"Am I wearing the wrong blindfold?" the Blind Wolf wondered aloud as she resumed her usual spot. "I think I'm wearing the wrong blindfold. I know where I put the one I wore yesterday, but—"

"Is it on backwards?" piped up the Little Ghoul.

"Huh?"

"That's the most important question," the blonde ghost patiently explained. "Is it on backwards?"

"Well, no," replied the Blind Wolf, baffled. How could a blindfold be on backwards? "I don't think so, anyway..."

"If you can't tell if it's on backwards, how can you tell if it's the right one?" the Little Ghoul sighed.

The storyteller shook her head and addressed the audience at large: "Anyway, tonight's interlude may be less exciting than the others—one might say it will be Kalmor than usual."

The audience groaned.

"It features Joal Kalmor, the monster hunter renowned for his mastery of countless varieties of weaponry, and his wife, Vanaah Kalmor, the mighty captain of the Reapers of Sanghalim and—secretly—the mortal avatar of Djare, the goddess of death. Although they live in Sanghalim, they've decided to give this Relecan 'date night' tradition a shot."

"I'm a little excited," admitted the pink-haired Fan Girl to her neighbor. She wrapped herself in a furry blanket to get cozy. "I heard that Joal and Vanaah going out was one of the main reasons we're getting any of these date night stories."

The Blind Wolf nodded. "I thought it would be amusing to describe their outing. Someone wanted to know about how others were spending the evening, and things escalated from there. Now, then..."

About an hour before dusk on the eve of the solstice, inside a fine restaurant in a small town in Sanghalim, a legendary monster hunter sat across the table from the captain of the desert paladins.

"I feel naked without my weapons," Joal admitted, nibbling nervously at one of the crisp wafers that he refused to believe deserved to be called breadsticks.

"I know what you mean," agreed Vanaah, rearranging her silverware. She wasn't sure what else to do with her hands when neither was holding a scythe.

The waitress, a bright-eyed girl, took their orders without comment or small talk. It was the solstice, after all; most couples wanted to be left to themselves.

Several minutes passed. Joal set down the first breadstick, which he'd nibbled into the shape of a throwing star, and started on a second.

Vanaah cleared her throat. "You look good," she declared, unsure what else to say.

"But back to my blindfold," the Blind Wolf interrupted herself, "does anyone remember if—"

"I bet Vanaah eats all the breadsticks," the Fan Girl whispered.

"Oh my gosh," gasped the Mad Scientist, a white-haired man in a blue long coat. "Are they going to make a tiny appetizer armory at this way-too-fancy restaurant? That's exactly what I do on my dates! And at other times!"

"Waiter! WAITER!" barked the Tentacle Tamer, an unknowable entity from beyond time and space, attempting to mimic the voice of a character within the story. "There's a fly in my soup! What's it doing in there?!"

"Setting its attack pair," quipped the Nondescript Waiter, whom no-one had noticed arrive. "You can tell because it's face-down."

"You ordered food here?" the storyteller asked in disbelief. "How? Where did you even tell them to bring it? We're outside the edges of reality!"

"Get me a soup without a fly in it!" demanded the Tamer, ignoring the wolf. An ethereal tentacle launched a bowl of soup at the Waiter, who calmly stood in place as soup drenched his formal attire.

"Right away, sir," the server replied, leaving so quickly he seemed to vanish.

"Oh, uh, thanks. You, too," Joal replied, scratching the side of his head.

Another minute passed.

"That's a nice dress," Joal offered. "Where did you get it?"

"Oh, uh... My closet, I suppose," she answered with a forced laugh. "I don't remember where it came from. I don't think I've ever worn it before."

"I wonder what kinda dresses they have in Sanghalim," mused the Fan Girl.

The dress was a plain, undecorated, garment with a long skirt, but no sleeves. It was barely different from her usual outfit.

"It looks nice," Joal repeated lamely.

I'd kill for a distraction, he thought.

"I'm not nice enough to give him one, though," the storyteller remarked. "Anyway, I was trying to ask if anyone—"

The Waiter returned in a fresh suit, with soup-stained clothing folded neatly atop a platter. It handed the platter to a bundle of tentacles that were hovering in midair.

