Copyright © 2025 by Markovas & Candle

Editing by Joletsart

All rights reserved. Reproduction or distribution of

this novel and its visual assets, in any kind of

electronic or physical way, is prohibited without the

permission of the publisher.

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C1 – Calum

Moving across the concrete tiles, the dense forest of legs, dangling arms and bags, Calum glanced up to a structure of concrete and glass, catching fragments of its visage as he stepped, ducked and weaved through the masses. On its roof: a row of gently flickering floodlights. The sky beyond painted perfect blackness.

Irritation flicked in Calum’s mind. There was supposed to be a sign. Was this the right place or… no, it had to be, crowds never gathered this big reasonlessly. If only he could figure out why they were standing around in lines.

No matter. He couldn’t be lost again, just had to find the way in.

Legs buzzing with fatigue, Calum kept up his pace. Four hours before Darkening since the last announcement, that’s when they shut the doors. That had once been many hours away, but since stepping out from his home that morning, his window had grown slimmer and slimmer and slimmer.

This was the first, probably the only city-wide census he would see in his lifetime. At least that’s what Grandma had told him, and she would know as she used to work at the place, or… he hoped it was the right place after all.

Having lain for several sleepless nights wondering what the outcome of the Census could be, Calum had finally grasped the idea of what a census was. But what would come of it, this record of every creature living together, he had no idea.

Although, he was certain that it’d bring work with nice benefits and nice food. Somewhere to be with a heater, a light and, and yes! A doctor he could go to whenever the stomach pains struck him.

Roughly shouted came a call from behind, a voice that drove Calum’s ears to flatten as he turned to gauge if that was intended for him.

A burly man with a uniform of dark blue was coming at him, pushing through the crowd. Calum didn’t see a face, just a glint of black boots thumping as they approached.

Why did this always happen to him?

Dropping to all fourson the dusty rock pavement, Calum left the voice easily behind, a creamy-brown blur through a narrow thicket of legs. A scent of clean fabrics rushed by his nose; a whiff of smoke, then something sweet that stuck at the back of his throat.

Darting and twisting, Calum dodged his toes from the crushing step of a woman’s heel, gave wide berth to the legs of an old man who smelled of urine, and broke out into the open.

“Cheese bread, get your cheesy bread here!” came the shouts from the middle of the square where the scents from tables and smoke mingled and rose in the promise of to-be-liquidated hunger.

Calum climbed to his hindfeet, trying to cough away that nasty taste of perfume that was scratching at his throat’s back in mingle to the salivating food. He rubbed at his tail and nose, dashing to the stalls of unwrapped pastries. Humans babbled and exchanged paper for hot pieces of bread wrapped in molten cheese. If only anyone were to drop some of that on the ground, he could have it all for himself!

He was poised to ask if he could have just a little bit, but one of the women in a yellow-stained apron from the stalls shouted, “Ew, rat! Rat, shoo, shoo!”

A piece of rock was thrown Calum’s way. Of course his reflex was pawy as always and he got out of harm without much thought, putting some distance from that person as he didn’t want someone else joining in the activity of throwing things at him.

At this new pause of hungry sigh, he gazed up.

There above him, white letters upon rusty brickwork, ‘Office of Citizen Records’, just as Grandma had said.

The building was long, stretching all the way to the base of the crowd with a grid of squat windows, although, here at the front were the only doors he had seen.

A murmuring grew amid the backgrounding crowd, a thumping of boots followed by huffing breaths.

The lines of people all ended here; terrans from all walks of life, with their scuffed shoes, polished boots, torn jeans and flowerful dresses. All lines led to a row of black doors.

They were open: yellow hue shining from within. A smile crept across his features as Calum took his first steps towards them.

He’d made it.

The smile upon his muzzle fell to shock at the hustle of huffing behind him. His startled turn and skittering of feet were all a moment too late to avoid the grabbing hands of the burly man he’d thought long escaped-from.

Clamping around his tail, Calum found himself dangling upside down. His eyes caught on the sight of blue cloth wrapped around the man’s arm. Grandma had said to trust people with blue bands, so he tried to form a polite smile as he looked up into the scowling beard that held him.

“Where think you go, rat?”

“I’m not a rat. I’m a mouse,” Calum clarified with a squeak, not liking it when people made the mistake. Was it really so confusing? Grandma always got it right.

The beard was scowling harder now.

Reaching up, Calum tried to pry himself from those bulky sausages. They didn’t seem in the mood to budge. He could have started clawing, biting, but somehow that didn’t feel… right.

“I’ll miss the Census!”

“This be human area. Your kind goes atback.”

“Um, okay…”

Bringing his paws in front of his chest, Calum wondered about his next step. It wasn’t so bad being held upside down, just a little confusing that the man wanted to talk like this. It was also rather interesting. A different perspective!

The only problem was this ‘something’ on the terran’s finger, a ring maybe. It was itchy-cold on his tail.

“Um, where’s it’s locale? I got lost, um, and my foot hurts, and my tail is itchy.”

Calum gazed his brown eyes with a hopeful smile into the man’s gruff face. It glared even harder, until a brow found defeat to a softened long sigh as he was put down. Fuzzy blurriness played across his vision to a shake that organized the chaos. “Followclose, little one.”

Weight pulled on his thighs and he didn’t like being on the ground again. The base of his tail itched a lot from all his weight hanging from it, but a little scratch soon fixed that. Looking back, the man was already pacing away through the crowd, so Calum took quick steps to catch up. “What about the Census?”

“We go there,” he said. Calum noticed the man had a sort of stiff walk where his hands stayed on his sides. He had a long black stick hanging off his belt and two loops of metal connected by a chain, but that didn’t really spell much to Calum’s mind.

“Wha’s that?” Calum peered in focused curiosity.

“Hm?”

“Is it like a… um, like a neckle-necklelace?” Calum asked with a curious finger.

The man chuckled, then patted the dangling gleam of metal. “Nah, like bracelet for bad person.”

“Oh.” It didn’t make much sense to Calum why bad people would have their own jewellery. He was about to ask more about it, when the man answered with a question of his own.

“Where learn to speak Terrish so good?”

“Grandma, she reads me lots-lots! Gave me books and I read them over and over and over.”

“Ah, good-good. Polite kid rat, good thing to see for change.”

Just as Calum opened his mouth to correct the man’s blatant mistake, they rounded the corner at the edge of the building. The crowd of terrans were left behind, as they had traced all the way back to the start of the long row of windows.

The change in scent was instant, an earthy smell of breathy musk.

Calum noticed a change in the man’s walk. His shoulders tensed. His arm was no longer swinging but was clutching the black stick on his belt.

A crowd of mals stood, arranged in long lines just as the terrans had been. Calum’s tail twitched in toe.

“Too many of them. They noread, nomanners, noget along with us.”

‘They’ in question were mostly wolves. Gigantic things, broad and hunched. A few turned at their direction, sniffing the air with those big, black noses. Muzzles long enough they could crunch Calum in two.

Certain air trebled above and around this mass, a sort of indescribable hostility without reasonable explanation. They were all clothed with baggy-hooded scraps that masked their wide and slim bodies. Fangs contrasted against their dark and gray chins, and the sort of hushed chatter rumbled as undecryptable cohesion.

Calum wanted to flee, escape these invisible claws that tickled his scenting nose, this danger that spoke to him on a deep and unexplainable level. But the man before him kept that from happening just by being close. It was odd how no matter what the terrans did, they always seemed the least harmful and would never make him feel like what right now offered.

As they passed the pack of predators so did they pass packs of prey mals of different species, each keeping to their respective groups. He wondered if the man was trying to find the mouse one, and it did make sense, so long as he wasn’t led to the one with the rats. That would’ve been annoying after the many reclarifications.

Calum’s sightseeing was harshly cut short as he collided into the man’s leg, stumbling back and falling on his rump.

“We is hungwy. I is hungwy.” It was a tall wolf, its hood off and body blocking the way ahead into the building. The man’s hand was resting on his stick at the belt, and Calum swore he could see his tension steaming all around him.

“Wha’ complain me about?” the man blurted in harshness, then proceeding to reject, “What’s there? Go eat food then.”

“Muncher-garbag’. Wher’ flesh. I wants flesh.”

“None, so whiny wolf shutmouth.”

“Rats! Yum, cume tu—” the wolf didn’t even finish as it tried to grab at the sitting, mortified Calum. Clawed tendons of gray-deadly fur were coming swiftly for grip, and Calum knew he had to escape even before the word entered his head.

But before he could blink, that clawed paw was crunchily smacked to a yelp by a hazy blur of the man’s stick.

“Order: get back, savage!” he shouted with the thick stick risen in the air. The wolf was whimpering, but then it growled and bared its teeth with these horrible gurgles that salivated at its maw. Calum noticed the shiny bracelet in the man’s other hand, opened wide. Was this what a bad person was?

