Little stuffed Phelddagrif.

You didn't think I was going to say that, did you?

"It was the first time I looked at a Mira, and loved what I saw."

“What do you think?” Mira asked, as she stood in front of the hallway mirror and experimented with different ways of combing her hair. “Horns in, or horns out?”

Tryst got up from her chair and moved to stand behind her daughter. The devilkin rested a clawed hand on Mira’s shoulder.

“That’s your choice,” she said, quietly.

“Let’s split the difference,” Mira said, brushing the hair slightly off to one side, so that it covered one of her short, black horns, while revealing the other. She set the silver comb down on the table, then turned around to face her mother. “Be honest with me,” she said. “How do I look?”

Tryst looked at her daughter, and she had to fight back a tear. In her mind’s eye, it was still hard not to picture Mira as the cherubic girl over whom she had kept watch for so many years. But that Mira was gone, a memory who belonged to the past. The Mira who stood before Tryst now had blossomed into a beautiful young woman, with soft, warm skin, and kind, brown eyes, and teeth that flashed white when she smiled. She wore the blue and gold uniform of her order with visible pride, and she stood straight and tall, so that she seemed to radiate an aura of quiet but assured strength.

She had grown up so strong, Tryst thought. So strong, and so smart, and so fierce. But also so good, and so kind.

So perfect.

“You look beautiful,” Tryst finally said, and, as she said it, she had to turn her head a bit to one side, to try to hide the tears that were now flowing freely from her yellow eyes. The emotion in her voice she could do little to conceal.

“Oh, mama, don’t cry,” Mira said, wrapping her mother up in a hug as she did. She patted the devilkin’s back, and squeezed her tight. “It’s just the Rite of Initiation. It’s not like I’m leaving yet.”

“I know,” Tryst said, choking back sobs. “I’m just proud of you, is all.” Slowly, she disentangled herself from her daughter, not wanting to stain her uniform with tears. “I’m just so, so proud of you.”

“I know, mama,” Mira said. She gave her mother one last hug, before sitting down on a nearby bench to lace up her knee-high boots. “I know.”

Wiping away her tears with the sleeve of her dress, Tryst sat down on the bench next to her daughter. Reaching down, she helped with fastening a buckle.

“Tell me again,” she said quietly, “where you’re going after the Rite?”

Mira sighed, and rolled her eyes.

“Mama, not this again,” she said, without taking her eyes off her boots. “We’ve been over this a thousand times.”

“I must be getting forgetful in my old age,” Tryst lied, straightening the hem of Mira’s tunic. “Just walk me through it one more time?”

Mira sighed again. After tying her laces off with a neat bow, she looked up at her mother.

“After the Rite, there’s a celebration for the whole cadet class in the Temple of Whispers. That lasts until moonrise, and then Kelton and I are riding out to the Redbrooke Meadery, where a bunch of the novitiates are organizing a bonfire.”

“And who else is going to be there?”

“Practically half of my class, mama.”

“What about adults?” Tryst said, ignoring the exasperated look that Mira shot her. “Will there be any adults there?”

“Paladin Exemplar Straven is chaperoning the whole thing,” Mira said. She stood up and walked back over to the mirror, where she started fussing with her sigil. “It’s not going to be an orgy, or whatever it is you’re worried about.”

“I’m just worried about your safety,” Tryst said. She leaned back against the wall, and stared up at the ceiling. “That’s all.”

“Mama, I can take care of myself.”

“I know, dear.” In spite of herself, Tryst smiled. “Believe me, I know.”

“Then why all the questions?”

“I can’t help it. I’m your mother. I worry about you. It’s my responsibility to worry.”

Mira sat back down on the bench, and rested her hand atop Tryst’s clawed one.

“You don’t have to worry.”

“I’d worry a lot less if I knew how you were getting to the meadery.”

Mira sighed, and shook her head.

“Kelton’s giving me a ride. He’s borrowing his brother’s oxcart.”

“Is he giving you a ride back home, too?”

“Yes, mama.”

“Then I trust Kelton won’t be enjoying too much mead at this meadery?”

Mira looked daggers at the devilkin.

“No, mama.”

Tryst took her daughter’s warm hand in hers, and she gave it a small squeeze.

“Thank you for indulging me,” the devilkin said.

“It’s okay,” Mira said, even as she gave her mother a final, exasperated look. “I understand.”

Just then, there was a knock at the door. The sound sent Mira shooting upright.

“That must be Kelton,” she said, and Tryst couldn’t help but feel a shiver of anxiety as she heard the excitement that had suddenly appeared in her daughter’s voice.

