Disclaimer: I. Do. Not. Own. Fruits. Basket. Plain and simple.

Author's note: This was a challenge fic, and the first -- maybe only, who knows -- serious one I've done. I hope you enjoy it.

First of all...

Title: Cat

Summary: You can never cage a cat.

Author's Notes: You really can't blame him for being angry, can you?

Word Count: 200

Time after time, life after life, they shut me in. Lock me away. Cats aren't meant to be caged! Freedom is in us, whispering in our ear: Let me out, let me out, let me out! I can do anything, I will do anything, just LET ME OUT!

The Emperor -- some deign to call him a God, but I will never submit, even if my hosts do -- sees this rebellion in me, and shuts me away again.

It's the Rat's fault! All I wanted was to go to the banquet, to eat with others, to not be alone and confined by my solitary ways. Too late I learned that relying on others in a thousand times more confining.

Freedom is just over there. Just outside those doors. I want to leap free of this prison -- my host's body -- and claw my way out. I can't stay here, with only an Emperor masquerading as a God.

My hosts all agree. They feel freedom as I do: in their blood, in all their senses, just out of reach.

But when they fight the Rat, it is out of desperation.

While you can never cage a cat, you can always cage a human.

Secondly...

Title: Rat

Summary: It was a mistake.

Author's Notes: …I didn't think of it like this until I wrote it. Strange, isn't it?

Word Count: 404

I made a terrible mistake. I may be too proud to admit it to the others -- were we ever to meet, of course -- but I know that I have. I wanted to beat the Cat at something. At anything! I wanted to be better for once in my life.

Not better for all my lives.

I'd forgotten, or, rather, hadn't understood. I thought that others would like me more if I was the best. But they resented me, blamed the curse on me. I didn't know that the Emperor's rage -- forgive me, the God's rage -- would be so great. I didn't know he would be enraged at all.

He wanted the Cat. The Cat! And he lay at home, sleeping. To disrespect God so terribly… It was worthy of a curse.

But the others found out, one by one. It is not Cat's fault. Rat is a terrible trickster. Listen to Cow! Listen to Cat! Do not trust him.

I was no longer 'the Rat', not by then. A small measure of familiarity made bitter by hatred. We had once been friends, of course. Locked together in a curse, we had to choose between that and madness. Life after life after endless life spent in only each other's company as the God's tyranny grew tighter, and tighter, and bound us all the closer.

Madness is not a Godly trait, of course. We know that we serve an impostor, a false God, though our hosts do not. He is only an Emperor from so long ago that he is senile and mad with grief. He cannot pass on. His host cannot sustain his spirit, so like a human's and yet so lost. Humans are not meant to be reincarnated a thousand times over.

We Animals can appeal to their base instincts, can be brought back time and time again with only a little hardship, a little darkness.

But the others resent me. I know it, though we rarely meet any longer. We hide in our hosts, immerse ourselves in their petty human thoughts. Only Cat is truly separate any more, with his dreams of freedom and self-mastery and life life life!

We all want freedom. And I have caged us.

But all I wanted was one chance to prove that I could be better than my friend. I just wanted to get out of his shadow.

I didn't know I would trap him in mine.

Then again...

Title: Dragon

Summary: Dragons are meant to live a thousand years.

Author's Notes: …I still can't help but think 'seahorse-chan'.

Word Count: 100

I have always been meant to be reborn. Maybe as a human, maybe not. I do not see destiny the way the others see it. There is no reason to stay here. The God is false. We can break the human's careless spell if we work as one to stop him.

But the others are intimidated, are frightened by the God. They blame it on their hosts, but the only ally I might have had was Cat. And Cat no longer trusts anyone. I doubt he even trusts his host.

No matter. I am still a child; I can wait.

And, finally...

Title: Cow

Summary: Am I a fool?

Author's Notes: None.

Word Count: 200

Rat was always trustworthy, before. He would help us when we needed someone small to reach something, or find something, he would stand guard for us as we hid from the devastation that humans were rapidly approaching with, and he would listen to our problems.

So when he asked if could he perhaps ride on my back, as he was so very tired, I agreed. I would come in first, and he could keep me company on the way.

But he leapt free of my back and dashed forward, betraying my trust, abandoning me, making me look foolish before my Emperor, my God. We knew that humans were on the rise, that we would need to join them to survive, but we did not want to.

The God bound us together, joined us into matrimonial family, destined to live and die together for the rest of eternity.

And all I could think of was, I am a fool. I saw this coming. I didn't stop it. But it was Rat who leapt headlong into danger.

Now, eons later, I can't be sure if it was a kindness. Being called a fool is one thing, being called a pet is another.