• The night was warm, smelling of a fresh new summer breeze. Leaves rustled in the trees, the branches rustled, and it seemed so peaceful, although, the sound was quite disturbing. She could hear the yelling of the owners, especially hers. Of course it just had to come to be that she ended up with the worst master of them all. He fed her less and less these days, forcing her to work extra hard with an empty stomach that rumbled constantly, telling her to eat, put something in her stomach.
    She had grown weak and thin, her skin framed the bones a little too well, barely any meat on her at all. Her arms and legs were skeletal, the cheek bones and hips jutted out; the dress she wore was now much too big and loose on her now, at least the cloth covered her torso and some of her thighs. She swore her ribs must show as well. Eyes hollow and seemed like an empty shell, and her master expected the best work she could do from her. How could she do any work in the condition she was in now?
    Not only that, she considered this the worst of them all, was that her owner owned a whip. When she did something that offended him, even in the slightest bit, or she didn’t fulfill his wishes and the work she did was unacceptable, he would take out that long and thin white whip, stained pink with all the blood collected from her, and smack her across her back and even her front until he was amused enough from her struggle and pleas and got bored of her.
    The only few people who seemed to not punish her and get annoyed by the skeletal, small girl, were some of the other slaves here on the plantation. Kaname for one, a nice young woman, much older than she was though, she was rather nice to her. She had always accepted her for one thing and never once pushed her out of the way or remarked rude things to her. Even though her owner has not accepted their friendship, she has lied numerous of times to protect her from dying, taking the whipping punishment for her after Kaname had seen how many red welts were placed on her skin and how blood soaked her outfit was.
    Ichigo was another that protected her and took care of her, giving her food when she was too weak to even stand, even though she knew the outcome was a whipping of a hundred lashes or more. When others pushed her around the fields, Ichigo would always stand up for her, even though she got an awful beating, she has never stopped doing so.
    The other slaves here were hunger stricken, horrified, and angered. They didn’t care what happened to her, as long as they got food and escaped a night of beating; they had absolute no care except for themselves and no one else. They wanted to escape the plantation, run away, be free, and not have to worry and stress over whether they would live or day today or the next day, fretting over whether they would live to the next season and year. Many have tried to escape, only to be caught again and the penalty for that is death.
    Sitting upon a tree stump, away from the plantation and away from the whimpers, yelps, screeches, yells, screams, and the calling for help, she just couldn’t stand that. She had been coming out here often, to the empty little tree stump, and sat there for hours, looking up to the cloudless night sky. The dark blue color, the shining white stars and moon, she made a wish every night that someone would come and find her and take her away from this place. Always hoping and wishing for a day like that to come.
    Her dark purple hair blew back slightly from the warm night’s breeze, lashing out across her face, but once again fell against her head, framing around the figure closely. Kaname always cut her hair for her, she always acted like a mother she never had. She enjoyed the trims Kaname gave her, liking how she always ran her hand through her hair when she was done with the cutting and comforted her when she had a horrible day with her master again.
    Sighing, she fixed a bandage around her arm that was covering a whipping wound. Already the white cloth had been stained with blood that seeped through three layers of the bandage, even after putting it on only about an hour ago. That wasn’t the only bandage she had though, one was wrapped around her hand and other arm, while another one was wrapped around her head, covering her right eye. Ichigo always helped her with the bandaging, making sure not to put it too tight and not too loose.
    After fixing her bandage, she went to move her straps of the small white dress back up on her shoulders. The dress hung loosely against her, not even reaching her knees. Fumbling with the straps, she finally just left them as is and ran her boney fingers through her strands of hair, her hand running over a furry bump. Just peeking out of the sides of her head were white furred lupine ears, along with a white lupine tail that came out of her tail bone. This was why they were slaves to awful cruel masters, they weren’t a full-fledged human, they were part animal, having strands of animal DNA. Outcasts are what the normal human masters called them. Some of the masters say they shouldn’t even be allowed to live. It is just so wrong that they do the whipping and starve them; it wasn’t their fault they turned out like this, why did they act like it was?
