Copyright © 2025 by Markovas & Candle

Editing by Joletsart

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C1 – Cindy

Disappointment: even a mote of it avalanches inaction. Its qualities, unchecked, calcify harder than cast steel, invasive as barlock. Gnaws, festers, morphs into disappointment’s primal twin: apathy; surrender;rot.

Of course, the disappointments of daily life, the kind that came and went with the wax and wane of the sun, were common and harmless enough, even with the toll they took on the soul. But the kind that stays and stays?

Cindy sniffled with a deep scowl, something that simultaneously resembled anger and agony. She rubbed a paw along the itchy surface of her neck; the other cradled a weak light as she stomped along the border of a freshly tilled field.

It would do no good, letting time take its course on this one. Time would only cultivate that thorn to a wound of pussy decay: nature’s code of life.

Mind turning between options of action and inaction, Cindy’s heinpaw sank down the loose bank, a layer of clayish earth already coating her underpaw.

She paid it little mind. The haste of scraping the clots from her fur was a fair exchange for getting to walk beneath the warmth and glow of the orange growlights above.

Wake up, go to school, learn something, argue with bullies and go home. The daily disappointments, the type she could deal with. But exactly that normality was broken.

They finally got to her. He got to her.

She knew not to listen to insults, but it wasn’t just insults anymore, it was…

Contortion of fury snarled Cindy’s muzzle, feet stomping on autopilot at the seething throb of memory. A large chunk of bank fell, hind paw slipping to a deep crevice of soft mud that threw her hard on her face.

Damp soil and short grass caught her, giving greeting of a sweet scent and a coloring pillow, tinting the white fur around her muzzle, and her plain red shirt now patterned with dark mud.

The crickets around the impact sprang away and continued their songs of love and war elsewhere, while she lay there and sniffled through choked breaths.

Why did she have to go through all this? Why was it hers to endure alone? Why couldn’t they just leave her alone!

She pulled up her head slowly, rubbed away the dirt with a paw, eyes glazed with disappointed acceptance of where she found herself.

That stupid fox. She’d been in Jar’s sights ever since she humiliated him in class. Deserved it too, showed everyone what a kit he was. Her presentation, copied, as if she wouldn’t notice, as if she couldn’t prove it stolen!

And when she called him out, dared to stand her ground to a pred, a chomper? He just laughed and said she was the one who’d stolen his work. As if. She’d told him to his face he couldn’t write anything worth stealing when he could barely even read.

It almost came to claws; would have, if not for their teacher Marta. A fox fighting with a hare. Even in the dirt Cindy’s lips pulled to a grin. Stupid fox. Fatty hadn’t lived it down.

Cindy glanced around for her small light, fortunate to spot its eye glinting to the hot growers. She grabbed it, checked it still worked with a turn of the handle, a flickering glow of brief yellow.

She didn’t start it, hadn’t hurt anyone… How could it be her fault? Was it wrong to stand up to being wronged? Was it wrong, just for once, to not stay quiet like she was supposed to? As if that meant she deserved it. As if that was justice.

The smell of plants flaring her nostrils with the mingle of dirt. Her paw gripped a small patch of grass, squeezed it so hard it ripped from the soil.

Well, looked like he was going to prove himself right. It took him a while, but Jar had found an insult that she couldn’t match.

And half the prey in her class on his side too, trying to tell her this is how it was meant to be. Our place beneath. Theirs above.

Munchers… bah!

She shoved herself up, sat back on her haunches, gray whiskers twitching in the dry dusk air. Thunder’s rumble greeted her glance, muffled by distance.

Lift of head, she scanned the sky. Perfectly clear. The storm was trapped other side of the mountains. The stars were out in full: a sparse scattering of infrequent, tired pinpricks, swallowed by the hazy velvet of night.

She dragged herself to her feet, walked with clods of dirt falling from her body, to the edge of the field. The turf ended; beyond grew gnarly thorns and barkybushes of piney needles. Breath misted the air; body shivered to the cold.

She glanced over her shoulder, wished they’d built these toasty growers out into the wilderness, the ambient temperatures already greeting her fur without mercy.

Not wanting to end up sick again, she pulled her coarse scarf tight, tucked her shirt deep in her rough wool trousers. A reach behind, a fidget of cloth, and her tail slipped inside too.

She gave a squeeze to her small source of light, its cold leathery grip slowly warming in her paw again. Gray eyes squinted around in seek of the path.

Cindy put heinpaw against dirt. Getting caught out here wouldn’t end well for her. A prey would report her, a chomper would… she didn’t want to take the chance.

Outside the allowed boundaries of public access and after her age’s curfew. She was far away from home, and most mals knew each other here. It would be obvious to any of them by glance she didn’t belong.

She hurried to the foot of the nearby hill, cranklight glowing just long enough to glimpse the ground before letting it die out again, her steps guided by half-remembered shapes in the dark as she stumbled forward.

Passing a big mound of smelly dirt, draped and tied over by bleak tarpaulins to protect from the rain. The skies were clear for now, but the weather moved quickly and was impossible to predict.

Another mound, then a frame of metal of some farming machine, its polished skeleton glinting in the yellow lights left behind. The hill approached, the dirt track she followed, thinning and then turning sharply to head towards the farmhouse.

Cindy stepped from the path, the edge of civilization. Young snuffwood stood tall, red needles bristling from their crown: their lower branches already trimmed for kindling; trunk kept straight for harvest.

She was always told that outside at night and alone was the most dangerous time, that it wasn’t when one would go around if they weren’t searching for trouble, but it seemed to her she was treated like rabble no matter the hour. How could she have faith in anything that was supposed to be for her own benefit, for her own protection, when all that she was being shown were contradictions on top of more contradictions. Why should she listen?

Alone. Outside. In the dark. It was when she felt her best, nobody to nag her about anything, confront her about her dreams and motives. She was free to be herself, in the wild, like in time of Primal. A seclusion from society that didn’t want her to be something more than a carrot-chomping hare.

And she was free to have her swings of mood. Yet this time, this time was like no other. It was the worst she had ever experienced, as her young body just felt weak and her mind was like a mess of mangled ropes, trying to make the link but still failing somewhere, somehow, to grasp the reality of what had happened earlier that day.

Again her neck itched and burned; she ignored it.

She got to the base of the hill, where the short and soothing grass became jagged stones, waxy white haze, snuffwood, sweet tang of ratblight and matted tangles of barlock: a hostile unwelcoming.

The whirr of her little light only seemed to irritate the woods’ silence. It hid from her small eyes the path she’d usually trek. Cindy pressed on, pacing desperately along the edge where dense grass fought against twisting thorn. Was the entrance back the way she had come? Or farther forward, deeper into the dark?

Indecision played a fidget in her paws, the knowledge that the entrance wasn’t ahead or behind, but right here, yet somehow out of sight. The small moon in her paw was too anemic, guiding only the next step. This was a place she knew well, yet was dreadfully lost at.

An echo of voices laughing from the farmhouse got her to glance over her shoulder. Lips twisted. Whiskers twitched. Time was against her. Fear of being seen. Impatience to find her way. A whimper escaped, then a low growl from deep in her throat.

She clenched her jaw, jammed her torch’s clasp on the cord of her trousers, raised her paws up along the length of her tall, pointed ears.

It was only thorns and brambles. Only pain and suffering.

The end goal was lying patient up there. Close. Mocking. What was it to her the way was blocked? The thorniest barlock would be cub’s play to the scar she carried on her neck. So she folded her tall ears flat beneath the safety of her shirt, gripped the torch tight to her chest, dashed into the thick weeds and tall plants.

Things slapped and clawed and tripped at her big feet. Stems whipped her. Low tangles shifted her every step in directions not intended to be, places no mal should go, snagging and ripping and biting.

The hare snarled. It had to stop, it had to have an end.

Batting a branch from her impatient stomp, a waxy slap met her cheek in return, smear of sticky-white coated muzzle and neck, clung in ropes across her face.

She spat and growled and groped at the white haze obscuring her eyes, stumbled through a drop in the earth to a twist of ratblight that eagerly spring-coiled and hugged her leg, small razors piercing trouser and fur, piercing pinkish skin.

Momentum kept her moving, ripping one obstruction from her face with one paw as she kicked in the darkness at another.

The forest didn’t want her here? What say did it have!

The rat’s bane tore from her leg, her wool trousers taking the brunt: every step in defiance of the woodland’s whim. No path, just pain, thorns, roots. Breathless snuffwood shuffled, air was stifling. Needles fell, caught in her arms, wormed down her shirt, stang in her ears; tangle of esenroot at every step, rolling, lurched, staggered step as darkness pulsed. A bad stumble was all that was needed to break her ankle.

The end of the delusional hare.

Disorienting fear and pain buckled her instincts. This was insanity. Nothing could be seen. She slowed her pace, breathless gasps, air drained of freshness and breeze.

She glanced at the darkness, mouth puffing steam with each gasped breath, the air still frosty despite its infernal thickness. Her leg itched ferociously. It would be itching for days.

Whatever. Options, she needed options.

Her jaw clamped audibly as she noticed a heap of rock jutting above the cacophony. Maybe she could see from atop it. Get her bearings.

She lurched toward it, put her light carefully on its top, grabbed the stones’ uneven surface in the dark. Claws scratched over cold stone and dislodged brittle moss. Knees pulled. Legs caught. Muscles clamped.

The hare heaved to the rock’s smooth top, dug her paw in a handy crevice and lurched, smile on her lips as she caught the whiff of fresher air.

The rock shifted.

Smile dropped. Eyes wide. Low grind from rock below. Felt it buckle. Tried to backstep. A grope for her flashlight.

The next thing she knew was falling, a breath’s gasp of unreal peace, suspended in the air, watching the ground below rise silently to meet her.

And life again was real and full as she collided down.

Her first thought was relief she hadn’t been crushed. Then roaring pain tore through her back. Smell of metal and something hot running down her arm.

Barlock clawed her everything. She pawed the earth, stang and bitten at every twitch, legs splayed high above her head as thorns sunk into flesh: large pointy brown teeth, a maw of smiling welcome that had already swallowed her whole.

This time the whimpers weren’t from emotional pain but the real bloody agony that twisted and coiled her back, muzzle, arms. Hot trickle caressed her neck, oozed down and caressed her chin, dripping metallic onto the half-rotten grass.

In the daze of her fall, the groggy whirl of endless dark where the only sounds were her own anguished and angered breaths, Cindy shot both paws to the ground beneath.

They sank into damp grass and mix of thorns, pull of lips showed the glint of grinding teeth as she tried to support her weight away from the cutting bind.

Her muscles burned, her stomach ached, her every twitch ground and scratched against thorn, her weight shaking and twitching, a pant of pain and focus as she lifted one paw, holding her weight as best she could with the other.

She tugged at the solid fingers of dangerous plant, entangled in an endless knot, every attempt to pull away only tightening the grip elsewhere. Her heart pulsed relentlessly in blindness.

She kicked. The barlock moved with her, biting her legs. She tried to push off, somehow levitate from the ground. Her muscles only gave her whole body a tremble at the strain. The weakness. The stupidity that led her to even think she could do this.

Her body sagged, the suffocated air dizzying her mind to exhaustion, to faint. She didn’t want to feel pain. It was more than enough. It had been enough!

Drips of tears joined the puddle of blood. Cindy’s eyes closed as she tried to just breathe, to pass out. Fantasy drifted through her mind as a question: what if she could just leave this body? This stupid, weak body.

She leaned, propping both her elbows on the wetly rotten grass. Quiet tearing of fabric came from somewhere behind, and she let her face drop down into that beautiful cold on the ground.

Not the first time she’d lost herself in fantasies. Becoming a fox. Becoming a wolf. Someone taken seriously just because of what they were. Even bats got more respect: they were predators.

The cold soothed her wounds, drank her tears.

Even being born a rat would be better. At least she’d know she was too small, too weak to be of use to the world. What did it matter… she was a hare. A dumb, hypocrite hare!

Maybe she should just lay here until she couldn’t. Let the rat’s bane eat her. Surrender to what this world said she was meant to be. She’d tried her paw at fighting against nature; now she was on her face: bloody, in the mud.

Was it really, truly impossible to be what you weren’t?

Tears crawled out, tears of crushing emotional baggage. She pulled herself tight, the thorns snagging cloth and fur.

Her body squeezed into a ball. Couldn’t see anything and all the senses she had were of being held by immobile claws.

What was the point of trying to be more than what nature had ordained? What was the point, who was she trying to impress? Herself? She had impressed herself. Impressed on herself how deluded she was. Every failure met. The day-old scar on her neck a stamp of her inaction.

Inaction.

Inaction was the death of action… fear, weakness, doubt. The paws that held her back, dressed in her own skin. The plea to stop, called in her own voice, cementing the opinions of everyone around her.

But she didn’t want that to be true, it didn’t have to be! She would not be shaped by hesitation, not by doubts, for to wait was to watch herself die every day.

She had to act, she must. Summit was in reach, just had to get on the right path. All she had to do was muster her remaining courage, even if its supply was cracking from dryness, even if she had become hollow, messy and bitter.

So much hurt and time wasted into thinking and learning… she was not here to make everyone happy by yielding to the majority, by failing to be more than a hare.

She felt again, though pulsing pain, burning skin, cacophony of thought were all telling her otherwise. She tried again, though laughter-within mocked her abilities and choices. She moved again, felt inaction’s grip, the call of the moment, summoned her trembling limbs and crawled through hesitation.

She twisted and pulled, on paws and knees, like in times of Primal. A low channel through the barlock, finger-claw grabbing her every side, but a path none the less.

Words rose to Cindy’s tongue, old words, half remembered from a poem from some old book, half invented in the anger of the moment. She played the words out on her lips, focused on their shape, tried to make them the focus rather than the world that rustled around.

“Pain. Pain is the lament of growth. Comfort is its gift that holds ya in its claws. The excuses of inaction. Gateway ta courage’s death. Pain is weakness…”

Her shirt ripped open, ears flopped naked and tangled into a branch. Panic infested her blood and her breaths picked rapidness. Irrationality was the only thought that swam within her head: climbing up the hill no matter what.

“I will not—”, she hissed, lungs empty in sharp exhale, her expression contorted in focus. Her voice rose to a breathless clutch of barely withheld cries. It wasn’t the time for pain, it could be felt later.

She whined, her voice a falter’s edge from dying to silence, “I will not be shaped by absence of courage, I will rise from the weight of the almost.” Her voice rose, “I will move, for in motion I am free an’ in freedom I am alive.”

With a loud, heldless gasp, she dug her teeth upon the barlock that was wrapped around her arm, yanked herself and shrieked as her ear pulsed with anguish, teeth throbbed in their sockets.

She got herself out onto clear, uneven ground and her paws reached for the inside of her ear that was pumping out red with the strong pulse of her heart. It streamed down her black fur and onto her dark paws. Her teeth were grit as she rolled around in torment: sobs, hisses, with skin itching from the hostile plants that were all mockingly looking down on her misery.

Shock crept away and her motions ceased to be, her final rest being in a curled ball, shivers of trepidation. She wasn’t capable of getting safely to a place she knew… and she wanted to become a mal of substance, of value. Wanting to make a difference in this world, when she couldn’t protect her own self from it.

Her shivers stopped and she slowly rose from the coldening soil riddled with pebbles and blood. She pressed her paws, dragged herself to her feet, stood dazed and hollow. Something behind her moved, she turned faintly to the feeling of her shirt going limp, her chest and belly exposed to the cold.

Half-heartedly reaching over her shoulder, she groped for the dangling cloth. An attempt was made to pull it back into place, only for her to sigh sadly at the predictable flop.

Stared at the floor, eyes looking about at the dirt. She sighed, shrugged to herself, hooked her paws about the circle of red fabric that still clung to her chest, pulled it up over her head.

The ruined red shards fell silently to the ground. Stupid cloth. It would only irritate the gashes over her back anyway.

Speckles of deep pink were all over her arm, lines of dark red oozing down to her fingers. She whined lightly, clenching and unclenching her fist, feeling the weakness of passing adrenaline and shock throb through her.

She breathed in the still dark, rubbed her paws against her brow, stretched in exhaustion to the sky. Her chest puffed in a long breath, strong lungs rising, to delicate pattern of gold and white that usually hid beneath her shirt shining in the light.

Light?

Cindy turned. The late-night wind gently blew across her bloodied face, fresh and clear; the sight before her taking her breath.

The sky was aching oceanic with few hundreds of stars blinking at unknown distances. The unreachable-by-paw void glowed and sparkled faintly, bathing her world in wonder and awe. It was not a view-unseen but a view enthralling. It got her to gawk, idle and calm, but for the occasional scratch of leg where ratblight had stung her.

Air was so nice to breathe, up the hill, in the clearing; gave a clarity to her mind that the usual air would not.

Beautiful. Peaceful. Endless. She looked down from the sky: rolling hills and steepled rock-faced cliffs. First day of Nearth. Soon the winds would bring warmth and rain, and unlock the ice frozen at the neatherline. Fresh water. Swimming in the river. Unconstrained by anything or anyone. Firm, yet gentle.

All of that above, looking down and watching over the fields of green and yellow, over the hills of pines and rocks, over the villages that sometimes glowed like distant bulbs, filled with mals from all kinds of different steps of life.

It got her muzzle to ponder and her mind to rethink her choice, made in the hustle of pain and fear. She had allowed weakness to tell her what to do, but the world around her managed, yet again, to stop her from taking an irreversible turn that would’ve dictated her then-certain future.

She looked farthward, turned to her home village, now dwindling below, outlined gray by the starlight. Lights were all out, must have been past twelve. Had she really crawled up the hill for two hours?

Mention of time got her to wish she’d brought a snack. Mention of snack got her to remember the path ahead and the rewards it could deliver.