But just as that happened, the fury got cut off and its ears fell in some kind of remorseful reproach. Its tail fell and it gloomily retracted back into the pack of grumbling predators.

Man did not follow, just breathed out a long sigh and gave Calum a glance. His heart was in his ears and he was looking for any reason to just run, but none came about.

“Come, no place for rat here.”

They passed by the mobile food stand serviced by several predators who looked like wolves but were way smaller and had orange fur, fumes of tasty food tickling Calum’s temptations. He dared dream of reaching out for the piece of bread or even the raw onions, but the overbearing fear of falling behind the man disabled his ambitions.

“Officer, special deal, very special deal!” shouted warmly and eloquently the stall’s orange-furred predator.

“Later.”

“Later it is, officer. Don’t deprive your tongue of these delightful tastes.”

“Can I—” Calum tried to say, but an incoming wolf at the stand made him squeak and run away, getting a strange glance from the eloquent predator.

Calum tried not to overthink the difference and walked a little closer to his new friend.

“They complain when they not treated equally? Maybe they need make more effort to… Anyway, come.”

Calum was escorted through the dark door, down a short corridor with panels on either wall and into a large room. He wasn’t sure how it would be called, but there were tons of doors, cabinets, terrans bustling to and fro. The floor was shiny and smelled like lemon. Would it taste like lemon too?

Such luxury did these terrans surround themselves with!

Allowing himself a small moment to test his curiosity, Calum knelt and unabashedly lapped once at the floor, only to stand again instantly, trying to scrape his tongue off against his teeth. It tasted of… of dirt and mud and other nastiness that sizzled on his flesh ticklishly.

What a filthy lie. How could something that smelled nice not taste nice? What was the point of a nice scent without a taste to… oh, wait, where was his friend?

Peering around through the ton of noise and crowding, Calum slipped in between mals’ legs as he looked for his guide. Nobody even gave him a second glance, but maybe a sniff. He couldn’t see much of the area through the crowds, but the vibrant blue of the man’s sash managed to dance for his attention.

Pattering through the ruckus of steps and wheels and swinging doors, he skittered by the man’s side, at a door with a tall window of an odd kind of glass that Calum couldn’t see through.

The man seemed to be considering something. Calum watched as he glanced around, before untying the blue sash from his arm, which he pushed into Calum’s paws.

“Put around self, rat.”

Calum wondered what the words were supposed to mean, but after repeating them in his head a few times and staring at the blue cloth, he got the idea and followed curiously, grasping the cloth and draping it over his shoulders, letting it fall down over his back while he held it up over his face.

The fabric obscured his brow. He peered out from its folds with a little grin on his creamy-white muzzle. All he received in return was a low grunt from the man.

“No-no, tie around waist, with knot.”

Pulling the blue from himself, Calum turned it over and over in his paws. If he could just find the corner, he could… But it seemed to go on and on for… Well, maybe if he’d put it in half, and then make a tie? How was a tie even made to begin with?

“Lemme,” sighed the man, grabbing the cloth from Calum’s paws and pulling it around. He did some fast motions and the cloth grew tight about his waist. The feeling was strange and rather dislikeable. Was it necessary?

Calum tried to push it off but it was fixed firm, so he twitched his nose and looked up at the man, only to see him staring back expectantly.

“Say now: thank you.”

Calum glanced around, then looked back up with widened eyes. “Why?”

“It’s wha’to do when someone help you. I give some clothes. Not much, doesn’t even reach knees, but no more you wandering like savage. Presentable.”

“Clothes?” Calum giggled. “Has master freed me?”

“Erm, wha’?”

“Oh, it’s from a book. Didn’t get that part either, the first time.”

His face held in a baffled expression, the man leaned into the dark door he was stood in front of. It opened slowly, a scent of stuffy air drifting from within.

Not sure if he really liked the smell that much, Calum peered back at the lemon-scented floor. A cacophony erupted from behind and he flinched with pivoting ears to see two trolleys of papers colliding.

The door already swinging closed, Calum made up his mind he would much prefer the stuffy quiet than the noise, or the lying floors out here.

He dashed inside, although the cloth around him wasn’t making his movements easy. Obviously the preference was for him to naked about in his brown fur, but there were expectations and he had to be…

Presentable.

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C2 – Census

Renovated wallpaper, pristine lights hung from suspended cables, corkboards with countless documents pinned everywhere in inclusion to the very edges of the boards. Serious storage shelves on wheels were packed with thick folders with random colors sticking in between pages.

Legs of terrans crossed around the clear tiles of fake tastes, but it made so that Calum was unable to focus for longer to catch sentences from the posters and documents with highlighted sections. Initially the door they had gone through had cut out the harsh noise of mals, but the deeper they crossed through the straight corridor, the similar effect turned teal.

Random words from random sentences spoke, “—section 4b, get—”, “—how would I know if—”, “—just answer the question, stop giving—”, “—yes, Tania, you told me ten times—”, “—anyone seen my tea cup—”.

Calum wondered where exactly the man was leading him to, but with all these papers and office supplies it did feel like they were going in the right direction, so the gnawing dread in his belly had churned into bubbles of excitement.

“Um, we there yet?” Calum asked through another futile attempt to loosen the blue cloth.

“’Bout so.” Their path ended at a thick brown door which for Calum looked ginormous. Man touched upon some dials adjacent to it and they waited in muffled noisiness.

“Hey, what was that?”

“Hm? Oh, isthe comm line—” his speech schlopped to an obnoxious buzz that came from the nestled door. He pulled the heavy door open slowly,hisses and creaks making Calum pull his ears low in trepidated discomfort.

An openly new view with columns and higher ceiling, dirtier tiles and pretty cracked at random spots, to rows of stalls with clothy curtains, high above, yet not enough to obscure crowns of steel procuring their topmost heads.

Scent of lemon disappeared to one of oil, sweat and mals. There were some in the distance, waiting both impatient patience, surrounded by banistered ropes of guidance to their spots.

Man led them to one of the stalls that seemed not to have anyone waiting at the banister line, and the curtain was lifted lowly with a gesture of entry. And just so as he did, a shout procured, “Ey! Is ma turn.”

“Shutup mouth,” the man ordered and got inside to a confused Calum who wasn’t allowed to see who they’d potentially wronged.

“Is ma break,” called a woman behind the glassless, black steel bars. Her mouth was full with a sort of overstuffed sandwich. Calum remarked to himself that the woman was quite overstuffed herself.

“Varl, a stragg—” he coughed into his fist, “straggler foryou.” The man propped himself against the ledge.

Calum chuckled at the sight, audibly. Both terrans turned to stare at him. Calum bit his lip and reached for his tail. Um, had he done that loudly? Whoopsie, heh.

“Darkening’s in three. Queue be too big. He can’t walkhome after.”

Calum clutched his tail tighter as the woman rose up out of her chair with metal springs clasping, and squinted her big eyes at him. Her head tilted left, then right. A nervous smile playing on his lips, Calum mirrored the gesture. It received only a scowl in return.

“Wha’s ‘e got wit’ you?”

“Listen, just take him, ‘kay? Hea kid, polite kid,” the man asked with open palms that stayed as they were for as long as it was needed for Varla to grumble.

“Presentable,” Calum added in a heartbeat due to potentially getting a no from the woman, spreading his paws wide as if to show that he had clothes and was not only a ‘polite kid’.

“Aha… yeh… ‘tever,” she grunted and sat again with a thump that sent a ripple through her layered cheeks, some sprinkle of cheese falling from the end of her sandwich.

Calum’s gaze dropped to his tail, which he let fall between his feet. He tried to steady his breaths, only for the cloth to itch and tighten against him with every rise of chest.

This cloth, this knot of cloth… He squirmed a little-lots and tried to push it off himself, hoping the terrans wouldn’t see. Too tight. Too awkward. The man had made a tie behind his back. If he could just reach…

“Ahem.”

Freezing, he turned slowly up to face the man, who nodded his head meaningfully at the cloth. Calum chuckled lightly and decided he’d better just leave it be.

“Keep it-on, kiddo. Blue suits you.” Ear twitching, Calum eyed at the sash tied around him. Suits him? What did that mean? Still, the words felt to be a kindness, creeping a bashful smile on his muzzle.

“Now,” the man adjusted his belt and patted the table at the corner, “listen to Varla. Yes? She will sort you.” Sort him? But he had to be doing something else or he’d miss out on the event!

“I’m going to be late. Can she show me where the Census is?”

“Ah, heh… is wha’she’d do, ratty.”

“Oh, I’m…” Calum piped in, about to correct the man’s usual mistake, but thought better of it, seeing the man stand and head for the cloth door. “Thank you.”

The man paused a moment and smiled back, before disappearing through the grey curtain to a whiff of air that flooded in at the clothy slap. Calum had never been in such an interaction with a terran, but he didn’t have time to think about it as Varla called him ‘sit down’.

