There are a number of places where we can begin our little chat, I had a number of adventures and misadventures in my life, picking one is tricky as I’ll have to start in the middle of it…. But hey, might as, well right?
                Come to think of it, I do have one story that really stands out, but it’s kind of long. Whatever, I’ll just assume you have patience for it.

                Back then I was at an all time low point my life, I don’t have those often so it’s easy to compare it to other times and say… ‘Damn, that was a shitty time.’
                Don’t get me wrong, my life was fine, really hadn’t had much to complain. I was a strong guy, I could take care of myself and I owed nothing to anyone, there wasn’t much more a man can ask for in this life.

                But enough about that, let’s start with the obvious, an introduction.
                I’m Azreth Aodh Aldebrand, most of those words mean nothing to me, so just call me Azreth and I’ll have no quarrel with you… Got that? Goooood…

                There are other things I could tell you, but they are boring details about my personal life. If we need to explain that, then I’ll explain later, so let’s just skip to what matters… The why I chose to start here.
                Frankly, it’s just because I wanted to, it felt wrong to start my tale anywhere else when this is certainly the start of the most eventful period of my life, so I figured if anything this will get my point across.

                Guess I should give some explanation as to why this a low point as well, hu?
                Well, a few days prior I was taking my sweet time at an inn, it was just the usual fun times and games, drinking with a bunch of people who I don’t know, and don’t care about who I am, trade a few punches, really loud chatter… Depending on how many bottles I had to drink the occasional inappropriate touch happening, followed by rejection or a great night… Fun times, as usual.
                Then I meet someone, she called herself Begonia, though I’m sure it’s a fake name. She was the most gorgeous lioness I’ve ever seen, with long silky and bright red hair that she braided to the side.
                Her fur was colored a darker shade to match with it and her body was just the right proportion, she had thick thighs, strong arms and a large bust, that she cared very little to conceal… It was horniness at first sight.
                She had this confidence to her, the air of someone who knows what they want and goes out to get it. She wanted me, and I wanted her too… So we had that in common an it was all we needed to spend the night drinking and flirting.
                Thing is, she didn’t want me for the same thing I wanted her for… Though that WAS part of it and it was a great and vibrant night for the two of us, she was also a bounty hunter set on collecting me… Or rather the reward for getting me back.

                Sober Azreth is a great fighter and a sharp guy with a keen judgment, drunk and horny Azreth is a mess and a lot easier to fool, so she spiced my drinks the night before and that was all it took really.
                I was heartbroken to find she had just sold me off to the town guard in exchange for a quick buck, though I could never fault her for doing it as I’d probably do the same in her shoes, It was a pity our time together was so short.
                And well, that explains the basis of it, the guard didn’t want to take any chances so they locked me up, got in contact with the reds and surely, I was now on my way to them.

                And as for why we start here…
                It will become clear by the end of this rant, or story if you want to call it that…

                The worst part of being chained, at least to me, was not the pain in my wrists or the piercing agony whenever I tried to release my tail… It was how boring it was… Watching the hours pass by with no one to talk to or nothing to do was infuriatingly slow.
                There is very little that I can say could harm me physically, but nothing devastated my moral more than being stuck doing something I didn’t want to do… And being in chains, at least in this scenario, was not something I appreciated.
                Needless to say I was pissed, it became my standard emotion to the point every time the stupid dog that comes to feed me showed up I’d try and take a jab at him just for some modicum of entertainment… Even that was pointless, he never retorted and only did his job and left, smart guy really, too smart even.
                Every day that passed in that cage was more maddening than the last, I tried everything from counting the trees in the distance to humming a dumb old sailor song… I got to bottle seventy-eight.

