** spoiler alert ** 
 Spoilers. My general thoughts on all the short stories. 
 Student of Ostriches 
 One of the best stories right at the beginning. I was really rooting for her by the end and I love that she takes the role of family protector right out of her father's hands. Follows Pierce's typical plotline of a girl breaking out of the traditional role of women in her society. It was a nice surprise to find out who the character was in the end (she's mentioned in the Alanna books). 
 Elder Brother 
 Hahaha the tree that gets turned into a man from Wolf-Speaker! I liked the story. It shows how a small act of kindness can make all the difference in the world to someone. And it shows how stupid the prejudices of a culture can be when looked upon by an outsider. 
 The Hidden Girl 
 A good companion story to Elder Brother. I would never have expected Pierce to go this route and look at the veils in a good light. It was thought provoking. 
 Nawat 
 Disturbing. I know lots of people like Nawat. I don't get it. I never liked Aly and Nawat together. I always found it weird. He acts less like a child and Aly accepts him as a human male after his "transformation into a real man" in Trickster's Queen, but here he is still stubbornly and obstinately holding on to everything that makes him a crow. He tries to feed his newborns worms, mentions they sleep with the babies in his and Aly's bed sometimes, constantly acts like he know more about babies than all the nursemaids, leaves them lying naked in their beds, and hangs them out the window to pee and poop "outside the nest"... So there's a big pile of poop rotting in the heat below their windows that the gardeners have to keep cleaning up. Yeah... If he thinks the babies should poop out the windows, doesn't that mean that's what he does as well? O_O 
 Worst of all, in the climax of the story he spends not a moment, but four whole pages seriously contemplating and nearly murdering his child! And he even thinks about lying to Aly to get away with it. I don't have any clue how this dilemma was supposed to endear me to this character rather than think he's insane. 
 Aly makes a good point at one point that she thought he would be more human by now, and for some reason he gets incredibly angry. Ugh. You married a human and chose to live among humans so yes you have to give up your crowness and stop murdering babies. Aly essentially gave up her life in Tortall, but Nawat acts selfishly throughout and doesn't want to give up anything about a being crow or human and it makes for a really frustrating story. 
 Couldn't finish this story fast enough. 
 The Dragon's Tale 
 Interesting to see something from Kitten's perspective. The story kind of dragged on a bit, but it gave Kitten some good character development as she struggles with people being afraid of her, not being among her own kind, and not being able to communicate. 
 Lost 
 My favorite of all the stories. Partially because there's an awesome darking that befriends the main character. And because the main character doesn't dream of becoming a warrior, but rather wants to be a mathematician, ha! I loved how she initially thinks her father is always in the right, and that everything is her fault, and how she cannot even begin to imagine that she could take command of her life and just leave. It is perfect for someone who has been abused all of her life and has never left her town. But her darking friend sows the seeds of doubt and they begin to grow throughout the story. I loved her friendship with the engineer as well. A great story. 
 Time of Proving 
 Really short. Too short to make you even begin to care about the characters. The point of it was you should be kind to others in need and poetry is not useless? Ok. Moving on. 
 Plain Magic 
 A nice tale about how superstitions and unfounded beliefs can needlessly kill a lot of people, but the story is nothing special. Sewing magic makes an appearance. 
 Mimic 
 The main character gets along really well with and can heal animals, befriends a dragon, and eventually learns to speak to animals. Remind Pierce fans of anyone? I liked the story overall, you can really see how much the main character (who I assume is a girl but it's never stated) loves animals and her relentless efforts to help the young and ugly dragon are endearing. I didn't really get why becoming her Grandfather's student was a sign of growing up though. Why are adults not allowed to be shepherds? Surely the chief herdsman they talk about is adult? Oh well. 
 Huntress 
 This one wasn't the best. I'm so tired of stories about the "cool kids" in high school and an awkward main character trying to fit in who finds the "cool kids" aren't actually that cool. That being said, this story got a little over the top at the end. Murder seems to be a petty crime in this world as the gang has no trepidations about murdering the main character. And then the main character has all her problems solved by a goddess, which is frustrating. And not only that, but the goddess solves her problems by mercilessly murdering the entire gang of high schoolers! Yes that is exactly the kind of goddess I would like to worship... wait, no it's not. And then the story abruptly ends. You would think the main character would now have infinitely more problems seeing as how she was at the scene of a mass murder and the culprit is someone that no one will believe exists. 
 Testing 
 Another story set in the modern world, but with no fantasy this time since it's based on Pierce's life. I enjoyed this story much more than Huntress.