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Let me tell you one thing: it was goddamn cold. I'd taken to walking pretty much as far as I could after that revelation, and though not a day had quite passed yet, I'd caught no sign of being tailed. I mean thank God, sure, but I will say the whole damn thing was nothing if not uneventful. And frigid.

I know, I know. It's easy to think I overreacted back there, but does that change my mind? Pah, absolutely not. I was determined and you ought to know that by now. From being ready to end myself to being captured, I sure as hell wasn't going to sit around and accept both at once. Now? Now I had neither weighing me down, and it was one of the strangest feelings I've ever... well, felt. That's what kept me going.

Beyond 'cold', the place was... not really like anything I'd ever seen. The Low Wastes were hardly urban, and Cliffside was my first taste of the city life. But this--place--while definitely not Cliffside, was most certainly rural. Reminded me of the countryside that you can see clear over the horizon back in the Wastes, with vehicular roads and green sprawling just outside damn near every house, stopping abruptly at the sidewalk. In fact, 20/20 hindsight incoming, I'm fairly certain that's exactly where it was.

Very cut and paste. Sucked dry any sense of individualism that might have otherwise been pretty neat to see, like a bucket of ticks. Totally couldn't stay here for long. Not that that mattered, really. I wasn't here to sightsee; rather the opposite. I needed to find the menagerie, know just what it was that I had going for me. Then... after that....

Shit. Didn't really think that through.

"Whatever," I said aloud for some reason. I instantly twirled around to purge the suspicion of fourty-foot rabbits looming behind me before sighing and continuing forth on my quest. Though, really, that wasn't the first step. First things first: I had to get a sense of direction. So I took a moment to gather thoughts, leaning against a wooden tower capped with... rectangular boxes? If nothing else this neighborhood had beaten my sense of scale numb. But it was just beside the virtual jungle of grass in front of one of the houses and I sure as hell wasn't goin' there, if that's a sign of what it had to be.

Hint: probably a mailbox.

At around this time, most thoughts I decided to vocalize weren't Commonspeak. I'll omit them for you. I'm nice like that. I was going to see more of my kind--it would behoove me to at least attempt to familiarize myself with the language, so any sort of audible deliberation consisted of squeaking gibberish with some slip-ups here and there that you probably wouldn't notice.

God, just thinking about my goal then reminds me of how excited I was. I'd see more people like me! People who I could finally relate with, people I had never even seen before outside of a broken piece of glass! Even if it was part morbid curiosity with how they could possibly live the way they'd have to in a zoo for precious folk, it's not like they'd be much different from me. It would solve so many--

"I was only trying to help."

I twisted around, nearly scowling. "You kidnapped me," I hissed, knowing full well who was there. I wasn't going to run, though, as my legs solidified into concrete pillars imbedding and anchoring me to the earth. "You stole me away from the only thing I wanted, asshole!"

But the towering rabbit wasn't where I expected her to be, nobody was. I was staring up--higher and higher and far beyond the grassy forest, and farther still up, at an empty, blinding sky, which was a far-enough cry from a rabbit's face.

My head lowered, but with the approximate effectiveness and speed of jelly being kicked about as a hockey puck, and don't mention the fraction of my retinas that had had just been potentially burned off by me staring into the sun because I frankly didn't give half my tail to care. Did kinda sting for a little while after, though.

But you don't want it anymore, do you?

Fucking...

"I don't." I shook my head at the empty air that spoke to me and mocked me all the same. I could practically hear the laughter and raspberries on top of Tevassa's scolding, whipping with the breeze like a lick of the old cat-o'-nine. "That was none of your business." A sigh escaped my frigid lips, which curled up to bare unthreatening teeth. "And look at me, this is an argument with myself. Nobody's even fucking here. I'd like to think this is an all-time low."

Just goes to show how much of an impact I've had on you, doesn't it? And in such a short time. The wind was filled with elation and amusement. But it wasn't the wind. It was me.

I took the remainder of the conversation back into my head, however little I knew there was left. And Tevassa would never say that, I retorted mentally. That's how I know this is bullshit.

The nagging returned to the back of my head. I was finishing my own thoughts, using Tevassa as the second voice. And yet you understand me well enough to know what I would and would not say.

