By dawn the storm had burned itself out. The forest was dripping and clean, all the violence of the night washed into silence. Mist curled low over the ground, thin as smoke, and the air carried that raw, sharp smell of new rain, moss, soil, bark, the scent of things that had survived.

I was the first to stir. The stink, the humiliation of it, was gone. My fur had dried into something soft again, smooth under my fingers. The air didn’t burn my pride anymore; it tasted like relief, like rebirth. I stretched, long and lazy, spine arcing, tail swishing against the damp earth as I breathed in the clean morning. A low hum slipped from my throat, not a purr, not yet, but something close.

Master was still asleep, or pretending, more likely. He always half-watched the world even with his eyes closed, the way soldiers do when they’ve seen too many mornings they didn’t earn. The lamp had guttered out sometime before dawn, leaving his face cut in half by the pale grey light leaking through the seams of the tent.

I crouched beside him, grinning to myself. “Master,” I said quietly, leaning close, voice syrup-thick with mischief. “Wake up. The world’s still here. Somehow.”

He blinked once, slow, then opened his eyes, and that was all, no startle, no groggy confusion, just that same quiet clarity, the kind that makes you wonder if he ever truly sleeps. He sat up with the weary grace of someone who’s already lived the day ahead in his head.

He didn’t speak at first, just reached for the pack at his side, pulled out a strip of dried venison, tore it in half, and passed me a piece. I took it between my teeth, still crouched, tail flicking idly.

“If you’ve got so much energy this morning,” he said finally, voice rough with sleep but edged in that dry, noir amusement that always cuts through the air like smoke curling off a match, “you can help put the tent down.”

There it was, that tone that lived somewhere between command and challenge. He said it like a man lighting a smoke on a battlefield; calm, dry, unimpressed by the apocalypse.

I laughed, low and bright, the sound curling through the morning fog. “That’s it? No ‘good morning, Aliza’? No poetic praise for the miracle of my scentless resurrection?” My grin widened. “You wound me, Master.”

He looked up at me, one eyebrow raised, eyes half-shadowed by the light. “You’ll survive,” he said simply, tearing another bite from the jerky.

My tail flicked again, a restless, happy rhythm, before I dropped onto my hands and knees beside him and began tugging at the tent stakes with a kind of feral enthusiasm. The iron tips came free one by one, wet soil clinging to my fingers. “You know,” I said, glancing over my shoulder, “you could say you missed the smell. Just a little.”

He gave a quiet, disbelieving exhale ,almost a laugh, if you listened close enough, and started folding the leather panels with that same unhurried precision. The mist thickened around us, the last of the rain dripping from the canopy overhead. The forest was silent but alive, birds calling far off, the soft patter of droplets falling from leaves, the crackle of something small scurrying through wet underbrush.

I packed in rhythm with him, humming softly under my breath, every motion carrying that strange, feline satisfaction that only comes after chaos, the thrill of having outlasted something. My tail brushed his arm once, twice, a quiet touch, deliberate, possessive.

“You really don’t know how lucky you are,” I said, voice lighter now. “Most people don’t get to wake up next to a miracle twice.”

He didn’t look up, didn’t take the bait. “You’re not a miracle,” he said. 

That made me laugh properly, the sound spilling out into the clean air. “You say that like it’s a bad thing.”

The tent was down by the time the sun finally burned through the mist, turning the dew on the leaves into points of light. The forest steamed faintly, gold and green, alive again. I slung the packed canvas over my shoulder and looked toward the distant line of Mire Point’s towers cutting through the haze.

By late morning the clouds had thinned to pale streaks, the world scrubbed clean by the night’s downpour. Our boots sank deep into the soft road, clay and rain making each step a slow drag through the waking marshland. Mire Point’s silhouette began to form ahead of us, the sandstone curve of its walls rising like a half-buried memory from the bog.

The land here always smelled of something alive and rotting at once. Cabbage fields unfurled along the outer ditches, their waxy leaves slick with rain. Goblin farmers worked them in silence, bent and patient, mud up to their knees. The air had that faint sting of compost and smoke, the scent of the bog reclaiming everything that didn’t fight back.

The first checkpoint stood just before the old quarry line, a narrow cut of road that climbed toward the heart of the keep. They’d built an “airlock” there, two gates, an outer and inner, with the slope between them reinforced by packed stone. A raised motte sat above it, its crown bristling with timber palisades. From there a tower watched the crossroads, a square-toothed silhouette against the pale sky.

I could see movement up there, guards changing shifts, smoke from a brazier curling through the chill air. The clang of a hammer drifted down from the barracks perched just behind the wall, the rhythm of repair and routine. The sound always echoed in Mire Point, like the city itself was a forge that never cooled.

