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manticore lifted her head a little, enough that I got a face full of her mane.
    “Hunting?”
    “Yeah.” I leaned back, wiping her fur from my mouth. “I’m sick of eating fish.”
    “Fish is not food.”
    “It is for people. Look, could you help me or not? I just want to bring down one of those horse-animals I’ve seen in the woods.”
    “Caribou. That is what the wizard-human called them.”
    “Fine, the caribou. Could you bring one down for me? Don’t use your stinger,” I added. “I want to eat it, remember.”
    The manticore laughed. “To bring down such a clumsy creature will be easy. Tis a shame there are no more humans on this island.”
    I didn’t say nothing to that, just tugged at the pine cone, hoping it’d come free. It didn’t.
    “If I bring you a caribou,” the manticore said, “will you groom me whenever I ask?”
    I stopped. “Groom?” There I went, making deals with a manticore again.
    “Aye. Brush my mane and coat, and pull the thorns from my feet.”
    “That all? You want me to wipe your ass, too?”
    “Don’t be crude, girl-human.”
    “I’m just checking on the particulars before I agree to anything.”
    “No, that service I will not require of you. Manticores bathe themselves.”
    Well, that was something, at least. In truth plucking the pine cone from her mane wasn’t that terrible – kind of relaxing, actually. Took my mind off Naji.
    “Sure, I’ll groom you. But not for one caribou – for any you catch. And you’ll catch ’em anytime I ask.”
    She made a hmmm noise of displeasure.
    “Look, it’ll take me and Naji awhile to get through a whole one of the things.”
    The manticore sighed. “Yes, I suppose that is true.”
    “Plus you said it was easy hunting.”
    I had her there. She got this squished-up look on her face that meant I’d just called her manticore-ness into question.
    “I agree to your terms, girl-human. A lifetime of caribou for a lifetime of grooming.”
    I hope not a lifetime, I thought, but I picked up her paw and shook on it.
     
    The manticore stayed true to her word. I pulled the pine cone from her hair and the next morning I woke to the sound of claws scratching across the shack’s door. Naji stirred over in the corner, still asleep. The fire in the hearth had burned down to ash. I stumbled over to the door and opened it.
    The manticore sat with a dead caribou at her feet, her face smeared with blood.
    “Here is your caribou, girl-human,” she said.
    A jagged tear ripped across the caribou’s throat, and its head hung at an angle. “You didn’t sting it, did you?”
    “On the spirits of my mothers, no, I did not.” The manticore gave me this solemn look. “Enjoy your meat, girl-human.” Then she trotted off, wings bouncing, toward the shadow of the forest.
    When I turned around, Naji was lurking behind me, sword and knife drawn.
    “Kaol!” I shouted. “How long you been standing there?”
    “I was in the shadows,” he said. “I didn’t want the manticore to see me.” He walked up to the caribou and poked it with the toe of his boot. “Why did she bring you this?”
    I crossed my arms in front of my chest and didn’t answer.
    Naji turned around. “Ananna, you have no idea how dangerous that creature is–”
    “Oh, come on,” I said. “She can’t eat either of us.”
    “She won’t eat either of us,” Naji said. “There is a difference.”
    I scowled at him cause I knew he was right.
    “Now answer my question,” he said. “Why did she bring this to you?”
    I sighed. Naji kept his eyes on me, waiting. And so I told him what happened the night before, with the pine cone and all. His face didn’t move while I spoke, though his eyes got darker and darker.
    “That was a mistake,” he said. “Making a deal with a manticore.”
    “Well, it got us meat, didn’t it? Something that ain’t fish.” I yanked his sword away from him. “You don’t like it, you don’t have to eat it.”
    He didn’t say nothing,