The Tales of Flesh and Blood

Drama Dude Returns

By this point, I've all but given up the hope of returning back to my normal, depressing lifestyle. I mean, c'mon.

A giant-slayer disguised as a prostitute? Who the hell did these people think I was?

The daughter of a prostitute/giant-slayer.

Umm. Sure. Okay. Just what was I supposed to say to that, exactly?

Monster Guy took a step back to give me room, and I gave myself the time to take in a steady, deep breath.

"So my deceased-mother, who was a prostitute, was also secretly going around killing giants?" I said slowly, trying to wrap my head around this information. Because, you know, giants were supposedly a thing, now. I thought back to what Frenice had tried to tell me. How he hinted that I was more human than not, but not enough to evade my mother . . . Damn, at least this provided somewhat of an answer to his cryptic speech - explained why he and his buddy were aghast that my mother didn't kill me the moment I was born. I rubbed a hand down my face and cleared my throat. I shouldn't even be thinking like this.

"Okay. So assume that I believe you, and you're not just a figment of my imagination. You willingly hopped into bed with a woman that killed people like you for a living?"

Ah, finally. Monster Guy blushed slightly at this, turning his head to avoid looking at me.

"She wasn't guising herself as a prostitute when I met her," he explained. "And I didn't know what she was. It wasn't until the first time we . . . you know . . ." he gave me a self-conscious glance. "You pick up multiple scents when you're wrapped up in a person. Her profession is part of an organization that my kind has been at odds with for centuries. They spend a good portion of their lives training together, and eventually, they acquire a distinguishable scent that they can't get rid of completely."

"And you somehow caught this scent on her in bed," I finished flatly, remembering more of what Frenice had told me after the fire-alarm incident. He'd said he could smell the poison on me. If that was true, then perhaps Monster Guy wasn't completely out of it. Maybe. After all, I was going on the hope that I was actually talking to a person and not something my stressed-out mind was conjuring. Again, he blushed.

"I fled," he admitted. "We were getting ready to move in together, but we each had our own day jobs. I left Buation when she thought I was clocking in."

Before either one knew that my mother was pregnant. But if she wasn't in the whole prostitution thing, why did she take it up to begin with after . . . after this guy left?

"I don't know why she did what she did," he said. "I didn't know how much she was being targeted by my kind until I was well overseas."

His eyes grew sad, then, his shoulders slumping in exhaustion. When he next spoke, I had to strain to hear him.

"I was in the middle of raising my two boys when I found out that she had a child - one that may not be completely human. It was the talk of the land. They were finally going to capture the Red Lady."

I snapped my focus onto him at this. Two boys? He had a couple of sons of his own? A sudden realization smacked me straight in the face, and a sinking, terrible weight settled in my gut. He didn't notice how I paled, at least, too lost in his own thoughts.

"I knew it was risky, but I had to know. Find out if you were mine or not - they said you were sixteen at the time, which matched the time period I'd last seen your mother. So I got up and left . . ." he paused, taking a deep, long breath. "She was there," he whispered. "Waiting for me at the docks when I arrived in Buation. She told me, though. Told me to come here to get you, that it was too dangerous for her to do it. By the titans, I thought she was going to kill me and the boys."