Moving at the double-quick, Mira practically flew down the hallway, where she threw open the heavy door. Standing outside on the low stone step was a young human man. He was also dressed in the order’s blue and gold, although he wore a reliquarian’s cassock in place of a paladin’s battledress. He was carrying a stalk of flowering dragonthorn in one hand, and a nervous smile on his face.

“Hello, Mira,” he said, as he offered the flowers to her. “You look beautiful tonight.”

“And you’re the handsomest man in the order,” Mira said, as she stepped out onto the doorstep to give him a hug. Then, taking the dragonthorn from him, she added: “These are lovely, too. Come on in, and let’s get them in some water.”

Mira took her suitor by the hand and led him back into the hallway, where Tryst had remained. The devilkin, who had been pretending to examine her own claws, while looking discretely away from the display of affection on her doorstep, glanced up as the two young initiates made their way towards her.

“Hello, Kelton,” she said, nodding her horned head slightly in the human’s direction. “It’s a pleasure to see you again.”

“Likewise, ma’am,” the young man said, and he bowed his head in Tryst’s direction, but he did it without quite meeting the devilkin’s yellow-eyed stare.

Next to him, Mira was practically beaming as she held up the dragonthorn stalk, with its fragrant red blooms.

“Where can we put this so it won’t wilt?” she asked.

“I think there’s a vase beneath the sink,” Tryst said, taking the flowers from her daughter. “Why don’t the two of you come on through?”

The three of them stepped back into the little kitchen, where, after trying and failing to find a vase, Tryst retrieved a tall drinking glass from one of the cupboards. She filled the glass with water, put the flowers in it, then set it down on the kitchen table, next to the fruit bowl.

Kelton cleared his throat.

“We really ought to get going,” he said, looping his arm through Mira’s. “The Rite begins at sundown, and being late would be an awfully bad thing.” A look of confusion crept across his face then, and he gestured towards Mira’s uniform. “Where’s your sash?”

Glancing down, Mira’s hand hovered over the spot where her sash should have been tied.

“I can’t believe I almost forgot it,” she said, offering Kelton a look of thanks. “You’re a lifesaver, you know that?”

Mira dashed out into the hallway. Her disappearance was followed shortly by the sound of drawers opening and closing. A few seconds later, her head reappeared inside the kitchen door.

“Mama,” she said, a flustered expression on her face. “Have you seen my sash? It’s not where I left it.”

“It’s in your dresser, dear,” Tryst said, taking a seat at the kitchen table as she did. “I washed it, and folded it, and I put it up in your dresser. At least, I think that’s where I put it,” the devilkin lied.

“Alright, then. Back in a second.” And, with that, Mira disappeared again, followed by the sounds of footsteps ascending the stairs.

Tryst waited for a second, staring at the doorway where her daughter had stood just a moment before. Then she fixed her yellow eyes on Kelton, who was studying the floorboards with rapt fascination, and appeared to be more than a little anxious about being alone in the room with the devilkin.

“Why don’t you join me for a moment?” Tryst asked the young man, indicating to the chair opposite from her with a black-clawed finger. “There’s something I’d like to discuss with you.”

Nodding wordlessly, Kelton accepted the devilkin’s invitation, and seated himself across the table.

Tryst cocked her horned head a bit to one side, as though trying to get a better look at her daughter’s suitor, who was fidgeting slightly in his chair.

“You seem like a nice young man, Kelton,” the devilkin said, holding him with her yellow-eyed gaze. “And I can tell that you care about my daughter.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Kelton said, nodding his head as he spoke. “Yes, I do.” Tryst could hear the earnestness in his voice, the honesty.

Tryst smiled at the human, revealing two rows of sharp, black teeth.

“That’s good,” she said. “And I want you to know how much I appreciate that. Because I care about my daughter, too.”

For a moment, Tryst’s voice caught in her throat. She had to close her eyes for a second, and to take a deep breath, before she could speak again without fear of crying.

“I love her… more than I know how to explain,” the devilkin said. “I love her more than anything in this world – in any world. I love her more than life itself.” Tryst blinked again, and she had to clear her throat. “My daughter means everything to me. Do you understand?”

“Yes, ma’am,” Kelton said again.

“It’s hard for me not to think of her as my baby girl,” Tryst continued. “In some ways, she’ll always be my baby. But I know that she’s not a little girl anymore. She’s a young woman, and she’s ready to start making her own choices.” Tryst shot a pointed glance in the young man’s direction. “Do you understand that, too?”

Kelton seemed to hesitate for a moment before answering.

“I think I do?” he said.

