I was a cub when I wandered into my first beastfolk settlement. The small one room huts dusted the snow coated hill, plumes of smoke wafting into the air and fading to nothing high into the sky. The smell of baked sweet yams had lured me out of the hollow trunk I'd slept in the night before.

My claws grew dark with decaying leaf dust as I crawled across the icy winter soil. I was no stranger to the sounds and scents of civilization, but I had never before been so tempted to sneak my way in and snatch some warm food for myself. The honeyed aroma of slow-baked yams, seasoned with cinnamon and coated with goats milk butter, was so intoxicating, I was scaling the walls before I could fully wake up from my fitful sleep.

My attempt at leaping from the top of the wooden beam wall to the slanted roof of the nearest hut was clumsy, as expected of an uncoordinated cub of a mere ten winters.

My yelp echoed through the snowy hills of northern Kadash, melding with the foxen kits chasing each other about in the settlement square. My bare feet scrambled for some kind of purchase on the wall of the hut, toes scraping against the bamboo rods that barred the huts' windows. Shavings fluttered to the ground, which seemed to me thirty meters below. I glanced down, my empty stomach threatening to spill out of my mouth when vertigo overtook me. My claws scratched at the straw roofing, hay dust and fibers catching in my button nose.

With a yowl I attempted to hold in my kitten sneeze, but my body disobeyed my orders. The skin under my arms burned after I'd fallen, the pebbles digging into my flesh and winter fur. The saying that a cat always landed on its feet didn't often apply to Tiger Clan cubs.

"Are you alright, little one?" An adult male fox asked as he leaned over me, blocking the clouded sun from my face. A bushy mane of hair that was a few shades darker orange than mine made him appear more like a lion clan member than foxfolk. His angled eyes were the color of brass, arching eyebrows giving him a sly, proud look. He smelled strongly of sandalwood and myrrh, the sign that despite being middle-aged, he was on the council of elders.

I'd heard snippets concerning the council from the times I'd scamper around settled walls, and had once seen an elder from the Wolf Clan strike a vagrant urchin from afar. Naturally, I hissed at the smelly adult and scampered back up and over the wall.

I ran all the way back to the forest, my carelessness allowing rocks to scrape the padded soles of my otherwise humanoid feet. My breath swirled against my cheeks, warming and wetting my skin with condensation. My heart pounded in my chest with a horse's galloping rhythm. Collapsing against the first tree I managed to get to, my claws dug into the trunk, leaving behind long, jagged gorges.

I hid away in my hollow tree for the rest of the day, curled up into a tight ball and shivering. Despite the cold threatening to lull my exhausted body to sleep, I remained awake. My hunts had not gone well that winter, and if I didn't get something in my growling belly I'd starve to death. Dying in a tree, curled up like an abandoned baby squirrel, was not how I wanted to die. Even at that tender age, I knew that I would not accept a death that was anything less than old age.

The scent of lamb stew caught on the wind taunted me. Succulent meat mixed with braised carrots, potatoes seasoned with rosemary and thyme, all simmered together with goats milk and served with a side of leftover yams. Staring out at the settlement walls with such an intensity my eyes stung, I resolved to debase myself by stealing all the cooked food I desired the next day.

Thus, the next morning at the cusp of dawn I climbed up the walls again. I balanced on the top of the walls, the wooden beams that formed the barricade rounded and flattened at the ends. It would serve as a nice catwalk for me, but using it for such a covert operation would be unwise. Thinking better on leaping from rooftop to rooftop, I decided to traverse on ground level after taking proper stock of the settlement's layout.

Huts were built seemingly at random, constructed from straw, bamboo, and spruce. Where they'd gotten the bamboo I knew not, nor did I care beyond momentary curiosity. The nearby woods were all spruce and pine, I knew that for certain. The only pattern I could place was how the road seemed to spiral outward in a lazy arc from the center of the settlement. There, was my goal. The communal kitchens, where three, no, four cooks were already hard at work.

Sniffing the air I caught woodsmoke with undertones of pork. I swallowed the saliva that gushed forth from my inner cheeks and under my tongue, but still some slipped from the corners of my lips. Meat. Juicy, savory, rare meat. Glorious, fat lined, roasted in its own oils over an open fire swine. Oh, how my legs ached with the desire to pounce on that which was already dead and still. The fresh bread in the large wood stove oven was a mere whisper of a thought in that moment, a second victim if my real prize was lost to me.

I leapt from the wall, catching myself with my claws and allowing gravity to ease me safely to the ground. I cared not for the trail of evidence left behind in the wooden beam I'd gorged with my claws. I wiped my unsightly drool on the back of my hand, which I then rubbed on my tunic, stolen from some has-not during my sixth spring.

