—Sally—

  I really wasn't a morning person.

  I wasn't before becoming a cold-blooded reptile, and the species change just hadn't helped with my allergic reaction to early, chilly mornings. The lethargy was impossible to just shake off, and all I wanted to do was sit in some sunlight like a crazed coffee addict chasing their next hit. While the cravings weren't—thank the gods—a caffeine addiction, it somehow caused more issues. The daily action I needed to fulfil was far more debilitating—also more rewarding—than a daily visit to Starbucks would've been. Apart from flying, nothing could really compete with the feeling of satisfaction from sitting in a warm ray of sunlight.

  Sadly, I eventually decided to give in to the cravings—even as appealing as staying curled up on the warm mattress felt, but sitting in the sun felt irresistible.

  I stretched my joints loudly, my body cracking and popping as I dug my claws into the bedding and arched my back. The cat-like pose always seemed to satisfy the right muscles, working out every kink, and kneading the sleepy-stiffness into a relaxed energy. But a sudden grunt of pain woke me up the rest of the way, the flinching of my mattress enough to ring alarm bells in my head.

  I opened my eyes and was surprised to see that I was on top of Orion's back, though that shock was quickly replaced with angry resignation. Somehow he'd managed to end up lying face down, his feet on the pillow at the head of the bed, and his face resting where I distinctly remember going to sleep.

  It was beginning to become obvious just how much he moves while he sleeps. How could he ever feel even slightly rested if he managed to successfully migrate a cross-continental distance while asleep? More so, how did I end up on his back, using his shoulder blades as pillows, without ever waking up once?

  "Sally?" I heard Orion ask, his voice strained and slightly forced. I remembered that I still had my claws sheathed in his shoulders and retracted them, watching with morbid curiosity as the small cuts closed in less than a minute.

  "Sor-ah-Ry." I tried to apologise, the word coming out wrong. The choked inhumaneness of the sound reminded me of the Moon god, and the wrongness of the noise making me feel miserable. How I wished I didn't sound like a toddler put through several inhumane experiments by a mad scientist. I just wanted that voice I could hear underneath all the layers of inhumaneness, to be finished with the process without having to embarrass myself.

  "It's okay." Orion assured me, still sounding half-asleep even with the extreme wake-up call.

  I began to move slowly, my muscles refusing to wake up fully before tasting the sweet sunlight. But before I could stumble off of the bed by my own accord, Orion's hand stretched up to greet me, awkwardly rising to move up and behind his back.

  I froze, wondering what Orion could be doing, but a quick glance at his softened face showed that his eyes had already closed. It looked like he'd slipped from half-awake back to mostly-asleep.

  I growled and retreated as the open palm crept close, painfully reminding me of both the rejected and necessary times he'd touched me in the caves. The memories were enough to force my body to full readiness, the healthy dose of flight-or-fight response enough to bypass my sun-cravings.

  Thankfully my noises of protest were enough to remind Orion of where he was, and what he was currently trying to do. This time he apologised with a garbled noise and withdrew his arm, letting me escape to the floor unimpeded.

  I sat on the stone and begun staring at the front door a few minutes later, frustrated that I could not open it myself. I knew that it was a silly thing to be angry at, but it didn't stop me from being annoyed about having to wait for someone else to open an entrance for me. It felt like I was being forced to live through the worst nightmare of an impatient cat.

  It didn't help that he'd just dredged up some other bad memories as well. But I'd habitually buried them along with this latest incident. I forced them back into the little box they'd slipped out of, and shoved them out of sight and out of mind. The less I remembered them, the easier it'd be to chase the opportunities fate had laid out for my future.

  Though I had to change something—I needed to avoid these situations and nip them in the bud, before it became routine. As exhausting as it would be to police everything even harder, it was important to do so. I had to avoid touching that slippery-slope again, lest I find the situation sliding and spiralling out of control. I could not afford to mismanage Orion now—he was too useful to accidentally alienate.

