Silence descended over them as the being stopped, staring at the crew. There was a small chuckle from the back of the ranks. The soldiers in the front didn’t know enough to laugh yet; they knew that seeing was not always believing.

Before them sat a rabbit on its haunches. It had whiskers, a fuzzy nose, and two long, black ears that stood up straight from its otherwise white fur. Its paws were curled in front of its body, and its legs bent back.

The captain motioned for his army to halt before the foot of the cave, signaling that no arrow should be drawn, no sword should be unsheathed. But when the rabbit began to crawl towards them, and its legs turned into snakes, its fur turned into fire, and its two ears transformed into slender horns, nobody dared laughed. The captain signalled the attack.

Yes, seeing wasn’t always believing.

Argalan and Verrin soldiers marched in a sea of competing colors. The golds and charcoal of the Verrin uniform standing out against the Argalan greens and blues.

The rumbling of a drum filled his lungs and he urged his horse forward still, pressing his lips into a firm line.

Enthri had insisted that capturing control of the northern passage to the celestial islands was vital to securing their kingdom, but Elvarte felt himself growing more and more wary of his queen.

She was a sharp and dangerous woman, and he had no doubts that she murdered his parents.

There was some greater scheme to every word, every movement, every look.

As enthralling as it had been, as intoxicating as it was to have a woman like that at his side, Elvarte was beginning to wonder if he was blinded by her affection.

“King Elvarte!” A soldier rushed up to him, her breath puffing out in clouds of mist. “There is a valley up ahead, what are we to do?”

Elvarte frowned, swinging off his horse and moving to the ridge of the hill. “Valley? The maps have no record of mount nor vale.”

His captains drew up beside him, each looking increasingly concerned.

“Did we get turned around in the snow storm?” Captain Leonard turned to face the direction from which they’d come.

“We’ll make came for the night.” Elvarte ordered. “The soldiers need to rest and we need to identify where in the ever spark we are. I will not rush into unknown danger.”

They bowed and began giving orders, settling the camp for the night.

No matter the time and focus he poured into studying every variation of every map they had, Elvarte couldn’t even identify a landmark that could be mistaken for a mountain.

As the night fell, the mists grew thicker, the temperature dropping and the snow growing thicker.

They couldn’t simply wait, they couldn’t afford to waste supplies. Traveling this far north had already cost so much already, they had to locate something of value - even if it was a carving depicted in the mountain sides.

The chill settled itself into his skin as he let out a breath, the air fogging in front of his face and obscuring his vision.

Was this his wife’s ploy to get rid of him?

But he couldn’t imagine her sacrificing 13 thousand troops just to be rid of him. She was far too clever for that.

Which meant she expected them to find something here in the north, to claim and conquer.

But what and where?

No map could even locate where they had somehow deviated from all known land markings.

A loud scream broke the night air. And the one scream quickly turned into panic.

Elvarte searched for one of his captains, but in the dark mist and chaos he couldn’t find a single one of his commanders.

Then he heard it.

Heavy footsteps that shook the earth. A guttural roar promising violence.

The monster appeared through the mists, and the soldiers all around him froze.

This was what Enthri had sent him to conquer.

This was the monster that 13 thousand soldiers had been sent to slay.

And for the first time, Elvarte feared his wife had predicted incorrectly. For 13 thousand men are nothing against a Frost Guardian.

Heavy footsteps shook the earth. A guttural roar promising violence. The monster appeared from the darkness; the soldiers froze —

And immediately started laughing.

Cut!!!” Hiroshi yelled. “What the hell kaiju is this?”

“Don’t yell at me,” Daiki answered. “I’m sweating to death in this rubber suit and I need a cigarette.”

Hiroshi hurled the director’s horn to the studio floor. “That’s NOT what I told Ono to make. Where is he?”

The costume designer was called.

“Ono. What is this thing. It’s not the kind of kaiju I asked you to make. It looks like a — a mosquito with a cat’s head! That’s not very scary!”

Ono shrugged. “Well it’s not like I have a budget for much.”

“You can do better,” Hiroshi grumbled, “even with a tiny budget.”

“I could add some plastic fangs to the headpiece. I thought I saw some leftover from your vampire movie.”

Hiroshi sighed. “Let’s break for lunch.”

---

He’d been hired to make cheap monster movies and was failing miserably.

