A man silently roamed the streets of a town further south of Froesé, about eight months prior to Reiki’s revival. The evening twilight essentially camouflaged his dark-green cloak against the buildings and alleys that he skirmished past, avoiding the buildings that were close to the shoreline that the town was based around. He had a quick pace to his step. He strode as if with a purpose, billowing out his cloak unintentionally as he darted into a dimly lit alleyway. The newly integrated Blightstone Lamps in the small town that adorned the main streets weren’t bright enough to light up the alleyway entrance, but his mental map kept him from bumping into any obstacles on his way through them.

As he darted down seemingly random alleys for a good minute, each and every one of the men, women and children in tattered clothing from this area of town was actively stepping aside into the smallest gaps the moment he turned into the thin alleys they found themselves in. He paid them no heed, as his attention finally focused on a large building hidden behind larger buildings that were used mainly in broad daylight.

He stepped through a heavily weathered door, slowing the pace of his footsteps as he ventured up to the first floor of the building. He paused at the sound of voices as he made his way along a creaky but mostly silent walkway with the odd assortment of boxes, crates and items littered about. He sneakily worked his way up to the door, assuming that some of their … guests had managed to escape their custody.

However, as his breath escaped his lips after a few seconds, he barged nonchalantly into the room and removed the hood from his head, yet still kept his cloak on, as he sat down at the largest desk in the room. Two men further away from his desk sat in front of a keg, one swiftly whipping a wooden beer mug through the liquid within it. It looked to him like they’d just had a slow day on the job. A job that might not be considered legal, but they skirmish the line so often, that they’ve never been caught for their heinous activities and at most could only get off with warnings for their actions.

A gruff voice exclaimed, in their native language of Engali, grabbing his own wooden flask from his newly stolen item bag and dipping it into the open barrel as he patted the small bag on his hip that was obviously smaller than the keg in terms of height. They both chuckled mischievously.

Replied a less gruff, but deeper-toned voice, belonging to a man who grabbed a large, empty wooden mug from the table in front of him and threw it directly onto the badly damaged, knee-height table beside him.

A thumb-sized coin, with a fancy “R” raised from its surface, bounced into the air from the harsh landing of the mug, landed on its side and then proceeded to roll off the table. The coin rolled awkwardly across a relatively smooth surface, before bumping into something. It was a young adult, a teenage woman, but her appearance was slightly different. A pair of slightly pointed but mostly curved and rounded ears poked up from her short blonde hair. A tawny-coloured tail that gently curled around her waist swished at the tip near her slightly muddied face.

Despite its speed and contact with her back, the coin did not stir her from whatever dream she was having. Her mostly exposed legs, with her shin blending into a hybridised form of cheetah legs, were tucked close to her chest under a small, thin, and fairly tattered sheet of cloth. None of the men paid her any attention as she slept. But her sleepy state would soon change.

the hooded man said after the two men stopped yapping away, mostly about what they would do after their big mission came up.

They made their way to the man’s desk, a stumble in one man’s step and a limp in the others, as they looked at the man with no sign of the cheerful looks on their faces just seconds prior.

A letter and a sketch are dropped onto the table after he removed them from the inside of his coat. <–that this girl is your next target.>

The limping one thrust his fist into his palm, a slight grin crawling onto his face. The other man was concerned with the woman in the sketch.

He slurred, the alcoholic drink obviously displaying its effects on his speech, let alone his posture.

The hooded man replied, the sides of his mouth curling mischievously.

He pointed to the guy whose name he couldn’t care about, the one with the limp, then slowly pointed towards the sleeping woman on the floor. <...take the Beastal girl, Teyla, Teela, or whatever she’s called, and start … collecting items from this list before you.> He pulled out a scrappy-looking piece of paper from a drawer in his desk, then thrust it into the young man’s hands.

<...Some of ‘ese might be ‘ard to come by without her, but some I can without. I’ll make sure to get right onnit, Boss!> He replied energetically, making the hooded man shake his head as soon as he left the room with a spry in his step.

He said to the other man. <...and not a word about this coup to anyone. I don’t want any of it traced back to me from Hibel.>

As the hooded man sat down, the drunk one staggered over to a small metal bowl on a windowsill and cast a soundless spell above it. The bowl filled almost to the brim with ice-cold water. Time slows as the man turns towards the Beastal girl, beads of water that sloshed in the bowl slowed to a crawl as the world faded into pitch black.

# # #

The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

The rain beat down harshly as a figure dragged herself through a mud-ridden road. Her tail was clutched in her hands tightly, as the sound of metal on metal clanged through the space around her. A tiger-man guard who’d been on patrol noticed her slowly enter the range of the torches that glowed on the walls of the gateway entrance.

The girl had an older woman trailing a few metres behind her, as she called out to the guard pleading for help. Something within her screamed at her to run when the man approached, but when he saw her mother, the man smiled oddly towards her. This man was no guard. He was one of the port-town’s local bandits parading as a guard.