I shook my head, blankly staring into the earth before me. Crumbling bits of concrete at the edge of the sidewalk jostled my memory back into place, where the rabbit's paws would likely be. I could imagine her, one hand on one hip, and with a leg bent onto the sidewalk with the other straight as could be, foot inching against the curb.

Fine, I conceded. I'd play the empathy game. Tevassa wouldn't be taunting me like my imagination liked to presume. She'd be accepting of the decision I'd made, but... disappointed, and a little saddened. As if she had the stage to blame me, but instead blamed herself for my escape. As if she had done something wrong, but was surprised that it was wrong at all. Was it?

Hm. Haha.

Let's not get ahead of ourselves quite yet; my mind hadn't changed. Nothing had. In fact, let's be real for five seconds. She was finito, done. Nothing could justify what she did, I thought. The whole ordeal was creepy and stupid and weird, and I didn't want to think past the fact. Call it ignorance if you will--I call it coping.

Though, looking back on it, I will say this: I judged the rabbit pretty harshly. Maybe I was just a little wrong in doing so, even if I felt completely justified at the time. People say that selfish and unruly demeanors are often due to 'masks' that those crestfallen who possess them have to put on. Personally, I think such personalities really can be intrinsic. Look no further for an example.

Ah, regardless. All I had to look forward to was the future and whatever lay ahead of me, not the past. Never-ending brick road? Bring it on. At least then I could see if there's an end at all.

So, let's ignore that and skip ahead a bit, because I just continued walking for another hour or two. I'm sure that'd be to the titillation of your much more, uh, palatable tastes, o friend of mine.

Surprisingly enough--heh--not many giant folk tended to be out and about, or at least if there were, none of them noticed me and vice versa. I suspected nothing less than a tier-2 Tevassa treatment, so interaction was 100% out of the question. I suppose it's like one of those things... back in the Wastes, it was said that 'swallowing even a strand of your own fur will acclimate you to the taste, and if you're told it is sweet then it will be the finest sugar'.

The moral of the ditty is not, however, to best understand something by eating it. Just, like, sort of a placebo effect kind of thing with experience thrown in. It's a needlessly archaic way of saying you'll either get used to something, make your own opinions of it, both, or know exactly what to expect from it after a first exposure. I have never abided by any law so closely in my life. And yet I never ate my own fur.

The reason why I bring that up is because... well, sometimes exposure is a teensy bit inevitable.

I saw her there, on the curb not ten concrete-cracks away. She was a giant--I would say Cliffsider but that's a lot less relevant here--a jaguar, dressed neatly. I noted that she huddled to herself, eyes boring into the concrete below. She was draped in a light skirt and dress shirt seemingly too large for her fit and covered in dirt and dust. However, such clothes were typically reserved formality, not simple street-mongers, and their state was not exactly befitting one who's had ample opportunity to stay clean.

Even though I came from the side I could tell she was young; easily in her mid-teens. Though abandoned and waiting on the sidewalk, her posture was cordial and straight, fingers forming a bridge between hands upon her knees. Was she waiting for someone or something? Bah, that didn't matter to me, I thought, swatting the air with open hands.

But... then again, I'd be running around in circles until the day I died if I kept going somewhere without leads. Maybe she could help with that. If a menagerie really did exist like I kept thinking, it wasn't a bad guess to assume she might know where it is. I mean that's one of those things you just know on part of living in the same place, right?

Ugh. I was already breaking my own rules.

"Hey. Cat." I approached her side and called out to her. "I have a question for you. Mind answering?" Did kinda forget that I still hadn't switched back to Commonspeak though, so wasn't really sure if she understood me at all. Wouldn't expect a jaguar to be able to grasp the finer details of shittily-done chinchilla. Squeakity-squeak might not mean a whole lot, but I didn't really care all that much, at least not enough to switch back. I could get her to lead me to where I needed to go without having to change my dialect a second time. That kind of thing is hard, mind you.

The jaguar turned, and boy was that the face of one who'd seen a ghost. Actually, one who'd seen me. Remember how I said chinchillas are rare? Yeah man, that's the normal reaction, and frankly it felt pretty cool to see it again. You could catch it plain in her red irises that I wasn't exactly something she'd expected to see, them going over my form like a bobber at the end of a rod.

"Oh? A chinchilla?" That's right buddy. "What are you doing so far from the menagerie...?"

