At age seventeen, Equius Zahhak has long since concluded that it will be the women in his life that will be the death of him.

Aradia Megido, the object of his affections and the bane of his existence. Fourteen, on the cusp of the Culling Age, was a bad time for her mother to be convicted and burned as a witch, a "demoness". (Which personally, sounded rather primitive for such a seemingly "advanced" society. The cars and suburban houses greatly contrasted the hissing, smoking wooden stake to a laughable point.) Aradia; terrified of sharing her mother's fate at the hands of people whose paranoia never seemed to go away, she'd fled to Equius's home region, the quiet and vaguely barren Casil.

Overwhelmed with a pity and infatuation that was quite foreign to him, he had let the ragged witch's daughter live with him, working alongside Equius and the dull uniformity of his mechanics. That was nearly two years ago, and despite her eccentricity and her continued scorn of his blundering romantic advances, he and Aradia shared a comfortable relationship that had become familiar over her time spent in his home.

Equius was worried, though. Aradia was showing the interest in the morbid and deathly that her mother had, and many Casilian girls had grown venomously envious of Aradia's striking beauty. Equius becomes increasingly acquainted with this nagging concern as her sixteenth birthday nears. As Aradia unknowingly let herself become the object of envy and suspicion, he gets more and more worried that she will be cast out as an Anomaly, or worse, killed on the spot as one.

It was too late for Nepeta.

Friends with Equius since childhood, Nepeta had run off to live with other Anomalies the minute she turned sixteen, before the Drones came for her. All her life, Nepeta's known that she wouldn't ever be conceived as normal; a girl too wild to be assimilated into Society. Frankly, Equius was surprised that she hadn't run away sooner; her cat-like features have been prevalent since the frigid autumn day when he had met her, a small and pale-skinned thing alone and batting around the carcass of a mouse. Her brutal, pointed fangs had scared the other children; and her slanted predator-cat eyes were "that of a savage", or so according to most people.

To Equius, her eyes held nothing but playfulness, her fangs lost in the friendly beam of her smile. She really was quite harmless, but with Anomalies, people did not care either way so long as they ended up a corpse under their boot.

Despite the people's unhidden malice towards her, Nepeta visited him in secret, trailing in the starkly rotting smell of her prey. He always felt better around her; more open, more light somehow. Although Equius had been raised to respect the boundaries of the Empress's Society, he was beginning to think that any Society that would banish a girl like this had to be wrong in some way.

When he wasn't worrying about Aradia or Nepeta, he'd worry about himself.

Because he knew better than anyone else what happened to people that associated with those Society cast away.

She always comes during the night. You'd look up, your hands stained with sweat and grease, and she'd be crouched on your windowsill; more often than not covered in dirt and animal's blood.

Sweat and grease. Dirt and blood. Mixed with Aradia's constant smell of dust and incense, it seems your house would be destined to smell horrible for the rest of your natural life.

Hi, Equius! She'd grin, wriggle forward on her feet and tackle you to the ground with a giggle.

You'd lay there on the metal-littered tiles for a bit, just hugging each other and sighing. Nepeta's visits were much too far and few between than you can take. You'd be simply too elated at the sight of her to do much more than hold her close. She'd sit up then, still perched on your stomach, and ask, How've you been?

And while a good amount of time you'd answer with something mundane (And she still acted absolutely riveted by your words, bless her.), you'd occasionally find yourself pouring out your ever-present worries. She listens intently, her tail twitching and curling in on itself. She asks, with a playful smile on her face but a deeper, more serious implication, And what about that purretty friend of yours?

You heave a great sigh; the scent of cinnamon and dead things linger in the stagnant air. Aradia is awake, it seems. …Strange. She is acting strange. She was strange, before, but now it's-… You run a muscled hand through lank, oily hair. …Not everyone finds it as endearing as I. If she doesn't start behooving herself and start trying to cease all this depravity of hers, she's going to be in a lot of trouble come April.

Nepeta nods grimly, licking at her unsheathed claws. If you want, she can come with me! Maybe I can teach her how to hunt.

It is bad enough for you to have to see Nepeta only once in a blue moon, but the thought of being in the same situation with Aradia…

You nod stiffly. Yes, that would be the best course of action.

Nepeta's bright yellow eyes flicker knowingly. You can come with us, you know, she states matter-of-factly. You can come with us and then it'll be you and me and her and the others. It'll be like it used to be!

You know that Nepeta misses spending time together with you just as much as you do. She peers at you expectantly, and you can't bear to look at her when you grumble, I do not think I can. Living like that may be acceptable for you and Aradia, but it is not of my station to-

To hell with your station!, she hisses, and before you can reprimand her for her language, she continues, Your father did the same, didn't he?

You take a deep breath, pinch the bridge of your nose. He was different. He was disowned as a disgrace because he took pity on an Anomaly.

Nepeta sits up, crossing her arms and pouting at you; giving her the petulant look of a child scorned. And giving Aradia room and board for two years isn't 'pity'?

You don't have time to say anything, just to sit up and frown until Nepeta leans over and kisses your sweaty cheek. Slipping lithely out the window once more, she calls, Think about it, Equius!

And leaps.

A/N: I'm thinking that Alternia is divided into regions; each named with the shortened names of the troll's Lands? Like, Equius lives in Casil. (The Land of Caves and Silence.)

And I made Aradia a year younger than Equius.