All of my stuff had been dumped in a pile in a corner of the room. That meant someone, probable Shae or the Chicken-broth woman, had carried it all here after stabling Fern. Feeling suspicious, I moved over to inspect it. Crossbow, blade, saddlebags, rucksack, at first glance everything was still there, even the bag of runestones.

I groaned. If anyone had looked inside that bag and had recognized the runestones then I was so screwed. Worrying about things beyond my control wouldn’t help though. All I could do now was plan for the worst and hope for the best. At least no one had killed me while I rested.

Sooo… that’s a positive, right?

I unsheathed my blade and tried to inspect myself in the cloudy reflection. My cheeks were still their annoying fluffy and cute self. Thankfully they were currently being overshadowed by the haunted look in my eyes and the disheveled tangle that was my hair. That wasn’t even taking into account the reeking mess that my clothes were now.

How have I gotten myself into such a horrendous state?

Something leaking out of my ear…

Right. That explained an awful lot. I scrutinized my face some more.

Does this look like the face of a sane individual?

Am I really still sane after what I did to myself last night?

I tried to examine my thought patterns, tried to discern if there was a difference.

Would I even be able to tell if I lost a part of my sanity?

I had my skull bashed in once. I didn’t feel any different after that, so hopefully this was the same. I decided I couldn’t tell if something changed, and moved on to fixing my hair. That was about the only part of me I could fix right now.

Aaaah… I look like a deranged toddler.

Deranged. And toddler. It was unlikely that I could fix both of those things with a quick taming of my locks. Getting the sticky snarls of my hair fully presentable again would be a challenge, even with a bath, a brush, and plenty of time. Time I did not have because I was hungry! Holding several tangles in front of my eyes I tried to figure out which direction I wanted to go in. At first glance, deranged felt slightly more preferable over toddler.

Have I really got my priorities straight?

Meh.

I gave up almost as soon as I had started. It was unfixable. My face and hair really didn’t matter with the state my clothes were in. So instead of that, I attempted to rearrange all of my gear into a configuration that would allow me to carry it all down in one go. This took me far longer than it should. Weakened as I was I could not rely on brute strength to compensate for a lack of proper packing.

Stupid sun weakness.

Stupid hunger!

Stupid friggin village.

Stupid! Idiotic! Suicidal me!

Grumbling about the unfairness of it all I clumsily worked my way down the stairs. My complaining only succeeded in reminding me that extracting myself from the clutches of this village was likely to become way more of an uphill battle than I felt up to right now.

I arrived in the common room to the stares of four people. One of them was Hot-ember– I mean Limn. Their conversation halted as soon as they spotted me. Limn turned to look at me. We sized each other up.

I really did not feel like a confrontation right now, no matter how appetizing of a snack he looked like. He was the second tastiest thing in this village by far, only barely overshadowed by the Slow-hum-of-tempered-steel woman sitting next to him at the table.

I wrenched my eyes away from their exposed necks before I would lose control and scanned the room for an exit. Any exit that would not lead me near their table would do. I began chewing the inside of my lip to distract myself from the food in front of me.

Then the faint stirring of an opening door came from behind me, followed by the scent of chicken broth. It was unmistakably the old lady that had led me to this bunkhouse earlier. I could feel her standing there, in that open doorway, with an undertone of caution and uncertainty in her aroma. Clearly even the relatively friendly people here, people like her, had no idea what to think of me.

I tried to not let it show that I was aware of her presence. Being able to tell where someone was, what they were thinking by scent alone tended to freak people out. No matter how much I clamped down on my senses, little things like these kept on slipping through the cracks. It required constant vigilance on my part, with a single mistake likely to betray that I wasn’t entirely human.

When Limn got up from his chair and looked my way I changed my mind. If the Chicken-broth woman had come from a door behind me, and this was her bunkhouse, then that probably was her living quarters or a kitchen back there. Places like that usually had another door leading out. That was the Limn-free exit I was looking for, and so I turned to face her.

“Ah…” she startled at my sudden turn, but hid it behind fake cheer. “You’re up dear? Did you sleep well?”

No. Hungry!

I kept my thoughts to myself, merely frowned at her, and chewed my lip a little harder. No one ever displayed that much happiness without ulterior motives. I really did not have the patience right now to ferret them out or dance around them. Far too much of my conscious thoughts were being spent on thinking about hunger, not trying to think about hunger, and keeping unfamiliar organs going so I needed to think less about hunger.

And the only route to my new exit would bring me right past her. Uncomfortably close to her. And her neck. It would maybe even force me to interact with her. Somehow I’d need to manage all that without giving in to the hunger gnawing at me. I snuck a look past her at the room beyond the door, wondering if I could just ignore her and dart out that way without engaging in conversation.

She either did not notice, or did not care about my lack of response so far. Instead, she glanced over my head at the approaching Limn. For a moment that small gesture grated on me more than the hunger, more than Limn thinking he could just walk up to me. The way she was casually looking over me, it was the kind of thing people did to kids.

Not a kid!

Said I was going to tolerate it till the sun’s up. Well, sun’s up. Tolerance gone!

I opened my mouth to call her out on it, but was forced to revise my opinion of her several times in rapid succession. First, her cheery yet somewhat bored demeanor transformed into a furious scowl directed at the approaching Limn. Then she forcibly grabbed me by the shoulder and pushed me through the door I was eyeing, away from Limn’s reach.

Maybe I do like her?

She ruined my momentary appreciation by following it up with a merrily tittered, “Come child, you must be hungry after all you did last night. I saved some leftovers from lunch for you.”

Aaaagh!

Her casually calling me a child made me want to drink her blood. Then her mentioning food made me want to drink her blood in an entirely different way. Anger and hunger fought for dominance. Hunger won out. Expectantly I glanced up at her neck. When instead of offering her neck she ushered me in the direction of a table and moved towards a pot simmering over a fire I stared at the ground in embarrassment.

What am I thinking?

Rarely been this hungry before…

All of the attention I needed to spend on keeping unfamiliar organs running was requiring far too much of my focus. It was making me slip on my human façade in embarrassing, unexpected, and downright dangerous ways.

In frustration, I renewed the chewing on my inner lip in earnest. I would do anything at all to distract myself from my hunger. It made even the sensation of my fang brushing the outside of my lower lip pure bliss.

Too much fang! Too much fang! Too much fang!

I hastily let go of my lip. It curled back over my fangs, hiding them from view. Shooting a quick glance around the room, I prayed no one had noticed my newest slip-up.

And I had more to worry about than just Chicken-broth. She and I weren’t the only two people in this room. There was another man in here, with a hint of careful confession of a lovelorn firebird hiding in his blood. I hadn’t even noticed him, so focused that I was on not thinking about food. He had been sorting out linen. Had been. Now he was staring at me.

Aaaah… what if he noticed the fangs?

He so noticed!

“Here you go dear.” The elderly woman placed a bowl on the table in front of me, apparently completely unaware of my inner turmoil. The contents of the bowl looked like chicken broth. It smelled like chicken broth. I was convinced it was going to taste nothing like chicken broth to me.

Nowhere near as much as she would.

I really couldn’t stay here. I was a danger to everyone around me. Just like I had expected, there was another door in the back of the room that looked like it might lead outside.

“I’m sorry,” I mumbled. “Not hungry.”

Then I rushed out the door. Blinding light assaulted my eyes.

Right. Sun.