Mau woke up staring at the ceiling of a hide tent. Her head throbbed as she slowly sat herself up, shifting aside several fur blankets in the process.

"Ungh..." She groaned, feeling sore and achey all over. "Was I hit by the Summoning Truck again...?"

She nearly jolted out of her skin with a mewl as a voice to her side spoke up.

"What is a truck?"

Mau's heart hammered in her chest for a moment before her eyes adjusted to the dark of the tent to see the origin of the voice.

"Is it an animal?" Suvdaa asked a hint of curiosity in her cold tone.

"Cripes, it's you." Mau huffed as she flopped back onto the furs. "Now I remember what hit me." She said with a huff. Just moving made her feel dizzy and nauseous, and she struggled to keep her stomach settled.

"You're concussed. Just lay down, dammit." Suvdaa said.

Mau, very clearly concussed, drunkenly slurred as she answered the previous question without thinking: "A truck is like a cart, but bigger, faster, and you don't want to get into a fight with one because you'll always lose."

"..."

Mau vaguely understood that her answer did not sit well with her host, and she waved a hand in the air to try and shoo off further questioning. "A truck is... Nothing, don't worry about it."

Suvdaa frowned at this answer even further.

"Dumb cat. First you lose badly and now you can't even answer a question." She sniffed irritably as Mau rolled onto her tummy.

The world was spinning and Mau hated just how much her head was throbbing.

"... I'm gonna throw up." Deep down Mau knew it was undignified for a hero like her to just empty her guts, but there was no tactful way to announce it as she started to retch.

"--Don't you dare in my tent!" Suvdaa snapped as she gripped Mau by the shoulder and helped her up.

They, thankfully, made it outside the tent before Mau lost it colorfully all over the ground while the other girl held her by the scruff of her neck. Mau tried to wipe her mouth with her forearm, but found that... She couldn't move.

She couldn't move a muscle, at all, she was almost perfectly limp in Suvdaa's grasp.

"... Okay... I think I'm good now." Mau announced.

Suvdaa didn't release her.

"... You can let me go now." Mau said.

Suvdaa still held her by the scruff.

"... Hey?" Mau mewed, starting to get agitated. "This isn't funny!"

"You really are a dumb cat. Can't even move when you get scruffed." Suvdaa muttered, finally letting her go.

Mau landed on her elbows with a grunt as she regained control of her body, and scowled.

"Don't do that again." Mau spat and grumbled.

"I'll do as I please. You lost. You're lucky we even packed you along with our haul for the hunt. We had to leave a perfectly good deer back there to make room for you on my horse." Suvdaa pointed out.

Mau was silent for a long beat as memory of the fight came back to her. She didn't just lose, she lost soundly, and it was almost absolutely embarrassing, how utter her defeat was.

"Why did you bring me along then?" Mau asked as realization dawned on her. The hunter had said she could join his people if she won against Suvdaa. And that clearly had not happened.

"Because your stubbornness impressed my father." Suvdaa said, shrugging. "Supposedly."

"Supposedly?"

"You kept getting up. Until I ended the fight, anyway. Tenacious, but dumb cat."

"Can you stop calling me a dumb cat?"

"You are a dumb cat." Suvdaa said with finality.

Mau huffed indignantly as the girl helped her back on her feet and back into the warmth of the tent before she flopped back among the fur blankets.

"You will be staying with me from now on." Suvdaa said matter of factly. "I will teach you our ways of life and fighting.

"... Just like that?" Mau asked.

"Don't get any stupid ideas about it. It was my father's orders." Suvdaa said, somewhere between flippant and petulant.

"Okay. So when do we start?" Mau asked earning a sharp prod to her chest.

"After you recover. And I will not go easy on you, dumb cat." Suvdaa replied, practically shoving Mau down among the furs. Already, Mau felt drowsy again, eyes growing heavy as she flopped onto the soft, plush, warm, blankets.

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"Ah... Yeah good point." She said as she closed her eyes. "Can you stop calling me dumb cat? I have a name, you know." She uttered, groggy.

"What is your name?" Suvdaa asked.

"Mau..."

There was silence for just a beat. Just long enough for Mau to drift back off to sleep.

"That's a dumb name for a dumb cat."

❧

It was a chill winter morning when the hungry little rabbit poked her head up and out of her burrow. Cautiously she crept from the safety of her home and out onto the snow, nose wiggling as she scented the air and wandered farther from her den, paws padding in the snow to leave shallow prints as she lifted her head up to make sure no predators were around before she sought out something to eat.

It was the last mistake the little rabbit ever made.

With barely a whistle as it cut through the air, an arrow sailed in from out of nowhere and caught the rabbit right in the heart. She was dead before she understood what had even happened, crumpling down into the snow with a small trickle of blood.

"Nice shot." Suvdaa said with mild approval. "But you're still a dumb cat."

Mau emerged from her hiding spot in the snow drifts, the white fur of her wolf-pelt hood and cloak helping her to blend in amid the snow as she lowered the bow in her grasp.

"It's been two years, you know." She said. "You can stop calling me a dumb cat."

Suvdaa shrugged the snow off her bear fur cloak as she pushed herself to her feet and the two approached the fallen rabbit.

"Two years of nothing but you being a hardheaded, stubborn, dumb cat and you expect me to call you anything else?" She replied.

Mau's nose scrunched as she picked up the rabbit by the scruff and pulled the arrow from the carcass, cleaning the blood off on the dead bunny's pelt before she stuffed the arrow back into her quiver.