It had been fluttering so prettily in the wind, drying on a clothes line tied between a hook and a tree. The hook was twisted into the windowsill of a cabin I'd stumbled upon near the border of a human kingdom, which one I knew not. Nor did I know which manner of person the tunic belonged to, nor did I concern myself over it. It was white, sparkled in the sun, and the blanket I used as a shawl had grown holes. So I ran up to it, snatched it free of its pins, and left behind my blanket in exchange. If what I stole had any sentimental value, surely giving up the only thing I owned for myself would even the sin in Ibis's eyes.

I'd grown into the tunic some, but I still had a ways to go before my stunted body would fill it out. The silk turned from a brilliant white to a mud-stained gray, but I'd wear it until it was nothing but rags. I'd steal my meal just as I'd stolen my clothes, in and out, unseen and unheard.

My skill in creeping through the tiny patches of shade was unmatched, and I hopped to and fro through the village without being spotted by anyone. Except perhaps the vixen that watched me duck and roll from across the street, and her three wide-eyed kits. But other than that, I was a ghost.

I crouched low to the ground once I'd reached the square, peering over the edge of a prep table. My prey sat in its entirety within a tray on a table across from my cover, being basted in its own oily juices. It was already a crispy red-brown, the skin cooked clean through, but I could smell the rare meat inside. Licking my lips and swallowing, I observed for an opening in the cooks' production line.

One was an elder, who was delegating tasks to the others while he chopped carrots. The second was a young vixen who whispered to the third cook as she kneaded dough. Her conversation partner was an older male who was in charge of basting my morning meal. The fourth cook... was standing next to me and silently staring me down.

I'd been spotted! My chance at planning stolen, I leapt across the table, scrambling on all fours. Plates and potatoes clattered and bounced on the ground around my hands and feet as I briefly touched down before bounding back up onto the prep table the vixen and older fox were working on. I tuned out the surprised cries of the younger cooks, and the enraged outcry from the elder. My prize was half a meter in front of me, and I would eat today. Forgoing the tray, I hugged the whole sizzling pig around the belly like it was a prized pet. It blistered my flesh with burns, but I held on tight and ran. My feet pattered against the road as I made a mad dash for the gates.

However, luck was truly not on my side that winter. A few passing warriors had caught onto what I was doing with their breakfast, and cut me off. With no other option I darted and weaved between the huts until I reached the barricading walls. I tried to hitch my way up with one hand, but found the extra weight too burdensome. While I was jumping and scratching at the wall, the same foxfolk from the day previous snuck up behind me and snatched the scruff of my tunic.

I yowled, kicking my feet in the air when he lifted me up and left me dangling. Desperate to feed myself before the cruel adults could tear my prize from me, I sunk my teeth into the pig's ear.

Delicious meat juice squirted between my fangs and coated my slobbering tongue. The woodsmoke it was roasted over gave it a divine earthen undertone like I'd never tasted before. So this was why people cooked.

"Hey now," the middle-aged elder scolded me as I ripped the pig's ear off and chewed. "What's a little tyke like you going to do with a whole boar to eat? Surely you can't gobble it all down by yourself."

"I can, and I will!" I insisted around a mouth full of glorious crispy meat.

"Perhaps, but you'll get yourself sick."

"I don't care!" I tore off the other ear, clutching the swine tighter. In my haste to fill my belly, all decorum flew out the window and I chewed with my mouth open.

"You'll throw it up, and it'll all go to waste, little one." I froze mid-chew, my lips puckered in distaste at the very notion. The adult foxfolk spun me so we were eye to eye, my little filthy feet dangling. I'd never seen such a gentle smile on an adult's face before—at the very least not in my direction. He reminded me of the happy parents I'd spy on occasion, patting their little ones' heads and hoisting them upon their shoulders. "If you return what's left, I promise that we'll break bread with you and share a portion."

For a moment I listened to my instincts that desired to keep it all for myself, clutching it closer to my dirty tunic. But after a few moments of staring into his gentle brass eyes and seeing him grin at me with the patience of a slightly mischievous saint, I held my prize out, silently relinquishing it.

"There's a good little tyke," he praised as he set me down and hoisted the pork up in one hand. "Let's head back to Nao and the others, hm?" He reached his other hand down to me, palm up. Suddenly the scent of sandalwood and myrrh wasn't so scary, with his calloused and scarred hand outstretched to me. His claws were painted with balsam and wood sorrel, which stained his nail surface a vibrant but soft matte vermillion.

I placed my oil-coated hand in his, and walked by his side into the street. The two warriors that had chased me stood off to the side, heads bowed and fists pressed to their palms.

"My name is Natsuki, what's yours, little one?" The fox holding my hand asked me.

"Chesire," I replied.

"It's a pleasure to make your acquaintance, little Chesire."

That was how I met Akabane Natsuki, the fox elder who dreamed of unifying the disparate clans of beastfolk. He was my first taste of kindness, and a fair, just hand. He was my mentor in life, and father in death. He'd never live to see the day of the Kavashian Empire I built, but I live my every day knowing that I brought into reality the fantasy he'd been ridiculed for.