With a gulp still heaved of anxiety, she hugged herself in needed reassurance and decided to finish what was stubbornly started, to at least be true to herself and climb up the hostile hill.

The light showed her the opening around, how it curved softly upwards, away from the shrubbery that held her captive, to an open path that wasn’t so hostile and dangerous. Thus steadily she pushed through piney twigs, until her paw landed on dry dirt.

What a glad surprise! The mark on the rock, a mark she herself had made. It was the path she had been looking for! It had been behind the thorny piece of wall all along. And she had thought about quitting, when it was just within reach, within grasp and touch?

How could she have been so short-sighted, wanting to quit after so little struggle? How could she have thought that the easy way was the right way?

But then again, maybe it was… maybe it really was… Now she was among mature snuffwood. The path around her was blessedly clear, yet the breeze was gone, the air again caught in heaviness, the twinkle of star a memory already missed and wished to return.

She took the trail slowly, let her chest fill with each breath. Every child had drilled into them the dangers of walking the woods at night, but these weren’t the ancient snuffs of the deep forest, here was not so dense and dangerous; so long as she took it slow, didn’t excite herself…

The grandfathers breathed without a cry
Their roots reached up, I wondered why
Without a sound, they pulled the sky
And without sound, soon was I

Anger throbbed in her muscles to a forced stop, a burning from the lack of air in the dark of this place. She rested carefully, focused on her breathing, the pulse of her heart.

She reached for her underpaw, pulled sharp needles that were worming into her fur, long and prickly things. They were sticky with thickly black sap.

The little fragment of poem from Codex Viridantis reminded her of the words that came to her aid as she was crawling through barlock. Tried to recall the old book she’d found it in, or… had someone read it to her? She found herself unable to even remember how it went.

She resumed her pace, quietly murmuring attempts at finding the rhythm. ‘I will have courage, courage gives me… pain. Pain is, pain is weakness leaving the…’ Her speech faded away as the sticky hotness of breathless air started gargling her lungs again.

With her red-stained paws huddled to her quickly pacing chest, she realized how stupid she’d been to throw her shirt away. Even in scraps it was useful to tie around her feet, protection from these irritating thorns. Leather worked better of course, not that either would last more than a few days.

Just herself and her flashlight. Cindy clenched her jaw. She knew better than to come here so ill-prepared.

Having found the way, she could just go back…

No-no, she didn’t want to go back, not today. Her eyes were widely opened and she glanced up, where the contrast between the hill and ocean of sky was. She was near and every crawl taken by paw and hind paw was bringing her closer to the end of the journey.

It kept the hope from extinguishing. Her muscles carried and carried until her feet and paws were dusty and grimy. Her ears were high up and she was panting from the excessive heat of every muscle. Losing focus frequently occurred. Her body was screaming at her to stop, but her mind had overridden the instinctive code and had placed itself in control.

She had to reach the top.

The jagged rocks and roots became soft earth. She could feel that she was nearly there, as snuffwood receded to a surround of thorny bushes and distant lights in the clear above.

Sky of guidance, sky delight, renewed breeze of fresh air and disappearing fuzziness. It was meant to be. The path rose to a steep slope. The ground slipped and she fell on her knees, scraping down in moans and grunts.

Claws dug into earth, she went on all fours at the final hardship. Times of Primal. When life was hard and your soul purpose was survival. No need to over complicate, no need to look for meaning. When a mal could just live.

She had to reach, she had to prove to everyone that she wasn’t a failure, she had to do that for herself! Her fur clogged with crumbling, dry mud. Claws dug stones and dust, a rock rolled and smacked against her brow, piercing her skull and clogging her sinuses, but she only yelped and grit more dirt.

What was the point of all this crying, all this dreading, all this fear and doubt? To give up and sit at home? To wait on some vermal hare to choose and marry her? Deal with bullies, waste life farming crops, cutting wood, spawning cubs?

Why couldn’t she just do something about it, do something else? Her impulses were all she had to defy, this instinct of safety, to turn those impulses into a driving compass of choice, the right choice.

To seek the eye of the storm. To face any demon from ever putting her down. To turn herself; train herself, body and mind, into a predator.

This thought, this excitement, flooded her mouth and into her lungs, gave her so much strength and will. Body and mind was all it was. Surely both could be trained beyond their limitations.

Saliva streaked off her mouth as phlegm was coughed-spat to allow for air. She could’ve slowed down but that felt like betrayal and surrender, to give in even a little was already to give up on this hope for her could-be-self.

And surrender was vile.

Her pain grew, heart raging, veins burning, but pumping with energy she never knew of having. Just a mere ‘nother moment, just a mere ‘nother step and the silhouette would be…

Conquered.

The world opened out before her, an encirclement of mountains rose as black guardians, keepers of the history and story of the whole civilized world.

Her blurry gaze drifted from the quiet countryside, where rivers cut gentle paths and villages dotted the land between rolling hills and level plains, and lounging tall and wide at its center…

Lights in the very distance shone down from walls of stone and dirt, the tall and extensive border of the City’s dwell. Dark silhouettes stood against the grey-behind, countless shapes of homes, businesses, factories… the greatest city on Terra.

Long breath pulled through her nose. Head tilting in respect at this great and dreadful sight. Circle sprawling dozens of miles across, dwarfing the towns and villages speckled around, as though the whole Hemming Vale was just for them.

Even now lights shone and smoke rose from within. Cindy shook her head with a smirk. No curfew. No rationed power. Just Unity.

The sight shook her compulsion to look on. All those lives. All that could be. Her gaze pulled off instinctively, to the wide-crowned tree that marked her conquering of the mountain, dashing her renewed reserves of youth.

The ancient lord of the hill was waiting like it’d always done, white branches hanging long and limp, thick bark shimmering white in the starlight.

The colder air howled above her with a chill, but so did it carry freshness that got her mind to swim in focus, played a soft breezy melody in the aldwylde’s branches. Even her many wounds dulled from the renewed clarity of the fresh air that blossomed in her lungs.

The freshness set her mind buzzing, her future path so clear to see. She’d be a predator. Train and train, body and mind, and become more than her species ever had.

Again she stared at the sky, the dome of the entire world looking back, seen through the many spindle-branches of the timeless aldwylde. She wanted to cherish the moments after this extensive adventure, the moments when her body proved itself capable, her character shown worthy of being in this world. Euphoria that no substance could ever give, it blossomed in her heart.

Melting effect ceasedto be and the drain of warmth from the wind managed to drag her back. It was time to move to that box of metal with seats. There had to be some food inside.

Slowly, in a wobbly daze, she got on her feet and trailed to the old tree’s trunk, where she pushed her paw against its silken softness. Followed the wide mass of bark and to the boxy hunk of rusted car that had, years ago, collided with the tree.

With quickness she found its door, opened it with a click and an unoiled squeak; stuffiness and aromas flooding out in ickiness.

Unhooking the light from her trousers’ belt, she whirred the little battery into glowing life, checked there was nothing but padding on the seat. Nothing but dust that ceased with a quick brush.

She slid inside, closed the door with strain against its rusted hinges and weight. The world muffled, the breeze died off, the ease of her legs and back to sit quietly against the padding of the seat was as revealing as she’d hoped.

She sank back and closed her eyes. The seat, the whole vehicle was several times too big, stretching out tall and wide and dark around her.

The engine compartment was overgrown by twisting bushes and a giant tree, having eaten the whole front of the two-door vehicle with bark and branch. As if the car had once crashed into said tree and was left abandoned and forgotten: rumpled and uneven.

It made Cindy wonder: why were they so rare to see?

Another rumble from the darkening sky above pulled her eyes open. She climbed to her haunches and strained her neck to look through the spiderweb-cracked glass of the windshield.

It was still clear above, the city was right over there too. Weather stations still showed their glint of safety-green. Her lips twitched with doubt. Weather was too unpredictable to trust for too long. But the encircled mountains usually stopped the worst from getting in.

Guardians. Grey keepers of wind and storm and snow.

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C2
Sam

Cindy’s excitement of the sight had slowly dulled to boredom. Sudden shift in priorities pushed her to find a snack, which was the hidden jar of cauliflower under the rugged seat. It was a nice seat, heavenly seat. Eyes briefly looked at the tree behind the cracked windscreen.

Finding the jar took some dusty effort and stings from the pine needles that bit her, sticky sap coating them. It always took a soapy wash to remove. Several empty jars rolled around in fake excitement, until she pulled the one that salivated her mouth.

Future’s delight plopped between her knees on the seat and she cranked her flashlight to its full charge. Her fingers worked quickly on the jar’s wooden clasp, prying her paws against its restraint in the few seconds of dwindling light she’d bought herself.

She unstuck the wood, slipped it to her pocket, reached with her claw and twisted in the small gap. Normally a flat headed tool would be needed to do that, but she had learned to make due with the natural gadgets at paw.

It hissed a scent of vinegar and the glass top opened. Darkness shrouded beyond the thin rim of rubber and smell of salt. She tilted the jar and gulped a mouthful of the sour juices, usually disgusting, but right now a delight of taste and freshness that streaked her cheeks, ran sparkled drops on the matted fur of her naked furry chest.

Her tongue played with a cauliflower, until she managed to pull it in and chomp in hungry greed.

After all that climbing, falling, cutting, this felt like a well-deserved reward. She was happy she’d known herself well enough to have provisions prepared, for the inevitable time she’d be here unprepared. It never hurt to be ready for anything, it never hurt to prepare for the worst.

Minutes of chomping later, she burped a fowl smell, rolled her tongue in the taste of acidity as the regrets of that big gulp of vinegar playbacked. She coughed out some of the slime, pushed the jar a mote away on the chair’s dull fabric.

Things were beginning to churn in her unprepared stomach. Perfect, all she needed. She grabbed her cranklight, creaked the door to outside, expecting the air and movement to settle her digestion.

Air was cold as ever. Wind seemed to be dying off. No storm for her today, just smell of pine catching in the fresh breeze.

Her feet rasped at the grassy soil in a moment of enjoyment to the movement all around, and the calmness of the mind. Sightseeingly she got to the back of the short car, made shorter still by the compacting force with which it had hit this giant tree. She circled to the trunk, held closed with a big rock sat on its soil-less rusted surface. She moved close on the steps of stacked rocks and pushed the weight back, the trunk springing stiffly up.

Inside were two improvised seats of cloth and padding, several rough blankets pushed to the side. Fetching the half jar of cauliflower and putting it in first, she jumped right in and got comfy, wrapping the blanket firmly around herself and her tucked ears, leaving her light to the side, where it’d be out of danger to be sat upon.

Creep of safety and comfort played inside her stomach and she couldn’t suppress her small smile. Fresh air would calm her nostrils and the new warmth got her calmly sleepy.

Best part about it all was the landscape of the farthward view she now had from the trunk unto the lands of far away.

Atop the mountain, she could see the whole village where she lived, Varhn, and beyond it Verlanea, the town where she had school. The distance between the two wasn’t much, less than an hour’s walk if she didn’t take the manual-powered train.

Verlanea was a flint town first and foremost. Everything else an afterthought. The flint beds ran right up to the houses, dug in shallow pits and excavated for nodules.

Clings and clangs of pickaxes was constant during the day, yellowed dust clouds rising in play of being akin white clouds. Whistles and peeps from the ore-laden train would head towards the City, puffing dark smoke as it slowly rolled towards its main destination, always hidden, shrouded by hills beyond the limits of the area, where only those with identity and permission could gaze.

Gurgle from her stomach drew back her gaze, acidity anew rising in her throat.

Breathing cold air against the rise, Cindy craned her head to the edge of the trunk, frustrated whoever crashed this car couldn’t have done it at an angle where the City could be seen too.

She held it in her mind’s eye, reluctant to abandon her warmth for a sight which would still be there long after her passing.

The biggest city in the world slept behind walls taller than trees. The City where she wanted to go to one day, the one she had read much about. She’d always try to see it from from her village, often find it invisible due to fog or rain. It was just too far away.

Loud noise of train blared from far-far away and a twist of her tall ear indicated it was heading towards the City, towards New Unity.

New Unity, city of safety, a city of gleam,

New Unity, city of power and prosperity,

New Unity, city of boundless possibilities,

New Unity, where she would truly be free.

A low chirp throttled out her lips as she melted into the seat of warmth and put her worries aside. Reality was for a different time, now was a moment for working wonders in her mind.

She would just close her lids and enter the world of magic and limitless freedom. One day, she’d go there and make of herself whatever she wanted. She just had to close her peepers. Just… close… her…

“What are you doing here?”

Grey eyes shot open from sleep, heart squeezed into a black hole as paw and tail twitched around in frenzied grope of that little light.

Dark form stood over her, outlined in starlight, pointed ears, scent of danger.

She snatched her light, cranked hard, beamed it into pointed muzzle and lanky figure. Penny-round eyes glowed back, floating ghosts of iridescent yellow-green. Cindy’s breath held a hopeless heart’s flutter.

The black-white face winced away. “Cut that out,” the figure grunted, voice tired and groggy.

“Sam!” she chirped, whiskers flicking in joy as she dropped the light from his nocturnal eyes. “Where ya ben, skipped school lyke four times!”

The silhouette rubbed its eyes, a low whimper Cindy expected she wasn’t meant to hear. “Nowhere.” Thumb jerked to the car. “Scoot.”

“Och, here.” She did so to the side, making enough space for the young fox, yet keeping him close. How could he dismiss me so lightly? I deserved to know where he’s been disappearing to. Her own urge to share glazed at his dishonesty.

Sam climbed in, turned his tail in a flick against Cindy’s nose. Amused scowl played Cindy’s features, until the fox’s expected musk came to her with a mixed scent of earth and fear.

Smile turning to scowl, the hare groped the darkness a moment, fingers finding her cranklight. Surge of curiosity drew it tight to her grasp, handle whirring against the muddy fox.

“Cut iiit,” he drew, nocturnals wincing. She kept cranking her light in exploration to filth coating his clothes and black-white fur. “Please?”

She kept cranking seconds more, stopping only to the dead stare the fox was giving her. She huffed. “Why ya like this, ya fall?”

The fox sat back in the trunk, trying to nestle his head against a soft spot, failing to find one. Pushy-pushy little hare, can’t she sit quiet? she read in his expression.

“Do you grip something to chomp?”

“Ah.” Cindy’s lip twitched at being thought of as ‘pushy’. “Jarred cauliflowers.”

“Oh… you didn’t drink all the juice.”

“Nah, some’s leff.” She passed the jar at the glinting eyes that stared right at her. “Wotch though, plays an ache on stomach if ya drink too lots.”

“Mh.” He popped the lid and nudged his muzzle inside, sniffed, tipped it back slowly to a slurp.

The rising scent grew an anchor in Cindy’s stomach, remembering the big gulps of vinegar that’d passed her lips. She turned aside, put a paw to her stomach, leaned out to the fresh that broze.

“Sick?”

“Yah.”

“Chomped too fast,” he hummed.

Her shoulders slumped. Thanks for telling me what I already knew. Very useful. Most useful fox I know. “I figured, yes.”

“Should chomp some bread. Fetched some with me.” She heard fabric and scrapes and chomps. “Hm, sour.”

“Wuh happened, Sam?” she asked clearly.

“Here ya go. At it, it’ll help quiet the burpies.”

Can’t see in this dark, need to see his face, it’ll show how he’s dodging my questions. She felt the edge of the trunk, found something waxy and a little box of small sticks.

A dry crack, smell of sulfur, glow of warmth from her little match which she held close to the tip of the white candle’s wick.

The candle was well used, down to its last third from how it had looked at the shop. But it had paid for itself in use, as even now the night receded from the trunk, leaving behind only dancing shadows that flickered in the intimacy.

Ginger-green eyes narrowed slowly to partial slits in the light. Sight of smiling fox holding out an open wrap of tissue paper, lump of bread poking from within.

His mouth was chewing on something. “This cauliflower’s nasty. Isn’t the batch rotten? Where’d you fetch the vinegar?”

She murmured, “Brewed it” and shrugged, took the bread.

“Ah.”

Well there’s the answer, she screwed up, she felt him think. “I couldn’t get alcohol,” her pitch rose, “had to – ugh, I don’t care, Sam. Why ya bloody?”

It was true. In the candlelight his torn clothes speckled with blood clearly. He fiddled with the jar so she grabbed his paws in hers and just stared at him patiently through frustrated anticipation.

That’s when she noticed the swell in his eye and the ideas, of what might’ve happened, turned bitter and bitterer.

“I tripped… in the swamp. On the… I was on that log goes across, but it scooted and I fell.”

“Tha’ far out? Wherya head to?”

“Wanted to go to the traintracks. Wanted to see the train.”

Her blink was quick and starey. “Ya can’t done tha’!” she shouted, scandalized Sam would be so reckless. “Wherya head at?”

Heavy sigh. Sam sat forward, starlight grey on his face. His breath came a hot vaper from his pointed snout. “I saw the train.”

Silence passed, his eyes wide, body still, voice a whisper. “The ground was shaking, Cinds, shook the whole terra. And it had these lights, huge lights on its top. Blinding white, shinning for miles.”

He chuckled lightly, glanced back at her. “Blared its horn. Never heard something so loud, my fur stood up, it was… It was…”

“Thas where yabin hiding at?” Sam moved opposite the hare, lent his arm on the edge of the trunk, head poked out at the night air as he watched her. “Running off, running away on your own. Get beat up and messy and drenched, missin’ school and, and missing me.”

Sam’s dry-grass eyes held fixed and firm. “I want to show you, Cindy. I want you to see it.”

“So’s I fall too, yea?”

His expression dulled, voice a tone more wooden. “We’ll be careful.”

“Rules-rules! Tha’ how we get careful,” she pushed her point despite the inner excitement, the dreadful excitement.

