Chapter Text
If anyone asked for her name, she would tell them to call her "The Badger."
She was a woman of average height, although no one could tell she was a woman until she spoke. No matter the weather, she wore a wide-brimmed straw hat that shielded her eyes, and black cloth pulled over her nose covered the rest of her face, but it wasn't as if most people got close enough to see her face anyways. The most striking thing about her was the shaggy black cloak that billowed from her shoulders to her ankles, effectively hiding her slim frame and giving her a rather round silhouette, her hair in a single braid like a chunky tail down her back. That was why some children she encountered in the fields ten summers ago had called her Mr. Badger—they had watched her dark, stout figure waddle down the footpath from five li away. The way the children's grubby fingers grasped the fur on her coat while asking if she liked to steal eggs amused her to no end, so she adopted the nickname with a laugh and gave them the rest of her candied walnuts.
The Badger's strange outfit was an obvious indication of someone who didn't want their identity discovered. It was also obvious no one told her that her mysterious outsider get-up made her all the more conspicuous. She wore the heavy cloak even in the hottest summers, drawing heads and at least a few whispers from locals who felt like they were sweating ten times more just by looking at her. It was a good thing most people whose paths she crossed had more pressing things to worry about—it was easy to forget a strange traveler when your crops were withering, or worse, when your neighbor turned into a Monster.
It was on one of those hot summer days that the Badger found herself haggling with a butcher in a town almost big enough to be a city. Locals jostled her as they pushed through the crowded street, which was permeated with the stench of horse droppings and body odor. A fruit hawker hollered in a tired voice about his buy-one-get-one deal every other minute.
The Badger berated herself for her mistake. She was in a dangerous position, and if she had just eaten yesterday near that farm, she wouldn't have resorted to purchasing meat from an overpriced stall in a marketplace teeming with people. Now she would have to spend nearly a fourth of her money on the worst cut of the pig, and even then it probably wouldn't be enough.
The edges of her vision began to turn red. It was time to give in. With a grimace that the butcher couldn't see, she counted out the coins and handed them to the frowning man. Her eyes tracked his every move as he weighed the slab of pork—he was definitely pushing down on the scale, damn it—cut a piece off, weighed it again, and wrapped it in cloth. She was shaking by the time he gave her the meat, crudely packaged like a disappointing gift, barely bigger than the width of her two hands.
She had nothing more to say to him. She spun around, intending to slink away, when suddenly a piercing shriek sounded down the street. A rush of bodies—someone shoved her shoulder from behind, and the meat tumbled out of her hands in slow motion, only to be lost in the midst of scrambling feet as townspeople screaming "Monster!" stampeded like cattle down the road. The Badger watched in silence as her pork disappeared from her. She wanted to cry.
Clenching her teeth, the Badger turned towards the direction people were running from. She breathed in the smell of their panic, their fear, their mad energy pulsing through the oppressive summer heat. With a grunt, she pushed her way upstream against the bodies. She didn't have to go very far before she saw—there.
The Monsters. Two of them, both young men. By the ragged state of their clothes, the Badger guessed it had been a few days, maybe even weeks, since they were turned. The tell-tale black marks traveled like thick veins up their necks and their sullen cheeks and their pale, clawed hands. Their hair was loose and wild, hanging like vines over the body of their victim, the hawker whom the Badger heard selling fruit five minutes ago. The Monsters must have been hiding in a cart or an urn before striking, or maybe they had jumped onto the street from an adjacent building. The Badger would have known they were there, earlier, if she hadn't been so distracted.
Soon the Monsters would finish with the hawker and turn their attention towards new victims. There was no way the townspeople would be able to outrun them, no way they could hide. The Monsters could smell you from ten li away. They would be onto you before you had a chance to scream.
The Badger drew her sword from its scabbard on her waist. Within seconds, she was close enough to slice into the taller one, and she brought her sword arm across her body—
The pungent fragrance of osmanthus flowers, approaching fast. The Badger stiffened. Immediately, she withdrew, vanishing into a hastily vacated stall that was packed with incense. She held her breath against the assault of smells and waited.
A glint of steel and a soft exhale. A young woman in a burgundy jacket vaulted off a rooftop from the east, descending sword-first upon the Monsters in a front somersault. Her form was a little off, but she managed to cut clean through the taller Monster as she landed. The Badger guessed these Monsters had never encountered a Serpent before. They wouldn't have been caught so unaware otherwise.
Without the element of surprise, the young woman's battle with the shorter Monster did not end so quickly. She needed to work on her stamina—after barely a few swings, the woman's attacks and dodges became more sluggish. At one point, she couldn't hop away fast enough, and the Monster's claw scratched her left arm. The tang of fresh blood spilled into the hot air, mixing with the smells of death and osmanthus.
The young woman straightened. Suddenly, she darted into a wooden stall behind her that was covered by an off-white cloth, closer to where the Badger was hiding. The Monster followed, snarling. The woman slashed at the wooden supports and leapt out. The overhead cloth fell, trapping the Monster, who flailed his arms. The woman drew back her sword arm. A few quick stabs into the squirming mass, and the Monster stopped moving.
The Serpent stood still. She was breathing heavily, her sword poised. The sash wrapped around her military-style bun was green. Just a regular agent, then. She probably hadn't even learned to sniff out Monsters.
After half a minute, the woman's breaths evened out, and she relaxed. She returned her sword to its sheath on her back and turned around. She was grinning, her features foxy and jovial.
Townspeople emerged from various hiding spots, appraising the scene of carnage and the young woman who stood triumphant. "Goodness, Flower Serpent," a middle-aged lady said, "you've saved us all."
The Serpent laughed sheepishly, as if she'd just been praised for memorizing a poem instead of killing two Monsters. "Just doing my job, ma'am," she replied easily. "We should find everyone else who's died or injured and see that they're taken care of."
A group of townspeople lifted the hawker's corpse away. They offered food and jewelry to the Serpent, but she refused each one, as was protocol. As the Serpent moved her arms to help lift some debris, her injury split wider, and she winced. She should get that treated, the Badger thought idly, but she knew this woman's type, and it was probably to slap on a bunch of bandages and forget about it.
Once the Serpent had moved far away and more townspeople began returning to the street, the Badger slipped out from her hiding spot. She was about to eat her own tongue. Miraculously, she spotted the meat she bought before the chaos, lying some distance away from the butcher's stall and relatively untouched. The Badger hurried towards it. Everything would still be alright—
Everything was not alright, because a dirty brown dog that appeared almost out of nowhere had gotten to the meat first. It swiped up the package in its yellow jaws and trotted into an alleyway with its tail upright, like it deserved nothing less. For the second time that day, the Badger wanted to cry.
She would not lose to a dog. She moved her legs faster and followed it deep into the alleyway, which was dusty and hidden. Perfect. There were no humans around, only the dog and its pork and the Badger, advancing faster than the mundane eye could see.
The Badger pulled down her face covering as she towered over the oblivious dog. Black, vein-like marks extended from up her neck onto her cheeks, framing her hungry, sharp-toothed grin like a bush of thorns.