With a start, my eyes shoot open and I yawn loudly, my heart thundering. Looking around the room, the reassuring brick walls of my room in Bret’s house surround me. Sighing in relief, I rise, stretch, and as I throw off the blankets, I’m happy to find that the chill in the air has already gone. 

With a quick motion, I climb out of bed. Looking at the bed to make sure, not seeing Ela there, I turn to the washstand with a shrug and pour water from the pitcher resting beside and wash my hands and face. 

The door opens with a squealing noise and I jump and gasp, hiding my nudity in a hurry, my eyes wide. Ela’s lovely big eyes poke out from behind the door and she smiles warmly as her shoulder-length, lovely light-colored hair sways across her eyes and wafts in the air just inside as she asks, “Did you sleep well?”

With a wry laugh, I straighten and look at my clothes, my nose wrinkling. “I did, although — I’m not sure how long it will be before I get used to sleeping in a cold room. I can’t imagine living like this for my whole life, particularly during harsh winters.” Gathering up my clothes, I hurriedly pull on the pants and shirt in that order, both feeling far too spacious for my figure. Tucking the excess into the pants’ waistline, I cinch the waist, tying it off.

Delicately stepping inside, Ela puts her back to the door, closing it and tilting her head as she comments, “It’s too bad you’re not a beastkin, Hana.” She blushes prettily when I look at her with a questioning look, arching one of my eyebrows at her. “Ah… nnnn… I didn’t mean that you’re not… umm… I mean that if you were, winters wouldn’t be so harsh for you. When winter comes, I grow my winter coat and feel just fine unless it gets really cold. Few of us suffer in the winter unless it gets too cold and food scarce.”

“Oh, you make your own coats? Of course. That sounds really handy. If I had one like you, I’d probably look like a girly monkey.”

Looking at me with a clueless expression, Ela frowns. “What’s a monkey?”

“You don’t have any monkeys here?” I blink, walking to her waiting at the door, and look into her eyes. She blushes, thinking hard and shakes her head negatively.

“I’ve never heard the word ever before and there aren’t any ‘monkey’ types of beastkin. If they exist in Euphonia, no one I’ve known has seen one—except for you.”

“... Oh…” I rub my chin with a laugh. “Apes… monkeys come in many sizes and colors actually, looking fairly distinctively different. They can be very small, enormous and extremely powerful. Clever and skilled with their hands like humans — and beastkin. They say that mankind evolved from those, actually a common ancestor. In the end, humans aren’t all that different from animals. We all come from the same source.”

“O—Oh! I think I get it! Yes! Mulga thought so too.” Ela smiles warmly. “We did come from the same place and we’re not that different, really! They say that the goddess Alvera made Euphonia and man, beastkin, animals, plants—maybe the goblins, though I’m not sure about them… erm… all at the same time. These stories we pass down in our families.”

Thinking about what she says, I feel a glimmer of a foreign thought popping into my head. The pilgrim’s philosophies are similar. Not identical, but they also…

“Anyway, Hana, if you were like me,” Ela’s voice interrupts my thinking and I focus on her, “We could run pretty much anywhere together and you—” Ela stops midway with a sigh and blush, fidgeting her fingers around each other. Her horse’s ears pop up sharply as her lips purse and her tail sprouts from above her posterior.

There’s something she wants to tell me… and it’s distressing her, but I don’t think she’s ready to share it yet, so I won’t force it out. I wonder, if the pilgrims and the beastkin share their faith in this Alvera goddess, why don’t they get along if not the people of Alver, obviously named after Alvera?

—Beastkin killed my mother and father. Damn them!

Holding my head, I pace back to the bed, sitting down where my shoes rest. Ugh… shut up, Halima.

Pulling on my shoes, I look at Ela and try to change the subject to something safer — something that hopefully won’t trigger a reaction from the nascent pilgrim girl’s voice in my head. 

“I don’t know all that much about horses.” At least these fit. They were Halima’s, made for her feet.

“I guess you’ll have to just buy clothes like all humans when it gets colder,” Ela suggests ‘helpfully.’

