I know, the voice I’m hearing is deep for a spider. Or maybe it’s the male spiders with the high voices. It seems really inappropriate to ask. “It’s a black tea blend with bergamot, like an Earl Grey, but I’ve added rose and lavender. It’s really quite lovely.”

“Yes, please?” My mother taught me to be polite and refusal seems like it would be rude. I walked into a tea shop advertising free samples, so clearly society would expect me to accept one barring some valid reason to decline, such as an allergy to one of the ingredients. Citing the species of the person doing the pouring of the tea as a reason to decline seems tacky at best. Mama didn’t raise me to be tacky.

The spider makes a brief, happy-sounding hum as she pours. “It’s probably my favorite of our black teas. I’m a sucker for roses.”

I nod. It’s possible that I’m terrified. That would explain the complete numbness that’s wrapped itself around me. “Yes. Rose petals are very nice in teas.”

“My name is Jan,” the spider says conversationally as she holds out a delicate porcelain tea cup from which emits an aroma I must admit is rather appealing. For a moment, I think that the name confirms this is a female spider, but then I remember that the name Jan can be given to boys in some parts of the world. The human world. Our rules may not apply to giant spiders anyway.

Under the theory that running away from scary things is seldom the best option, I take the tea cup rather than fleeing in terror and give it a long sniff. As promised, there are notes of rose, lavender, and bergamot. If it was being offered to me by anyone other than a gigantic arachnid, I’d be really excited about it rather than somewhat ambivalent. Is that racist of me? It may be. Best to sip the tea before it becomes obvious that I’m nervous about drinking it. Jan lifts a second cup from a nearby shelf and pours herself a cup, which she begins to drink while I’m still pretending to take in the scent.

My first sip is small, but that probably doesn’t seem odd. Most people take small tastes of hot things, yes? The taste matches the aroma well. It’s floral and a little dainty, with an unexpected hint of smoke. “Is there lapsang souchong in the blend?” I ask, suddenly more intrigued than uneasy.

“Good job!” Jan claps with two of the hands that aren’t busy either holding the tea or keeping her upright. It’s more than a bit disconcerting, but holds a slight hint of silliness that helps me relax a little more. “I was inspired by the idea of Victorian London. You know that fog they were famous for was smoke, right? So I thought surely I needed a spark of smokiness!”

“Make sense,” I say. “And it works really well.”

“If you like smoky teas, you might also like our Witches’ Pyre blend. It’s both woodsy and smoky. Some people say its name is in bad taste, of course, but as I was cursed to this form by a witch, I’m actually more okay than I probably should be with the idea of burning them.”

“Oh.” I’m really not sure what one is supposed to say to a declaration like that. “Woodsy and smoky sounds good.”

She nods, which moves most of her body. “We used to call it Campfire, back in the precurse days.”

With a small sound to indicate that I’d heard her, I struggle to decide if I want to ask about the curse. She kind of seems to want me to. I shift my weight as I hold the tea cup with both hands and take another sip.

“If you’re wondering what I did to be cursed, it wasn’t anything bad,” Jan says. “All I said was that I could really use some extra hands. I think the witch might actually have thought she was doing me a favor.”

“Wow.” I blink. “Yeah, I’ve said that loads of time, but I didn’t mean that I wanted to be a spider. I just meant that sometimes it’s hard to juggle stuff.”

“I know, right? Some people just take things way too literally, I suppose.”

“Seems that way.”

As the last of the tea slips down my throat, I finally motivate myself to look around the shop. It looks like a perfectly normal tea shop with shelves of jars lining the walls along with the occasional display of a tea pot, cups, or infuser. I’ve been in dozens like it, although never before have I a met a shopkeeper with eight arms. “I suppose it could have been worse,” I say.

“How so?”

“She could have made you an octopus. Then you’d have to live in water and wouldn’t be able to make tea.”

A loud clicking fills the room. I think it’s a laugh, because when Jan speaks again, she sounds amused. “I’ve never looked at it like that. I guess you’re right.”

Behind me, the door opens. Someone lets out a scream and I hear feet running before the door closes again.

Jan sighs. “That happens so often. I usually don’t man the floor for that very reason. But one of my sales team just quit and no one else could fill the shift.”