    Her grayish-green eyes stared up to the sky, wishing like she was Kaname, a beautiful, soft, black feathered bird, where she could just fly away any time, but never did. She had said she wanted to stay here and try and help every slave here escape, even though many of them were cruel to her. She didn’t quite understand why Kaname would do that, help people that had never once helped her out and only shoved her away and got her into trouble. Maybe she would understand when she was older; she was only twelve years old right now. Kaname and Ichigo said that she had been here since she was a baby, so they counted the years, and tomorrow would be her so-called birthday as they had put it.
    Silently she had made her wish, hoping it would come true, this time she made sure to add in Kaname and Ichigo to the wish, so maybe they could escape as well as her.
    Now standing up and about to sneak back to the camp, hoping so dearly that she wouldn’t get caught and be whipped again, she heard a faint tune of music. Like a whistle. As a curious little girl, she of course wanted to find the source of this music and it wasn’t coming from the plantation either, it was behind the plantation where she was, in the forest.
    Walking back as quietly, but quickly as she could, without her bare feet snapping a branch or tripping over a vine that would cause a huge falling noise, she stuck to the darker parts of the forest, shadows of the trees, where the moonlight did not make a luminous glow to give her presence away.
    Her hands slid across the bark of the trees, feeling the rough texture and small bugs scurry away from her oncoming hand. She took little and soft steps. The fear she felt right now was taking over her, what if it was one of the masters just out late playing a wooden instrument he had made? She could feel her heart pounding inside of her, threatening to make its way out, she was terrified if they suddenly stopped playing and they would hear the thudding pounds of her heart.
    Forcing herself to press onward, her once slow and even breathing became violent, as though she was about to start hyperventilating any moment. She breathed in and out in short little gasps, quickening the speed as she took each step. Now she feared they may hear her breathing hard and find her.
    Nearly tripping over a branch that had fallen from a tall oak tree, she managed to stumble forward and rebalance herself, but not without stepping on many twigs that crunched beneath her bare feet, but, when the twigs broke, thin and sharp parts of it thrust upwards and poked her in the soles of her feet and toes. It felt like tiny little needles were slowly pushing their way in, trying to make it past the flesh that stood in the way. She tried to keep her mouth quiet with quite some effort, but she finally had to gasp out, and that’s when she heard the music stop.
    “Who’s there?” An alarmed voice called out. By the sound of the voice, she could tell it belonged to a male. Hearing the rustling, signaling he was getting up, she swiftly made a turn, trying to quickly wipe the small slivers off her feet and make her way back to the plantation. Before she could even get one single wood piece out, she felt a firm hand on her shoulder. The rough hand on her bare shoulder didn’t feel quite right; he must have been wearing a glove.
    “Who are you?” He asked, trying to turn her around, but she struggled and didn’t budge.
    When she didn’t answer either, he asked again, “I asked who you were. Aren’t you going to reply, girl?” He was growing a bit irritated and nervous.
    She opened her mouth, but nothing came out. She was terrified right now, she, for once in a lifetime, felt as though the plantation was the safest place to be right now.
    “No!” She exclaimed, shaking her head, her hair whipping around her face. She shut her eyes, the man’s grip was starting to get tighter, and it hurt. Her frail bones couldn’t take so much force, even though he was just squeezing her shoulder right now, it would still be enough to break her bone, being that she was small and barely had any meat on her, her skin was so tight, it looked as though it was just a cover for the bones and her bones were weak. “Let go!” She yelled and she didn’t mind if the masters heard her or not, the man would get in trouble, because they would think that he was trying to steal a slave.
    She could feel him bend down to her height; his warm breath blew on her neck, making her shiver with fear. “Just tell me who you are. It’s simple. Also, I would like to know why you are so skinny and why you are out here all alone.” She could feel the grip loosen on her shoulder and when he tried to turn her around, she didn’t resist anymore and she did what he wanted.
    When she looked up at him, she could see that he must be a couple years older than her at least. She was thinking that he was much older, a man, but he appeared to only be a young boy. That, she must say, surprised her.
    He had nice long, much longer than hers, blond hair, he let it down, not keeping it back in a ponytail like some of the other men do on the plantation. His eyes were such a light color, a white, no… Blue? If they were blue, they were just a clear color, almost like ice. He was also dressed in the oddest clothes she had ever laid eyes on. Something like a tunic, only, different. It was a green tunic with a black long-sleeved shirt underneath along with black pants. He had on some odd boots, black again? She was so busy observing him; she barely heard what he had asked.