The movie company was a mess. The costume designer had to hunt through dumpsters to make costumes. The actors were desperate for any role as long as a paycheck was promised. Hiroshi had to write, direct and deliver 3 movies a year.

“That’s it,” Hiroshi thought. “I’m quitting.”

A heavy load seemed to slide heavy off his back. I’m free, he thought.

With a light heart, he gathered some fishing gear and went out on his boat the next day.

He spent the afternoon lazing in his boat, thinking about all the cigarette commercials he’d be making. Eventually he dozed off and dreamed of dancing cigarette boxes … he was doing the tango with one particularly lovely box when he was nudged awake.

Fish on!

He fought with it for about an hour, wondering what he’d caught. Until finally it surfaced.

A scaly hand slapped on the side of the boat, followed by a head. With two pairs of glaring red eyes.

“Could ya help a kaiju out,” the monster growled. “I got this fishing line stuck in my teeth.”

Hiroshi looked at his fishing pole and shoved it aside while grabbing his clippers.

Freed of the fishing line, the kaiju sighed in relief. “What can I do to thank you?” It said. “I can grant you one wish.”

---

“Say that again?” The monster said, gnawing on some bits from the chum bucket.

“It’s one movie,” Hiroshi said. “It would be easy. Just some stomping on peasants and their homes.”

It stared at him.

“And all the chum you can eat. Cmon, what can go wrong?”

“Ok. I’ll give it a shot. Chum, you say?”

-To be continued, maybe -

The soldiers had faced bears before. Black bears. Grizzly bears. An owlbear, once - thankfully an old, blind one that was easily dissuaded with loud noises.

But this bear stood on its hind legs, its front legs hanging at its sides. It had short, pale brown fur, and wide solid-black eyes, and, bizarrely, a bright red ribbon tied around its neck. Even more bizarrely, its mouth was simply a black line across its snout. They'd heard it roar - and it roared again right there in front of them - but the mouth did not open. The eyes did not blink. There were no claws on its paws, just a blunt end to the arm.

It was a teddy bear. Had this village for months been terrorized by a teddy bear? A giant, roaring teddy bear, yes; it was disconcerting to see a toy which stood a full head taller than the tallest of the soldiers, and which moved of its own free will. But in every hardened soldier's heart was the odd temptation to step forward and give the cuddly bear-bear a hug.

"Sergeant," the commander said, "advance and investigate."

"Uh, yes, sir." The sergeant stepped forward, keeping her sword at the ready. The bear continued to approach, punctuating its heavy footsteps with low roars. But it did not rush her. It allowed her to meet it, and to gently poke at its large round belly with the tip of her sword.

"It's plush, sir," the sergeant called over her shoulder.

"Is this some kind of prank?" the commander wondered aloud.

"A prank that's kept everyone indoors for weeks, if so," said his second-in-command.

The sergeant patted the bear on the arm. It roared again, but they were all getting used to the sound. Perhaps that was all that this bear was magically programmed to do.

"Commander?"

"Yes, sergeant?"

"Permission to hug the bear."

The locals had been certain that the monster was out to eat them. The commander sighed.

"On your head be it."

The sergeant lowered her sword and wrapped her arms around the teddy bear. It was just too wide for her to completely reach around, but her arms sunk into the fabric satisfyingly. The bear roared again, but it had stopped walking, and while the soldiers waited, no harm came to the sergeant.

"We should conduct an inventory of nearby wizards," said the commander. "Find out who's behind this whole mess."

"Yes, sir," said his second-in-command.

"This is humiliating."

"It is, sir. May I have a turn to hug the bear, sir?"

The commander sighed. "Yes, you may."

They had come together to defeat the monster armed with only what they could hobble together from their sad little farms. Some carried pitchforks, others had slingshots and bags of heavy stones and even the women had brought their best kitchen knives. They had no idea what they would be facing, but the word had gone out around the countryside that the monster was on the loose again.

All the villagers knew the stories of the monster, told by their parents around campfires and used as a deterrent for bad behavior. “You better straighten up and behave, or we will call The Monster and he will whisk you away. That’s what happens to bad little boys and girls.”

The threats were part of the folklore, but the monster had not been heard from for decades and decades. Even the oldest of the villagers admitted that although they knew the horror stories of the monster and his wicked ways, not one of them had ever actually seen it. But now it was on the prowl again, and the word had gone out to all the small villages to be prepared to fight to the death or the monster would destroy everything. It was said to have an exceptional craving for small children.

