46 Sea Breeze Street.
The fire in the hearth did not burn brightly, but it was enough to drive away some of the chill from the spring night.
Tata curled up in the old armchair closest to the fireplace in the sitting room, wrapped in a thick blanket. Only half her pale face and a pair of drooping cat ears showed.
Her short orange hair had been simply combed, but traces of dried dark red still clung to the tips.
Zoya sat beside her, carefully wrapping her arm in gauze.
Bruce lay sprawled on his cushion, his eyes narrowed and his chin resting on his crossed forepaws. He looked as though he were dozing, but one of his ears twitched from time to time. "If it hurts, you have to say so," Zoya said softly as she looked at the wounds on Tata's arm—wounds that had been injured once, then cut open again by rough ropes. Tata had meant to say something, but upon hearing that, she simply shook her head with her mouth closed. Beneath the blanket, her tail moved uneasily.
After a while, she finally spoke. "Um... thank you for coming to save me, meow."
Zoya's hands did not stop moving. "He Xi said you left a note."
"Mhm..." Tata buried her face deeper into the blanket. "I thought... I could handle it myself, meow."
"Handle what?"
"Give the money to Yuna..."
"Yuna is?"
"She's kind of my Older Sister. She's a cat-eared beastkin too. We grew up together. She taught me lots of things, and she always shared her food with me. She said I was small, so I had to eat more if I wanted to grow taller..."
"Then how did you get mixed up with those... mm, bad people at that tavern?"
Tata paused, and