A cottage shaped like a tortoise walked by. People who thought golems had to be humanoid lacked imagination.

He watched the burning monster run away. The matches were his, but, "Why'd you have a spray bottle full with pure alcohol?"
"For art."

"Wow! Did you see that?"
"I saw a giant flying lizard with giant claws and giant teeth, now come down here before it sees us!"

"I can't believe you did that. He was aiming a gun at you!"
"And now I have the gun."
"You're crazy."
"Occasionally. It works."

"You OK?"
"I think. Maybe bruised my elbow."
"I think you broke that guy's nose." Nico sounded enthusiastic.
"Good tradeoff, then."

While dozens of chimaerologists failed taking over the world with monsters, Hael combined pig, sheep, and cow and made a fortune.

A truck got stuck in a too-narrow street, on the way to a ferry only for cars. It was the third this week, on Tuesday. Stupid GPS maps.

Gregor could deal with drinking blood and avoiding sunlight. Not so progress. Biometric identification to buy tobacco? Stake, please.

"Look! Listen! It's marvelous! It's thunder given a heartbeat! It's-"
"...lots of animals running in one direction."

He wished for a partner who did not need to be told things like, "No, getting the lay of the land is NOT the same as getting laid."

Anne watched the falling leaves and stomped any that didn't turn over in the air. Those were airships of ant-sized pirate raiders.

It wasn't the fact that she'd seen the cathedral 500 years ago already that made her queasy, but that she had forgotten until just now.

Daaren dreaded the coming evening. It couldn't be good if preparations included a knife close to his neck, even if it was for shaving.

Nico saw he was impressed, what with him accidentally bumping into people. Inner ear damage seemed unlikely. Not that kind of concert.

"You're standing under a mistletoe," he said, trying to embrace her. The reaction? A shove, and, "That's holly, you idiot."

People approved of Gladys' "show children consequences" stance, until she demonstrated "it's fun until someone loses an eye".

At age 5, he'd wanted to be a hydraulic shovel when he grew up. It took decades to save up for the cyborgification.

The girl had been pouring her heart out to the cat for a week when her mother found out.

"Don't touch that useless beast, it has fleas!"

"No, he doesn't! And he's not useless, he'll find Daddy, he said!"

Her mother sighed. "Your Daddy is gone and won't come back, no matter how much you wish it. And cats can't understand what you say, let alone talk."

The girl took refuge in sullen silence, and her mother shooed the cat out of the window.

The small ginger tom met up with a bigger grey cat who had been waiting nearby. Instead of a greeting, he said, "My, humans are so silly. She didn't even think to ask me if I could talk."

"The girl believing your promises isn't exactly clever, either."

"Well, no." He stretched. "I have better things to do than chasing some guy. Nothing, for example."

The dragonslayer peered around warily. He sat on rough stone, and his spear leaned near the entrance of the cavern, out of reach. He had come across dragons that did not take him seriously before, just to cut right through their contempt, but this one's entirely different tone had triggered instincts too deeply rooted to ignore.

"Don't be silly, boy. There will be no fighting here. Come have a cup of tea and a bit of a chat."

He just couldn't kill anything that sounded exactly like his grandmother, even when the cookies were nearly as hard as the furniture.

Gabriel had had no luck tonight picking up someone for dinner, but since he wasn't particularly hungry yet, he just treated himself to a cappuchino to unwind. It would have been better without one of the few other guests wearing penetrant after shave, but you couldn't have everything.

What he could have, after all, was company. The young woman making a beeline to his table did not look familar, but the feel of her presence told him what she was, and a quirk of her smile tipped him off as to who she was. Not that he knew that many nymphs, anyway. Her current guise was new to him, petite, white-blonde, decidedly elfin.

"Ah, Gabriel. On the prowl, too?"

"Taking a break, actually."

"No luck, either, eh?" She leaned back and sighed.

Gabriel decided she'd laid on the self-depreciation in her tone thickly enough so he didn't have to take offense. Considering that she was probably the least idiotic person who knew him, she deserved a bit of help. "Do you follow the news? I didn't think so. Some guy getting locked up up for raping a 13yearold girl was all over the papers. I'd think the kind of people attracted by your looks are a bit... inhibited just now. Unless you start prowling schoolyards earlier in the day, that is."

After a thoughtful pause and look around, she whispered, "All right, then."

Her her body wavered like a mirage, and flowed into a somewhat bigger shape. Her hair grew from a pixie cut to well over shoulder length, and turned auburn, her clothes changing to match it. None of the other guests took notice. Gabriel envied the ease with which fae could mess with other people's minds, all without biting them first.

When she was finished, he would have estimated her age closer to thirty than thirteen.

"Much better." Particularly the curves.

"You sure it's not just your taste you're pushing here?" she teased. When he only shrugged, she suggested, "Well, if we find no-one else, the two of us could hook up."

Gabriel gave a sort of dismissive chuckle. "Neither of us would get anything out of it."

"Maybe you just don't value fun enough."

"Maybe some people don't have as much time as you do."

He found that he could waste a surprising amount of time on chatting.