Note: Might include some physical violence/blood

After a while, Yam decided that she was far away enough from that pesky Gnome and began to slow her pace. Bread made an endearing chittering noise and Yam stroked her fox-crow chimaera. “What d’you say, Bread? Time for a drink?”

Bread chittered again and Yam laughed. “I’ll take that as a yes.”

She turned to her left and saw a very convenient street sign pointing directions to the nearest tavern, which just so happened to be only a hundred metres or so away. “We can do a little more running, can’t we? Hop up.” Bread leapt onto her shoulders and curled himself around her neck, chittering quietly all the while. Yam set off again with long strides that were certainly unexpected for someone of her short height of roughly a hundred and sixty centimetres.

Yam straightened up again, only slightly hindered from the run through the city, and made it towards the small, rundown tavern. She pushed open the wooden door, which responded with creaking and a small tinkling noise, and was immediately hit by waves of noise and a musty, wood-after-rain smell. She threw her paws over her ears to avoid the worst of the sound and stepped into the dark little room.

Four or five large round tables were scattered throughout the room, each one filled with creatures of all species, some sitting on chairs and most of the rest of them lying on the tables and the floor. Yam cringed away from the seating arrangements and headed directly towards the counter, pulling her money bag out of her coat.

“A saucer of milk and a glass of beer, would ya?” Yam knew exactly what she wanted when she finally got to the front of the queue. The bartender looked at her and nodded briefly before turning around to grab a dusty glass from the shelf behind him. He emptied the remainder of a green bottle into it and slid the cup down the counter, Yam catching it deftly in a paw and taking a quick swig, “And that milk?”

The bartender glanced somewhat suspiciously at Bread, who looked at him through narrowed purple eyes, the tips of his sharp white teeth gleaming.

Just as the bartender was reaching into the small fridge to his right to pull out the bottle of milk, a drunk-looking man swaggered up to Yam and looked her up and down seedily through half-closed eyes.

“Drinking milk, darling? Like the lil cat you are?”

Yam turned slowly to face the man. The odour washing off him in waves was rather disgusting, like old beer and unwashed clothes, but she didn’t recoil. She stared at him with one eyebrow raised carefully, scrutinising this new problem. Bread growled ferociously but Yam petted the fox-crow gently to get him to calm down.

“I said-”

“Yes, I know what you said.” Yam took a slow, deliberate step closer to the man, her yellow, slit-pupiled eyes gleaming dangerously. “You think I didn’t hear you, darling? Do me a favour and just shut up, would’ja?”

The man obviously didn’t get the hint, because he stumbled backwards drunkenly, clutching a half-empty glass of wine in his hand. He grinned messily, revealing yellowed teeth and gaps where the teeth that weren’t yellow just weren’t there anymore. “Sweetheart, I think you’d-”

Yam slammed her glass of beer down on the counter, sending a few drops flying over the edge. She flexed her paws, causing her claws to slide out, and shook Bread from her shoulders. The fox-crow chimaera fell lightly on all fours and growled at the man, baring his white fangs. Yam took another step forward until she was almost nose-to-nose with the man. Unfortunately, because she was rather short and this man wasn’t, she embarrassingly had to look up to be on eye-level with him. The man laughed something incoherent and suddenly screamed as a flash of silver streaked over his face, followed by a splash of red.

Yam stepped back, paw splattered red, and watched in satisfaction as the man scratched at his cheek desperately, yelling a mixture of curses and names. Blood was trailing down his chin and staining his already-filthy clothes red, but Yam was sure he wouldn’t mind. It wasn’t a deep scratch and it would heal up quickly.

“You little-!”

The man doubled over, still swearing, and swiped the back of his hand over his cheek. Just as he was straightening up again, fingers curling around his glass of wine, a small, thin black rod came whizzing out of nowhere, flying just a millimetre away from his throat and sticking into the far wall.

Yam smirked at the man, lip curling to show off her shiny white fangs. He was staring at the dart, pinned to the board behind him, stuck precisely in the middle of the target. His eyes were wide and he dropped his wine-glass with a loud, echoing shatter.

“Who threw that?! WHO THREW THAT?!” The man flew into a rage, roaring endlessly, spinning in circles and searching around the tavern, falling a couple of times but jumping up immediately, brought back up by his immeasurable fury.

A voice sounded from the shadows, from behind a few other people.

“I did.”

Yam stared into the darkness, thanking the good vision she had for being a Tabaxi.

The owner of the voice cut an imposingly tall figure in the dim candlelight, spiralling horns just shy of scraping the ceiling. They made their way over to Yam with a slightly unsteady swagger that suggested a combination of confidence and a considerable level of inebriation. 

The light washed over her, revealing mussed, shoulder length hair and an impeccably tailored- but sloppily worn- suit; the dark-crimson shirt buttoned up wrong, the black tie just a sudden movement away from coming undone.

