Baugulf and Melusine sat together on a toppled pillar of an old ruin, watching the column of black roiling clouds travel westward along the horizon. Wolf and Marie were grazing behind them, shaking off the sweat from the mad dash south. Mel leaned back, palm pressed to the rough stone she was perched on.

"What in the hells is a leviathan like that doing this far south? I thought they only appeared in the Northern lands of the Kavashian Empire." Baugulf nibbled on a chunk of cheese as his blue eyes followed the storm.

"I've caught a glimpse of one before," Mel informed Baugulf. "It traveled through the northwest valleys around Hathorn. Maybe it's the same one."

"I never received any reports of a Storm Kraken in Adellias."

"The village had sent word. Maybe the courier got killed along the way." Stretching her hands above her head, Mel groaned in relief as her muscles realigned. Fleeing the Kraken had caused knots to tighten her back and neck up. "Or it's sitting on some fancy desk in the capital, underneath all the requests for food and protective measures."

Baugulf sighed and hung his head, rolling the chunk of cheese between his fingers.

"You'll have to tone down your vitriol for the upper class in the royal court, Miss Melusine."

"I know. I'm not that bad, though, am I?"

"Yes, you very much are that bad. There are times in life where you shouldn't say whatever you're thinking. It can create friction and sour relationships that otherwise could've been helpful. You'll need all the friends you can get in court. I won't always be around to help you smooth things over."

"That's easier said than done." Melusine wrapped her arms around her waist, taking a few extra seconds to realize something. "You consider yourself my friend?"

"Of course I do. You've got a mean streak, but I'm fond of you. You're like a younger sister to me."

Melusine's heart panged and swelled at the same time. Her arms tightened their self-embrace.

"I don't want to come across as mean... I don't even want to say things the way I do," Melusine confessed. "It's not that I don't try to behave properly either."

"Then learn how to appear and act more friendly," Baugulf advised, as if what he was telling her to do was so easy.

"I try to control my tongue, every single second of every single day." Melusine kept her eyes on the lumbering storm cloud fading over the horizon, leaving destruction in its wake.

The Storm Kraken was a monster that as far as anyone knew, naturally caused catastrophe without any malicious intent. It chased no one, and while its diet was unknown, it didn't feed on the bodies it left behind. It simply stumbled through its life, unaware of the harm it caused. "Sometimes I wonder if there's something broken in me."

"Melusine," Baugulf murmured, his voice soft and cracking. He reached out a ringed hand to touch her shoulder, but Mel jumped onto her feet before he could.

"We should hurry and help those that we can."

Baugulf watched her fetch the horses, hand still outstretched, a woeful and concerned glimmer in his eyes. Meanwhile Melusine patted Wolf's neck, her mind on the next task at hand.

She might not have been able to do right by the three people she killed, but she could try to atone by saving three times the number of victims. As she mounted Wolf, Melusine made a mental note to learn the names of those she killed.

The patches of woods and rolling hills had been turned to plains of ash and charred remains for kilometers around. Animal carcasses littered the landscape, blistered down to the bone. Embers and low orange flames still sputtered on coals. By some miracle, a few scattered trees remained standing, blackened and cracked shadows of their former selves.

Melusine and Baugulf rode down the soot dusted trail, both of them in a somber mood. Baugulf observed the devastation with sympathetic pain in his sapphire eyes. Melusine meanwhile kept her focus ahead.

"Unless you want to stop and provide every dying creature a mercy kill, it'll be easier on you to not look," Melusine spoke up.

"I know... but I can't bear to ignore suffering either."

Melusine lowered her head, glancing down at her clawed hands.

"That's the sort of thing my father would often say. It was up to my mother and I to handle the slaughter." She huffed and refocused her attention on the horizon. "Most wildlife will have succumbed to their burns and the smoke by now. Those that managed to flee like us will make use of what's left behind and thrive. Nature has a funny way of recovering quickly. We should focus on any human life that needs help."

"Hopefully we can do more than provide mercy by death," Baugulf grumbled, soothing himself by patting Marie's mane down.

"Agreed. Do you know where the closest village is?"

"We're nearing Ardes, so... there should be a village on a northern detour called Buckley. If we gallop, it's only half an hour's ride from here, I imagine."

"Can we head there?"

"I suppose, but why?"

"I told you, I want to help people. I might as well put my monstrous strength to good use." Melusine tilted her head back and rolled her eyes. "Apparently I need to work on my image as the Dragon's Proxy.  Someone recently told me that I'm mean."

"Hey now, I only meant that you should be careful. There are nobles who throw fits over the smallest of insults." Baugulf hung his head and rubbed at his face. "Also, I didn't think that you wanted to go off the path. I thought you meant if we happened across someone."

"The only people who'd survive this brush fire would be those that had someplace to hide, or ways to keep wet. That means our best bet to find survivors is in a settlement."

"Alright... I'm not against the idea, but we can't delay for very long. We ride through the detour, and continue heading to Ardes."

"Excellent." A proud grin stretched across Melusine's lips, and she broke Wolf into a gallop.

"Hold on, wait for me! Miss Melusine!" Baugulf flicked his reins and clicked his heels, urging Marie to chase after the teenager. Melusine felt a giggle bubble up in her chest, only to pop and die when the reality before her flashed to the forefront once more.