“Rules-rules,” Sam imitated, magic gone from his voice as he nodded to her. “Didn’t save you from getting hurt…” The fox’s gaze darted below her eyes, back again. He rolled his tongue against his bottom teeth, glanced off to the city, said lightly: “Where’s your shirt?”

A pulsing heat grew in Cindy’s cheeks, memory of missing cloth. “St… Stupid fox,” she bittered, her knees rising between them. A quiet chuckle came from the fox, he didn’t look over.

Paw grasping one of the rough blankets, Cindy tugged it over her exposed fuzz. Sam turned back slowly, small smile, eyelids hung in fatigue.

“Not the only one to have adventures in the woods am I? You didn’t lose the path?”

“Thorns. Lotta it.” She put the uneaten bread in her other paw, reached an itchy-itch on her leg. “Stepped in ratblight.”

“Nasty slash on your neck.”

“Yes.” She tilted her chin to block sight of her neck. But the silence told her it was already too late.

“Show me,” he said, smile absent, intent stare at the throbbing spot. She moved to speak in protest, but Sam was already crossing the distance, reaching with dark-glint claws to cup her chin.

Every time she’d see those, it’d give her chills at the back of her neck, an instinctive reaction of self-preservation. But at the same time it was also magnificent to see. Sharp. Dangerous… It probably wasn’t healthy such thoughts gave her to shiver, and not from fear.

Only way to stop him would’ve been with a kick in the stomach. But that would’ve been followed by Sam leaving her, going home. She didn’t want to be alone again, so gave in, and let him tilt her head.

“That… that’s not thorns.”

She hissed, swiped his gentle paw away at his touch to that sensitive spot. “What if it’s not?” she growled, pulled the rough cloth high up to her neck, feeling very small in this small dark space with the looming shape of fox.

Eyes were caught in the candle light, just the right angle to glow electric yellow-green. Low grunt of discomfort and Cindy turned turned aside to block his scrutiny.

“Claw marks. You were clawed.”

“Wotcha know about it?!” she snapped, stared back to his non-plussed reaction, his fingers rubbing claws against claws to the annoying realization that her attempt of deflecting had fallen flat.

“Who?”

“Nobody.”

“Cindy—”

“You can talk,” she babbled, “vermal expert on scars and thorns. Bruise on your eye, didn’t get that falling off a log. Looks to me like—”

A flash of harsh white glinted his whole muzzle. A glare of rare rage that huffed hot breath from deep in his chest. A rage that made her shrink a little in her seat.

Sam put his paw deliberately around hers, snout almost touching hers, eyes level and glowing. “Who.”

She huffed. Shouldn’t have brought that up, not like this. She answered as a way of apology, “Was white fox.”

“Jar? What happened?”

“Maarhh, still mad about presentation,” she drawled, chuckled, hoped to move the conversation on. “I called him illiterate, remember? In front of the class?” She waited for a reply. Sam’s eyes hovered inches from hers, silent. “Anyway. He slashed my homework. Called him fat slob, said he’d be kicked outta school if his dad weren’t… yea.”

Sam’s muzzle twitched.

Cindy waited. Silence. She took a breath. “He pushed me to the wall, showed me his claws. Said I should know my place. I laughed an’ called ‘m coward, then… eh.”

Sam’s jaw clenched.

“Slash… He, he slashed me. On the neck. Said tomorrow I’d apologize or he’d hurt me more.”

Fox’s lips peeked a glint of white.

“I… It didn’t even hurt, doesn’t, it’s just… I just didn’t— couldn’t. I wanted to flee. I wanted to fight. But I didn’t do anything. I just…”

Cindy’s thoughts died to a throbbing in her wrist. She glanced, saw touch of fox paw. Instinct sharpened senses, the predator’s grip on her arm. She tried to flinch, heart pumping, nostrils flaring as she turned to that half-shrouded face looking down on her.

Suddenly being here no longer gave her that sense of comfort and safety, and all she thought about was running away as fast as her legs allowed.

Her chest was heaving and she realized how far her thoughts had strayed from reality. It isn’t him, it isn’t. It’s Sam, it’s my friend.

“You’re hurting my wrist,” she weakly said.

Fox released instantly, glanced at his own paw, looked back, intense as before. “Did he bite you?”

“No.”

“You’re cut all over. These are bite marks.”

“Aheh, it’s dark, Sam. Ya can’t see well. All was burlock.”

“Not this though,” he said, tilting head towards her scar. “You know you need to report this.”

“I… will.”

“Well. Then let’s go.” But as Sam pulled her paw, she grabbed onto his and yanked him hard. It landed him half fallen on her.

“I want to stay here.”

“Cindyyyy“, he groaned, paws splayed either side her head.

“I don’t want to be anywhere else, or be with anyone else.”

Sam glanced his shoulder. “Anyone sees us like this, there’d be many questions.”

Cindy giggled. It rather did look like intimacy, from an outside perspective of course.

Sam climbed awkwardly off from her, lay back beside her, their muzzles parting closeness and ambiance taking dominion.

Quietness overtook to the slow song of fresh wind, crickets loudly beaming down the hill, breaths of predator and prey mingling close in the refuge.

Cindy couldn’t exactly find anything on her mind that she wanted to say. There were many things, of course, but this burst had drained the social drive. Regrets at how she’d brought up his swollen eye.

She toyed with the candle, tried to ignore the acidity that still turned in her throat.

She didn’t look at Sam; in a way, forgot he was there. Only thing she wanted was to calm down and stay here. In quiet. Yea, it was nice having him around, definitely. If only he smelled less of rotten trees and mud, but she was getting used to that.

A grunt of gas tried to escape her throat. She held it back, remembered Sam’s words about the bread. She found the bag, sniffed it.

“How’d you keep it dry?”

“I fell into mud. I didn’t swim in it.”

She nibbled. It was dry, salty, a little burnt. But it was real, baked by Sam’s own paws. Three mounds of cute brown dough. The first swallow of dry already soothed the twisting snake in her gut.

Sam reached for his pack, pulled out his binoculars, gave a gaze to the stars as Cindy took bigger bites and absently wondered if she could make toast on their little candle.

“Ever wonder what it’s like up there?” he asked with the long binoculared eyes staring into the beyond.

She took a glance at the black sky. “Fulla rocks.”

A quick giggle from the fox, he didn’t lower his peepers. “You ever tried to count them?”

“The rocks?”

“The stars!”

“Och. About two hundred.”

“Two hundred and eighty seven. On a clear night. All of those with… rockslike ours. All of them. There could be another me and you.”

“Pf. Don’t be silly, how’d ‘at be possible?”

“Well it, it wouldn’t be an exact me and you,” he explained, taking a smiley glance at her. “They probably will look different. Maybe they will be made out of metal? Or pine… or out of rock… I don’t know….” he rested his binoculars, stared at his feet, itched the claw of one on the pad of the other. “Maybe they’d have mice. And rabbits.”

“We have mice and rabbits.”

“Big ones, big ones. Like us.”

“I don’t know whaya’re babbling.”

“It’s just… a nice thought that we’re never alone.”

The implication held heavy in the air, hovered just outside Cindy’s comprehension to its true meaning. She watched him, said carefully: “But, we’re not alone.”

Crickets and wind. Lack of reaction enough Cindy would’ve doubted she spoke loud enough to be heard, had his ear not minutely twitched at her statement.

“Sam?”

He inhaled as though to speak, then held his breath as though to keep it in. Rapid blink of eyes as he stared dead ahead. She saw the vein pulse in his neck, smelled his anxiety festering the air.

Shivering a quiet breath, Cindy looked into his predatory coppers. Usually so open, never like this. She felt a terrible truth at the edge of her reach. Close. Too close.

Ask again and he’ll tell me. Push again and I’ll know. Her chest burned, stricken with panic. And there’ll be no going back. No un-hearing. No un-knowing. I don’t want it. Don’t want to know. Not now. Not tonight.

Her eyes dropped to swollen pink. “So what did happen to your eye?”

“My eye… eye… yes, my eye.” Sam moved his bushy tail between them. “I mean, you don’t wonder why they don’t open the Sphere all the way?”

“I showed ya mine?” Cindy persisted, delicately.

Shoulders sank. Long huff. Gaze at the ground outside the rusted car’s back. “She didn’t mean to. It just happened,” he shrugged. “She can’t always control herself and, yea…”

She scooted closer to the fox, grabbed his head. Bump of pink, bloodshot whites, pretty serious hit. She leaned away through a wheeze, twist of lip. “Wocha do wrong this time?”

He nodded to the slightly burnt, over salted bread.

Cindy sneered. The bread was… was wonderful! “Stuck up nasty-greedy-resentful little—”

“She’s not that! She’s just in a tough spot. It’ll get better, you’ll see.”

“You ‘spect me to report this,” she pointed fiercely to her scar, “yet do nuthn’ ’bout…” she gestured at his eye.

“I can’t do that, it’s my mum. She’s just mourning what happened to—”

“Ya bin saying that months. Gonna excuse it forever?”

“It’s going to be fine, just let it go Cinds.”

“Even before…” she scoffed in disagreement, but then gave a gesture of surrender as she grabbed his binoculars and stared at the stars, glinting red and so-so faintly distant.

“If there’s someone out there, another ya, what would ya tell them do? Juss ‘ccept it?”

Sam followed her gaze. “I’d tell ‘em to do what they felt was right. And try and support their family.”

That wasn’t right. The right answer was he’d tell them to move away from harm and danger. Maybe she was wording it wrong? “So if this other ya, say they were—”

“Maybe, if they be there, we can just give ‘em a wave?” Sam suggested and flapped his paw at the sky. Cindy saw the dodge, thought it ridiculous, but didn’t have interest to start barking this tree again.

Regressing into the warmth of the blankets, she concluded, “What’ll I say ta Fats… I can’t wait for tomorrow ta be over.”

“Then skip it.”

“Cannae.”

“Why?”

“Cannae skip school because I feel like it.”

“Say you’re sick. Who wouldn’t know?”

“Do what, sit home all day? Dozen runts running up-down the stairs?”

Sam shuffled, split grin. “Scoot about with me. I’ll show you the train.”

“Yeah. Yeah, how ‘bout I go ta school, study hard, get grades, then I can ride train, ‘stead just look at it.”

Sam laid back, pulled half Cindy’s blanket to himself. Stared at the dull-metal roof. “Then you’re outta moves.” Words hung flat, lifeless. Silence followed, but Cindy felt pressure build in the air.

“I won’t be scooting tomorrow neither,” he added. Cindy turned, stared at him. “I don’t want, I’m not doing this no more.”

“What?”

“I don’t like it there.” He craned his neck at her. “All of it is so… boring and useless.”

“Useless? Sam, this is the only way to city. You can’t just quit.”

“I dunno… do I really want to not go there?” Grunting a sigh, mix of confusion, Sam ground his padded palms against his eyes.

“Of course ya want!” Cindy shouted. “We said that we’d go there together, remember?”

“I’ve been reckoning. Reckoning a lot.” Sam stilled, palms pressed against his eyes. “We’re held back here by what we’re expected to be, to do. And by teachers not caring, adults not caring. We look at the city, say ‘Yeah, it’s so perfect there, so perfect…'”

Sudden fear of that terrible truth surged, with too much momentum this time to avoid. Decisions. Decisions already made, already set in his mind. Decisions she did not like at all.

Sam sighed. His soul seemed to sigh with it. “Would the city be any different.”

“Yea!” she yelled, boomed, too quick, too loud. Was the assertion really just for him, or aimed at herself too? The doubt stumbled her thoughts, eyes darting for the threat of uncertainty in herself.

Sam noticed the moment and gave her a suspicious eyebrow. “You know how you’re treated. You know it’s not much different for me. How they look down on me, push me around and demand, demand, demand!” he swung his claws in the air, to a wince of Cindy, who quickly tried to chase away that flash of fear. She didn’t want to make him think she feared him, because she didn’t. It was her stupid instincts.

“Teachers, students, mals on the road, family fetching demands-demands-demands!”

“Sam, it’s not ‘at bad,” she said and put her paw on his shoulder, “you’re a fox after all and—”

“What do you not know about how bad it is?” She recoiled away from his snarl, the air around them weaving heavy in cautious anger. “You don’t have any family that expects things from you every day! How would you not even know?!” he said with a pretty solid stare, and there didn’t seem to be room for regret to what had been said.

It kinda… hurt.

Instead of confronting him, or piping up in anger, she just sighed and hugged her knees, staring steadily into the wobbling flame of the candle that was burning away to its last. It was pretty.

“It’s not me. And it’s not you. It’s the mal around us, the world,” he babbled, a height of rage that snarled his lips. “And the same mal who make the choices here make ‘em at city.”

If only she was a bit luckier and hadn’t ended up all alone, the world would’ve been so much different, so much more pretty…

“Sometimes I wish I was a hare. No expectations. No demands outside simple life of basic chores. Don’t know how lucky you have it.”

She didn’t look at him, but the words cut in deep and twisted something in her heart that made her teeth to crunch. The candle. Watch the candle.

“I’d do anything to be in your paws,” he spat, having hugged his own knees in turn.

Untamed rage was simmering, boiling. She couldn’t stop her breaths, this disrespectful row of opinions that had no clue about the extent of her suffering.

“Take that back,” she hissed.

He twisted. “What?”

“Take that back!” she yelled, eyes wobbling rage that was barely contained. “Take ‘at back right now, Samwise.”

Copper eyes glinted. “No, don’t reckon I will, Cynthia.”

“Take it, take it, take it!” she chanted as she grabbed and shook his arm, but his eyes held her fixed: spite and defiance. “There’s nothing aspiring. There’s no one there to help you, to tell you that you matter,” her voice cracked, rage seething harder.

“I sleep in the closet understairs. Nobody cares wuh I do, if I’m there, if I’m breathing. I can’t see anything without my light. I can’t eat most food. I’m weak and short and dumb, and other runts look down on me cuz I’m a hare, a muncher. So don’t ya ever say ya want ta be in my paws,” she tearily ended, shoved her release of his arm from her paws, stared expectedly for his relent.

Sam’s maw held closed, brow hard. A long silence spent waiting for him to apologize, agree, only for him to scuttle away, turn his back, head thumping against the rolled blanket they shared as a pillow.

She watched the back of his head, kitten-black fur shifting in the subtle candlelight. Uncertainty almost shifted to acceptance, then rubber-banded back into insult.

Her paw slapped to her thighs, a pissed huff puffed her chest. Why did he say such things, did he really believe it? And why did I say such things… vulnerability, insignificance, futility, purposelessness.

Her head whomped back on her half of the pillow. Eyes open but looking only within.

Insignificance. Futility. Purposelessness. Such manner of dirty questions Sam’s selfish outburst had pushed on her. Doesn’t he know how hard it is for me? How easy it is ta be a fox, to have respect and strength and intelligence handed to ya by chance and genetics?

What a joke. What a joke, a fox wishing to be a hare.

Expression twitched a snarl, flowing negativity rippled in the silent space between her and the figure just besides.

All these questions. All these questions. But I’d already figured out our path. It was perfect! Couldn’t he see how much sense it made?

But the doubts weren’t shutting up, as the negativity that was usually kept hidden poured out in droves of heated disappointment.

Why was she trying to go against the wind, why was she trying to prove anyone and anyself that the world could be different? Was it some sort of sadistic expression of her deepest desires of unbound lunacy, some sort of childish idea that she had acquired many years ago?

In that resentment of her thoughts and memories, she accidentally stumbled on one which got her heart to skip and eyes to widen into the dark-away.

Oh, that was why.

Suddenly it all made sense, suddenly she could remember the why, the how and the when. It brought a sob of a smile as all that inner rage had been abruptly cut to a glimpse of a happy past.

But as so did it flood her mind did the realization that it was never coming back, that what had pushed her to do what she was doing, it now seemed impossible, spineless…

She tied aside, her back to the fox, fighting the urge of a sob that lightly came out through a flood of renewed emotions. She wanted to go back, to go back to those days she’d never change, when alone would be a word only privy to fiction and fears.

Something soft touched her side. It was startling and got her to find the bushy-black tail of Sam who had fully regressed to remorse from his spot. She found the gesture heartwarming and wrapped the white-tipped tail in front of her. It was pretty nice to touch, despite the spots of hardened mud.

“How are ya, Sam?” she breathed.

“Hm.”

Before she could regret it, she scooted next to him and pushed herself in his side, tail wrapped fully in her paws. What was the point in gnawing over the past and doubting the present? Maybe letting go would be the best thing, maybe the Cindy she thought of being was just a fancy story that she never believed in. And if that was true, might as well she closed the final page.

Breathing in the muddy musk of her predator friend, she stared again out of trunk and into the inky expanse, wondering if someone out there was looking back at her and thinking the same thing, being in the same spot, and choosing another fate…

Ya‘re right, Sam. What’s even the point. She sighed and rubbed her head into his gritty shirt. Why would anything be different just because I want it be?

She wanted to say such outright, but the lump in her throat threatened to burst into tears if she did.

Wind blew across the rim of the trunk. A frozen wind that brought the scent of aldwylde and made her cosy deeper into the rough blankets.

Dawn was far off, daylight yet further. Wind grew to a distant howl.

Scent of predator played in her nose. Her muddy friend. So unlike anything she’d smell from a prey. It twisted a deep fear in her chest she’d long ago learned to ignore, at least around him.

She turned, faced toward the fox, held his tail in close, allowed her blue-toned grey fur to mingle with his, even if the touch tickled her in strange ways across her bare chest.

Distant weather towers blinked rapidly in dangerous red.

It was time to go, but a few more minutes could still be spent in this nice embrace.