The human looked like he was getting ready to stand up when – suddenly – Tryst’s hand shot out and grabbed him hard around the wrist. She pinned the stunned reliquarian’s arm down against the table, so that he couldn’t stand up, and she leaned forward so that her face was just inches away from his.

“That’s good,” Tryst said. “But I want to make absolutely sure that you understand, because what I’m about to tell you next is very, very important.” Her slit pupils narrowed to thin, black slashes, and she did not take her eyes off the quivering human as she spoke.

Kelton seemed frozen in place. His eyes were wide as saucers, and he was shaking beneath the devilkin’s yellow-eyed stare. He opened his mouth, as though he were going to speak, but no words came out.

Suddenly, without even looking, Tryst lashed out with her barbed tail, spearing a ripe tigerfruit from the bowl atop the table, and holding it up in the air, so that it was level with the shaking human’s eyes. Then she reached up with her free hand and, slowly, delicately, she used one razor-sharp foreclaw to start peeling the skin away from the fruit in one long, single strip.

“If you can’t talk, then nod your head,” Tryst said to Kelton, “so that way I know you’re listening.”

The human gave his head a short, sharp nod.

“Good,” Tryst said, as she continued to run her finger in long, slow circles around the fruit, peeling away ring after ring of skin. “Because, when I say that my daughter is going to make her own choices, I mean it. And, if you so much as give her a peck on the cheek tonight without her say-so, then you had better hope that she’s the one of us that kills you. Because, if I have to do it, I will drag you to a small, dark place, where no one can hear you scream, and I will peel every single inch of skin off of your body, and I will take my time doing it.” As she spoke, Tryst’s voice was quiet, but it was also low, and lethal, and sharp as a knife. “You won’t die the first day, or the second, or even the third.”

Tryst finished peeling the skin from the tigerfruit, which fell to the ground as a single, long spiral.

“So, I’m going to ask you one last time,” she said, her face so close to the human’s that she could see the points of her horns reflected in his eyes. “Do we understand each other?”

Kelton gave his head another short, sharp nod. Then, although it came as more of a dry croak than a proper sentence, he managed to say: “Yes, ma’am.”

Tryst’s yellow eyes bored into the young man for a final, excruciating moment. Then she let go of his wrist, and, leaning back in her chair, she removed the dripping fruit from the tip of her tail.

“I’m glad we had this talk,” the devilkin said, and she took a bite from the tigerfruit.

Another minute passed in silence before footsteps sounded on the staircase again, and Mira came rushing back into the kitchen.

“It wasn’t in my dresser at all,” she said, nearly out of breath as she hurriedly tied her initiate’s sash around her waist. “It was in your closet, of all places.”

“I can’t think why I would have put it there,” Tryst said, licking juice from her fingers. “But the important thing is that you found it.”

“The important thing is that we have to get going, or we’ll miss the Rite,” Mira said. “I don’t want to have to wait until the next equinox to make my pledge.”

Mira offered her hand to Kelton, who glanced up nervously at her, but did not stand. The young man seemed to have gotten his shaking mostly under control, but his face was still white as a sheet. A confused look crossed Mira’s face, followed by a frown.

“What happened down here?” she asked. Then, turning her eyes from her date to her mother, her shoulders slumped. “Mama, what did you say to him?”

Tryst was silent. She could see the hurt in Mira’s eyes, and she had to look away.

Mira knelt down next to her mother. “Mama?”

Tryst was trying to decide how to explain, when, suddenly, from across the table, she heard Kelton clearing his throat.

“We were talking about you,” he said. “Your mother was telling me how much she cares about you.”

Tryst risked a glance up at her daughter. Mira raised an eyebrow.

“My mother said that to you?” she asked Kelton.

“Yes,” Kelton said. His eyes darted to Tryst, then back up to Mira. “And I told her that I understand. Because I care about you, too.”

Tryst looked across the table at the man who loved her daughter, who offered her a knowing look in reply.

“Thank you,” the devilkin said to him.

“I’ll take good care of her,” Kelton said.

Mira laughed. “I’m the one taking care of you,” she said.

And, with that, the tension in the room dissolved. Tryst and Kelton stood up from the table. The young man offered his hand to Mira, who took it. Tryst kissed her daughter on the cheek, which earned the devilkin an embarrassed “Mama!” in reply.

“Have fun tonight,” Tryst told her daughter.

She was about to give her one last hug before going upstairs when she paused, and ran a clawed finger through her daughter’s hair, which was now combed back.

“You changed your mind?”

Mira smiled.

“I got a look at myself in my mirror, when I was looking for the sash, and I decided to go with horns out tonight.” She hugged her mother. “I think it suits me.”

“So do I,” Tryst said.

And she meant it, too.