There was a round metal chair with a plastic top which seemed it could be made to rise or fall, as he’d seen the bearded man do, who’d just left, by spinning it.It was quite clever. Calum wanted to investigate further but he thought he’d better do as he was told, and so took a seat.

The large woman ripped off another mouthful from her large sandwich and gazed at nothing, leaving Calum quite confused.

Was this the census? Watching an overstuffed lady eat? Well, it definitely looked interesting.

Inactivity playing a rhythm of anxiety on Calum’s mind, he wonderedhis eyes all around the room for some clue of what he was meant to be doing. The walls were painted in blue. He usually liked blue, but this shade was dull and stale. It reminded him of food on the verge of rotting.

It stank of… wolf? Yea, it was that musk he’d remembered from outside, not at all a likeable scent. There was a time he didn’t even know what a wolf was…

At least his paws were no longer cold and he was at the right place. Surely she’d take care of him, the man had asked her to pretty well. Yet she didn’t seem to be doing anything right now. He didn’t want to trouble her, but felt he wanted to say… anything really.

Clearing his throat, her viper-eyes snapped in his direction. “When does the census begin?”

She eyed him through her glasses for a moment, then sighed, put down her sandwich and licked her fingers. She pulled a sheet of light-purple paper from the side and put it in front of herself, a rather obscene burp bristling the air to a scent of onion, pickles and something eerie.

“Name,” she asked in monotone apathy. That was an easy one.

“Calum.”

“Your full name.”

Wait, was there more to his name that he didn’t know about? Maybe she didn’t hear him well. “Calum?” he loudly repeated.

The woman mumbled something and scribbled on the purple page. Aha, so she hadn’t heard him, that’s it.

“Address?”

Calum tilted his head, his ears flopping to the side. The questions were already getting trickier. That was fine, Grandma had said they’d help him with anything he didn’t know. “I don’t know what–”

“Where do you live?” she cut in his attempt of an explanatory question.

“Oh, under the stairs.”

“Understairs?”

“Under stairs and over stairs, my path has—”

“Whas stairs?” she cut in, leaving a tingle of disappointment of what he wanted to express as an amusing memory. But he closed his mouth and remembered this was serious.

“Outside Grandma’s house.” Varla’s lip twisted. Wasn’t she happy with his answer? Maybe she wanted more? After all, clarity was such a nice thing to have.

Calum’s paws waved before him, drawing a picture in the air. “It’s like this little,” he mimicked with his paws the size, “these steps that go to the door and on the right, well, on the left if you’re looking down from the door, but on the right if—”

“Yeah-yeah. And where do she live?”

“She lives… at Grandma’s house?” The woman groaned, Calum’s tail turning knots behind him. “It, it has a blue door and small windows, two of them! Well, on the front there’s two and there’s another on the back and—”

“Blasted, you dunno your home address?” The woman clicked the pen against her desk: a slow, tuneless pulse.

Calum was silent for a few fidgets, rubbing fingers into fingers. There was some dirt under his short claws. This wasn’t going anything like he’d hoped. It couldn’t be helped how tricky suddenly the question was becoming and that uncertainty was plaguing his insides to a grip of speechlessness. With strain on his tongue, he pulled out, “What’s an address?”

“Address? Legal name residence, so people can find it? Street, house number, district.”

Calum’s ears sunk further against his head. “Oh. I’m not sure Grandma would like me telling strangers—”

“It’s the government.” Varla scratched at her nose. “We already know where she at…” she took a quick bite of sandwich, “this ish… just t’ verify it’s accurate.”

Address… hm. Calum thought houses were just called by their doors. The blue door, the red door, the one with the fancy handle. Did every house have a special name? Wait, did she just say they knew where his grandma lived?

“But, if you know Grandma’s locale, can you tell me?”

Varla’s pen kept on clicking against the time and her intense glare got him to gulp and look away. Maybe what he had asked didn’t make sense. But it did! Nevertheless…

It was even easier to call houses by how they smelled, but Grandma always had trouble when he named things like that. He didn’t think she could smell as good as he could.

Come to think of it, she had pointed out some signs to him here and there. Maybe… yes, maybe that’s what an address was.

“There’s a sign by the crossing road, near our house locale,” Calum offered, tail twitching in beat to every click. “I don’t like it, it’s smelly. But it say… Sava… no, Sawa… Clove?”

“Sawa Clove, ahm. District?”

Calum shifted. More questions he didn’t know. “I could ask Grandma?”

The woman huffed. “Please do. Dunno, maybe she knows where she lives.”

Tail curling around his feet, Calum rubbed a small claw against the tough skin of his palm. All this thinking, all this waiting, and this was how it was playing out. He was making a mockery of himself. They weren’t giving him a job after this. He had to show them he was capable.

Pricking up, Calum realized there was more than just districts he could use to explain things. “There’s a café—”

“You are not the owner of your home,” she interrupted, in a raised voice that startled Calum into silence, ticking something on the document. “You have not moved address in the past twelve months. You do not have children…” she stopped and gave him a long glance that ended with a scoff. Was he supposed to answer all these at once?

She continued, her voice dry, “You are not in full time or part time education. You do not have a criminal record or a history of violence. You are not suffering any terminal or… Wha’s your date of birth?”

It was almost startling to see the questions come back to him. Where was he supposed to even start from? “Um, my home is owned by—”

“Just blurt your age.”

All those questions skipped over. It bothered Calum a lot. She didn’t think he could do it, he’d failed too many times. Was it already too late for him? Had he already ‘lost’?

At least not every question was taken from him. His age. Well, that was fine and simple. “Twelve.”

“You’re male rat. Y—”

“I’m a mouse,” Calum clarified, receiving an odd look which he didn’t think much into, just glad he could clear up the confusion.

Varla tapped her pen against the desk. She seemed irritated. It’s not like it was his fault she got it wrong. Even so, it gave Calum’s teeth to grind.

“Heigh’?”

“Heigh? What is heigh?” Calum wondered.

“Heigh’-height, your height.”

“Um… this high?” Calum reached in the air to try and mimick his height.

“Go to t’e heigh’ measuremen’ wall nex’ t’ you.”

“Where?”

“T’ere, t’ere,” Varla point just right next the chair Calum was sitting at. Ah, and there were these lines that went across from the floor to the ceiling, most of which were small and at certain moment pretty big and thick. Each thick one had numbers next to it… 0.5m, 1m, 2.5m…

Graciously he slid off and came to a stop underneath, staring up in awe to how tall other mals could get to. Would he be able to grow as tall as that, reaching the ceiling with his meaty ears?

“Turn ‘round and face me.” Calum did as told, his ears perking up in patience to what was to be done next.

But in the excitement of learning something new, he looked to the side and noticed his ear reaching, “I’m 65 centi-me-ters!”

“Ey, no-no, put ‘em down.”

“Oh… what about my tail?”

“Ain’t sequentail.”

“Um, what is se-qu-ue—”

“Ain’t of matter.”

“Oh, okay,” Calum stopped poking into that strange word, and he tried to get his ears down. They weren’t managing to drop, his heart beating rapidly to tingles of anxiety, so in the raspy breaths of Varla he just pulled them down with his paws. Suddenly everything was muffled.

Varla was now squinting at him close to the steel bars, and with a final adjustment of glasses she declared. “44 centime’ers.” Despite the muffle he managed to catch-on. So that’s what his height was, how exciting to know so many new things about himself!

His ears perked up, maybe now she’d want to take measurement of how tall he really was? “Turn t’ the side.”

Calum turned all the way around. Was she going to measure his tail length despite the initial rebuttal? It was pretty long…

“Side-side,” she sputtered with bangs against the bars.

“Like this?” Calum asked as he changed his angle a bit.

“More-more… no… yes! Don’t move,” she finalized and moved about some dark object that was aimed at his direction. “Ugh… aight, sit down.”

Well that was going to be an odd measurement, but if it was needed… so he sat on his rump, the cold tiles slowly seeping through the blue cloth. She was looking into her papers until a glance got her choked mid-gasp.

“Whas— where’d you scutter? Did ‘t leave? Blasted—”

“But I’m here,” Calum waved and noticed her pull the huge body up.

“Chair, sit on ‘here!” she shouted with her entire hand going through the bars. It was a huge meaty hand, which got him to wonder if she’d managed to pull her hand back.

As Calum got himself back onto the chair, he wondered what exactly was that last part for, and how her big fingers had tried to use the dark object below the metal bars, its strangely dark eye staring stoically from the rim divider’s edge. There was a pretty odd scent when he’d sat down, and it wasn’t getting out of his nose. Kinda annoying to such a degree that he sneeze several times.

“Do you have AIC?” she asked at length but waited no time for the answer to follow. “’F’course not. Gotta register you for one. ‘Nother bite off mh break.”

She reached out for another form, this one was in light blue. Her sandwich was taken a bite from as she scribbled across the page. Chewing was noisy, some gratings of cheese falling from her lips.

Calum shuffled in his oversized seat. “Do I—”

“Shh.”

