Six months had passed since Melusine had been found outside the Dragon's Labyrinth, laid out in the midwinter snow. She had never been a friend to any of the villagers, but now they avoided her. That's what happens when a village is closed off from the rest of the world with only gossip for entertainment, Melusine told herself while shrugging off shunning and whispers. Her peculiar disappearance act had spread like wildfire among the 50 or so quaint villagers of Hathorn. The village had ostracized Melusine's family long before her father's death, but their treatment had gotten worse after her stint in the Forbidden Caves. Melusine hadn't actively attempted to get close to anyone aside from her mother ever since she was a little girl. But their worsening reputation was going from inconvenient to dangerous.

Pretty soon they'll be forming a mob in the middle of the night, Melusine mused, sat on a stool in front of a window in her home. She had one elbow propped up on the sill, and the balls of her feet firmly pressed on the stool bar. The new red pigment of her eyes reflected in the warped glass and fractured by the hairline cracks. She could barely make out the mud of the pig pen outside due to the clouding and age-old dust.

Melusine's mother entered their shabby hut, an armful of chopped wood held against her hip. Mud caked her boots, face, hands, and her cheap linen skirt. Her dark brown hair was tied up in a messy and knotted bun, dry and just as dirty as the rest of her.

"I could've helped," Melusine repeated one last time. She watched her mother trudge over to the wood stove, then glanced down at the trail of ever present mud joining its dried out brethren on the floor.

"I've got it handled, Melly. I'm still spry," Custance Tepes insisted. Melusine lifted her gaze from the mud that cursed her life to her mother's face.

Her once fair and smooth brow had become ruddy and wrinkled from a lifetime's worth of worry and strife. Years spent with limited and often foul food had made both mother and daughter's cheeks sallow. Despite all of their blemishes from a rough life, Melusine had taken pride in sharing her mother's innate comely features. Except now she had a terrible blemish, and she was no longer the mirror image of her mother.

"I can still help out with chores. Or try to, anyway." Custance hummed to show that she'd heard Melusine, knelt down to put the wood in a small orderly stack by the stove. Her back was turned to her daughter, but Melusine could still sense her pursing her lips.

"Even after what happened to Old Hilly?" Melusine winced. She should've expected her to bring up the fate of their poor old chicken, but it still stung. Melusine's focus shifted to a spindly spider balancing on its web in the corner of the window. She'd been so lost in thought, she hadn't yet noticed the disgusting guts sucker. Kill, kill, kill! Squash! Threat!

She scrambled for something to kill the spider with, settling for a tin cup on the tiny dining table in the corner. The flat bottom smacked down on top of the creepy arachnid before it could scurry away. The cup was crushed flat like it was made of paper, not metal. Melusine cursed under her breath. She attempted to toss the crumpled tin away, but her mother plucked it from her hands.

Custance flipped the thin disk, examining it while she held it between two fingers. Her cracked lips stretched and bled when she gave Melusine a forced smile.

"I don't suppose you could mold it back into a cup?" Melusine's mother asked, hesitant and already resigned to the answer.

"I... doubt it," Melusine admitted. The former tin cup was placed on the windowsill. The spider's remains twitched on the underside, and Melusine cringed. Shouldn't it just die already? Hey, Oddný, you're the goddess of death, right? Do your job and take that damned thing already! Melusine demanded, rather than prayed, which was as good as the Divines should've expected of her.

Custance's fingers curled underneath Melusine's chin as she stared into her daughter's eyes. She might've been trying to snap her daughter out of her inner thoughts, but she had been understandably fascinated and horrified by Melusine's sudden change of eye color.

"I've only seen red jadeite once... but your eyes remind me of it," her mother murmured. With a light and playful flick under Melusine's chin, she let go. "If you really want to help your poor old mother out, I know a way. Go fetch some water. I'm making soup tonight."

"Again?" Melusine groaned, but despite her childish whining got to her feet.

"Yes, again," her mother scoffed. She smacked Melusine's side with the rag tucked into the strap of her apron. The teen squeaked and twisted around in an attempt to avoid the attack. Custance's smile fell as quickly as it had come. Her brow furrowed with deep wrinkles, her expression now full of worry. "Just… promise to be careful. Don't get angry."

