Growing up, you wanted to be a blacksmith, just like your father.

Instead you ended up as a proprietor for a small inn in the middle of the desert, located near a well-placed oasis

And honestly, you were losing your fucking mind.

Your uncle passed a few years ago, just before you were old enough to begin your apprenticeship as a blacksmith. He was the previous owner, and now someone else had to run the business or the family would lose the land

Instead of following your dream, you were quickly pushed into an unfamiliar job in a hostile land and left to fend for yourself at only 16 years old

Thankfully, in the eight years since then, you managed to figure out how to safely and successfully bring paying travelers to stay in the few rooms you had. Your uncle left behind many journals, detailing routes through the desert, the names of frequent customers, and even some recipes for meals making use of the desert flora that surrounded the oasis. These books were all you got when it came to running this inn, and so far, they had served you well.

It was mostly merchant caravans that passed through your doors, with the occasional hitchhiker riding along with them.

And payment was almost never in currency, but instead the goods they carried with them. Without the merchants, there’s no way you would survive out here, let alone run the inn.

And the merchants were more willing to part with some of their wares for a place to stay, as the harsh winds and freezing desert nights meant sleeping in tents was both dangerous and uncomfortable. Why stay out in the dunes when you could stay in a nice, warm bed?

But, while the merchant’s stay was brief, yours was not. And the monotony of waking up and doing the same chores and seeing the same sights and hearing the same sounds was starting to get to you.

You have no idea how the hell your uncle did this for decades.

Every day is the same, over and over. Sweep and dust the twelve guest rooms you had under your care, as well as your own. Double check your modest pantry and make a list of supplies you might want to get from the next customers. Make sure the small stable on the other side of the oasis is also not too sandy, and make sure the locks on the stable doors work. Search through the meager flora that surrounded the oasis waters and see if anything useful was growing. The monotony was unbearable and made even worse when there were no guests staying in your inn.

And you weren’t stupid enough to venture out into the dunes. One wrong move and suddenly you would find yourself lost, and probably dead. There were no hostile animals that awaited the arrival of prey out in the dunes. In fact, there were no animals at all. But your oasis was one of two total that could be found in the desert. Every route through would pass by you or the other oasis. If you couldn’t find one, there was not another drop of water for tens, maybe even hundreds of miles. You were as good as dead. 

Every day was a fierce battle with yourself, trying to decide if you should just jump on the next caravan to pass though and leave this hellhole, and your family, behind. While most merchants paid their debts in goods, they did often include a few coins. Given that you had no use for currency, as there was nowhere to spend any of it near you, a family member would often make a trip to the inn every few months to gather what was given to you. It pissed you off immeasurably, as those were your hard-earned coins, and they seemed just fine with taking them away as if they had worked the inn themselves. That’s why you would secretly hold onto some of the coins for yourself, preparing for the slim possibility that you may once day leave this place and live in the real world.

A particularly strong gust of wind rattles the old inn, waking you from your thoughts. Grumbling, you drag your ass our of your bed and ready yourself for another day of the same old desert.

As you walk down to your front door, you prepare yourself to be blasted by the dry, sandy heat of the outdoors. Even after all these years, you still weren’t used to it.

But, instead of the desert heat, you find yourself tackled by a hooded figure the moment you open your door.

You quickly reach for the small knife you always kept on your belt. While bandits were rare, they did occasionally attack the merchants travelling though. But there were no guests here, so who would be desperate enough to come for you?

As you collapse under the weight of your attacker, you draw your blade and hold it high above its back. But before you deal a killing blow, you realize two things

One, your “attacker” is unconscious… scratch that, you can hear her quietly moan, but it sounds like she’s lost her voice. So, she’s barely conscious.

Two, given that large patches of her skin are raw and red from the being whipped by sandy winds, and her lips and mouth are dryer than the dunes themselves, this woman, or lioness as you now see, is dehydrated. Severely dehydrated.

You had only seen such a state once before. An impatient adventurer trying to travel across the desert had decided to forego waiting for a caravan to hitchhike on to and instead began a solo journey on foot. When he stumbled into camp, you tried to give him some water, but he passed out before you could.