"Don't pout. I said it was a nice shot, didn't I?" Suvdaa scoffed.

It was still fairly early in the morning by the time the two had finished their hunt, they returned to camp successful with rabbit in hand, which made for an excellent stew when lunch time rolled around. But even with the success of their hunt, there was no missing the fact that the entire clan was on edge.

That night they would leave the valley and attack the nearest settlement to the east. And after two years of living with her new, extended family as she was welcomed into the clan, the clan leader, Suvdaa's father, decided that both Mau and Suvdaa were finally old enough to join them on the raid.

Every member in the clan was both nervous and excited at the prospect of real battle. But it was something they trained for and experienced every day of their lives. They would be ready for it and they would be successful with plunder and spoils.

Mau wasn't of the same opinion. Raiding and pillaging wasn't exactly considered the most heroic of deeds, and she made absolutely sure it was understood by the clan head that she would not kill anyone if she absolutely did not have to.

"Mau, my child." He replied to her, that day. "While our people enjoy the thrill of hunt and battle, we are not drunk with bloodthirst." He said. "We spare the weak so that they may one day become strong and give us challenge."

They feasted that day on rabbit and deer and beer, celebrating and preparing for the raid to come. And when the sun set, they mounted their horses and rose off to the east.

"I will lead the first party and we will charge in first." The clan head said as their horses raced across the snowy flatlands and out of the valley that led into the great frozen plains. "We will soften their defenses for the second party, led by Suvdaa, who will strike swiftly and make off with any valuables, food, and livestock."

The plan was simple, and in theory would have worked. But the raiders had no way to know or expect the silence and desolation that awaited them...

The first party charged on ahead, and Mau was left in the second raiding party under Suvdaa's command as they slowed to let their horses rest and catch their breath while the first party started the chaos. But the chaos never came. Mau frowned, watching the horses and riders fade into the distance among the short huts and tents that comprised the little village they had selected for attack.

Even Suvdaa could tell something was very wrong as the horses pawed and scuffed at the ground where they all waited for the signal to begin the second phase of the assault. The signal never came. In fact, one of the riders from the first party made a hasty return, urging their horse to slow from a full tilt gallop as he reached the second raid party.

"What's wrong?" Suvdaa asked. "Why were we not signaled?"

The rider's horse panted heavily as it came to a stop and he exchanged several quick words with Suvdaa. Whatever he had to say made her frown.

Mau pulled her own horse up to Suvdaa's side when the rider turned away and trotted his horse back to the encampment.

"What's wrong?" Mau asked, tone hushed. Suvdaa was still frowning.

"The raid is called off." She said after a beat, much to the bewilderment of Mau and the other riders. But rather than turn about, the party advanced, horses trotting lazily towards the camp.

Soon the reason why the raid was called off became very clear.

There wasn't so much as a single soul to be found. And as they joined with the first raid party and everyone dismounted, Suvdaa's father approached.

"This is a bad omen. We are returning to our camp. Five minutes. Take any supplies you find and then we leave."

The parties split up. Even if there were no people, there was plenty of untouched food and items of value to be had. The raiders worked in grim silence, entering huts and tents to grab what they could.

"Work fast, dumb cat." Suvdaa prodded and Mau dismounted with a nod.

Ducking into a nearby tent that no one had checked yet, Mau's eyes adjusted to the darkness quickly as she started to rummage. Something was wrong with this. Something was so very wrong as she almost stumbled over a lump under a fur blanket at the center of the tent.

Mau reached down and knew she wouldn't like what she found. Especially when she lifted a cold, dead, severed hand from beneath the furs.

Then she saw the bloodstain. The telltale drag-lines where someone... Or something dragged a person kicking and screaming along the floor to the outside of the tent. The shout of shock and dismay from outside the tent made Mau come running out so fast that she had forgotten to drop the hand she was clutching.

Another raider came staggering out of one of the huts, pale, disgusted, and visibly shaking, making more of the raid party cautiously look to the hut, but they dared not enter. Suvdaa drew her hunting knife and darted inside. Mau followed right after her.

The sight that met them was grisly.

In the dark of the hut Mau could make out countless body parts, and only few of the bodies they belonged to. The ground and fur blankets were slick and sticky with blood, and Suvdaa was crouching over what looked like a partially consumed corpse as Mau approached her.

"... Well that's disgusting." Mau muttered, resting a hand on her hip. "I found this in another tent." She then added, holding up her now very extra spare hand.

"This is not funny, dumb cat." Suvdaa spat. "It looks like they were partly eaten."

"I know! I know!" Mau mewled. "It's a big deal, I get it!" She huffed, but Suvdaa shook her head.

"No, you do not get it. We must all leave, now." Suvdaa said, pushing past Mau to leave the hut and seek out her father. Mau finally let go of the hand in her hand, dropping it to the ground with a sorry plap.

"I have no idea what's going on." Mau said with a heavy sigh of exasperation as she followed Suvdaa out of the hut. The raiders were all already on their horses, every man and woman looking pale as though they had all just walked out of the hut of death. "Is someone going to explain what's going on?" Mau asked as she hopped into the saddle of her own horse. It was as she did that something made her ears prick up...

A mournful, keening, songlike whine and cry floated over the encampment on the wind. Just hearing it made many of the raiders cringe and shiver as the clan leader whispered a single word that Mau only barely caught...

"Wendigo..."