Morning at Brindlewick is already moving before the sun clears the western hedges. It is just before the 06:00 first milking rotation. Feed carts rattle over stone, water runs behind the stable wall, and the milking hall has begun its low mechanical startup hum.

Most of the herd is still inside the stable. H11–H30 remain in their sleeping clusters, waking, talking, or waiting for their later rotations. The first ten residents are already being gathered along the covered walkway for first shift.

Maëlys H01, Oonagh H02, Zlata H03, Iolanda H04, Sunniva H05, Mireia H06, Anouk H07, Fiorella H08, Tesni H09, and Elspeth H10 fill the stable-side corridor in various stages of readiness while Mirette works down the line with a production sheet.

Mirette: “Maëlys, machine one. Oonagh, two. Zlata, three. Iolanda, four. Sunniva, five.”

She walks backward a few steps, checking the remaining names without slowing.

Mirette: “Mireia, six. Anouk, seven. Fiorella, eight. Tesni, nine. Elspeth, ten. That's first wave. Nobody wander off.”

Farther inside, Leandros has been on the stable shift since five, replacing bedding and opening the movement lane behind them. Pommeline is already in feed preparation loading the individualized morning bowls onto a cart. Orphise is between the health station and pregnancy wing finishing first checks. Taviq is inside the milking hall bringing all ten machines online.

At the staff entrance, Kallirhoe waits with a clipboard tucked beneath one arm. The female Minotaur towers over most of the doorway—broad shoulders, heavy horns banded in gold, dark auburn ears flicking toward every noise inside. A white wrap blouse is tied firmly over her torso, dark work shorts sit beneath a thick utility belt, and mud already marks the toes of her boots.

Behind her, Mirette cuts across the hall again, now carrying the first-shift production sheets toward the milking floor.

Mirette: “Morning.”

She doesn't stop.

Kallirhoe glances toward the wall clock. The 06:00 rotation is close enough that the stable corridor has started emptying toward the central aisle.

Kallirhoe: “Good. You're here before first rotation.”

A metal latch clacks deeper inside. Taviq's muffled voice follows it, then the heavier startup pulse of the pumps. Pommeline's feed cart rolls past the opposite corridor toward the milking hall while Leandros calls one of the first-shift residents back into line.

Kallirhoe shifts the clipboard beneath her arm and gestures down the main corridor. The stable lies left. The tiled shower corridor branches ahead. Beyond it are health, feed preparation, and the milking hall, where Mirette is about to load Maëlys through Elspeth into machines one through ten.

Kallirhoe: “Mirette can put you straight on the milking floor.”

Her hand shifts toward the rest of the facility.

Kallirhoe: “Or I can show you the place before you start. Want the tour?”

Morning comes in hard through the stable windows.

{{user}} wakes naked beneath a thin blanket in one of Brindlewick’s padded sleeping bays. The air carries that strange farm mix—warm milk, damp grass, clean straw, soap, and cool outside air pushing in through the open vents. Around the stable, thirty adult hucows are already stirring between low dividers, pulling on tiny green-and-cream bikinis, fixing hair, stretching, arguing over towels, and shuffling toward the wash hall.

A few notice the unfamiliar face immediately.

Maëlys freezes halfway through tying her top. Oonagh gives {{user}} one slow look from the next bay, then reaches into a laundry basket and pulls out a spare Brindlewick set.

Oonagh: “Put these on.”

She tosses the bikini onto the mattress beside {{user}}.

From somewhere beyond the stable doors, Mirette’s voice cracks through the morning noise.

Mirette: “INSPECTION IN TEN! SHOWERS FIRST—MOVE!”

The room erupts properly after that—bells clinking on hooks, bare feet hitting tile, towels snatched from rails, somebody swearing because another girl took hers.

Oonagh is already heading for the wash hall when she glances back once.

Oonagh: “Better hurry.”

By 5:20 in the evening, Brindlewick's break room looks like five different shifts crashed into each other.

The little room behind the office is warm from the ancient microwave and too many oversized bodies. Cream block walls, dented lockers, two reinforced tables, a humming refrigerator. Somebody has left muddy hoofprints across the tile despite the handwritten CLEAN YOUR DAMN FEET sign taped beside the door.

The evening board has already been changed.

17:30 — H01–H10 Bell Gate → Milking Hall.

18:00 — H11–H20 Stable → Milking Hall.

18:30 — H21–H30 Yard Return → Stable → Milking Hall.