In silence, Calum waited for whatever would occur. There wasn’t much to do other than swinging his feet in the air and playing with his firmly smooth tail.

The chatter outside came and went, each with random scents passing through the air. Some nice; some made him gag. It seemed it was mostly wolves passing by, each escorted by a terran. On the way to census of their own, no doubt. What smelled like a hare passed. They always smelled the nicest.

He noticed a poster beside him, a terran pointing towards him with words saying, ‘Anthropomorphism does not excuse inaction’. What was that suppose to mean? It was quite the word, maybe the biggest he had seen. But how to say it?

He spoke it out to himself, breaking it down as his grandmother had shown him. “Anth… rope… per… more—”

“Wait. You can read?” the woman cut abruptly with a gawp. It was nice of her to ask, something he could share that he loved doing.

“I like to read, books are fun. I’m reading the Ingenious Ge—”

“Blasted-so, why’ma doing this? Fill it out!” was the scoffed rebuke as she slid the papers she was writing across, sheets hanging on the edge and waiting to fall at random. Calum opened his mouth to react, but already she’d picked up her sandwich and was gazing at the wall, just as she had been when he’d come in.

She wasn’t in the mood to talk right now, that much was clear. Probably it was up to him to finish this questionnaire.

Still, it was a nice thing she’d been surprised he could read. This was his chance to prove how capable he was, he couldn’t mess this up.

Climbing up, he stood on the chair, reached out and pulled the papers close onto the desk. They were pretty big, just like his grandmother’s books, but they had all these empty boxes and lines everywhere.

He looked for something he could write with, which was this scratched pen on the very end of the desk. He climbed up easily, the large muscles of his legs pushing him into paw’s reach. Just then he noticed this dark eye in the middle of the window area, glowing in red in its subtle depths.

He leaned slowly closer towards it. It made his back prickle. Something moved in its black eye that made it alluring to look into, until it gazed right back!

Instinct took over as his eyes widened, his paw smacking the dark eye which fell back into the woman’s compartment to a loud shout of spattered crumbs, saliva and lettuce.

“Blasted’s your probliem, rat? Agh!” the woman sputtered through a further mouthful and choky coughs. She grabbed the eye that was dangling on some kind of long, dark tail and chucked it over.

“A rat! You’ve got a rat in there!” Calum exclaimed.

“Wha’?” Her visible confusion slowly passed to a light chuckled cough. “No-no-no. Are you stu— Ugh… Look, it’s you, it’s like a reflection.”

Oh, he knew that word. Yet, why was that reflection needed? “Like a mirror so I can see myself? But it’s too small.” Oh, had he just called himself a rat? “I meant mouse, I saw a mouse.”

“Ugh?”

“It wasn’t a rat, it wasn’t. I just… it was a mouse.” This thought annoyed him and got him to cross his paws as a certain throbbing in his heart was making him pretty anxious.

“You ain’t got t’ see. Don’t touch the camera again. Shoo,” she batted her hand at him which got him to get off back to the chair, pen held in paws. She put the thing in its place, and again it was staring at him. His hackles rose everso slightly, so he decided not to meet its gaze and to focus on the census. Yes, there was only a mouse in that eye, nobody else.

---

C3 – Fat?

Calum filled out the forms for a while, struggling with the questions here and there. His paw-writing was much smaller than Varla’s, but every time he tried to write to the expected size, the big pen would get out of paw with mark scratches in all directions.

Better to keep it small and neatly between the lines, he decided.

His tail flicked in idle concentration to every section as he moved between moments of understanding and total annihilation of comprehension.

Things became easier when he found clarification sentences on the back of the page. Was he supposed to check them? Maybe he should ask the woman if this would be cheating, although… Well, as long as she wasn’t complaining, why not?

As time went by; as Calum got towards the end of the page after another readjustment of the tight cloth that pestered him, the sounds of the wide-cheeked woman devouring her sandwich seemed to be getting noisier and noisier.

Such a tasty meal. The bread roll was thick, with a crackly crust and stuffed with cheese and lettuce, tomato and something creamy. It all looked so fresh, so clean and bright.

It made him remember he was hungry. The scents from the stalls outside had annoyed him, but the wolf nearly grabbing him had given forgetfulness to that. Grandma had said the Census would take less than an hour, but it had been all day just to find the place. Such a mistake was not to bring water or a snack.

He was getting tired too, all this figuring out of complicated words, it only led to finding it harder to take his mind off his twitching nostrils. He was practically ready to jump down and look for scraps. There was a trash container just by the doorway which for sure had to have a treat, or ten.

There’d be time for that later. The woman was definitely impatient for him to finish this form. Couldn’t let his focus keep slipping. He glanced down to a question: something about community voluntary activities, yet he was so hungry now, he couldn’t even focus to read the whole question without gazing at…

Varla hadn’t given him any mind for a while, but then her eyes caught his and she stopped munching midway. The sight would’ve been silly if not for her scrunching eyebrows that instilled doubts in Calum’s mind.

“Got problem?” she asked to his surprise. How had she known? Well, if she wanted to know then maybe she wanted to help, so naturally he smiled.

“Yes. Um, I’m… I’m hungry.” He gave her a smile of eager timidness.

“Whas if you are? Is your fault,” she muttered, taking another bite of her sandwich. The bread squished under her fingers, the corners blooming with fresh scent.

Even though the nasty wolf-smell clung to the air, this food tickle was still… so distracting. Calum hesitated. There was more than enough for her. Surely there was no harm in asking to… to share?

“Um, it’s just… you’re eating so much.”

A low gasp escaped the woman, sandwich halfway to her mouth. Her cheeks wobbled and already he could tell he was in trouble. Calum’s ears flattened against his head. Was it so much an ask?

“So t’at’s ‘ow it is,” she huffed, “I do you a favor on mh break and you blurt me fat? Blasted rat!”

“Fat? No-no, I was—”

“Aha, ‘tever, time to go-go,” she concluded and smacked the sandwich on her desk table. It was with quite a heavy hand and many pieces fell, including one piece of cucumber which bounced off, rolled through the metal bars and all the way to Calum’s edge of the desk.

His eyes tracked it barrelling towards him, losing speed, falling to a halt within paw’s reach. Movement from Varla drew his gaze back from the allurement before him.

“Funny one, ain’t ya? Ha-ha,” she snapped, turning back, leaning through the bars that divided them and groping at the papers.

“I— I haven’t finished yet.”

“Ye-ye,” she huffed, her palm smacking the desk, her fingers not managing to dig up the page that had stuck itself to the surface.

Reaching out to help, Calum nudged the papers to her. Her nails digging in, she pulled herself back with an exasperated sigh to a thump of seat.

“But I haven’t finished…” Calum repeated quietly, his tail curling across his feet.

Varla said nothing and pulled her chair close to her desk, her eyes moving as fast as lightning through each line that Calum had been pretty careful to fill out.

It was a risk, but he used this moment to dart out his paw and grab the piece of vegetable,crunching the crisp disk between his back teeth, chewing quietly and quickly. It was delightfully moist, as the juices spread across his dried tongue which lapped in happiness within. If only a slice of that cheese could fall over here too.

The woman glanced back from the form, tapping her pen on the page. “Tax section ain’t filled.”

Calum wanted to point out that, yes, he’d told her he wasn’t finished. But he just nodded, not wanting to risk giving away his subtle chewing.

“’Ow you form money?” Varla pressed, in visible dissatisfaction to his answer. All he could do was just blink at her in a tilt of dread, alike getting caught with his paw in the open oven. “’Ow you buy food, then?”

He gulped the glorious flavor down, hoping the action to have seemed normal and unsuspicious. It didn’t taste like just the vegetable or fruit: there was something else. “I find it.”

She scowled. “T’e money?”

“No, food,” Calum said brightly. “I find it. There’s a foodplace—”

“So you ain’t ‘ave income,” she briefed with an expecting look. Income… income… maybe she wanted to know, ah it was that thing maybe.

“I make candles?” His answer finally brought out positivity from the ginormous woman.

“Whas? Whas’ your net revenue per annum?”

Calum just gawked. “Like, a net for fishing?”

“’Ow muc’ you form mont’ly?”

“I don’t go fishing though. I don’t think I’ve seen a fish. What do they look like?”

She threw her hands in the air, as if what she was asking was so simple to understand. “’Ow muc’ money you make a week?”

Calum’s mind connected the dots and he remembered what the answer could be. There were those coins with the numbers he was once given… What number did it have… “Two! Yes, two. Or about two… maybe it was one?”

She breathed deeply, “T’at’s income of eight terrians per mont’,” she muttered under her breath. What was this word ‘mont’ she kept saying? Maybe it was something pretty complex.

“Two a… mont?” he tried to persist without saying an outright now, as the number eight was not anything he’d remember having said. Varla’s scribble halted. Why was she staring like that again? Maybe she was impressed. A moment later she shook her head and looked back to the other document.

