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Vur sat on a tiger-fur couch, his arms crossed over his chest. In front of him, there was a table with empty plates stacked upon it with some fresh plates of food. Across the table, Mary was sitting on a similar couch, her cheeks bulging as she chewed on a piece of dried mango that extended out of her lips. The two stared at each other, their eyes red. Faint lines ran down their cheeks to their chins where tears had dried. Neither of them said a word as they stared at each other and ate without breaking eye contact.
A door creaked opened, but neither Vur nor Mary turned their heads. A moment later, the door shut with a soft click and footsteps approached the duo. “What kind of battle is this?” a feminine voice asked. “You made it sound like they were killing each other.”
“Morning, Tafel,” Vur said, not turning his head to greet his wife. His eyes remained locked on Mary. “Are you okay?”
“I’m alright,” Tafel said as she approached the side of the table, sticking closer to Vur than Mary. She picked a piece of pie off a plate in the center and sat beside Vur. “What’s going on?”
“We’re having a staring contest,” Vur said. “Whoever blinks first loses.”
Tafel stopped mid-chew and swallowed. “Alice said you’ve been competing for over a day.”
“Yep.”
“Don’t your eyes hurt?” Tafel bit her lower lip and lowered her head to inspect Vur’s eyes without blocking his view of Mary. “Wait, no, before that, you stayed up for over twenty-four hours?”
“Yep,” Vur said again. He opened his mouth and yawned, but his eyes stayed wide open. A few tears leaked out of the corners of his eyes and ran down his cheeks to his chin. Tafel dabbed away the droplet with her sleeve. “I’m sleepy.”
“Then quit,” Mary said as she yawned as well, squeezing tears out of her eyes. “I won’t lose.”
“You already lost to me once,” Vur said with a snort. “You’ll lose again.”
“That was that and this is this,” Mary said. She picked up a dried mango slice and placed it into her mouth, chewing on it like a cow chewing on grass. “And I apologize for calling you a devil, goat lady. Your husband told me you weren’t one, but I figured it out from how weak you were.”
Tafel’s eye twitched. “Vur, do my horns really look like a goat’s?”
“I can’t look,” Vur said. “Staring contest.”
“You know what they look like!”
Vur coughed. “Oh, hey, that tree over there looks awfully tall, doesn’t it?”
“You’re not looking at the tree!” Tafel sighed and hung her head. She touched the base of her horns with her hands. “I like my horns….”
“They’re very pretty,” Vur said, wrapping his arm around Tafel’s shoulder. “You shouldn’t be discouraged just because they look like a goat’s.”
Tafel’s face flushed as she leaned against Vur, burying her head into his neck. She sighed and closed her eyes as she wrapped her arms around his waist.
Mary made a face. “That’s distracting. But I’ll still win even if she interferes again.”
Tafel turned her head and glared at Mary before sticking out her tongue.
“Losers shouldn’t taunt winners,” Mary said. “I showed mercy by letting you live.”
“I’ll beat you next time.”
“Impossible,” Mary said. “I excel at dispatching magicians.”
Tafel grunted. “How’d you get so freakishly strong anyway?”
“It’s thanks to my uncle,” Mary said. “He strengthened my foundation when I was little. To feed me, he captured a pregnant desolate bear to nurse me with her milk. When I could eat solid foods, he fed me the meat of magical beasts. To bathe me, he’d soak me in the blood of wyverns. When I was four, he gouged out my heart and replaced it with a cheetah’s through blood magic. When I was five, he injected liquid orichalcum into my bones. When I was six, he hid me inside the egg of the snaketurtle and tricked it into imprinting me. After it ate me out of anger, he killed it and dug me out.”
Tafel bit her lower lip as she waited for more, but Mary didn’t continue. “It sounds like you’ve had a rough childhood,” she said and glanced at Vur. “It’s very similar to someone else’s.” After a brief moment of hesitation, Tafel wet her lips and said, “About that heart transplant…, how does that work?”
“Are you interested?” Mary asked. “My heart easily beats three times faster than a normal person’s. If your body isn’t strong enough to handle it, your veins will rupture and you’ll die. It’s very painful too; I don’t recommend it.”
“…Painful?”
“Being stabbed in the chest hurts,” Mary said, her face expressionless. “But adding orichalcum to your bones hurts even more. You shouldn’t do either.”
Tafel’s lips trembled. “Were you awake … when he did those things?”
“Of course,” Mary said. “As with any blood-magic spell, fainting means death. A lot of my brothers and sisters died while trying these operations when they learned I had them.”
“Who’s you’re uncle?” Apollonia asked. She had been sitting in a corner, not having made a sound until now. “Why have I never heard about him?”
“He was the head of Shadows,” Mary said.
Apollonia furrowed her brow. “Are you his puppet empress?”
“No,” Mary said. “He fell down the stairs and died when I was ten. It was an accident.”
“…Someone who could capture a desolate bear died by falling down the stairs?”
Mary shrugged. “There were a lot of steps.”
Apollonia’s mouth fell open. “That’s…. I see. A lot of steps.”
“What’s this snaketurtle?” Alice asked. “I’ve never heard about one before.”
“It looks like a turtle,” Mary said, “but instead of a tail, there’s a snake. There was only one left, but my uncle killed it, so snaketurtle’s should be extinct now. He said they were as strong as phoenixes and dragons.”
“If they were that strong, how was there only one left?” Tafel asked, furrowing her brow. “Don’t tell me humans hunted them down….”
“No, that’s not it,” Mary said. “After a snaketurtle lives for a few centuries, the snake part and the turtle part fight and eat each other. Then the snaketurtle dies.”
“…It kills itself?”
“Some caterpillars turn into moths that can’t eat and die within a week. Some spiders let their young eat them after they’re born. Some mantises eat their mates during copulation. Is it so strange for a snaketurtle to eat itself?”
“Yes.” Tafel nodded. “It’s strange. Just because you listed three examples of strange animal behaviors doesn’t make snaketurtles eating themselves any less strange. I think you’re the weird one for thinking it’s normal.”
Mary blinked and tilted her head. “I’m weird?”
“I win!” Vur shouted as he jumped to his feet. He caught Tafel midfall and pointed at Mary. “You blinked!”
Mary froze. “Your wife distracted me again! It doesn’t count!”