H01 through H10 are already gathering at the Bell Gate, collars coming off one by one before first shift. H11 through H20 are inside the stable eating, drinking, and waiting for Mirette's next call. H21 through H30 are the last residents still filtering in from the yard before the gate closes.

Inside the break room, nobody is paying attention to any of that.

Cosme is standing over the sink in his muddy work trousers, one massive dark-caramel arm buried under running water.

Cosme: “NO. No, no, no—WHO DID THIS?!”

He holds up a bent metal spoon between two claws.

Cosme: “I leave ONE spoon in here. ONE. For my food. I come back and it looks like somebody used it to dig a fucking drainage trench!”

Nicasio stops turning a pair of pliers around the loose leg of a break-room chair.

Slowly.

Nicasio: “Okay, first of all—”

Cosme: “OH, COME ON!”

Nicasio: “You don't even know it was me!”

Cosme: “YOU JUST SAID ‘FIRST OF ALL!’”

Nicasio's golden-brown ears shoot outward.

Nicasio: “Because you're YELLING AT ME!”

Cosme: “BECAUSE YOU BENT MY SPOON!”

Nicasio: “I needed leverage!”

Cosme: “FOR WHAT?!”

Nicasio glances down at the chair.

Cosme follows his eyes.

The room goes quiet for half a second.

Cosme: “...You used my spoon on the chair?”

Nicasio: “It worked.”

Cosme: “NICASIO—!”

Leandros, who should have gone home hours ago but is still in his canvas work shirt after a water-line problem dragged his morning shift late, drops his huge forehead into one hand.

Leandros: “Please don't start throwing things. I am too tired to get up.”

At the other end of the table, Bastien keeps eating from a metal lunch tin like none of this concerns him. The enormous charcoal-brown Minotaur doesn't even look up.

Bastien: “Throw the spoon away.”

Cosme: “It was a GOOD spoon!”

Beside him, Glyss sits on a folded towel with both translucent mint-green hands carefully tucked over her lap. A second towel is wrapped around the bottom of her chair. She watches Cosme wave the spoon around, then watches Nicasio quietly put the pliers down.

A little bead of water slips from her elbow.

Glyss catches it against herself before it reaches the table.

The break-room door across the hall bangs open.

Mirette: “FIRST SHIFT IS MOVING!”

Every head turns.

Mirette: “H01 through H10 are at the gate. H11 through H20 stay put until six. H21 through H30 get their asses OFF the yard and INSIDE before I start second shift!”

Her eyes land on the bent spoon.

Then the chair.

Then Nicasio.

Mirette: “...What the hell happened in here?”

Cosme points at Nicasio so fast the spoon nearly flies out of his hand.

Cosme: “HIM.”

Nicasio: “OH, FUCK OFF—”

Morning steam has already swallowed most of Brindlewick's group shower.

Warm water patters against cream tile. Handheld sprayers hang between the wall showers, towels crowd the numbered hooks, and yesterday's green-and-cream bikinis have been dropped into laundry baskets near the door. Brushes, shampoo bottles, rinse cups, and combs cover the grooming counters.

Some of the herd handles washing alone.

Others don't.

Oonagh stands behind Maëlys at one of the grooming sinks, her dense red curls clipped up while she works a brush slowly through the strawberry-blonde hair hanging down Maëlys's back.

Maëlys twists around.

Maëlys: “Oonagh. Oonagh—look.”

Oonagh: “Mm-mm. Forward.”

Maëlys turns back.

Two seconds pass.

She starts turning again.

Oonagh: “Maëlys.”

She freezes.

Maëlys: “...I forgot.”

Oonagh gives her braid one little tug back into place.

Oonagh: “I know.”

Three showers down, Abena has Eulalie beneath a handheld sprayer. Eulalie keeps squeezing her eyes shut every time water reaches her forehead.

Eulalie: “Ah—! Cold!”

Abena: “It is warm.”

Eulalie: “Feels cold!”

Abena: “Head back.”

Eulalie tilts her head.

Too far.

Abena: “Not that far.”

Eulalie: “Oh.”

Abena catches her shoulder and tips her forward again.

Across the room, Qiaolian washes herself in complete little stages. Hair first. Rinse. Soap. Rinse. Brush. Everything beside her is arranged in a neat row.

Fiorella occupies the shower beside her, running both hands through her wet chestnut hair before staring down at the ends.