She shook off her emotions, both mirth and sorrow, and rode on. Just as Baugulf had predicted, they arrived at Buckley in short order.

The village had not been spared from the Storm Kraken's path. Thatch roofs had been burned away, and anything wood was reduced to pencil lead. A few stucco buildings remained strong and were being used as relief centers. Most people were crowded around a large pot of watery soup. A tired woman with soot smeared on her skin and clothes was serving food as if in a daze. Some desperate folk were still trying to dig through the burning rubble and embers.

"Baugulf, offer the cook our jerky, and ask if they have any less nutritious rations to trade," Melusine ordered as she swung herself off of Wolf. Her boots landed on the ashen ground with a crunch and a faint hiss. "I'm going to help with rescue efforts."

Baugulf gave a quick affirmation, then got off his own saddle. He grabbed his magic holding bag and hurried over to the ramshackle soup kitchen.

Melusine rushed over to a man attempting to push aside a fallen rafter. She rolled her shoulders and grabbed onto one end of the singed wood. Finally able to stop holding back, she hefted the roughly 150 pound pine beam onto her shoulder and threw it to the side. Turning to the man, she wasn't surprised to see him staring at her like she had three heads. "Who are you looking for?"

"Uh," the man stuttered. He shook his head to refocus, hope sparking and piercing through his shell-shock. "My wife! Please, little miss... if you can help!"

"That's why my friend and I came here in the first place." Melusine returned to casually clearing the rubble that would normally take ten people to sift through. "We narrowly avoided the Storm Kraken's path, and saw it head through the area."

"I hope it avoided the other villages," the man murmured. Returning to his rescue efforts with renewed vigor, he searched a different spot in the debris of his home.

"I wish we could go around to help everyone, but there's not much we'd be able to do at a certain point. We also have our own destination to worry about as well." Melusine's ears pricked, the faint sound of shallow breathing catching her attention. Rushing forward, Mel pried brick and ember wood from the pile, digging deeper until she spotted burned tips of auburn hair. "Found her!"

Pushing forward, the teenager cleared the rest of the rubble as quick as she could, heavy beams and chunks of wall practically flying to the side. The woman was alive, but her leg had been stuck under some rubble. It was completely crushed and in need of amputation.

"Myra!" The woman's husband stumbled closer, and collapsed nearby. Tears streamed down his messy face, leaving wet streaks on his soot covered cheeks. "Myra... thank the gods..."

"And me too, but that's besides the point. Please, tell me that you have a doctor in the village."

"Yes," the man sniffed, wiping under his eyes with the back of his hand. "I can carry her there."

"Good." Melusine raced to the next person still attempting to find a loved one or neighbor. Inwardly, she thanked the gods herself. She hadn't been looking forward to chopping a woman's leg off today, especially since she wasn't sure if she'd be able to staunch the bleeding. Whatever would've been necessary would've had to have been done, but Mel was grateful that it was a wholly unnecessary option.

Melusine helped every person in Buckley that she could. Baugulf quickly joined her in the effort to save lives, relieved to be helping those in need. Eventually people began to swarm around her every time she dug another survivor out of the wreckage, directing her to more places where loved ones were last known to be. Time passed quickly, going from one rescue mission to the next, and eventually night fell. Melusine recovered a corpse more often than a living person, and while some were still thankful to have found the bodies, others had turned on Melusine in a bitter rage.

"At the very least their search was shorter than it would've been without you," Baugulf had told Mel with a hand on her shoulder. "Don't take their anger to heart. It isn't them, it's their grief." She took comfort in his words, and it spurred her to continue the work.

When the moon had risen high, and a head count by the village leader revealed that only a few people remained unaccounted for, Mel breathed a sigh of relief. She left the headman's room and headed back outside, rolling her sleeves up. It was then that she noticed the woman from earlier in the day again, the one that had been serving rations.

Her wavy hair that was the color of buckwheat seeds was stuffed into a linen bonnet. Her ruddy, suntanned skin and barmaid's dress were covered in soot. Even though she had a round face with plump cheeks, she still somehow seemed hollow and wraith-like. Her deep-set chestnut eyes had lost all of their luster and were locked on a ruined home. She carried a lantern in one hand and a wooden spoon clutched in the other. When she heard Melusine come near, she turned towards her.

"I've been bidden to take you to a place where you may sleep, ma'am," she stated, her voice numb of all intonation.

"You don't have to address me so politely. I'm only a daughter of a pig farmer from the Outskirts. If anyone should be called ma'am, it's you."

"A daughter of a pig farmer you might be, but you helped rescue many folk. My Jamie would have been proud to meet you."

Melusine pushed her bangs from her face, bashful and at a loss of what to say. She didn't need to ask for clarification, nor did she want to risk the social faux pas. A boy named Jamie had passed away in the fire, was sorely missed, and that was all she needed to know.

"I'm sure I would've loved to have known him," Melusine offered in consolation after thinking on her wording a bit too long.

"Aye. Shall we be off?"

Staring into the woman's eyes, Melusine thought of her mother waving goodbye as her baby girl was driven away from home. She shook her head.

"I'd be glad to, ma'am, but I still have work to do. I can't rest quite yet."