"Don't go, Misty," said the horned one. "They have thunder-sticks. It will hurt you. Chase you away."
Misty looked up at the great sandstone walls of the city of Izaz. It would have been nearly impossible to climb that wall with claws or webbed feet, but Misty had neither of those. She had something better. She strode to the base of the wall.
"Misty, no!" gasped the horned monster girl behind her. "They'll chase you away! Chase you, chase you, chase you away!"
Any ordinary monster girl would indeed have turned away, but Misty was not ordinary. For the others, dealing with humans was simple: hunt the males, fear the females. But Misty had never been that way. Humans raised endless questions, with the strange ways they dressed, the strange ways they behaved and the strange things they said, and Misty always wanted answers. You couldn't find those answers by ambushing men in the jungle and knocking them onto their backs.
Misty began to use the skill she was named for. Dark mist fell from her body as she walked across the uneven jungle floor. Her long, tangled brown hair dissolved first, then her toes and the tips of her fingers, the wispy grey gas curling around her feet. Eventually, she had to stop and lie down as the rest of her body gave itself up to the air.
Climbing the wall of Izaz may have been impossible with hands and feet, but as a cloud of mist, it was as easy as crossing a river. Ancient cracks in sandy stone fell past her as she rose on an air current. Carvings of centuries-dead human heroines banded the entire city, bordered top and bottom by glyphs Misty hoped she could someday learn to read. Then, finally, the top fell away beneath her, and the city spread out in all its orderly splendor. Settling in the shadowy blind spot of a guard tower, she knelt on the stone and took it all in.
The buildings were not nests, hovels or even huts. They were more, even, than houses. They were something grander— edifices, the humans called them. Perfectly rectangular at the bases, they rose to flat roofs at least four woman-heights off the ground, maybe six or seven or eight. Mysterious little ropes and lengths of metal ran between them, following some mysterious order that made perfect sense to the humans. Just as their bases were perfectly square-cornered, the roads between them were unflinchingly straight, the same width everywhere. Even now, in the morning, they were bustling with humans. Females hurried through the streets, carrying things, selling things or just talking to each other. They would spend minutes talking, and in her previous escapades into the city, Misty had discovered that they would sit in rooms and do nothing but talk for half a day or longer. Someday, maybe today, she would hear some of what they talked about.
And then, of course, there would be males. With humans, there were never females without males. The males stayed indoors, Misty knew, doing the same things jungle males did: cooking and crafting, and handling the children who were too young to follow their mothers.
Not all monster girls could talk, and the ones who did only ever wanted to talk about the males in that city. They talked about where the prettiest ones were kept, and what they could do if you caught them alone, and even the frightful things the females would do if they caught you in the act. But none ever talked about the females themselves. By the time Misty left the city, she would know who they were and how they lived.
Once again, she dissolved into mist. Riding a favorable breeze, she drifted down into the city, past the impossibly perfect square-edged stone roofs, down into the streets where thickly clothed humans ambled past each other.
Just like last time she had come down here, Misty didn't know where to start. She wanted to talk to every human in the city, to ask them who they were and where they were going. But she couldn't talk to everyone at once. She had to pick one, and it had to be one who wouldn't try to run her through on sight.
Then she picked up on a strange scent. Even dissociated into mist, she could sense it. Another monster girl was about, somewhere in the great straight-edged stone hut beside her. She drifted in through a window.
No one was inside, but only stack after stack of wooden boxes. But beneath a wooden grating in the floor, she heard something. She heard moaning—not the sloppy, impulsive kind human females made, but the two-toned sing of what could have only been a monster girl. She filtered down through the grate.
Below, in a dark, damp cavern lined with smooth stones, with a single narrow corridor leading off into darkness, a monster girl stood over a male, her bright glassy wings fluttering behind her as she squirmed with pleasure.
The male sat against a broken table, hands on the ground, face buried between the thighs of the monster girl. With a hand on the back of his head, she pressed him deeper into her, her grip tightening and loosening to the rhythm of her heavy breathing. Her left hand flailed, until it found a grip on his neck and pushed him harder. As Misty watched, the male's whole body moved with every stroke of his hidden tongue, and the monster girl squealed, losing a little of her composure each time, until finally she erupted, her wings flinging themselves out for one moment as her cry of pleasure echoed against the near walls.
Everything was still for a moment. Finally, the monster girl backed away, and the male breathed, a few strings of saliva still trailing between his lips and her sex.
A minute passed, and the monster girl looked directly at Misty. "A watcher?" she murmured. "Voyeur?" She licked her lips. "So kinky."
