"I'm lupine, clearly," the man-wolf sighed, extending his tongue to lick a deadly claw and turn the next page of the book he was reading.

"I said halt, foul beast!" the hero repeated, the flat bit of metal shaking in her hands.

"And I said I'm lupine, not fowl." He paused to glance over his spectacles at the tiny hero. "Oh, wait. You're just being rude, is that it?"

The hero swallowed her fear. "I... I have come to slay evil, to protect my village!"

"Uh huh." The wolf folded his glasses and put them on a shelf. "And I suspect somehow I'm a threat to you?"

The girl-pig shut her eyes and steeled her resolve. "Y-you're going to eat us all if I don't kill you!"

The wolf's mouth opened wide, revealing rows upon rows of sharpened teeth. The hero waited for a howl, perhaps a roar, before the jaw clamped down and straight through her armor.

Instead, the wolf laughed. "Eat you? Oh, sweetheart, you'd barely be an appetizer." He reached over and grasped the tiny hero with his claws, lifting the miniature creature off the ground.

"T-then what's been attacking us at night?" the girl-pig asked.

The man-wolf put the hero gently back upon the ground and adjusted her helmet. "Now that, my dear, sounds more like a potential dinner guest."