The whole group just stood there, dumbfounded.

“Uh... W-What?” Mr. Clive said, staring at Annie and her glowing hands in shock.

“Drop the axe, you bastard!” Annie bellowed.

Shadow saw Annie start to motion with her hands.

There’s been a misunderstanding!

She had no idea what Annie was planning to do, but Mr. Clive hadn’t kidnapped her.

Shadow started moving, throwing herself in front of the man and standing up on her hind legs, shaking her head and waving her front paws in the air.

Annie paused, staring at her, confusion passing over her face.

“He didn’t kidnap you?”

Shadow dropped back to all fours and shook her head some more.

Mr. Clive finally gathered himself enough to drop the axe in the face of Annie’s magic and process what had actually been said to him.

“I ain’t kidnapped nobody! What in the hells is goin’ on here!?” he said, sounding both angry and scared.

Annie just kept staring at Shadow.

“Then why are you out here?” she asked, sounding genuinely bewildered.

Shadow broke eye contact and looked away, shrinking into herself.

She had no real way to explain, so she just shrugged.

She could see Annie’s face fall out of the corner of her eye as she started to realize that Shadow had simply left.

Shadow felt terrible. She should never have done this...

And then she noticed something strange with her ear-sight, someone was pulling out…

She knew what that was.

Her head snapped up, seeing the human, no, the beastkin from before, the one from the shop. He aimed the bow—at Annie.

Shadow exploded into motion, launching herself toward him—

“Don’t move or I’ll shoot!” the man roared in his deep rocky voice.

—and abruptly aborting, sliding herself to a stop as she realized she wouldn't make it in time if he wanted to shoot. Many people in the crowd around him retreated, gasping or shouting in surprise, making space between themselves and the large beastkin.

His eyes broke from her and locked back on Annie.

“I’ve seen enough! What foul magic have you done to this creature?”

Murmuring spread through the crowd and Annie stared up at him. Jonas looked torn between keeping a hold of the bound man and jumping to Annie’s defense.

“What are you talking about?” Annie finally answered, eyes wide.

“Nothing about this creature is normal. It doesn’t act like a dog. I’ve been asking around about it and have been hearing some interesting things, but what I just witnessed was the most telling. That thing has intelligence like a person. A human mind sealed in a shadeling!” He said all this, glancing around at the crowd.

“I may be no mage, but I hail from Glossa, so I know about magic! Only forbidden spells can do anything like that! This woman is a criminal!” He roared.

Annie was suddenly the subject of many shocked and hostile glares. It appeared that term meant something to these people. Shadow heard them exclaiming in shock and whispering to each other about human sacrifice and dark rituals.

“No! I swear this is nothing like that!” Annie said, rushing to get the words out. “Sir, you said you hail from Glossa? My name is Annabelle Clarke, I’m Count Edmire’s lead researcher, heading the study of the recent titanic beast movements. Perhaps you’ve heard of me?”

Shadow saw the beastkin freeze, eyes going wide as his whole body seemed to shrink a bit. His bow quickly aimed itself at the ground.

“Y-you're Annabe—”

“There it is! There’s the demon!”

Shadow whipped around, seeing the screaming lady from earlier pointing at her from a distance. A group of people armed with axes and a couple of bows were running forward, although half of them seemed distracted by the burning building.

“Kill it before it gets away!” The lady shrieked.

“No don’t hurt ‘er!” Maggie cried, running over and throwing her arms around Shadow, eliciting gasps from several of the townsfolk.

“Please don’t do anything rash! Shadow is no demon, forbidden magical construct, or anything of the sort! Please lower your weapons!” Annie yelled, waving her arms desperately.

“Of course ye'd say that! Ye probably summoned it, witch!” the lady accused with burning eyes.

“No, there's a person trapped in the beast!” a man from the earlier crowd shouted.

“It’s like a kid! She probably sacrificed some poor child!” Another woman shouted.

