There was an ongoing echo of chatter within the people seated to observe this event, many of them eyeing Perdilius with a mixture of confusion and suspicion. KuliKili kept her head down upon noticing them turn and share their thoughts with one another, her cat ears twitching nervously as she listened in on them.

  "He means the priest, is he mad?"

  "That there is a man of faith, what's he talking about?"

  "I think this Felix person is speaking nonsense."

  "That's the same man who was at that church, ay?"

  Nihja stretched her neck to catch a look at a certain angle, spotting a few of her men getting seated in the rows opposite of them. They locked eyes and shared a brief nod, sitting down as they waited for the right moment.

  The whispers within the people grew louder still, the voices were so many that the council grew flustered quickly. An irate Sir Aldric was banging his bony fist repeatedly into the polished oak surface of the podium, his raspy voice yelling loudly like a cry amidst a storm.

  "There will be silence and order in our presence!"

  Alphones and Antoine shared a nervous look before turning to Andre. He merely cleared his throat and calmly stood up with his hands firmly pnted over the podium counter. It took little time for the some of the civilians to notice and shush their companions as little by little, the constant muttering and questioning faded to a halt.

  The effect left a noticeable impression on Dimyri, who gnced toward her mother in return. She was reminded of seeing her mother take charge of their clutter years before, and how she would raise her voice over the dozens of toddlers chasing each other around, rubbing their backs against tree trunks or running their paws over dry wood to sharpen their cws. There was a slight difference to how she got the attention of her peers, rather than raising her voice she would meow loudly, silencing many of the adult Nekomata for her to get her word in.

  Being present to witness this herself, she found the process and experience to be somewhat fascinating. Human history was painted around the walls called murals, the very concept of recording history was alien to her kind. Seeing Andre silence an entire courtyard by standing on his feet alone left her wanting to learn more about how these human's function.

  If only they were there under better circumstances, she thought to herself as Andre returned to his seat and adjusted the colr of his tunic.

  "What you said before about us executing the wrong people, what are you implicating with this?"

  "What do you mean?" Felix asked.

  Andre narrowed his eyes. "You named Perdilius in association to these 'pursuers' you made mention of."

  "Would you eborate?" Alphonse asked kindly.

  Felix paused to consider his words carefully, the courtyard growing so deathly quiet that one would hear a coin hit the bdes of grass like a boulder crushing through a stone wall. He raised his hands up, his forearms reaching his waistline when the chains locked in pce to bind him into the ground. His shoulders sunk down in a look of defeat or exhaustion perhaps, but he breathed in and stood back up, shoulders back, as he lifted his head to lock eyes with the men looming above them.

  "These Nekomata you all fear, they mean you no harm. None of us do. They want to get on with their lives and recover the ones they've lost."

  "Are you implying that there are more of them here?" Alphonse questioned him with a serious look.

  Felix shook his head. "I won't state how many we are, but the answer is no. Or perhaps, I hope there are. I do not fully understand what happened to them before, only what is happening to them now. There is a man named Perdilius who is on a mission to hunt down my friends and-"

  "Friends!?" Gloine snorted, coming off like a pig's oink as he turned to the councilmen. "Did this bottom-feeder just call these beasts his friends?"

  "Ridiculous, the poor sap has lost himself by the temptress' ways." Aldric shook his head in response, his drumming fingers appearing like spider legs dancing across the wooden surface in frustration.

  Felix sighed, noticing Reta scoff and shake her head in return. "If you would please just listen to me, you're all being misled. I understand your fear, I shared in that fear once before. Know that I thought simir to how you do now, but those thoughts have changed. They are simple creatures, much like you and me. They can feelings, emotions, and ideas so silly that you would expect them to come out of a child's mind instead."

  "Simply ridiculous." Aldric repeated with an exaggerated groan.

  "What do you mean by emotions?" Asked a most curious Alphonse.

  "They feel the same way we do, ask the same questions we ask. It's difficult to expin, but I can promise you that these women hold no malice in their hearts."

  "Women? Those be but filthy, raggedy beasts hellbent on tainting us with impurity through their seductive ways." Aldric pointed a finger at him, eyeing him with one eye closed.

  "That's not true!" Felix spat in return, feeling his face grow red. Was it out of embarrassment for the hint of truth in their words? In honesty, KuliKuli was a bit needy in the beginning. But that did not mean he was being seduced, right?

