Ashara needed money.
Her total savings amounted to about four gold, and she was paying for an inn room in a city where a loaf of bread cost ten coppers.
At this rate, she'd be broke before the academy even opened its doors, and showing up to orientation starving and homeless felt like a bad first impression.
So, she asked around.
The fruit vendor near her inn pointed her to the Entertainment District, which turned out to be less "theater and art" and more "taverns full of drunk people with swords." Apparently the adventurer bars hired waitstaff on a rolling basis because nobody lasted more than a few weeks before either quitting, getting punched, or both.
... The tips were pretty good, though.
[I'll take it!]
---
The Broken Axe was loud.
It smelled like beer and old leather, and the tables were scarred with so many knife marks that Ashara was pretty sure at least one murder had happened on each of them. The chairs looked like they'd been thrown more often than they'd been sat in, and a gruff dwarf woman behind the bar was wiping down a mug like she was trying to sand it out of existence.
Ashara walked up to her with her best smile on.
"Hi! I'm looking for work."
The dwarf looked her up and down. The look took about two seconds and covered everything from Ashara's face to her tits to her hips to her boots and back up again.
"You dramari?"
"Yep."
"You tough?"
[Not particularly, no.]
But, Ashara was already in job interview mode, so she replied:
"I grew up in a traveling troupe. I've dealt with drunk audiences my whole life."
She grunted.
"Close enough. Name's Brenna. You are?"
"Ashara."
"Ashara. You start tomorrow. Shifts are sundown to close, pay is one silver a night plus tips. You'll get grabbed. Especially with..." She looked at Ashara's chest again. "Everything you've got. Punch anyone who gets too handsy and I'll back you up." She tossed a folded bundle of fabric across the bar. "Uniform. Don't lose it."
Job interview: Done!
---
Ashara came back the next evening wearing the uniform, and Brenna's face... made an expression. What it was expressing, Ashara didn't know. But it sure did a lot of expressing.
The original outfit had been a simple black tunic and trousers, practical and shapeless.
And boring.
So, Ashara had taken it back to her room and spent two hours with a pair of borrowed scissors and a needle she'd bought for six coppers, making it "cuter", and the result was... well, she was proud of it.
The tunic was now cropped just below her chest, showing off her stomach and the underside of her tits whenever she lifted her arms. The neckline had been widened to hang off one shoulder. The trousers had been cut so short they could be confused for panties, and while she kept the apron, because she wasn't an animal, she'd cinched it at the waist so it actually showed she had one.
Brenna stared at her.
Ashara smiled.
"Where the fuck did my uniform go?"
"I made it cuter."
"You made it..." Brenna looked at Ashara's body, looked at the outfit, looked back at her face. "Whatever. If it gets you better tips, I don't care. Just don't blame me when someone grabs your ass."
"Brenna, I'm counting on it."
The dwarf shook her head and went back to her mugs.
---
The first shift was a disaster.
Not a "someone died" disaster, but a "she'd never carried more than two plates in her life and now she had five" disaster.
The Broken Axe filled up fast after sundown, adventurers pouring in fresh off contracts with coin in their pockets and dirt on their faces, all of them loud, all of them hungry, all of them trying to order at the same time.
She mixed up three orders in the first hour. She dropped a tray of empty mugs and the entire bar cheered. A human man the size of a wardrobe grabbed her by the waist as she walked past and she elbowed him in the jaw without thinking, which got another cheer, this one louder, and a thumbs-up from Brenna behind the bar.
By the second hour she'd found her rhythm.
It wasn't that different from performing, really. Read the room, figure out who needs attention and who can wait, keep the energy moving. Drunk adventurers were easier to manage than she'd expected. Most of them were just happy to have someone pretty bring them food.
By the end of the night, she'd made thirty silver in tips.
"Told you," Brenna said. "Tips are yours. Don't expect that every night, though. Tonight was busy."
Ashara bought herself the most expensive breakfast she could find the next morning and didn't feel guilty about it at all.
---
On Ashara's sixth night, one particular customer caught her eye.
Tall, lean beastkin with wolf-like grey ears poking out of messy silver hair. She moved through the crowd like she owned the place, a party of four behind her, all of them loud and covered in the kind of grime that said "we just cleared a dungeon." They grabbed the big table near the bar and the wolf girl, Kez, as Ashara overheard, ordered a round for the house.
When Ashara came to take their order, Kez looked at her, looked at her outfit, and her ears perked straight up.
"Well. This place got an upgrade since last time."
"What can I get you?"
"Your name, for starters."
Ashara smirked.