“Mhm… But ‘ere you put ‘ere zero income.” Why did she keep saying income-income. There were no words like that which he’d seen, and he had gone through the form several times already. Did she mean that other word…

“I think it was wages.”

“Same thing,” she muttered, looking at her sandwich.

“Not… really. Wages relates to… to employment. I don’t have employment,” Calum explained from his recollection of what one of the characters in a book had said when they were trying to find a job. It was still an odd thing trying to find a job, but that’s what he was trying himself today!

Varla’s lips were twitching, like she wasn’t sure what to say. Calum felt a tiny flicker of pride. He thought, briefly, he had screwed up again, but this time he’d got it right.

“Ain’t about whas the form says,” she sputtered, “it’s ‘ow muc’ you… So! You’re self employed. You registered for self employment, huh?”

“I can employ myself?” Calum gawked. What an incredible idea, that would solve all his money problems!

“You’ll ‘ave to go to t’e Office of Commerce and fill out the form.” She pulled a blank scrap of paper to herself and started scribbling over it. “An RO-4D, a VA-12 and a Statement of Non-Liability.”

“Okay,” he breathed, thinking about the big chair he’d have and how he’d get others to help him melt wax and assemble candles. Maybe get a wolf for the heavy work?

“You also need proof of income potential. T‘at’s a Viability Assessment, and affidavit of compliance Governmental Trade Regulations,” she kept on reading.

“And then I’ll be self-employed?” If it was so easy, why wasn’t everyone doing this? Grandma always said he was smart, maybe that was it: others just didn’t know they could do this!

“Na’. If accepted ‘f’course, yeah. Also… ain’t nobody covering your taxes, and you’re paying social insurance. T’at be…” she checked at another paper stack elsewhere, “a minimum flat fee of… twenty terrians a mont’.”

“Twenty? Bu— but I only have two!” Calum’s ear started twitching. “How do I get the others?”

“Ain’t mh problem. No more candles ‘til you register.”

Calum scratched at his ears. Why were they so itchy all of a sudden? “What do I do?” he moaned to himself.

“I said ain’t mu—”

Varla turned as a door half-opened behind her, creaking sharply on its hinges as a voice of rough stones spoke out, “Cut the racket.”

“Sorry, Sir,” Varla hurried to explain, “Rat ‘ere arguing about the form. Not’ing serious.”

Interesting, her voice had lost that demanding tone and her lips were tight now, pulled into a thin line.

“Yeah? Which?”

The door edged fully open. Calum tilted his head at the sight. It was a wrinkly face with a well groomed form of white hair above. It looked sort of like steam, the hair; he could see right through it.

“Oh, income,” said Varla, looking back with wide eyes. “He ain’t registered as employed, so I—”

“Zero statement.” He nodded towards Calum. “He’s unemployed.”

What a place this was. Employed, unemployed? He had candles to make, and sometimes terrans or mals gave him coins for them. What was with terrans and their insistence on labelling things?

“Zero? He stated two terrians a mont’ and—”

“For twenty-four? Total waste of our supplies.” The broad body of the man leaned to the metal bars, eyes over Calum foot and paw.

Calum fidgeted. His chair felt to be getting hotter, and the cloth drawing tighter about his waist. The cold draft coming through the curtain felt so refreshing, he wanted to get out and bask in the open air, even if it was contaminated with that predatory odor.

A scowl turned on the man’s face. “Where’d you get that band?”

Well, that wasn’t so hard. He’d expected a much worse question coming from a face like that. “My friend! His name, erm, beard-man?”

“It’s issued to security personnel only. You stole it?!” the voice demanded without Calum feeling like that was supposed to be a question, more like a direct accusation which shivered his claws.

“What? No-no, my—”

“Omar brought him. It’s ‘is.”

The man looked slowly towards Varla. Calum had to be convincing, that he knew the name. “Yes, Omar gave it so… so I can… so I can be presentable!”

The man’s gaze returned to Calum sharply. The smile he’d managed to hold quivered and Calum fumbled with the scratched pen in his paw. It danced through his fingers and clattered to the floor.

Truthfully, Calum was happy for the excuse to climb down from that stifling plastic and roam around the floor for a moment. So much cooler and darker, easier on his eyes. There were random tufts of fur in the corners in different colors and sizes, scratch marks marking the walls for those with long-enough feet.

He found the pen easily but decided to stay a moment or two longer. A pair of terran legs passed by the cloth-door out, noted by the presence of boots, the shadow flashing past the gap at its base.

Would Varla and the man even notice if he just ran to the exit? Terrans always had trouble noticing him when he kept low and moved quickly.

He heard the two talking, muffled through the table. Calum scratched his arm, puffed a sigh, held the pen in his mouth and climbed back onto the chair.

Don’t be nervous, that’s what Grandma had told him. ‘A nice mouse like you deserves respect.’ Respect meant a lot of things, he’d found; a lot of things terrans liked. He was sure he could get a job with it.

The man was standing with his arms folded. They were large arms, almost as hairy as Calum’s own. A heavy watch glinted gold on his wrist. The man nodded towards him.

“Right. Sell your candles. When you make hundreds, then you get registered.” The man grabbed a pen and drew an ‘X’ over half the page.

Varla glared at the cross but did nothing.

Calum’s eyes grew wide, gazing at the person with excited curiosity. “Hundreds? What can I do with that? Can I get a backpack? Or, or Grandma an ov— ov-ven.”

The broad man’s face twitched a moment. “You’re not going to make hundreds.”

“But you said—”

“There is no tax form!” the person piped up and ripped the form in half, making Calum wince and shiver. “You get it when you get made, otherwise you don’t exist.”

Shrinking back from the metal bars between him and the terrans, Calum asked himself if that was the point of coming here, to prove that he didn’t exist?

“Wrap up,” the person finalized and walked away without a second’s notice.

“Yes, Supervisor,” said Varla and scribbled at the bottom of the page for a while. She didn’t carry that look of resignation or boredom. It was a look of concentration and discipline which Calum couldn’t understand. She passed him the paper out of nowhere just as he was looking at his tail, having found some dirt clinging to its tip.

“Sign t’ere.” She pointed at the paper’s end and pushed it through the bars.

Calum stood wide-eyed as he pulled the page to himself. He gazed at the little box she’d pointed to. It said ‘Signature’. What was supposed to be put there?

He’d just check the back, there had been answers to most of the other questions, surely this ‘signature’ would be—

A sharp hiss jolted his paw back. “No, t’ere,” Varla said, standing to point with her whole arm shoved through the bars.

“Sign?”

“Offft, just scribble your name t’ere.”

“But, here’s my name,” he said helpfully, pointing to the page’s top.

A loud gruff of eternity puffed from her as she sat. It resembled a savage animal. Had she sat on her tail? Did terrans even have tails?

“Write it again. Blasted! W’y do I get t’ese— t’ere, t’ere… yes,” she relented as Calum pressed the pen against the spot she’d twice-now pointed to.

Steering the big pen smoothly and clearly around the canvas,he left off a nicely written ‘Calum’ in his wake.

She snatched the paper back from his outstretched fingers, laid it flat on her desk and gave it a loud twack with a stamp. “We’re done,” she concluded, without even looking things over, and reached back for her sleeping sandwich.

“Great! Really? What comes now?”

---

C4 – Job

There’d been ups and there’d been downs, but he’d made it, he’d been accepted. A frisson of dread filled his ears from all the evaluations and extra papers there’d surely be. It was exciting to solve the problems one by one. These puzzles of words and meanings.

Maybe if he had more time he could figure the taxes thingy, but as the large man said, he had to reach a hundred before he got to be self-employed.

“Whas?” Varla said in full-mouthedness.

“I’m ready.” Calum’s head tilted. “What now?”

“Now, now we done.”

“Huh? I got the job!” Calum’s tail swished and swashed wildly behind him as excitement reddened his cheeks.

“Job? T’ere ain’t no job ‘ere. T’is is a census, rat.”

His tail fell still. What was she saying? What was this? “If it’s not a job… what is the census?”

She shook her head at him, as though baffled by the question. “It’s a register of all residents. Goo-bye.”

“What is a register? Is that like… like… what is it?”

“Names, addresses…” she breathed in, “it’s a census. Whas did you t’ink it is?”

Something was buzzing in Calum’s head. He grabbed at his ears and gazed at the woman. This was supposed to be it, his moment to get things all figured out.

Grandma had told him, she’d said it was about homes and education. But… it couldn’t be. She didn’t mean he’d be getting those things? Just that he was going to be told about them? Why? What was the point of being told about things he didn’t have? Why did he come here, to be told he didn’t exist? What was–

“You’re leaving one way or anot’er!”

Calum startled off the chair. He didn’t want trouble but he had to try something… anything. “Um, how do I get a job?”

The woman fidgeted her eyebrows, turning back to her documents. “Go around t’e place. Ask people to give one,” she muttered, barely looking up from the stacks of white. “You’ll find somet’ing sooner… later.”