Melusine, who had grumbled and pulled her tunic taut, paused before she sighed. She rubbed and brushed at the mud, hoping it wouldn't stain the undyed gray linen. Again.

"Staying inside so much isn't good for my health." It was strange, to repeat the same thing her mother told her all throughout Melusine's life. It was humanity's habit to repeat what they were used to hearing when at a loss for words. At the very least, hearing Melusine use that old nugget of wisdom brought a smile back to her mother's face. "Besides, what can be so dangerous about fetching water?" Custance's smile tensed, and she wiped her hands on her rag.

"Oh, alright. Turning my own words against me, when did you get so clever? Ask around for potatoes while you're at it, we're running low."

Melusine grunted in reply, hiked up her skirt hem, and shoved her feet into her boots by the door. Getting her hands on fresh produce was a tall order. The vendors refused to sell her anything that wasn't rotten or moldy. She'd heard "not for you," and "go buy somewhere else," so many times the past few months Melusine was one bad word away from flipping their stalls over. Maybe she could show them which was more dangerous, refusing service or selling her proper food. At least with the use of fear she'd be able to give her mother a decent meal before their hut was set ablaze in the middle of the night.

Melusine grabbed an empty rucksack and tied the bottom to her belt. She glanced over her shoulder at her mother and caught the grim sadness in her eyes. Custance cleared her throat, pursed her lips, and turned her back on Melusine. "Time to go, Melly," she urged again in a suddenly quiet voice.

Melusine silently obeyed, but not before making sure the latch had been secured behind her. Skirt held up well above her ankles, Melusine stomped through the muck that eternally surrounded her home. Each step required her to pull her boot free from mud so thick it was very close to being clay. Her toes curled into the inner soles, an attempt to keep her feet inside her boots. The terrible trek was easier now. Ever since she returned from the Forbidden Caves, every measly menial task was a cakewalk. When she'd reached the ramshackle fence surrounding her family's humble property, Melusine heaved a sigh of relief regardless. Breathing in deeply eased the stress always tightening around her lungs. Melusine gripped onto a fence post to catch her breath.

The post was actually a stick— a chopped off branch sharpened to a point and stuck in the ground, then dulled and frayed over time. The entire fence was made of thin stripped wood, all leaning every direction imaginable. It was a very rough outline of their claim to land. She pushed her bangs back, then glanced at the decrepit, slanting shack that she called home. Her father had pieced it all together bit by bit, then abandoned in death.

It's drafty and barely can be called a shelter, but it's all we have left of him. Melusine pushed down her boiling resentment. Her eyes were drawn eastward, just past her home. Every time she thought about visiting the Forbidden Caves, something deep down inside stirred. It told her that nothing more was to be found there, then went back to sleep. Thus far, she'd listened.

Melusine turned her back on her home, and picked up the water bucket from its hook screwed into a trunk. It hadn't been his fault. Her father had sworn he hadn't done the things he was accused of. He did the best with what they had left after he came back from prison.

Her walk down the path through the woods was silent and relatively peaceful. Sunshine peeked through the needles of the evergreen forest, and fluffy white clouds rolled at a lazy pace across the sky. There was a gentle breeze, and Melusine could swear she smelled a hint of salt in the air. Perhaps her improvised words of comfort would turn true, and stepping out would be good for her. If only the villagers weren't so insufferable.

When she reached the village gates proper, Melusine took a deep breath in, then out through her nose. Stay calm, and be friendly. Let their nastiness slide like water off a duck's back. She could practically hear her mother whispering in her ear. Smile. Melusine approached the guards posted on either side of the gate, nodding her head to them. They used to simply ignore Melusine, staring ahead like wooden toy soldiers. But for the past six months, the guards would treat her as if she were a leper, clicking their tongues like hens every time she passed. Today they merely tensed and turned their heads away.