"Here you are, sir," the Waiter announced. "No flies."

The Tamer drew the platter into a rift in space, and quiet munching was heard from every direction at once.

"This soup is too cold!" the Tentacle Tamer snapped.

"Maybe I should just go change," the Blind Wolf sighed. "It's really getting to me."

"Try setting it on fire, sir," the Waiter suggested. "If you are in need of fire, I would be glad to assist by setting you on fire, sir."

"Now I want to order food, too," grumbled the Mad Scientist. "Those tentacles' behavior is worth immolating."

"You mean 'emulating?'" asked the Fan Girl, nudging her white-haired neighbor.

The madman stared at her blankly. "What does 'emulating' mean?"

"I want to see your manager!" shouted the Tamer at the top of its audible spectrum.

"So do I, sir," the Waiter replied smoothly. "Unfortunately, none of us have ever seen The Manager."

The tentacles launched another bowl of soup, this one garnished with gnawed pieces of stained fabric, through a rift in the fabric of reality.

A bowl of soup splashed across Vanaah's back, drenching her dress and causing her to jump up from her seat.

"He did it," said a sourceless voice. An ethereal tentacle pointed at a hapless fellow who was just about to leave with an order he'd placed in advance.

Joal's gaze focused on the man, who was a stocky, nervous-looking man in a red apron. The man looked like he was on his way back to his own place of business—he even had a nametag: Boris Rumaldi.

Joal's eyes narrowed, and he reached for a breadstick.

"Hey, hold on," cut in the Blind Wolf. "What's going on here?"

"What?" asked the Mad Scientist, looking up from his doodling. "Weren't you telling a story?"

"Sure, but then I left to change my blindfold. Joal and Vanaah were just sitting in awkward silence when I left off."

"Wait," said the Fan Girl, confused. "Who threw the bowl of soup?"

"Bowl of soup? What bowl of—wait a second. Tamer!"

"I just wanted to see what Joal would do to some random, angry restaurant-goer!" the eldritch entity protested.

"Quit messing with the fourth wall," the storyteller admonished. "It's barely intact as it is. Boris isn't at the restaurant, he's at a bar down the street. How did you do that, anyway?"

"Oh, I'm working on my impressions," the Tamer explained. "I've got you down pretty good, watch:

"See?"

"That is pretty good," the Blind Wolf admitted. "But something still sounds off."

"Yeah, it's a work in progress," the entity admitted.

After a few more minutes, Vanaah piped up again.

"Did you trim your beard? It looks good."

"Oh, uh... No, actually," he admitted. "Same beard."

"Oh. Well, um. It looks good," she repeated.

How are we so bad at this? thought Vanaah. We have a great relationship! We talk about things! Come on, I need words! Goddess, give me words!

"Weather," she blurted.

Joal blinked.

"We have... weather," she elaborated, cringing inwardly.

"Yes," Joal replied calmly, sensing the awkwardness mount. "Yes, we do."

They fell silent again.

"Ugh," groaned the Little Ghoul. "I can write better dialogue than this, and how many relationships have I had? None! I'm a ghost! And, like, seven!"

"You've had seven relationships as a ghost?" the Blind Wolf asked with the hint of a smile.

"No! I mean I'm like seven!" the blonde girl corrected, annoyed.

"But Seven isn't a ghost," the storyteller wryly observed.

"No! Read my grammar, not my words!" the ghost shouted in frustration.

She lobbed an ethereal tomato at the wolf. It passed harmlessly through her, but splashed against the shirtless Waiter, who had been standing unnoticed behind her. He did not register surprise. The Fan Girl's eyes went straight to his torso now that his presence had been made apparent.

"Never mind," sighed the ghost. "Just go back to the story!"

"Good idea!" exclaimed the Tamer, seizing the blonde ghost in a pair of tentacles and hurling her through a rift.

"Hey!" she yelped.

"Wow," gasped the Little Ghoul, regaining her footing. "You threw me all the way through the second wall. I'm not even sure how you did that."

"Had to," the Tamer explained. "It was that or break the fourth one, and the janitor would have a fit."

"I'm just surprised it loops back around to this side," the storyteller remarked. "Never been back there before."

