Azzie's Arc

Chapter 1 of 3

Azzie stood on the empty floor of her shop and practiced her smile. She was a water serpent with teal scales, the second monster the sanctuary ever calmed. Now she wore a blonde wig and a pink top, and she wanted one thing: a beauty brand that made monsters feel glamorous. The problem was the shelves. They held wigs and nail bottles, but nothing that was hers. Nothing with her name on it. Her phone leaned against a mirror, filming. "So today I'm launching my line," she told the empty air. Then she stopped. She had no line. She had a full store and nothing to sell that meant anything. She turned the phone off. Terra shoved the door open. She was the first monster ever calmed, once a kaiju who flattened cities, now built like a wall in a leather jacket. She looked at Azzie's shelves and grunted. "Empty talk. No product." "I know," Azzie said. "I don't have a signature thing. Nobody takes a brand with no product." Terra picked up a wig, turned it, set it down. "You copy soft-monster looks. Human looks." She tapped one clawed finger on the counter. "You're a water serpent. You had scales before the wig. Sell the scales." Azzie stiffened. "Monsters hate their scales. That's why they come here." "Then you're the same as every shop," Terra said. Blunt. Final. The door opened again. Grey slipped in, the gargoyle, third to be freed from stone, soft under skin that looked like rock. She had been watching the street from a roof. "Okay so I saw your light on," she said. "You look upset. What's wrong?" "I have no product," Azzie said. "I have a shop full of pretend." Grey ran a finger down Azzie's arm, over the teal scales the wig and top could not cover. "These are pretty," she said simply. "Like water. I never had anything shiny. I'm just stone." Azzie looked at her own arm. She had spent months hiding what she was under blonde hair. Every monster in the city did the same. That was the whole business. And it was a lie. She reached under the counter and pulled out a small jar of clear gloss meant for lips. Then she thought harder. She dabbed it on a patch of her scales. They caught the light and shone like wet glass. "A scale gloss," she said. "Not to hide what you are. To make it glow." Grey held out her stone arm. Azzie brushed the gloss across it. The grey caught a soft sheen. Grey stared, then smiled wide. "Okay. I'd buy that." Terra crossed her arms. "That's a product." Azzie turned her phone back on. This time her smile was real. She had her signature line, and it broke every rule of her own shop. Now she had to make monsters believe a lie was the mask, and their real skin was the beauty.