Melusine stopped in her tracks and stared at the guard to her right, then to her left. Yet that wasn't enough for them to return to their normal horrible selves. Even when she leaned over to stubbornly be in their line of sight, the two blundering idiots practically faced the wall. Was the village guard supposed to protect the deer and squirrels from the citizens now?

"Dullards," Melusine muttered and kicked some dirt in their direction before she passed into the village market square. Trying to confront the guards would only escalate the situation into taking a bad turn. Knowing that didn't stop her from wanting to stand directly in front of them and spit in their faces.

The village gates opened up directly into the market square. Everything except the farms and ranches was protected by high walls made out of mortar and stone. Most of the buildings were made of stone and wood, with thatch roofs. The windows had only simple shutters or curtains to protect inhabitants from the elements. The square had little in the way of adornments or wealth. A few necessities such as bread and produce were being sold in store fronts along the edges of the square. In the center was the community well, decorated with potted plants. In Melusine's eyes, decoration was an unnecessary endeavor that only got in the way, but the community and her mother insisted that it was a "good," and "pleasant," thing for the village.

First, Melusine needed to clear the hurdle of buying fresh potatoes. The fearsome, hulking minotaur would be her nemesis today. The potato market stall was being manned by a supposedly human farmer who was big as a barge, stubborn as a mule, and mean as an old barn cat. Melusine watched him from a distance, peeking out from behind a tethered horse.

A gaggle of village girls stood by the farmer's market stall, but none of them were buying anything. Instead, they were focused a man in a suit of armor, likely a bodyguard for yet another noble fleeing the kingdom. It was admittedly hard not to notice the stranger. His hair gleamed like a pale halo in the sun, a shiny helmet tucked under his arm. Most travelers trying to smuggle themselves away to the Kavashian Empire at least made an attempt to blend in.

One of the cloying teenagers glared at Melusine, peering over the shoulder of the guard, or mercenary, or whatever he was. Meanwhile the farmer glared at the girls. The gaggle were all roughly Melusine's age, the youngest being a mere sixteen winters, but they were flirting with a terrifying level of skill. It was utterly beyond Melusine, and outside her current interest.

The important thing was that Melusine could possibly use the farmer's irritation with her romance crazed peers against him. He wanted quick and easy business, Melusine would provide. Curmudgeons like him enjoyed making a big stink over manners, and jumped at the chance to give arrogant children a good example. Melusine could only hope the weight of a tantalizing passive-aggressive lecture was heavier than his dislike of her.

The glaring villager's finger pointed at the red-eyed teenager, and the man's head turned. A chance! Melusine hurried up to the stall, then slipped in between the loitering group and the potatoes. But while she was in her rush, she almost collided with someone else who had also seized the opportunity for spuds.

"Oh, Lee, sorry," Melusine greeted and apologized, glancing awkwardly at a stammering boy her age. Lee's shaggy rusty brown hair hung over and obscured his eyes. His pair of wolf ears always seemed to be pinned back whenever he spoke to anyone, even Melusine. He would be a rather tall and broad shouldered young beastfolk if he wasn't always slouching.

Normally Melusine would be patient with Lee, but if she stalled any longer her plan would be wasted. She turned to the farmer in a hurry, leaning on the stall edge so the crotchety farmer had to look her in the eyes. Without so much as sparing a glance down, Melusine nabbed all the good spuds she saw and tossed them into her water bucket for now. "There, a dozen, I'll buy these ones. I'll pay full price, just sell them to me already."

"What? No! I won't—"

"Here." She held up her most shiny copper coins, trying to keep a wide-eyed straight face. The rusty smell made her nose itch and wrinkle even with a nice breeze nowadays. "Full price. Then I'll be on my way. I know this is what you sell them for. Your family have slaved over these splendid vegetables, so let me buy them."

"Gods fine! Just get away from my stall! Shoo! Shoo! And you brats, you leave too if you aren't going to buy anything!" The second that he'd snatched the 12 copper from Melusine, she was gone from the stall. She slowed down from her speedy get away once she was a short distance away from the crowd, and let out a breath. Yes! Mission successful! She couldn't help the big, proud smile on her face, clenching her fist and allowing herself a mental victory lap. The biggest hurdle of the day had been conquered.