He never woke up.

While you didn’t know this lioness, you still had haunting nightmares about that adventurer. His death was his own fault, but you still believed you could have done something. Now, you can do something.

Panicking, you throw the knife in your hands to the side, and quickly try to lift the lioness on top of you. You realize that she’s got about a foot and a half of height on you, and at least 90-100 pounds. 

With adrenaline pumping through your veins, you manage to find the strength to drag the lioness out the front door and around the side of the building to the water well.

You begin to quickly pump the well, and after a few pumps, water flows from the old clay piping and onto the sand below. You look to your patient and hope that she will begin to drink. 

She doesn’t move.

You move close to her and hear faintly that she is indeed still awake. She doesn’t seem to have the strength to get the water for herself. Frantically, you look for a vessel nearby to catch the water so that you could help her drink. But all the buckets you use to move water around the small inn are by the stables, about 30 seconds away. You fear she may not be awake by the time you return, so you think of the next best thing.

With the water still pouring out the pipe, you cup your hands together and catch a small amount of water in them. You bring the water to the lioness’ lips and begin to pour, praying you are not too late.

And for a moment, you believe you are. The water flows into her mouth, but she doesn’t drink. As fear, sadness, and anger creep into your mind, you find yourself pulled against the lioness’ body.

As if she’s been awoken from a deep slumber, you look up to see piercing blue eyes staring back. Her large, paw-like hands are wrapped tightly around your wrists, and she is drinking the ever-shrinking pool of water in your hands.

Your heart swells with joy. She’s alive! You were not too late for her. And as the last drops pass her lips, she whispers one word.

“More”


… 

You spend the next few minutes slowly feeding the lioness handfuls of water. After a few drinks, you pause and try to help the lioness to her feet, but she still seems very weak. She stares you down with a pleading look in her eyes, but you know better than to give her more of the water.

After the previous adventurer passed, you took it upon yourself to comb through your uncle’s journal in hopes of finding knowledge that could save the next person who stumbled into your oasis. What you found was an extensive list of treatment for various ailments that would often befall those who travelled through or live in the desert, including one for dehydration. As you drag the lioness into one of the guest beds, you grab the journal off a shelf in your room to double-check if you were treating her correctly.

As you read, you were glad to see that you were, so far, doing the right thing by not letting her have more water. While the dehydration had left her needing more liquids, she would also need nutrients to help stabilize her before she could drink her fill of water. Your uncle recommends crushing some dried fruits into a powder and mixing with some water to help the patient get some food and water at the same time. You read on and see that you should feed this solution to the patient only a spoonful at a time, and over the period of a few hours as to not overwhelm the patient

You quickly get to work on the treatment, grabbing a mortar and pestle and some dried fruits from your pantry. You also finally go get a bucket and fill it with the well water. In just a few minutes, you have a small bowl of slightly cloudy liquid, ready to give to the lioness.

As you make your way back into the guest room, you are relieved to see that she is still awake. She still isn’t talking much, but clearly gets a little excited when you set the bowl of water down on the nightstand next to her. She tries to grab the bowl, but you stop her and tell her the treatment plan. She seems a little unhappy but accepts and lays back on the bed.

The next few hours are a blur. You spoon-feed this lioness the mixture for a few minutes, before leaving and completing a chore or two. You check in frequently and repeat this process for the better part of the day. By the time the sun hangs low on the horizon, you have used the entire bucket of water as well as all the dried fruits in your pantry in making bowl after bowl of the solution.

The lioness, who you now known as Safir, seems to have recovered enough strength to sit upright in bed without help, and has begun to converse with you. While you give her your name, Anon, she continues to insist on calling you “her hero”. You brush it off and leave to make dinner for the two of you.

As night falls, you check on Safir once more. She was able to keep all the water and food you have given her down so far, so she would probably be fine for the night. While you are still worried, she assures you she already feels much, much better, and asks you to rest. As you turn to leave, you hear her still raspy voice say,

“Goodnight, my hero.”

