Bittersweet and Strange

The noise started just before dawn when the surrounding farmers woke up to tend to their livestock. Animals braying in the fields filled the dimly lit hills, acting as a baseline for the loud morning to come.
Next would come the baker and then the blacksmith and only then would other shops begin to open. Dex tapped a stick of charcoal on the edge of his notebook. He'd head into town around that time, dropping off a few of his parents' remedies, picking up more chicken feed, and checking on Monsieur Elwin's backdoor hinges. They always seem to creak around this time of year and the older man couldn't quite reach the upper ones by himself.
Maybe he'd lend Dex some of his alchemy papers...

(I return from the grave with a Keefex Beauty and the Beast AU in which I thought way too hard about the worldbuilding.)