Waving goodbye to the family, I slowly closed the gate behind them.

“She was not mean like you thought!” Fizz told her parents. I smiled as I turned away, as to not hear any of their private conversations.

No one else realized how good my hearing could be, and I didn’t want to betray their friendship by snooping.

Hurrying back to the house, I slowed my approach once I noticed Vim. He was standing away from the porch, on the grass. He was looking down at something.

There didn’t seem to be anything in front of him, so I slowly approached… just in case it was something that I could scare away by not being quiet or careful.

Vim ignored me as I stepped up behind him and peered around him.

It was a small mouse, busy cleaning its fur.

“They were happy. You did well,” Vim said softly.

“Hm? Fizz and her mother are nice,” I said. I hadn’t spent much time with John, her husband, but he seemed gentle. A little meek, he had bowed to me as a greeting and on goodbye.

“They are. Gentle souls who pity the world around them,” Vim said.

The mouse looked up, but not at us. It looked to the sky, and then after a moment returned to cleaning itself. Why was it sitting out in the open like this? Usually they hid away.

“A typical field mouse. Found everywhere, in abundance. A pest to most,” Vim said with a gesture.

“Hm… they are everywhere,” I agreed.

“Yet, not usually here,” Vim said after a moment.

“Oh?” was that why he was staring at it? “Is that because there’re no fields here?” I asked.

“Rather because of what’s hidden in the stones. But it is of no importance. Probably just got carried in somewhere. The storage rooms aren’t too far from here, after all,” Vim said as he stepped away.

I studied the little mouse a little longer, and wondered what he was thinking. Was he trying to decide if its presence was worth noting? Did he simply notice it and find it odd? Or was he worried about it, or the possibility of it being here?

Joining Vim, I too stepped away and we went back into the house. I closed the door behind us, and for a tiny moment the house felt cold. Empty.

It had been so lively a few moments ago.

A single plate of pastries remained, stacked on a small silver plate on the table. We hadn’t eaten so much as that was all that were left, they had taken a plate or two back home with them.

Vim paused before the table, and then after a moment reached out to grab one of them. I smiled as I watched him eat the pastry calmly.

I see. So he felt comfortable eating in front of me, yet not everyone else.

Why was that? Maybe I was reading too much into it.

Maybe he just didn’t like eating in front of Henrietta. Maybe it wasn’t that I was special, but that she was… in a certain way.

“Did… did Henrietta act strange to you, or was that just me?” I asked him carefully.

Vim paused in his chewing. He turned to me and smiled. He then swallowed and nodded. “She acts odd around me, yes. I’m assuming she became more natural after I left?” he asked.

“She did,” I nodded. That was the entire reason I had noticed it. She had become almost a different person, becoming much more talkative and happy. Where before she had all but ignored me, once Vim left she actually acknowledged my presence and did so in a good way.

“Did you notice anything odd about Fizz?” Vim asked, changing the memories I was examining.

“Not really…? She seems… normal? A happy, healthy child,” I said as I walked over to the table. I didn’t sit down, but instead put my hands on the back of the chair, the one that Fizz had been seating upon.

“Good. I’m glad.”

Maybe something had happened to her. Or maybe she wasn’t as fine as she had seemed.

“Should I worry for her?” I asked him.

He shook his head. “No. I simply noticed once again that she has inherited the strength of our kind, and not her parents,” he said.

“Oh. Yes. I noticed that too. She had been very careful in her touching and playing with me, to the point that I realized it was something ingrained in her. As if she was afraid to touch me too harshly,” I said.

“Your ears and tail?”

I nodded. So he had noticed too.

“She’s a good girl,” he noted.

“She is.”

Vim swallowed the last bite of the pastry, and I noticed him eyeballing another. I couldn’t blame him, they were delicious.

This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

“Fizz said her mother acted oddly around you because you’re her first love,” I said.

“First love,” Vim sighed as he took another pastry from the table. One of the smaller ones. It looked rather funny in his hand, I expected it to be nothing but a single bite… and quickly my expectations were shown true. He barely chewed it.

“Were they some of the ones who didn’t want to meet me? Originally?” I asked, changing the topic a little. He hadn’t grown upset with me, but I noticed he hadn’t actually responded to it.

“Yes. But don’t feel bad… they’re dogs. You and them don’t usually get along, you know?” he said with a smile.

“Huh?” I perked up at that and wondered if that was why they had been so…

“Hm? Were you off-put by them?” Vim asked, amused.

“Honestly yes. At first I did feel a little… odd. I for some reason had felt on alert from the moment I saw them. I had even felt as if Henrietta was ignoring me at first,” I said.

“Well… she probably was,” Vim said softly as he pulled a chair back as to sit in it.