Misty materialized, and the male shifted back with surprise, but did not get up.
"You made it into this city?" asked Misty. "How? Those wings are too small to lift you."
As her answer, the monster girl mimed gripping something huge. "Cart!" she declared. "Cart goes into the city. Glitter hides in the cart! Glitter goes into the city!"
'Glitter,' thought Misty. That was the monster girl's name.
"Who are you?" asked Misty, turning to the male.
The male shook his head.
"He doesn't talk," said Glitter. "Never talks. So he's perfect. Perfect secret. You ride him, and no one knows."
Misty knelt in front of the seated male. "Doesn't talk?" she repeated, horrified.
"But he pleases!" Glitter went on. "You know coins? Humans love coins. You could just ride him. But if you give him coins, he'll bounce you on him!" She jerked her hips in an awkward pantomime. "He'll make it smooth! And hot! And if you give him even more, he'll use his mouth!" She leaned back against the wall, her wings spreading against the stone brick, and sighed. "So hot."
"You don't talk?" said Misty, ignoring her. "Or you can't?"
The male looked her in the eyes. He was thin for a male, but still looked sturdy, and his short black hair curled around his sweet face, gently coiled ends framing his silent mouth, with only his deep, sad blue eyes to speak for him.
Misty gasped. "You're a mute!"
The male nodded slowly, as if his head was heavy with pain.
"Poor thing..." Reaching carefully forward, Misty stroked the side of his head.
"Give him coins first!" said Glitter. "Coins first, then he lets you do that!"
Both ignored her. The male put a hand over Misty's, their warm hands holding still for a moment, then gently let her go.
"I'm sorry," said Misty, standing up. She turned to Glitter, ready to ask where she might find humans who could talk, then decided she would do better to seek them on her own. Dissolving, she lifted out of the stone cave.
Up in the streets, which still fell under shade in the late morning sun, the traffic was already heavy, but these city-humans, unlike their counterparts in the jungle, never looked up. Rising to a balcony far above the street, Misty materialized without anyone noticing her. She stepped inside the human dwelling.
Everything raised questions. Where did these many-colored rugs come from? What animals did the humans skin to create them? How had they shaped stone to make this shelter, and why have a roof? Why not let in the sun and rain?
Then Misty saw something that fascinated her so much that she forgot every other question. She had heard of these mysterious things, but never seen one: a mirror.
In it, she saw something more human than monstrous. A woman stood, naked and dirty, with a short, stocky body with wide, feminine hips matched only by her manly-wide shoulders, with faint stains of dirt down her strong legs, and a big toe that had always been just a little crooked.
She lacked the tells most monster girls had. Her fingers and toes ended in nails, not claws, and she didn't have a tail; nothing covered the round rear that the other monster girls teased her for. Even her eyes looked human.
That gave her an idea. Perhaps she could dress like a human. Then she could hide in plain sight.
As Misty searched for clothes, an uncomfortable feeling gnawed at her, and she turned to see a low, bent form prowling in from the sunny balcony. A cat girl, black as a starless night, sauntered across the wooden floor and stood unwelcomingly before Misty, her tail twitching with disapproval.
Misty gasped. "Another monster girl?"
"Many here," the cat girl replied. "The humans don't come up here unless they want to sleep. This place... good place. Good hiding place."
Misty's idea grabbed hold of her again. "Watch this, watch this!" she bubbled, as she ran to the wardrobe in the side of the dwelling, opened it up, grabbed something random and tugged the cloth over her body.
The cat girl frowned. "You look human."
"I do!" Misty squeaked. "Isn't it amazing! And I can even talk like them too!"
With a little growl, the cat girl slithered up to her. "Why act human? Why you?"
Misty was at a loss.
"You are a monster girl. Sneak. Hunt. Catch men. Don't wear clothes like a loon." She turned around, tail still twitching sourly. "You," she repeated under her breath. "A monster girl? You, a monster girl? Or a human?" Leaping up onto the outside wall, she climbed out of sight.
Misty's shoulders fell. She had been called weak and loony before, but this was something else. "Monster girl or human?" she repeated at the now-empty balcony. "I'll show you..." After thinking for a minute, she dissolved into mist, abandoning her clothes, and drifted outside, to the next house over. It was a rich thing, taller than most and with a colorful symbol hung over the door. Misty could have examined that symbol for hours, but now she had something to do. She would find the man inside that building and ride him until he burst, then ride him more until his begged her to stop. That cat girl would have her proof then.
