The City of Shadows

The Field

He had never seen anything like this. In front of the rancher were all 20 or so of his bearcows, huddled in a perfect ring all staring inwards to the middle of their circle. What was even more out of the ordinary, perhaps, was the man standing next to him also trying to understand what was going on.

Lunar: "Do the bearcows... normally do this?"

Rancher: "No no your Darkness. Not my bearcows."

The rancher looks around a bit with a smug look on his face, then leans a little closer to Lunar despite being alone in a vast field.

Rancher: "But between you and me, that old flare down the road has got some pretty strange quad ducks. One day, I'm looking out my window over there, and them ducks are taking turns getting on each other's backs. I mean they got themselves nice and pretty in a line and everything, the strangest thing that was."

Lunar looked at the man with an "ah" look on his face and looked back at the bearcows, summoning a demon for all he knew. The rancher, still proud of himself and his gossip, rocked back and forth on his heels with his hands in his pockets. This wasn't the first case in the past few days where something out of the ordinary had happened. In fact, Lunar was just on his way back to The Dial after investigating an occurrence of goatfrogs trying to fly off roofs when this came to his attention.

Lunar: "What do the bearcows normally do this around this time?"

Rancher: "Oh you know, the usual this and that."

The rancher's nonchalant answer and shrug was indicating that, of course, everyone knew what 20 bearcows did at this time of day, other than creeping him the fuck out.

Lunar: "Right, but for the report's sake I need some sort of detailed answer."

The rancher furrowed his brow for a moment, quite deep in thought, as if the rancher didn't spend every waking moment with his beloved bearcows.

Rancher: "Well, usually about this time they'd be doing their own thing. Socializing, eating, napping, what have you. It was actually the fact that they weren't doing things themselves that got my interest."

Seemingly appeased with this answer, Lunar nodded a few times in silence. They both turned their attention back to the ring of bearcows, packed together in a tight circle, unblinking and immobile. After a few minutes of watching in awkward silence, Lunar scratched his head and the rancher turned to him expecting another question.

Lunar: "So are you sure they're not in heat or something?"