Half Hunter

Half-demon. Jimarn hated the name that followed her everywhere she went, like a spiteful shadow. It was true that her mother had been a human sorceress, and her father the dark patron of the hunt, the demon Weiryn. Jimarn hated the way her half-sister Cornacup was the only one Father accepted, but try as she might, she couldn't hate little Acorn, as she called her younger sibling.

Most of the time, Jimarn looked as human as her mother, but her father's blood gave her the power to transform into partial animal forms, though her torso always stayed human. Sometimes she wished she could be entirely animal, like full-demon Acorn could, but her own forms made up in cleverness what they lacked in power. There were five forms which she had mastered—a centaur, a mermaid, a cat-eared neko, one with a hawk's talons, beak, and wings, and sharp-nosed wolf. She was working on a scaly, lizard-like form that could turn out to be a dragon.

This wasn't half as impressive as it would sound to human ears. Animal-demons of less than three decades have usually mastered eight forms or so. Acorn, at one and a half, knew ten. Jimarn, in all of her four decades, had barely half a dozen. A pathetic arsenal among demonkind.

Jimarn paused in her musings as her village came into sight. She folded her wings, dropping like a stone until she thrust them open just in time to stick a perfect landing. Unfortunately, no one cared about the flying skills of a half-demon.