  No, he couldn't relent and back down, not now. It wasn't all true, they didn't know the details. They couldn't understand the number of days he looked after her, how he showed her how to cook herself a meal. Or when he taught her how to patch up a leaky rooftop in the barn, or teaching her how to tend to the animals with gentle care, or when he shared with her the embarrassing names he had for each animal he was tasked to care for.

  How he could see her smile through closed eyes. How she would wake him in the morning with a joyful bounce in his bed, full of energy to start the day with her favorite person. Or that night when he could keep his secret no longer, confessing his feelings to her. That night led to their acceptance of mutual admiration and joy as they shared their first night of passion together, forever giving himself to her as her chosen mate.

  "There is more to them, so much more. It's silly to see them as something so simple when they are not."

  Alphonse leaned in forward. "You really believe this, don't you? But you must see it from our side, we are speaking to someone who's not like us anymore. Felix, this action of yours, you bare it through your eyes alone. It's their curse, they select a mate and taint them with their own dark magic, it corrupts their mate into something of their preference. As we speak, her very dark nature is corrupting your veins and changing your own biology. We do not know to what end this effect may have, it could even hold mental changes for all we be privy to."

  "They may be fun but give in to temptation and you'll be... changed." Antoine added with concern. "Different, corrupt-"

  "You become a husk of who you are, neither man nor beast but somewhere in between. The only cure we know of is to find the one who did this to you and end them!" Aldric gred at the young man. "A second opportunity does not always present itself to you, boy. Yet you refuse! It's their nature, they've taken hold of your head, filled you with this stupid babbling jargon."

  "I was not taken by force, I chose this path and I hold no regrets!" Felix argued back. "And this is no second opportunity, you said it before. This is an execution, why should I help you when my fate has already been sealed?"

  "A fate easily remedied if you chose to acquiesce with our demands." Andre stroked his chin, contempting of their next course of action. He licked his lips and shrugged. "So be it, the man has accepted his fate. Who are we to change his mind? He wishes to meet his end and we will grant him that wish."

  "What of the mark he has? Perhaps we can make a profit returning him to his owner." Gloine chuckled at the idea.

  Felix gasped after what he just heard. "What!?"

  Andre rubbed his brow, grumbling in his retort. "The mark isn't known in any of our records, but if I had to guess by the font of the tattoo, they could be from up north."

  "Up north?" Antoine scoffed. "Not a very specific location. There's a number of kingdoms over those mountains, just how far could he have run?"

  Felix curled his fingers into his palm, balling his fists so tight that his nails started to pierce the skin.

  "A runaway sve vouching for monster girls, what a ugh!" Gloine snorted, looking to the oldest of the House Dubois. "First he cims that the priest carries malicious intent, then he procims his love for these tar-rotted devils he calls friends? Andre, spare us all of his lunacy and let us move on with the execution. People of Kershin, what makes you of hearing this?"

  One man appearing to be of middle age stood up from the row of seated watchers, scowling as he shouted his response. "That man speaks heresy!"

  "Those monsters are a danger to our kith and kin, he's lost all reason to be defending them!" Another woman added in agreement.

  Syri whimpered and clung onto Janette's arm as more and more civilians voiced their agreement, her breathing growing fast.

  "You... fat, stupid-" KuliKuli grinded her teeth as her cws began to cut through her oversized sleeves, arming Janette and the other Nekomata.

  Janette's eyes doubled in size as she grabbed her friend's arm. "Don't-"

  "Or perhaps we should do his owner the favor of returning him to them, whoever they be?" Gloine wheezed loudly, "Some back-breaking bor would get his head thinking straight. It is obvious that this filth is runaway property-"

  "To hell with all of you!"The courtyard was left in utter shock, the lingering silence paired with growing tension as everyone present in the courtyard was rendered speechless by Felix's outburst. Even Norowa Reta stood staring at him, witnessing his seething anger slip through his calm demeanor. His eyes, what once were a natural and beautifully rich dark brown color like the sweetest chocote had become but a memory as they ceased to exist. In his anger, his eyes completed their transformation, imitating the very same look as KuliKuli's eyes as Felix stood withering away with the chains bound to his arms straining to hold him.

