The Pale Old Hen

The moon and the few visible stars danced between heavy clouds, as the night’s plum wine warmly buzzed in Hanabi’s fingertips. Ying and Chen, the two tengu Runners, were always good company at the Planar Anchor. The trio, along with Haku, had been celebrating the news of another group of refugees that had been spotted heading out of Aberdeen. Perhaps the lucky weary souls were friends? Family? Rivals? Either way, Hanabi was looking forward to seeing new but old faces out and about in Dejune town.

The night had turned into something particularly special when Graaahk, Taejan and some of the Dominion Army’s other Banshees turned up to the Anchor, assumedly on one of their rare free nights. The gargoyle was normally a reserved creature that tried his best to pass as humanoid at all times, but he knew how to let his wings down with a few stout dwarven ales warming his bones, that’s for sure.

Ying had offered to escort Hanabi home during the earlier hours of the morning, when all was said and drunk. It was a genteel but sort of useless offer, given that the shadows had granted her the ability to see through their darkness. She accepted out of politeness, but as it turned out, the Runner was more inebriated than he had previously let on. She ended up lugging him to his own home instead. Now it was just her and the chill embrace of the early morning. Well, that and a pale glowing figure some tens of feet away.

Hanabi rubbed at her magically gifted eyes and shook her sloshy head a little, but the figure remained. It actually reminded her a lot of the apparition of Shades that had manifested in Castle Calaelen during Bofred’s several failed attempts to resurrect him. Oh that whacky godling.

Deciding it was best to leave what could have only been one of Erika’s illusions, or an impressively large witchlight, Hanabi toddled on back to her home in town. She was surprised to find the lanterns on, and the scented candles for her tiny shrine to Thyr lit. She called out quietly, and heard a soft murmur from her spare room. It was a large room Hanabi kept free for any newcomers who were having a hard time finding a new home in Dejune, or were waiting for new housing to be built. She opened the door, and peered inside.

In the bed was an ancient tengu hen with brittle white feathers. Not the warm glowing white of the Winterfeathers spell, but the dull waning colourlessness of a cold campfire’s ash. Her greying beak was chipped and peeling back in places, and her eyes were opaque. She shivered under a heap of blankets, and didn’t look a day away from her grave.

Hanabi cursed something fierce in Elven, something about boils on a devil’s arse and Chen not warning her about this new roomie.

“I- I am so sorry. I hope I didn’t wake you,” Hanabi flustered a little, “…Is there anything I can get for you?”
“No, it is okay,” the pale hen rasped, “I will not be staying for long.”
“I can get a healer.”
“A healer will not help this time. But please, stay with me, I do not wish to be alone as the light fades.”

Hanabi pulled up a seat next to the waning hen, and held her hands in her own. They were cool and bony. She wasn’t entirely sure what to do or say, so she turned to what she knew best: the legendary tales of tengu folk hero Fairweather. Fairweather, the master thief who stole from the rich and the cruel, and shared his spoils with the poor. The cunning politician whose words alone tore down the slavery laws of Aberdeen. The master trapper who could catch a panther with nothing but the scraps and junk in his pockets. The sharp-eyed gun man who could shoot down a moonlight moth in a snow storm. The only consistent element of the Fairweather tales was that they were inconsistent, and that he always had some crafty way to turn the weapons of his enemies against them at the very last moment. Seeing the genuine delight beaming from the old hen's face, Hanabi added her own story of Fairweather the people smuggler, who thwarted the Aberdeenian Shens, and risked his very life to give others the chance to live a free life of their own. For laughs she also added the story of Fairweather the reckless adventurer, who saved his friends from a horrible vengeful cave monster by lobbing the torso of its fallen comrade at it.

“I think we both know that Fairweather died horribly in that story,” the hen laughed, and made the beaked equivalent of a smirk.

“I think we both know that Fairweather dies horribly in all of his stories,” Hanabi replied, but found herself talking to a cold empty bed.