Warm...
A gentle heat rising slowly from the pitch-black darkness.
It wasn't the kind of heat that pierced the skin. It was a cozy warmth spreading from deep within her body.
This warmth.
Piel knew this feeling.
The oldest warmth of 'home,' the one she could never forget no matter how hard she tried.
—Crackle, pop.
Just like sitting in front of an old cabin's fireplace, listening to the sparks fly.
Yes... this is just like back then.
"Piel, you need to eat."
Her mother's low voice.
The gentle touch stroking her soft fur as she smiled.
The cabin door rattling with every gust of wind—whoosh.
And the smell of steaming hot soup bubbling over the fire.
"Haha, sitting by the fire again? Are you that cold?"
"N-no! I just think the flames are pretty! Hehe... that's why I was watching!"
The girl was always in that spot.
By the fireplace, on a tiny wooden chair the size of her palm.
The land where fox beastkin lived was a harsh realm of snow.
Most beastkin relied on each other in their villages to survive, but there were always exceptions.
The sin of a beastkin falling in love with someone who wasn't one of their own.
There was only one punishment for breaking the village rules.
Exile.
The man Piel's mother loved was a human.
For that single reason, the two were driven from the village. They had to build a lonely cabin and live exposed to the snow and rain.
But... even though they were poor, hungry, cold, and sometimes unsure if they'd have a meal the next day, Piel thought those were the happiest times in the world.
Because her family was always by that fire.
"Piel, Mommy has some good news today."
The aroma of hot soup was filling the room.
Piel's ears perked up as she warmed her hands by the fire.
"...Good news?"
"Yes. In a little while... you might get a little sibling."
"A s-sibling?! Really?! I'm... I'm gonna have a sibling?!"
Piel's mouth curved into a huge grin in an instant.
A smile that lit up the room.
To a fox beastkin, family wasn't just blood ties.
Especially for Piel, who had lived exiled from the village, they were her entire world.
The winds of the snow-covered mountains, the reality of having to hunt to eat, the cold stares from her own kind who wouldn't even glance her way as they passed.
Amid all that, the only ones who stayed by her side unchanging were her mother and father.
So the news of a sibling wasn't just 'adding to the family'—it meant her world was expanding.
Piel hugged her mom and dad at the same time, unable to contain her joy.
Her little arms weren't enough, but she wanted to hold them even a moment longer.
How nice it would be if this happiness lasted forever.
Piel thought so.
That day, the whole world truly seemed as warm as the flames.
But the little fox didn't know.
That a beast separated from the pack disappears from the world first.
And misfortune, as always,
comes without warning, mocking you.
Beastkin were fewer in number than humans.
That rarity turned them into commodities.
A beastkin born with a strong body or high intelligence became an 'expensive slave' just for being alive.
That day, too, her mother had gone down to the human market at the foot of the mountain after a long time to buy necessities.
She had always been careful, always kept her distance, never drawing people's eyes. But that night,
despite all that caution.
Creak.
The cabin's rickety wooden door shook as if shoved by someone's force.
It wasn't the wind.
She smelled people.
Piel sensed it instinctively.
And the next moment—
Thud.
The sound of the door shattering echoed through the night air.
"Honey! Take Piel and run! I'll hold them off here—!"
Her father's desperate cry, as if he were breaking apart.
And then the sound that followed.
Crunch.
Piel would probably never forget that sound for the rest of her life.
Neither the crackling of the firewood nor the cold wind battering through the door cracks could drown it out.
Her dad, who always put on a brave front and smiled for her sake.
Her dad, who tried so hard to carry her on his weak shoulders.
His head split into two pieces under an axe blade.
Blood sprayed like flames from the fireplace. Her mother's scream clung to the cabin walls.
And as the blood pooled on the floor, the people who did it grinned ear to ear.
It wasn't a human laugh.
It was worse than beasts—a laugh drunk on the smell of blood.
That day, Piel's world fell into ruin, and hell began.
◇◇◇◆◇◇◇
Years later, Piel learned.
Adult beastkin were strong enough to easily shake off a few hunters.
So that day... her mother alone could have escaped.
But just as she had never once abandoned Piel in the snow-covered mountains or their exiled life, she made no exception this time.
The price of that choice fell on both of them.
Her mom and Piel were captured together.
Strangled together, dragged away together, bound by the same iron chains in the same cell.
The hell called 'training' that began that day wasn't aimed only at Piel.
When Mom was strapped to the torture table first, Piel had to watch while wailing.
When Piel was up next, Mom took even greater pain in her place.
Flesh torn, bones broken, their screams echoing back to each other.
A cramped prison where not even sunlight reached.
Worms crawled on the damp stone floor, and the stench of festering wounds mixed with the air.
Both of them... slowly broke in that darkness.
Yet even then,
her mom managed a smile toward Piel from the center of that hellish cell.
"Piel... as long as we stay alive, one day on a quiet, beautiful day, something good will come to us."
"Really...? Even... even locked up like this?"
"Of course."