"The girl never metafiction she couldn't make it through," murmured the Mad Scientist as he bent over a fresh series of scribbles.

Their food arrived, and they ate in silence.

Joal set down his third breadstick, this one a kunai, and picked up a fourth.

Suddenly, a distant bellow rattled every plate and glass in the place. The crash of collapsing masonry outside shook the ground.

Joal and Vanaah were already on their feet as the door burst open and a hapless villager began shouting: "There's a monster! A gigantic monster is destroying the town!"

"Hallelujah," chorused the couple.

They eyed each other momentarily, trying to hide their respective grins.

"Isn't that blasphemous?" Joal pointed out.

"Not for me," she retorted. "But you could get into serious trouble."

He smiled openly, then. "All right. I'll just have to make sure nobody finds out."

"Oh!" exclaimed the Fan Girl, tearing her eyes away from the Waiter's bare chest. "Action!"

"I'm going to go watch something easier to mess up," the Tamer grumbled.

"This monster is getting a warmer reception than I tend to," mused the Masked Immortal from within his ever-present shroud of darkness.

"Well, most of the town is panicking or fleeing in terror," the Blind Wolf replied. "Which... admittedly, might still be a warmer reception than you usually receive, yes."

"Point granted, then?"

"Yeah, I guess so."

"I'll get the check," the paladin said, trying to locate their waiter in the panicking restaurant. "Go take a look—and come right back! Don't you dare hog the whole fight to yourself!"

Joal nodded and dashed out the door, pausing only to re-equip his mask.

"Much better," he sighed once the mask was in place.

Vanaah managed to flag down their waitress and drag her to their table to take care of the check. Just as she finished paying, Joal returned.

"It's a taurus," he explained. "Most stereotypical-looking one I've ever seen."

"Shirtless, nose ring, loincloth, battleaxe?" she guessed.

"All of the above," confirmed her husband.

"Wow, that is stereotypical. I've never heard of one appearing above ground before, though."

"The light makes his skin look purple," Joal remarked. "It's really weird-looking. Oh, and he's eight or nine times larger than any taurus I've seen before. Maybe they're like goldfish."

"Well, it gives him an obvious, easy-to-reach weak point," the paladin observed with a wicked grin.

He nodded, though something was nagging at the back of his mind. "Yeah, shouldn't be a problem."

He turned to leave, but halted as Vanaah cleared her throat.

"Ah, honey?" she said, gesturing at her skirt. "I can't fight in this dress."

He stepped closer, examined the dress, and nodded. "You'll just have to take it off," he concluded. "Don't worry; I don't mind."

She laughed and gave him a playful shove, which nearly knocked him off his feet. "Just give me your knife," she said. "And go get our weapons. I'll meet you out front when I'm done."

He shrugged and took out his knife, prompting a gasp from the waitress.

"Sir!" she objected. "No weapons allowed!"

"What?" Joal waved the knife around casually, prompting the waitress to take a cautious step back. "This? This isn't a weapon. It's a knife."

"Knives are weapons, sir," she dutifully insisted.

"Guns are weapons," agreed the voice of an unknowable entity from beyond space and time. "Knives are tools."

"Bet you it's the binding knife, though," muttered the Mad Scientist. "The one that can stagger any foe, even if it draws only a single drop of blood."

"That's the one," confirmed the storyteller. "It's a useful letter-opener, too."

"How convenient!" observed the Fan Girl.

"Joke's on you if you try it on me," said the Tamer. "I don't HAVE blood!"

The hunter shook his head. "If you think this is a weapon, you've never seen a real weapon. Anyway, a giant monster is attacking, and she's a paladin. Are you really going to tell her she can't have a knife?"

The waitress looked at Vanaah. The paladin's icy blue eyes seemed to pierce right through her; she swallowed and shook her head.

Joal passed the knife to his wife, then took off to retrieve their armaments.

A few minutes later, Vanaah exited the building to find Joal already armed and waiting with her scythe.

He looked at her heightened hemline and whistled appreciatively, then passed her the scythe.

She took it, but stopped him before he could run off. "Wait a second."