…

In the week following, Safir quickly recovered. Once she was back on her feet, or paws?, she persistently asked, even almost begged to help you with the few chores she had. But, before she could, you insisted that her treatment wasn’t over, as her skin was still raw, red, and painful to the touch. You knew that there was a plant the grew around the oasis that could be mixed into a paste to sooth the skin, and another that you frequently used to protect against the sun. By mixing these two together, you could get an ointment that would both heal her wounds and protect it. When you first brought it to her, she refused to use it, saying it would stick to her fur and make her uncomfortable. But you stood your ground. You weren’t about to save the life of some stranger to let them get skin poisoning because the ointment was “uncomfortable”. 

When she realized that she was losing the battle, she glumly agreed to the treatment. She stood from the bed, showing you the real difference in your sizes. Your estimates were not far off, as she stood at about a foot, not a foot and a half, above your head. Still, that was some serious height, as you stood at a solid six feet tall last time you checked. You find yourself lost in thought for a moment, and when you shake yourself out of it, you find yourself staring at Safir.

She’s undressed completely.

You stare in stunned silence for a brief moment more, before you feel yourself flush with embarrassment and quickly hand Safir the ointment and stumble out of the room. She calls out behind you that she would like you to help apply the ointment, but you quickly stutter out some instructions for its use and tell her you will be cleaning the stables. You almost run outside, feeling your cheeks burning all the way to the stable.

This was going to be a long week

…

By the end of the week, anyone who saw the two of you would have easily mistaken you for lifelong friends, not strangers who had met on death’s door only seven days before. After the incident with the ointment, you were unsure how she would react to you. But she seems to act like nothing happened, so you leave the embarrassing thoughts behind and move on.

Safir quickly becomes the one thing keeping you sane in this oasis. She’s far from quiet, but you enjoy every second of her rambunctious laughter and dramatic storytelling. She’s a wandering chef, of all things. If you were to believe her stories, she’s cooked for just about every single person across the continent, searching for new techniques, recipes, and ingredients. In fact, it was her search that lead her here to the desert. She was hunting for a rare herb that grows alongside the cacti that populate the dunes. While she had intended to stay close enough to the desert’s edge to return to the forest that border the east edge of the desert, she quickly found herself lost as night fell. She admits she doesn’t know how to use the stars to orient herself, and just picked the brightest one and walked in its direction. When day broke, she realized she moved deeper into the desert, and the harsh windstorms prevented her from making much progress in any direction. After a few days, she stumbled into the oasis, and the rest is history.

You are more than thankful she made her way here alive. This past week has been the most fun you’ve had in years. While no other guests have made their way to the inn, you feel as if Safir’s “loud and proud” personality is enough to fill all your rooms.

But all good things must come to an end. In the late afternoon of Safir’s eighth day in your inn, a merchant caravan finally rolled their way into the oasis. You know that tonight is probably your last night together, so you ask her if you could make a meal together.

To your surprise, she seems more excited than she ever has when you propose the idea. She pulls you into your small kitchen and immediately gets to work, guiding you through her recipe. By the time you’ve finished making the meal, night has fallen, and a feast sits before you. You gather the other guests together, and what follows as a night filled with laughter, stories, and a bit too much drinking from some of the merchants.

As the guests wander back to bed, you and Safir clean the dishes and clear the table. When the chores are finally complete, you realize that all the guest rooms have been filled by the caravan, including Safir’s. While you hated this inn, even you would put the guests above all. 

As you dragged a thin straw mat out of a closet and placed it on the floor of the kitchen, Safir walked in. “What’s the mat for?”

“It’s my bed for tonight. All the guest beds are filled tonight by the merchants, and you will be sleeping in mine,” You reply.

Safir silently stares at you for a moment. You look back at her with a confused look, wondering if she needs something else. Before you can ask, she grabs you by the waist and throws you over her shoulder.

“WOAh hEY! What the HELL do you think you’re doing!?” You nervously shout at her as she ducks through the doorway to your bedroom.

“How could I, in good conscious, allow my hero to sleep on a ratty straw mat when there is a bed he can lay in?” she replies with a hint of coyness in her voice. 