---

C3
Rag

Movement jostled Cindy’s head. Brow twitched, closed eyes fluttered. Gasping softly to rush of cold, the hare groped in sleep to pull the blanket back.

But the sleep-muffled calm melted to steady roar of relentless downpour. And her blanket shuffled away at her touch, denying sleep’s embrace.

“Merh?” she said.

“It’s fine. Go back and sleep,” a voice said.

It took a few seconds but Cindy remembered where she was, the name of the voice she was talking to.

“Sam, whass wrong?”

Under the decayed flame of the candle, the fox sat hunched at the far edge of the trunk, shoulders sagged, ears flat, looking out at the flooding stream of silver-grey cascading from the overhanging lid of the trunk.

“Need to… piss.”

“Then go piss,” she huffed at the disturbance, confused at the trivia.

“It’s raining.”

“Well, pfff…” She struggled to open both eyes together. Found one at a time was all she could manage. Gave up. “Ya are already muddy, just deal with it.”

“Soak the sheets?”

“Murg.” Fidgeting for the real blanket, she pulled it to cover the vacuum of cold Sam’s absence left behind.

Heavy patters dripped the frame of metal above, splashing and bathing the old frame of the trunk. Wind rustled and creaked the ancient tree, bark scrunching, swaying, thin branches danced a maypole in the gusting wind. Petrichor tickled the nose.

Certain chill was pushing through the gaps of the frame, holes of rust, slow flow of moisture creeping in and around, draining through more rusted holes in the floor.

What now, she bothered, sensing the fox lean full-body over her, senses dulled beyond instinct’s rush to care. She opened an eye to see the silhouette groping something past her head, heard clink of glass and remembered the jarred cauliflower she’d left there.

“It’s bad, remember,” she muttered, only for both eyes to open in confusion as she heard him open it up, tip the full contents onto the grassy outside.

“Whaya?” She pulled herself part upright, blinking in the blurry dark. An idea entered her mind of… no. No, that wasn’t the reality she lived in.

She watched Sam pull himself up onto his knees. Back hunched in the limited space. Jar put in front his legs. Paws moved to his—

“Are ya kid—”

Cindy twisted her back to the flash of red: the flash of red she would have seen had she not turned away. She flumped her head down hard on the pillow, gazed at the back wall of the trunk.

Sound of running water closed behind. Tiny at first, tinkling against the empty glass. Grunt of relief. Trickle became fuller, richer to a deepened flow.

The hare scowled to herself, resented her senses, resented her curiosity-fixated focus on the details of the stupid sound.

Fox cleared it’s throat behind her. Car’s suspension wobbled to a shaking motion she felt behind. Two more short, bubbling trickles.

Lip twisted in grimace.

Sound of rustling, glass jar being moved, slosh of liquid, sound of splashing as it tipped-empty out the back.

What a stupid mistake, staying here. Sleeping. Now we’re stuck, stuck until the storms’ end. Whenever that is.

Noises, dampness, cold, thoughts. Sleep felt impossible by this point, a thousand things keeping her awake. Why can’t he just come back? Least then I’ll have some warmth.

“Now whass ta matter?” she huffed, making a shoulder’s glance at the fox.

“Just waiting a minute.”

“For wuh!”

“Smell to clear.” Chuckle of disbelief passed Cindy’s lips. Sam’s ear twitched. He turned half towards her. “You… You’re kinda gassing everywhere.”

Disbelief turned inward, got her to notice not only the external world, but the internal, continual grievance of her stomach. Heated shame latched on as she figured it out.

“Least now I know how dead hare smells,” he muttered to himself, turned away, head hung low as he hunched at trunk’s edge. “Rotting hare. Thanks for that.”

She parted her lips to retort, mirror the insult and attitude, then a fresh churn of discomfort and quiet escape of gas shamed her to silence.

Head felt heavy, dizzy. Mouth dry, throat burning. She turned and gazed at the trunk’s roof, reached out a paw to try touch the too-distant surface.

Mix of memories-past and restless awareness-present took turns disquieting her mind.

“So wherya will go?”

“Hm?”

She waved a paw vague paw in a nondescript anywhere. “When ya… run away. Wherya will go?”

Sam fidgeted in the roaring silence. “No idea.”

Cindy rolled her eyes. Never could make a plan. One day to next, Sam, your feet follow your heart. It was endearing. But it was dangerous.

“I reckoned what’s beyond those red lights, where clouds are blackest.”

Cindy scowled. She’d expected stupidity, but not madness! She rose in plummeting dread, twist at her guts worse than some rotten cauliflower could do. “Beyond those weather towers?”

“Beyond the Netherline,” he affirmed.

Speechlessness held her lungs, a dozen replies born and died on her tongue. A part of her, small, wild, young, lurched at the thought: to go, to see, to be alone and undeniably free.

Them: truly free. Not the freedom she saw in the City’s streets and promises, the idea she’d chosen because it was easy and safe. This was different. This was real. This was reality.

“So… so, so wha, ya just going ta wobble over there?” she stammered, hammering down her excitement. “Wha about storms, swamps, bad mals?”

“What’s not beyond it?”

A rough snort caught in her throat, made her almost choke on the spittle. “Frozen wasteland, thas wha. Razor sharp ice, flash floods, no animals or sunlight or shelter. All Stromvord say so.”

Sam didn’t argue, she’d half feared he’d call it a conspiracy, entirely lost the path of reason. Instead he seemed to agree, hugging his knees close against his chest.

“Well. What do you reckon would work?” he asked in intent focus.

“Stay.”

Grunted, “I’m not sta—”

“Stay and finish school. Maybe… maybe become part of a science team. Yea, that’s right,” she concluded happily, kinda surprised at herself for figuring out the idea so fast.

“Wait ten years for… for a maybe? Pft.”

“Ya don’t even know whass out there. Ya know how it is, even the deep of those local forest: one day, air is breathable; another, ya need’n oxy tank ta go. Wuh if weather shifts while ya out there and ya run outta air? Where ya geh food? How ya keep warm?”

Sam’s mouth hung open and his lips looped through different attempts of words, all peaking at the final growl of surrender, a throw of paw to the wind. She just wants to stop me, any excuse to hold me back.

“I’m not trying ta stop ya, Sam.” She sat into crossed legs, pulled up the slipping blanket over her chest. She knew that wasn’t true, but it was in nobody’s favor to make it about herself. “But ya need some plan. And for that ya need ta know things. City will give ya that. Give us that. I know it!”

“How do you know? Huh? How’d you possibly know? You say I don’t know nothing, and that you know so much? So pray tell, how do you know!”

“Well, I… it is written…”

“Pfftch… You don’t anything. Guesses within guesses. You’ll end up a rag just like right now,” he spat with open claws playing in the light. Her nose was twitching and heart was racing, the fear of the predatory sharpness giving her a jolt. But then it was replaced with determined anger.

“I am not a rag!” she shouted and got to her knees, the insult having pierced deep between her ribs. She grabbed the tail around her ankles and threw it at him, his scowl not portraying any surprise.

“I am not. Just because I haven’t surrendered like ya have, it doesn’t make me a rag. Take it back!” she demanded, finger pointed in accusation and insistence, yet the fox’s grimace only deepened.

Cindy snatched her crank-flashlight and crawled to the edge of the trunk. Sam’s eyes tracked. She came to his side, ignored him, looked out at the sudden chill and freshness that met her on the edge of the trunk’s protection.

With a momentary rest of her head against the metal frame, and wanting to be away from the insulting presence of her friend, she gazed up, black clouds, vicious rain stretched beyond her whole world.

Rag. What a thing to call me. Not even willing to take his words back. Yea, I pushed hard, but with reason, persuasion, fairness. Where’s the fairness in his reaction?

Cindy applied her prey’s wide field of vision, one of the rare benefits of being a prey, and stole an unnoticeable glance at the fox. Found him huddled with his muzzle between his knees in the darkness. No certainty in that expression. Sad, regretful, bored? Whatever. Let him sulk.

A peer outside to the fresh and cold air, glance to the fog of gloom’s dangerous wild weather. They were surrounded in a cell of misty droplets. No mountains, no towers, no city, no guidance, no stars, no freedom.

With cranks of light, she climbed from the trunk, big foot catching on the rim, heaved aggressively free to a stumble that ended with a heavy stomp of protest in the rain. Heavy droplets covered her body, squinting her eyes to the continuous drizzle of stormy current.

Shivers got her chest to contract as the drop of temperature was all so sudden, all so shocking, all so trickling down her fur and flesh. Her resistance to cross her paws in front of herself was futile. Indecency was not even something she had time or space to consider.

She locked eyes with the fox in the cranked light. This is your doing. This is what you’re making me do.She took a step back from the car. Ears flattened, dripping. Half naked body soaking up rain in the cold. Wind was relentless, piercing her marrow. Ask me ta stay, do it... Apologise, and ask me ta stay.

Her fox friend watched her back away another step. Body rigid. Face expressionless. The lack of intention or empathy to say or do anything written into everything Cindy could observe.

Cindy heard him think: Do whatever ya want. Not my responsibility. Not my friend. Just a rag.

A Rag?

Cindy turned, splashed her big foot into a mud-thick puddle of slime. Nothing was visible in the firm fog that surrounded the hill. Her vision blurred and mind throbbed with pressure, which only had space for one thought.

I am not a rag.

More steps followed, down the hill toward the path she’d taken up, illuminated barely with hundreds of flakes dancing in front the bulb. Every step was wobbly, slidey, tricky, splaying her thighs, ending her on her rump, making her paws swim in the air for balance.

I am not… a rag.

Car disappeared from sight behind her, aldwylde’s white branches fading into the rainy gloom shortly after to the shelter of forest crowns.

I am anything but a rag.

---

C4
Home

It hadn’t taken long for decision’s regrets to climb up Cindy’s legs, her every step and stumble splashing mud in thick spurts of brown sludge, coating her grey-blue body.

The path down the hill had come swift under dampened mud and bristling wind that snuck, stomping through bush and twig, bursting out the shrubs that had earlier hidden the part from her sight to the glow of farming lights beyond. She held Sam’s expression in her mind, his snub silence, a focal of intent and motivation to keep moving away from.

Pace hadn’t stopped, kept pushing all the way up the twisting lane that circled the edge of her village to home.

Tears streaked her cheeks that only the utter soaking of the rain could hide, stomach still dancing a contortionist’s melody in her gut.

Up the little hill, home came into view. Black windows showed it wasn’t even realized she had been gone.

And yet… with these heavy rolls of thunder, she couldn’t trust the two-story house to be asleep, long wing of its body stretching in surround to stone pavement. Her quietest attempts to open the gate would scrape hinge against stone. It wasn’t a sound to be ignored. And Mamma Riri’s attic window stared straight at it from above.

Her eyes climbed to said attic, circular window nested between the steep pitch of angular stoneslab roof. Silent eye, retribution sleeping within.

Shuddered sigh at the lengths she had to go to, the freedom she didn’t have. It was nothing to ponder on now, not in the cold and rain.

She knew the quiet way in the house, the way that wouldn’t ding the bell that hung inside the door, as to the fence… well, about the only advantage of being a hare was the ability to jump good.

Cindy sidled up to the old loose stick fence, feet sucking into squelch of thick that enveloped her toes. She had to be careful not to jump into the wooden poles of the grape vines that draped over the garden. Two steps back, hunch of shoulders, bunch of muscles, ears dropped flat and an explosion of tension burst hot in her legs.

Ground gave way beneath her, mud slid, grey body of fur threw itself forward, fence crunched as the weight passed through. Shower of splinters and fragments of wood found freedom souring through the air, found home in a pile of broken wooden shards strewn across the watery dirt.

The hare landed with a squelch, prostrate on the other side and stickiness enveloping her fur and cloth in frostiness.

Sucking in the scream of frustration between gritted teeth, Cindy’s paws closed to shaking fists in the mud. Instinct of fury grabbed at the fence, punched it, yanked it, snapped into two which she hurled into the cloudy night.

Shut her eyes, buried her head in the mud, breathed slowly.

It’s almost over. Today will be yesterday. The choices didn’t matter, the pain didn’t matter. It’ll all be behind me in the end.

Bunching her fists into the mud, she pulled herself into a squat, change in position surging a rise in her stomach she caught in a burp. Her throat burned.

A small part of her mind told her she was dying, but she beat that thought down as the useless prey instinct it was. There was still work to do, things to do. Wash and eat and change and—

Pull to her feet, stumbling wave of detachment, brain awake, body half asleep.

Ridiculous body. Stupid, useless, ridiculous prey body!

Wallowing in sorrow, pathetic creature. Wallow at every trip and fall. So many falls this night amid the weakness, dizziness, pain. So many falls the ground was getting more familiar to her face than to her feet.

She heaved her body upright off the squelch, and gazed to the stormy clouds in a circle of broken fence. The storm watched back. It was all against her, from her species to the society to the idiotic thoughts in her mind.

This really was it, wasn’t it? The experiment was over. She tried. She fought. And now the suffering was beyond comprehension. Loss of her friend, loss of her shirt, loss of her dignity in this wild wilderness where only the strong could survive.

And the weak: bound to huddle in one another’s shadow.

Shutting her eyes, Cindy felt the steady rain draining the clotted mud from her features.

Disappointment. Even a mote of it avalanches inaction. And yet what power did disappointment have alone? Truth was, expectation was all there was to blame. Cindy sniffled with a deep scowl, gaze fell to the mud. Her own nasty ego telling her she could be more.

She couldn’t even climb a hill. And she wanted to be a predator? Well, the experiment was over. She wasn’t a wolf. And she would never try something like this again.

She looked slowly at the shattered wood around her, infrastructure built by many paws many years ago, now fractured and useless by her own blind rage.

Just get inside the house. Get in unseen, unheard, unknown.

Eyes dragged window to window, each a narrow pain of shimmering dark hammered by rain, perpetual knocking that had masked the noise of her fall. Deep set windows against red-varnished frames and black anti-climbing spikes. No sign anyone was awake.

Between cream-white teeth, breaths hissed through the pain, this pain which dragged her remaining focus in every direction, stumble and step onto the patio. The solid, smooth stones were a refuge to paws that had dealt with nothing but uneven, slipping mud, stinging nettle and all other disorder for hours.

Culture and security, the benefits of giving into inaction. Maybe the trade-off wasn’t so bad.

A paw pressed against the certainty of stone, the smooth-cut slabs outline recessed beneath the thin render of lime. Wear and tear had wore off its evenness to decades of steps.

Let the wolves fight for dominance, let the foxes scheme for control. She’d be here, in safety, a simple and boring life. Boring-boring boring-boring.

She turned slowly, passed beneath the overhang of the wide eave of the front door, leaned against the cold, smooth wall.

The view from down here was quite limited from what she’d witnessed up on that mountain. A tiny piece of world. Only trees behind and softly sloping hills going down ahead.

In all directions the land stretched quiet, the house stood alone, its lime-covered walls glistening white, garden rough-hewn, nature kept at bay only by the daily stomping of many feet and the occasional swish of scythe.

Straightened, stepped away, glanced back as she noticed the damp patch she’d left behind on the wall. Clear impression of back, shoulders, even her ears, impressionism in a sheen of moisture on the limed stone.

Found she couldn’t take her eyes off it, this mirror-impression of herself. It felt like a sister; a stranger she also knew. What life did she live? A wife, a mother? Had she seen the world, had she even left Varhn?

Cindy followed the shelter of the wide eave, streaming from the building’s edge: the sloping roof’s water rushing to a badly leaking wooden drain, spattering many waterfalls from the overhang.

Water basin came into view, black pipe snaking up to the overflowing drains. Even the joint taking water from the roof leaked; the descending pipe quivered under the relentless flow. Water spilled endlessly over the rim of the basin, nearly twice her height.

And from the side of the basin, the hose.

The hose. Thing of frosty punishment for naughty cubs. She felt there was some irony that she was now using it out of necessity, brought by her own stupidity.

She turned a small valve at the join of this length of waxed canvas tubing. A hiss and rumble beneath her paw, a squeak of metal that defied the fingers, every joint of which by this point was aching exhaustion.

Water began to trickle from the join, the whole canvas length thickening and moistening under her paw. A spit of moisture spurted from the rusted join, causing a wince from the hare as it settled coldly on her cheek.

Cold’s necessity was firm at paw. Mud’s story, a mistake to be unmade. With a grinding of jaw and flattening of ears, the hare turned her paw upon herself, stifled a huffed shriek that took her chest.

Muttering curses under her breath, curses she would’ve screamed if not for Riri’s round attic window just a few meters over her head, Cindy grinded her free paw against the rough fur of her bare chest.

Clods of mud fell and water’s trickle turned brown.

The temperature just barely maintained by her own inner demon fled from the cold, and suddenly shivers grew down her spine, arms, twitching in her fingers.

On she pushed and scrubbed and scratched, felt the thickness of the mud, the redoubling freshness of the scent, the buzz of frustration at the cold.

Finally she felt the heave of stomach that threatened a retch.

She caught herself, gripping tight the hose, paw slapping to her mouth. Heart was racing its last exhaustion. This cold was going to kill her.

She clumsily threw the water’s spew against her back, shuffled her shoulders, the fur back there was always unmanageably tangled anyway, any mud that was there would take an hour of combing to get out.

Had to get inside, had to get inside, screw this day, this night, this cold, this dark.

Mamma Riri could crucify her if she wanted. Hell, burn her. Least she’d feel warmth again in her last moments.

Bed’s pull was a chain of desire fastened tight around her perception. Feet beat the ground, circled to the house’s back, dizzy fog of hunger and cold and regret and a hundred other ailments plaguing her every neuron.

House’s other eave here fused with the hill and become a brother in dirt and grass, while tall trees hung from further above, moss and lichens specking the roof slabs of stone. On this side of the house was the entrance to the basement, the low square doors hunched half into the ground.

