The Non-Human Society

Chapter Two - Vim - Snowfall

      Lomi ran around me, huffing loudly as she wore herself out.

The snow was starting to get packed, especially this far up the mountain, so she wasn't running as quickly as she had been the day before. It took her many seconds to round me, and some effort to walk in the snow.

She tripped, most likely over something buried in the snow. She landed face first, and her hat fell off which revealed her auburn ears.

Watching her, I waited a moment before saying anything. Sure enough, her head popped up out of the snow and showed a happy face as she laughed. "A rock!" she said, as if it was a new friend.

With a sigh, I wondered how she had so much energy. "You alright?" I asked.

"Yup!" she returned to her feet, and grabbed her hat. Wiping the top of her head clean of snow, I watched the way her ears twitched. "I've never been this way," she said.

"I'd hope not. Over this mountain is a large forest, where our friends are... but this mountain is neither their territory or yours," I said.

"Whose is it?" she asked, jubilant. Was she going to return to running around?

"A large cat. Bigger than me. It's also very rude," I said.

"Oh? One of us?" she asked, excited.

"Ah... no. This cat is a real animal. Not like us," I said, I should have been more specific earlier.

"Oh..." she hesitated, and no longer looked as if she wanted to run around anymore.

"It will leave us alone. It doesn't like me much," I said to her, wondering if she was worried.

Lomi smiled at me, and stepped closer. I noticed the way she had to step high to walk through the snow. She wasn't used to it.

"Here," I stepped towards her, and she didn't hesitate in allowing me to pick her up.

Putting her on my shoulder, I huffed and picked up the pace. I was going to use this moment as much as I could. She had refused my offer of help not too long ago, which had slowed us down quite a bit.

"Why doesn't the cat like you, Vim?" Lomi asked, her voice sounded a little odd coming from above me.

"I chopped off a part of its tail once," I said.

Lomi stiffened, and I wondered if she related. She didn't have a tail, as far as I knew, but that didn't mean she didn't take offense to such a thing like many of our kind did.

"Why?" she asked further.

"To stop it from doing something bad. It was my last attempt to convince it to leave the group I was with alone. I'm glad it worked, or else I'd have chopped more than a tail," I said.

"Oh... how much of its tail did you chop off?" she asked, still intrigued.

"Uh..." I tried to remember. It was quite some time ago. "About half," I said, after a moment of thought.

"Wow... did you eat it?" she then asked.

"The tail?" I asked, glancing up at her.

She nodded with expectant eyes.

"No. Tails are mostly bone. At least, cat tails are."

Lomi giggled, and I wondered if it was because she found it odd I'd even consider such a thing.

Trudging through the snow, I was glad she had finally allowed me to carry her. We had made more progress in the last few minutes than we had in thrice as many. Though that wasn't just because of her inability to traverse through the heavy snow, but also because she had been playing around and got distracted often.