“Really?” I smile. “Not to show joy at your misfortune, but my son just started school and I’ve been thinking I’d like a parttime job.”

Without eyelids, it’s impossible for Jan’s eyes to widen. They do seem to get brighter though. “I can start you at fifteen an hour. When can you start?”

I glance at my watch. “I have four hours before I have to be home…”

Above image is by Rose Tursi. I couldn't find this work on her website (it was on Pintrest) but you can get other things by her at www.tursiart.com

The image was offered as a prompt by my Wording Wednesday Project. You can find the post and some other responses to it at https://wordingwednesday.blogspot.com/2019/10/s3w2-and-creature-is-spider.html

Cafe All Souls at 6:36 AM

Marsh knows Sheelia wants him to ask about her trip to Hawaii. The hat on her pretty green head proclaims as much. (Well, actually, it says, “Aloha,” but that’s a clear introduction to conversation about the vacation.) He’s determined not to do it though, because talking about Sheelia’s trip would mean talking about Dylan.

It would be easy to dismiss Marsh’s dislike of Dylan as jealousy, but it isn’t. When the shaggy red guy claims that Sheelia is like a sister to him, he’s actually telling the truth. But Dylan has always rubbed Marsh wrong. And it’s not hard to see why. I mean, really, what kind of monster takes his girlfriend to Hawaii? The furless kind, that’s who. The kind who never stops to think that maybe a tropical climate isn’t the best place for someone who walks around covered in thick hair to vacation and that maybe she would be happier with a trip to Iceland. Because with Dylan, everything is always about what’s best for him personally, and Sheelia’s just along for the ride.

Of course, if Marsh said any of this, Sheelia would tell him he’s being unfair. Dylan’s not just furless; he’s a reptile. That he manages to survive winters in Minnesota is amazing and one can hardly expect him to to travel to places just as bad for his circulation.

So the pair sit looking out the window of Cafe All Souls sipping their drinks in silence as they watch the falling snow.

Belmont and Jinx sit under them in the lower level of the cafe, likewise quiet. If they were talking, there would be discussion of Jinx’s date last night, which Belmont knows she wants to talk about. He doesn’t though. You see, when he tells you Jinx is like a sister to him, he’s lying about it. But unfortunately for him, she classed him as family months ago, which is like years when you’re a mouse.

So both pairs sit with much to talk about but no words spoken. And I, their faithful server, keep the drinks flowing and stick my nose into the business of neither mice nor monsters.

Above artwork is "Warm and Fuzzy" by Mateo Dineen. This piece and others can be seen on the artist's website at https://www.mateo-art.com/ .

It was given as a prompt by Wording Wednesday. You can find the original post and other writer's responses at https://wordingwednesday.blogspot.com/2019/09/s3w1-creature-is-warm-and-fuzzy-monster.html

Coney Island Adventure

There’s a roller coaster in Coney Island called Thunderbolt, but everyone knows it’s not the real Thunderbolt. The real Thunderbolt, a loopless wooden structure, was destroyed in the 1980’s by a government that sited public safety concerns. I’m kinda like that second Thunderbolt, except I’m named after my grandfather and not an old ride. I’m called Skarroan, but even I don’t think of myself as the _real_ Skarroan. And like the second Thunderbolt, I’m much more daring than the older version. My grandfather would never have dreamt of leaving our ghetto and making his way to Brooklyn just so that he could steal hot dogs from the original Famous Nathan’s and climb on a bunch of amusement rides. No, the real Skarroan lived his life as he was told, keeping out of the human’s sight and thus their minds.

I did go to Brooklyn though, one afternoon in my fifteenth year of life. All it took was an invisibility potion and a subway train. And isn’t that amazing? I didn’t even have to change trains to get from the borders of my limited little world to a land of amazement and hope. Once upon a time, when people would sail into New York harbor on their journey to this country, they saw Coney Island before they saw the Statue of Liberty. Coney Island was where the welcome to America sign belonged.

I wonder sometimes whether the people on those boats were really as welcome as the textbooks would have us believe. Of course, none of them looked anything like me, and maybe that helped. My kind came later, seeping in through cracks in the universe to find ourselves in a world that didn’t even believe we existed. “Go back!” the humans screamed. “We can’t,” my great-grandparents explained. Even if the portals worked both ways, which they don’t, the world my forefathers fled from would have killed them if they’d gone back. The fact that no one has come through in nearly a century backs up the claim that the world they knew was dying, as do the stories of the last people through.