“I can’t let you sleep on the mat. You are a guest in my inn,” You respond incredulously, surprised by the flirty tone of her reply.

Safir pulls back the light covers of the bed before dropping you on it. As you look up to her, the moonlight glows through the small windows in your room and onto the sly smile and devious look in her eyes. 

“That’s why we will be sharing,” she states with a fang-filled grin, before falling on top of you for the second time in a week.

Before you can voice your complaints, she wraps her arms around you and pulls you close. You find yourself pushed up against every square inch of her body, including her modestly sized and very soft bosom. As you feel your face flush, you hear Safir begin to snore. 

Wait, she’s not snoring. Your dad snored and did so very loudly. You listened for a moment before feeling the blush on your cheeks grow even redder. She wasn’t snoring.

She was purring.

…

When your eyes cracked open the next morning, you were mildly surprised to be alone in your bed. You were still in the clothing you were wearing the night before, so you quickly changed into something fresh before heading towards the kitchen

What wasn’t a surprise was finding Safir already making breakfast. While you were thoroughly enjoying her company, her dishes have really made this week exceptional. She made meals you couldn’t believe, all with the food in your pantry and a few of the plants surrounding the oasis. Her delicious meals were one of the many things you were going to miss when she left.

Leaving. You’ve been thinking about when Safir may leave for the entirety of her stay. While you hated to admit it, you really didn’t want her to leave. She brought some much-needed life to the rather dull oasis. You were already despairing over every second longer that you stayed here, and now the one person that made it fun for even a moment after all these years was probably going to hitch a ride with the caravan that came in last night and you were never going to see her again. Your loyalties to your family were too strong to break over a woman, no matter how lovely she was. 

You thought for a moment about sending a letter to your family with some sort of ultimatum. Perhaps you tell them to send a replacement within a month or you leave the inn and give the deed to the next person you see. Your family may care about you, but they probably cared about the land and money more and would oblige. But, that’s still a month or more before you would be able to leave and given how you heard Safir’s multitude of stories travelling coast to coast across the land, she probably wouldn’t want to stay that long for someone like you anyways.

With a heavy sigh, you put on a happy face and greet Safir. “How did you sleep?”

“That was perhaps the best night I’ve spent here so far,” She replied with a grin.

You blushed for a moment before composing yourself. You look to the meal she is making and see that it was much smaller than what was made last night. While the feast you enjoyed the previous night was large, the food she was preparing now was not nearly enough for all the guests in the inn.

“Should I prepare some food for the other guests?” I ask her.

“What other guests?”

You give her a confused look. “The members of the caravan? The ones who came in last night? You may be a guest, but I need to do my job, and that includes breakfast.”

She looks up with that same sly grin from last night. You feel chills run down your spine. “Those caravan members left early this morning. I just so happened to be up when they were leaving. They told me they wanted to get a head start in the day and make it to the market early.”

You look at her with a poorly hidden look of shock. Why didn’t she go with them? 

“If you’re wondering why I stayed,” she said, walking towards you from across the kitchen, “It’s because I wasn’t quite ready to leave this place behind. Or rather, you.”

All attempts to hide your surprise quickly flew out the window. You didn’t know what to say.

Safir grab you by the shoulders and pulls you close. She gives you another fang-filled smile. It’s really beginning to grow on you.

“You saved my life. I don’t believe I have repaid that debt. Given how keenly you listened to the stories I told you over the past week, I was hoping to convince you to join me in on experiencing one or more of them.”

She wanted you to travel with her? You feel excitement and joy swell from deep inside of you, before coming to the same sad realization you’ve had many times over you stay here at the inn.

“I can’t leave this inn. It belongs to my family. If I left, no one could run this place, and the land could be taken.”

She looks at you for a moment before guiding you to a chair at the small countertop in the kitchen. She quickly turns around and dishes up the breakfast she was making. Eggs, which she must have gotten from the merchants, and some sausage you had in the pantry. It was nothing special, but she always made every meal taste far better than you ever could when you made it. 

