“ROOWR!”

“SQUEE!!!”

“ROOOOWR!!!”

“SQUEE!!!”

Aura roared at the newly-bought griffin that had been tied to the fence near her barn so it wouldn’t fly away while she proved her dominance to make it accept her as pack leader. She dropped her war-mask as she noticed that Dimi had returned home while carrying something packed in brown paper. She stopped smiling as she noticed how miserable the human girl was.

“Dimi, is something wrong?” The sphinx asked, concerned.

“No...” Dimi’s face betrayed her words. “Where is Ivan? I have to talk to him.”

“In the forge.”

Aura watched the human girl go into the house first to leave the packet inside. Then she went to the shed that had been rebuilt to function as forge. Inside was Ivan who was busy with what would become a kitchen-knife.

"Oh, there you are!” Ivan cooled the new knife in water and dried his face. “Were you occupied or-”

“Was my dad a bad king?”

Ivan knocked the bucket over and the not-cool-enough knife got bent out of shape. Ivan looked at Dimi as if she had turned into a talking tomato before his very eyes. “I’m sorry, what was the question again?”

Dimi looked at Ivan with annoyance all over her face. “I asked if my dad did not lift a finger to change laws that targeted different creatures even though they were unfair and only made to make their lives harder. Laws my ancestors made. Short version: Was my dad a bad king?”

Ivan just looked at Dimi. This was worse than when he tried to muster up the courage to explain the birds and bees to her. And he could see on her expression that every second he hesitated with answering her question just made it worse.

“Dimi...” Ivan began to clean up his mess on the floor so he had an excuse not to look her in the eyes. “Politics... It's complicated. A delicate affair. Doing the right thing is... easy.”

Dimi scoffed. “Ivan, that’s a load of bull.”

“Dimi, the sort of language...Eh, okay, you are right, it’s a load of bull.” The minotaur sighed. “Dimi... There were decisions your father did not dare to take. He couldn't, he-”

Dimi tightened her fists. “Great. Just great. My dad is a coward.”

“Dimi, it’s not that-”

“Sorry I came home later than I promised.” Dimi left the forge. “I’m going to help out Aura.”

Ivan watched the human girl leave. She looked so angry that one would worry that getting near her would be life threatening. Ivan was unsure what to do.

So he went back to work.

***

“Dimi. You are upsetting the little ones.”

Dimi looked at Aura with a grim expression on her face as she stopped sweeping the stable. The wife of her godfather was holding a griffin cub she was studying to see if the newborn animal was healthy. The cub began to cry, and so did the other three cubs that were hiding under the wings of their mother who growled while looking at Dimi.

“I’m not doing anything.” The human princess returned to sweeping.

“You are scaring the little ones, they can feel you are upset.”

Dimi sighed. The downside of her animal empathy powers were that they could feel all of her negative emotions as well. And cubs were extra sensitive to that. “I have a right to be pissed.”

“Oh, you most certainly do.” Aura returned the cub to her mother and siblings. “But you don’t have to be here while being... moody.”

“I’M NOT MOODY!” Dimi snapped at the sphinx woman.

That resulted in all of the four cups crying loudly. Aura narrowed her eyes as she made a now-look-what-you-did gesture.

Dimi groaned as she dropped the broom. “FINE, I’m going outside.”

The human girl sat on the chopping stump near the stable. She looked at the forge. Smoke came out of the chimney, meaning that Ivan was still working. Dimi felt like smoke came out of her ears.

“So, you wanna talk about it?”

Dimi looked to her left. Aura stood and looked at her somewhat worried with her arms crossed. Dimi shrugged. “Talk about what?”

“Well, you are clearly upset about something. And you are not talking to Ivan about it, that’s not a good sign.”

“That’s because Ivan is part of the problem.”

“Really? What did he do?”

“He DIDN’T tell me that my dad was a spineless jerk.”

Aura lifted both her eyebrows. “Ouch. Harsh. Where is this coming from?”

“I met a gorgon today.”

Aura’s left eye twitched. Dimi luckily didn’t notice. “A gorgon? That’s... nice.”

“It was, until she explained to me that humans killed a ton of her ancestors, treated them like shit AND that my dad didn’t do squad to make up for it.“

“Ah.” Aura leaned against the stable. “That’s rough, kiddo. But what is Ivan to blame for here?”

Dimi scoffed. “He didn’t tell me! For so long I wanted to get my dad back, and now I know that he is a jerk!”

“You wanted Ivan to call your old man that?”

“YES! Wait... no? Ah...” Dimi looked dumbfounded. “I don’t know! Look, I wanted the truth!... I think!” Dimi slapped her forehead. “Dammit, I’m not supposed to be angry at him!”

“Who? Ivan or your dad?”