The Merreller couldn’t return from whence we’d came, so the humans reluctantly let us stay. They put a lot of rules into place, cordoned us off our own neighborhoods, and tried to forget we were there. And my ancestors had to go along with it, because what choice did they have? It was that or fight the humans, become the monsters they labeled us. The taking of intelligent life is a sin to my people, the way it apparently isn’t to humans despite their holy books saying otherwise. We’re vegan, for crying out loud; we’re not going to start a war.

Now, the astute amongst you have probably noticed that I claimed both that I’m vegan and that I went to Coney Island in part to steal hot dogs, presumably to eat. And both things are true. I only knew two things about hot dogs going into that day: they get eaten in mass quantities in a widely publicized eating contest, and they aren’t actually made from dogs. It was only once I was at Famous Nathan’s that I realized hot dogs are made from a different animal, a cow. Appalled, I left without taking any, so I still haven’t ever had a hot dog.

Nathan’s was a disappointment, but I still had the rides to look forward to. Except… I didn’t. What I actually had to look forward to where a collection of little signs informing me that the attractions were closed until April. This explained why there were so few humans around, I supposed, but was a bit of a downer.

Coney Island wasn’t living up to my wild expectations, but I still had plenty of time left on my invisibility potion, so I jumped a gate to get onto the subway and rode to Times Square. It was crowded there under the dazzling array of lights and I worried about people bumping into me. But they never did… After a few dozen humans redirected themselves to avoid hitting me, I realized they must have known I was there.

I walked up to a group waiting for the light to change so they could cross the street. “Excuse me,” I said to one of them, a female with a fluffy white coat that reminded me a bit of my Aunt Migardi.

She looked straight at me and as she responded, “Yes?”

“Um… So, you know I’m here?”

Based on the human dramas I watch on TV, her squint meant that she was confused by the question. “Yeah.”

“And you aren’t upset?”

“No. Should I be?”

“Well… My kind… It’s illegal for me to be here.”

She shrugged. “You’re not hurting anyone.” And that’s all she said because the instant the light switched, she joined the herd migration across the street.

I smiled as the human left me, and even though everyone around me saw and undoubtedly noticed the big, pointy teeth that supposedly terrified humans, no one screamed or yelled or acted like they were having a heart attack.

On the way home, I told all of this to a man on the subway. He chuckled. “It’s New York,” he said, as though that explained everything.

Needless to say, that was not my last trip out of the ghetto.

Image prompt is Coney Island Dreams by Subway Doodle. It was offered as a prompt on my MeWe Wording Wednesday group.

The Merbeast's Pain

I always visit Chinrar last, and would even if the merbeast wasn’t my favorite of the beasts in my care. He lives in a saltwater lake, so visiting him involves, at minimum, getting briney water on my dress and at worst ends with me covered in mud. The condition of my dress is important because a lot of the creatures in the Miac Mountain Preserve refuse to acknowledge me as a Caretaker if I’m not in pristine white. Since it’s my status as a Caretaker that calms the nervous enough to be seen and keeps the more aggressive from eating me, it’s pretty important that I maintain my qualification.

If I could change one thing about my job, it would be the dress. What sort of lunatic thought white skirts would be a suitable uniform for traipsing through the wilderness? I mean, yeah, okay, the original Caretakers were also priestesses, but they were clearly doing more than praying. If only the Preserve had been founded by a group of rangers instead of a temple!

This week as I approach the jut of rock where I usually meet Chinrar, I notice something wrong. He rests on the outcrop, his breathing sallow. When I meet his gaze, I can almost feel the pain in them. The wind that ruffles the fur on his dog-like upper half and the waves lapping against his scaley lower half mask his distressed whimpers until I’m very close, but as soon as I hear them my heart starts to race with the knowledge that I’m very much needed here.

I rush forward, sparing just enough thought to where my steps are going to keep from losing my footing. With soothing sushing sounds, I approach and kneel in front of the magnificent being. “You poor thing. What happened?”