Get inside. Get inside.

A tasks of minutes of careful nudging was fixed in seconds to a yank fueled by the urgency of sanctuary. The little bar of metal the padlock held slid harshly and tightly past the hole bore into the stone that was meant to hold it in its place.

It’d been Sam who’d found it. Oh, why did her mind keep dwelling on this fox? Finding ways she could sneak out at night to meet him, looking for places to sleep when home was too much to handle. Maybe if he wasn’t such a nosy nobody fox she wouldn’t have had to had the problems of meeting him down there that night.

She swung open the door, pouring rain’s tone shifting in reverb to the dark, warm opening beneath, thunder clashing in the invisible far away.

The wood pile rose to meet her. She placed a hindpaw carefully on wood’s top, paws gripping that edge of stone as she lowered her head beneath the open trap.

Had to be careful. Had to be patient. A slip of wood here would wake half the house.

The woody steps settled to her weight with only a quiet shifting buckle. A last reach and strain of lats made a grunting pull of the heavy door to a rain-muffled thump back into place.

Night’s ambiance blotted.

Dim, amber light spilled faintly from an ancient wood furnace nestled in the basement’s far corner. Barely embers now, yet gave glow enough to cast flickering shadows on the damp-stone walls. She stood quiet, waited for her vision to adjust.

The quiet warmth ruffled the air of the old, leaky metal pipes, a faint comforting warmth that touched the cold and saturated fur of her half nudity.

Cindy stood atop the wood. In silence. In darkness. A few drops of rain were leaking through the wood hatch, but already the air was a touch warmer: the wind kept at bay, the underground softer and sweet smelling. Overall, the feeling was… irritation.

Lip twisting, she huffed.

So much work, so much pain and blood wept already. And even now she wasn’t given the decency of rest. This whole night was just a blur of disappointment, and the most recent memory was wholly a black hole in her mind. Words were said, choices made, she didn’t even want to remember.

Sam’s face flashed into her mind, projected clear in the black. She snarled in the dark, pushed her paws harshly down the bristly tufts of her chest, droplets of cold bouncing away as she removed the worst of what was coated to her.

Her paw met the big stones of the basement floor, giant foundation stones that she stepped on with a squelch of pawprint left behind in moisture. Another step, another squelch, on wood-chip coated stone to the steep staircase in the corner.

Cindy ascended, struggling with each step to climb with muscles that wept and begged at new strain against gravity. No need for light under the blinks of the furnace. Sacks of food and materials hung on the sides of the walls, dangle of rope and smell of fatty soap. Reached the top, steadied herself a breath, paw dripping paw on old handle.

The corridor, just beyond. Left, the kitchen. Right, my room. Get a towel, get some food, lock the door, go to sleep. Lock the door, and today would be over. Rest. Food. Forgettance of sleep.

Soft crack as the handle turned, bolt moved, metal unlatched.

The still air stretched forever in the black. Oppressive silence that echoed every breath and footstep as a cascade of the house’s awakening.

The rain and booms outside were a blessed muffle now, the wind bayed by the barriers between her and wilderness.

Just wash, eat, sleep.

A creek of hindpaw touched warm wood, a growing puddle of damp spreading from each toe. She knew the landscape, even without sight, crept into the living area, table outlined by soft windowlight. Ah, softness of carpet, then cold tile.

The corridor.

Cosy air opened out, a chill breezing the length of the house from the front door at one end of the corridor to the back door in the kitchen on the other. Half way between.

The tiles weren’t a challenge. So long as no one came down the stairs during the night, not that they were allowed, they wouldn’t even see her damp footprints coming in.

Feeling out in the dark, paw found the shape of curved banister, row of engraved wood posts that rose at a shallow angle, a rise of steps that dipped beyond the ceiling above.

Paw traced down and hindpaws crept, found the seam where the wood joined with the steps, the ridged shoe rail, sanded smoothed, carved with a simple pattern of etched lines tracing beyond the wall. Following it right, the smooth paint of the wall gave way to a thicker seam, frame of wood, rough panel door.

Breaths stilled, both paws pressed against her portal to salvation and privacy. The soft lick of scent eased her mind. Her bed. Her clothes.

Her home.

The house didn’t betray her, the solid floor didn’t creek, the quiet sigh of wind beneath the doors held no sign of lurkers waiting in the dark.

Pressing her weight down on the knob handle, shifting the door awkwardly to the side, a little knot-ended piece of string fell from concealment behind the door’s top corner.

Obsidian claws caught the little knot, barely a centimeter in length, easy to miss by anyone who didn’t know the exact spot, and so she pulled.

Length kept coming and coming, Cindy pulling down diagonally, to a point of precipice, where the weight subtly shifted, and a wooden latch on the other side was grasped by her tug.

Slow, gentle motion in a very specific angle, breath held baited, and that sliver of string slid across the latch inside.

Sigh puffed, lifting relief of silent success at the wholesome click of wood, the barrier giving way, her under-stairs refuge in open arms to take her in.

The warmth inside was gorgeous, darkness that wasn’t in the least bit scary, oppressive, since she knew every centimeter of her little den.

Felt for her matches, a candle, froze about to strike, wondering if the scent of smoke would find its way up the stairs and into the nose of someone creeping away from sleep.

“Paranoia jostling tricks,” she muttered softly, struck match against striker, watched the flare of golden warmth with a smile, lit two of her broad plain-wax candles.

Darkness climbed the ceiling, left behind only dancing shadows playing among the nooks and crannies of her little space. Her half made bed deeply inviting, warm, cosy, right there, ready to climb into and just die.

The bed nestled cozily in the corner, headboard against the lowest part of the wall where the ceiling dipped to accommodate the staircase right above. The little shelf right beside, the small lamp and book she was part way through reading.

She could say what she liked about the horrors of mountain adventures: it certainly made you regard home with new appreciation.

She turned slowly, soaked in the comfort of just being. The creamy white smoothness of the walls, the scent of herself mixed with smell of carpets and fabric, damp from the boiler in the room just next door.

Small coils of smoke rising to the ceiling, flowing, spiraling softly around itself from the match as it burnt close to her claws.

The oil chamber lamp beside the candles was opened, chimney glass lifted, remnants of match hastily pushed against its wick as the other paw twisted the wick knob.

Managing only just to light it, the hare shook out the match hastily.

A quiet sneeze from upstairs. Cindy froze, stared up, ears pricked.

Was it her firematch, the smell? Who smelled it, who sneezed? Instinct told her to wait half an hour before leaving again to find food, wait for whoever it was to fall back to sleep.

But desire for rest pushed that thought aside. A tiny whiff of smoke in the night, no one could detect that.

Uncertainty held her between the two thoughts, duality’s irritation lingering, until the prolonged silence, absence of footstep for further shuffles, brought decision’s way to what her emotions preferred.

Paw dropped to her sides, rough wool trousers, the only functional clothing leftover on her, her scarf already thrown to her bed. She tugged at the little knot, sighed at the slip of friction that’d been grinding her all these long hours, the loss of weight of the waterlogged wool.

The weight dropped to the floor with a slump, Cindy stepped carefully out from the legs, enjoyed the moment of total nudity where her soggy fur was free to just air and dry by its own warmth.

Head hang backwards to face the ceiling, clasped her paws, pulled them ahead of herself in as much of a stretch of her back as she could manage in this short room.

Arms dropped back to her sides, total numbness and strain of her whole legs and back telling her to lie down immediately, while vicious impulse to eat dragged her mind from this final luxury.

She dried herself briskly, staining brown from her thicker clumped fur wherever the towel would rub. Whatever, she’d wash it tomorrow. Both towel and trousers she hung from a rope already prepared for damp clothes, grabbed her nightshirt.

A modest garment, without frills or cleavage. A starched white nightgown that hung to her knees. She’d started thinking recently of saving for something more fitting, more… feminine. But she was still heavily in two minds of how she wanted to appear to others.

Nevertheless, she pulled the thing over her head, did up the small button. Thin, crisp fabric caught the dim light in a soft glow, straps resting lightly on her shoulders.

She breathed a sigh, straightening the cut against her fur. Every time she thought of throwing it out, somehow it always retaught her interest.

With a soft scrape of glass against thin metal, the lamp’s chimney was placed back, the wick dial was turned to a warm glow of flame.

Turning to the door she raised the latch, pulled the rope back into concealment, stepped into the corridor, lighting the way with chamber lamp in paw.

Down to the kitchen, she cut herself a wide slice of bread, opened the fridge, cut a chunk of cheese, stowed the knife back in its place.

This lump of cheese and bread was hardly what she fancied, but it was the side dish to her real dinner, the fridge yet held a little treat for her aching stomach.

At the back corner, on a high shelf, a little black lockbox marked ‘Cindy’. She brought her key forward, put…

Squinted, leaned forward.

Claw marks.

Rows of itty, teeny claw marks all along the rim and around the keyhole.

The hare scoffed, inserted the key. If that little monster had somehow made its way inside…

Delightful smell of pastry, sugar, berry met her nose. Beautiful. Beautiful delights.

She fetched another plate excitedly, already pondering the choice between eating the bread and cheese first and getting the blackberry pie for dessert. But having to wait, or starting with the blackberry pie when her hunger would make it maximally delicious, but then would wash the gorgeous taste down with plain bread and cheese.

Both paws occupied, bread in one hand, pie in the other, hare closed the fridge with a foot, her gown flicking in airiness, glanced at her lamp irritably as she realized it’d mean a second trip from her bed to retrieve it, and turned towards her room in a hurry to get it over and—

Sting of adrenaline, electrical bolt of fear burnt through, figure in the shadows, watching black eyes glinting, unmoving, soundless.

Gasp of desperation to flee, flight of pulse of heart lurching to her throat, lungs clenched, stomach howling.

Cindy blinked into darkness, She watched the black shape, silent intruder staring back. Robber? Rapist? Reaper?

No, too… Too small, too short. Her eyes adjusted, the black eyes remained black, but a shape of dark brown fur and small oval ears morphed into sight. A muzzle of a young rat. A young monster to be exact.

Little fiend. Silently skulking. Putting the basic concepts into cohesion, it was easy for Cindy to figure out who’s nosy snout it was that’d sniffed her match and sneezed before.

She breathed a sigh, though it was really a breathless pant as she tried to get her rage under control. Little monster, only creature she knew who could sneak up on her like that. And she guaranteed to herself he did it on purpose, not that he’d ever admit it.

Cindy masked the pant as a growl, defined to give the rat the smallest level of satisfaction. “What?” she grunted.

The rat child blinked up at her politely. “I’m telling.”

“… Fuck you.”

Little monster stared blankly back, Cindy never could read his mood. Suddenly he smiled. “Hehe,” he said. And his smile dropped again to a blank stare.

Little rat. It always disquieted her how he’d switch emotions. Really felt ingenue. Why couldn’t mals just be honest about what they felt?

She opened her mouth to speak, stopped herself, accepted there was no other way. “Whaya want.”

“Hm,” he said quietly, tilted his head to the side, short whiskers bouncing to his movement, glint of bone-white in the dark.

“Ya want ta cheese?” she grunted, holding out her paw towards him.

The monster shook his head, his stupid ears flapping against his head. He turned in gaze to her other paw. The paw holding the—

“I picked these berries, my pencesis for sugar. I cooked this pie myself, ya little shit!”

“Horsey language, no-no-no.” A giggle followed. “I’m telling.”

“Oh myyy,” she groaned, delirious at having gone through so much to be held ransom by a nine-year-old now.

“Can’t ya lyek not just scurry away? Horrible day! Och, I got beat up at school an’ then I lost path ta the place. An’ I cut my leg an’ my shirt got torn an’, an’ my friend…”

Pleading expression hardened into acceptance. She knew from experience, there was no reasoning with this psychopath. She glanced over her shoulder, thought about stuffing him in the fridge, or beating him with a rolling pin, or shaving him furless with a peeler.

Then she pushed the blackberry pie into his paws, barged past him without another word. The collision brought her some smirk, the way his light, little body skittered with disbalance to her shove, but she knew she’d lost the exchange.

At least now she could go to sleep. The little monster passed her carefully. Menace though he was, he at least understood she was ready to smack him real good if another word left his rat-maw.

He climbed the stairs carefully, already making disgusting slobbering noises as he scoffed her pie. The pie she would’ve relished for maybe twenty minutes, piece by piece, already half gone, inside that skulking inspiration for birth control.

Through the door, locked behind, legs buckled beneath as she felt to her bed.

At last her back met mattress, realization hitting her at just how strained and stressed her whole spine was, mix of all the walking, and the hours sleep cramped in that car.

Grope for the blanket, pull of soft warmth. Here at last, a journey that’d taken just forever, finally ended in a reward.

She took a bite out of the bread and cheese, it wasn’t as delicious as she’d hoped, but on a stomach churning with who knows what, it was all she needed, scoffing the whole thing in minutes.

Paw reached out to her book, flicked through to the bookmark one third through. Embers and Ash the story was called: not her first reading, but a favorite of hers. This moment of rest, chance of sleep soon to be, was a beautiful thing she could cherish for all—

Taptap. “Cindy?”

Cindy blinked. Was that…?

Taptaptap. “Cindy?”

The comfort in her stomach began turning again. Set smile faded in paranoia of the reality to-be.

“Wha?” she moaned.

“Fuck you, hehehe!”

“Thomas?” Cindy said. Lips continued to move but no sounds came, confusion at what the little monster even had in mind.

He giggled again, and his little paws smacked their way to the base of the staircase, only to thunder up over her head, every step beating until specks of dust rained from all around Cindy’s ceiling.

“Thomas!” screamed a voice from somewhere higher above. Cindy heard the rat giggle again as he jumped in place above her head. “Thomas ye no-good dirty rat, ye stop dat ruckus this very moment!”

The rat’s footsteps fled upstairs, giggling. “Just eating, Mamma!” he called back.

“None munching after dark! Back to ye pillow!” Cindy heard a door slam open. “What ye eating, Thomas? Ye spit dat out.”

The rat’s footfall passed again, rushing down, more sounds of chomping. Heavy footsteps followed, thud-thudding their way down two flights of stairs.

“Is Cindy pie. Cindy give it me, she give it me when comed home, does Mamma-you know she go out?”

Fury at the betrayal and the dust settling around her home brought the hare sitting up in bed, head craning up toward him.

“C’mere ya screwball, I’m ‘onna break ya jaw an’ smash ya tiny rat-snout in.” Her voice rose higher, she was already ratted out, she was already in trouble. Fuck the world and herself with it. “I’m gonna break ya arm an’ throw ya through the window—”

“Cindy!” screamed a voice, thumping feet passing right by her head on the stairs.

“An’ cut ya arteries with shards of broken glass! I only naw because ya’re nine, otherwise I’d rip ya ta pieces!”

Cindy’s eyes rolled back as the rage left her, muscles sagging, only catching herself on the doorframe as the blood drained from her face and her body went limp.

“Thomasss!” Mamma Riri yelled from right above, more dust shuddering down as the bulky wif passed by. “Thomas ye get back here or yo tail’s going in vice!”

Something crashed from the living room, the footsteps of the rat ran up the stairs and started jumping again above her. Abruptly the jumping stopped, quiet shuffling noises replacing it.

“Thomas… Thomas, ye get back here,” Riri panted as she passed Cindy’s door. “And don’t twiddle ye games with me,” she continued, as the rat had started making coughing noises.

Riri climbed the stairs slowly, Cindy could feel the house’s small shudder at each step.

“Ye ain’t kidding me, rat. Ye ain’t… ye… hell, ye really is choking.” A moment later came the noises of gasping and thumps and grunts and wheezes, what Cindy could only assume to be Thomas getting grabbed around the stomach and squeezed to dislodge whatever piece of pie was stuck.

The hare just sat and listened, eyes wide with astonishment and the circus surrounding her, took another mouthful of bread and cheese as she sat in bed and held her little book.

Splutter passed and the coughs cleared, right above her head she heard Thomas breathe deeply. All was still for just a heartbeat, then the yelling resumed.

“Now scamper ye tail to bed ‘fore I tan ye ass. And Schlops! Schlops ye get ye pointed ears out here ‘for I rip ‘em off.”

Cindy breathed deeply, a fog of blur in front of her whole vision. She managed to stand, though only as the knocking on her door became ferocious. And her stomach… her stomach was not happy. The bread and cheese wasn’t maybe the best idea.

Pulling the latch, Mamma Riri came into view, a tall, broad, fat ginger hare with arm muscles that could crush rocks.

“Prowl out in the night, think I don’t see none, ay? Girl ye age, I know what ye doin’. Don’t scamper to cry to me when ye wind up pregnant. None my problem. Or chomper food. Scant gal like ye, perfect meal for dem fox vultures.”

Everything in Cindy’s soul was just crushed. Disappointed a friend, lost the will to fight or even hope she could be like a predator, and now she’d be getting grilled the rest of the night on where she’d been.

“Looking the state of ye, I can pray maybe ye’ve learnt things or two. But ooh-no, same old Schlops, don’t learn nothing. Too brave and too bold for our humble life, humph. Well, none’s my problem. Ye’re old enough to handle ye own bowl. All this tomfoolery on ye legs prove that well enough.”

Couldn’t believe she’d been ratted out, should’ve kept her blackberry pie. Would’ve been delicious. Though… she groaned, and with that groan a paw clutched her stomach, a strange tightness curling low in her gut. Her lips twitched with something like a burp that left a sour heat at the back of her throat.

“And don’t ye think about skipping school tomorrow. No, girl. No one’s fault but yers if ye only grab one hour sleep. Ye’re going if I have to drag ye there myself. And in the evening I’ll be there to pick ye up and walk ye back. And we’ll do that every day if we have to.”

