🏆 THE AMBY AWARDS 2023 TOP PICK - DIVERSE LIT 🏆
It's Rin and Hye-jin against the world. Or so it should have been.
Nagara Rin and Joon Hye-jin, college sweethearts and passionate gamers, have lived a fairytale marriage. Not even a decade after did...
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Heather's claws tapped against the wooden walls on the corridor leading to the room where the rest of the Crimson Scouts were. She hummed a simplistic tune under her breath, occasionally adding a small skip to her steps. How old was she even?
"Down this corridor is the guildmasters' office," the dragonkin was saying. I was far too focused on the blue and white flames dancing inside the numerous lamps lining the pillars propping the guild's second floor up. We passed some sort of lounge filled with huge cushions and battered dummies scattered around. People dressed in simple vests over long-sleeved tunics told me nothing about their status. Were they adventurers or scouts?
Heather passed them by, still humming. She gave some a wave when they greeted her first. None of them seemed to notice me trailing behind her. The guild was huge, that much I could grasp at last, and seeing someone familiar seemed like a far-fetched idea. And then there's Heather, who seemed to know everyone and what they're up to.
"Good luck on the joint mission!" she flashed finger guns at the next troupe of people we passed by on our way through the balcony I spied from the lobby. Unlike the people at the common lounge, these guys were in full armor like I was.
Joint mission? I filed the words away as something to be asked later. I tucked my hair behind my ear by habit, not fighting the urge to flinch when my fingers brushed my tapered helix again. Heather stopped skipping, the wooden soles of her boots rescinding from making clack-clack noises against the floorboards.
Soon, she stopped in front of a door marked in the same gibberish script I saw in the lobby. One blink and it's replaced with one I could read. Crimson Scouts. Heather turned to me, bracing her hands on her hips. It took me a minute to realize she wore only a black band around her chest and a pair of denim-like shorts that cut just inches from her hips.
"Now, each party is given a common room where we can store all of our supplies. We each have beds inside which we don't even use much since we're out all the time," the dragonkin explained, her nostrils flaring. Unlike the Dragon Dude I fought yesterday, her face looked more human than beast. "You can have Sonii's old bunk. It's right below Trink, our tracker."
Sonii. The warrior who died. Right. I was truly a replacement and when I die, another one would be slated to take my place. Just like that.
Heather clicked her tongue and slapped her forehead. "What am I doing, talking out here? Come on. Let's go," she cranked the door's golden handle. "Time to meet the others. You're going to love them, I swear!"
Over-eager, much? Without much of a choice, I followed the dragonkin inside...to see three people passed out in their beds in the most unflattering ways possible. What caught my eyes first was someone with a dog's head snoring with half of their body already dangling from the upper bunk's corner. Another guy with muted teal hair was curled on the floor, muttering in his dreams while stroking his belly. Finally, a woman with wild strands of light blue hair snored face-first against a slanted wooden desk, her arms propped over it like a deflated scarecrow.