The man Jonas was restraining spoke up in a desperate tone.

“I—I seen ‘em doing dark rituals in they’s rooms earlier! That’s why—”

“Shut up Willet! You’s was yellin’ bout how you accidentally ‘fell in’ through the second-story window as you was walkin’! Ya ain’t getting outta this jus’ cause they might be witches or rogue mages or what-not!” some other person yelled, many in the crowd making sounds of agreement or disgust.

At this point, the second group of people had made it to the first, and many people were starting to talk or yell about their various ideas or suspicions.

The screaming lady from the second crowd spoke up again.

“I don’t care what it is! It was usin’ evil magic, and it needs to be put down! “

“You can’t hurt ‘er! She saved us from the fire! She’s good!” Maggie screamed again.

“Maggie! Get away from that thing!” Another woman yelled, looking at the pair of them in terror.

“Mama? No! They’ll hurt her!” Maggie refused, squeezing Shadow tighter.

“Everyone calm the hells down!” a familiar voice bellowed. “I don’ know what this damned thing is, but it saved our lives! We’d a’ burnt right to death, trapped in the sawmill, but it used its de… magic… and brought us an axe to escape when it could'a left us there! That ain’t nothin’ like no demon I ever heard of! What demon goes round savin’ folk?! An' from what I heard 'round town, it ain't been nothin' but friendly!” Mr. Clive boomed across the crowd.

Shadow felt a cry well up in the back of her throat as the man defended her. She.. hadn’t been expecting that.

Furious debate started roiling through the crowd. At some point, the beastkin had taken up a defensive position guarding Annie rather than menacing her. Wild accusations were flying around everywhere. Shadow was being called a demon, bound and controlled by the collar, or some sort of forbidden magical experiment. People were shouting accusations of mind control. Annie was being called a witch, criminal, and rogue. Some even called her a demon, as well. Shadow wasn't sure what some of those names meant, but it was clear they were not highly regarded.

Most people were hardly even looking at her anymore, everyone was just arguing about everything. The kids were all fighting in her defense, as were Annie, Mr. Clive, and Jonas.

Annie was also defending herself, dropping names and titles, which the beastkin was now backing her up on, for some reason.

Shadow… Shadow was… sad.

She stood there, just looking around at all of these people going insane over... nothing.

It was all so, so stupid. She looked over at the blazing sawmill. The wonderful feat of engineering and all its amazing parts and gears was burning away.

And these people were here arguing about her, about what she was, when they could be saving it.

She hadn’t even done anything!

Why was everyone so focused on how bad she might be, when the sawmill was actually burning down!?

Some people were trying to save it, forming into lines, throwing bucketfuls of water at the blaze. One woman somehow seemed to be heaving huge basins of water over her head, throwing a massive quantity of water twice as far as the other people that were helping.

She looked around at the crowd of people surrounding her. If they would just stop arguing and help, there would be over twice as many people fighting the blaze.

She felt anger and sadness mingling in her chest, building.

She felt sick. She hated this. She wasn't some slave or demon or whatever! She was just her! And they could be doing something useful instead of arguing about it! She wanted to screech, she wanted to yell, to somehow tell all the people to stop being so stupid!

And then she realized she might be able to.

She squeezed her eyes shut and took a deep breath.

She’d had enough. Enough of all of this stupidity. She was going to do something that might help. Even if it was unwise.

She nudged Maggie to get her to let go. The girl hadn’t stopped clinging to her since the screaming woman had threatened her life. Maggie gave her a questioning look, but Shadow just gave her a small smile, touched Maggie’s forehead with her own, then patted her head with a paw. She gestured toward the terrified looking woman who she assumed was Maggie’s mother, given how Maggie had called her ‘Mama’.

The lady had been staring in fear between the two for most of this debacle. She seemed like she wanted to do something, but was too scared to approach Shadow.

It was better if the lady didn’t have to worry.