The twitching lips became constant, an impulse she couldn’t really control, not that she even had the capacity to think about it anymore. She was faintly aware Riri was saying something, but, her chest… felt weird. Hollow and lurching, a twisting rhythm of bubbling nausea.

She burped again. What was Riri saying?

“And stop quivering ye lip, doe. Crying won’t scamper ye out of it. Time to stop acting like little doe and deal with ye own—”

Cindy buckled and spewed hot vomit across the tile floor.

Her stomach convulsed, senses filled with bile as she gagged a harsh stream of sour mess.

The torrent passed. She spat a few times, eyes hung heavy, throat burning raw, horrid scent and taste clung to her teeth and inside her nose. She gagged again, body tried to make her spew more through airless gasps that blurred her vision. Nothing came.

Cindy looked absently at the puddle of sick before her, turned to meet Riri’s silent gawk.

After a slowly long breath, Cindy gestured vaguely towards the mess of acid, bread and cheese, “My apologies,” and crumpled backwards into her room.

Landed on carpet, vision blurred, sound muffled. Escape from pain, escape from cold, escape from whatever Riri was trying to say.

Here at last, the greatest gift in the world.

Here at last, her stomach finally soothed.

Here at last, the gift of sleep.

---

C5
Afterstorm

Tap, tap, tap…

Tap, tap-tap, tap, tap. Tap. Tap, tap…

Tap-tap-tap, tap, tap. Tap, tap, tap. Tap-tap, tap, t—

“Cut iiit,” urged a voice from beside, sharp nudge of elbow in Cindy’s ribs following.

The grey-blue Cindy gave a slow glare to her classmate, the hare she shared the desk with, but her mind was too empty, too full at the same time, to bare any emotion towards the assault. Instead, dropped her pencil, cupped her face in her paws to the numb throb of her thoughts.

Open of eyes stared at the litany of dots she’d scattered all across her notebook. Ear twitched to a scoff beside her, classmate went back to writing in her book.

The dots blurred together before her, morphed to a sight of New Unity, sight of Sam’s face, sight of predators and prey stood opposed through all time, a disunity of purpose impossible to resolve.

The storm had been long and the dark silence crushing, drizzle of rain leaking through the rusted cracks, whistle of wind, scent of her friend, company both aggravating and comforting beyond measure.

The in-storm sleep had been nice, the shared warmth blissful in the cold, but the words… the words.

Picking up her pencil, she began tapping dots once more.

Throwing up last night had settled her stomach, but gut still churned. Mamma Riri’s endless scolding had put ringing in her ears. Her heart still burned, breaths still hitched every time the words, she’d exchanged with Sam, came to her mind.

The face he’d pulled as she’d walked away. Silence amid the rain. Uncertainty if was even him being the stubborn jerk, or her.

Morning had gone slow, unable to escape the nonstop pressence of Mamma Riri who was dead-set in making sure Cindy would reach school. This was the last class before lunchbreak. Was still too many hours to go before she could crawl to her bed, cover herself from the noisy world. But at least lunch would give her some time alone.

“Schlops, did you understand that last bit?”

Extra strain grew in her head, memory of Jar’s confrontation-impending. Maybe Sam was right, she should just… ugh, Sam.

Somehow in not admitting defeat she actually had been defeated and crushed. Whatever sense that made. Surely holding on to your ideas and fighting for what you knew to be right was always the true way, the just way?

“Schlops, you’ve demonstrated quietness all class, have you been taking notes?”

Then why did all her efforts now feel meaningless? She’d beaten the mountain, alone, in the dark. It hurt, it sucked, she’d regretted it last night but ultimately she’d achieved what she’d been told only predators could do.

She’d beat the fox, argued him to submission, showed her perspective to be true and right. And this was the result? Demotivation and loss of goals? Horrible. Horrible! And she had no idea how to fix it. Sam had broken her ideals.

“Schlops.” Voice came from right above, Cindy’s maze of thoughts dissolved to a slow look up, teacher stood right in front her desk.

Brow curled in puzzle at the fox. When did she cross the class? Had she been stood there long? Uncertainty founded annoyance to twitch towards the teacher, who furrowed a brow of scorn towards Cindy’s notebook.

“You’ve been concerningly doodling all class. Have you even been listening?”

A snicker came from the back of the room, one that Cindy knew to be of that fat white. But mostly what ticked her off was her name, her stupid, stupid name.

She opened her mouth to dodge the question, say all was fine, but somehow all that came out her mouth was: “No, Ma’am.” There was a visible twitch, sudden irritation on the teacher’s brow.

“And why not? You don’t consider it’s productive to understand the difference between canine molars, cuspids and incisors?”

Cindy’s grey eyes widened, swimming thoughts trying to weigh the value of seeking her meaning in this world, against remembering the shapes and functions of some fox and wolf teeth.

The unequal duality of importance brought a smirk and pitched giggle to escape, burst loud into the silence. She bit her lip just after, gaze falling to desk at teacher’s scowl. Burning heat grew in her ears.

Had she really just laughed at her? Stupid noises at the back of the room implied she had, stupid jeers of foxes who’d always huddle as one, always talk and ignore the teacher, yet when were they asked if they were taking notes? When were they brought justice of their own ignorance?

Yet she ignored class for one day in her life and—

“You’ll re-write them over from Karla, after class.” Silence hung. Cindy’s gaze returned to the fox. “As it stands, what has been distracting you all morning?” Took the notebook, held it carefully with her long-black claws. “It’s a drawing?”

Cindy shook her head. Random dots were all abound.

“No articulation today, did something occur?”

Again she opened her mouth to say everything was fine, but her mouth betrayed her. “I argued with a friend.” Anxiety gnawed wretchedly in her throat. Why was she saying this out loud? “Duhno wha ta do.”

“Let’s be reasonable,” she shrugged. “As a friend you’ll talk it through, you’ll find common ground.”

She snorted, shook her head in a twitch. “It’s not that simple.” Thoughts swelled again, but it wasn’t the place or time to talk about what was on her mind.

Her teacher smiled softly, grey face finding calm. “It never is if you mean it.” She placed the notebook silently down. “Start of lunchbreak, see me at my office.”

Cindy frowned in pleading, “But—”

“Schlopsie goin uh duh’tention,” jeered that nasty voice from the back, though this time it couldn’t get to Cindy as she just stared at her paws.

“Voices at zero, or you’ll be joining her,” the teacher said over Cindy’s shoulder.

“Oh, defenative. Ye girlfriend now? Girlfriend-girlfriend!”

Even if it was an insult at her, Cindy smirked at the idea of dating her teacher. Her teacher stiffened, didn’t seem to find any humour in it. “Jerome.”

“Marta and Schlopsie gone make out in her office at—”

“Jeronimo. To the front. At once.” She turned on her soles, stomped to the front.

A few snickers rang from the other foxes.

“Don’t uh’na.”

“At once,” she growled, glint of white peeking her back teeth. The room’s pressure shifted. Rare sight to see such impatience from the vixen.

A mutter followed, shuffling of feet at the back. The present moment felt rare and unexpected to the hare. Was this justice she was about to see?

Heavy steps grew close, familiar scent made her nose wrinkle, familiar instinct-fear rising under her skin, heart pumped faster. A wretched fear she couldn’t control.

White fur glistened in the calm lights of the classroom, Jar’s figure shoved by her desk, trailing paw of black claws catching her notebook’s edge, scuttling it to the floor with a flurry of bound pages.

“Oop. Sorry.” Scowl deep, focused on Cindy. White fox shoved paws in his pockets, slugged with slumped shoulders to the podium at the front.

Leaving her seat, Cindy knelt for her notebook, dusted the page, glanced up from the floor and noticed something unexpected in Jar’s movements.

There was frustration, the expected defiance, but she also saw nervousness, embarrassment, uncertainty: in the sway of his pose, the dart of his eyes, the pull of his lips. She returned to her seat, fixed her gaze on his.

“Now,” said Marta, “explain to class the characteristics of canine teeth.”

“What’s canine?” Jar asked quietly, though not subtle enough as Cindy’s tall ears caught his nervousness and a few predator students snickered, certain angry blush from Jar’s ears as he glared at them in turn.

“Teeth, uh-huh, teeth. They is long un sharp un big. Not like little prey teet-ies, naw.” Lent into the podium, grinned wide towards a table with a couple rat sisters at the front.

“Cayninein teeth is fuh bighting in tuh flesh. Used to be flesh of ye munches when we used hunt ye.”

The rats huddled towards one another, their tails wrapping together behind, the glint of white tooth drawing a twitch of convulsion from Cindy even across the room. Paw went to the scar on her neck, it pulsed hot.

“Used to be we ruled the world. Times of Primal, when world was duh’vided in two.” He beat his chest with a paw, eyes bold. “When foxes un wolves’d hunt ye munchers on our all fours.”

“None of the intelligent species that we know of have been on all fours, Jeronimo,” Marta said coolly. “Now, yes, canines are used to bite into animal flesh.”

“Yuh? Well Grandpa tell me what we were. Un we wuh hunters. Hunting hares un rabbits un rats. ‘S why we so tough. And smart.”

Cindy bit her tongue.

“Yo Grandpa’s crooked in the ‘ed,” voice from the back said, “rabbits ain’t real.”

“Is, they is, Grandpa knew a white one!”

“Yea, and ye Grandpa a fa—”

“Brant!” Marta held a glare, breathed a long huff. She blinked herself to composure, straightened her dress, looked back to Jar. She sighed. “Do we really have to go over this again, Jerome?”

He shrugged, glanced to the wall. “What? We got teeth, we hunted munchers.”

Marta shook her head sadly. “Now, you’ll remember from the start of the anatomical terminarcus — or would remember, if you ever paid attention — the greater species have never hunted one another. A common misconception. We are not like the Peripheral Forms, we were not shaped for wasteful predation, but for balance, communication and survival in concert. But it does make quite the story, no?”

“Ye just like them tus ye defend them!”

“Mind your manners, ver,” Marta warned with a growl and raise of hackles, a sight which instantly rushed adrenaline up Cindy’s arteries, apparently effecting Jar just as much, his ears and tail falling flat.

“Now,” Marta began, her voice still pleasant but lacking its usual patience, “explain to the class about the difference of jaw density between a fox and a wolf.”

“Um… density?”

“As it stands, yes, density.”

“Like, how big it is?” Jer gestured wide with his white paws, fabric of his jacket sleeves swaying to the motion.

“No, Jeronimo. Pause and think,” she clasped her paws together, “it’s about strength.”

“Strength? Oh! Um, foxes have super strong jaw than those wolf-sies. Believe that!” he piped up excitedly, as if having discovered something exciting for all to hear. Cindy was puzzled at this enthusiasm, but what she was even more puzzled was the shock and discomfort that Marta was betraying. But she wasn’t looking at the fox, her eyes were staring at the open door where there was… nobody?

Marta coughed into a fist and commented, “Er, for one thing you’re confusing bone strength with jaw strength, as for another… as much of a funny joke it was, how about you give the class a serious answer?”

“I crunch through bones faster than them,” Jar affirmed and snapped his jaw at the class with a playful growl.

“Well, how about you demonstrate the class then,” Marta conceded with a strained smile, opened the classroom closet, rummaged, retrieved a yellowed piece of big, long bone.

“This is the femur of a male wolf,” she started, bone held aloft, its length visibly overtaking her forearm. She got close to the white fox and held the femur against his own, protruding from his waist fully down to his ankle. “Now, even a wolf would struggle with snapping through this, but with some persistence the bone would ultimately succumb to a fracture and a snap.”

Jar seemed rather wide-eyed at the length of bone that was still pushed against him.

“Now, would you like to demonstrate everyone how you snap it?” She cocked her head at the young fox, who now seemed rather quiet. “Maybe just a fracture,” she tried again, small jeer in her voice. “A small one?”

“I don’t want to,” he bickered and crossed his paws. Marta stared at him for a while, whispers going around the class about the size of the bone and how Jar looked ridiculously small next to it. Cindy wasn’t interested in joining the gossip, she was focused on the strange behaviours of both. Trying to decide…

Is this justice’s dagger I see before me?

Justice was meant to be punishment, work, atonement equal to the wrongs done. This was none of those things. This was… humiliation? Yet it was working better than any detention or community labour Jar had done before.

Perhaps a blow to image could hurt more than a smack to the jaw or an insult to the brains.

Eyes widened, small glances left-right as the hare sought within herself for enlightenment from the past.

Was that why Jar had been so hard on since she’d called out his cheating in front of the class? Not the insult itself, but the fact she’d made it public special?

As she wondered what was to learn here, if she could use this trick to get out of admitting her weakness to Jar, or getting slashed again, Cindy noticed Marta duck and plant her muzzle close to Jar’s ear.

There was a sharpness in her voice, outward-pointed ears, rigid tail. It wasn’t common to see her teacher’s warm nature drained to despondency and jeer.

Harsh whispers Cindy couldn’t make out. The young fox turned from confused to defiance; then his expression morphed to shock and fear which were something that Cindy had never seen before. Yes, humiliation, anger, frustration, but not fear.

The older wolf stood to full height, nose turned to the ceiling. She eyed the white fox carefully a moment, thumped the long bone twice on the wood floor.

“Take a seat,” she ordered, the young fox quickly obeyed, not even giving Cindy a mocking glance like he’d always do.

His ears were down, tail dusting the floor behind and none of it made any amount of sense. Were there words so powerful that they break someone’s resolve in a matter of a blinks?

If not by the strength of her own body, then by her mind and voice alone she wound find control. Was this the way? And yet… curiosity soured as she realized that those words came from authority: a teacher and a fox. From a teenage hare, even an adult one, these same words would create no such impact.

Interest died in finding out in what Jar had been told, as she reminisced on her own troubles that Marta had managed to briefly erase with her encouragement.

“The jaw density of an adult male wolf is 410 kilograms per square centimetre. An adult male fox is around 132 kilograms. That’s more than three times the density. Three times the strength. No further discussion will be made on this topic. The wolf jaw is stronger, the wolf bones are denser.”

Cindy turned her page and made to jot down the information. Effort mattered after all and despite what was said and done she shouldn’t just let everything fall apart because of a random idea. Yes, Sam did make a lot of sense, but why did his beliefs and ideas have to suddenly become her own? Couldn’t she have her own vision of what life can be, instead of trying to cater to his own… stupidity?

Marta huffed. “I’ll have no more foolish talk in my class about if foxes are stronger than wolves.”

Sure it made sense, and it did make sense, that life in the City would be similar to here: filled with predators who held authority and prey that quietly played their part.

“Don’t tell me we have to go through the Doctrine of Canonical Forms again?”

And all that would change is she’d be an even smaller piece of the world. Even less noticed. Even less important. So much structure and stability her value would be so diminished.

“Who can tell me why wolves exemplify the canonical standard?”

And the years would go by and she’d keep pushing and trying to climb the ranks of whatever job she’d have, hoping someday to have value to the world equal to that of a predictor’s. And the impossibility and insanity would grind at her soul and leech her youth until she’d be left an old, bitter, exhausted husk just waiting to-

Her pencil crunched, surge of anger blocked out her hearing, and no matter how much she tried to focus it away, she couldn’t hear what Marta was further saying.

She couldn’t hear her, over what Sam was saying in her head. That there was no freedom in this society. Only expectations and rails. That the hope of changing it even a little to be something better was a laughable joke too pathetic to even believe. Was she truly such a child? A little infant who thought good intentions paved the way to success and gratitude?

Pressure in her head growing, growing, growing like she just needed to unscrew a valve before her whole brain exploded.

You nearly kill yourself climbing a hill; Sam was just fine and he walked hours longer than you did. Jar held you locked up in fear with a little scratch and a snarl; Marta flattened his defiance with some words and a jeer.

Growled, grabbed her head with both paws, clutched it tight, to squeeze out the throbs that deafened her perception, to hold together the plates of her skull from rupture.

And you hope to survive in the City? With no teacher to hold your hand and no best friend to follow you around? Keep dreaming of being a predator. There’s as much chance of you becoming a hare-wolf as there is as you making a difference in this world.

Just shut up, just shut up, just shut up! Cindy muttered to herself, over and over, the only thing that managed to drown out the infectious doubts pulsing her every vein, seeping to her marrow.

She lowered her head to the desk, held it, pressed it into the wood, paws clutched over her eyes, ears flattened stiff towards the floor.

There was no idea for how long she’d sat there like that, holding onto her throbbing head, an unfocused trance with no other purpose but to shut down the own intrusive thoughts from umbraing a nightmare in her waking life.

But when something clunked beside her and a dim red light illuminated above the chalkboard, Cindy raised her head off the table, realised that most her class had already left, those that remained were lazily picking up their stuff or having muffled chatter.

She looked to the ceiling, rubbed her aching forehead where she’d pressed it into the table. Dim-lit edges of the room spun in her peripherals.

Daylight had passed, but she knew not to hope she’d slept to the end of school. Today was a half day for light, the other half of the day still to go. Except now everything would be bathed in winds and frosty cold.

Another clunk, closer this time, came from her side. Slow turn showed Marta’s back as she pulled a thread at one of the windows that closed the wooden shutters outside. She gave it an extra tug against the strength of the wind, tied a strong knot against a hook of metal on the wall.

The winds always picked up when daylight stopped mid-day. Howling winds drawn by temperature change, throwing dust, debris, snapping tree branches big enough to kill.

She grunted softly. The winds would die down in a couple hours, but it would be freezing outside by the time she’d be walking home.

Marta’s ear twitched at the grunt. She said, without turning, “Clear the chalkboard, Schlops.”

Turning slowly to the black chalkboard at the front, eyes wandered the words and anatomical drawings of bones, teeth and claws. She’d missed out on a lot of information. She’d missed out on a lot of time.

