“You will? Oh thank you, thank you, thank you!” Shae jumped me in glee the second I told her I was going to both heal her uncle and take care of the monster that had attacked him. I endured a couple of seconds of this before firmly putting her back on her own two feet.

“No more hugging.” I gave her what I thought passed for a mildly stern expression. I was done with hugging, and I hoped I could keep being done with it for more than five minutes now.

The disheveled girl shifted her weight from foot to foot, almost as if she wasn’t sure what to do with herself now that she wasn’t hugging someone. It was exhausting, and oh so different from the wide-eyed curious little thing I’d met six months ago.

“Are you going right now or...” she eventually offered, eyes trained on my face.

“No,” I admitted, looking at her feet, “I’ll go and take a look tonight.”

Her description of the monster was beyond vague. I had some ideas, but not enough to go on. I’d first need to do some careful scouting to figure out what I was facing. Even something as basic as that I wasn’t going to do in the light of day. Anything capable of wounding a grown man in the way Shae had described was dangerous, and I remained pitifully weak in the sun.

“Oh…” her shoulders slumped.

Oh indeed. I’ll really need to stay for dinner now. Shae’s dad…
Sooo not looking forward to this.

It appeared I was stringing along these bad decisions at a record pace. There had been a clean way to avoid encountering Shae’s dad, and I had missed it. I should have told her I was going to check right now. No one needed to know I would only really do it in the middle of the night. I could even have gone to check up on uncle Tare first.

What if Shae’s dad shared his suspicions with the other villagers?

He totally would have. No sane person kept those kinds of things to themselves. Checking up on uncle Tare would mean encountering those other villagers. Already one half of my promise was turning into a horrifyingly dangerous situation for me.

Aaah… how did I get myself into this mess?
And how am I going to get myself out of it?

I supposed that theoretically, I could still run away... but after the kind of promise I’d just made…

I really can’t…
Not just yet at least.

“You going to help me with dinner then?” Shae asked from the door to the kitchen.

“Um... sure?” I answered while I struggled to get my thoughts aligned with the sudden change in subject. Only after my answer did I realize what I had agreed to. I did not know how to cook and most certainly wouldn’t be joining them for dinner. I followed her into the kitchen anyway.

“Could you just…” Shae started directing me, halting mid-sentence to look me over with a questioning frown. “Um… are you going to keep wearing all of that?”

Right. I was still in my full riding outfit. Cloak, gambeson, boots, gloves, the works. It was honestly a bit excessive in this kind of weather. No one ever questioned it after I told them I was a monster hunter and this was for protection. They didn’t need to know I was protecting myself from exposure to the sun more than anything else.

I studied my outfit, trying to figure out how much I should take off. There was probably some kind of etiquette surrounding this, which I would know if I ever entered other people’s houses. Lacking said common sense I merely draped my cloak over the first chair I found and returned to the kitchen. What was acceptable in taverns would just have to be acceptable here as well.

“Just do the vegetables while I take care of the chicken,” Shae gestured while handing me some kind of knife.

I eyed the pile of vegetables, then the knife, then the vegetables again. I thought they were beets. Maybe. Hopefully.

Do the vegetables?
Do what to the vegetables?

She handed me a knife so I probably need to cut or peel them or something?
Then maybe... cook them?

I don’t know how to cook!

Thankfully it did not take long for Shae to notice just how lost I was. She took back the knife and demonstrated what I should do. “Good, and now it’s your turn.” She motioned me over.

I reached for the knife she was still holding. Instead of handing it over she held it further out of my reach and fixed me with a stern gaze. “Take off those gloves. Those can’t be convenient.”

I eyed her with suspicion. Here was yet another new side of her I didn’t know of. Stern, with deliberate intent. Somewhere along the way she’d even wiped her eyes and fixed the unkempt mess that her hair had become. It wouldn’t work on me though.

“I’m good,” I stated. I was not taking off my gloves. I never took them off around people. Not even when no one was around if I could help it. You never knew, maybe someone would pop up out of seemingly nowhere. Yet when I reached for the knife again it was Shae who held my shoulders. At times like these, I hated being this short.

“Vale.” Shae started kneading my shoulders. “I can see you like to hide, I really can. But I’ve seen you half-naked. There’s nothing you need to hide from me.”

It was frustrating. From the gentle kneading of my shoulders to the compassion in her voice, she was better at this than I was. I was supposed to be the adult, yet she was making my earlier attempts at consoling her look like the amateur work they were.

She’s eleven. Eleven!
Where has she learned this?
How many talks like this did her dad have with her?

The worst part was that I knew what she was attempting. It was that strange distance that loomed over our relationship now. She was trying to clear it, trying to make me feel at ease, make me feel comfortable about being myself around her. It might even have worked earlier. But now that I knew about the monster attack… I stared at my gloves.

She so wants me to stop hiding this.
Really don’t want to remind her that I’m one of the monsters though.

Aaaand what if her dad comes home?

No, I couldn’t grant her this. I wasn’t taking the gloves off. Instead, I gave her a shoddy, toothless smile. It was a little bit lopsided, a deliberate mix between apologetic and embarrassed, and hopefully enough to hide my real reasons. In response Shae slowly let go of my shoulders, her hands sliding down my—

I jerked back when I tasted the triumph in the air.

Crafty little piece of—
Not getting me like this!

What happened to you?
When did you get this manipulative?

“Good, now the other one,” Shae smirked while waving one of my gloves in front of my face.

She got me anyway. Fooled by a kid twice in one day. I stared at my ungloved left hand. Suppressing a hiss I flexed my sharp claw-tipped fingers. She was lucky I liked her.