As training started, Idelle found herself way too excited to focus properly on the drills. She did her best to coast through on muscle memory, but her heart wasn’t in it.

A griffin. She wondered what it would look like. How big were they, actually? They technically flew with magic, right? Would she be able to fly, if she ate enough things that could?

What would a griffin taste like?

Clovis whispered over to her from the side. “Something funny?” She glanced over in surprise, and he elaborated. “You’re grinning at something?”

Oh. She schooled her face back to seriousness and whispered back. “I’m just excited about maybe seeing a griffin.”

He rolled his eyes. “We don’t know if it even is a griffin or not. She just said that as an example.”

“Yeah, but what if it is? A real-life griffin!”

“You’re braver than me, wanting to meet a griffin. Ah.”

She was about to argue, but at his quiet exclamation she followed his gaze to see Cateline glancing pointedly in their direction. Oops. She should really focus on the lesson.

...Still, a griffin. Or what if it was something else? A manticore? A hydra? Her mind danced with images of three-headed dogs and enormous serpents with two heads and no tail.

Idelle forced herself to stop fantasizing. She wasn’t even sure if half of those were real. A hydra would be horrifyingly hard to kill if half the stories about it were true. But, imagine if she ate one and could regrow her head if it was chopped off...

No, actually, she really didn’t want to experience that regardless. Maybe an arm, or something.

Trying to focus like this really wasn’t working, she decided. Better to take a different approach. Like that time with Ivar. Don’t imagine monsters in the abstract, imagine one was in front of you.

Her eyes fell to the tip of her spear. She imagined a huge winged shape tearing forward on muscular hind legs. Spears shattering like twigs against feathers as hard as steel. Soldiers dropping their spears and breaking in terror, as massive claws and beak tore at them. How would she fight something like that? Go for the eyes, maybe? Or the neck? It must have weak spots.

She brought her spear back up with Cateline’s order, and turned to the right, melding into the second row this time as they lowered again into a bristling wall. She tried to imagine it… It could work. Bracing the spears into the ground would help, too. And they’d probably have bigger weapons than these, for something like a griffin.

She resolved to ask the sergeant for more details after the class. Not that she was afraid, but it was just silly to not find out what you should expect.

For now, she just kept practicing. If her ability to form a good spear wall with strangers was the only thing standing between her and something like that, she better pay attention and make sure she wasn’t about to get her spear tangled up with someone next to her. Even if she was probably just imagining it as scarier than it was.

When the time arrived, Idelle joined a small cluster of other students around Cateline. The woman had a clipboard and quickly went through the students, marking down some of them but shaking her head at others. When she arrived at Idelle, she paused, and Idelle spoke up before she could act further.

“Um, is it all right if I ask you a few questions first after this?”

Cateline gave her an appraising look, and nodded, looking approving. “Sure. Let me get through the rest first.” 

A minute later, she dismissed the group, telling them to meet back here before the first half bell tomorrow, and looked back to Idelle. “All right, what’s your questions? I don’t have all day.”

Idelle nodded. “First, do you really think it’s a griffin? Why?”

Cateline shrugged. “It’s a likely candidate. The magic here is too thin for higher-order beasts like that, so if there is something whatever it is must have come out of the mountains. Given that it needed to cross a river, a flying monster like a griffin makes the most sense.”

“Then, is that something we’re really equipped to fight? I don’t know much about it, but what I’ve heard makes griffins sound too strong and tough to stab with simple spears and crossbows. Not to mention flight.”

Cateline gave her another approving look. “Good question, its always wise to make sure you understand what you’re hunting. You’re right, we’d be moving with a group of magicians and hunters. Your job would be similar to last time, fending off anything that comes near, but with longer, heavier pikes. And it’s unlikely they’d actually charge you. Creatures like griffins are smart, and won’t throw themselves into a spear line when injured.”

“And the hunters would kill it?”

“That’s right. Standard procedure is to tie the enemy down with magic, then move in for the kill with specialized weapons like greatswords and enormous axes or clubs. Only in situations where we can’t bring, or don’t have, a full company would you see people hunting alone or in small groups like in the stories. It happens sometimes, in the mountains for example, but only rarely. That answer your questions?”