“Is that how you got your job?”

“Yes—NO!” she snapped, glancing angrily at him. “Time to go, rat. You’re holding up the line!”

His tail twitched, her eyes bore into him. Something; there had to be something he could do. He had thought his whole future was about to be given clarity but now it was all gnawing at his chest, and hungry stomach.

“Can I do your job?”

“Out!” she shot, palms slapping the desk as she stood, the large woman towering darkly over him. Calum skittered back, grabbing at the grey cloth of the curtain door, only to pause at the last moment.

Drat his tongue, drat his silly words. He had to make himself clear.

He stepped back towards her, tail curling behind him, his heart beating at his throat. “I mean… I can help with the papers. For the others. The rat—mice, the ones who can’t do it.”

Varla’s mouth dangled to those expected words of scorn, but then her fury fell, her mouth closed and her eyes jolted in visible hesitance.

“For that, that sandwich?” he ventured, his voice quietly hopeful.

Her eyes darted between the half sandwich and Calum. There was no longer visible anger as it’d morphed to deep thought.

“You’re alrig’t, even if you are e nuiscance,” she muttered, and looked over Calum’s head to the curtain. “And e stinking ‘oard of illiterate crawls…”

Holding himself in silence, being as little hassle as possible, Calum awaited in tempered fixation. At a scoff from her and a gesture to wave him over, a grin split on his creamy muzzle, bringing a glint from his four front teeth.

“Sit, over ‘ere. Ain’t no desk or c’air for your size, so you’ll be making due. And t’is is just for today” Varla added, Calum’s claws scrabbling him up on the tabletop. “And if anyone asks, this never ‘appened.”

“It never what?”

“Never existed.”

“Why didn’t it exist?”

“Dunno. Because I said so. So did it exist?”

“Um, not yet? But—”

“Did it exist?”

“No, because you said so.”

“Rig’t,” Varla concluded in a smirk and shouted piercingly, “Next. Next in line, get in ‘ere.”

It took only a few moments of delay before a clothed mal strode right inside. Calum was not sure what species they were, but they had long ears, their mouth didn’t have protruding teeth and had pretty bulky legs.

They sat on the chair, visibly having issues of getting comfy just as Calum had. Their nose was twitching rapidly and they rubbed the sides of their arms in a sort of uncomfortable reassurance.

“Name?” Varla asked and Calum perked out of his observations, taking great focus upon the form on the other side of the steel bars.

“Jartot”

“Full name?”

“Jartot?” the mal answered questioningly, and Varla only scoffed a gesture at Calum who wrote it down with a gasp of energy.

“Address?”

“Don’t have it.”

“Where do you live?”

“Outside?” the interviewee again answered-asked.

“Age?”

“No idea.”

“Write young,” Varla instructed to Calum’s awaitening. Then she didn’t even ask, just stated, “Gender male, species rabbit.”

“Hare.”

“Yes-yes,” Varla disregarded with a flap of a wrist, going through her own form of questions and waiting for Calum to finish filling things out. He wasn’t sure if he should write hare or rabbit, but remembering how he was called a rat when he was a mouse, he decided to listen to the hare in question.

Jartot’s nose picked up the pace and he sneezed nastily all over his scruffy clothes that were pretty much paw-made. “Ugh, smelly wolves. Why we got chompers mixing with us? Unacceptable, they smell of shit. Am I right? Yea, I’m right.”

“Tell me about it,” Varla retorted with a strange tone in her voice. It didn’t exactly sound like agreement… yet…

Calum wasn’t sure if he could agree, knowing what shit actually smelled of. Yea there was this strange musky odor that carried a sort of wetness, but nothing remotely close to the scent of raw sewage he’d been privy to that last time he slipped in a restaurants drainage hole. That memory alone made him shudder and touch his fur that had been stained with that sticky-nasty oil.

“What’s that mal doing? Hey, rat!”

“I’m actually a mouse.”

“Aha, what you up to?”

“‘E’s busy, don’t distract ‘im,” Varla cut in and pushed Calum away from the window and close again to his workspot.

Asthey dealt with the hare, who was pretty insistent for his re-clarifications on the questions and supposed answers, more hares would come in and out, the interviews getting faster and faster with each passing success, until a newcomer changed the sight.

“Nice piece of meat,” said the smooth voice of what looked like a wolf, but much smaller and only slightly taller than the hare, who quickly tried to get out, only to have his way blocked off by the toothy predator.

Hare looked back at Varla with a twitchy nose and Varla waved at the predator with loud slaps at the bars, “Get out’a way, blasted fox.”

“Oh, but certainly,” the fox said and moved slightly to the side, only allowing a bit of space for the hare to try and dare pass, a red paw pointing out through the opened curtain. “Well?”

Hare slowly edged close, body facing the bowed predator, and just as he was nearly out, the fox snapped his jaw to the hare’s sprintout into the noise outside. He didn’t look at anyone as he laughed by himself and sat on the chair that finally proved comfortable to someone.

Varla just made some random noises and pushed a blank form at Calum who readied his weapon of ink.

“Full name?” she huffed as the new usual, but the nicely groomed fox brushed her off with his paw and pulled out several papers from out of his small bag.

“Got my forms filled and ready for submission,” he passed on the papers through the gap, lowering back into the seat. “I’ll be on my way then.”

But Varla was not so visibly keen on the deed, as she glared through the pages, though softness did play out from her gloomy ambiance. “No.” Fox stopped in his tracks and gawked at the nonplussed behemoth of a woman. “Ask it the questions,” Varla threw the pristine forms at Calum and then dug into her bag of sandwich scents.

“I’m Rayan,” fox piped in with a courteous smile, his eyes visibly seeking the attention of Varla, to a quiz of eyebrows from Calum who was trying to figure out what had just happened. Even so, he was told to ask the questions and that’s what he was to do. He remembered the first one she’d always say.

“Whas your full name?”

“Everything is in the form, ma’am, no need to spend the extra time. It’s a loooooong line after all, and who needs that, eh?”

Calum wasn’t sure what to do. Obviously he was being ignored. Maybe he had to speak louder because Rayan hadn’t heard him?

“What’s is your full name?” Calum shouted with nose pointing at the air to expectant sniffs. Rayan’s friendly face scrunched and a sort of scowl played out to his crossing of paws.

“Rayaner Boneapelt.”

“What is your age?” Calum shouted, yet again to an instant slap of a reaction from Varla.

“Quit yapping, rat!” Varla boomed through a mouthful in a sporadic burst of elevated heartbeat that plummeted Calum’s ears. It wasn’t nice to be called rat over and over when it wasn’t true, but it was scarier to try to tell her otherwise when she was demanding like this. Yet, if he didn’t shout, how could the fox hear his questions?

“What is your age?” Calum asked normally this time, but the fox only got up and came closer to the window, his smooth fur and predatory eyes ogling Calum in a quick gulp.

“Can I not do this with that rodent? Everything in the form is correct and in order, thank you!” the fox gestured his paws high in the room.

“Deal with it, I’m on mh break,” Varla dodged and turned her huge back to the predator whose ears only sunk further.

“Thirty one,” Rayan muttered angrily. Oh, it probably was the age question he got to finally answer. He could hear afterall. But just as Calum was to go to the address question, he noticed that the form stated ‘25’ which was a problem.

“But you’ve written twenty five.”

“Then it’s twenty five!” fox huffed and turned a circle around himself. Calum found it funny and giggled, which opened another can of worms as things ruptured into a scandal where it came to the need of Varla explaining to the fox that he needed to verbally either confirm or say the words so that the camera could record them. This finally broke the tensions and Rayan stopped being uncooperative, finally answering quickly to each successive question from Calum.

Apparently the fox worked at a medical human establishment, how nice. He’d mentioned hygiene caretaker. Did that mean he was tasked with telling other humans what to do? All of this was pretty exciting, getting to meet all these people and mals, and learning about their lives.

When things came to a close, Calum didn’t have much time to reflect on the little events before the next fox strolled right in, giving them a filled form and rather reacting in a similar manner, though in no way hostile.

This repeated in similar to how things had gone with the hares: different personalities; different answers; different dramas and problems, but it all seemed to end in a positive light as forms were submitted, one after the other. It was all fine until the next mal entered through the curtain, with a hunch. It was a wolf, a really tall one.

He disliked the idea of being around a wolf, but having a human with him and a thick window of bars, made the situation at least bearable and restraining in terms of him fleeing for his life.

---

C5 – Yelonia

White razors scrunched the fabric at the top of the wolf’s head, gray fur wrapped around sinewy fingers. Velvet sleeves hung at the wrists, flapping down as the rest of the tall, hooded body entered with a hunch. There wasn’t much to personally distinguish them, other than the heavy scent that snuck through the window-holed bars.