He doesn’t answer, of course. While some of the creatures here are capable of human speech, he is not. But he moves against the hand I hold out to his snout.

His face looks fine, as do his forepaws, but when my visual examination drops to his lower half, I see a patch of missing scales. Oh, no. Not loose scale. Not Chinrar.

My magic rises inside of me, begging to be released. But magic can’t cure loose scale. The best it can do is ease the pain of it. “Please Goddess,” I pray quietly, “don’t let it be loose scale.”

Loose scale strikes fast and hard, prying scales off subjected animals at a rate of a few a day. Chinrar’s scales are where his magic is stored, and without them he’ll die. From the looks of things, if this is loose scale, it struck right after I saw him last.

Chinrar pulls himself further onto the rocks, allowing me to move down to the missing the scales. My blood chills as I take in the picture presented. With loose scale, scales separate quietly, leaving no blood. Right now, I’m looking at scabs. That means it isn’t loose scale, and I’m relieved about that. But it also means that something pried these scales off, which I’m not so happy about.

Pressing my hand against Chinrar’s side, I let my magic seap out into the wounds. “Of course you hurt,” I say gently. “I’d hurt too if someone ripped parts off me.” The closest a human has to the connections of scales would be the beds of our nails. I tore off a nail in a climbing incident once and that hurt like hell, and from the looks of things, Chinrar is down several dozen scales.

Chinrar begins to purr as the healing takes place. He’ll never grow the scales back, but at least he’s going to be spared the pain of healing and free from possible infections.

We have poachers though. I’m certain the only reason they didn’t kill poor Chinrar is because for the scales to retain their magic, and thus their value on the black market, they have to belong to something still living.

I finish healing my friend and then use the communication spell on the ring I wear on my left hand to inform the station of what happened. My boss isn’t happy with the report, but thanks me for telling her and says I can take some time to comfort Chinrar before coming back in. Sitting with the merbeast, I consider what to do next. It’s not my call, but I want to have a plan to suggest... The scabbing I observed means that the scales were stolen at least a day ago, so the people responsible are likely long gone. The sort of masking spell that would keep them from alerting me and my sister Caretakers to their presence wouldn’t be able to last more than three hours at tops. They would have needed to come straight here, knock Chinrar out somehow, and take their plunder as quickly as possible to get out again before we sensed them. They’ll be back, though, if not for more of Chinrar’s scales, then for a phoenix feather or a sphinx tooth.

I stroke Chinrar’s fur, thinking about how I’m going to trap and kill the people who hurt him.

The merbeast raises his head, interrupting my thoughts. He pulls back with a growl, then leaps over me. And a blast of magic slams into him, knocking him senseless.

As Chinrar collapses to the ground, I roll behind his body. The cursing I hear makes my breath catch and lights a fire of anger in my chest, because I recognize the voice behind it. Manilla. My direct superior and the only person I’ve told about Chinrar’s injury. She knocked him out, but was aiming for me. And magic strong enough to knock Chinrar out would have killed me.

I press into Chinrar’s side and summon the opposite magic to the healing I used earlier, letting it sizzle on my fingertips as I wait to be able to unleash it. My mind scrambles to catch up with events, to figure out why Manilla is here attacking me. “The poachers didn’t mask themselves, did they?” I call out. “You knew they were here. You let them in. Or...” Bile rises in the back of my throat. “Was it just you? Have you been hurting our wards?”

When Manilla speaks, her voice comes from closer than the cursing did. “It’s so easy to be righteous when you don’t know what it’s like to know your family is starving. My sister died from the famine. Her kids are next unless I do something, and the Goddess knows they don’t pay us enough for me to save them without finding something to sell. Do you really think a handful of scales are more important than the lives of children?”

“You took an oath,” I call back, shifting into a crouch that I hope will make me more able to react should Manilla come into sight. “We’re Caretakers! We exist to make sure people don’t hurt these animals.”

“I took an oath to defend life,” she says. It sounds like she’s still moving, still getting closer. Chinrar lets out a snore, a sign that he’s not going to spring into action to help out. “Those kids? They’re just as alive as the creatures here, and just as deserving of staying that way.” Her voice catches. “So was my sister.”

