Jade sat on a bench outside the lab just under an awning jutting out from the side of the building, and listened to the rain pattering on the leaves. It was evening, but some low light still lingered in the sky, and the moon made the wet grass sparkle.

It could hardly have failed to be one of her strangest days ever, and she was processing. She had cried plenty, and was almost numb now, but on the whole, it had been a good day.

Most of what occupied her mind was the whiplash of waking up after the worst day of her life, which had capped off the worst two months of her life, suddenly surrounded by new friends. It was a bit like falling off a cliff to her certain death - but then the 'death' part was replaced, at the last second, by a hot bath and room service.

Not that everything was back to normal, and all her problems solved, she thought as she clicked the tips of her... claws... on her thumb and middle finger together. She looked up at the moon, now waning gibbous, and reflected on that other sudden change which had eventually led her here.

Her thoughts were interrupted by a sound like insect wings, as Pel approached.

"Hey honey," said Pel, in her light drawl.

"Hi Pel", Jade replied, smiling.

"Mind if I join you?"

Jade was feeling too worn out for conversation, but said, "Sure" anyway, and Pel alighted in a sitting position on the bench.

"I know you'd probably rather be alone right now, but I thought we should chat sooner rather than later.

"I'm ok. What's up?" said Jade. Then, thinking she might already know, "Is it about my transformations?"

"Nah, we've got a month to figure out how to contain your inner puppy, and I'm sure Mary has already got some ideas. That conversation can wait until tomorrow. And I think Dorian already plans to talk to you about your computers tomorrow too. No, I wanted to talk about what it's like to have your life ruined." Pel cocked her head and smiled ironically.

"Uh... Did Tina send you?"

Pel laughed at that. "No! I can be uncanny all on my own, thank you very much..." She paused, and then her smile got sadder. "I just put myself in your shoes and realized you'd probably be thinking exactly what I was when I got suddenly plucked from my own sparkling happy life and tossed into the pit of hell."

"Ah... Yeah..."

"And then just as quickly thrown into the arms of strangers who loved me better than my own kin."

Jade gave her a skeptical look, and said, "You're sure nobody's reading my mind right now?"

Pel said, "Well, Tina can't help but listen, but as a rule, she keeps it to herself. No, I'm still telling my own story, and it's a shrewd guess that it fits you too. Mostly I just want you to know that I can hear what you're saying, when you want to talk about it."

Jade was going to cry again, so she looked away and into the woods, and got herself under control. Maybe she did want to talk about it. She asked, "What happened to you? Is this how you..." gesturing at her eye.

"Yup. Lemme tell you, and you see if this sounds familiar." Pel took a deep breath, and began, "I was out for some morning air, a glide and a dip, and I didn't even go anywhere unfamiliar, but that didn't matter. I got snapped up by a hawk without even time to run, and the first thing it did was beat my head against a rock by the pool, I guess, because the next thing I knew I was in its nest..."

Pel shook her head. "I was so scared. Pixie warriors fight hawks, but even they don't fight 'em with their fists, and I wasn't any kind of warrior anyway. I was just going to die. I tried to run then, but the hawk got my legs before I could even turn. It cut me up while I was still awake, I guess so I couldn't run away again before I could be baby hawk food. Then it jabbed its big ugly beak at my face, and I felt..." She grimaced, and continued, "Well, I passed out again, and I wasn't even awake when I got these." Pel lifted her shirt, revealing a wide, pale scar running across her abdomen, shining in the moonlight.

Pel looked at Jade's tear-lined face, and then apologized, "I'm sorry, that's too close to home right? We can do this later."

"No."

Pel waited quietly.

"That's so awful... I'm so sorry Pel," Jade said in a halting whisper. A minute passed, and Jade brought herself under control. "How did you survive that?"

"Iggy," Pel said lovingly. "He rescued me from the nest, brought me back to where he was living, and nursed me back to health."

They sat in silence for a while.

Eventually, Jade spoke. "I was just out for a walk too. I knew the guard, I did it all the time, I thought it was fine. I got to my favorite spot and heard growling, and saw it across the water, and I thought I had a chance, but werewolves are so fast... I'm that fast now."

Jade paused and gestured at her pristine legs, bare under the moonlight, and at her neck. "It tore chunks out of my legs, so I couldn't run, tore at my throat so I couldn't scream, and then it just stopped and ran away. I guess they don't harm their own kind? Most people just die, but apparently, so very rarely that I didn't know how it worked, someone receives the curse. The guard at the gate came looking for me when his shift ended, and he carried me back inside. There wasn't anything to be done, not even bandage my wounds, because by the time I woke up there weren't any, and I looked like this."