    “Are you going to answer me now, or stare at me the whole night?” He asked, raising an eyebrow as he looked down at her.
    Blushing from embarrassment, she didn’t mean to look at him for so long. He just looked odd to her. She looked back up at his icy blue eyes and tilted her head some.
    “I’m, um, Y-Yuna,” She muttered. Yuna was the name Kaname and Ichigo had given her, since she had no name before she had came here, well, maybe even born here, she never met her mother.
    The boy cleared his throat, wanting some more answers. “And…? Why are you so…? Covered in bandages? Also, have you been eating, is there anyone else out here taking care of you?”
    She shook her head. “I’m alone. Just me out here, I live on a plantation as a slave that is why I am so skinny and small, as well as hurt. They don’t feed me very much; my master likes to see me suffer.” She looked down. “They also whip us if we don’t do the work right, sometimes they just whip us for fun. It hurts everyone. My master does it the most to me I think. He doesn’t like me. What’s your name?”
    He looked absolutely shocked, his eyes widened and his mouth gapped. “That’s… That’s horrible! Those people, they make me sick, now that I know what they are doing. I knew there was a plantation out here somewhere, but I would have never imagined that they would keep slaves, as young as you, although, you look around my age, but… Why do they starve and whip you so?” He shook his head in disbelief. “I’m Shui,” He said after a moment of thinking. Looking down to his hand, he saw it was still placed on her shoulder. Quickly he removed his hand, he didn’t want to hurt her or make her wonder why he still had his hand on her shoulder.
    “Why are you a slave?” He found himself suddenly asking.
    “Because I am not like normal humans, I have wolf-y ears and a tail,” Yuna said, always making wolf into wolf-y.
    Shui almost chuckled when she said wolf-y, but then he finally noticed that she did have lupine ears and a tail. How he didn’t come to notice it first thing was beyond his knowing. Could she turn into a wolf…? Or wolf-y as well as he could turn into an animal? He didn’t appear to have any animal parts like Yuna, but he could turn into an otter for some reason, he was yet to learn why and how.
    “But the masters are normal, full-fledged humans I assume? Can you turn into a wolf as well?” He asked, finding himself yearning for some new knowledge from this girl.
    Yuna nodded her head, “Uh-huh, the masters are normal humans. But they are mean humans. When we come to this forest, if they find us, they hang us from this rope hanging from a wooden thingy. I have never tried to turn into a wolf-y, but I might be able to.”
    That broke a smile onto his face. Not about the hanging part, of course. That made him sick to his stomach, but how she said wolf-y. It was just so, so childish and he had to admit, cute.
    Hesitating for just a moment, he picked her up. She was as light as a feather, literally, she barely weighed anything. “I’m going to take you with me, okay?” He asked, slinging around and onto his back, where he held her bony legs. He could feel her thin arms wrap around gently around his neck.
    “You’re not going to whip, starve, or hang me, are you, Shui-y?” Yuna asked, hanging onto him so she wouldn’t fall back and break her fragile back.
    Shui-y, she already had a nickname for him? He chuckled to himself, grinning once more. “No, I won’t let you starve or get wounded anymore, so, are you coming with me?” He asked again. Looking over his shoulder, he could see some of her face more clearly now. Her eyes were red and dark shadows rimmed underneath. Didn’t they let them even sleep?
    Yuna hesitated before answering. What would happen if she went with Shui and left Kaname and Ichigo all alone then? Would they be mad at her or happy that she could escape? Biting her lower lip, she slowly nodded her head in agreement. “I will come with you, Shui-y. Can we get some food, maybe?” She asked, licking her dry lips.
    “Yes, we can get some food. I can turn into an otter, you know what that is, right? I’ll get us some fish; hopefully you can be feeling better soon and get some meat on you. Get some sleep, too. You look horribly tired.”
    “An otter…? I have never heard of one before. Could you show me what one looks like when we get to where the fishes live?” She yawned, placing her head on his shoulder. She tried to stay awake so she could hear an answer from him, but soon sleep overcame her and she was soon sleeping on his back. Her breathing had slowed since she first met Shui, now it was slow and soft, breathing out of her mouth.