Chapter Text
After everything that happened, touching grass had felt strangely grounding—at least for the first few days. Now, after a week or intense farm work, she had probably seen enough grass and greenery for a lifetime, or even several. Still, her service smile was still plastered on her face as she went to report to the farmers she was currently helping that her task was done, as well as hand them the produce she had gathered.
By returning to her simple adventurer roots, she had hoped she would be able to take her mind off things, but… it seemed like it wasn’t working all that well.
That, or the bird that was currently blocking her way really looked like a certain someone.
It was a chicken, or rather, a rooster, if the pre-eminent, rose-shaped comb on its head was any indication—except it was tiny; not juvenile, lacking their downy feathers, but just really small. Its coat was a mix of two tones of shiny feathers; it had a golden head and body, and a black collar and black fluffy, luxuriant tail, with the tips of its short, flightless wings also adorned with black feathers. But the feature that made her think of that person the most was the way his head feathers were arranged, in a back-swept style that made it look like it had long, blond hair.
And more than that, the sheer attitude it was giving her was really familiar.
The fowl was standing in her way, putting up some kind of intimidation parade, puffing itself up as if to defy her, sometimes standing intimidatingly, sometimes strutting, as she watched in fascination.
- “Chicken-Zenos?”
The idea itself was hilarious. For someone who thought of himself as a hunter, what if he had been reincarnated as a chicken—no, cockerel, even? An itty-bitty grain pecking bird not even big enough to eat, but raised to look pretty in a hen-house?
She couldn’t hold back her chuckling at the thought, and the chicken, as if understanding that she was mocking it, crowed aggrievedly, renewing its weird dance with more fervor.
- “I must be crazy,” she muttered, sidestepping the animal as she got back on her way.
If she ever formulated the thought that she missed that guy so much that she started seeing his shadow in a random, literal chick, and that asshole somehow learned of that, she wouldn’t hear the end of it for a long time. He would become insufferably smug, and she could almost already hear him monologuing endlessly about how they were destined souls, meant to be with one another, and so on, and so forth.
Furious at being disregarded like so, the fowl raced to block her path, and started crowing and strutting anew.
How strange. It was obviously well-cared for, as hinted by its shiny feathers and overall clean appearance, so it wasn’t a wild bird; it had probably escaped from a nearby farm, and should be hiding from humans—there was no logical reason for it to try to prevent her from leaving. It wasn’t like she would be encroaching on its territory by going away from the farm.
- “What’s your deal, you—Ouch!”
As she crouched and approached to try and touch the bird, it tried to peck her fingers—it didn’t hurt, as she had put back on her usual adventuring gear and its plated gauntlet, but the sheer affront of that birdbrain trying to hurt her when she wanted to help…
- “You little punk…”
She lunged, trying to catch it, but it fluttered about, dodging her assault, before crowing with what looked suspiciously like an air of defiance.
- “ A test of my reflexes , huh…”
A few moments later, she had discovered that the damn bird was quite fleet-footed, as she was catching her breath, while the execrable fowl was crying in triumph a few yalms away. Everytime she’d got too close, it would zoom around in an unpredictable manner, at a speed that belied the size of its tiny, scampering legs, making him extremely hard to catch. Of course, if she didn’t care about hurting it, the issue would have been solved in a matter of seconds, but… it wasn’t an angry god, just a random bird.
Though its smug attitude was starting to really get on her nerves.
- “Ok, now you’ve done it.” She extended her hand toward the bird, and it went on its guard, ready for another assault but… “ Break .”
The gravity around the bird seemed to increase several folds, nailing it to the floor, and it could only crow aggrievedly while she just came to pick it up, like a fruit ripe for the taking.
- “The party’s over, shorty.”
Now it was her turn to be smug, even though some would have found the use of high level magic on a poultry not even a tenth of her size a little bit dishonorable. Whatever. This was between the chicken and herself, and it wasn’t like it had a mouth to snitch. And it was harder than it looked to use such a spell to immobilize such a small thing without turning it into ground meat.
As she caught the defenseless bird by its legs, to prevent it from attacking her with its spurs, it started angrily flapping its wings around, with deafening cries one wouldn’t think could have come from so small a beast.
- “You're quite a handful for such a small cock, eh.”
Still holding it, she one-handedly ruffled through her pockets for a bit of cord to secure its feet, then managed to secure his beating wings as well, and finished trussing it up. However, being unable to move didn’t mean being forced to stay silent, and the deafening complaints from the little beast, who sounded kind of like a mix between an angry dinosaur and an outraged kobold, were still hurting her ears.
- “Such an angry little bird.”
Well, she just needed to use her secret weapon.
Removing a glove, she started scritching the feathers of its neck and head, applying trace amounts of comforting, warm aether, while murmuring soft words and, under her careful touch, the indignant howls slowly started turning into something that was more like reluctant purrs, as if the coquerel was melting under her petting, in spite of itself. When it was fully calmed down, it even moved as if looking to prolong contact with her hands, pecking them if they went too far away.
- “Ouch—You really are quite a piece of work… ” She licked her bruised finger. Damn bird, just as annoying as that man. “Well. Time to bring you back home.”
By the time she had retraced her steps back to the farm, the chicken had seemingly recognized the path she was threading, and started making a racket again, as if furious. Still, she felt the need to announce to the farmer:
- “I think I have found your bird.”
The farmer was quite apologetic that she had to come back, unprompted, to bring the recalcitrant fowl—she was now doing quests before they were even given.
But instead of handing over the animal, she found herself asking a question she knew she’d regret:
- “How much for this chicken?”
- “You… want to buy it?” The farmer looked as if someone was relieving him of a great burden for a moment, but… After all, this adventurer had helped them a great deal, and he would feel bad for trapping her.
- “I mean, I don’t mind getting rid of—err, giving it to you for free, but, I must warn you, it has a bad temper…” He sighed as he knew he was sabotaging its own chances to offload that curse on someone else, but… “It’s aloof and will stay away from your other chickens at best, or will be aggressive, picking fights left and right, and is likely to become the scourge of your henhouse…”
- “I saw that, yeah.” After all, they were currently shouting to cover the angry clucking of said scourge. “It can’t be worse than that guy, anyway.”
- “And you’d still want it?”
She nodded silently, as it was her wont, and the farmer could only thank for solving yet another of his issues.
Seeing that she still wasn’t returning it to the farmer, the bird calmed down, somehow, and started making happy purring noises as she held it in her arms and absent-mindedly pet its head, drowning her soft whisper.
- “After all, who else could appreciate that little guy but me?”
As she left the farm behind, the cockerel finally realized that something was going on, and started cackling, softly at first but with increasing volume, as if worried.
- “Shhhh.” More petting seemed enough to return its noise levels to a soft cooing. “Let's have some adventures.”