  But thankfully the ranger had gotten up and started preparing for the day—staying awake only after the second chaotic rousing—and had begun sorting his gear and cleaning the sleep out of his eyes. He eventually seemed satisfied with everything he had on him, and walked to the front door, where I'd been mostly patient while waiting for him.

  Orion knelt by the entrance and offered me a pathway to his head, which I quickly took. While I understood the hypocrisy of setting a firm boundary in all other areas, walking was still an exhausting activity that I needed Orion for. Which had made for a good excuse for keeping this luxury around a while longer.

  Soon he was walking down the street while I enjoyed the morning light. I inspected the people who were walking by, and wondered what they might know about the situation. I had forgotten to discuss it with him, but I had no idea what sort of questions Orion had wanted to ask.

  I could understand the 'we should be prepared for anything' sentiment, especially after the close calls we'd had before, but this was different. I don't really get launching a full-on investigation just for a low-level mob—we had already succeeded against much bigger and better enemies. This much caution only felt like he was adding bloat to a simple 'kill a monster' quest.

  And what questions could change the course of action? Maybe it'd help setting up the perfect trap, but in the end, it would still get the same finale—it dead, with an arrow in its eye-socket.

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  "Excuse me ma'am." Orion suddenly waylaid a familiar granny, the old woman sitting on a stool in front of a home. She was in the middle of scrubbing some clothes with a soapy bucket and a listless look in her eyes. Her wiry bones still had some strength to them as she vigorously scrubbed stains out of the cloth.

  "Call me Gran. It's all I'm known as nowadays." She answered tersely. I didn't think she had even noticed us until her dour reply—never glancing up at the ranger as she continued her chore.

  "I just had some questions I'd like to ask. About many things." Orion continued, Gran stopping and finally giving Orion a steely glare.

  "You'd like to ask some questions? How interesting. Go ahead child." She answered, the sarcastic, miserable mirth in her words palpable as she immediately returned to washing.

  "I heard somebody mention a missing hunter? What happened?" Orion asked.

  "Did nobody tell you? There are no hunters left, all gone disappeared on us." She sighed, resigned to the reality of the vanished group of people.

  "They all went missing? Because of the famine?" Orion enthusiastically questioned. It wasn't on topic for our current objective, but I suppose some background lore couldn't hurt.

  "Other way around. Half-a-season ago, all of our hunters walked into the forest, and never came back. Everybody who went looking for them has met the same fate, our Medicine-Man only managed to return once. But that fool went-a' looking a second time, and is probably dead like the rest of them." Gran explained, describing the disturbing situation in detail.

  "So the famine is-"

  "Because no-one can go forage for food. Did you think we were starving for the fun of it?" She interrupted Orion, her words snappy.

  "A slow death in the village, or a fast one in the forest. We do not have the luxury of easy choices that you do. We can only hope that Medicine-Man Icaro will return with answers at some point." Gran accused Orion. It helped me put together the fact that we were immune to whatever curse had trapped these villagers here.

  They fell silent for a minute as Orion processed the mildly interesting lore of the village, standing over Gran as she continued to scrub the clothes like he wasn't there.

  "Well, do you have anything else to bother me with? If not, then stop blocking my light." She prodded Orion, goading him back from inaction.

  "Do you know if there would be any reason for that man—the victim—to follow a stranger?" Orion asked, blind-siding both me and Gran with the question.

  "What? Why'd you ask something stupid as that?" She spat, her spindly fingers moving to accusingly point at Orion, trembling with rage.

  "It's just… There was no struggle before he was killed behind the houses. And no-one noticed his absence either. So, how exactly did he end up in that location without anyone being alerted?" Orion continued, raising a surprisingly good point. How did he end up back there with no one the wiser? Especially given that they only came running over after the monster's scream, which meant the victim died quietly.

  Was the monster a skilled assassin?

  "You don't know what you're asking boy!" She snapped, her voice raging but restrained to a low volume. Her wiry, wrinkled features twisting with rage as she stood, throwing the wet shirt she was holding into the bucket.