Her pain is honest, I can tell that from the suffering in her voice. But hurting our charges won’t bring her sister back, and there are better ways of taking care of the children. I’m pretty sure saying so won’t make an impression on her, though, so I stay silent as I try to figure out a way to get out the situation without ending up dead. My skirts are bothering me, so when Manilla starts to cry and I can tell she’s not approaching right now, I yank the dress off and crouch in only a bra and panties. It will be somewhat less dignified to die this way, but maybe it will help me avoid dying at all.

“You don’t understand!” Manilla sobs. “You’re an only child with no children of her own! You can’t say what you’d do for them!”

“You’re right!” Maybe if I act sympathetic, I can get close enough to hurt her without being hurt myself. “It can’t be easy to know that kids you care about are hurting.”

“It isn’t!”

I lick my lips. Will she buy it if I offer to help her? Only one way to know… “I think I would do what you did. I don’t blame you. You’re just being a good aunt.”

She lets out a caustic laugh. “Nice try. You’re hoping I’ll let you live if you pretend you won’t turn me in.”

“I guess I should have taken drama as a kid.” What I took instead might have been better though, because it’s my gymnastics training that lets me leap up over Chinrar with a mid-air flip and twist that causes the spell Manilla throws at me to miss. I let go of my own magic even as I stick the landing.

Tears form in my eyes as I look down at Manilla’s form. Breaking an oath like ours, an oath backed by magic, comes with a price. I suspect hers came in the form of impaired thinking and loss of rationality or surely she would have pretended to investigate rather than try to kill me for realizing something was wrong. Maybe she’s been taking things for a while now and it was the impaired thinking that led her to take enough scales that I could know there was a problem; if she’d only taken a few, or taken them from different places, would I have noticed and put the pieces together?

Crouching, I put my hand against Manilla’s throat. The pulse is faint, but there, telling me I judged my magic correctly and she’ll wake up in an hour or so.

After I pull my silly dress back on, I activate my com-ring again, call both the police and my mother, and then sit down to wait for the authorities to take my former boss to jail. I stroke Chinrar’s fur as he sleeps, keeping an eye on Manilla just in case she stirs early, and I ponder ways to raise money for the famine victims without hurting my charges. Because although what she did was wrong, Manilla was right about something; we are sworn to protect life.

Featured image is Strength, by Meredith Dillman. Prints can be ordered from her store here.

It was featured as a prompt in my Wording Wednesday group on MeWe.

What the Cats Saw

Ship’s cats are very important, although, perhaps, somewhat less important than they think they are. Sir Night the Knight and Her Ladyship Snow are from the same litter and I’ve sailed with them for their entire lives. Their mum, Queen of the Storm, is a tuxedo, equal parts black and white, but it struck me as an odd omen when one was born pure white and the other unadulterated black. I just never figured out what it was an omen of.

Tonight they’ve left the ship and are exploring the dock. I watch them as I sip a bit of rum, that beloved standard of seafaring folk. The vessel beside us appears to be hosting a party. A band plays on deck, their songs just loud enough for me to make out the words, and a steady string of persons have come and gone over the last few hours, but I’m not drunk enough to consider joining them. I am, after all, on watch, all that stands between The Duchess of the Swift Winds and those who would try to plunder her hulls. She’s riding high, and normally that would indicate she’s low on cargo, but she just pulled in from the Zekly Isles, so what it actually implies is that her hull is full, just not of mundane items. You’d think with all the spells and enchantments onboard, Captain Bladebearer could have spared a guardian charm, but it’s not my job to question her any more than it’s my job to get keelhauled.

Thinking of the Captain, I tuck my flask into my belt. She doesn’t mind a little drinking on the job, but she’ll have my liver cut out if she catches me inebriated. Would probably feed it to the cats, too.

Thinking of my feline crewmates, I look away from the party goers and back to them. There’s something odd in the way the cats move, something suspicious. Snow keeps looking out at the harbor, like she’s tracking someone approaching. But there’s nothing out there; the night is clear enough and the moon bright enough that I’d see if there were.

Night looks back at me and even though I couldn’t possibly hear a snort over the distance, I could swear I hear him snort at me. It’s derisive, a dismissive sort of sound, and if I didn’t know any better I’d tell you he accompanied it with a sneer.