"Then the real horror started for me. Some people in the city 'knew' about werewolves. 'We have to kill it.' 'The curse will spread.' 'A werewolf in the city walls will open the gates to hell.' Stuff like that. I thought we were so civilized. I have my Masters degree from the university down the valley... But I was straitjacketed in the city prison 'just to be sure' for a month. And then, on the evening of the full moon, they chained me to the floor of my cell, and a big crowd of them came to gawk. I don't remember any of it, but I woke up covered in their blood."

"I'm a quiet person, Pel. I never liked to be noticed. I went for a walk, get mauled, and then the whole city hated me. Some of the more ruthless ones tried to kill me after that, bribed the guards and just came to hack at me for a bit, in a group, but nothing even left a mark for more than a day. Still hurt though."

Pel scooted herself over, awkwardly dragging her leg braces, and wrapped her arms around Jade's leg. She laid her head on Jade's skin, and closed her eyes. A pixie hug. Jade did what came naturally, and put her hand on Pel's back. Jade's eyes were dry though. "An arcanist visited the city, and told them there was a ritual sacrifice known to work on werewolves. I guess you know the rest. You guys arrived just in time, out of nowhere."

Pel nodded, and said, "With a second chance, just like mine." Jade nodded. Then she asked, "Do you still miss your old life? Before?"

Pel said, "Sometimes. I certainly miss some of the comforts, and everything being easy, and having my future planned out... And I miss being pretty." Pel gave Jade a sly smile.

Jade smiled too. "You're still pretty... But I get it. Not that I was all that, but a wolf snout isn't an improvement. I'm still surprised to see myself in a mirror. 'Before' is still pretty recent for me."

Jade thought for a moment, and then said, "I miss being respected."

Pel said, "I was a literal fucking princess, can you believe that? Daughter of the king." From where she was still resting her head on Jade's leg, she made a gesture like a curtsey, and Jade laughed. It looked especially comical combined with Pel's tiny pink hoodie and sweats.

"I... guess I'll have to take your word for it..."

Pel made a face and gave Jade's leg a mock punch, and Jade grinned.

Pel said, "I like my new life better than my old one now, truly. I'd bring a few things forward if I could, but I wouldn't want to go back. I'd love to have two eyes again, strong legs, more guts, and a few more fingers... The burn scars just remind me of who saved my life though, every time I see them. I'd leave those. And I wouldn't want to leave my new family either."

It occurred to Jade then that if this was her home now, Pel might become like a kind of long-lost sister... and that made her a little afraid. She frowned.

"What?" asked Pel, watching her face.

"Are you all going to be safe from me? I just told you about accidentally killing everyone... Nobody back home-" she stumbled on that word, then recovered, "Nobody could restrain me, and I'm not in control of that body at all. You're all being so nice to me, and I want so badly to stay with you, but really, I'm dangerous. I'm really really dangerous. Why even risk it? What if I hurt you? Or Mary? Or what if I hurt Iggy?"

"Oh honey. Firstly, don't underestimate Mary and the rest of the group. You haven't seen them at work yet, but I assure you they are as good as it gets, and they take our safety very seriously."

"Secondly, I'm just six inches of highly flammable pixie, in love with a living torch, and if Iggy comes within a foot of me I'll just-" Pel made a "pffft" sound, and an exploding gesture with both arms. "We share a room. It's love, and that's motivating, and you're part of that now."

"And lastly, did you wonder why those clothes fit you so perfectly?"

Jade blinked at this non-sequitur. "Uh... no?"

"We'll, it's not 'cause we've got a good assortment of human clothing lying around. You want to try and guess?"

Jade had no idea where she could possibly be going with this. She shook her head.

"It's because there's a prophesy. It led us right to you, just in time to prevent your being cooked up for some eldritch horror. That prophesy is... ri-di-cu-lous-ly specific. It's even got your measurements, in case we needed to whip out a tape measure and check if it was really you. Your fucking cup size, deary, is engraved on the wall of a two thousand year old underground tomb in the Egyptian desert, and for that matter, so is mine. Specifically we were meant to save specifically you. So don't you even worry about us. We will all figure it out together. It's meant to be."

Jade had to admit that was simultaneously the most effective, and the most disturbing, comfort she had ever received, and she said so.

"Well, that's life here. We're on this world's Big Quest, and the quest itself clearly has some opinions about how it should go."