“...I suppose so.” My eyes roll sarcastically. “But you wear clothes too.” Looking at her, I admire her form-fitting dress. Not that I want one of those pretty gowns. Halima had plenty of those, different from Ela’s style. And certainly none were as beautiful as hers, except for Jeraldyne’s floral embroidery on its hems and bodice. “Where did you get that pretty dress you’re wearing? I mean, when you and your kind avoid humans.”

Blushing, Ela chews her lip and smiles sadly, one horse’s ear leaning over. “I used to live in a beastkin village, far to the north from here. When it was destroyed, we ran. We had houses, very much like yours. We had weavers and other crafters like you.”

“Oh… so someone made that dress specifically for you?” I ask as I pace back across the floor to Ela.

She nods softly, sighing with both ears now standing at attention. “My father ordered it for me a few years ago.”

“Where’s he now?” I ask, suspecting that I already know the answer.

Ela looks away with downcast, not saying anything.

Lifting her chin, I smile comfortingly at her and touch one of her drooping ears. “You don’t have to tell me if you aren’t ready.”

Ela’s lip trembles and she shakes her head and finally says, “... he passed away in the monsters’ attack,” Tears glimmer in her eyes. She lifts a hand, wiping at her damp cheek, licking her lips anxiously.

“I’m sorry to hear that,” I say with a heavy sigh. Thinking about Halima’s loss, I commiserate with her to soothe the nerves I haplessly triggered. I lost my parents in an accident, so I understand how sorrowful Ela feels. Since I can’t commiserate with her by talking about my real life, I’ll have to draw on Halima’s memories. “...As you know, Halima’s—my mother died in an attack too. I watched goblins eat another villager that she knew… thankfully they didn’t get to eating Jeraldyne… but…” I shudder at the recollection of her transformation, my eyes narrowing in hurt. And I can’t help reliving the moment I learned that my parents were dead and our house would be seized sooner or later.

Ela sighs and nods, her ears still flattened. “Hana, you know—I witnessed the moment the goblins set your village on fire. I couldn’t do anything about it since our kind doesn’t—doesn’t get along with yours.”

“You witnessed their attack?” I gasp in shock. “You didn’t try to warn anyone?”

Ela presses herself against the door, seemingly trying to overlap it. She mutters softly and now her ears press almost down onto her cheeks as her eyes fill with tears. “Eeeeee—There… There were so many goblins around the village that night… so many that I couldn’t do anything. It was all I could manage to do… just watching it happening from the riverside. I knew that people were dying there, screaming for salvation, but I… was… I—” Her lips press tightly together as she sniffles.

“...It’s okay.” I wrap my arms around Ela and cuddle her to my breasts. Sheesh… My hand strokes her head. “I understand how helpless you were. There’s nothing you could do. I get it.” If I was Halima, I might not be so understanding, but as an outsider, I do. 

…

Thinking about the ‘dream’ I just had, I shiver again. What the hell was that about? What was that glimmering light? I dove right into a void that man said would kill with hardly any hesitation.

Ela wails loudly, rubbing against my chest. Her ears twitch and her tail tosses. “I’m so sorry…”

Looking down at Ela, I press my cheek against her head and fluffy ears. Feeling so helpless, I can sympathize with her. Standing so close to where murdering and pillaging is being done, bearing witness to it all and unable to change it. 

“It couldn’t have been easy to just stay hidden,” I say softly into one of her ears, “Even though they were different from you and yours, they were still people like you in need, a people that you’re still desperately afraid of. I understand and respect your fear. There wasn’t much you could do without sacrificing your own noble life.”

Ela keeps her face downturned.

With a smile, I add, “Honestly, I don’t think we’re all that different from each other in the end, beastkin or human.”

Tilting her face up, I look into Ela’s wet eyes and I lean up and gently kiss her forehead. 

Her cute ears shiver upwards as I whisper into them, “It’s okay. Let’s talk more about things soon. Happier subjects. I’d like to know more about your village, too.” Ela blushes and nods her head quickly, her story, ravaged face warming with her smile rising like the sun, her eyes brimming now with quiet gratitude. Her tail tosses gleefully and her big eyes startle me. They're breathtakingly cute.

Sheesh… Kairi’s the love of my lifetime. I — My heart throbs.

