Winston dropped the large carcass on the lawn. If Chiaki's mates said he needed to provide his own food for Winter to be allowed to live in the home, then he was fine with that. This would be his first contribution. He wiped the sweat from his head with an arm. The animal may have been gutted, but it was still not light.

"That's a horse!" Chiaki exclaimed, seeing the animal.

"Yes." He said, starting to work a stone knife under the skin around the legs.

It was a light tan-yellow creature with a dark stripe down it's spine and black mane and tail. Chiaki closed her eyes and reminded herself that this wasn't a pet, it was a wild animal. "I just never ate them." She said carefully. After pushing her first reaction to the side she squatted down beside Winston. "How are you going to prepare it?"

"Probably just roast it over the fire."

"I mean, how are you going to keep it for Winter?"

He shook his head. He'd never kept meat that long. "Do I have to do it myself?" Then he tried to be clearer. "Are you allowed to show me how?"

Chiaki smiled. "Of course I can teach you how to preserve meat!"

Winston smiled back and continued his work. "Then, I will do it the way you like best."

How she liked it best? Chiaki thought about it. "Then let's smoke the meat over wood to give it a flavour and then dry it." They hadn't really smoked any meat yet this year so it was a good time to try again. Once the hide was removed and the meat cut from the bones it didn't look any different from any other animal she'd helped with. This made her feel more at ease working with the horse. Once the meat was hung over the smoky fire they took a rest.

"Heh, we did good."

"Yeah."

Chiaki looked around, it was oddly quiet for her being outside in the middle of the afternoon. Actually, now that she thought about it... where were the group of males that normally hung around outside her garden walls? Were they out prepping for Winter too or had Winston being here spooked them off?

"Hey I'm going to get water from inside to drink, you want some?"

"Sure."

Chiaki blinked. What was with the monosyllabic answers? She headed into the house to grab a jug of fresh water. Entering the kitchen she took time to check on the cooling jars of rendered fat. She hummed happily as it looked like it should.

Curtis was cooking up the meat debris and potato peels in a flat pan. It looked like some kind of rustic stir-fry. He sprinkled salt over it and hissed as the food popped and cracked. "What are you making?"

The snake frowned. "Not sure, just trying to use the left over bits."

"Okay." She shook the jug of water. "Too bad we can't keep water from going stale. Even with the food stored, we will have to go out and collect water this Winter."

"I'm sure the others will happily collect fresh water in the freezing cold." He said, thinking about the lion or tiger freezing their ass ends off in the deep Winter snow.

"We'll be outside."

"Okay."

Chiaki gave the jug of cool water to Winston. He had started to scrape the hide now that the meat was left to dry in the sun. He took a deep drink and thanked her in a soft voice.

"Hey, are you okay? You seem quiet."

Winston blushed and looked down. "I'm fine. It's just... different."

"Oh, big changes in just a day, huh?"

"Yeah." He nodded.

Chiaki leaned over and kissed his cheek. "You can take all the time you need to get use to the changes. Sorry I turned your life upside-down."

"You're not at fault!" He said quickly. "I'm happy!"

She laughed at the automatic denial of her being the reason his life was suddenly changed. She put a hand on his face and turn his head to make him look at her. "I didn't mean it in a bad way." He was blushing deeply again. Was he... shy? Chiaki hadn't thought about that. With the way most of the males acted, one who was painfully shy sounded absurd. How could she bring him out of his shell?

o.o.o.o.o.o.o.o.o.o

The next day Chiaki found herself headed to the inner-most ring of the city along with every other female, to get her portion of that years rice harvest. The site of Rosa entering the area on the back of one of her mates had Chiaki up in arms, but the purple-eyed lavender haired female seemed to have her glare turned on another for the moment. The other was... Bai Qingqing. Chiaki groaned. Qingqing was there to, of course with Parker.

"Augh! I can't believe you Parker!' Rosa yelled from the back of the orange tiger mate that she was riding on. "You could have been my mate! I'm the daughter of the Tiger King and you are the son of the Leopard King! It would have been a perfect match!" She turned her nose up at Qingqing. "After all... with how you acted the last time we saw each other, it would have been the least you could do!"

Chiaki slipped away into the crowd, happy to not be the target of Rosa's ire this time. It probably had to do with the fact Winston wasn't with her. Or that they weren't mated yet and Rosa felt she still had a chance to win over the white tiger male.

"I seems your friend has angered Rosa." Qianhuang said as they left.

"I haven't seen Rosa anything but angry. I'm not sure she has any other response." Qianhuang laughed at Chiaki's words. If a female was always that mad, her mates would have a difficult time indeed!

It took some time to work their way to the front of the line and Chiaki was surprised by the tiny bag she was handed. This was it? It couldn't have been more than two pounds of rice in the small sack. "This is it? I thought the city put a lot of work into rice."

"They do. The rice harvest is divided out to over eight hundred females of the city." The mate of a nearby female said.

Chiaki looked at him, then the small bag. She was even more convinced that the rice wasn't worth it... not even the single life of the lowest most hated, ugly, selfish, mean, bitter person in the city!