Something felt off in that moment to the girl, as she found herself face down in the mud. A scream echoed off the walls that came from behind her; her mother's cry for her wellbeing was one she could never forget. The sound of her mother’s scream made the small patch of fur on her back rise instantly. As she lifted her head, with muddied hair partially blocking her view, she saw her brother being yanked free from her mother’s arms with force.

‘Don’t you dare touch my brother!’ She screamed in her native language, Rampani, surprising herself, and a second later, the men around her before her throat released a slightly feral roar mixed into her scream. ‘Rwaaahhh!’

The sudden silence of the startled men changed to those of shock. Two of them had to dodge the Beastal girl, with her short hair and cheetah-like appearance, as she vanished in a blur of speed before she snatched her brother from the man’s grasp. However, before she could even reach her mother, a hand grasped her neck from behind belonged to a man much taller and bulkier than herself. Her brother was yanked from her grip just as he was from her mother.

He chuckled in Engali, with a dark glint in his eyes that she immediately found herself staring into as she struggled to pry his hand from her neck and stopped her in her tracks. He sneered in addition, his native language leaving the young girl feeling very confused and frightened.

Her mother hugged her son as she turned to look at her daughter.

‘Teela, make sure they don’t overwork you.’ She heard her mother whisper before one of the men placed a leather bag over each of their heads. The unsaid words “We’ll find a way through this” came to Teela’s mind.

The scene blurred, colours shifting and objects distorting into a scene that looked about a few weeks after the encounter. She found herself racing around the docks with her speed looking for her designated target. This was her third attempt at pickpocketing people stepping off barges and ships destined for the not-so-small port-town of Wynsel. She began to pickpocket a man with a long black coat, right before a black-skinned hand grasped her wrist. He hoisted her fully into the air just as her hand left the pocket she had reached into.

The man asked, but Teela refused to speak, instead shaking her head as she attempted to wiggle free.

Being on the short side, Teela was often mistaken for a young child, but she was 17. That’s the age at which a person is considered an adult. The cheetah-girl finally had enough and upped her speed the moment his grip relaxed and raced away, devoid of the possession she was after.

‘I need to take back something...’ She thought to herself, as she found herself in an alleyway behind some of the stalls in the market square. ‘Otherwise, my family will take another beating from that robed human.’ She added in afterthought, as an ephemeral, mental depiction of a hero slitting his throat after attacking her mother crossing her mind.

The scene warps and changes again, to the sight of a guy walking down the street unknowingly with Teela tailing him. It’s been about a week since the market closed, the weather feeling prickly and nippy on the skin, even through the fur of some Beastals in the area, due to the approaching storm coming from the north. Teela’s speed had lessened in tandem with the approaching storm, so she wasn’t as useful to them as she was in warmer weather. The weather continued to worsen, and the collar silently activated with a glow as the darkened gem glinted red with a purple sigil on either side glowing brightly.

This had slowly forced her to turn away from the man she’d been tailing, the forced will of the owner of her slave collar pushing her back towards where she and her family were currently being held captive. She kept fighting the collar, but the headache and the weird sensation in her limbs wanting to move on their own will caused her to give in after a few minutes at a time.

‘Curse these shackles I’m bound with...’ Her dream self had thought, just before her whole body felt like it had been dropped into a river.

The icy bitterness of the feeling and the sudden black void around her had woken her enough to a state where a gentle breeze against her skin and now-drenched clothing quickly brought her to attention.

The man who’d dumped the water on her smugly grinned, speaking again in a language Teela barely understood. His grin faded as he added this, pointing at her, then himself, then the door.

Clearly visible on her face was the thought of defying this declaration towards her, but after a few seconds of looking away from him, with her tail now curled around her to her lap, she felt the collar begin its magic and glowed again, attempting to make her comply. The man wasn’t having any of her defiance this time, so he grabbed her arm, although this time forgetting to hold back due to her lack of nutrition.

Teela screamed out in agony as the much stronger man grasped her left forearm and proceeded to increase his grip enough to make her bones snap. The man was impatient, but this only made it worse when he raised his boot, attempting to knee her stomach.

The cloaked man yelled at him.

The man instantly dropped the cheetah-girl and knelt down, his right hand coming up and pressing two fingers to the front of his throat. This was their way of acknowledging their superiors in their ranks.

He replied.

The cloaked man replied, as he noticed Teela was crawling back to where she’d been napping until recently. He added’ as the other man hastily ran from the room.

She didn’t register much of the words he was saying, but she did recognise “sleep” and “little”. She snarled at him, and a strong red glow appeared on her collar, but the sigils didn’t glow. The sign that she shouldn’t be able to attack her “Master”, was immediately on the man’s face.

The girl silently wished her condition could get better someday. Little did she know, that her “someday” would arrive sooner than she thought.