Coyote stumbled into the sunlight, gasping like a man reborn. And there she stood — Stephanie — leaning against a tree, twirling a strand of her silver hair, grinning like the forest itself had planned this reveal.
"Did you like my note?" she asked, giggling.
He squinted. "That was you?"
"You're welcome," she chirped. "Now, before you start celebrating... I'll save you from Hollow Cast. But only on one condition."
Coyote stiffened. His hand edged toward his pendant instinctively. "What condition?"
Stephanie stepped closer, her smile turning playful — and dangerous.
"You become my boyfriend."
The silence that followed wasn't just awkward. It was soul-leaving-the-body, spirit-ascending kind of silence.
Coyote's mind flatlined. Blank screen. Buffering. Error code 503.
---
a lively tavern garden — the medieval world's answer to a café. The place was a clutter of mismatched tables, cracked mugs, flickering lanterns, and questionable stew bubbling in wooden bowls.
Coyote sat at one of the rickety tables across from Stephanie, still visibly stunned, while she cheerfully sipped a cup of spiced wine like this was the most normal thing ever.
Coyote awkwardly eating stew while Stephanie forcing him to dance to a minstrel's out-of-tune lute. He steps on her toes. Twice.
The two arguing over which animal makes the best familiar (Stephanie insists it's a ferret; Coyote says, "You're a walking red flag. Of course it's a ferret.")
Nightfall:
They sit on a grassy hill just outside the tavern. Fireflies glow lazily around them. Coyote finally speaks:
"That deal back there... was that a joke?"
Stephanie, laying on her back and watching the stars, replies without looking at him, "You think I joke about dating? That hurts, Coyote."
He opens his mouth to protest, but she cuts him off.
"I'm Tier 3, by the way. A Trickster." She turns to face him, eyes glowing faintly violet in the moonlight. "I can shapeshift, lie like it's an art form, and twist perception like a mirror in a funhouse."
She laughed at her own jokes, imitated nearby tavern-goers with eerie accuracy, and somehow got him to hold her hand during a walk under lanternlight.
This didn't feel real.
And just as he was starting to feel comfortable, Stephanie tilted her head and said with a smirk, "I have a confession."
---