Safir pulled another chair up to the counter and sat down next to you. She looks at you with those same blue eyes that were once pleading for her life, just nine days ago.

“That’s why I’ve left a message with the merchants to be delivered to a certain friend of mine. In about a month’s time, this friend may come here with a solution to our problem.”

You look at her incredulously. She stares back for a moment before a hearty laugh erupts from her.

“I love that look on your face. It’s cute,” she says, leaning close to you. “I can’t wait to see the look on your face when I show you around the world beyond this oasis.”

If you had to make a guess, your face was probably redder than any sunburn you have every gotten. You stare down at the food on your plate before picking up your utensils and beginning to eat. As silence befalls the two of you, there’s only one question left in your mind.

“So, you’ll be staying then?”

“Hmm?” she replies with a mouthful of egg.

You nervously repeat your question. “Until your friend arrives, you’ll be staying here, at the inn, right?” 

She swallows the eggs, before turning to you with a smile so genuine you could feel the happiness radiating from her.

“Of course!”

You look back to your plate of food with a nervous smile of your own. As you continue to eat, you realize two things

Number one, you will never have better eggs and sausage than this.

Number two, you, Anon, were madly in love with the lioness next to you

…

For the first time in the entirety of the eight years you spent at the inn, time seemed to fly by you. No longer was it the same monotonous chores, over and over with no change. Well, actually it was. But, instead of doing it in the dreary silence that normally befell you as you worked alone, Safir filled every second of it with fantastical stories of her journeys across the continent. She made banquets for royalty and attended the decadent parties they were served at. She searched far and wide for new ingredients, encountering people from all walks of life. She’s cooked for the young and the elderly, men, women, beastkin such as herself, even a few animals (She says bears really enjoy a well-made sponge cake, but I’m pretty sure they will eat just about anything). She’s seen all kinds of sights, including both oceans that bordering lands, and almost every square inch in between. As her nearly 40th day at the inn comes to a end, she’s telling you another story over a dinner of some incredible dish called “lasagna”.

“I refuse to believe you’ve been in a pirate battle. No way,” You say while shaking your head.

“I was! I wanted to make more seafood dishes, so I asked the captain of one of the Royal Navy’s ships if I could volunteer as a chef on their vessel. While we were out there, we were attacked by pirates looking for merchant ships to rob,” She replies while shaking her fork at you.

“But you didn’t do anything, so I would say your participation is not valid.”

“Oh ho ho, but I DID do something, Anon! When the Navy’s ship pulled up to the pirate’s vessel and began boarding, a pirate snuck onto our ship and began prowling through the halls of the hull of the ship. When he passed by the kitchen, I hit him over the head with the heaviest pot I could find. I got a civilian commendation from the Queen herself for my ‘selfless actions in protecting the homeland’.”

“So where is it? Where’s this proof?” You say with a sly smile. You had her cornered now.

She huffs before replying, “Why would I carry it around? It’s valuable.”

You throw your hands in the air. “Well then, without proof I could never believe you,” You say with a sarcastic tone and a huge grin.

You and Safir continue your playful arguing before the sound of old wooden wheels can be heard pulling up to the inn. You both quickly finish your meals and head to the front door to greet your customers. A few recognizable faces mingle around the carts, as well as a few new merchants you haven’t seen before, as well as a hooded figure who was clearly not a merchant.

For a moment the figure makes you suspicious. A few undesirables had passed through the inn, trying to outrun their past, and when they did, you stayed well out of their way. But when Safir started to walk over to the figure, you realized that it could very well be her “solution” for your problems. She has yet to tell you the details of this solution, so you were eager to find out what this person could do for you. 

As you and Safir approached, this stranger turned to face you both and pulled the hood off his head. It’s now that you can see that this stranger is actually a canine, and probably an older one at that. His fur is grey, short, and wiry. His hands and legs are dotted with scars of all shapes and sizes, but the most prominent one is a deep wound that runs vertically on the left side of his muzzle. The fur doesn’t grow there, and even a few teeth are missing where the scar line crosses his lips. He also walks with a slight limp, but that doesn’t seem to slow him down as he makes his way to meet you both.