  "Look at you, all of you, ughing at another man's misery! Making a mockery of my fate, too-too ignorant to see reason with your heads stuck far up your asses!" He shed out, turning his body in sharp motions as his chains rattled endlessly. "I may be but a hermit, but that woman took a chance on me and trusted me with her life at a time when she should be most cautious. And I-I was left speechless at that, how on Earth would I, could I, be responsible for such a-a beautiful woman when I could hardly look after myself. I had accepted my life to be lonesome and under the company of farm animals, because they didn't bite me like people do."

  "How I managed to help her in time, I can't say. It's something that's surprised me, I've surprised myself a great many times ever since she entered my life. But... do you know the one pain I've had to endure with her? It's the pain of having to restrict her when she wants to explore, to see more. It's having to expin to her why it isn't safe for her to come here. She knew this before, she must have. She's lost her memory, you see..."

  Nihja blinked and fell back in her seat, seemingly in awe of what she was listening.

  He hesitated, wincing painfully and nearly doubling over to soothe the swelling he felt pulse in his chest, or perhaps it was his heart aching from reliving those memories. "Ah-I... I've said too much. Or maybe I haven't said enough, it doesn't matter. I just want her to be safe, when she smiles, every time she smiles... I don't want to live in a world without her smile. You speak of me as if I'm turning my back against my people, but I had very little people before. Nobody came to liberate me when I was ensved."

  He suddenly jolted his head up, eyeing Gloine with a look of pure malice. "And do you know how I became a sve? I was born into it, I never knew my parents. My mother may have died from childbirth for all I know. I was born as something lesser, raised like cattle stock and passed down to the highest bidder when I was four. A ndowner purchased me, she became my master for the next fourteen years of my life. She was a monster, in more ways than you would know. Treat me like one of your infants who speak out of line and know nothing of monsters, when all my life I've only known monsters."

  "Fuck you!" His voice cracked, his eyes looking from one councilman to the other. "All of you! Ignorant, bloated, dismal-eyed curs with your hearts of jelly and coal! If any of you could see beyond your nose, you would be wary of the man who cims to be of faith right beside you! He lures you, he controls you! I've known those with a deceptive tongue all of my life, and Perdilius is one of them! Can you not see, can you not see now that we have been lured here at sundown?"

  "Felix." Reta spoke up with a saddened expression.

  "No, they need to know. The people need to know despite their ignorance." He argued, raising his voice and turning to the councilmen. "The full moons will rise soon. If we do nothing in a matter of minutes a deadly curse will overwhelm my friend, and we will all be in danger!"

  His warning echoed through the pit, leaving the crowd uneasy by his words.

  KuliKuli felt Nihja grab her arm, turning to her with a look of shock.

  "Your friend is cursed?" She whispered, struggling to hide her anxiousness. "You forgot to mention that she's a werewolf!"

  "I-I forgot, honest! I didn't realize, with so much going on I had lost track of the lunar cycles." KuliKuli stuttered as she looked to her friends and family, seeing them look just as uncertain.

  "You have to do something, those chains might not st against her!" He pleaded, turning to his friend as the growing rays of moonlight began to hover over them. "Reta, can you control it?"

  Reta fell gently to her knees, her arms hung down with a look of acceptance on her. "Save your breath, Felix."

  "Reta-"

  "They had made up their minds about this before we were brought here. Look around you, we're in a pit with no noose or executioner around." She looked up, staring into the three emerging full moons rising over.

  Felix gasped, quivering as he looked to the men above in question. "No, th-they wouldn't-!"

  "I don't know if I can control it, I warned you before about this." She closed her eyes and breathed in, releasing a sigh as her eyes fshed open, revealing that her hazel eyes had turned into bright yellow pupils.

  Reta turned her head to the skies, noticing the shadows creep through as the first sign of moonlight arose. "Felix... "

  "What?" He asked, acknowledging her look as she faced him. His eyes widened upon seeing her frightened expression, the corner of her lip twitching as she chuckled nervously at the sight.

  "All these years, I never realized... just how beautiful the full moons were."

  "Reta, y-you can control it. You need to focus, you-"

  Tears started to run down her face, her smile trembling as she spoke in a soothing tone. "It's alright, Felix-chan. I-I knew this day would come, I was just... hopeful, you know? I didn't believe in that until I met you two."

  "Reta..."

