Starsong

Intro

 {--} Ren {--}

         Bang!

          Ren felt her entire body tense as the sound boomed through her cabin. She instinctively dropped into a crawl, trying to get down from the window, cut some of the centaur height that marked her an easy shot. She reached for the dagger on her counter.

          Bang-bang-bang-bang-bang!

          Her breath caught. They were insistent. And for a woman with a price on her head, an insistent intruder was the most dangerous. Well, almost. The only ones more dangerous were the silent ones. The ones who you don't even see until there's an arrow in your second stomach and you're too far to ever make it back to help.

          She had one shot. She had to do it now.

          One dagger, one swipe. Finish the problem before it gets bigger. Though, if bounty hunters have caught wind of where she lives... She took in a deep breath and lunged for the door, tearing it open and preparing to let the dagger bear down.

         Then she froze.

          "Hello, miss!" The girl who'd been banging on her door grinned with a mouth full of sharp, beastly teeth. A lute was strapped to her back. Her hair was pale as desert sand, choppily cut and falling into a round face that had been tanned by years in an unforgiving sun. Ren stared, trained eyes taking in huge ears, a fluffy tail, paws with claws-- Beastfolk. Desert-born beastfolk. But the Plains were a world away from the desert. Was she an immigrant? Where were her parents? Ren barely had enough time to think before the girl bowed deeply to the woman who still had a dagger over her, wiggling slightly, "My name is Piya Nightclaw, I hail from the Crescent Moon Desert, and I'm looking for a mentor!"

          Ren kept her dagger up, wary. Was this kid some kind of lure? "Mentor for what?" She rumbled, her voice husky and unfamiliar from living alone so long.

          Piya's ears perked up happily, and she stood from her bow, still wiggling, "I want to be an adventurer! You're retired, it looks like! Nice knife, by the way!"

          Ren stared at her for just a few seconds longer. Retired was one way you could put it. And she had no desire to go back.

          "I'm not for sale."

          And she slammed the door in the girl's face.

          Ren didn't feel bad about it. If that kid wanted a mentor, she could find someone legitimate.

          She would be fine.