"You! You said you were a cursed prince!"

"Um, yes. The prince of frogs." He had the grace to sound apologetic. "The curse is that I'd die horribly if I don't turn a human into a frog once a year."

"So, you did that, now you can reverse the transformation, yes?"

He hesitated, stunned. "The terms don't mention if the transformation needs to be permanetnt. The thought it wasn't permanent just never occurred to me."

"What, are you stupid?"

"Lady, I'm a frog. What do you expect?"

For decades Chirrd had lived among humans and goblins for curiosity's sake, and to share what he had learned with his clan. He had not anticipated that one thing he learned by its very nature could not be shared.

It was not apparent right at the start, because he was lucky enough to first run into some of his close old friends. All of their joy about the meeting bolstered his confidence.

Once they had reached the village, he was the centre of attention. Even the few elves who at first had not been interested in hearing his stories contracted the curiosity of the rest. Chirrd started into the tale he had, in his head, rehearsed so often on his way home.

It collapsed very quickly, as his audience picked up on incongruencies where the tint of his feelings did not mesh with what he said. Their confusion was mirrored and amplified in his own mind, and mingled with his own embarrassment. He had gotten used to not sharing his soul, and having secrets. The concern for his wellbeing from his closest was swept away in a wave of disappointment and disapproval.

"I'm sorry. It's too much." When he hurried off, nobody followed him immediately. It meant he had some time to wonder just how something that had been as natural as breathing felt obtrusive now, fearing the answer might be that something was wrong with him.

When two of his friends found him, his shame and fear deepened their concern for him. Chirrd could feel their sympathy, and it calmed him, even before the first word was spoken. Evshi drew him out with questions, Ashas listened patiently.

Describing what it had been like to live among soul-blind people, who were obsessed with appearances because that was all they had, brought back the memory of how terrified and lost he had been at first. How could he have forgotten how it felt to share love? He could not ask that, but burst out, "How can I fear my clan? My family? It makes no sense."

"I think you just need time. Take things slow. Being plunged in such an excited crowd right on the first day... As you said, it's too much, all at once," Ashas' said.

It rang true. Chirrd's gatitude brightened their mood.

For a short time, Mark's parents wondered if he was taking drugs, since he'd started to zone out a lot. They dismissed it, mainly since he spent most of his time at home, and concluded that he was just lazy. "You're grounded!" had lost its power, but they gave him frequent lectures based on, "All you do is eat and sleep".

They died in the night, once the alien parasite finished eating Mark up from the inside.

When Lilly woke up from fitful sleep, her lover asked, "Bad dreams again?"

"Yes. They say when you dream the same thing three nights in a row, it will come true."

He put an arm across her and pulled her close. Reassuring. "I hadn't heard that. What is it that worries you so?"

"Collins turned out to be a werewolf and killed my father and..." She shook her head. The man was an old friend of her family, and the idea, once voiced, seemed silly.

"No, he isn't."

Half-joking, not knowing why he suddenly was so tense and serious, she asked, "Why are you so certain?"

A pause, and a deep breath followed by a brittle whisper. "We can smell our own."

Before leaving her hometown for a good long while, Sylvie paid a last visit to the grove. Now, it almost felt more like home than the house she'd been born in, or the school where she'd grown up.

This place held no lies.

If it held truths, though, Sylvie did not understand them. She had never met the spirit that protected it, only felt a vague presence. It had been strange and intriguing, and ever so slightly welcoming. She had no idea if visiting this place as often as she could when she was little had somehow given her the talent for plant magic that she had, or if having that affinity had drawn her to the place, and caused its protector's bening disposition towards her.

Today, Sylvie got no sense of that. The grove looked the same as she remembered, a miracle of growth and life, but her gut feeling told her entering it would be not a good idea.

Maybe she had not visited for too long, and lost something. Or maybe it was just her bleak mood being reflected to her.

Sylvie tried to patch up her disappointment by telling herself, It is still beautiful and alive, and will be when I come back. She needed more distance from her own life to see how the pieces fit together than visiting her childhood-hideout could provide.

The cathedral's five-hundredth anniversary had been widely publicised, and drawn even more tourists than usual to town, including Nico. She appreciated visiting new-to-her places in general, and in that particular moment enjoyed the view from a street café to the birthday building. It seemed strangely familiar but slightly off, but then, she had seen other a lot of pictures both of this one and other churches in similar styles.

Birdwatching turned out a lot more interesting than he had expected, when Eric noticed a thrush with an aviator helmet and goggles. He watched it attack a model plane that was being flown on the nearby "miniature airfield". Getting the attention of his parents took so long that the bird brought the plane down meanwhile.

Eric was sorely disappointed they did not even consider going to find the owner of the model plane and ask what they had seen, but dismissed what he said out of hand. As a result, he resolved to save up for a really good camera.

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.

On one of his walks through the park to take photos, Frank had come across something odd. First he thought he was hallucinating, but even after several attempts, one couple appeared in several photos, event hough he hadn't seen them in the viewfinder of his digital SLR camera. He managed to track them through the review of the last photo taken, growing more and more bewildered.

When they noticed him eventually, he decided to ask them directly. They invited him to a chat over coffee, and he accepted.

The two things he found out before his death were these: Sunlight does not bother vampires all that much, but they really don't show up in mirrors.

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."