She slipped into the seat next to a slightly bewildered Yam- or tried to- but Yam hissed, baring her teeth, and called Bread over to her with a deft snap of her fingers.

“Easy, easy there. I’m not gonna hurt you.”

“Don’t talk to me like I’m a small little house-cat,” Yam snarled. “Because I assure you, I’m not.”

“Aight then. Just tryna be civil, but I guess you don’t go for that. My name’s Aey, that’s spelled A-E-Y and pronounced like “ayeee, how you doin’- I know it’s more than a little strange, but there isn’t anything I can do about it now.”

BANG! 

“YAMMMMM!!! YOU. SON. OF. A. GUN. YOU LEFT ME THERE IN THE ALLEY-  I THOUGHT WE WERE FRIENDS????”

A breathless Gnome burst through the tavern door and immediately began swearing at the top of her lungs, shaking her fists at the ceiling and stomping her feet on the wood plank floor. Yam rolled her eyes at the sight of her, sighing.

“Daughter, actually,” Yam replied, turning back to her half-drunk glass of beer and tactfully ignoring the ‘friends’ comment. She reached over the counter and snatched up the saucer of milk, snapping her fingers and cooing softly to call Bread to her. The fox-crow was still staring at Rolf, purple eyes narrowed, glittering with something like amusement.

An amused voice cut through the confusion. “You know this… individual? And exchanged names, too? Well, I’ve half a mind to be jealous, Yam- after all, I did help you out there.”

Aey had finally managed to get into her chair and was now nursing a glass of red wine.  “Speaking of names, what’s yours, newcomer?”

“Rolf! I’m Rolf the Rogue.”

“Dwarf?”

“Gnome,” Rolf argued rather exasperatedly, groaning earnestly. “Why does everything think I’m a dwarf? I’m a Gnome, G - N - O - M - E, they’re very different things!”

“My apologies.”

By this time, the drunkard had once again stalked up to Yam- only just now having finished processing his near-death experience- mumbling incoherent profanities and obscenities. Without even looking at him, Yam flicked a paw deftly and smacked him right in the face, sending him crashing to the floor with another explosion of swearing.

“Oh, please,” Yam scoffed, acting as if nothing had happened and she was still addressing Aey, “you call talking to me like a pet helping me? I don’t know what’s going on in that dense little skull of yours but I assure you, Aey, you weren’t doing me any favours.” Yam held the dish of milk at arm’s length and Bread jumped up, balancing lightly on her arm and neatly lapping up the milk.

“Me? I’m the little one?” Aey stood up quickly, sending her chair flying aside, and drew herself up to her full height. “Kitty, think again.”

Yam carefully put the saucer of milk down and with it, Bread, who slid off her arm and continued to lap at his drink. She lightly placed her glass of beer next to the fox-crow’s swishing tail and quickly petted him. She took her time flexing her thin silver claws in and out, at one point extending them fully and inspecting the sharp points. After a long pause, during which Rolf hovered uncertainly by the door, suddenly feeling very uncomfortable in the silence, Yam raised her head again and stared Aey dead in the eye.

Aey remained unfazed, and stared right back. Suddenly, a chill swept through the room. The shadows began to lengthen and grow, snuffing out all the light in the already-dim tavern until it was swathed in darkness. Glowing eyes appeared from the dark, changing colours so often that staring at them for too long would make you feel sick- as Rolf had learned firsthand; she was now shaking, along with the rest of the tavern floor.

A sibilant voice, thinly veiled in civility and steeped in malice, hissed from the dark, from around where Aey had been standing.

“Now, I don’t want to fight you. You seem nice. But it’d take an idiot or a blind man to not see that you are just itching to try and slice me up. And since I don’t particularly want to collapse the tavern to attempt an escape…”

The room returned to normal, and Aey slumped back into her seat, picking up her drink.

“Let me buy you two- three, sorry- a drink and we can smooth this all over, yeah?”

“I’m sorry, I have to say that you’re the former,” Yam replied sweetly, completely ignoring half of Aey’s speech, retracting her claws and giving Bread a quick stroke.

“PFFF BRO-”

The snort came from Rolf, who was still standing at the tavern door.

Even Aey, the subject of this mockery, let slip a chuckle.

“Bread doesn’t drink,” Yam continued, watching her fox-crow lap at the saucer of milk. “He’d definitely like some custard or cream, though…” The Tabaxi plucked her glass from the table and took a swig.

The Tiefling grinned and slid a few coins onto the counter. “Then I’ll pay for that, too! ? Hey Rolf, do you drink? Lemme pay for that too. Rogue, huh? I’m sure we’ll get along great.”

“You think so?”

“Of course, love.”

“Yam. Yam. We’ll get along well too, right?”

“I hate you all.”

Bread made a weird sort of purring noise that sounded more like it belonged to a cat than either a fox or a crow.

It was the start of either an amazing friendship or a flaming pile of garbage. 

Possibly both…