"Mian, come here." Mian hurried towards the guardian of his group. During the day, the younger ones were spread up into groups to be watched over by 'guardians', older members of the pack.

"You're going out." She said, her arms folded beneath her brown and black wings. The owl-like demi-human had always been a bit of a puzzle to Mian. She was obviously a bird type of demi-human, but she stayed with them who were of the feline kind.

"Out?" He asked hesitantly.

"Yes, out. Guardian Brian just came over. He will be leading a small party into the wilderness to explore a potential site of resources. You are on that party." She eyed him up and down before hurriedly urging him out of the cave. She led him a ways into the forest until they came upon a small group of fifteen demi-humans. All the demi-humans in the party were young, all within the age range of eighteen to twenty three. Mian even knew quite a few of them from the group.

He kept his eyes low as they approached the group, feeling multiple pairs of eyes fixed on him. His eyes didn't even try to travel in Brian's direction. Brian was the black furred demi-human that had chased him back to his group the day before when he was hunting. He could feel the older man's glare trying to bore through his soft skin, and he was sure that if given the chance, Brian wouldn't hesitate to bore his sharp claws into Mian's skin.

"Took you long enough." Brian growled in Mian's direction.

"Sorry, I had to find Mian." Mian's guardian, Ophelia apologized and pushed Mian a step forward so he was standing with all the other boys. They all towered over him, even those that were younger than him. Their muscles were well built, and buffed them up, unlike his own wiry frame. He felt like crying.

"Let's get going." Brian turned and began leading them into the forest after a short conversation with Ophelia. The boys all followed him, with Mian falling behind them. Of course, it didn't take long for a conversation to start up between the boys.

"What's 'he' doing here?" Mian heard one of the boys at the front murmur.

"I don't know, maybe bait for anything we need to trap. He's so scrawny that I doubt he could do anything to a wild animal." Someone replied.

The boys began to chip into the conversation one by one, and soon enough, their voices rose, no longer trying to cover up their mocking comments. Tears pricked the corner of Mian's eyes, but he held it in. He wouldn't show weakness to any of them. They weren't worth it.

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"Hey, don't you think that isn't fair? He didn't ask to be born the way he was." A particularly large demi-human who was walking at the back, just a couple steps ahead of Mian spoke up. Mian knew him. His name was Dion, and he was the next in line for the position of Patriarch, after the current one stepped down, which wasn't for at least ten more years. Dion had just turned eighteen a few months ago, but he was already large enough to have you mistake him for someone older.

"A little teasing never hurt anyone, Dion." One of the older boys replied sharply.

"Fine, do whatever you want." Dion sighed and shrugged when he saw that Brian wasn't going to step in. He always knew that Mian wasn't exactly liked in the pack, but he didn't think that even a guardian would be so childish to let something like this happen right in their presence. He huffed and took a peek back at Mian whose shoulders had drooped even lower. The smaller boy looked close to tears at this point.

Dion took a few shorter steps, startling Mian when he suddenly fell in step beside him. He could feel Mian's nerves, just as much as he saw tiny stands of fur lifting up from Mian's shoulders. The pup was obviously scared.

"Are you okay?" Dion was almost whispering to avoid scaring Mian too much, which he still failed to achieve in the end. Mian stumbled as his body froze for half a second, only avoiding face-planting the rough ground thanks to Dion's arm slipping around his middle to hold him up.

Heart pounding, and fear running through his veins, Mian froze up in Dion's grasp. His skin prickled where it came in contact with Dion's thick fur, waiting for the pain of toxins which never came. Peeking up, he noticed that Dion was also peering down at him, looking at him like one puzzle that needed to be solved.

The group ahead hadn't noticed what happened, thankfully. Mian didn't need any other thing to be teased about when he returned home.

"Are you okay, pup?" Dion asked, his left ear flicking. Mian caught a glance of gray fur lining the inside of the younger boy's ear.

"I-I'm fine. I just..."

"It's okay, don't worry about it." Dion set him back down on his feet. "I just wanted to make sure you were alright. Don't take what they say to heart, okay?"

Mian nodded rigidly, his body still tense.

"Well, do you mind if I walk with you? I don't really get along with assholes all that well." Dion smiled at Mian, showing off his white, glistening canines. Mian just averted his eyes and nodded with a gulp of saliva.

"What are the two of you doing, wasting time back there?" Brian's voice cut through the silent air. Mian's head snapped up so quickly that Dion would have thought that he had heard a predator rounding the corner to attack a litter of pups.

They quickly hurried up to join the group after noticing they had fallen back quite a bit. Dion scoffed when one of the other boys raised a brow at him after noticing that he wasn't going to join up with them at the front, and leave Mian alone at the back.

This was going to be a long, annoying trip.