My mouth hung open as I watched her scramble down from the ladder and run up to me. Her nose twitched—twitched!—while her entire body needed to lean backward to look at my face.

She was... so, so cute. So tiny, too.

How could anybody look this cute?

And what was I here for again?

"Oh. My. God," Auri said, clasping her hands over her mouth. Her high-pitched voice was as adorable as she looked. "You are the tallest person I have ever seen in my life!"

I blinked. I cleared my throat again. "Uh, t- thank you, I guess?"

"And this is the perfect time for a tall person to appear, too! Come here, come here!"

She dragged me over to the shelf; her hand was so small it barely wrapped around two of my fingers.

"Could you help me put these on the top rack?" she asked, gesturing over to the folders she had been holding.

"Sure... Erm, do you want me to put these on the shelf you were on, or the higher one?"

Her eyes widened in shock as she gasped—wait, how could eyes dilate this much?

"That wasn't even the highest rack? There's another row up there? Oh my god, who built these shelves? Weregiraffes? Well, whatever, this is good news. I can store even more stuff on the shelves now! Oh, how I desperately needed more space. I swear, the amount of paperwork to just get one thing done here is ridiculous, I need an entire library to store my folders! Hey, do you mind helping me shift everything on the shelf I was on to the top?"

"Uh, sure..."

"Oh, oh! Here, too! The folders here should be moved too!"

For the next half an hour or so, I let Auri order me around her office. I ended up rearranging the entire shelf, dusting and cleaning every part of the room that was too tall for her. There was even a rat infestation hidden at a corner of the ceiling and I had to coax them out of there. The rats spoke a different dialect so it was rather difficult negotiating with them, but I managed to get them out.

Finally, I collapsed onto a chair, ignoring the fact that it was not built to hold a large person like me and was creaking in protest.

So far, on my task to be trained as an Alpha, I had been screamed at by a bunch of people, let a cute woman order me around, and begged a family of rats to move out. This task was definitely not starting right. I didn't even want to imagine what my father's reaction to this would be.

Auri sat opposite me, flashing me with her widest grin. "Thank you so, so much for your help. I am so glad you showed up!"

"Uh, you're- you're welcome..."

"But really, this place is such a mess, because nobody is tall enough to be taking care of it. I don't know why anybody thought it'd be a good idea building such a big place in the burrows. Oh, but where are my manners? What's your name? Where are you from? What wereanimal are you?"

"Uh..." I gulped. I wasn't sure why my heart decided to skip a beat there, but I calmed myself down and replied, "I'm Bodie. I'm from the Werewolf Plains just outside the forest."

"A werewolf!" Her already bright eyes lit up even more. "Wow! We don't get many werewolves visitors. I've only ever met other small wereanimals. I guess it's because, well, things are made for the smaller folks here."

Recalling the trauma of entering the burrows, I nodded. "Yeah, I can see that."

"You know, we should honestly make things more inclusive for people like you here. I love seeing visitors from all over the wereanimal kingdom! But no worries, Bodie, this is the exact thing I'm working on. I managed to get the council to agree on building this giant underground structure. I'm leading on that here at the burrowing department, and I'll make sure you and all your friends can hang out there comfortably. We're gonna be making more space for all of us."

Right. The burrowing. That was what I was here for. "Oh, actually, I'm here to talk to you about that—"

"No way! You are?" Auri gave me an expression so happy it melted my heart out of my chest. "Oh, this is so wonderful to hear! It's a really new project and people don't seem too excited by it. But it's so much hard work, you know? And I really believe the end results will be worth it, so it's so great that you're interested in it."

"Oh." Whatever warm, fluffy sensation I had been getting around Auri vanished in an instant. Guilt and dread replaced it. "I'm actually here to... well, to ask if you could cut back on the burrowing."

"Oh." Auri's face fell. Her ponytails seemed to droop even lower. "May I ask, why?"

I squirmed in my seat; the chair squirmed with me. "Well, it has been weakening the ground and affecting the other wereanimals in the area." I took out the binder that my father had given me and passed it to Auri. "I have some reports here on the complaints we've been getting."

As she read through the notes, she slumped into her chair, reducing further in size, stabbing me harder in the heart.

"I'm really sorry, Auri," I mumbled. Wait, why was I apologizing again? Pinching my nose in frustration, I tightened my tone. "I mean, I... I appreciate what you do here, but you may have to rethink your strategy on your project."

Auri sighed and rested her head on her hand. "I know," she said, the cheer in her voice had dissolved like her energy. "I'll... look through this and think about it. Thank you, Bodie."

"Take your time to think about this." Then, I remembered how my father wanted to get this settled by the end of the week and quickly added, "Or we could come up with a plan together. Something that would work for all of us."

Auri lifted her head. Her smile returned. "Yeah?"

I nodded. "It'll be faster to think about a solution with more heads, right?"

She drummed her fingers on the table, her bubbly self slowly returning. "Do you want to meet tomorrow? How about a chat over coffee?"

"Coffee?"

"Yeah, there is this really nice cafe down the street that's new. Their matcha latte is so, so good. Are you lactose intolerant by any chance?"

"Uh, no—"

"Oh, that's good! Well, I am, but it's okay. They have oat milk. You should try it! The latte, I mean, not the oat milk, although the oat milk is also pretty good."

"S- Sure."

She beamed at me. "Thank you so much for your help today, Bodie. You're a lifesaver, you know that?"

I felt a tingle run down my spine and into my gut. "Don't worry about it, Auri. G- Glad to help."

"So, same time tomorrow? I'll see you then?"

How could I say no when she was smiling at me like that? "Yes. S- See you."

I had never left the territory before this day, but this woman was getting me to leave it for a second time. I could already imagine Victor's half-amused, half-exasperated voice in my head. "Did you really just let a small girl like that walk all over you?"

Yes, I did. I totally did.

How was I ever going to become an Alpha like this?