A little excited to hear he was willing to talk about it openly, I pulled the chair I held back as well. I sat down in the seat Fizz had been in; while Vim sat down in the same chair he had last time.

He really was a man of consistence. He rarely deviated didn’t he? Something told me he sat in that chair whenever he was here, and had done so for years.

“Because I’m a cat,” I said. That made a lot more sense than her being antagonistic just because I was with Vim. Even if she was fond of him, it couldn’t be that bad.

“Amongst other things,” Vim said as he reached out for another pastry. He took the biggest off the plate this time.

A little amused, I watched him slowly eat it. He was staring at the plate, as if planning on which one he’d eat next.

“Aren’t dogs a kind of predator? Why did they act as if they weren’t?” I asked.

“Note I called them dogs and not wolves. Dogs can be hunters, but most of that instinct has been diluted from them. They’re not prey, yet are… I guess they’re something that can be either or. Personally I expect Fizz to be a predator, based off her personality and her strength. She had planned to attack you I think, earlier,” Vim said.

“I think she meant to as well!” I nodded; glad I hadn’t been the only one to think so.

“She gave up at the sight of you. I wonder if it was instinct, or that weird smile you had at the time?” Vim asked himself.

“I had a weird smile?” I asked as I touched my face. Was it anything like the one I had on right now?

“Not as weird as that one, but yes,” Vim said as he took the last bite of his pastry.

He licked his lips, and I found myself transfixed as I watched him study the plate. It was like watching a cat getting ready to pounce, he looked wound up.

Yet he didn’t reach for another one.

“We leave in the morning. I suggest you read that book while you can,” Vim then said.

I startled, since he was now looking at me. Book… yes… that little white book…

It was still sitting on the counter to my right, near the fireplace. I had put it there since we had been eating, and I didn’t want to get it dirty.

Vim stood from the table. He grabbed the book off the counter and studied it for a moment.

“Smaller than I remember,” Vim said softly to himself.

I blinked as he turned and then put the book down onto the table, in front of me.

He had said it was older than me.

“How’s it feel Renn?” Vim asked as he went to sit back down.

“Right now I’m happy. I made more friends. Good people. Makes me forget about a lot of the bad stuff,” I said honestly as I reached for the book.

“Cherish those emotions. It’ll help you through the tough moments,” he said.

I nodded as I opened the book. It was small; it only had a few dozen pages it seemed. The pages were thicker than I had assumed they were.

There was no title. And the writing had begun not on the first page, but on the back of the cover. The handwriting was… a little too clean. As if…

“How did she write this?” I asked him. I didn’t know the name of the author, since Vim had only said he had killed her… but…

“Carefully.”

Carefully indeed… there weren’t any ink splotches, or remnants of what usually came with writing with ink.

And the letters were very… pristine. Flawless. And each was a mirror copy of the last. Whoever this woman was, she had probably written a lot in her years to have earned this level of skill.

Reading the first few sentences, I hesitated.

“She wrote this for you,” I said as I read the rest of the first page quickly.

Vim said nothing as I took in the information. She had written it for the man who was destined to kill her. This was for the one who would have to endure an eternity, and all those who followed.

Flipping the page I quickly became transfixed. Engrossed in a woman’s words who had written not for a collective but for an individual.

For Vim… and only him.

“Protect them. The ones too weak. Those too cowardly. Them who you’d pity,” I spoke aloud as I read.

Looking up at Vim, I stared at the man who this book had been written for.

“This isn’t a book of the Societies rules at all,” I said to him.

“No. It’s not,” he said.

I gulped as I looked back to the book, the one that listed all the rules for the protector. For Vim. For the man sitting across the table.

This did not tell at all how a member of the Society was supposed to live. Nor act. It made no mention of what was expected of a member, or their duties.

This was a book for the protector.

Slowly closing the book, even though I longed to read the rest… I didn’t know what to say or do.

“Does the chronicler know?” I asked.

“If she does she’s never mentioned it,” Vim said.

“You killed her,” I said. She had known he would, and loved him for it all the same.

“I did.”

Then why did she write this? As if she had entrusted him with everything. As if she had loved him because of the fact that he was going to take her life.

“Why did you give me this one?” I whispered.

“Do you want to be a member of the Society, or do you want to protect the ones who are?” Vim then asked.

My tail went stiff. My ears perked up. My eyes hardened.

I squeezed the book, but not so hard that it’d damage it. It was precious after all.

Not only was it the rules for a protector… it was also something of a last will. A final letter. The last words of someone precious, for one whom she had considered precious.

Vim nodded as he pointed to the book in my hands. “Read that and decide by the time we leave. If you think you can follow those guidelines… if you can live without breaking those rules… then I’ll let you try. I’ll let you have the chance. As will the rest,” Vim said.

My answer was to open the book and return to reading.