The tremors of battle woke me from my slumber. I was used to it, at this point—the larger I grew, the longer I'd sleep, and the more dramatic a disaster it would take to rouse me. And I could tell as I sat up that I'd grown a little more in my sleep—the suit of armour I'd left neatly on its stand would be a tighter fit now. But I didn't exactly have any other options for the battle at hand. At this size I couldn't be harmed by most human weapons, but in recent years there had been more and more monsters coming out of the shadows to attack civilisation, and against those, I wasn't nearly as invulnerable as I'd have liked.

As I pulled on my chestplate, wincing as the too-tight edges dug into my skin, I heard the roar of a massive beast—it sounded like it was nearing the city. Every moment I wasted could mean more lives lost, but I knew better than to let that make me hastily rush in and potentially be the cause of even more destruction. And so I took a moment to tie back my hair, using a boat chain I'd been given after the last time I'd made the mistake of letting my hair get in my face while fighting. At the time, I'd even considered cutting my hair short…but I couldn't bring myself to part with its vibrant rainbow pattern, which seemed to always be slightly different than it was the day before. That changing pattern was just one of many aspects of myself I never expected to be able to understand.

Once my boots and gauntlets were firmly on and my sword was strapped to my back, I took off running towards the source of the noise. I still couldn't quite see over the hills, so I simply followed the tracks from the previous time I'd had to run for the city: even though I'd undoubtedly been sleeping for years, the path I'd followed was still visible, the fallen trees and overgrown footprints showing me the way. In the past, I'd always taken great care to never knock over a tree, but the forest nymphs eventually explained to me that trees in old forests would provide their fallen brethren with the nutrients needed to produce life once again. I held this fact in my mind as I ran, and yet I still felt a pain in my soul each time I heard the resounding clang of wood on metal as a trunk shattered against my shins.

As I reached the top of the hill, I could see all the way to the city, and I could only assume that they saw me too. There was no giant monster in sight, though, even though soldiers and siege weapons were scattered about across the land. I noticed several craters as I ran, which I could only assume were the result of more advanced weapons that had been developed as I slept. And, well…while I certainly wanted to encourage humanity to solve its own problems rather than relying on me, I couldn't see how building more weapons would solve more problems than it would create.

Soon, I arrived at the outer wall, crouching down to speak to the guards. They immediately met me by kneeling. In less urgent circumstances, I'd have reminded them that I shouldn't be treated with reverence, but that would have taken time I didn't have.

"Lady Rhylin," one of the guards began, nervously looking up at me. "Fortune honours us with your return."

"The honour is mine," I replied with a smile. No need to push the issue any further than that. I'd learned the hard way that it takes far too long to convince a person half the size of my finger that their life is no less valuable than mine. "Tell me, where has the monster gone?"

"I—" The guard seemed taken aback by my question. "I don't know! We weren't the ones fighting it. You'd have to ask the soldiers."

I nodded, standing up, trying to pretend I didn't notice the guards' fear as my shadow enveloped them. "Thank you. I'll do my best to help."

Stepping over the wall, I began to walk towards the centre of the city. The heels of my boots shattered the streets beneath me, but at the moment I wouldn't be doing any more damage than that—I was well-practiced in walking in between buildings without bumping them. I had to move more slowly as I approached the city centre, though. I didn't like being this close to so many people, but if the monster had somehow disappeared, it could attack from any side of the city, and I'd need to be able to get there as quickly as possible.

"Are you going to save us?"

The voice came from by my feet. I slowly turned, careful not to let my boots bump into any of the surrounding buildings. On a low balcony overlooking a square was a child. I backed into the centre of the square and knelt down, giving the child a smile.

"No, I'm not," I replied in the quietest voice I could manage. "I'm just here to make it easier for you to look after yourselves."

I extended a finger towards her—I'd found in the past that children often wanted to touch and see if I was actually real. And sure enough, she extended her hands towards me as well, laying them to rest on the metal of my gauntlet.

The ground behind me erupted. I pulled my hand away and whirled around to face the monster that had emerged from underneath the city, feeling the fabric under my armour ripping at my abrupt movements. And my armour wasn't alone in its jeopardy—the monster's emergence in the square had destabilised the foundations of the nearby church tower, sending it toppling right towards the child I'd just spoken to. There was no chance of catching that in time. And so, I swung my arm out, letting my gauntlet make impact with the falling tower and shatter it into hundreds of pieces. Rubble rained down, and the tower's bells tolled their last as they made clamorous impact with the ground.