Idelle eagerly nodded, then paused. “Um. I got a new sword, I guess I was also wondering who I’d ask about learning to hunt with it?”

Cateline chuckled at that. “I’d just ask Ivar, for now. He’s as close to a master as anyone I’ve ever met. See if you can talk your way into his advanced class.”

“Ah, I already am. In his advanced class, I mean. I’ll ask him.”

Cateline gave her another considering look. “That so?” Idelle’s made an affirmative noise, and the other woman continued, “Did you want to come on this next hunt, or just ask questions? I was thinking you were too green, but your head is in the right place…”

“Yes!—” Idelle realized her reply was maybe a little too enthusiastic and corrected herself. “Um, I mean. Yes, I think it’d be a good experience.”

Cateline looked at her a little quizzically, then shrugged. “Don’t come complaining to me if it’s a false alarm and we don’t find anything. And keep your head if we do, or we’ll have a problem, whatever your relationship with the princess. Understand?”

Idelle stood up straight and nodded. “Got it, sergeant.”

“First half bell tomorrow, like the rest. Make sure you sleep well tonight, we’ll be moving fast this time.” 

A moment later, Cateline was off, striding purposefully into the barracks. Idelle resisted the urge to cheer. She wasn’t sure why, but she had a good feeling about this. Like she was meant to go hunt. Maybe she had precognitive abilities to go along with her other, less comfortable abilities.

Idelle frowned, suddenly upset at the thought. She shouldn’t be stupid and get full of herself. Tagging along with experts on a hunt for a monster that might not even be there? That was a far cry from predicting the future, killing a griffin to drink its blood, and becoming an instant hero. It was a possible opportunity, nothing more. And risks of the hunt aside, even feeding on something would likely be an enormous risk. She still had no idea how anyone would react to her messed-up body.

Still. It was something. She clenched her fists and hurried back upstairs to her room to retrieve her new sword. She still had much of the afternoon left, she should spend it productively. Not like she had anything better to do.

Hours of practice later, when she went to bed that night, excitement and anxiety both had been washed away by exhaustion. She pulled herself under the covers, reminding herself to not sleep through the morning’s first bell. That would be an embarrassing way for all this to end.

An ambiguous amount of time later, Idelle found herself asleep. No, not just asleep, but once more dreaming. She was in a hazy forest, with half-familiar trees looming from the grey and fading into unseen canopies. No birds chirped and no insects sang around her. And everything was still. No wind rustled the unseen branches as it wandered to places unknown.

“What a lonely place…”

Idelle’s voice didn’t echo back to her, it only vanished into the haze with everything else. She started walking, idly picking a purposeless path between trunks.

She wandered like that for a while longer, then sat down to rest. Her new sword was leaning against the tree next to her, and she idly rubbed her fingers over the two moons interlocked on the pommel.

She picked her sword up and wandered a little further.

The boughs whispered.

That wasn’t right.

They weren’t supposed to move.

The fog slid past her. Slowly, at first, then faster. It grew thinner as it moved and she stared in horror as it unveiled a crawling orange glow, still blurry in the distance.

She turned and ran. The wind buffeted her face, mocking her as the fire grew, and grew, and grew. She sped between the trees despite it. A cave. There was a cave, that would be safe. As long as she was deep enough that it couldn’t reach her air to devour it along with the trees. The mouth of the cave loomed, and she slowed as she entered, picking her way over rough, uncut tracts of rock. 

The rough stone walls closed around her, hugging her, comforting her. She was safe here. Safe from everything except the smell of ash, the distant shouts, and the bell that had just started ringing, ringing, ringing, ringing—

Her body spasmed as for a second she was plummeting through space, out of control, and she sucked in a huge gasp of air, nearly choking on the taste of smoke. She threw the covers aside and nearly fell as she grabbed for the windowsill. All she could see through the window were the shadows of buildings, dark against an orange glow. 

Shouts and footsteps sounded, and worse sounds as well, for all that she tried to ignore the wet sounds of meat being cut, all punctuated by the steady, monotonous clang of the alarm bell as it sounded over and over.

The distant fire burned on, slow and inexorable despite the chaos.