Dimyri ran off for some time alone, distressed by the situation they were in. After the disagreement with her mother, she needed to get out of that room and fast. Feeling the breeze on her fur was incredibly refreshing as she stuck to her cat form and shook her head, pawing at her ear and whiskers. She had lost track of how many rooftops she had jumped from, but she guessed that it was far enough for her to get some peace of mind. She sat at a third floor balcony, getting a good view to observe the dozens of people living their independent lives in the city.

  Kershin Market was a strange pce unlike any of the vilges she had seen before. Nekomata's travel around in their cat form finding safety amongst other people and taking advantage of their small forms to slip under parted windows and snag a bite from whatever food people leave around. She recalled the few times where her clutter travelled across a few vilges due to seasonal weather changes where their food source would grow scarce. In times of winter, they would dig out holes in the ground to seek shelter in the wild, or take refuge within abandoned homes left desote after a rough pilge. Sometimes they would live amongst poputed vilges if the people felt charitable enough to feed them, and even so they would accept it with caution.

  Only a lucky few would be accepted by a family when a child expressed their desire to keep a cat as a pet, and it would be a strange process. That decision would be discussed amongst the clutter but ultimately was left upon the cat in question who had the option of being adopted. It was a risk of its own right. There was no guarantee that the family was safe, and the future of that Nekomata would be left in question. There was no limit to how long a Nekomata could stay in her cat form, but there are side effects. If a Nekomata stays in her cat form, she adopts the mentality and behavior of a cat and slowly forgets how to behave and act in her humanoid form. It's like learning two nguages, if you neglect to use one the you begin to forget it over time.

  Dimyri only knew a small handful of Nekomata's who chose to stay when given the option to be taken in by a family. Of course, they were unaware about the cat's true identity and only time will tell what became of them. She hoped for the best for their futures, occasionally wondering what would have become of her life too. She stared down observing a loving family, an elvish mother and human father spoiling their half-elvish daughter with affection. She raised her tiny little hands with an adorable smile and asked her father to go up, and he would oblige by lifting her up to sit on his neck, her little feet hanging over his shoulders as she hung onto his hair for support. Such a cute squeal she had, kicking her little feet in joy as her mother held a basket in one hand while hooking her arm around her husband.

  Dimyri herself had the option one time, she remembered it well. She was seven winters of age looking up into the wide and curious eyes of a little girl who offered her a piece of cooked meat from her skewer. She had a younger brother and both of them took to Dimyri's presence happily, stroking her fur and spoiling her with strange human food. Her mother was against it, and Dimyri was too young to oppose. It wasn't a choice she was ready for, but those four days getting to know that family changed her thoughts about how humans work. That was the start of when she would disagree with her adopted sister Na'Vi, who saw only the worst in them... for good reason.

  Winter was coming soon, she could feel it. The cool air was growing more damp, she could feel its residue leaving her nose wet whenever she took a long sniff in the air to pick up any scents that caught her interest. Her ears flickered as she picked up an interesting noise of metal cshing with something else, and it repeated enough to catch her interest. The family had just slipped inside their homes so there was no reason for her to stay there. She wiggled her behind before leaping up and grabbing onto the rooftop, climbing over as she was surprised to find another stray cat there to meet her. It batted its yellow eyes and leaned in, sniffing before it narrowed its eyes and hissed.

  Dimyri ignored it and ran off, real cats could tell the difference between them. It didn't matter as right now she was following that metallic noice, hearing it grow louder before it was accompanied by grunts and yells. She leaned over the edge of a rge building to find the origin of that noise, discovering her sisters KuliKuli and Na'Vi caught in a tight alleyway surrounded by soldiers with spears. She was armed, her eyes wide with shock as she thought about what to do. Her concerns and fears would be relieved when she watched them jump into a manhole and escaping the men.

  'That was close.' Dimyri hung her head, feeling a small weight lift from her furry hind. She picked up the scent of her sister Syri slipping away, which led to her chasing after it. It didn't take long, just a quick leap from one building to the next before she found the hunter Leone running down the street carrying a bag. That is where the scent came from, Dimyri narrowed her tiny green eyes as she realized that her sister was kept confined into that bag. Following the hunter was rather easy, and soon he came to a halt in front of a stranger gray building at the corner of a road. She lowered her head to keep herself out of sight, peeking from the rooftop and watching the number of guards at the entrance. One of the stretched out his palm for the hunter to wait, then from around the corner came a row of white caravans reaching the building. She gasped as one of the carriages held Felix in a cage, sat with his head down rocking gently until the caravan stopped moving. He was approached by one of the soldiers who opened the cage and pulled him in, pushing him into the building as another man carried a sleeping woman with him. That woman had blue hair, Dimyri's heart began to race as she recognized her as Norowa Reta!

  A man dressed in white robes would be the st one to exit the front white caravan, surrounded by several guards as he met with Leone and the two exchanged words. There was something familiar about this older man, she couldn't figure it out but it was like an itch at the back of her head. She leaned in close and squinted at the figure, watching him look back to acknowledge the rest of the soldiers before he and the hunter disappeared through the building entrance. She blinked and lifted her head, looking at the building with the pointed towers and painted circur gss portraying a glow of mixed colors across the front entrance. A small statue was perched at the front center of the building, dispying the same flower image that their banners and robes carried.

  Dimyri decided to turn around, knowing it was safer to rey this information to the others. She recognized that man in the white robes, it took some time but she remember seeing him before without any of the robes. They never met, but she st remembered seeing him with her Aunt Alma months before. Another question to ask her mother, she decided it was more urgent to report her sister and friends whereabouts as she leapt from one building to the other in haste.

  On a busy street, a lone manhole cover began to shake and tremble before it was pushed open only for a horse to stomp the lid back down.

