“Yes, yes!” He nodded. “We are like Harry Potter!”
That set the two women to giggling—hands up again. Hunter Do-hun grinned at them.
“Stop it, Do-hun,” Hunter Han Yun-hee, the other woman, said. “You're going to make Her Majesty think we're a bunch of jokesters.”
“But we are,” Kim Do-hun exclaimed. “Well, I am.”
“You are?” I asked. “Cause you guys have been a little stuffy so far.”
“Ah, but we take time to get familiar,” Hunter Park Kyung-soo said. “Then we can make jokes.”
“Okay. Then why don't we drop the titles?”
They looked horrified.
“Too soon?” I lifted my brows. “How about you call me Ambassador instead of Your Majesty? I'm on a mission right now, so that's technically more proper.”
“Very well, Ambassador,” Hunter Park Kyung-soo said.
“So, what are the rest of you?” I grimaced. “That sounds awful. Again, forgive my rudeness.”
“Not at all,” Hunter Choi Mi-cha said, “I'm an Inmyeonjo.”
“That's a type of bird-shifter, right?”
“Yes, Your Majesty. But I wear my human face in both forms.”
“You're a bird with the face of a woman?” Star asked.
“Yes, Your Majesty.”
“I'm a bird-shifter too,” Hunter Han Yun-hee said. “A Samjoko.”
“A three-legged crow?” I asked.
“Yes! Very good, Your Majesty. Uh, I mean, Ambassador.”
“Thanks.”
“I'm a Haechi,” Hunter Won Chung-ae said.
“I'm sorry. I don't know that race,” I said.
“We are shifters as well. We take the form of a hybrid creature—a mix between lion and dog with a horn like a unicorn. We eat fire.”
“Youeatfire?” Killian asked. “That's fucking cool, dude.”
The hunter winced.
“Oh, sorry,HunterWon Chung-ae,” Kill said. “I forgot how formal you guys are here with titles.”
“It's all right. We can agree to speak casually. You are, after all, royalty and the choice is yours. Just try to be more formal when you interact with humans here or you might offend people.”
“What's this now?” I asked.
“It's disrespectful to be so familiar with someone you've just met,” Killian said. “Calling someone 'dude' in the States is cool, but here, you don't do that unless they’re a friend. There are all kinds of honorifics they give each other depending on their age and genders too.”
“But that's harder to do with fairies,” Hunter Joo Ji-woon, the last male hunter, said. “Who knows if you're older or younger than someone? It's okay. We can be casual and use firstnames. And unless you're speaking Korean to a human, those honorifics don't matter.”