She grunted again, slipped from the table as Marta paced to the windows further to the back of the room. Yet, as Cindy moved toward the chalk board, she stopped.

It really had been a lot of time. And she hadn’t been reprimanded? Hadn’t been asked to focus? The answer came easily that she had been told yet hadn’t heard. But that didn’t solve anything as nobody had come close, nobody had tried to get her to focus.

She turned her shoulder to the sight of vixen, struggling a little with a particularly stiff shutter. Her teacher had been acting odd today, mix of both warmth and harshness that made her wonder what was going on.

In a despondent sigh, Cindy shook her head, moved to the blackboard, started scrubbing off the morning’s work. Her teacher’s business wasn’t something she’d every be privy to.

At the back of the room, the shutters clunked a last time, the rope tightened, firm footsteps made their way to the door, paused in the doorway. “Have a bight to eat, Schlops,” she said, paw rested on the wooden frame as she met Cindy’s eye, “then head straight down to my office.”

Hare nodded, forced herself not to cringe at her name. “Yes, Ma’am.”

By the dim red light above, Cindy glanced at the empty classroom. Always an odd sight to see it from the teacher’s perspective, think about the thousands of faces that had sat in these seats, the hundreds of teacher that’d stood in this spot.

All was left right now was a few shapes of predators and prey, classmates grouped next the window and commenting the dark outside. Winds had picked up, shutters started thunk-thunk-thunking against the wall. Through the cracks of shutter, black silhouettes of trees lurched and thrashed on the distant hill.

Warmth of the room was much more sought, but it was time to go. So she took steps away to the opened exit, wooden planks creaking under her bare feet and wondered what scolding she’d be getting for missing today’s lecture.

What did it matter. What was there to ask or argue about? Nothing. Maybe she’d even enjoy the further distraction from having to wonder in the exitless loops of nonsense.

With creaky steps at the cold draft, she got into the darker corridor where the chill draft rattled her body. She didn’t know why they had to use the ground floor rooms, when they were the coldest, and there were so many more rooms underground.

Drafts and lack of heating outside the active rooms, windows and cutting drafts. She didn’t at all like the temperature, not when used to the nice warmth of the classroom.

Tucking her ears under her wolf leather jacket and slipping on her gloves, she headed to the staircase and followed the path down. Coldness spread under her feet with a slow tingle as the bareness of her fur tapped against the cold.

Path took Cindy to the center of the school’s bounds, the warmth of the heart: the tiled cafeteria where all students gathered.

Visibility on the journey was quite limited, low hum of the ceiling lights spread sparingly, leaving off black patches of darkness that tricked the eye with phantoms of thought.

Whole school smelt of fox, at least to her. She’d heard foxes mutter the whole place smelt like muncher. Seemed whatever mal liked least was what they found.

Pushing the red door aside, hare looked at the line for food, winced at its length. The cold and hazards outside had drawn all the students to the heart of the school, to eat inside in the warmth and light.

Behind the wooden counters, rails with beaten metal containers of various consistencies of food, the kitchen staff wondered and served, dishing time-stained ladles of steamed carrot and broccoli medley, cauliflower and leek soup, rice pilaf with peas.

As much as it was generic and a stereotype, the food made Cindy to slather. It had been quite a rush to leave for school that morning, to get out the door while Riri was still busy preparing the younger kids for the tram; before she had time to remember the scolding she was supposed to be delivering to Cindy.

Breakfast had been skipped. That, and the remembrance she’d ‘lost’ her dinner last night, both to rat and hack, her stomach was running empty, baring a few scraps of bread she’d grabbed on her way out.

Scraps of bread with a drizzle of honey, stolen right from that little monster’s plate as he glanced to take his oats.

Cindy stood smirking in the doorway, until a shove bounced her and a late-teen rat gated past, glaring suspiciously towards her. Hare opened her mouth to retort, but realized she’d been blocking the entrance for some moments, and shut her mouth.

She took a tray and to joined the queue, knew Marta was waiting, but feared she’d be kept detention all lunch with no chance for a meal after.

Moving across beige tiles, which coated the floor in different states of quality’s cracks and glaze, different shades of tan and white, even some different patterns from repairs and replacements made who-knows-when, she joined the queue, took in the sight.

Whole school seemed to be in here. Not an uncommon sight, only uncommon part was how tightly the cold had everyone packed. Foxes and rats and hares, all in one little tiled box, forced to endure one another’s presence, trying their hardest to ignore the other’s reality.

As the slow minutes ticked by and she came closer to the fooddesk, fantasy entered her mind again of what if she’d been born a wolf. Her own school, just with her own kind. What a luxury it must be.

A thick coat to never feel the cold, sharp eyes to never fear the dark, strong bight to never shudder in fear of no mal. An individual that mattered and society truly valued.

Overweight rat cleared her throat, tapped her ladle at the near-empty containers of food.

Cindy nodded for the medley, received the last scrape of what was left, which spurred a small discussion of irritation from the two foxes behind.

Seek of table, she stepped through the crowd, past a square of foxes, backs turned, hunched over their food. By the rat sisters from her class, tails still curled around one another’s, sharing from a bowl of cauli-leek soup. Past a couple of hares, a ver of whom caught her eye, only to hurriedly place his bag on the free seat and mutter something about saving the space for a friend in the queue.

The usual sights and sounds.

She passed the promotional posters on the wall, framed photos of past students of merit, trophies the school had been awarded, a coloured chat of the whole school Terminarciorum: a prospectus of the next two years of her life.

Pause halted her step, examined with fresh eyes, or maybe with Sam’s eyes, the value of what her education had bade her learn.

Anatomical studies was half done, next were the terminarcus on politics and law, literature and analysis, planets and the Sphere, history of New Unity was a sight of interest for certain, but the sub headings, the specifics within these units was strangely… hollow.

Nostrals twitching, gaze returned ahead, slow pace as she continued her path to the free seat at the back corner.

Hollow, hollow. Yet when she’d started school, she’d felt so much excitement to see all she’d learn and do. Her dreams of seeing the City getting more vivid with each passing year.

The actuality felt to be growing discontent. Why was every subject chosen for her? Every focal point dictated by, by what? The choices felt pretty random. Today we learn about the wolf who designed Lune Bridge, tomorrow we learn about the different types of caynine teeth.

What if she wanted to learn about the design of the weather stations, or the bat who founded the police force, or how cars worked? Where was the choice within the study, the chance to pick her own path, her own interests?

She shook herself, realising today was just a day for drilling holes of endless intrareflective speculation, tried to push it to the back of her mind; found the back of her mind was already packed to overflowing with thoughts she’d packed there, an overstuffed attic of towering problems and troubles, none of which she wanted to be there. And her period was late.

Vending machine came into view, a few students waiting their pick at the machine’s dwindling collection of limited goodies. Stale bread, old pastries and a few treats of sugar seemed to be all was left.

Cindy paused a moment, tray if steaming food still held in paw, shuffled sideways towards the spare seat as she watched.

Nose wrinkled, hoped however came last had something better than the stale-green bread that’d been there since she started school here. There never was enough, and the fact it was paid only confused her the school didn’t just put more. It was run at a profit, surely?

She glanced at her tray, nourishing and full. Even had a couple of crackers she could save for later. A subtle nod of gratitude rose; the orphanage was sometimes hell, but it looked after her. They had a deal with the school, covered the cost of hot lunch for all their wards every day.

Hiss of irritation drew at her idling on the cold tile, teeth scrunched at the piercing frost seeping through her fur, lacing and lacerating her skin deeper beneath, reaching her bone and marrow.

Storm yesterday had frosted up the lower levels. Teacher she’d asked once said the drainage system ran pips all beneath the floor to take the fallen water for storage. It sucked away the internal warmth these underground rooms usually had. Mixed with the frozen winds now raging, frost had sucked from the sky into the school.

It only usually got like this in the freezing seasons; on the coldest of days when beautiful white snow would cover the streets and fields. At least then it had some justification. But today had no such imprints, no such justice.

Exasperated from having to do this before even leaving the building, Cindy claimed her seat, leg muscles buzzing tiredly at the chance of rest; her view of the moment being the now three-mal line at the vending machine that looked rather empty.

She glanced in half interest at who she was sharing the bench with, saw a frowning fox giving her the side-eye. She hooked a brow, looked around fully. All around the table six more foxes sat. A vixen among them, looked younger than Cindy, prettier, was giving her a subtle snarl.

She looked the vixen up and down, chuckled in a snort, raised her upper lip in a mock snarl of her own. As if they’d do anything in the middle of everyone, she reflected, turned back to her feet.

From her backpack she brought two rolls of nicely thick wolf leather, unrolled them as her ear pricked to the conversation between the now-two wilfmal hare still stood beside the vending machine. A vermal stood beside, chewing into something tough.

“Hey leave me the rolley buns.“

“Y’ wish,” said the hare using the machine, bringing a grumble from the wifmal beside her. It was Karla, her classmate she sat beside.

Rolls of leather unwrapped and flattened, the hare crossed one hindpaw over the other, brought it up to her side, began wrapping one around her foot, being careful to properly wedge the o-shaped end around her ankle so it wouldn’t slip off the moment she stood.

She thought to ask Karla for her notebook, she wasn’t someone who ever revised, and she could take it to copy from during detention. But the irritation of her visible selfishness got her to just hiss and avoid interacting.

Tap of metal-weighted wood sounded the drop of penny in the vending machine, pull of spring-loaded mechanism, sound of paper bag falling to the rapid clunk of the vending machine door being shoved open, its contents greedily grabbed.

The wrap left her toes in the open. Only the expensive ones enclosed them: harder to make, quicker to wear out. It was mostly her sole which brought frosty discomfort anyway and wraps coiling one on top the other in tangible tightness was a sure way to keep frost at bay. Lovely warmth of padding. Pushed a thread-like-lace to set the wrap in place. Lovely-lovely.

“That fox really be an idiot-one, mouthing all that rubbish,” said the bread-eating male, having leaned to the side of the vending machine and looking at the two wifmals: Karla; and a younger hare, seemed to be a first-year, counting her few wooden coins. “Doubt we’ll be seeing him next year.“

“Why?” Karla asked, taking a dry munch of rolly bun.

“Why! You know why…“

“Mean he’ll get kicked out? We’re talking about Jar yea?”

Cindy grumbled quietly to a few twitchy ears as she worked her other foot, both curious and annoyed at the conversation she wanted to not be privy to.

“Who else? Aheh, did you see his face when Teach showed the bone?” the wermal hare said.

What was his name. Bane, Bean? No, Bean wasn’t a name, that was silly.

“You just can’t say those things he said.” he continued. “He has to know his place. We all do.”

Last words of the hare made Cindy to yank her wraps and to stare at the tiles, a sudden urge of nose twitching playing up to the surge of emotions. Yes, it made sense and was what was commonly accepted, but somehow it only fueled some deep hatred within her core, a re-enactment to what had happened yesterday in the trunk with Sam, at the lockers with Jar, at every dealing she had with predators.

“Stupid-stupid,” she murmured in agitation that could not be tamed.

The vermal hare turned. “You said something?” Cindy didn’t even give him a glance, just jabbed the thread in place. He thumbed towards her, glanced to the others: “She said something, right?”

“It’s Cindy. Don’t bother her.”

“What? Why?”

“She’s not—” Karla zipped the mouth of the first-year, her opened paper bag of stale potato chips rustling as she found herself silenced by Karla’s finger.

“She’s complicated,” Karla simply said.

“Complicated?” the male said, and regarded Cindy with interest. The maleness of the interest was too apparent, getting Cindy’s lips to twitch and Karla’s eyes to roll. The younger hare took a nibble of potato.

“Are you really complicated, or just hiding a little mischief?” he said, tilting his head, grin tugging his lips.

“Whass our place then, huh?” Cindy shot, looking dead-center into the taller wermal’s eyes.

“Um… okay, hi to you too,” he said and looked away with uncertain chuckle to Karla and the quiet hare. But nobody said anything, and Cindy kept up her expectant stare.

Male hare looked back, glanced to the foxes sat around her, smile stiffening as he pointed a finger. “They friends of yours?”

“Tell whass our place?” Cindy repeated.

He blinked at her, male-interest now absent in his tone. “I don’t… I don’t follow.”

“You said, ‘He’s to know his place, just like us.’ Whass our place?”

“Just tell her,” Karla whispered at the wermal hare who was too visibly perplexed and confused.

“Well, we were talking about Jar, how he tried to say foxes are better than wolves, but we all know that’s false. They’re small and weaker and dumber.”

“Yea I remember the lectures, Canonical Form, apex of physicality based on chemistry and composition.”

“You do? …wow.”

“An wha bout us, us prey mals?”

“Us? Well we’re further beneath. I’d say we shouldn’t even interact with predators. And if they do to us, we listen and agree. Our place is underneath them.”

“So were munchers with one brain cell for them?”

“Well, yea. Canonical Form and all that. It’s science.”

“I don— you don’t think I can do better than that?” she blurted, neck muscles strained in harsh yell, lurching herself towards him.

“Cindy, can you please leave?” asked Karla.

Gaze held imploring towards the male, realization came no answer was coming, just a baffled stare of vermal. Cindy returned to a neutral pose, dead expression glanced to Karla in silence.

“Whass wrong with you not wanting to share?” She gestured vaguely at Karla’s bag. “Going to cost you so much of your life to give her one bun? Bah!”

Cindy grabbed her tray and marched off from the sight of silent stares, not even a second interested in trying to stay around these sedated classmates.

Something formed on her tongue, some final words that would show how self centred and clueless they were, and she turned to shout it just as she neared the exit.

Grey eyes focused on the three, saw Karla holding the open bag beneath the younger wif’s nose. Small paw dipped inside, took a bun from within.

Cindy snorted, smile of grim satisfaction. Then the male hare caught her eye across the room, dumb smile grew on his face.

She turned abruptly, marched towards the stairs that lead further down.

Mind turned, thoughts dwelled.

She’d made a point; they’d actually listened.

Was this the first time? No, it couldn’t be. Though, maybe the first time someone listend to something that really mattered to her.

Steps felt lighter, warmer, was it all because of the wraps? Bubbling rage was also absent, replaced with feeling of… conviction.

---

C6
Jar

Renewed step lead Cindy down three further levels, deep beneath the earth where the teacher offices were. The smell of damp and cold rose from the deeper levels, the unlit dark where the janitor and utilities were controlled.

Shiver of revulsion to the smell, cold, dark shooed her away from the further stairs down, soft squeak of leather wraps against concrete stairwell softened to the silence of thick carpet in vibrant red.

The medley was no longer steaming gorgeous warmth, but the luxury of the spot she’d be eating made up for it. Not that she was really allowed to bring food down here, or even take the tray out of the cafeteria, but it seemed no one had cared to stop her.

Corridor of the teacher offices was always heated, cosy with dim lights that were yet strong enough to see by. Walls were papered in many shapes and forms of predators, prey and buildings.

Smile couldn’t keep away form her lips as Cindy rounded the corner, passed door of Sir Eli, head of Physics; Ma’am Gina, Literature; Ma’am Colette, Athletics…

Step grew slower, rather enjoying the added warmth that underground was offering, plus the luxury, padded steps under her feet, old wood doors, lights that didn’t flicker but shone with a soft glow.

Portraits of deceased teachers hung on the walls, boards filled with names of students of excellence, filled with dates for exams and timetables of studies. Flower pots with tall plants gave life to the stones and tiles and carpet, UV lights humming into their deciduous leaves.

Cindy wondered why the student hallways were so barren and gray in comparison, why their walls only had schedules and dates without any accompanied acoustic, tangible and visual comfort.

Even the benches were nicely cushioned, put before varnished tables where earthenware mugs with teacher’s names painted on their front. If a mug like that was left anywhere in the student area, it’d be gone in less than a minute.

She rounded a corner of an intersection of the corridors, saw the sign of Marta’s office, that nicely cushioned spot just beside.

Feet danced across the carpet in flurry, anticipation palpable at the comfort of the cosy nook, the spot of softness and warmth where she could have her meal as she waited for the teacher.

But then she saw familiar white fur, familiar long muzzle. Mood soured on her tongue, steps faded to a halt, certain notes of fear of what he was doing here. Waiting for her?

Anxiety twitched her teeth to grind, shoulders to bunch. Unexpected he’d be so brave to confront her here, but why else would he be here but to make good his threats of yesterday?

Burning scar twitched at her neck, careful stare as she blinked into the dim light.

He wasn’t looking at her, appeared slumped into that same spot she was thinking about. Part of her shouted to go away from the horrible fox, but she scowled and silently got closer.

Was he asleep?

Softening her step she took great caution in sneaking close, watching his ears closest of all. They didn’t seem to twitch at her presence.

It was pretty interesting getting to see him so close, without the shriek of immediate danger bamboozling her focus to fixate on his claws and teeth.

His jacket was off, used as a pillow, only his short-sleeve shirt covered the white of his chest. Ears had slumped, muzzle and eyebrows relaxed. The only word Cindy could find was ‘peaceful’, though it really felt wrong to associate with Jar.

But the inhostility of his expression and posture was undeniable. This appearance of smallness. Harmless. Cindy noticed scars on his shoulder, fur still yet to regrow. It looked deep, nasty and red. It got her to twist her neck at the scar that the same fox had caused just a day ago.

She winced at the pain, expression twitched at the insult, insult of her own mind playing these tricks of emotion on her.

Sudden rage overtook her and she approached fearlessly, smacked her dinner tray heavily on the table.

Intention was to hit him straight in the throat, but the jolt of startled white drew a grimace of deadly teeth in his panic, which sucked the drive from Cindy’s breath; she realized how close she’d gotten to him, breaths rapid, heart raging.

