1. I wish we lived closer, but tigers are a solitary breed, weretigers only slightly less so. Even with the easy connection of the ‘net, my sister rarely talks to me and I learned long ago it isn’t worth the effort to force her into conversation. It isn’t my fault I stayed human, just a quirk of the genetic pool thanks to great-grandma Mercer, or that I long for things my family cannot give.

2. The vines climb slowly up the walls, an inch a year when the weather’s good or several feet those times the courtyard is awash in blood.

3. If anyone deserved to be followed around by a neon purple springbok, it was Charles.

4. Dragons, being dragons, were wont to live very close to forever (knights and unnaturally talented squires aside), and that meant a great many of them were bored.

5. Sasha wasn’t meant for this kind of heat, and was sprawled on the water cooled river rocks with something akin to bliss.