  "Don't ask that to anyone else. For your own sake!" She demanded, poking Orion in the chest with every word. After thoroughly perplexing me, she walked off towards the centre of town, her grey-white braids bobbing with every angry stomp.

  I wondered what had pissed her off so much about that question, but moved on with my life as Orion began to look for another person to interrogate.

  ***

  It'd been a few hours since that angry encounter with Gran, and we hadn't had much success since. It seemed that most people didn't trust the stranger who'd arrived only a few hours before someone's murder—and subsequent discovery of the half-eaten remains.

  I'd begun to get antsy about wasting our day with fruitless tasks—like investigating—but Orion had somehow managed to get some useful information from the villagers. Mostly small details, about our location, the surrounding landmarks, the forest, and what sort of beasties the hunters would usually bring back.

  But a couple of bigger revelations—at least for me—were shared as well, making the now spent morning not a complete waste. Things like the Moon god being extremely unpopular—apparently most people dislike them as much as I do, it's nice that most people find them irritating. Also, the literal moon is missing. Non-existent in the sky, as if it had never existed in the first place.

  I had thought it was just that time of the month, but no, the lack of moon in the sky wasn't because it was a new-moon. The townies said that the moon god's imprisonment was why it no longer existed. Though, it could just be one of those myths used to explain natural phenomena, like how a horny Zeus was used to explain away a few too many 'mysterious' pregnancies. But then how would people have known that a moon existed in the first place? Well… maybe the Moon god told them about the moon? Either way, it's a bit of a catch-22.

  But I eventually had to direct Orion to return home. On the pain of death, I had been left no choice but to tell him what questions to ask—he just kept on getting sidetracked by irrelevant topics. He just had a conversation about local bird migration for over thirty minutes.

  It. Was. Agony.

  There is only so much I could hear the words, 'please tell me more about the unique traits of a Stygian flock.' and, 'what dictates which Stymphalian bird becomes leader of a Stygian flock.', before I wanted to blow my brains out. I'd never missed the mind-melting monotony of TikTok so gods-damn much.

  Though, when I was mentally berating Orion as he walked the final corner before our shack, I glimpsed a familiar cloak in a nearby alleyway. It barely acknowledged our presence as it stood between the buildings, with only the head of its disguise poking around the corner of the twisting back-street path. Annoyingly I couldn't see any exposed body parts, everything that I could use [Appraisal] on was still hidden within the folds of its cloak.

  But the keen-eyed Orion hadn't missed it either, the ranger instantly freezing when he spotted the poorly hidden figure. It was as good a hiding spot as a child trying to hide behind a pole—an especially slow one that didn't fully grasp the concept of object permanence yet.

  Orion reacted quickly, his bow ready and aimed within a second as he pulled an arrow from his quiver. He was fast and machine-like when drawing his bow and releasing it, but only when compared to regular humans, not his usual system-using self with magically appearing ammunition.

  Unfortunately the delay was enough for the attack to fail, the half-second wasted on replacing magic with mundanity was enough time for the monster to dodge behind the wall. As fast as Orion was, the arrow only hit the stone slabs where the monster's head was a moment before. Its brown cloak was the only victim of the arrow, hit and only slightly torn as it lagged behind the creature that was wearing it.

  The ranger rushed over to chase it, but by the time he'd reached the end of the spacious alley and turned the corner, there was no trace of the monster. Before us was an empty dead end, devoid of prey or an obvious escape route. Orion was careful as he moved closer, another arrow at the ready as he investigated the area, crouching by a trail of faint lines scratched into the ground. He followed in, and it ended abruptly just before a window.

  Orion nudged the shutters of the frame open with the end of his nocked arrow, ready to unleash it on anything sitting in ambush.

  But much to my disappointment, there was nothing inside the house. It looked like it'd been abandoned for a while, only dust and abandoned utensils littering the destitute rooms, with no sign of the monster at all.

  Shit, had it really gotten away again? Well… it's an improvement over last time at least.

  Nobody's been eaten. Hopefully. I rapped a knuckle on Orion's head just in case, un-jinxing myself by using a substitute as similar and dense to wood that I had on hand.