The messenger had arrived at Fallowtown at dawn, riding in on one of his mules and screaming his head off.

“It’s coming! It’s on its way! We have heard the heavy footsteps and its mighty roar and we beg you to come and stand with us or all is lost!”

So the inhabitants of Fallowtown took up their sad, disparate weapons and made their way to their neighbors in the next village. They had left the children locked up in the stone chapel along with grandparents and other elders who were too frail to fight but who would make sure the children were safe. Everyone was frightened but everyone also knew that this was their moment in history to finally confront the beast and they would drive it away or die trying.

As they drew nearer to Pinelock, they could feel the thump…thump…thump of the monster’s gigantic feet as it pounded the earth. Every so often there would be the sound of a thunderous roar, and the villagers, lined up along the road, would look at each other wide-eyed and frightened. It was only the thought of their precious children that kept them rooted in place or they would have scattered in fear. Every once in a while one of the men would shout, “Steady there, mates. Steady!”

The sounds and earth’s vibrations got more intense, and they could hear The Monster as it made its way through the dense forest on the edge of Pinelock. Some trembled, some cried, but the line held steady. Then, bursting out from the forest, The Monster let loose with a godawful roar that caused the villagers to clap their hands over their ears and most closed their eyes, too afraid to look upon the evil that was about to fall upon them.

Then all was quiet for a moment, and they all opened their eyes.

That’s when they heard it. The frightening monster, the stuff of fairytales and nightmares, was just feet away and it was….could it be?…..it was….GIGGLING. It was a huge thing, but covered in fluffy white fur and had very long ears and huge feet. It was just standing there, bent over at the waist with its huge hands on its knees and it was indeed laughing.

“But….it’s….it’s just a big bunny!” One of the younger teen-age boys who had joined with the men and women to fight had spoken up. “Look! Look at it!”

All the villagers really looked at the thing, and then they could not stop themselves and began laughing with it. The Bunny Monster, hearing them laughing, stood upright and waved with its fluffy paw. Then in a very, VERY loud voice it said with a guttural kind of roar, “HUNGRY!”

The astonished villagers looked at each other, and then circled in a group. It was decided that two groups would go into the villages and bring back food, and not knowing what the thing ate, decided to try both grains and smoked meats. The Bunny Monster sat quietly and every so often would do the strange giggling thing and wave, but it seemed content to wait. In record time, the food groups came over the hill with carts loaded with whatever they thought the monster might want, and they pushed the cards to within a couple of feet of the huge thing.

The monster, smiling a sort of eery, monster bunny smile, stomped over the carts and began eating, well, everything. The villagers were astounded at its capacity to pack away the food and watched in awe as it downed bushels of vegetables and any number of smoked hams. Finally he stopped and let out a burp that was so incredibly loud that it blew the villagers off their feet. The Bunny Monster grinned at them again, waved another fuzzy paw at them and headed off down the road, bouncing along exactly as a jackrabbit. It was no wonder the ground shook as it moved along.

“Well that was pretty weird,” one of the women said, gathering together the leftovers of the monster meal and throwing all of it in her cart. “I never thought that would end up anything like that. Yup. Just plain weird.”

The villagers all nodded in agreement and then laughing and talking among themselves headed on home to gather up the children and elders and revamp the age-old stories about the The Monster who ended up not being much of a monster at all.

Heavy footsteps shook the earth—a guttural roar promised violence. The monster appeared from the darkness, and the soldiers froze.

Under the visor of her helmet, Matilda snickered. This was the wicked monster?

Reports of a creature terrorising the outlying villages had come in a mob of sweaty peasants and singed hay carts. Naturally, and out of courtesy, the King dispatched a small rally of young knights, believing the task trivial. The court expected them to return valiant—a bloodied, severed head of a gorgon or the golden mane of a chimaera tucked beneath their arms.

Yet, what returned was not a triumphant party but the pink-fleshy husk of Sir Elizabet.

Not a single hair remained on the knight's body. Her clothes and armour had melted away, and her skin gave the appearance of a crispy Crème brûlée. Her mind had long fled her, leaving only the mumbled ramblings of madness.

She was the only survivor—if indeed you could call it that.

