The small crunching of snow kept echoing behind Emma as she walked. Her sword turned staff produced a glow each time. Emma sighed and shook her head at Karck.

  “It wasn’t my fault to begin with, so what do you want me to do about it?” Emma asked, receiving a sharp pain in her sternum in response. “Okay! Fine!”

  Emma finally turned around to the crunching of snow behind her and spotted a small head poking out from behind a tree. The instant the girl was spotted, she quickly hid her entire small frame behind the trunk.

  “Hey! I know you’ve been following me, so just come out already!”

  The little girl flinched and slowly moved her body into the light. She put her hands up defensively and spoke in a small quivering voice. “You’re not going to eat me, are you?”

  Emma moved closer to the girl and sighed. “First of all, I need to know why you’ve been following me.”

  Sora shook her head, her shoulder-length brown hair filing about with the motion.

  “Well, if you don’t answer me, I might consider eating you.”

  “No! You can’t!”

  Emma chuckled at the distraught little girl. “So what’ll it be? Either you tell me why you’ve been following me, or you become my next meal.”

  Sora shivered as she looked up at Emma’s sharp white fangs. The little girl’s eyes became cloudy with tears. “Please don’t eat me!”

  Emma felt another sharp prick of pain coming from her staff. “Alright, alright! Geez, I wasn’t going to eat you anyway.”

  The little girl sniffled and wiped away her tears. “You weren’t?”

  “No, and why should that be a surprise?”

  “B-but, at the vilge you said…”

  “Bleh, bleh, bleh, who cares what I said before. That was then, and this is now. Though, I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t hungry…” Emma resisted looking at Sora’s wide eyes as the little girl giggled.

  “I knew you weren’t a monster!” Sora yelled. The little girl excitedly jumped and wrapped her small arms around the vampire.

  “No, no, you’re definitely wrong, little girl. I am a very evil monster who feeds on the blood of innocents.”

  Sora shook her head and buried it into Emma’s snowy outfit. “You’re not a monster. You’re just a little cold.” The little girl pouted as she continued. “Also, I’m not a little girl! I am Sora!”

  “Right, Sora, so why are you following me?”

  “Nu-uh, that’s not fair! You didn’t give me your name!”

  The vampire sighed and nudged the little girl off of her. “I’m Emma,” she said before gesturing towards her staff, “and this is Karck.”

  “Emma! I like that name!”

  The Emma in question scratched her cheek awkwardly. “Listen, little girl...”

  “Sora!”

  “Listen, Sora...you can’t just run after random strangers you don’t know. Especially if those strangers happen to be an evil vampire.”

  “Vampire? Is that what you are?”

  “Yeah, how’d you not know that? You’re far too naive for your own benefit.”

  “I am not! Mother already told me! Strangers are dangerous.”

  Emma sighed and poked the girl’s forehead. “And how do you expin this situation, then? How old are you, little girl?”

  “I’m ten! And you’re not a stranger!”

  “I am a stranger. Before this interaction, you didn’t even know my name.”

  “Well, now I know your name, so now we aren’t strangers.”

  Emma felt a headache coming along from trying to reason with a child. “You still haven’t told me why you are following me. How did you even manage to find my trail afterwards? I’m surprised you didn’t freeze to death.”

  “I started trying to find you because I wanted to thank you! The elders didn’t want me to leave, so I had to sneak out. Then I found you by following the river!”

  “You followed the river? Why?”

  “I figured that even monsters would need to get water.”

  “Hey! I thought you said I’m not a monster!”

  Sora giggled. “That was then, and this is now.”

  “You little…”

  “It’s Sora!”

  “Alright, fine. Sora? You can give your thanks and be on your way now. I’m sure those people will be worried about you.”

  The little girl shook her head. “I want to follow you!”

  “Nope. No, no, no!”

  “Why not? You’re all alone, aren’t you?”

  “I am not alone! I said it before. Didn’t I introduce you? This is Karck.”

  Sora tilted her head at the staff and poked it. After receiving no response she looked at Emma with pity.

  “Wait,” Emma said, “it’s really sentient. Go ahead, show her what you can do, Karck!”

  The expected response of a glow never came, nor was there any pain to accompany her query. The only thing that responded was the wind giving a faint whistle in the background.

  “Oh no! You’re not doing this!” Emma grabbed the staff with her other hand securely before putting a bit of force into it. “If you keep ignoring me, I will snap you in half!”

  A blue glow finally responded, and a searing pain attacked Emma’s chest. She could hear the snapping of bones before they wriggled around and stitched themselves together.

  Emma winced from the pain before smiling smugly at Sora. “See, I told you this thing was sentient.”

  Sora stared at the vampire with wide eyes. “W-well, that might be true, but…”

  “No buts...Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have a certain mission to get back to…”

  “What mission is that? Do you even know where you’re going?” Sora managed to stop the vampire in her tracks.

  Emma whipped around with a frown. “That’s cssified information, unfit for children to know.”

  Sora pouted and grabbed onto Emma’s arm. “I’m not a child! And what’s cssified?”

  “How can you call yourself an adult if you don’t even know what that word means?”

  “Mother never said that word even once! You’re lying!”

  Emma bent down so her head was even with Sora’s. The vampire ground her teeth together in frustration. “So what if it’s a lie? I’m a monster, and you’re a child. You should be at home with those vilgers.”

  “I don’t even have a home to go back to!”

  Emma recoiled from the change in emotions. She wasn’t sure if the sharp pain in her chest was coming from her weapon, or if it was a twinge of guilt from not being able to make it in time. The only sound she could produce was a faint groan that was more like a whimper.

  “And your father?”

  Sora shook her head.

  Emma sighed and tapped the little girl on the shoulder. “Fine, stop crying! You can accompany me to the next city...Wherever that may be, and then I will promptly dump you off at the first orphanage.”

  The little girl smiled through teary eyes and wrapped her arms around the monster. “You’re so cruel.”