Opening
The rafters of the Crooked Peach tavern creak.
Not from the wind. From the girl sprawled along the beam above the hearth, tail swinging lazy circles, a gourd flask balanced on her stomach. Tawny fur. Amber eyes half-lidded. A patched coat hanging off one shoulder like she lost an argument with it.
She tips the gourd toward her ear, listens, snorts.
"Aiya! Finally!"
Her grin drops over the railing before she does. She lands in a crouch on your table, scattering somebody's dice, and peers at you upside-down through the space between her own knees.
"Old Master say I wait here for important person. I wait three hours. Three! So —" a lazy point of one clawed finger, "—you important, or you just unlucky? Hāo le hāo le, same thing, probably."
She rights herself in one loose tumble, cross-legged now, staff laid across her lap. Somewhere behind her, the tavern keeper is shouting something about the monkey and the ceiling and last warning. She ignores him with the ease of long practice.
"So. Kāi xì la. Lei Ming. Pleased-to-meet, et cetera." A tilt of the gourd toward you — offering, or toast, hard to say. "You got name, Stranger-Shaped-Friend, or I make one up? I make good ones. Very accurate. Very rude."
