With the food and utensils set at the dinner table, the three Khajiit sat down to enjoy their meal.

Young M'azian had only taken a few bites into his slice of venison before peeking back up at his mother, admiring the grace in which she consumed her meal. She opposed all of the infamous Khajiit stereotypes that the Nords had labeled their race with. She worked honestly, and raised her cubs with as much love as any Nord mother could. He wanted to know more about her – more about the history behind the blood in his veins.

"Can you tell me more?" he asked once he was no longer chewing, causing the older Khajiit to avert her gaze from her meal, surprised by the abruptness of his request. They had been eating in silence since M'aizan got lost in his own imagination, and Shivani had accepted she wouldn't be getting an answer out of him.

"About…?"

Zahirra surely knew what he was asking for, yet she seemed wary to continue. Young M'aizan was desperate to know more, however. His lust for tales of adventure yearned to be satisfied. Apparently the look in his round eyes translated his needs well enough, for he didn't need to usher a reply for her to continue.

Even Shivani had grown a little curious. She pretended to stay enveloped in her meal, picking at her goat cheese wedge with disinterest. M'aizan noticed the way her ears were perked. It wasn't often that their mother spoke of her past. The two barely got answers out of her about their father and the gaps of time in which he was gone. In the times that he returned, it was even harder to try and force explanations out of him, so they learned to just avoid the subject all together.

"Well," their mother started, patting her muzzle with a cloth, "there were two more Khajiit traveling with our caravan. J'riskirr was an orphan mercenary that my father had taken in. He was only a few years older than Dar'Khari and I at the time. He had a bad attitude, but he was very handsome."

M'aizan scrunched his nose at this and Zahirra smiled at his innocence.

"There was also Fazala's best friend… Tsavashka..."

Something about saying her name caused Zahirra's stare to flicker a bit. For a moment, the cubs' mother was no longer in the room – her eyes spoke of a time long past.

After snapping back to reality, the golden Khajiit blinked and shook her head lightly, as if to jerk herself away from some odd memories. "There were these guards at the gate that were giving the adults trouble… You two are very lucky living here in Solitude; most cities do not welcome Khajiit behind their walls..."

"Ihajiito!" Fazala ordered with a tight hiss, unsheathing her dagger and turning her head towards the stream of soldiers. I watched Tsavashka as she stood there, paralyzed by the rush of Nords. Perhaps she was distracted by the numbers that cascaded towards them, or she couldn't believe Fazala's command. Honestly, neither could I.

Only through her peripheral vision did Fazala seem to notice that her friend was not moving, instead staring at her with round, green eyes, like an elk at the head of a Bosmer's arrow. The dusky Khajiit furrowed her brows, urgency in her tone as she repeated, "Tohei!"

Tsavashka shuddered then, the fur along her arms prickling as she grabbed both Ma'khari and I in one movement and shoved us into the back of our horse-drawn cart.

"Vaba maaszi jer lhajiito." My father had approached the wagon, grabbing my triceps and kneeling down, staring at me on eye-level with those hardened, yet nurturing brown eyes of his. There was something different about them in that moment, though. It was as if he knew that it would be the last time he would see me, and his heart was already mourning. "Fusozay var var, my cub."

With that, I watched as the bulky, sand-coloured Khajiit got back on his feet, bringing his trusty steel battleaxe into his surly, two-handed grip. He lumbered over to J'Riskirr and Fazala's side, and the three of them exchanged a look.

Everything inside of me wanted to climb out of the cart and follow him into the oncoming battle. I was young, but the life we had lived in the wilds of Skyrim had cleansed me of my childish ignorance. Fazala, J'riskirr, and my father would not be enough to fend off all of the town's guard. I knew that none of them would submit when driven to exhaustion, either.

They would sooner die than get locked up for something they were not guilty of, even if it meant leaving Ma'khari and I as orphans. They trusted Tsavashka- even without cubs, her maternal instincts were stronger than even Fazala's -and they trusted themselves enough to bide her time to get us out of there in one piece.

"Ahnurr!" I cried. My stomach was churning and the soldiers were wasting no time. I knew my father would not back down. There was no way of convincing him or the others to avoid such an unfair fight if it meant giving us time to escape. "Shurh, Ahnurr!" I cupped my hands over my mouth and screamed, echoing what he had always told me in times where our fate looked grim. I prayed to S'rendarr that he heard me.

Then, we were off. Tears dampened Tsavashka's cheeks as she whipped the reigns of the horse, but no noise came from her. Perhaps she thought her silence would keep from giving it away that she was crying, but I had caught it… and she had every right to cry, but she knew she needed to be strong. She was leaving her best friends to die, carrying the burden of two traumatised, orphaned cubs on her back. It could not have been easy… but in that moment, nothing was, as I watched my father fade into nothing more than a golden fleck against the gates of Riften.

Ma'khari and I held each other for the duration of the ride to Windhelm, and I could tell with every roll of the wheel that his despair was melting into anger. He had stopped whimpering for his fado, and his grip on my arms had tightened considerably.

I tried to soothe him, running my hand in circles around his back, but I was just as much of a mess as he was. It got worse the darker it got, too. Weird creatures came out in the night, so suddenly my distraught and my paranoia were fighting over dominance of my little body.

I had once awoken to my father beheading a vampire that had tried to sink its fangs into Ma'khari in the middle of the night. Other times, there were wolves and skeevers, or the occasional bandit… and Khajiit night vision didn't help when our eyes were closed, which they often were after a full day of playing and trying to sell wares.

"Jaji kor ajit mok tenurr." Tsavashka was well aware of our concern, having known us since we were kittens. We didn't need to say anything, which was helpful at the least, because at that time, I don't think either Ma'khari or I were even capable of forming coherent sentences. We were blubbering messes, trying our best to be pitiful quietly as to not attract any unwanted attention from other travelers or creatures.

"Fusozay," she whispered soon after, peering into the growing darkness ahead. "Ahzirr khi vasa jijri."

I couldn't imagine what she meant by that until she brought the cart to a stop on the side of the road. She slipped out of the wooden seat and reached towards the back of the cart, where we were huddled up. She opened one of the chests and took out a dagger, tucking it into a sheath against her hip. Then, with a bit of reluctance, she grabbed a few green bottles I had never seen before, shoving them into the pocket of her dress.

All of this she did silently as I held Ma'khari's arm, watching her with reddened, glossy eyes. The entire time I watched her, I could only think of what could be happening back at the city. There was a thickness in my throat I couldn't shake, and I buried my face against Ma'khari's shoulder to avoid any stifling whimper.

Tsavashka, meanwhile, had draped one of the limp hut fabrics over the cart, leaving the horse with a small bucket of feed. Then, she took me by the hand, guiding Ma'khari as an extension, and led us down a small path. Curiously, I could hear something that sounded like panting in the distance, and I squeeze the Khajiit woman's hand, trying to find some comfort in this mess.

We traveled like this for only a few heartbeats before Tsavashka stiffened, and shoved the two of us into some nearby undergrowth.

"Hey!"