  "Ow!"

  Someone grumbled from below, hissing as the caravan wheeled by before she gave the cover another lift, sliding it out of the way. A spark of magic shot from the open manhole when out came a pair of cats, running down the street with the people walking around being none the wiser. KuliKuli and Na'Vi climbed their way from fence to balcony until they settled at a rooftop. They reverted to their humanoid forms, panting out of breath and colpsing on the floor.

  "Never... again..." Na'Vi croaked out, nearly choking as her face turned green.

  KuliKuli was on all fours coughing loudly, rolling to y on her back as she took a deep gasp of air. "Aaaah, fresh air!"

  It would be ten minutes ter when they fully recovered, sitting together in silence.

  "Hmmm..." KuliKuli hummed to herself, her eyebrows coming closer together as she stared at the ground.

  Na'Vi looked to her with interest, her eyes glowing in the dark now that it was night time. Her heterochromia made her stand out from the pack due to her left eye having a jade green color and her right eye being more hazel. "What is it, what's got you thinking?"

  KuliKuli wiggled her nose, sniffing again when her eyes lit up. "Mom?"

  Emyri pounced between the two, shifting to her humanoid state and cradling her girls between her arms. "Oh thank goodness, we've been looking for you two for hours!"

  She sniffed and made a face. "Phew! You two are in desperate need of a good wash."

  "We know." Na'Vi grumbled, wanting to wash the stink of the sewers off her fur as soon as she could.

  "Terribly sorry 'bout the folks 'ere. Had no idea dey were lookin' fer ye, woulda denied 'em service." Nyitzcha expined, offering Janette a cup of coffee.

  "None of us could have known, it's fine. Thanks for having us here." Janette replied, tipping the cy cup to her lips for a sip. The tavern had closed for the night, it wasn't until an hour after that they decided to return upon her insistence. The pce was empty, the front doors locked and most of the tables with their stools turned upside down on top of them. Nyitzcha was the only one there, her workers were dismissed for the day and now she was serving the girls drinks to calm their nerves. Janette sat alone facing her dwarf friend. At the round table beside her sat Emyri and Dimyri. Standing beside them was KuliKuli and Na'Vi drying off their wet hair as best as they could.

  "Thankfully it wasn't long until I found you." Dimyri mentioned, looking to her mother. "I was running around blindly until I caught your scent."

  "And I caught them thanks in part to their foul odor." Emyri teased back, swinging one leg over the other as her expression shifted back to a serious one. "Now, about the matter of rescuing the others."

  "We can't go in knocking on their front door." Janette said as a matter-of-factly. "So that option is out the window. They have too many men with them, how big did you say the building was?"

  "Big enough to be a house." Dimyri answered back. "It looked strange, there was this front garden the windows had these colors to them."

  "Sounds like a church, rather fitting." Janette mumbled, biting her nail.

  "Nut t'make mention of da city on high alert." Nyitzcha added, hopping on a stool. "We gut word of a few killings a few blocks away."

  Emyri leaned forward. "Dealing with those men may have not been my smartest choice."

  Janette stayed quiet, choosing not to reply. In her mind, she felt better with those men gone but it was an experience to take in. She was admittedly shaken when she saw Emyri take someone's life, and she couldn't tell why. Was it how easily she did it, or how the experience didn't even bother the cat mom?

  "Janette?"

  "Huh?" She blinked and rubbed her eyes. "I'm thinking."

  KuliKuli walked forward with a stern expression. "We watch them, just like how you watched us when you tried to rescue me."

  "Us?" Dimyri looked to her mom with a shared look of surprise.

  Emyri didn't seem too confident, pushing her stool back. "Honey, it won't be the same. You were in a remote house in a grassy pin, this is a city surrounded by hundreds of people."

  "We can't just sit around and do nothing, mom. I'm not losing them!"

  "No one is saying that we will." Emyri sighed, pressing her paw over her breast where her heart is. "The hunter is amongst them."

  Dimyri gave her a knowing look, a judgmental expression that hurt. She flinched and sucked her breath in.

  "I don't think he would trap up the pce, but it wouldn't surprise me. Monster Hunters are surprisingly versatile, they need to be if they're hired to kill any Monster out there." Janette expined, her fingers dancing over the table surface.

  "It's me that they're after." KuliKuli stated, catching everyone's attention. "And we don't have a lot of options or ideas. I say we go out in the morning to watch them. I have an idea, but I need you all to listen and give it a chance."

  Everyone leaned in close, listening to the Nekomata ramble on as she shared what she had in mind in soft little whispers.

  Emyri leaned back in shock. "Absolutely not!"

  "No mother, you don't get to tell me not to!" KuliKuli startled her by snapping back. "These are my friends who's lives are in danger, and my sister too!"

  Janette rubbed her chin giving the pn some thought. "It could work."

  "That's not helping." Emyri huffed.

  Nyitzcha chuckled and waved her drink up high. "Crazy enuff too!"

  "Okay, you are not helping!"

  "Mother, please. If it was Dad who was in danger, wouldn't you do anything to save him too?" KuliKuli asked, pleading with her mother for her support.

  Emyri's eyes swelled as she was taken aback by her words, struggling to respond. "But, wha-.... I-"

  "I'm not asking for your permission either." She added with a renowned confident look in her eyes. "I'm doing this and if you help me, that would help all of us a lot."

  "Mom." Dimyri said, giving her a look.

  Emyri sunk down, defeated. "Fine. I can't, even as KuliKuli you're so stubborn."

  "Must get that from Dad." KuliKuli smiled, embracing her mother in a tight hug.

  "That is what concerns me." Emyri whispered back, stroking her silver hair with a troubled look.