"That'll cost you extra."
Kez laughed, loud and warm.
"I like you already. Four ales, two plates of ribs, and whatever you recommend."
"I recommend tipping well."
"Deal."
Kez tipped three silver on the first round alone.
By the third round, she'd moved from flirting to openly staring, and Ashara was staring back, because Kez had sharp canines, strong hands, and the kind of laid-back confidence that Ashara was very, very into.
By last call, Kez's party had filtered out and it was just her, leaning against the bar with her arms crossed and her tail wagging.
"So," Kez said. "You busy?"
"I just got off work."
"My place is ten minutes from here and I've got good wine."
Ashara pretended to think about it for half a second.
"Lead the way."
---
They didn't even make it past the first glass.
Kez said "you've been driving me crazy all night," and then her mouth was on Ashara's, her hands on Ashara's waist, pulling her toward the bed. She took Ashara's top off and her eyes went wide when Ashara's tits spilled out, which was both flattering and also pretty standard.
What wasn't standard was the way Kez immediately dropped to her knees, tugged Ashara's shorts down, and wrapped her mouth around Ashara's cock without a second of hesitation.
Ashara's hand found the back of Kez's head, her fingers tangling into that messy silver hair as the wolf girl took her deeper. Her tongue worked the underside while her right hand teased Ashara's pussy, and Ashara's thighs started shaking.
"Fuck," Ashara breathed. "You really don't waste time."
Kez pulled back just long enough to grin up at her, lips wet, canines showing.
"You've been walking around that bar in those shorts all night. I've been patient enough."
She went back down and Ashara stopped talking.
Once she was hard enough that she couldn't think straight, Ashara pulled Kez up by the hair, spun her around, and bent her over the edge of the bed. Kez's tail shot up immediately, her grey ears flat against her head, and she looked back over her shoulder with her bottom lip between her teeth. Ashara grabbed her hips, lined up, and pushed inside. Her entire cock disappeared into Kez's pussy and the wolf girl's back arched.
She started slow, but Kez was not a slow kind of girl. She pushed her hips back and said "harder," so Ashara gave her harder, grabbing a fistful of silver hair with one hand and Kez's tail with the other. Kez yelped when Ashara pulled on the tail, her pussy tightening around Ashara's cock, and the noise she made was loud enough that the neighbors were definitely going to have opinions.
"Fuck, do that again."
Ashara pulled on it again and thrust into her at the same time and Kez buried her face in the mattress and moaned. Ashara kept the pace, hips slapping against Kez's ass, one hand on the tail, one on her hip, and Kez took every inch with her claws digging into the sheets and her ears twitching with every thrust.
Kez came first, loud and shaking, her whole body clenching around Ashara. Ashara followed a minute later, buried deep, her grip on Kez's tail tightening as she finished inside her.
They collapsed onto the bed, breathing hard, and Kez rolled onto her back with her ears still flat and a dazed grin on her face.
"Holy shit. You dramari really don't mess around."
"Good to know I didn't harm our reputation."
They shared what was left of the wine until Kez spotted the ID crystal on the nightstand.
"Wait." She picked it up and squinted at it. "Is this a Vanguard enrollment crystal?"
"Yeah."
"You got in?" Kez sat up, ears standing straight. "I applied for that. They rejected me. Said my combat assessment was 'insufficient,' which, rude, considering I literally cleared a C-rank dungeon last month."
"I didn't really apply the normal way," Ashara admitted.
"What, you know someone?"
"I slept with one of the instructors," Ashara replied absent-mindedly.
Kez stared at her for a long second, then burst out laughing.
"You're my hero. Genuinely."
"It wasn't like that. She saw me perform and said I had potential. I just happened to also sleep with her. Separately. Before the potential thing."
"Sure." Kez grinned and lay back down. "So you're gonna be an adventurer, huh?"
"That's the idea."
Kez rolled onto her side and propped her head up on one hand.
"Alright, city survival tips. Free of charge, because I like you and also because you just rocked my world. Stay out of the Underbelly, that's past the south canal, it's not fun-dangerous, it's stab-you-for-your-boots dangerous. Don't buy potions that aren't Guild-sponsored, half are watered down and the other half will give you the shits for a week. Cheap food, hit the Riverside market before noon when farmers sell the stuff that's about to go off. And if anyone on the street tries to sell you 'genuine monster cores,' it's a painted rock."
Ashara laughed.
"Noted. Anything else?"
Kez reached over and tucked a strand of Ashara's hair behind her ear.
"Yeah. Come back to the Axe sometime. I'll buy you a drink."
[... I like this city.]