We sit together, the three of us, at the wooden table in the kitchen near the hearth’s radiating warmth. It feels wonderful after the previous chilly night. Given that the sun has been up for a few hours already and it's already warm outside, once the chill of the morning dissipates, the house will stay warm all day. 

But then again, maybe it’s because when Bret woke, he started this fire, maybe early before the sun rose.

Lifting a fork, I stab it into something that looks like hamburger steak without any sauce. It looks kind of dry, lacking that moisture. A couple of eggs are nestled beside it with two yellow orbs resting on a field of semi-browned white. A couple of slices with crusty bread occupy the rest of my wooden plate. Lifting one of the slices of bread, I use it to break the yolk and smear the golden goodness all over its end and take a bite with a satisfying crunching noise. With a flush of pleasure, I beam.

“I’m glad that you have eggs, Bret.” I muse with a happy smile. “I do know a few recipes that involve eggs, but without a few of the ingredients I mentioned last night, I’m not sure how well what I have in mind would turn out.” 

While I’m thinking about perhaps making some tamagoyaki sometime, Bret responds chipperly with an eager-sounding chuckle. “We can visit the bazaar lane today to see if any of the vendors have anything you’d need. I have some spare silver. If what you need doesn’t bite too deeply into what I have, I confess that I’m curious about these dishes you’ve been hinting at, so much so that I’ll cover the cost— within reason.” Rubbing his hands together greedily, he smiles. “And going to the bazaar lane brings up another and more important subject…” He strokes his chin, studying me.

Turning my eyes towards Ela, I witness her happily eating her fruit and the sight makes me think. “Bret, did you specially buy some fresh fruit for Ela this morning?” I ask with a smile.

Blinking, Bret barks a laugh. “You got me. I don’t eat much fruit, myself, but I felt so bad about how Ela reacted last night to my being unable to offer much of what she’d want to eat — so much that I decided to get up early and asked for some fruit from a neighbor’s garden, considering what horses like to eat. I now understand why she wouldn’t eat a bowl full of slabs of stag meat now. I asked for fruit because it would have been a mite suspicious had I asked for hay.” Bret’s laughing becomes more raucous.

I laugh and Ela giggles as she devours her fruit unabated, her tail whipping around behind her between the frame of the chair at its lumbar and her ears quivering with delight. Using my fork to cut up my steak-like meat patty, I wince at how tough the meat is once I’ve forked a piece of it into my mouth. The meat is coarsely chopped, most likely mixed with eggs and bread, but the simple seasonings mixed into it make my eyes widen. 

But… This meat is really savory! Delicious!

It tastes a bit like a kurobuta sausage with a bit of a beef-like flavor mixed in rather than a hamburger steak. Even so, this would make a good hamburger steak with some tweaking — if the meat was ground more finely! Chewing, I get excited. “This meat is really good!”

Looking at the crusty bread, I beam. Considering what I have on hand, it would be a simple version, but with some work, I think it’ll taste great!

“I’m glad that you’re enjoying my minced savories, Hana.” Bret smiles, glancing at Ela. “Seems I’ve two happy guests.”

Winking at Ela, Ela wipes some fruit juice from the corner of her lips and blushes with an inquisitive look, making me laugh.

“As for what I was saying before I was interrupted,” Bret says, “I think we’ll need to get you some more fitting clothes first thing, Hana. I don’t think you’ll be able to get a job looking like that. I can’t afford all that much, but your shoes are still good. All we need is a simple dress for you like Ela’s. You’ll easily fetch a job as a waitress at the café with Ela, looking the way you two do.”

My eyes widen in startlement. “Wh—at??? I was thinking about bugging those guys— the ones that were hauling heavy-looking barrels from a warehouse into a cart when we first arrived… Or if it turns out that they’re already done with their work, maybe someone else needs help with hauling things around. I’m better suited to hard labor.”

Bret stares at me incredulously. “What? Maybe in your dreams, Hana. Heh… With those baby muscles of yours?” Bret laughs. “Trust me, a waitress’ job’s demanding enough for you right now. Build up some strength first and then we’ll have a talk about changing jobs.”