“BOTH OF THEM!” Dimi stood up and kicked a bucket.

“Dimi...” Aura wondered if what she was about to say was a bad idea. “Ivan and I talked a lot before getting married. He wanted me to know everything. We talked about things he might not tell you. You want to know about what he thinks of your dad?”

Dimi stood with her back to the sphinx for a couple of seconds before she turned around and walked over to Aura, leaning against the stable. “Sure. Yes.”

“Look, you have a right to be angry about not being taught about the negative aspects of your family history. Trust me, I can relate.” Aura narrowed her eyes. “History is not exactly appreciated where I came from, I know what it is like to hear the ugly truth. And sure, your dad was… a pushover. But before your dad became king, he was just, well, a normal guy, I guess. He grew up in this little town as a normal guy. And then he met a girl who was anything but normal, one who actually fell in love with him. A princess. Pater assumed he was just gonna be the husband of the queen, that he was gonna look pretty and nothing else. But then his wife died and he had a whole kingdom to be responsible for. Not everyone is cut out for that sort of responsibility.”

“So what?!” Dimi narrowed her eyes. “It was still his responsibility. And he screwed up.”

“Well, he did do some good things. He made better laws for foreigners like me. The only reason I became a legal citizen of Nesredna after I deserted the army was because of king Pater.”

Dimi looked shocked at Aura. “Wait, amry?”

“I will tell you some other day. What you need to understand is that your dad became unpopular after that little law change, so he decided to play nice so to say. Not get on the bad side of the population. And most of the population don't like gorgons.”

Dimi groaned. “Getting it explaimned doen't make me less angry.”

“That’s okay. You are entitled to be angry.” Aura laughed. “You are a teenager for gods’ sake, you are supposed to be pissed at your parents.”

“NO, I’M NOT! I’m not supposed to be angry at my dad. I’m supposed to miss him.”

“You should especially be mad at him if you miss him.”

Dimi was about to say something. Then, she just sighed and looked defeated.

Aura placed her clawed hand gently on Dimi’s shoulder. “I don’t mean to make this weird, but would you... heh...” Aura smiled awkwardly. “Would you like a hug?”

“I’m not a baby.” Dimi scoffed. Then she looked the lion-woman in the eyes. “... Actually, a hug would be kinda nice.”

The sphinx embraced the human girl who awkwardly hugged back.

“Okay...” After the hug had lasted for a couple of seconds, Dimi gently pulled her herself free from Aura’s embrace. “That’s enough... thanks.“ 

“Don't mention it.”

***

“OW! Damn it all to hell!”

Ivan blew on his finger that he had hurt with his hammer. He was normally not that clumsy. In fact, he wasn’t clumsy at all when it came to his work.

Then again, it bothered him how angry Dimi had been. Or he assumed that she was angry? In fact, he was unsure if she was angry at him. Ivan had no idea what went through that girl’s head. He partly felt bad about not going looking for her to see how she was doing, but he assumed she wanted some space from him. Ivan was embarrassed. It felt like when she was ten and had yelled that she hated him. But it was somehow worse how… calm she was.

“Why is it so hard to figure out how young women works?!” Ivan yelled as he fetched his hammer to finish the horseshoe.

“Tell me about it, we can’t figure ourselves out.”

Ivan turned as he heard Dimi’s voice. She had just entered the forge. She looked at him and looked at him with an expression that was somewhat hard to read.

“Hi.” Ivan didn’t know what else to say.

“Maybe you should take a break? I can take over for a while.”

“Sure.” Ivan shrugged. “That would be... nice.”

Dimi took the hammer from Ivan and looked at her feet. “I’m not mad. Not at you. Just... confused?”

Ivan shrugged again. “That’s fair.”

The human girl and the bull-man smiled awkwardly at each other, not sure what to say. Dimi then tied an apron around her waist and started hammering on warm steel while Ivan went to the house to prepare dinner.

Aura was already doing so when Ivan entered the house. “Hey, darling. Did you and Dimi talk things out?”

“Something like that.” Ivan kissed his wife on the cheek. “I wonder who told her about Pat.”

“Dimi met...” Aura hesitated. “A new friend. They talked about her negative feelings toward Dimi’s father. I decided to talk to her about it and tell her what you told me.”

“Ah...” Ivan looked worried. “Did you tell her about... Veronica?”

“No, absolutely not. If she needs to know about that bitch, you should tell her, not me.”

“I don’t mind her knowing about Veronica as such.” A grim expression appeared on Ivan’s face. “But I don’t want her to know about my mistakes.”

The next day...

“I’m telling you, Dimi, Oswald is the cutest Satyr in the kingdom. Sure, not as cute as my Cobalt, but I think you would like him.” Amethyst followed Dimi to the former bakery while she tried to convince her to go on a double date with her and the dwarf she was currently in a relationship with.