Aha! Yes, yes, perfect. So not only was I right, she knew about it, too! I nodded vigorously and shrugged. Oh sure, I have no idea what I was doing so far from the menagerie, your words exactly. Now kindly take me there.

"I could return you to it. It would be right. Only a few blocks south, but... things," her voice was just so soft and accented with the language of felines, it practically melted me, "they have been so hard. Perhaps...?"

Oh, ugh. So there might have been a catch. I was practically on my knees and begging for fate not to hand me a basket case, not after taking me this damn far.

Still, I could be patient. Swishing my tail to the left and curling it around my legs, I looked away for few moments. Her response was something I'd simply have to wait for.

She seemed to deliberate, though she did hold out her palm for me to clamber onto. I did so. I mean, without the clambering part; it was more like gentle steps, you see. What I stood on was no longer ground at all, but a landscape of a kit's palm, smooth pink earth punctuated by patches of dark-gold fur. I've been gripped and held before--looking at you, rabbit lady--but this was, in all honesty, a new experience. It was willing.

"I-I don't know," she started again. A whip of a light breeze tousled her blazing scarlet hair like a wildfire, and blew the cloth of her dress against her chest, tracing her stomach--and every little rib hanging above--like a stencil. Man, and how you could practically see through the girl. I was tempted to compare her to a twig and remind her that that wasn't the part of the plant that does photosynthesis. Ooh, that's good.

"I haven't had anything in almost a week," the jaguar said meekly, as if having read my thoughts and was trying to make me understand something. Then she shook her head. "You're... so, so pretty. It's almost surprising," she cooed. A finger traced over my ears and down my back--you do not understand how good that can feel, like taking a hot bath without getting wet. "It's not the same to simply look at the little ones in passing. Such sleek fur...!"

Heh, yep. Er, hold up--where was this going? I would have asked as much, but frankly I was enjoying the petting way too much for my own dignity. I could have rolled over at any second and let her do that forever. Now why was that? A similar thing happened with Tevassa...

That mattered least. "But I'm so hungry, and--and a chinchilla alone likely means it's okay...."

Whoa whoa hold on. Eat me? Was that the direction she wanted to take this? Was that a thing?! My posture strung straight back up which scared off the titanic finger right and good. I was shocked, though I'd deadened my survival instincts long ago for purposes you well know about. I wasn't that scared, but I was immediately put off, as shown by my tail whipping to the left and puffing its fur out like a blowfish. Reasonably so, I'd like to think.

The jaguar's vermilion eyes--man, I confess: they really were kinda pretty--drooped down and away from me for a quick few seconds. Her pupils became heavy stones sinking into a pool of blood. C'mon, figure something out, I remember thinking. Didn't want to spend all day here.

"I'm sorry. But I need something." The jaguar was one hell of an apologetic attacker, I'll give her that. Pheh. She sounded so desperate.

That's not to say I didn't, but really not for the same reason. As it turned out, I was more impatient and angry than afraid at the revelation that she didn't plan on taking me where I wanted to go, and instead would rather subsist off me. I could spit at her if I so felt like it, though the back of my mind told me she didn't deserve that much. However, she also did not deserve me.

"This is so stupid, you've gotta be freaking kidding me," I whined aloud, shoving against the thumb at my right. Yeah. "I'm so fed up with this--you know what, it's like one giant or another. First Tevassa, now you? I am absolutely not having it anymore. Fuck you, fuck this, fuck everything--that's it. I don't need help. I can do this on my own and I sure as hell don't require any assistance of yours!"

The jaguar cocked her head and splayed her fuzzy, dark-edged ears to accompany a look full of inquisition. Ach, right. She didn't understand me. I was still chinchilla-ing, but by now the words made sense to my own ears, and well enough in my own head. It was good practice... though a return to something she could comprehend was well overdue. Finally, the daggers of her pupils thinned further before disappearing beneath tentative eyelids. Seeming to come to some consensus with what my words must have been--she was wrong--the feline shuffled her seat on the curb and shook her head.

"I'll make it fast, super-fast, I really promise." The fuzzy ground beneath me wavered and rumbled. The small--comparatively, okay?--mouth that had spilled such gentle words from its thin lips began to open up. Teeth littered the corners of my vision aaaaand nope, that was it, I was done. Don't judge me or anything, but I have a thing against teeth. Namely sharp ones and big ones. And that was there before I'd ever met a Cliffsider, or giant, or whatever you should call them.