Maggie got the hint, and after one more concerned glance, she slowly got up and walked over to her mom.

Maggie's mom, for her part, looked like she had just seen Shadow sprout a second head, completely unsure what to think of the situation. She darted forward and grabbed Maggie as soon as she had gotten out of Shadow's immediate vicinity, sparing one last confused glance back at her before rushing out of the crowd.

This gave a couple of other people the courage to step forward and gather up the other kids. They had all stuck around, but it was probably better for them to get some help. They were all nursing some small burns.

It worked out well for Shadow too, as it gave her a moment to slip away as well in all the chaos. She grabbed a discarded bucket by the handle as she walked. Her acid was mostly gone at this point, she hadn’t started it back up again. Perhaps that had been a mistake, given the situation, but she was glad for it now.

She padded along quietly and calmly, making no sudden movements. Most people didn’t see her as she weaved her way out, too busy yelling at each other to notice such a small dark shape. A few did, but they didn’t make enough of a ruckus to distract the arguing people.

She made it out of the press of people, and quickly headed to the river.

She dunked the bucket in the flowing water, and hauled it up. Full of water, it was quite heavy for her, but she could just manage it.

Muscles straining, she ran over to the blaze. There were a few different lines of humans, handing buckets along in a line, and a bunch of extras running back and forth to the river. She figured she should do this herself if she wanted to make her point.

She got to where people from the crowd could easily see her, and put the bucket down. She rotated her collar around, finding the leather string tying it on. She stood up.

She screeched at them. Then she cut the strings with her claws, throwing the collar to the side.

This is me! I’m not a slave or an experiment or anything! I’m just Shadow!

She dropped back to all fours, and grabbed the bucket by the rim so that she could better throw the water. She ran at the blaze until she could get no closer and spun, hurling the liquid as best she could.

Some of it actually reached the flame, she was happy to note, but that wasn’t really the point. She knew she wouldn't be good at this.

She turned around and looked at the crowd. They were all staring at her.

She dropped the bucket and screeched at them again.

This is your great creation! Stop being stupid and save it!

She grabbed the bucket again and shot off toward the water.

She was on high alert as she moved, so she sensed when one of the hunters loosed an arrow at her. She didn’t have to dodge it, the projectile falling a good distance behind her. She heard some shouts from the crowd and sensed a small scuffle between him and some other people in the crowd, but she didn't stop.

She filled her bucket again and ran back to the fire.

You have to care. You can’t let this burn for no good reason. Please just help me!

She willed it at them. She hoped beyond hope. The humans, for all they could be so stupid in such strange ways, were fundamentally like her. She’d seen that spark in so many of them earlier. It was just... hidden now. They needed to stop being so scared and angry. They just needed to start thinking again.

No more arrows came.

She sensed them as they broke up, grabbing buckets and running over. They started forming new lines.

“We need’ta save the mill! We’ll figure this mess out later!”

“That’s our livelihoods burnin’!”

“Save what ya can!”

Shadow felt a wave of dizziness wash over her as the people organized to fight the fire.

Before she knew it, they were rushing past her toward the blaze.

She couldn’t believe it. It actually worked. She half expected to die there.

Then Annie was dropping to her knees right beside Shadow, wrapping her in a hug. Tears were streaming down her face.

“Why would you do that? You could have been killed!” She whispered into her ear, her voice hitching as she spoke.

Annie scooted back a bit and held Shadow by her shoulders, looking her in the eyes.

Shadow looked back and just pointed up at the mill.

Annie looked at the sky, slightly shaking her head, smile and grimace fighting for control over her face, before she looked back at Shadow.

“You're too sweet for your own good, you know that?” she said, either chuckling or crying, Shadow couldn't tell which.

Annie held Shadow by the sides of her face and planted a kiss on her forehead.

She stood back up and looked over at the blazing sawmill.

“Let’s help put this thing out.”