“Amethyst, I’m...” Dimi sighed. “I don’t have time for stuff like that. I train and I work and I just wanna spend my free time with you.”

“Yes, and I do think you should spend it with me. AND Oswald.”

“I don’t know him.”

“Yes, and we can fix that.”

“Right now, I want you to meet Ruby. I think you will like her and she needs a hand fixing up her new place.”

“More than happy to. It is about time we got a place where we can go to eat locally.” Amethyst smiled about the thought of a restaurant in Jadedale.

She stopped smiling when she spotted who she assumed was Ruby.

The young gorgon stood with her back against Dimi and Amethyst as she was adjusting her dark glasses when she was taking a break from cleaning a window. One of the snakes on her head hissed. Ruby turned around and noticed her new friend and a dwarf had come to lend her a hand in fixing up the place that was gonna be her very own eatery. “Hey, Dimi! I could use a hand here about now.”

“Sure, no problem. I brought a friend to help.” Dimi smiled at Amethyst as she waved a hand at the snake girl. “Amethyst, this is Ruby.” Dimi stopped smiling when she noticed that Amethyst looked like she had eaten something she couldn’t stomach. “What’s wrong?”

“Hello, nice to meet you.” Amethyst made a half-assed smile at Ruby(who gave the dwarf a tired look) then turned to Dimi and pulled her arm. “Dimi, could I talk with you privately for a sec?”

“Ah, sure?” Dimi looked at Ruby who narrowed her eyes the same way she did when Dimi pointed out that she was a gorgon. “Ruby, we will be back in a sec.”

“Right, whatever.” Ruby sighed as she went inside with her bucket and wet rag.

Amethyst dragged Dimi a few steps away from the closed down bakery before she gave her a stern look. “Dimi, how did you meet her?”

“Ah, in Onyxville?”

“No, no. I mean how did you meet her?”

“She got into a fight with some creatures who ganged up on her, I helped her out.”

“Alright. Why did they gang up on her? Did you ask her that?”

Dimi gave the teen dwarf a blank stare. “No? I kinda think it was unimportant. Them being shits was the reason.”

Amethyst groaned. “Dimi, you can’t be that naïve. Did you consider that maybe that gorgon did something? That she had it coming? That she was... you know... asking for trouble?”

Dimi’s blank glare was replaced with an angry one. “No, it didn’t occur to me. Why would you even think that?! What is up with you today?”

“Dimi, she is a snake creature! Doesn’t the snake part bother you just a little? Besides, everyone, except you it seems, knows that gorgons are violent, their freaky hair has a mind of its own, they steal, eat up animals while they are still alive-”

“AND WE HAVE AN AMAZING SENSE OF HEARING ON TOP OF THAT!” Ruby yelled from inside her house before slamming her window shot.

Amethyst blushed while Dimi gave her an angry glare.

Dimi was so angry she was practically steaming. “What the hell is wrong with you?!”

“Dimi, I didn’t mean to upset you-”

“Upset me?!” Dimi pointed at Ruby’s soon-to-be restaurant. “You just called Ruby a criminal, violent snake-monster!”

“But she most likely IS one!”

Dimi grind her teeth. “If Ruby is a snake-monster, then maybe YOU are a freaky, bearded BIT-”

SMACK!

Dimi’s cheek turned red after Amethyst had made a small jump to reach the human’s face in order to slap her.

The human and the dwarf glared angrily at each other before Dimi smiled mockingly and said; “I dodge punches for a part-time job. You only stroke me because I let you do it.”

“SOD OFF!” Amethyst stomped away while steaming like a kettle.

Dimi sighed as she watched the dwarf leave. She entered Ruby’s shop to be met by the gorgon at the door. The puddle at the floor around her mob indicated she hadn’t done much while Dimi had talked with Amethyst. “I’m sorry about that.”

“Not your fault. Hey, should I mop the floor?” Dimi said with a tone that indicated that she didn’t think they should mention the incident.

“Sure.” Ruby handed over the mop. “Hey, while you do that, how about I warm us up something to eat? How does turkey ragoût sound to you? I made some earlier.”

“What’s ra-goo?”

Ruby smiled. “Give me a few minutes.”

After a while when Dimi had just begun drying up the floor, the human could smell something amazing and stood up from the floor to see Ruby holding a wooden bowl in each hand. Dimi took one and saw a sort of stew in it. The two of them leaned up against a wall and Dimi took the spoon from the bowl out and took a mouthful of the ra-goo. It tasted unbelievably good.

“Ruby, this is amazing! This restaurant is gonna be a success!”

Ruby smiled bitterly. “Glad you are an optimist.”