The Non-Human Society

Chapter Forty Two - Vim - A Silent Night

      The fire crackled, casting shadows on the cat's face.

Her pupils were visibly larger, and were growing larger as the night quickly became darker.

Which meant her ability to see at night was very likely very good... maybe even as well as mine.

Concerning, but it made sense.

After all she had sat on the rock, at a somewhat odd angle. It was undoubtedly also colder and harder than the logs she could have sat on instead...

But that rock granted her something the logs didn't.

Far past her, about half a league away, was another campfire. And thanks to the clear winter sky, it was easy to make out the shadows and figures around that fire.

Surely that wasn't four people...? No. It was more. Maybe even five or six.

"Don't say it," Renn said.

I blinked and stopped trying to focus on the bundle of naked bodies in the distance.

"Say what?" I asked her.

Her eyes narrowed at me, and her nose scrunched up. As if she had just bit into something spicy.

Smiling at her, I realized that was why she had left her hat on. She had allowed her tail out from beneath her pants, and it was now coiled around her waist. The end of it was twitching, patting the rock she sat on similar to the way a tapping finger would a table.

"Yet you hadn't been able to hear beyond a few walls," I said.

"That was within a building made mostly of stone. This is an open field, and the night is quiet," she argued. There was a hint of some annoyance in her voice.

"True," I admitted.

Standing from my log, I did my best to ignore the way she stiffened at my movement. Out of the corner of my eye I saw her tail go still, as if she was ready to pounce on me.

Grabbing some of the wood I had gathered earlier, for the fire thru the night, I knew better than to think that prepared pounce was anything but filled with violence.

Did she think I'd do something simply because I saw someone else doing such things?

"Humans are odd," I said to her as I put some more wood into the fire. It crackled, causing some smoke to fill the air.

"Odd? That's not odd, it's disgusting," she said.

Frowning, I wondered what bothered her. The number of them involved in the act, or the fact it was all men.

"Not to them it's not," I said.

Renn's brows furrowed and her tail didn't just tap the rock it nearly slapped it. "You're free to go join them," she said.

Smiling at her odd tone, since I'd never heard it from her before; I wondered if she was as prudish as the churchmen.

"Please," I said, dismissing her tone and look.

Sitting back down on the log across from her, I made sure to sit at just the right angle that she herself could block the sight of the group of men. She couldn't block the sound, but the crackling of the fire did help a little.

"Should I sing a song until their done?" I asked her.

Her glare suddenly shattered, as she gave me a toothy grin. "That's funny," she said.

"Glad you found it so, because I really suck at singing," I said.

Although her smile died down, I was glad to see it still linger. She was either getting used to the sounds behind her, or had for a few moments genuinely worried I'd do something stupid.