I look away from the cats, looking toward town. There’s a tavern near the end of the dock, and most of the crew is there now, drinking and feasting and spending the money they promised to send home to their families. Just not me. Luck of the short straw. And not the Captain, who never sets foot in Chepton Province. It’s inconvenient since the most profitable ports in the kingdom are here, but we all have our peculiarities, and since her wife is our second-in-command, she can be trusted to act in the Captain’s favor.

A hiss draws my attention back to the cats. Both stare at a point in the water a few measures away. I roll my eyes and plan on looking away again, but as I start, my attention catches on ripples in the water. It looks just like a ship drawing into dock.

“Captain!” I call.

“It’s alright,” she says from just behind me. How she snuck up without me noticing, I couldn’t say. She’s stealthy like that; always has been. “They’re not here for us.”

“They?” I ask dimly.

The captain hands me a pair of far-seer lenses. “Just some friends I made in the Zeklies.” She puts her hands on the rail and leans over. “Snow! Night! It’s alright! Get back here!”

And they come, because the cats always do as the Captain says, same as the rest of us.

Trembling before I even get the glasses to my closed eyes, I assure myself that if the Captain says I’m safe, then I’m safe. I get the lenses in place and force my eyes open. Then it’s all I can do to keep from dropping what I’m certain is a very expensive pair of glasses into the water. They’re not farseers; nothing is bigger than it would be to the naked eye. But they show things I couldn’t see before. “What are they?” I whisper as monsters the likes of which I can’t even describe begin to pour off their boat and onto the dock.

The Captain laughs. “LIke I said, they’re friends of mine.”

The glasses drop to my side as I turn to stare at her. How does one make friends with nightmares? I don’t ask.

The Captain smiles as the cats make it on board. She reaches down to pet them in turn, then turns to lead them to her cabin.

“Captain!” I call.

She pauses, turns. “Yes?”

“What about the crew?”

Her head tilts to the side. “What about them?”

I swallow. “Are your friends their friends?”

She laughs. “You think I’d sacrifice my crew?”

I shiver. I would never have had such a thought before, but watching her nonchalance as these creatures invite themselves onto the ship beside us and begin to do things to make the partygoers scream in terror, I’m not so sure. “Of course not.”

Her sigh tells me she’s disappointed in the answer. “Any who are loyal to me will be spared.”

Her eyes lock with mine. “Anyone merely pretending to be will not.”

My mouth is dry, but I send my tongue to flick across my lips in an attempt to moisten them anyway. “Noted, sir.”

The Captain shakes her head, but she’s smiling. “I’m messing with you, Galeborn. They’re here for Kambert’s people and only Kambert’s people.”

Kambert, the governor of the provence. Known for corruption, malice, and violent acts against women. There’s been some speculation amongst the crew that the Captain knows him, but no one has any idea how.

“Why?” I hear myself ask, even knowing I should mind my own business.

The captain’s smile turns cold. “Because it’s high time my father paid for his deeds. Him and everyone who’s helped him stay in power.”

Her father… I look down the dock at the party ship. It’s quieting down over there already, but I see several people staggering away. Pulling the glasses back to my face, I see the monsters are still there, but they’re letting most folks through.

“The monsters are harmless,” the Captain says. “To anyone who isn’t a monster themselves.”

I hand the glasses back to her and pull out my flask. “Permission to drink, sir?”

She nods. “Go ahead.” And with a weary glance toward land, she retreats to her quarters with the cats.

There isn’t enough rum in the world to make all of this seem normal or good, but if a tenth of the things I’ve heard about Kambert are true, he deserves everything that’s coming to him. And, yes, the province is going to be launched into anarchy, but maybe that’s a reasonable price to pay for allowing monsters to hold power.

I lean against the rail and feel a brushing against my leg. Looking down, I see Queen of the Storm regarding me with large yellow eyes. And despite everything, I smile as she jumps onto the rail beside me and meows for attention. I scratch behind her ears and things seems just a little less awful. Yes, ships cats are very important things.

----

Image is The Cats' Rendezvous by Manet.

If you are on the social network MeWe, I invite you to join my writing prompt group Wording Wednesday. This was our first prompt, so I was very happy when the random word generator included "cat" in the list of things to put into image search.