Only the end of the muzzle protruded the shadows with the subtly exposed canines. Not saying anything, the wolf stood and took a bite off a piece of bread they were holding, crumbs scattering like ember sparks.

Varla wasn’t phased and she mirrored the same behavior, just automatically, as it seemed to be the trend of her snackses.

Calum pushed a form under the bars and said, “Here’s the census form for you to fill out—”

“Put down t’e hood, wolf,” Varla interjected and Calum froze as that wasn’t part of the previous interactions.

Wolf did so reluctantly, pulling their hood down and exposing the face that Calum quickly recognized, face that made his tail curl around him. It was the wolf that had tried to grab him, had it not been for the security man. Suddenly Calum had the urge to disappear, but kept the desire off by itching his tail.

“Can you read, wr— why am I even. Write whas it says,” Varla dismissed and stretched her back. “Name?”

“Yelunia.”

“Age?”

“Fufty-fuf.”

“Whas?”

“Fufty… Furtu… fuuwr,” the wolf tried again, this time managing to help with the guesswork as Calum wrote 44.

“You got it? O’, good-good,” Varla surprisingly smiled at Calum. “Height?” Varla asked and Yelonia looked down at herself and then gestured, long claws opening to full view of her body. “I can’t— go t’ the wall,” Varla pointed behind Yelonia who glanced over the measurement and stood closer. “Move to the left… no, other way— perfect.”

“Done-s?” Yelonia asked, measurement being around 1.64 meters.

“Straigh’en up,” Varla said, and the wolf did so with a sigh, her back drawing up and her body developing more width. “More, more!” Varla kept up, visible strain playing out on Yelonia’s lips.

“Blasted, wolf, straigh’en fully, was’ing mh time,” Varla slapped and Yelonia snarled as she managed to fully extend her back, fully attaining the appearance of how humans normally looked. Her lips were trembling and there was a certain whining noise.

“1.96 meters… Yes, no, 2.11 meters.” Right after hearing that Yelonia instantly slumped, her menacing tallness that had towered over Calum and Varla dissipating to one of leveled gaze. Calum had no idea that this was possible. Her body was huge… all hidden under this hunch, and as he remembered the wolves outside, all of them seemed to have it.

“Species and gender?”

“Wulf, girl.”

“Tick female,” Varla told Calum in a hush. “Address?”

“Dun knuw say it… There paper,” the wolf started going through her pockets, seemingly looking for the ‘spoken’ paper. But as nothing was being found, the wolf growled and struggled to pull the hoodie off her body. This led to these strange mutters and exclamations that Calum tried pretty hard to understand. They were loud enough and clear, sounding fluent and precise, but the words weren’t ones Calum had ever heard yet.

Hoodie went over the table with a light plop, exposing quite the shocking and unappealing sight.

Many ribs surrounded her chest from which breasts hung in light sag; bony parts poking on every corner and exposing what Calum could only guess as starvation, yet her movements did not carry that reality as the muscles visibly played around to her every motion. Calum felt like offering his sandwich, but it’d gone into him some time ago, and even so, the wolf had the lump of bread that still had quite some left.

“Blasted! Cover your-nasty-self!”Varla exclaimed. Wolf growled in annoyance, though her shoulders narrowed as if from bashfulness. She clawed out what looked like a sheet of paper, which was chucked through the hole. Then she quickly put back the hoodie and took a loud crunch from her bread, taking a seat and yawning in high pitch, her long tongue bending to a full view of her sharp teeth.

Varla pulled the sheet of paper and Calum went to look at it shortly after, his intrigue for the predator having dulled his senses. After all, when last did he have a front row seat for seeing this behavior and details without the presence of direct danger? He swore there was a word for it, but nothing came to mind.

Oh yes, the paper with the details he had to transfer. It looked aged, folded and stained with random spots. It seemed to have a title of ‘Temporary Animal Residency Permit’ where the words he needed were inked in formal font, as well as those that Varla had taught him to look for, like occupation and identity number, though they had to be brought up audibly as questions. Calum wondered if Yelonia would agree to any word that was said as she seemed rather distant, staring into the table as crunches of bread sputtered crumbs everywhere again and again.

“Whas your income?”

“2 guuds.”

“2 whas?”

“2 gu-uuds.”

“Guuds? Gu-uds… goods! Ugh, 2 goods whas?”

“Is fuud.”

“2 goods per whas? Week?”

“Day, 2 guuds fur days. I’s chuuse biggers sacks.”

“Write zero,” Varla whispered to Calum whose pen hovered in anticipating confusion, but so was his nose to this unpleasant odor that had just appeared in the air, bitter and fermented. “Occupation?” Varla asked quickly after, to a long ‘huh’ from the wolf who scratched her groin. “Whas do you work!”

“Uh, is sweeps fluurs, humans.”

“Tick employed, code 13,” Varla clarified.

“What’s code 13?” Calum whispered, curiously.

“Cleaner.” Oh, so the wolf would make things less dirty, that was nice. Calum would try to do that for himself, and it always seemed so tricky to get the dust out of his home. He’d brush at it, and yet more would form as if an endless peelings of nastiness.

Varla then groaned and slapped her hands against the desk, her chair rolling fast away from her. “Nah, you stay here. Stay. I go check on… on important documents,” she insisted without even waiting for a response from anyone, leaving quick in heavy step to the corridor. Calum’s gawk remained for a while as he at least expected to be told what more to do, as well as the fact he was left alone with a huge wolf! Fear was not allowing him to turn and see the predator as maybe any quick movement would be the spell to activate the reaction.

But that was silly, there were thick steel bars separating them, a memory which made him look at the wolf who’d crossed her paws in a scowl, a new piece of bread held in her paw. Hadn’t she already eaten that?

He tried to appear busy by reading more of the form and writing some extra information here and there which he’d got from the Residency Permit. Varla should’ve been coming up by now. After all, finding a document should be a piece of sandwich for her, eh?

What about the words she’d muttered when she was undressing? Apparently she had four children and was considered as a Class 1 Predator. Calum had no idea what that meant and nearly tried to ask, realizing it was just him and that said predator behind the bars, who was scratching at her neck rather ferociously with a sort of low whine.

But nothing changed of the circumstances and Calum no longer had anything to fill in, at least of things he knew he could. He’d read all the information on the cheat side and was now pretty much stuck in not knowing what to do. Maybe Varla got lost and he should go on and look for her?

But what about those words? What did they mean? Curiosity was boiling in his mind, making his claws scratch at the base of his tail. Yes, it was scary to try and talk but it was a worse feeling to not know the mystery’s unfold.

“Ughm, what did you say?” Calum asked quietly, only managing to get a twitch of the wolf’s ears. No glance was given, so he pinched another breath and got closer to the bars’ gaps. “What did you say?”

Wolf was confused and her eyes were darting around the barrier, as if looking for someone behind Calum. When she could only find him, she scowled, “Nuthing.”

“But you did, you say something when you undress. What is it?”

“I’s my languages.”

“What are they?”

To this came a growl that made him step away and hold his tail in front, though he did not flee as maybe this was to be the answer? Anger flowing away after a bit, with multiple of scratches, she finally said something: “Is wulfspeaks.”

“Um, what does it mean?”

“It says where papers.”

“Oh, it sounded interesting. I only know Terrish. My books are in Terrish. Do you have books in wolfspeak?”

“List— ughm, I dun’ knuws,” the wolf answered through an irritated huff, now seeming distant and in thought. Calum was surprised that he was talking to her and that she wasn’t trying to pounce to eat him anymore.

“Why are you so skinny?”

“Hungries. Am nut thin. Humans nut give enuugh fuuds,” she shot in a growl that got her to take a quick bite from her bread, then she scratched loudly at her back. Calum thought she also had an itchy tail and wondered if maybe she knows how to make it less so.

“My tails is also itchy often.”

“Scratchies, wash, wa du I cares,” the wolf snapped in further agitation of scratching. But then her nose flared and she sneezed many times, “Nasty humans, ugh!”

Calum ruminated over the idea he was given. Maybe washing his tail and the area around it would reduce that itch.

“Thank you, I will try it out!” he smiled with paws huddled to his chest, though he didn’t get any response from the wolf as she was mainly focused on scratches on her back.

“Do you really eat mouse?”

“Ye.”

“But why?”

“I’s hungry.”

“Oh, but what about other food?”

“Hungry. Unly flesh stups it, rat.”

“Im not a rat, Im—”

“Tasty snack!” her muzzle snapped crunchily, “This, this breads nasty,” the wolf growled and got off the seat menacingly. Calum stood in frozen dread. If the bars weren’t in the way, he’d have bolted under the floor5 minutes ago. Her scowl faded and she inspected it again. “Chompers,” she concluded and took a loud crunch of messy crumbs.

Calum’s heart was racing and bashing his outer body in timed rattles which resembled shivers. If Varla didn’t have the steel bars then any hungry wolf could jump over and have her for dinner.

