Dare The Black Rooster of Jarren's Outpost

[Anira Verseheart]

The dawn dragged itself over the jagged rooftops of the village, weak sunlight smeared gray and yellow through the heavy mist. Anira stirred, her head pounding like a drum beaten by a goblin. The taste of cheap wine clung to her tongue, sour and bitter, and her limbs ached as though she'd slept in a coffin. She blinked her eyes open. She had to blink several times to take it all in. Waking up in a cramped, filthy nook beneath a staircase. A corner that smelled of old piss, old rye, and dust. A heap of old potato sacks had served as her bed, and her cloak, stiff with mud and spilled drinks, her blanket.

The bard lay still for a moment, hoping this was death.
It was not.

Her first instinct was to groan, but it caught in her throat as she shifted. Tiny claws scuttled over her leg. Anira froze. Slowly, she looked down. A bold rat perched on her boot, its nose twitching as it sniffed her calf. Another scurried near her arm, gnawing at a scrap of moldy bread. She swatted at the nearest one, sending it scurrying into the dark.

Then a rooster crowed, but the sound didn’t sound like any rooster Anira knew. It was too deep, too long, too guttural. It drilled straight through her skull and settled between her temples, where it began doing unpleasant things. The minstrel sat up quickly, only to smack her head against the underside of the stairs. Stars burst over her vision. “Damnation,” she hissed, rubbing the sore spot on her forhead.

Memories bled into her mind. A packed tavern. Songs shouted louder than they deserved. Coin clinking into her hat. Someone bought too many drinks. The bar wnech suggesting the stairs were as good a place as any when the beds ran out. Her lute leaned nearby against the wall, miraculously intact. She pushed herself to her feet, brushing off the dirt and cobwebs.

Her doublet lay nearby, crumpled and damp but still in one piece. Dark green, with silver embroidery depicting roses and ivy, it was perhaps the finest thing in this village. Anira shook it out and pulled it on, fastening just enough buttons to make herself presentable before she ducked out from under the stairs into the dead air of the common room. The hearth was a cold ruin of soot and ashes.

“Up early, are we?”

Anira turned toward the beggar hunched in the corner. A wreck of a man, skin like melted wax, one eye an empty pit, the other sickly yellow. Another crow rang out. She pressed her fingers to her temples. “If that thing does that again,” she muttered, “I’m killing it." The beggar wheezed out a laugh, dry and broken. He shook his head slowly, streaky black hair brushed over his sharp cheekbones.

“Good luck,” he said. “Braver men than you’ve tried. Mercenaries. Cazadores. And one Knight of Anatheaum, or so he swore... All of them went at it with steel and prayers.” He turned his good eye towards the door. “That fucking thing ain’t a bird."

 

[Momoshiro Komori]

It had been a pleasant dream—one of the rare kind he didn’t wake from already bracing himself for disappointment. It lingered like a half-remembered whisper, slipping further away the harder he tried to grasp it. There had been someone in it. A handsome man… or perhaps a woman. The details blurred together, but the feeling remained. A faint smirk tugged at the corner of his mouth, just enough to reveal the tip of a fang. Yes. Pleasant, indeed.

Ruby eyes opened slowly. Momo lifted a hand to shield himself from the light spilling in through the window, squinting against it. With his other hand, he absently scratched behind one fox ear while staring up at the ceiling. Wooden beams crossed overhead, plaster cracked with age. He let his gaze linger there longer than necessary as his thoughts drifted, slow and unhurried.

A rustle to his left drew his attention. One brow lifted as he turned his head, eyes settling on the red-haired woman tangled in the sheets beside him. She was generously curved, bare skin warm and smooth, freckles scattered across her like flecks of paint. Momo tilted his head, quietly impressed by the sight.

Then the bed shifted again—this time to his right.

His eyes slid that way and landed on a much larger figure: an older man, broad and solid, streaks of gray threading through his beard and hair where the morning light caught them just right. It took Momo a moment to realize his own tail was being used as a makeshift blanket, draped protectively over the man’s side. The woman, meanwhile, had claimed full ownership of the sheets. The heavier blanket lay discarded on the floor, tangled with clothes in an unceremonious heap.

Momo let out a slow, contented sigh.

Perhaps it hadn’t been a dream after all.

The illusion shattered abruptly with a harsh, echoing crow—less rooster, more unholy abomination. Momo winced. He’d never heard a bird make a sound quite like that. Somehow, the two beside him remained undisturbed. The woman murmured something incoherent and rolled closer to her pillow, slipping right back into sleep.

Momo shrugged to himself and carefully extricated his tail, moving with deliberate caution as he slipped from the bed. He dressed quietly, piece by piece, and once ready, eased the door open and stepped out onto the second-floor walkway of the tavern, closing it behind him without a sound.

Muted voices drifted up from below. As he descended the stairs—quiet but creaky—his gaze caught on a familiar sight: the woman with the lute. Nearby sat the beggar as well, just as he remembered from the night before.

Momo offered both of them a warm smile and a small nod.

“Good morning… I think,” he said lightly. “Well—good morning to everyone except whatever that was that just crowed. I don’t know how you all put up with it.”

He shook his head, then glanced back toward the woman with the lute. Her face tugged at his memory. She had performed last night, hadn’t she? He was fairly certain she had.


The night itself, however, remained a blur—pleasant, but indistinct, like the dream he’d just woken from.