“Rodell!” Safir exclaims. “It’s been so long, old man, I’m glad the battlefield didn’t end up as your last resting place.”

“If you keep greeting me with that loud yelping you call ‘your voice’ I might start to wish it was,” he replies gruffly.

“Oh, you haven’t changed a bit since we last spoke Rodell,” Safir responds, brushing the insult aside. She grabs me by the shoulders and pushes me in front of her.

“Anon, this is Rodell, captain-”

“Former captain,” he interrupts.

“Alright. Anon, this is Rodell, former captain of the 1st infantry division of the Royal Army, loyal to no one but our Queen, winner of such battles as-”

“Ok cut that shit out. You don’t need to introduce me to this boy like I’m some sort legend.”

“Wait I’m not a boy-”

“You’re a boy to me until proven otherwise.” His commanding tone makes you quickly shut your mouth.

“So Safir, why am I here?” He asks.

“It’s simple, old man,”

“Cut it out with the old man shi-”

“You two,” she points to you and Rodell while speaking, “both have a problem that needs solving, and both of you happen to be each other’s solution.”

You and Rodell glance at one another confused. How could this old man you out of this inn?

“Rodell, you want peace and quiet, yes?” Safir asks.

“Young woman, you have no clue what I want,” Rodell replies in a harsh tone.

“Rodell, please leave the grumpy old man attitude at the door and just listen to me for a moment,” Safir says with an exasperated sigh.

“You told me last time we met you wanted to settle down after you retired. Knowing you, you probably still haven’t done that yet, right?”

Rodell stares daggers at Safir before replying with a grumble and a nod.

“Anon, you want to leave this inn and go see the world, but can’t do it without losing the land, money, and your familial relationships, correct?”

You nod silently.

“Perfect! Then the solution is simple. Rodell will take Anon’s place here at the inn,” Safir states with a pound look on her face.

You and Rodell both stare blankly at Safir. Rodell is the first to speak up by saying, “What the HELL do you mean I’m taking this boy’s place? What am I taking?”

Safir turns and points at the inn. “This is Anon’s, or rather, Anon’s family’s inn. Anon runs it. He hates it here. Its lonely and quiet. It’s the same exact day, every day, when you live here and work here. You, on the other hand, would probably enjoy the peace and quiet. So, take his place and free him up to do some exploring.”

You’re still too shocked to say anything. This was her plan? Invite a stranger and have him take over? Even if you knew this man, who the hell would agree to something like-

“Sounds good.”

You whip around to face Rodell, completely blown away by his response. That’s it? That’s all it takes to get a yes from him? You’ve known Rodell for maybe three minutes, and the same goes for him. He’s just going to say yes without a question?

“One question,” Rodell asks. “What if I don’t like it here?”

Safir smiles. “I thought about that. Just in case you don’t like it here, we will do a trial run. If I pool together all the favors you owe me, I believe we could agree to a six-month trial run for the both of you. At the end of the six months, Anon and I will return to the inn, and if you don’t like it, Anon will take back ownership of the inn and you can leave again.”

While Safir makes it seem like this “trial period” is as simple as you packing a bag of your belongings and leaving for six months, your mind races with a million different problems that could arise.

You sigh and turn to Safir. “Can we discuss this in the morning? It’s too late for this right now.”

Safir grabs your arm and wraps herself around it, making you blush. “Of course. Rodell, do you need help with anything?”

Rodell looks at the two of you with a look you can’t quite place before silently shaking his head. Safir pulls you towards the inn, where you greet the merchants loitering around the small lobby. As you settle them in for the night and procure your payment, you realize that, with Rodell included, all of the guest beds would be filled again, leaving you and Safir with only one choice.

You look over to your bedroom doorway and see Safir leaning against the door frame. She smiles, before walking inside and shutting the door behind her.

You shake your head, unable to decide whether to thank God for this opportunity or curse him for this punishment. With a heavy sigh, you head inside for what will probably be a not-so-restful night of sleep.

…