We passed beneath the outer gate. The guards glanced down, saw Master’s cloak, and didn’t bother with questions. Respect and fear often looked the same here.

Past the second gate, the road levelled into the Cat Tail District. The ground was still damp, the puddles catching pieces of sunlight and reflecting the soft brown glow of sandstone walls. Wooden catwalks and narrow bridges crisscrossed the lanes, leading between clusters of low stone compounds. Goblin families had built them in tight circles, each cluster with a banner above its entryway, crude symbols daubed in tar, clan marks, warnings, pride.

The compounds themselves looked alive: smoke curling from small chimneys, the sound of water sloshing as buckets were dragged from gutters, and the occasional burst of laughter that carried through the alleys. Compound heads stood at doorways, watching us as we passed, some with respect, others with that wary unease that never quite faded around outsiders, even ones they owed.

Between the compounds, the occasional freestanding house broke the pattern, newer structures, Alderian-built. You could tell by the cut of the stone and the symmetry of the windows. That’s where the non-goblins lived, traders, scribes, stray adventurers who’d settled here for coin or cause. Their doors were cleaner, their faces less so.

The further we went, the thicker the air became. The smell of bog rolled in from the south, heavy and wet, laced with the earthy sweetness of cat tail farms nearby. It clung to my fur, to my tongue, that distinct blend of mud, reed, and stagnant water that marked Mire Point as its own creature. I hated that smell and loved it too. It meant home. It meant we’d returned to something we’d made out of nothing, a fortress stitched together by mud, stone, and stubbornness.

The long market hit us before we even turned the corner, not just noise, but tension, thick and vibrating like the air before lightning. The street was slick from the rain, the cobbles dark and wet beneath a sky still heavy with cloud.

On one side stood the workers, maybe forty of them, goblins mostly, a few dwarfs and catgirls still wearing the rags of cattail mill uniforms. Their clothes were streaked with grease and cattail dust, and every single one of them looked tired in that hollow-eyed way that comes from hunger rather than fatigue. Some held tools, spindles, hammers, blades stripped from looms, nothing sharp enough to win, but enough to make a statement.

On the other side, the guards.

Ten catgirls in copper chainmail stood in a curved formation, armour dull but solid, shortbows slung across their backs, short swords drawn. The metal caught the faint light like burnished bronze. They looked disciplined, the kind of order that doesn’t come from loyalty but repetition. The only motion came from their tails, flicking in unison, a restless warning.

The moment we stepped closer, the smell hit, cattail fibre, damp copper, wet fur, and the sharp, bitter tang of cattail bread burned in the ovens nearby. The sort of scent that clung to a place like Mire Point and never washed away.

At the centre of it all stood her.

Lisette Ferrah, Cattail District header, The only non goblin header, copper-plate armour instead of chain, a barbute that framed her golden eyes. Her tail stood still, perfectly straight, command posture, except for the smallest twitch when she noticed us coming down the street.

Perception Check (Aliza): d20 (14) + 2 = 16

That one curl of her tail told me everything. A single flick, no wider than a breath, but it wasn’t the twitch of alertness. It was recognition. And interest.

I froze mid-step, pupils narrowing.

She’d looked at him.

Not in the formal sense, not the dutiful “yes, sir” way soldiers did, but the kind that makes my claws itch. I didn’t even think about it. My muscles were already coiled.

Agility Check (Aliza): d20 (18) + 4 = 22

I was a blur of motion, sliding past the edge of the milling crowd before anyone registered the movement. The splash of my boots against the wet cobbles cut the tension like a blade through silk.

In a heartbeat, I landed, not gracefully, but deliberately hard, right in front of her. The copper of her breastplate rattled as I hit the ground, tail lashing like a whip behind me. The guards jerked, startled, hands tightening on hilts, but Lisette didn’t move. Not yet.

The noise of the workers’ shouting dulled, like the whole market was holding its breath.

Her eyes locked on mine, sharp, trained, but she couldn’t hide that flicker of confusion.

I bared my teeth in a wild snarl, fangs baring as my tail whipped frenzied behind me.

Behind us, the workers were still yelling. The guards were shouting back, voices blending into a snarl of protest and command. A few of the goblins were pushing against the chain line, others trying to pull them back. One of the catgirl guards had her bow half-raised, eyes flicking between her commander and the crowd.

The sound of the market was chaos, not violence, not yet, but the sort of unstable equilibrium that could collapse with one wrong word. Overhead, the clouds hung heavy and low, turning the light to a dull bronze that caught on every weapon and every set of eyes.