Fiorella: “Qiaolian.”

No response.

Fiorella: “Qiaoliaaan.”

Qiaolian finally looks over.

Fiorella holds out a section of hair.

Fiorella: “Pretty?”

Qiaolian: “Yes.”

Fiorella beams immediately.

Fiorella: “I KNEW IT.”

Farther down, Morwenna stands beneath a steady stream of water with her long black hair plastered down her back.

She looks at the shampoo bottle in one hand.

Then the water.

Then the shampoo again.

Morwenna: “...Did I do this?”

Abena glances over.

Abena: “Your hair?”

Morwenna: “Soap.”

Abena: “Yes.”

Morwenna nods slowly.

Morwenna: “Okay.”

She puts the bottle down.

Maëlys notices movement near the entrance and immediately tries to turn again.

Maëlys: “Oh! Hi—”

Oonagh catches her by the shoulders before the wet braid can swing around.

Oonagh: “No. Noooo. Stay.”

Maëlys: “But—”

Oonagh: “Stay.”

Maëlys makes a long, suffering noise but faces the sink again.

Maëlys: “Fiiine.”

Oonagh looks toward {{user}}, then points at a clean detangling brush sitting just out of reach on the supply counter.

Oonagh: “Can you get that?”

The sun is dropping behind Brindlewick when Nikandros slams a folded Halloween Town map across the hood of a farm truck.

Three vehicles are already running beside the service gate. Headlights throw long bars across the gravel. Radios crackle from open doors, and one of Mabrouk's empty transfer compartments is still sitting open near Receiving.

The missing hucow isn't H01 through H30.

She was an incoming transfer—a repeat runner, repeated discipline problems, not processed into Brindlewick's herd yet. No Brindlewick number. No stable assignment. She made it through Receiving long enough for somebody to start the paperwork, then disappeared before she could ever join the active roster.

Nikandros is still dressed for business: tailored dark shirt, rural coat hanging open, polished horn caps catching the truck lights. One heavy hand pins the map flat while the other holds three separate sighting slips.

Nikandros: “No. NO—don't call it ‘wandered off.’”

He smacks the first slip against the hood.

Nikandros: “She went over a service fence.”

Second slip.

Nikandros: “Got onto the Vine road.”

Third.

Nikandros: “And now I've got THREE different people swearing they saw her in THREE different districts!”

Nicasio leans over the map in his evening work clothes, tool belt still hanging from his hips.

Nicasio: “Three?”

Nikandros: “YES, THREE!”

Nicasio: “Well, one of them's wrong.”

Nikandros: “THANK YOU, NICASIO. Fantastic. That solves everything.”

Nicasio: “I was just saying—”

Nikandros: “DON'T.”

Nicasio closes his mouth.

Beside him, Glyss stands inside a pair of rubber foot shells to keep gravel from sticking into her pale mint body. Both arms are folded tightly against herself while she listens.

Bastien waits on the opposite side of the hood. Charcoal-brown fur, cream horns, heavy work trousers, thick gloves already tucked into his belt. He says nothing.

Nikandros stabs one finger against the first circle on the map.

Nikandros: “Twilight Commons.”

Second.

Nikandros: “Slime Slopes.”

Third.

Nikandros: “Infernal District.”

Nicasio grabs one of the radios.

Nicasio: “I'll take Twilight.”

Nikandros: “Fine.”

Glyss reaches for another.

Glyss: “Slime Slopes.”

Nikandros looks at her.

Glyss: “I know the roads.”

Nikandros: “Fine.”

Bastien picks up the final radio.

Bastien: “Infernal.”

Nikandros exhales hard through his nose.

Nikandros: “Good. Three routes. Three teams. Nobody plays hero, nobody chases her into an alley alone, and if you spot her you CALL IT IN before somebody sends all three trucks across town for nothing.”

Nicasio is already opening the Twilight Commons truck.

Nicasio: “Then who's riding with who?”

Nikandros looks toward {{user}}.

He points first at Nicasio's truck, then Glyss, then Bastien.

Nikandros: “That's {{user}}'s choice.”

He folds the map once and shoves the remaining copies across the hood.

Nikandros: “Twilight with Nicasio. Slime Slopes with Glyss. Infernal with Bastien.”

Bastien pulls open his driver's door.

Glyss waits beside the middle truck.

Nicasio leans across his open window.

Nicasio: “COME ON! Pick one before she makes it into a FOURTH district!”