It was the middle of the Blaze season and Aono was holding one of her slimes in her lap as she watched a young pink squirrel man clean her slime pen. Kamu had been interested enough in her slimes that she had recruited him as help and, sort of, an apprentice. Aono's finances had improved enough that she could afford that. She still had debts to deal with, but she was slowly but surely paying them off.

Not for the first time Aono wished the sky wouldn't light on fire every Blaze season as it made everything uncomfortably warm. But according to the gods it was necessary to cleanse the sky of all that had accumulated over the year.

At least lighter clothes and the seasonal changes everyone's bodies went through helped. However, some people were inevitably a bit more miserable than others. People with thick fur, for example, even with the seasonal shedding. And, it turned out, slimes.

Her body changing its configuration and thickening its membrane to better retain water could only help so much and Aono had to regularly rehydrate. She'd laid in the swallow pool the slime pen had turned into five times today so far. That pool was easily worth the fees she'd paid someone with a water class to fill her slime pens. Both for herself and for her slimes. Wild slimes usually headed for the closest water sources this time of year, but she had to keep her slimes penned. They'd wander off and get lost otherwise.

"Hey, Kamu," Aono said as the slime in her lap wiggled and she gently dropped it back into the pen.

"Yes?" Kamu responded as he finished the last corner with his purifying rake, an item Aono was glad she had been able to afford because of how much simpler it made cleaning the pen.

"Your adulthood ceremony's next month, isn't it?" Aono slid herself back into the pool. It wasn't strictly necessary, but it was nicer than being out in the sun.

"Aye." Kamu wasn't a very talkative squirrel, contrary to Aono's experience with many of his kind.

Aono rubbed her chin. "I was thinking, you're probably ready to take care of the slimes while I go on a trip."

"Ah," Kamu said. He gently leaned down and tickled a slime that had approached him.

"You know everything necessary to take care of them, you know who to find if there's trouble, and you're a responsible young man." Aono smiled as she watched the slime wiggling with delight under Kamu's fingers.

"Yes." The squirrel youngling stopped his tickling and began climbing out of the pen. "I'm putting away the rake."

Aono slumped a little more into the water. Once she'd recovered a little more water, she'd get the feed for the slimes. "I'll leave in two days, to Gods' Mistake, on a six day trip."

Kamu queried, "Staying two days then?" It was two days each way, after all.

Aono smiled. "Yeah. I'm going with Sardu and Tamu. I'll be talking with some people about expanding who I'm selling to, and they have things to do there, too. Though I suppose we'll be able to spare time for a little fun, too."

After all, those two were now her best friends. Sardu'd even resigned as a Guardian last week after a young adult metalfolk had joined. Instead, she had registered as a full-time monster hunter working out of town. So pretty much doing full-time monster patrols like she was already doing, only without the law-keeping duties.

This was so she could join Aono and Tamu's prank group. Not that they did much to warrant more than a scolding, or occasionally being made to clean up. But Sardu'd said there would have been too much of a conflict with her Guardian duties if she'd stayed as one.

"Good folks," Kamu said as he put the rake into the little shed that Aono had gotten built, not much wider than his broad shoulders.

"Yeah, that they are," Aono said with a thoughtful look.

---

While Aono was walking home, she heard the sound of the bell Ghaan wore on her tail to avoid surprising people like her grand-uncle Ghei often did. Not that Ghei gave a shit about surprising people.

Looking up in the sky, Aono watched the green carp's gentle descent and greeted her with a "Hallo!"

"Hallo," Ghaan said back, a somewhat weary tone in her voice. "You're a welcome sight after trying to talk sense into those foolish Fannies and Petans."

"Oh, dear, they at it again?" Aono said. Those two families had never gotten along, though somehow it never got further than angry words, accusations of responsibility for things like lost livestock and sick children, and the occasional fistfight. Or at least there had been no killing.

"One of the Fannies' plain crabs wandered into the Petans' pasture. Culprit was a fence broken by a tree likely blown down by the winds we had recently. But they're accusing each other of sabotage." Ghaan sighed. "I do my best, but there's only so much folly I can talk people out of. Guardians're on it now."

Aono did her best to put on a reassuring tone, saying, "Ghaan, you're a big help in general keeping things peaceful. Just some folks just won't listen."

"I try to do what I can. Sometimes it isn't enough." Ghaan's fins were noticeably drooping, the glow of her silvery eye dimming.