"Apparently, Joal likes the battle-ready ones," mused the Little Ghoul. "An actual date, eh. But a back-to-back fight with a woman who can fight well? Oh hell yes."

The storyteller nodded in agreement and added, "At least the feeling seems mutual!"

"What?" Joal asked, turning and forcing himself to keep his eyes on her face.

"Goldfish?" she asked, looking at him quizzically.

Near the edge of town, an eighty-foot-tall humanoid creature with a bull's head and purple skin was plowing into one building after another, smashing them to pieces.

"Yeah, you know, goldfish. They expand to fill their living space," Joal explained. "You put one in a fishbowl and it never grows more than a couple inches, but put it in a lake and it'll grow a foot a month."

"You're pulling my leg," snorted his wife. "Do they sprout wings if you toss them up in the air?"

"What? No, I—"

She was already running toward the taurus, which had just destroyed a bar down the street.

"That's not even—" Joal ran to catch up. "Everyone knows about goldfish!" he panted, racing alongside her.

She stopped short, nearly causing him to tumble forwards as he forced himself to stop next to her.

"Expanding goldfish," she uttered, eyebrows raised, "that swell up like balloons if they're not kept in tanks? Sure, honey, of course! I can see how that would be common knowledge. It's not ridiculously unbelievable at all."

She raced off toward the beast again. Joal shook his head and tried to keep up.

By the time he made it to her, she had halted the beast's advance and taught it a healthy respect for her scythe.

"Hang back a tic," he called, "they're normally more intelligent than this. It might listen to reason."

She stepped back and let Joal take the lead. He ran forward, but he had to hurl himself backward as the creature's battleaxe, comically tiny in its massive hands, swung his way. As its massive fist passed him by, Joal thought he heard a sizzling sound, which fed the idea nagging at the back of his mind.

He squinted up at the monster, trying to meet its eyes.

"Hey!" he yelled up at the towering taurus. "Hey, I want to talk! Got a minute?"

In response, the creature bellowed and swung for him again. Joal saw the titanic fist coming in, shrugged, and reached for his ironstar: a massive metal device in the shape of a six-pointed star, with one point longer than the rest.

"Ah," the Mad Scientist sighed, "the crystallized moments of mistakes being made."

He pulled the ironstar over his head and slammed the long point into the ground, bracing behind it as the beast's fist collided at full speed. Amazingly, the ironstar held fast, causing the creature to howl and clutch its bruised fist in pain.

Joal leaped on top of his ironstar, then jumped from it to the beast's arm. By the time it had shaken off the injury, Joal had reached its shoulder.

"Hey!" he shouted in its ear, noting that the creature had a bleeding gash on either side of its nose. "If you understand me, surrender now!"

The skin was definitely purple, not blue, he realized, and there was no mistaking the same sizzling sound as before. It was almost deafening now that he was standing on the beast.

The taurus tried to swat him away with its uninjured hand, but just before it could do so, Joal dropped behind its shoulder and began climbing down the beast's back, carving out handholds in places where no convenient lump of hair was available to ease his descent.

The beast howled, but it couldn't quite reach around to dislodge him. Joal halted his descent at its loincloth—which, he noticed, was both uncomfortably tight and of a very unusual pattern—and dove for the ground, rolling as he landed.

"Ironstar again!" Vanaah shouted across the battlefield, hefting her scythe for emphasis. "I'll finish it!"

Joal signaled his understanding and ran for the ironstar. As soon as he entered the beast's sights, it lunged for him, dropping to its knees and reaching out with both hands.

He made it behind the ironstar just in time. It tried to close its hands around the ironstar to crush him regardless, but a few blasts from his pistol were enough to dissuade it from that course of action.

Weird, Joal thought. I could've sworn its hands were smaller just a minute ago.

As the monster withdrew its arms, Joal whirled around to the other side of the ironstar and glanced around. Where was—ah. She was in position.

"She's got the beast in 'er sights!" an audience member cried excitedly.

Vanaah stood directly beneath the kneeling taurus' loincloth, her massive scythe poised for a vicious upward strike.