Still, seeing the wolf chew on the bread was so odd in contrast to the imagined scenario of having a living mouse in that mouth, getting shredded and crushed in the maws of razors and saliva. Somehow, this expected monster seemed much less so in this verbatim’s concluse.

Maybe she was so bony because she wouldn’t eat mice, otherwise she’d have tried to reach in through the hole.

What was he thinking? Of course she’d have loved to devour him on the spot. If it wasn’t for the man earlier, and the bars now, it’d be only Calum furballs and whiskers left on the floor.

“I was really hungry too. Varla gave me her sandwich. It was nice.”

“Whu that.”

“Oh, the girl who was here. I wonder when she’ll come back.” Yelonia sat down in a murmur and crossed her paws in a prolonged set of silence-ahead.

“Huw ye wurk fur humans?”

“Um, she told me to just ask around. So I just asked, and I got job. It worked!” Calum squeaked in excitement and pulled the pen close. It was a smooth pen, nice pen.

Yelonia’s scowl deepened but her eyes were elsewhere, surely drilling into the floor. Distant and in some other world she appeared to be for a while, and as Calum fought the urge to ask her what she was thinking about, many times over again fear overpowering him, the door flung and Varla slowly slugged in.

Varla gripped her chair and scraped it under her ass, her eyes catching no glimpses other than those of the objects she held and dropped.

Out of a sudden she glanced at the wolf before her and even appeared confused. “Ain’t you done?” she asked Calum, who sprung to attention. He had no idea what to say, but then thought it’d be a good idea to affirm that.

“Yes, but you left to get some documents.”

“Documents… documents, yes,” she lisped absentmindedly and quickly analyzed the census form. “Species, predator…” as she said that she pulled out another form, after some rummaging, that was given to Calum, while keeping a copy to herself.

“’Ave you ever ‘ad aggressive tendencies?” Varla asked the wide-eyed wolf.

“Wa?”

“It’s a question,” Varla didn’t elaborate, sticking to her expectant glare.

“Yas, but I’s get angry tu—”

“Tick yes. ‘Aveyou ever been aggressive to a human?”

“I do snaps at hers, but that… she steps un my tails, like wa—”

“Tick yes. ‘Ave you ever been detained?”

“Wa is detwains?”

“‘Ave you been to jail?”

“I… but… well… wa dues it matter, humans!”

“Tick avoid. What was the crime you’ve committed?”

“Uh… nah, well… I’s furget shirts hume.”

“You, whas?” Varla tapped at the paper.

“Furgets-furgets shirts,” Yelonia pulled on her hoodie in emphasis. Calum found it interesting how much she was struggling at expressing herself. Fur-get? She had to get her fur? Was that a crime?

“Ugh… tick minor. Are you taking medications?”

Wolf scratched her paw in reach to her pocket that showed something like a box of yellow capsules. “Gut… Gut-lier… Gutlar?”

“Whas? Bring it ‘ere,” Varla scorned with slaps against the desk. Wolf didn’t need to even sit up as she reached across, holding the little box in pincered claws. Varla was squinting randomly with a final huff. “Write it down.”

Calum propped up to attention and got closer to the protective bars. What was he supposed to write down exactly? She did say those ‘Gutlar’ words, but where was the thing he needed. Random words crossed his peripheral ‘hunger away saves your day’, ‘guaranteed satiation for any pred’, ‘100% safe’, ‘meat scented’ and ‘Guttler’. Oh! There it was.

With a quick tiny squeak only he noticed, his paws scribbled down the name of the medication in the open field. A glance at Varla was given as confirmation, and she coughed out pieces of crumb.

“Where are you from?”

“Frum here.”

“Where were you born?”

“Here!”

“Ahum,” Varla scoffed in fold to her hands. Calum observed the interaction with great confusion and interest to what was unravelling. Why was Varla so interested in knowing where the wolf was from? Well, she did ask him where he was from, maybe she was looking for an address. He could help out with the misunderstanding.

“She’s asking about your locale… I mean address,” he piped in before anyone was able to hiss out any new words.

“Here, here, heres! I always lives here, always. Wa yu nu get?!”

“Write Interim. Lower down, tick unknown,” Varla pointed at the next section and so Calum did as instructed, but before he was to bring the attention forward, he noticed the words ‘nationality’ which made him wonder why Varla had said ‘unknown.’

“But she said she is from here. Shouldn’t it be local instead of unknown?”

“Huh? Ain’t known, so unknown, t’at’s it.”

“Um, okay,” Calum agreed and looked down at the form, reaching to tick the expected box, but somehow it didn’t make sense to his mind and he totally disagreed with the outcome. Maybe Varla was confused and had misunderstood Yelonia’s answers. Well, no need to try and argue that, he just had to take some initiative, that’s it! So he ticked ‘Local’ quickly.

Some other random questions came and went without any further fuss, and then Varla collected all the forms that needed to be signed by Yelonia. His tail was getting pretty itchy from the anxiety if she would spot the little change he’d done to her expected results, and with each page she skimmed with her focused eyes, his heart would leap a further beat in speed.

But then a yawn broke her focus and she plopped the papers through the hole. “Sign here, here, here and here.”

Yelonia pulled the papers close in reach and took the pen that Calum had rather struggled with. For her though, it appeared small and so her struggles also played out in a different tint to Calum’s. After her first signature that looked horrible even from a distance, she stared and scanned the papers for where else she had to give sign.

Varla groaned and said so again, which had to be repeated for every other signature, until the last scribble concluded this small event.

“Wa nuw?” asked Yelonia, rubbing her knuckles quietly with ears fallen low.

“Now, we’re done,” Varla concluded and strenuously sat off, going away without any prior warning, leaving both again in each other’s company. Yelonia exhaled with an accompanied deep sniffand stood up, her long body stretching high at the obstruction of the cubicle’s roof. Without even giving Calum a glance, she put on her hood, brushed off her tail and took her leave.

Calum felt slightly unnerved, as if he was supposed to say something, but he had no idea what that would be and to why it should’ve even been done.

This filing had definitely been one of the hardest yet. They hadn’t done these extra questions before, and he was curious to why they were included. Was it just for Yelonia, or were they in general for wolves?

Whatever the case was, he sat down and took a breather, as all this writing had tired out his arms. If only he had a smaller pen to work with, things would’ve been much easier. No matter, he had a job and the reward was waiting for him at the end of the day.

Right then he spotted the familiar yellowish paper, one that had come out of… oh no, she’d forgotten to take back her ‘Temporary Animal Residency Permit’. Without thinking twice and not seeing Varla anywhere in sight, Calum jolted and grabbed the soft document. Maybe she’d get in trouble if she lost this, and she was probably just outside of the stall.

Excitement overrode his mind and he sprinted with a jump to the tiled floor, his head brushing through the clothed door, exposing a cramped room bustling with mals, which nearly overstimulated his senses, if not for his main objective keeping him in search of the tall wolf. Several wolves nearly made him run at them, but none of them resembled her physique, until he swished around and noticed exactly her pacing away from the stall with tail brushing the floor.

In a rattled squeak, he sprinted with a shout, “Yelonia, hey-hey-hey!” which got her hoodie to move around and her whole body to twist sharply around, making Calum’s excitement to get to her drop as quickly, when he saw her snarled lips and bubbling infuriation.

He froze in place, his smile of having found her holding in place to the realization of where he was, in surround of lined wolves, and in front of whom. But fear held him steady and the wolf did so herself, her eyes quickly darting left and right as if looking for something… someone.

“Wa?” she hissed, startling a jump in Calum’s heart, but nothing followed other than them staring at each other at a distance.

“Oh, ah-hah, you… Varla got off and you too… and I sat down and thought about, but… I saw your…” he stumbled for the exact words, so he looked at the document as he read, “Temporary Animal Residency Permit, yes that’s it.”

Her eyes flared in dread and her paws stiffened in readiness as her whole body lurched a step which made Calum back several steps in instinct. Yelonia stopped herself right there and grabbed both her paws in visible change of demeanour.

“Wait, wait… I’s mean, I’s need that. Is mine, I’s need my papers.”

Calum reached out so she could take them, which she slowly reacted to, but then he had a change of heart as he blurted in one word, “I-gotta-go,” and dropped them on the ground, scuttling away at a distance and holding off with a glance to see if she was chasing right after him.

There she was, staring at him with an open mouth, her paw frozen in motion of taking back her document. Her stare wobbled and she snatched it off the floor, something like a snarl and some sort of pain playing out on her muzzle that she rubbed up and down. And then she just left.

Not knowing exactly what had transpired, pretty content he’d managed to bring back the document to the wolf, and also stricken with dread to the core at the only encounter he’d ever had with a predator of such size, on his own, and surviving it, he got back to his spot where Varla was playing with some sort of dice. She didn’t even ask him where he had went, just kept throwing the dice in some kind of box.

“Um, Varla? How long are we here for?”

“T’ose wolves outa front?”

“Yeah?”

“…All of t’em.”