Her mother's voice was still warm.
Even covered in blood, even missing teeth, even with ragged breaths, she never let go of hope.
"There's a saying from the far east: 'Better to roll in shit than die.' It's hard now... but good days will come."
"...Okay."
Mom always talked about hope.
Tales of a prince coming to save the princess.
Stories of the unjust finding salvation.
Tales of spring arriving at the end of snow-covered mountains.
But Piel could feel it.
The rotting smell from Mom's body when she returned to the cell.
Her loosening teeth.
Legs that could no longer stand properly.
And... Dad had died long ago, yet her belly was swelling more and more.
Still, Mom said,
"Piel. As long as we're alive... good things really will happen. So... you, and the sibling you're going to have... never give up."
Even in the darkness, those words burned like an ember, protecting some corner of Piel's small heart.
Without them, she would have collapsed already.
And one day,
that 'small hope' seemed finally to return.
"Hey, kid. Special meal today. Heh heh..."
With a laugh like scraping metal, a metal bowl clanged onto the cell floor.
Piel looked up.
Stew steaming hot.
To Piel, who had only eaten hard bread and muddy water, it was food from dreams.
And it was loaded with 'meat.'
Piel's hands shook as she scooped a spoonful.
A body-temperature warmth spread in her mouth.
It was warm. Delicious.
Maybe... something good really was happening.
"Mom should... eat some too..."
Half the stew was still left in the bowl, but Piel deliberately didn't eat more.
She wanted to give the first spoonful to Mom when she came back.
Clutching the bowl tightly in her small hands, she smiled quietly in the dark, waiting for Mom.
But—
The second spoonful touched her lips, and Piel's fingertips trembled faintly.
"Huh...?"
It was tasty... but something was off.
Was her tongue numb from starvation?
Or was it because hot food had been so long?
But chewing again, the soft, tearing meat fibers created a familiar 'feeling' in her mouth.
A feeling she shouldn't be familiar with.
A faint metallic scent, like blood, rose from the stew.
"What... is this taste...?"
Piel cautiously lifted the bowl.
Small chunks of meat floated amid the steam, but one shape was oddly strange.
Lifting it slightly, it had a faint round mark, like a human knuckle.
Piel swallowed.
But with a 'what if' in her heart, as she tilted the bowl again, something clinked—against the bottom.
A metallic sound.
With trembling hands, Piel flipped the bowl.
Splash—
A ring.
The wedding ring Mom had clung to like her life, the one from Dad.
"...Mom?"
Piel's voice shook like cracked ice.
That was the moment.
From beyond the iron bars, a wet, rotting laugh oozed out.
"Still don't get it, kid?"
The darkness held its breath, and the man whispered low.
"That stew you were gobbling up so tasty? That was your mom's flesh... and the brat in her belly."
"...Huh?"
Piel's eyes shook.
It took time to grasp the meaning, but the words continued as if mocking that delay.
"They say beastkin meat gets tenderer the more you feed your own kind? Used as medicine too. The client specially requested it. A firm, tender young one."
Piel heard nothing.
Cannibalism, medicine, client—none of it mattered.
Only one thing choked her heart.
Then... then Mom...?
The Mom captured because of me.
The Mom who couldn't escape because of me.
The Mom who took the pain for me every time.
I ate that Mom?
She didn't want to believe it and jumped up reflexively.
The bowl slipped from her hand, spilling stew across the floor.
In her dazed vision, someone grabbed her head.
Bam—!
Her face smashed into the floor.
And amid the scattered stew,
one gleam rolled out, showing the impossible reality.
Orange.
The color that had always felt like 'home,' warm and loving.
Mom's eyeball.
Piel's breath stopped as if severed.
"You fucking bitch, why spill it? Eat it all!"
"W... waaaaah—!"
"This little shit?"
She vomited up the bile surging in her mouth.
But the humans forced her head up and shoved the vomit back into her mouth with their hands.
"If even one bit leaks from your mouth again, your eyeball rolls on the floor before it does. Ears are extra."
But she vomited again.
Her throat rebelled, her body screamed.
In the end, they acted on their warning.
They made her swallow her own eyeball instead of Mom's, and tore off her ears.
No screams came.
She had lost too much; she didn't even have the strength to cry.
Years later, Piel learned.
The one who tried to turn her into medicine was caught but barely escaped being torn apart.
But it meant nothing.
She was already broken beyond repair.
Piel thought,
'Mom... you said as long as we stay alive, good things would come. But no.'
There was no blessing in being alive.
Better to die than roll in shit.
So the day she was sold to her new employer, Argent, Piel decided to end it herself.
Hope, life, even warmth.
Her breath grew ragged, blood spurted, vision shook.
As cold death reached out, Piel murmured with her trembling body.
"Mom... coming soon...!"
The cold, black darkness drew closer.
It was scary, but she lied to herself that it would end in an instant.
And then,
Instead of death, what came was—
"...Warm."
The oldest warmth of 'home' that Piel thought she had forgotten.