                But on this day, something different happened, as the convoy escorted me there was an abrupt stop and a lot of chatter all around.
                I remember standing up and gazing through the airholes to see what I thought was an unconscious kid, likely in his teens, he was lifted and carried away… I only saw him for a fraction of a second, so I assumed he was unimportant.
                Then a few minutes later another ruckus started, Alex, the aforementioned dog, was arguing with captain as he usually does, I overheard them speaking something about a ‘lost kid’ with no parents.
                The captain was buying it until they started talking about the stuff in his backpack, then he got really hissy about everything and ordered the dog to get him for a direct interrogation… Normally I would have been able to listen in, but there was just so much noise around that I couldn’t single them out.

                He motioned everyone to come and started talking to ‘the kid’, I was carefully peaking of from the very edge of my line of sight, but I could see him standing there apathetically…
                First thing I could tell was that he was not a kid, just a short guy, how you ask? Well no kid has those eyes, he looked so empty, he had no joy on his face, but also no anger or hate that would be common for a teen, he just had this miserable expression that said nothing and felt like nothing… If he was indeed a kid, I’d say he was a very sorry kid to be.
                It was infuriating to watch, the captain treated him like criminal from the get go and teased and mocked away, but what made it worse was that ‘the kid’ didn’t say anything back, not even once… not a single retort or scream, no witty comment, no mocking him back, nothing, he just stood there silently and took it pleading whenever he could…
                I wanted to punch him so hard! Who just sits there and cries like that?

                It was then that something happened. As they talked the captain go increasingly more sadistic… I wanted smash his disgusting smirk into a rock… but just as I watched, they started ganging up on the smaller guy, the captain lifted ‘the kid’ up and ordered one of his goons to approach.
                The smaller canine was crying his lungs out and pleading for someone to help him but none of them reacted… Seeing him so helpless sent me fuming, I tugged my tail on the floor and kept trying to release myself but all that did was cause more of a bloody mess,

                I was helpless and nothing grinds my gears more than being unable to do something... Anything… If I could I would have gone in there and punched those bastards and broke every single bone in their bodies.
                I have to say, I wasn’t really myself at the time… The fact that I was locked sent an aching pain inside me that bubbled its way to the surface and made me recoil in agony, I wanted to scream, I wanted to take something in my hands and smash it into a thousand little pieces just to alleviate the pressure.

                However, in spite of my suppressed rage, my brief moment of self-pity would last very shortly as the following words acted like a catalyst for the fire within me. “A living and breathing Redmane!”
                That name… That horrid name… It caused my hair to lift up and a powerful shiver to run along my skin, my teeth gritted and my hands contorted into the shape of a claw. I lifted myself up almost immediately without so much as care for my tail that bleed profusely from the sudden movement… I had to see him, I had to confirm it with my very own eyes.
                He was soaking wet, but it was clear as day, the fiery red fur was wet yet it still glistened in the sun, taunting me, just tantalizingly out of reach… That guy… That cowardly, whiny, miserable, petty and wimpy guy, was a REDMANE!

                Whatever sympathy I had for him disappeared in that very instant, my vision got red I felt every vein in my body throb in anticipation… I tugged harder trying desperately to get loose, I needed to get to him I needed to tear him open with my bare hands! “RAHHHHH!!! Give him to me… GIVE HIM NOW!!”

                “HEY, HEY, HEY!! Knock it off!” The captain rushed over and kicked the door open. “Stay put or we will put you down again!” He commanded.

                I not only cared very little for his orders, I was consumed in this primal rage. “YOU HAVE TO KILL HIM NOW!! IT’S THE LEAST HE DESERVES!!” I screamed.

                “I don’t care what you want! This is bigger than you! I don’t care if you make it anymore…” He leaned in, and I’m sure he meant to sound threatening. “… so, shut it or we will shut you permanently!” But I cared little for his petty threats, I wanted blood!
                “All of you, let’s get this convoy moving again! The sooner we get there the better.” He hurried everyone and the wagons started to get their engines running again.