  "Promise me!" She started to panic as her body began to tremble uncontrolbly, pleading with him with a terrified look. "Promise me Felix-chan, promise me you'll look away!"

  Felix pulled at his chains, grunting as they rattled back and forth much to the annoyance of the councilmen watching them.

  "Felix," She closed her eyes and doubled over, grunting in pain.

  "Mizuki!" He screamed out, yanking at the cuffs in his arms until the rusty metal peeled at his skin. He didn't care, groaning through the pain until she called for him once more. "Somebody help her, please! Somebody! Anybody!"

  The crowd and council fell silent, with even the trained guards exchanging nervous looks in silence. Some of the people couldn't bear to watch, clinging to their spouses and cupping their ears. Janette cupped her mouth, sobbing as she watched her friend transform while KuliKuli felt her tears roll down her face, her cws digging into the arm rests of her seat and tearing through the wood like wet paper.

  "Felix!"

  He fell to his knees, feeling helpless as all he could do was watch her. He could see the pain in her eyes, watching the sweat rain down her face and the color in her starting to drain. Her hands began to twist and contort, her fingernails falling off before she hid them under herself.

  She coughed loudly, resting her head into the dirt with half-open eyes as she felt the fur grow out of her skin. "Th-thank you,,, than-nk you... Than-nkyaaaaaahhhh!!!"

  "Mizuki!!!!" He squeezed his eyes shut and sat in defeat, hearing her screams as the chains swung and tethered in a vain attempt to bind her. He looked to the many faces watching him with unease, screaming at the top of his lungs.

  Alphonse covered his mouth, turning to see his younger brother Antoine unable to see this process. Andre looked incredibly hesitant, but Gloine hung his head while Aldric kept his posture through closed eyes.

  "Andre-"

  "I know." He answered quickly, making a gesture with his hand to alert the guards. This dispy may have gone too far.

  The chains snapped like twigs, alerting poor Felix as he hesitantly opened his eyes to see what became of his friend. The panting grunts, the sharpened cws as bck as the night emerging through her course, violet-furred paws. She was salivating, her mouth exposed to reveal her carnivorous fangs, her drool dripping with hunger as her yellow eyes glistened like jewels upon locking eyes with him. She had changed, more so than just her arms and legs. Her hair had grown longer, there was fur emerging from the back of her neck, and her legs looked more like the hind legs of a wolf. She hunched over on all fours, growling as her tail swung behind her, sweeping up the dust below.

  "R-Reta." Felix fell back in a cold shiver. She licked her lips and approached him one paw at a time, with Felix regaining control of himself and pulling against his cuffs again and again and again.

  Alphonse stood up on his feet and turned to his brother. "Andre!"

  "I know!" Andre shouted.

  The rge wooden doors groaned loudly as they were pushed ajar, with Daemon emerging through the darkness inside followed by five of his men wielding crossbows and nets. They surrounded Reta and stepped back, raising their arms and holding her on their sights as Daemon kept his hand raised.

  "Steady men, steady!"

  Felix gasped as Reta howled and leapt into the air, her cws aiming straight for him with the sight of the full moon behind her.

  "Fire!" Daemon shouted.

  Emyri shot up from her seat as KuliKuli ran forward. "Kuli!"

  Andre spotted her and gasped, turning to Perdilius at a loss of words. To his horror, the man himself was hiding a grin unbeknownst to many.

  "Don't touch him!!!!"She threw her robe behind her and dived into the pit headfirst, knocking Reta away. Both of them were sent rolling over the dirt floor, with KuliKuli being the first to lift her head. Dazed from the impact, she shook some of the dust off her hair, looking up to see the city guards staring with nervous aim.

  "K-Kuli!" Felix cried out from behind her.

  "My gods, it's her." Aldric whispered as he fell back on his seat, watching everything unfold from the safety of their podium.

  The Nekomata recovered quickly as soon as Reta began to stir and pick herself up. The werewolf locked eyes with her old friend, growling and baring her teeth at her. KuliKuli flexed her paws to show her cws, keeping herself in front of Felix. "Reta, I-I'm sorry I couldn't help you. But I swear, I'll fix this. I'll protect you. I'll make things right. If it's the st thing I can do, this I swear."

  Reta howled and charged forward as KuliKuli closed her eyes, squeezing her tears away.

  "This I swear!"

  Sylver