So she'd made that decision, then. To eat another living creature not only because was it sensible to her diet, but because she was little more than an urchin without her way.

This... was insane. 'Predation' i.e. 'murder' was perfectly acceptable for giant folk to do--albeit apparently under certain circumstances--where I was, at least if that 'means it's okay' part was any lead on that. What the actual hell. Even though I was only there for a little while, I remember there were laws against that load of nonsense back in Cliffside--killing someone like me was a straight up illegality. Fifteen years in the slammer minimum.

Uh-uh, sorry. I have bigger aspirations than becoming kitty food and by God if she understood half my dialect's worth of curses I sure as hell would have been letting her know right away. What a waif. And I swear if someone out there questions what aspirations I could possibly have on part of being a shallow fuck, they'd be beating a dead horse back to life.

"You don't even know who I am!" I yelled. This time, she understood, eyelids fluttering like butterflies jostled by a chaotic breeze at the sudden clarity of my voice. I returned to Commonspeak for just this event. I was gonna tell her what for. "I am Chinchy, Jake from the Low--wait. God, screw all of it."

Well there went that idea.

I didn't give her a chance to register any of it. "You're not gonna eat me," I said. I remember my voice being quite firm. "I don't care how 'fine' it is or isn't. Kicking the dirt here will only scuff my boots, and I don't care to stick around--especially not now."

"Y-you can talk? Commonspeak?" Deja-freaking-vu.

I shook my head. Any second she might try to make a move to secure me. "Yeah. Might be a little uncharacteristic of me to dawdle, but let this one thing be clear: I won't be going out so easily," I said with a sniff. Oh man, looking back, I was totally asking for it. Thankfully she had neither the presence of mind nor the will to stop me mid-quote. "Let's hope for your sake that you decide to follow my lead."

Using that sentence as a prompt I kicked away from her hand, launching myself into the open air behind me; her palm uneasily balled its fingers into a furry prison of a fist at its inmate's sudden disappearance, and I was careening to the earth. Everything was a spinning blur of wind and inquisitive mewling--the air whistled through my long ears like a classic anvil-drop score, my thoughts were nonsensical, my heart was pumping the third-fastest it's ever had the misfortune of partaking, my eyes were rolling back into my head, and for those seven seconds, nothing really made sense.

Then it all punctuated with a light smack as my limp body hit the concrete flat on my side. The most literal form of spiraling depression I'd ever been sent down, to date. I was up and at 'em quickly enough, though with a groan I felt my cheek to feel a bit of moisture I'd rather not have been there.

Composure returned just in time for me to find myself in the dead center of the parabola traced by her spread knees. Her toes reared back in surprise, coming down again with light taps upon the ground, and the light gasp from high above and between the two red eyes that had been shocked wide sounded like a torrent of high winds. I wasn't one to overstay my welcome; dizzy and lightheaded, I was off like a bullet, dashing in the direction I'd originally intended before our chance meeting.

Not today, cat-lady, not tomorrow, not any time, my thoughts went. She could starve for all I cared--as long as it wasn't me she was trying to satiate herself with, less fucks could not have been given. I looked behind me once. Was almost worth a chuckle or two, that face of hers. Her mouth hung wide open and her eyes looked like those googly ones you glue on dolls. Beautiful.

I made hard ground in hoofing it. I'd been running more over the past couple days than I had in my entire life, and was naturally quite used to it by this point. I made it five cracks in the concrete away within half a minute. As I left, I began to realize--there was no pitter patter of paws or the ominous click-clack of feet-claws that would surely accompany an encouraged jaguar.

The cat didn't follow. My pace slowed to a bouncing jog with my head tilted behind me. I mean sure, why would you, right? Would you really go through so much trouble just to eat someone that clearly did not want to be eaten? And yet things were different here. The fact that she could be inclined to try something like that at all. Perhaps... because I was a chinchilla, that made it fine? But that couldn't be. There was a menagerie, something to preserve our numbers, right? Then again, I wasn't in it. If I would be protected elsewhere, which side of the coin was different here?

Ugh, my head was spinning. Even then I understood next to nothing. That's not exactly new though, is it?