Monstrous tales of the beast spread like a pitch-fueled wildfire around the remaining villages. The lower citadel soon filled with frightened, half-baked peasants and concerned nobles, and the King—hateful of how the new visitors destroyed his sea view—ordered more soldiers to rid the creature from his land.

Matilda stood knee-deep in tall grasses and wildflowers with the rest of the soldiers at the meadow's edge. Sweat slicked her skin beneath her armour, and her head pounded, ringing like a heavy church bell. If it weren’t for the stunned silence of her fellow knights, she would have believed it to be a vision brought about by dehydrated delirium.

A slate-scaled wyvern bounded about the grassland like a young hare. Toothpick fangs protruded from its lower jaw, and on each tip of its wings—its forearms—was the equally slight curve of talons. It looked like it could do about as much damage as a kitten, and at the sight of the stumbling, docile reptile, Matilda lowered her steel shield.

“Keep your guard up,” Officer Randall hissed, his words muffled behind his visor. “I would not relax yet.” An extravagant red-feathered plume drooped from the top of his helmet, and he shifted his shield a little higher.

“Why, Sir?” Matilda asked. She watched as the little wyvern bumbled forward, the pearls of its teeth snapping at a passing butterfly.

Tin-muffled awes ricocheted around the battalion, and despite the officer's orders, Matilda lowered her sword also.

“It’s titchy, sir,” she added. “A pathetic creature, sir. It can't even kill that dumb butterfly. Sir Elizabet—”

“Watch your tongue, knight!” Officer Randall spat. “We do not speak ill of the dead.” The Officer straightened, flicking the red feathers behind him. “That one may look unassuming, certainly. But it is not him I am anxious about. It's the other one.”

As if on cue, the wall of trees encircling the meadow parted. Branches snapped, a flock of birds dispersed, and the baby wyvern bounced away, disappearing in the grass.

A tremor shook the ground as a snout emerged through the curtain of golden leaves. Cerulean smoke spiralled from the beast’s crater-deep nostrils, and as the beast stepped forward, scales of polished onyx glinted in the sun.

Matilda caught herself before her jelly legs caused her to fall. Never had she seen such terrifying eyes, like two burning balls of sapphire.

The beast unfurled her wings, and a surge of wind whipped across the meadow, striking Matilda’s armour. Red feathers whipped from Officer Randall’s helmet, and a chorus of unsteady whoa’s rippled amongst the other knights. Metal bodies stumbled back, their sabatons digging trenches in the dirt.

Another rumble rippled the ground, and the beast took to the air. Darkness engulfed the meadow as the wyvern soared higher, the bulk of her belly and length of her wings blocking the sun.

"But that's… Scientifically impossible,” Matilda breathed, squinting through her visor. The beast beat her wings again, and a further wave of wind ravaged the battalion. “A body that big should not be able to fly."

“Just be thankful, Sir Matilda,” Officer Randall offered, “she hasn't started spewing yet. Who knows how long we will survive.”

Static intensified the air—an uneasy vibration prickled Matilda's skin. Viscous black ooze began to seep from the beast's mouth, descending her jaw like molten magma. A glob fell. Matilda watched, frozen, as it landed, striking a cluster of knights. Spine-chilling howls split the static as the bodies crumbled, and Matilda tried not to think about how she could smell the kitchens after a feast of barbecued pork. She hoisted her shield above her head.

"Good shout, Sir Matilda. Soldiers!” Officer Randall yelled. “Testudo formation!”

Metal clanged as the knights scurried close. Shields blocked the sky like a gleaming, protective mosaic, the stench of sweat and hot agitated breath becoming their new companion beneath the formations dome.

“That’s right, soldiers.” Matilda could just make out the red of Officer Randall’s plume in the dark. “Everyone stay tight,” He added. “Any weak link and our defences will be broken. The King may not care, but I certainly do. I do not want anyone else to get killed or eaten.”

The Testudo defence lurched, and the knights surrounding Matilda fumbled.

“What was that?” Someone gasped, but a sudden, horrific outcry from above said it all.

The wyvern had snatched someone, Matilda realised. A sharp, jaw-clenching crack silenced the knight's howls. Her shield recoiled, and Matilda scrunched her eyes as something soft thumped landed on top. She didn't want to think about what part of the knight's body it could have been.

Matilda swallowed. “Perhaps, Officer Randall, sir,” she offered unhelpfully, her voice small, “you should keep your mouth shut... Sir.”