Before I could react any further, the monster charged at me. This was the first chance I got to actually look at it, and I observed that its head was adorned with six horns—two curling backwards like hair, two curling forwards from its forehead, and two framing its jaw. The latter two sets collided with my stomach as the monster head-butted me and slammed me backwards into a row of houses.

This was not good. Already, I could hear the inner walls of the buildings crumpling against my armour as the monster pushed me further and further back. I wrapped my hands around the monster’s rear horns and gave them a pull, forcing its head towards the ground, the tips of its other four horns shrieking as they scraped across my armour. If I wanted to be able to fight it, I’d need to draw my sword—and I couldn’t do that if I had to use both arms to resist letting it push me into innocent people’s houses.

I had an idea—as the monster tried to pull its head up from the ground, I suddenly stopped resisting, letting it fling me over its back. I turned over in midair, drawing my sword and whirling around to land in the square behind where the monster stood. The impact of my weight was thunderous, sending cracks through the ground and up all the surrounding buildings, but that was damage that could be repaired—a death count of zero, a feat that distressingly few of my possible tactics here would be able to achieve.

Just next to where I landed was the hole the monster had used to burrow into the city. Perhaps if I could get it to go back *in* there, I could fight it in a safer area. But I had to wonder about this—it had come right to me, meaning I’d inadvertently led it here. I wasn’t going to shame myself for that; this tactic had worked on previous monsters. But it was worth observing: perhaps it could help me figure out what this monster was trying to do. I didn’t like the fact that I was about to kill something that had motivations, but I wasn’t immature enough to pretend otherwise.

And as the monster slammed its horns into me once again, its teeth pierced through my armour. So it was hungry—the simplest motivations are often the most dangerous. This meant I’d have to be quick, or else it would give up on me and seek out easier prey. And so, I let it push me backwards across the square, until I suddenly resisted, shoving it downwards into the hole it had created. For just a moment, it was stuck, and I plunged down my sword directly into the monster’s mouth.

Yet somehow, that didn’t kill it, and it slipped back into the tunnel. After a few seconds, I could hear tremors, and I turned around to see a building tipping over—the monster must have burrowed right underneath it. I dashed through the streets towards there, more carelessly this time, my armour scraping against the fronts of buildings, my feet kicking over lampposts and knocking down signs. And I got there just in time, falling to my knees and wrapping my arms around the building, my hands closing firmly around the corners as it threatened to slide into the cavern the monster had dug underneath. Trying to balance my strength so as to not let the building fall while also not crushing it instantly, I slowly scooted backwards, sliding the entire structure onto the street.

All that was left was to finish off the monster. And as I looked around, I saw that it had emerged in the farmland just outside the city and was chowing down on a field of cattle after having ripped up several fields of wheat. When it saw me coming, it turned and dove into the earth. But this time, I knew its trick—and I kept running, passing its point of entry, and stabbing my sword into the ground as deep as I could.

The tremors stopped—I’d dealt the killing blow.

I hated having to take a life. But I knew the stakes, and I knew my duty. All that was left was to ensure that its body wouldn’t go to waste.

And so I cleared off the dirt above it and removed the skin—it was a tough material, and the citizens had found many creative purposes for it in the past. Once all that was left was meat and bones, I held it into the sky on my sword, faced up towards it, and let flames pour from my mouth, gradually turning the sword to cook the monster’s body as evenly as possible. A blast like this during the fight could have finished it off in seconds, of course, but I’d have incinerated half of the city’s downtown in the process.

That night, the town feasted. I wasn’t able to join them, of course. This wasn’t because I couldn’t fit; they would have happily held the celebration in a square if I’d requested it, just like how they’d happily accepted my request for them to forge armour that would fit me at my new size. But I couldn’t attend the feast because I had damage to clean up; at my size I could do repairs in minutes that would take weeks for even a group of humans.

…humans. I’d never caught myself thinking that way before. I was a human—at least, I was supposed to be. Ever since I’d discovered my powers, I’d tried to live as a monument to human potential. And yet, everything that makes a human actually human was slowly slipping away. I was an other, a protector but not a comrade.

But I could make a difference, and that was what mattered. Perhaps all I had left in my life was to sleep and grow and fight—but in that, I’d be saving people from harm. And that would be a life fulfilled.