"You already do a lot. You've helped multiple folks see what'll make themselves happy and you've ended who knows how many conflicts before they could really get going." Now Aono was getting just a little worried. This was the most down she had seen Ghaan in a while. It seemed a bit much for failing at peacemaking between those two families. Everyone knew they were unreasonable.

"I suppose," Ghaan said, "It's just... there's only so much one fish can do."

"We all help each other," Aono patted the building next to her. "Look, this community hall wasn't built just by one hand."

Ghaan looked thoughtful. "Hmm. I see." The fish turned to look at the building. "Unification of efforts, hmm."

Aono nodded. "Exactly. You can talk with me anytime you feel like you need to."

"If only... Hmm. Thanks." Now Ghaan was simply hanging in the air, lost in thought like she sometimes got.

There was the sound of footsteps approaching then suddenly changing direction. Aono looked that direction to see Gamu, the squirrel who had made a outburst at the community meeting where Aono had revealed herself, hurrying away.

"Hey! You owe me an apology," Aono called out. It wasn't like she hadn't noticed Gamu avoiding her ever since then.

Gamu paused briefly in place. "Sorry!" He resumed walking quickly.

Running a bit after him, Aono said, "A little more than that! But you don't have to run away, it's fine. I just want a proper apology."

"Sorry I was surprised and said things and it was sudden I'm not good at handling sudden things sorry should've handled it better sorry! I'll just take the long way around!" He turned the corner and Aono just stood there bemused.

As Aono stared into the distance, she said, "Am I that scary? And look, I know people who don't like change either but they don't act like that." Aware that she was just talking to the air by now, Aono sighed.

The twinkling of Ghaan's bell approached her. "I'll have a talk with that boy later. Not now, it's not a good time for that. I'll see if I can't calm him down a little for next time," the carp said.

"I suppose," Aono said.

---

With a sigh, Aono leaned against her chair. She laid out a card of a sneering jester down upon the table in her house. "I lose this time too."

"I lose, too," Sardu said, tossing down her own jester card.

Tamu did a fancy flip of his card so that it stood just on its edge before flopping over, revealing a jester. "Guess no one wins this round."

Aono slapped the five-eyed dragon card down across the three jesters. "Monsters win this round for the third time. Gods, we've been having bad luck with this game tonight."

"It's a tough game but not usually this tough." Sardu rubbed a hand through her spiky hair.

"Different game than Last Stand?" Tamu suggested as he swept up all the piled up cards, gathering them back into the deck.

"Nah, let's just complain about the nobility or something," Aono said.

"Oh, yeah, those assnoses," Sardu threw out a thumbs-down. "This is my rating of their waste of money on impressing and fighting each other."

"Taking our taxes and pissing them away instead of using them on fixing our roads and having actual monster patrols," Tamu chipped in.

"Ah, yeah, just fiddling their time away, not doing a single thing about the Empire eyeing our nation hungrily. Not that I care if they become our masters," Aono said.

"Thing is," Sardu said with a frown, "I heard they're weirdly fanatic about their own empire. Always talking about the glory of the empire and its people."

"So they're more proud of their empire more than most people are of their own countries." Tamu shrugged. "Just makes it more fun to show them up a little."

"Thing is, from what I heard from that refugee family from the next country over that settled nearby just recently, it's weirder than that. Every single one of the Empire's folks that they sent to that family's town--the soldiers, the clerks, and such, were oddly nice and always talking about how the Empire exists for its people. Always helping and smiling while doing it. Always talking about the Azure spirit of kindness." Sardu shook her head with puzzlement.

"Huh? But they're the ones invading everyone else," Aono said.

"Putting up a good front to make themselves good?" Tamu suggested.

"There were folks in that town that could tell if something like that was happening. Those folks sworn up and down that every one of those Empire folks were sincere," Sardu said.

Aono rubbed her chin. "Maybe they just send the nice ones out like that."

"Could be." Tamu nodded thoughtfully.

"Mhm. A possible explanation," Sardu tapped the table. "Would certainly be good for establishing relationships with the freshly conquered."

It was at that moment that the town bell suddenly gave out a deep ring. Everyone froze. A second bell ring. Silence. Then another two rings in a sequence before another break, then two more.

The town bell was reserved solely for the most extreme of emergencies. There was a code where it would get rang a certain number of times depending on the nature of the emergency.

Two was the number for emergencies involving monsters.