"I'm... Samantha," she returned weakly, from afar. "I thought you were offering, that's all! I--that--you--" One by one came a-flowing the poorly crafted sentences. The jaguar could never finish a full one, and eventually gave up bothering to finish her tale. Fine by me. What I could gather was that, well, she was as much of an urchin as she seemed... and wasn't always like that.

But offering? Seriously?

Samantha started to sob, or at least whimper, arms folded over her knees and chin resting uneasily upon their peaks. I think it's funny, sorta, in a weird way. Just two days ago I might well have taken her up on that offer. A quick death if she was to be believed, and on top of that I'd be doing someone a solid.

Not that that last bit matters at all to me, but, y'know, it's all about the principle. Hypothetically speaking, I could have done it. But I am a chinchilla, thank you very much. It's a simple sequitur that, following such a fact, I'm worth a lot more than such a degrading, revolting death... and I'd say that even if death was something I still cared for.

But... the girl was without her way, just like I said. I could see that plain as day; that truth was just as blinding. Ugh, goddamn, that little girl. I... well, I could offer one thing if not my own life.

I coughed under my breath, my ears going down low and the fur on my back raising up. Loud as I could, I returned, "I'm sorry." The next was little more than a muttered, "Glad to have met." So maybe I couldn't let an apology go with perfect authenticity, but... I get points for trying, right?

She'd live. Somehow, she would. If I found a way through shit, then there was nothing left to say within the boundaries of explanation as to how she could as well. Put simply: she could make it. Busser's a nice and easy job to get one's feet on the ground. Plenty of potential there. Shoot for the stars.

With that on my conscience, I turned away from her; south, that was what she said. South it would be, then. South was where the menagerie was--all it would take was a bit of elbow grease to find the precise location, and I'd be free to get my answers. I felt my cheek again and pulled away at the touch of light blood from my touchdown, then rubbed what was caught between two fingers and shook my hand. The scrape there was practically throbbing.

You seem awfully proud of yourself. Conceited, even.

"Heh. When haven't I been?" I said to the open air, spreading my arms wide before crossing them. Samantha did not hear me. "This is what I've been waiting for. I have no hopes but the best."

Tevassa was quiet. And yet, I lied: there were many things I'd wished I hadn't come to learn. I did not at all know what to hope for yet. My prior suspicions had been all but confirmed--that I was the way I was because I hadn't grown up around my own kind as a social creature, which ended up backfiring and making me such a baleful son of gun. It wasn't all written in stone, though. I still had to go and find out myself. It was my last option.

However, a few more moments of deliberation numbed me to the shadow that came from behind until it was completely atop me. I twirled around, kicking up the tiniest of dust at my feet. Samantha had knelt to half her height and begun to loom over me with a loom to end all looms.

Glistening rubies filled with repentance glossed over my form again from a poorly-inferred mile above, blotting out the sun behind the nervously grinning face thereof. Looking up was not just possible without going blind now, but rewarding. Hints of carnivorous teeth protruded from her parting lips--but they weren't terrifying now. I might even say they were kinda cute.

"Pardon?" I asked, still ready to bolt. "You again--what do you want?"

But I didn't run. There's... a lot to be said for 'charm', that aspect of a person or demeanor that makes you want to tarry in its presence. And she had that in spades, in her eyes, coming from her gentle movements, and all catalyzed by an overwhelming sense of pity rising in my gut. She was doing her best to make it clear her intentions had changed, enough that she approached so carefully so as not to scare me off or ruffle my feathers in any manner of speaking. Then her eyes flickered about, likely not really sure if what she was doing the right thing after all.

Samantha remained so charming, disarming, and strangely lamentable--and maybe she had heard my half-assed apology after all. So I stayed, and waited.

The feline at last found proper words. "You've been standing there for at least five minutes." Her hand craned down beside me again and landed palm-down like a spider, training my gaze lower as it fell and to the serpentine tail flicking anxiously between her bent legs. Her fingers bent at the middle joints, clenching the earth as if trying to rip up a chunk.

It was like she somehow wanted to make up for something, her way of returning the favor for what she had almost done to me. Her other free hand came and, despite my brief cringe, all it did was gently dab a finger's pad on my cheek and wipe the blood off. I looked into her eyes again.

"What of it?"

She took a deep breath. "You... don't know how to get back, do you?"