He blinked at her through slitted black pupils, that unfair advantage of nightsight unique to foxes. Their sight always unnerved her, even on Sam.

Sudden deep inhale marked he’d realized who was stood before him and his demeanour of anxious silence shifted to a snarl. Yet the eyes kept blinking rapidly as the obvious issue of focus was quite at play.

Instead of making a noise or running away, she stood still and stared at him. She didn’t want to show him she was afraid or that she had done something she wasn’t supposed to. After all, he was in her favourite seat.

“I wasn’t— It’s that—” he rubbed at his eyes and pulled himself up a bit, the tallness of his body taking shadow. “I did— ugh? What do you want?” He slumped back with crossed paws, sudden aggression coming into tone.

“It’s my seat,” she nodded, her scowl deepening at the confused white fox.

“Eh, now it’s mine. What you gonna do about it, Schlopsie-schlops?” he insulted through a malicious smirk. Cindy showed her teeth, wanted to say many things, wanted to lash out and fight him here and now, her pumping heart balancing through fear and anger in a turbulence that kept her actions on the teetering edge of frustration.

Frustration buckled to a total lack of care. If they argued, if they fought. Fear that would usually overwhelm her, for some reason, wasn’t there. Not fully. He stank of fox, instincts flared, she denied this predator the pleasure of seeing another muncher turn and run.

“Well it’s still my table,” she retorted, moved to the seat opposite the fox, eye never leaving its lock with his.

Hunger beckoned and the mix of fox-stench and food was cascading a resenence of disquiet in her stomach. Quite exciting. Quite horrifying. Quite the danger she knew could explode into violence any moment.

Yet where was her fear to stop her?

Emotion quivered on her lip if she’d gone insane, yet she felt her arm reaching out for that chair, sitting down in that seat, picking the wooden cutlery under close scrutiny of monstrous fox.

“What’re you doing?” he shot after a long silence, but confusion at what he was seeing had clearly dulled his wits.

“Eating,” she said, almost at a yell, and dove the spoon into the carrot and broccoli medley, raised a floret, stuck it between her teeth.

Jar watched, expression creeping on disgust. “Yuh munches are so weird. Can’t yuh jus’ be like normal?”

“Whas normal, ey?” she grunted through a mouthful.

“Eat meat, show strength, be proud of being what you are, fight each other to show who’s best. Can’t even tell your kind apart half the time, all weak cowards blending together.”

Hare just shook her head, gaze wondered to the table.

“Dumb lil munchers, always hiding in your groups, always doing nothing, saying nothing, sniveling away every time summin bad happens. Leave foxes to fix all.”

“Never fixed anything in your life,” Cindy muttered, piercing a carrot slice.

“Like you have? Pish. You’re an awful mal, you know that, Schlopsie?” His gaze watched her food. “That’s why nobody likes you, acting like yuh better than everyone else, but yuh just a muncher like the rest. Talk down to em, like they beneath yuh gnarly feet.”

Cindy glanced her feet beneath the table, self-conscious uncertainty wrinkling her lips before she realized it was more an insult than an observation.

“I don’t care if I’m liked.” She looked back, pointed a finger. “You do. You have no idea how you’re talked about behind your back. It’s even disgusting, what they call you.”

“Who!” he called in balled fists, his posture going into the table and closer to Cindy, whose heart had skipped a beat at the potential violence that could unfurl. Yet, something was fuelling her resolve, and she couldn’t pinpoint what.

“Whole class,” she said, digging creativity for the words that’d have the heaviest impact. “Anyone’s who’s afraid of ya.” His expression morphed through satisfaction to regret, until it reached sadness.

Gazed down at his claws, rough growl rose, threw his paws to the sky. “Muncher-cowards, you always afraid. Even ‘fore I talk yah, even first time we meet you ‘fraid of me.”

Cindy held his gaze, thought back through memory to her first days here. “Yeah. Yeah, was afraid. Afraid of the stories I’d hard of what foxes were like.” She leaned forward, hot breath passed through her mouth. “Then I met you.” She began to shake her head slowly, chin jutting as she inched closer, voice dropped into a steady, deliberate rhythm of bitten-off precision. “And every one of my fears was justified.”

She held him in a long gaze of grey eyes, upper lip curled to a sneer. “So go ahead, keep on using the stereotype to justify your actions. Because beneath it, it’s what you want. Its what you are.” She dropped to a deadly whisper. “An angry, wicked cub who enjoys hurting others.”

“No I don’t,” he quickly retorted, visible perplexity playing out that Cindy did not accept as sincere.

“You deserve all the hate you get.” A certain rasp entered her voice. “You and all foxes. Aggressive, selfish, controlling retches who shouldn’t exist in this world.”

“Take at back!” he shot, smacked the table with open palm. “Take at back or uh give yah ‘nother scar. One on other side for to have matching pair.”

Fumes of anger suffocated the room, fox’s pheromones of violence saturated Cindy’s lungs, instinct screaming demands to know why she was still sitting here, why she hadn’t screamed for a teacher’s help, fled to Marta’s office.

Instated, she turned down, turned a carrot piece over with her wooden fork, looked at the thin slice, the little ringlet of lighter orange that surrounded the juicier, sweeter core.

Her mouth betrayed her, syllables that felt foreign passing over her tongue. Forcing them to a whisper was all she managed to do, unable to hold them back, regret reeling even as she felt herself speak.

“Just try it, Foxy.”

Panic clawed her chest, whole body shaking, adrenaline, fear, dreadful excitement. She raised her eyes casually, had to see, had to know if her slip up had been heard.

Expression of deep mistrust, resentment met hers. Fox’s eyes darting across her figuer, made her feel very small. He wasn’t moving, shoulders hunched, ears pinned back against his head.

Regrets surged, her fingertips quivered in delicate pattern against the bowl. She held her open palm towards him, tried to take back her-

White blur, hitched breath, clawed glint. Huge paw grabbed her ear, yanked down, impossible force, buckling strength. Cindy’s head slammed the table, rattling bone and enraging fear.

Impulse to scream, white paw shifted from ear to mouth, held her muffled-silent.

She wriggled, heart exploding with booming pulse, small paws gripping, clawing at fox’s fingers, arm, reaching to try slash his face. Other paw gripped her neck, heavy weight as Jar leaned over her. He didn’t squeeze, but knowledge he could held her movements to silence.

“Think you’re so tough?” He snarled, features outlined sparingly in the gloom. “Maybe I take your eye, then yuh remember where yuh place is.”

The hare’s gaze darted around the gloom, looked for teachers, pupils, anyone who could help. Glint of claw brought her gaze fixed back, paw from her neck now tracing her cheek.

Delicate touch, soft touch, touch that shivered down her spine.

Something was shaking, twitching, she thought it was her, yet felt her body was still. Gasping breath, hot with anger from above. Pheromones of violence shifted to scent of fear above and the paw hovering above her eye held twitching.

A teacher, it must be!

A rougher snarl from above, another, harsher, angrier, then the paw closed to a fist and other paw holding her mouth shoved her away into a thump against the table.

Jar stumbled away, Cindy panted, held her neck, clutched her cheek, throbbing hot from its impact on the table. She looked for the teacher, quiver of adrenaline rattling her frame, found only her and the fox in this lonely, dark space.

A voice snapped her attention back, Jar walking small circles some distance away, paws twitching, grabbing his ears, rubbing eyes, itching fur, swinging claws at the empty air as he grunted and muttered insults and profanities.

Cindy blinked at him, dared to raise her head from the table, eyes held wide by trauma, the huge slap of bitter reality that prickled pain around her eyes and hitch in her breath. Her ear pulsed hot from the strain of rough grab.

Fox turned to the wall, kicked sharply, left a scratch of claws in the paper. His breathing was all over the place, sucking painted lungfuls of air. She heard his heartbeat, raging faster than hers.

She watched on, massaged the throb in her ear, half aware, half elsewhere, the unbelievable sight holding her back from the urge to flee and scream for help.

Jar raised his paws and pulled the tips of his ears. Hem of shirt raised, slim stomach, visible bones of ribs. She knew from Sam foxes were meant to be lanky, but he looked too lanky. She’d always thought of him being a fat fox, but how often would he be seen without his over padded jacket?

“It’s not cuz ‘faid of yuh,” he grunted out of nowhere, motionless in grasp of ears. “I’d do it, just… jus’ teachers an stuff. It’s bad idea. Would get… in trouble.”

Through a shiver of breath, Cindy forced herself to speak, though it rasped with emotion and the sicking tightness in her gut. “You’d really take my eye?”

“Yea!” he shot, glare snapped towards her. Eye contact held, then faltered, and his gaze fell to his feet. “Yeah…”

Head swelling with images of violence, breaths quickened to shallow gasps, glancing the gloom for a weapon, something to defend herself with. Yet somehow, the impulse to scream for a teacher had died from her desires.

“Dad say,” Jar said, back turned… “Dad say gotta show munches their place. Dad say don’t take shit from em, keep em down, they ain’t your friend.”

Her heart wasn’t calming down in her chest, instead forcing breaths to grow faster and faster, limbs trembling as the fox’s every movement seemed to heighten into oversharp focus.

The fox crossed his arms, hugged himself in silence, rage fled to a passive stare ahead. Breaths slow, voice scratchy with what sounded like crying, but obviously couldn’t be.

Fox turned abruptly, moved to speak, froze as he locked eyes with Cindy.

She became all too aware of the tells she was giving. Heaving breaths, twitching paws, stains of moisture around her eyes, patching her cheeks, betraying her weakness to the fox she wanted to show no part of it.

There was a glisten around the fox’s eyes too, but that must have been an illusion of the light. The frowning twitch of his lips was a lie, a scam, as was the grief in his voice as he moved towards her. “Cindy, it was wrong-“

Cindy grabbed the one weapon she’d spied, jabbed the wooden knife in his direction. “Back. Back!” It was laughable, her choice of weapon, but fox’s reaction seemed somehow just the same as if she’d wielded a sword.

He shuddered to a stop, held in place, eyes with glinting wetness glanced between knife and hare, look of wretched grimace plaguing his maw.

Cindy chuckled inwardly, chuckled through her tears; fear lifted to strength she didn’t know existed, dizzying power spinning her mind, a fox held at bay beneath her paw. A predator’s whim contained by a prey.

She didn’t let the excitement show, knew it would break the spell. Didn’t know how long it would hold, half expected she’d be dead in the next few minutes. Didn’t care. Gritted her teeth. Took the moment and its dreadful delight while it lasted.

Jar swayed in place, watched in silence, fidgeted with his paws, expression Cindy couldn’t name on his features. Anger, remorse? Seemed to mix both. The emotion in his voice showed the truth, however.

“You hate me.”

Cindy snorted, insulted at the regret, the guilt she felt in his voice. She shook her head in confusion, unsure what the stupid fox even expected her to say.

“You just threatened to take my eye.” She tilted her head, showed her scar. “Yesterday you gave me this. Every day you bully and scare me, push me around, steal my work, talk me down. Yeah I hate ya.” Jaw clenched as she felt truth, remorseless, flow from her mouth. “I’d gut you with this knife if it weren’t made from wood. Just as you’d maul me first chance you got if you could get ‘way with it.”

“I didn’t… I never wanted to hurt anyone.”

“No? No!” She stood on the seat, eyes level with the startled fox. “Then why ya hurt me? Why ya claw me? Why ya hate me? ‘Never wanted to hurt anyone.'” She snorted. “Fuck you, liar.”

Her heart was boiling, clothes constricting, she wanted him to react, drop this act of pitiful regret and remorse, to show his true self and to cement her opinion of who he was.

“You like hurting us, you like bullying people weaker than you.” She climbed onto the table, marched its narrow length, stood face to face with silent fox. “You’re a petty-arrogant-horrible little cub.”

His snarl was twitching, but he didn’t react with the aggression she was expecting. Didn’t bring satisfaction. Made her even madder. “Admit it. Admit it!” She grabbed the collar of his shirt, shoved him hard as she could manage.

Fox stumbled, snarling lips fully parted, white teeth glinted, blood red gums mixed with white and ebony. Her adrenaline was in her every vessel and it was impossible to hold off her sporadic shaking.

He grunted a low growl as his nostrils flared, Cindy felt the tickle of his face at the end of her whiskers.

She thumbed the edge of her little wooden knife: blunt, useless, but good enough to jab at his eye or split his nose. She’d been told by Sam how sensitive it was, how delicate; to aim for that if a fox ever attacked her.

He wouldn’t get her by surprise this time. She’d lose, maybe she’d die, but she’d give him a scar he’d remember his whole life.

Fox leaned into her, drew a glaring breath of scent from the air, ripple of muscle, wrinkles of snarl peaked on his muzzle, claws braced on the precapiss of conflict.

His snarl fell, looked away in what could only be called humiliation.

Her stance slacked and all she could do was look at him in utter puzzlement. What on terra was going on?

She tried to bring her anger back, tried to find new words and insults that would bring his rage and solidify her opinion, yet… the emotion was just gone, for both of them.

“I didn’t mean to…” he mumbled, though her tall ears caught every note.

“Din’t mean to hurt me? Ya mocking me now are ya?”

“It was wrong…”

Surge of confusion and frustration took over Cindy’s limp paws, and she sought for the closest thing to grab, Jar’s jacket, which she just threw at him with a muffled scream.

She held her paws and pulled down her ears, tried to stop the lake of emotions swimming in her spiked blood. But she found nothing to say, no retorts, no insults, no embers to relight the damp fire. So she just got off the table, padded to her chair and sat, crossing her paws and staring at the wall.

Quietness persevered for a long while, long enough for Cindy to start to really wonder why no teachers had passed by. Cindy nibbled some small specks of food, wondering if the world she was in right now was real. Her dislike and hatred of Jar was muddied by his lack of violence, and she disliked the uncertainty a lot.

“Haven’t reported what ya did yet,” Cindy brought up all of a sudden, with no expectations of what the reply would be, or even why she was still talking to the creature.

“Will yuh?”

“Why shouldn’t I?”

“Go, tell them everything. You think I’m scared? That’s all you prey are good for, leaving others to solve your problems because you’re weak and cowards.”

She glanced in Jar’s direction, squinted at the lack of conviction in his words. “I’m a coward?” The fox gazed back, but didn’t say she was. Cindy sighed, looked back to the wall. “If I’m a coward, what does that make you, Jaromey?”

Fox grumbled, grabbed his jacket, pulled it on.

Nothing passed through Cindy’s mind, just a dead stare at the red wall. Right ahead, marked in red background on the wall’s paper, a figure of a fox stood beside a hare, holding paws, dancing.

She raised a paw, touched her cheek. Hot, pulsing, would probably be a bruise tomorrow. Muscle at the base of her ear ached, probably torn, would be stiff and ache for a month. All these reasons to hate him. Yet she could not banish the feeling of sadness for his situation of confusion and regrets.

Certain ideas roamed her mind of her legs carrying her right in front of him, putting forth how she fully felt about him and the things that she wanted to do that involved his skull and the floor. But the impulse died without action, and she stared again at the shape of fox and hare on the wall.

She turned again to the real deal, the white fox stood anxiously an uncomfortable distance away. He looked his usually fat self now his jacket was on, yet the traits of his skinniness, lack of plumpness around his cheeks, narrow wrists, the way the fabric dangled as he moved, showed a reality she could never unsee.

She wasn’t sure she’d ever be able to see him as a monster again either. She wouldn’t let it stop her from hating him, but it was simply another aspect of him she could never forget.

Whatever drained his resolve, his anger must have been something pretty rough.

Cindy’s ear twitched, memory spiking curiosity. “So what did she say to you?”

“Uh?”

“Marta, when she whispered.”

“As if I’m telling you.”

Cindy twitched a smile, nodded to her half bowl of medley. “I’ll give you what’s left if you tell me.”

“As if I want your muncher food,” he sneered, yet she heard his footsteps approach.

Only the slightest tension bunched in Cindy’s shoulders as she heard him stop behind her. If he hadn’t acted in violence already, he wasn’t going to. There was nothing left he had that could shock her.

“Is it really so scary for me to know?” she said, held the bowl, twisted around to hand it, didn’t even care if it was taken without answer.

Jar gazed at the collection of shapes and colours, nose twitched, then he took it gingerly in paw, cupped a mouthful into his muzzle. He seemed pretty hungry.

The fox wandering away, Cindy accepted the reality no answer was coming, groped for her backpack, pulled out her notebook.

Clank drew her attention back, sight of empty bowl still rolling to a stop. She curled a brow, looked to the fox, saw him digging the corners of his mouth for any food left. Had he licked the bowl clean in so few seconds?

Jar noticed her looking, froze in place. He held her eye, huffed in exhaustion, said: “I gutta go to the wolf school rest of the week.”

She scowled, answer hadn’t explained anything. She’d give anything for the chance to attend the wolf’s private school, yet here it was being dished out as… as punishment?

Laughter bounced from around the corridor as she opened her mouth to ask, speech that sounded familiar enough to put her at ease, as Marta appeared from the corner and took spring to her office.

Cindy smiled up at the gray fox teacher who gave her a little affirming nod as she passed to her door, unlocked it said to wait.

She gestured to Jar, who followed begrudgingly, both mal disappearing behind the closed door.

Her smile fell, weariness, dejection, confusion on her muzzle. She was glad Marta hadn’t smelt the adrenaline in the air. She was glad the lights were dim enough she didn’t spot the stains of tears that lingered on her and, though it was tricky to admit, on Jar’s cheeks.

She took her pencil, and began to scribble her notes. There was a lot to think about, a lot to learn beyond the stupidity of teeth and jaws. And writing them down was the premium form of grasping understanding.

She just hoped Marta would be ready soon, as already she felt her own inhospitability growing again.

A dense forest of black bitterness, reaching and climbing up from her gut.