Joal looked at the monster's skin, which seemed to be growing redder every second. He looked at the gashes on its nose, at the battleaxe that was far too small for it, and, finally, at its uncomfortably-tight loincloth. Finally, the nagging pieces at the back of his mind all came together and clicked into place.

"Vanaah!" he shouted. "Fall back!"

She didn't react—either she couldn't hear him over the bellowing beast and its sizzling skin, or she had already begun to enter her deadly trance.

No, no, no, thought Joal, looking around frantically. We don't need to kill it. I've got to distract her somehow!

Vanaah, meanwhile, had crouched to meditate. She entered a state of perfect calm, granting control of her body to the will of death itself.

She sprang up with a burst of preternatural strength and speed, launching herself upward toward the beast and swinging her scythe—

"Ow!" she exclaimed, broken from her trance by a sharp pain in her chest. Her blade swung wide and missed its mark; it left a light gash in the beast's thigh, but no further injury.

The taurus roared in fury and reached between its legs to swat at her. She sidestepped its clumsy swipes and looked down at her chest, where half of a star-shaped breadstick poked through the front of her dress.

She looked at Joal in disbelief. "What the hell, honey?" she shouted, pointing furiously at the breadstick.

"Bull's eye!" laughed the Fan Girl.

"Missed the bull's eyes by at least seventy feet," the Immortal disagreed.

"Sorry!" he shouted back, perfectly understanding her meaning despite not hearing a word. He shook his head and gestured for them to regroup.

"Seriously, Joal?" she said sharply when they were close enough to hear each other in spite of the taurus' continued bellowing. "It's one thing if you didn't like the dress, but I thought you'd be more careful with the goods behind it!"

The pink-haired Fan Girl nodded approvingly at the paladin's ire. "They're delicate things, y'know," she added.

"Sorry! I was trying to toss it over your shoulder," Joal explained, unpacking a lightweight medical kit. "You got up faster than I expected."

She pulled out the bloodstained breadstick and munched on it casually, allowing him to patch her up so she could keep her glare focused on him. "So what's the problem? I was about to destroy it."

He nodded, focused on his work. "We don't have to kill it. In fact, I think we can save it."

She paused for a moment. "All right, I'll bite." She took another bite out of the breadstick. "Save it from what?"

"Imagine that thing with no weapon, no loincloth—"

"No thanks," Vanaah muttered under her breath.

"—pointier teeth, and darker skin. Then put it on all fours. See what I mean?"

She half-turned to look at the colossal taurus, which was slowly rising to its feet. "...You think the taurus is turning into a behemoth?"

Joal nodded, finishing up with the medical kit. "It makes sense. Supposedly, the tauruses... tauri? Anyway, they were supposedly cursed by the gods never to see the sun again, but nobody's ever gotten one to explain the exact details of that curse. And nobody's ever seen a juvenile behemoth; they're always adults, and they're always gigantic.

"Now, this taurus here has skin that's getting darker by the minute, and it's growing, too, but its equipment isn't growing with it. What kind of spell would make a creature grow, but not the equipment it's carrying?"

"Not a common one," Vanaah admitted, examining the repair. "Fix the dress, too, please. I'm not fighting with a wing flap cut into my top."

He sighed and located his emergency sewing kit. "The clincher, though, is this: every behemoth has a trifurcated nose, and we've never had a clue why. Look at that taurus' nose."

She looked.

"The nose ring," she realized aloud. "When it grows, the ring tears its way through the sides and..."

"Splits the nose on both sides," Joal finished, stepping back. "So, what do you think?"

She turned back to look at him. "I think it's a great theory, but it sounds like you want to try to get it indoors or underground."

"Oh, uh, I meant the dress, actually."

Vanaah popped the last of the breadstick into her mouth and looked down. Joal had removed his mask and hastily sewn it onto her dress to cover the damage. "It'll work," she decided.

"It hasn't been able to find cover since it first appeared in the open," Joal pointed out.

Vanaah blinked. "Well, yes, that's why I wanted you to fix the dress."

"Oh, lordy, the double entendres!" the Little Ghoul exclaimed, giggling madly.

"No, I mean the taurus. We didn't see it menacing people, we saw it crashing into buildings—like it was trying to get inside them."

The paladin nodded. "That still leaves an obvious problem, Joal. We can't cover up something that big."