                I was in so much anger my teeth started to hurt… If not them to do it then it had to be me, someone needed to make him pay, someone needed to give me my revenge, the revenge I never got.
                And then it came… A bone chilling quietude that caused that heat to die off and be replaced with a cold and dreadful aura.
                When I rage too hard, when my mind races to the absolute limit, I just snap… Something just takes over and that hatred is replaced by a single goal, my mind just won’t stop until it is done and everything done from there is to help me reach my objective.
                Looking back on it now, I felt sorry that the first time he saw me would be like that… And even more sorry about what would happen next.

                I analyzed carefully and concluded that all of the other wagons are supply wagons, this is the only prison… ‘If I stay still and don’t get ahead of myself, he will get sent here.’ I though.
                I took my sweet time analyzing my target from my bindings, one of the advantages of nearly tearing off my tail just now was that I had a little extra room to move.
                I followed him with my eyes watching his every move, at first, he just stood there helplessly crying and begging, normally I would think of how that was pathetic, but right now I wasn’t thinking about anything… Only daydreaming about what it would feel like to twist his neck or snap his spine in two.

                Then he did something out of the blue…
                It was sudden just a split second, he lunged at some other guard and grabbed something… I thought he might try to escape, and I worried that they might kill him, denying ME the opportunity, but not even that would elicit a response from me it was just annoying, an inconvenience into my plan.
                He started rolling and crying until the Shepperd dog approached him and grabbed something, a pair of googles… I remember that even in that state I though ‘who would risk their life for a pair of stupid googles?’
                Still it was lucky of me that he didn’t get any more harm done onto him, it was painstakingly slow to watch the two talking to each other like it was some sort separated lover in a novel… I just wanted them to hurry it up.

                And then Alex finally said the words, I almost had this glee to me… A grim and fatal satisfaction. “…The cell is occupied.” He said begrudgingly, but I knew the captain well so I didn’t have a shadow of a doubt of what would be next.

                “Put him with the other one! I don’t care!” The captain replied sending a vibrant spike of ecstasy down my spine, it was all coming together just like I thought.

                I know to you this might seem odd, so allow me to clear the air.
                You see every other one of my kin has a reason to hate the Redmanes, but to me this goes beyond simple preservation… This is personal, I had never seen a Redmane before, my father made a point of it, this was my first chance to get them back for what they did to me, PERSONALY!
                I admit, I wasn’t at my best behavior, thinking about how the perspective of killing this guy I barely knew anything about made me so happy, I can only feel shame now… But back then I didn’t know what I know now, and back then I was a lot pettier and completely the type of person who would take out my anger on someone who had nothing to do with it.
                And so I waited, patiently and happily with a grim song in my heart feeling that boredom finally slipping away as I thought I’d at least get something good out of this imprisonment.

                The door to my abode opened, creaking loudly as to greet my new cellmate, soon to be bloodstain. He walked in, taking every step very slowly, like he was coming into a funeral…. and in a sense, he was.
                As the door opened I had finally had the chance to make eye contact with him and I could immediately tell this one had no backbone to speak off.
                He was a short and skinny guy, I’d even go so far as to call him malnourished. He wore a mud-stained duffle coat that looked thick and worn out, brown factory-made pants and a grimy stained out undershirt… Those were obviously the only thing he had and I could smell he hadn’t changed them in a while, but the soldier likely didn’t notice or didn’t care about it.
                His hair was about shoulder high and it was this beautiful yet hateworthy reddish-brown with black tip … But the thing I noticed the most were, once again, his eyes.
                They were of a deep and almost glowing yellow yet they felt colorless to look at, they felt heavy, tired and worn out, he looked like he hadn’t had a good night of sleep in days, and he had this permanently grim expression in his face, had I not seen him earlier I would have guessed this was all fear, but it wasn’t.
                Thinking about what he used to look like makes me sad like you wouldn’t believe, the redmane I know now is almost a polar opposite of that miserable husk he used to be… But we will get there.