Joal forced his eyes back up to her face. "R-right," he agreed hastily. "But we might not have to. It's almost dusk. If the sun is really the cause of it, all we have to do is stall it for another half an hour or so."

"That's true," Vanaah sighed. "I much prefer to finish an encounter as quickly as possible. I may enjoy my work, but I'm not in it for sport, like you; I get frustrated when it takes too long."

Joal squeezed her arm encouragingly, his other hand still firm on his ironstar's handle. "We both know you have the endurance to last as long as you need to. Surely you can find the patience, too?"

She smiled and nodded, hefting her massive scythe. "Fine. For you, I'll hold off. Hit and run, in and out: no lethal blows. If you're right about this thing, it'll be worth the trouble."

He nodded. "So let's hope I'm right."

"Isn't Vanaah's deity death and the moon?" asked the Mad Scientist, wrist-deep in scribbled notes.

"In a sense, yes," the Blind Wolf confirmed. "She serves Djare. Why do you ask?"

"Just making some calculations," he replied absently, tearing his notes into several pieces and rearranging the pieces according to some inscrutable design.

A few hours later, Joal and Vanaah sipped tea in a dank cave, their clothing torn and filthy but their spirits high.

"Thank you again," repeated their host, a heavily-bandaged taurus in a very loose-fitting tunic. "Your kind had every right to kill me. The sun drives us mad—I had no idea what I was doing."

"Don't worry about it," Joal assured him, "though if you'd compensate us for the laundry, we'd really appreciate it."

"Laundry? What about the buildings I destroyed?"

"Oh, don't worry about those," Vanaah said, waving her hand dismissively. "It's unpleasant to admit it, but this sort of thing happens all the time. The construction industry depends on it. Chances are the property owners even had insurance."

"Actually," her husband remarked, "we should probably be thanking you ourselves. You made our evening a hell of a lot better."

The taurus raised an eyebrow, unsure of how to respond.

The Little Ghoul burst into gales of laughter.

"Nobody would know how to respond to that," she managed to comment once she began to settle down.

"That's blasphemous, honey," Vanaah teased.

"Then I'll just have to make sure nobody finds out," he replied with a mischievous grin.

"Dammit, Joal!" exclaimed the blonde ghost.

"Um," the taurus began, but was entirely ignored.

"We're awful at small talk," the paladin said emphatically.

"Awful," Joal echoed, leaning closer.

"This date night thing was a terrible idea," she continued.

"Terrible," he agreed, putting an arm around her.

"Should I—" the taurus tried again.

"Let's never go on another normal date again," Vanaah declared, taking Joal's other hand in hers.

"Never," Joal promised, and pulled her into a passionate kiss.

The taurus cleared his throat, to no avail. After several seconds, he nervously retreated farther into the cave, leaving the couple to themselves.

"...dammit, Joal," the Little Ghoul repeated quietly, blushing.

"And that's Interlude #4!" announced the storyteller. "Thrilled to have you all as an audience, as always!"

The Fan Girl clapped eagerly from her nest of pillows and plushies. "You outdid yourself this time! Something about their interactions was fun," she praised.

"Thanks!" the wolf replied. "Joal is a terrible influence on Vanaah in the best of ways."

"It works," the willowy woman said, nodding approvingly. "Best couple since the war."

"Er, wait," the Blind Wolf asked as the audience dispersed. "Who was the previous best couple?"

The Fan Girl shrugged. "Well, I guess you could say Arec and Kallistar," she admitted, grimacing. "Or... Before, I never pictured Welsie and Luc together, but now I can't imagine it differently."

"Ah, good." The storyteller wagged her tail. "Just as planned."

"You planned that?" the pink-haired woman repeated, surprised.

"Just wait until their third date," hinted the wolf. "Which brings me to a question... Should I continue tonight, or not? We'll be in Round 6 next, so—"

In a flash, the Fan Girl was on her feet and at the table. "Yes!" she demanded, slamming her fist down for emphasis.

The Blind Wolf grinned. "Very well, then. Let me get up to stretch my legs. And tongue, I suppose. I'll be back shortly, and we'll continue from there."