I Abandoned My Beast Cubs for the Protagonist... Oops?-Chapter 132: Mo Xiao of Thousand Fang

Wēn Jìng quickly plucked the panther cub off Han Shān’s chest with one hand, set him on the ground to her left, and offered Han Shān her other hand to help him up.

"There," she said pleasantly, to both of them. "Hello."

The panther cub stared up at her.

He was, now that he was not actively a projectile, a compact and intensely serious small creature. Black fur. Amber eyes that were currently assessing them. The leaf was still on his head. He did not appear to know this. No one told him.

"Hello," he said, with great suspicion.

"I’m Wēn Jìng. We’ve come to visit Thousand Fang. This is Zhāo Yàn, and this—" she gestured at Han Shān, who had risen to his feet and was brushing dirt from his knees, "—is Han Shān."

The panther cub stared at the at Han Shān.

"You’re a snow leopard," the panther cub announced, as if that wasn’t obvious.

"Yes."

"From the peaks."

"Yes."

"You smell like snow."

"It’s where I live."

The panther cub’s nose wrinkled. "I don’t like snow."

"You have never seen snow."

"I don’t need to see it. I already know I don’t like it." He crossed his arms, which was complicated because he was also still holding what appeared to be a small carved stick, his weapon of choice. "Why are you here?"

"We’re just visiting," Han Shān said.

"We don’t need visitors."

"You have them anyway."

The panther cub’s eyes narrowed. He looked at Zhāo Yàn.

Zhāo Yàn looked back with his three tails at full height and his best expression of regal disinterest.

The panther cub looked at Yàn Shū, who was watching the whole situation from his mother’s hip with enormous fascinated eyes and had stopped trying to write things to better concentrate on staring.

Then the panther cub looked back at Han Shān.

"I’m Mo Xiao," he announced. With the gravity of a territorial declaration.

"Han Shān."

"I know. She already said."

"You asked."

"I was checking if you’d lie." Mo Xiao uncrossed his arms, stuck his carved stick through his belt. "Most strangers lie when they first come. My father says you can tell the ones who will cause trouble by whether they lie about small things first."

Han Shān considered this. "Your father is observant."

Mo Xiao’s chin came up slightly. "He’s the best hunter in Thousand Fang."

"That’s a significant claim for a new territory."

"It’s true."

"How many hunters are there currently."

Mo Xiao paused. "Four."

"So he’s the best of four."

"He’s the best," Mo Xiao repeated, with absolute finality.

Han Shān said nothing.

Mo Xiao looked at him for another long moment. Then, apparently having completed his assessment, he turned and walked into the village, clearly expecting them to follow him.

Zhāo Yàn fell into step beside Han Shān. "He jumped on you," he said, low and delighted.

"I noticed."

"From a tree."

"Yes."

"You didn’t see it coming."

Han Shān’s jaw tightened. "The canopy is dense here. Visibility from below is—"

"He is four years old."

"I am aware."

"He knocked you to the ground."

"He had the advantage of height and surprise and I was being considerate of his—"

"He’s four."

Han Shān looked at him.

Zhāo Yàn smiled, three tails swishing with great satisfaction. "I’m just saying."

"Please stop saying."

"I’m going to think it very loudly then."

"I can see that."

~

Oh.....

Cubs were everywhere.

Not just Mo Xiao, though Mo Xiao moved through them like a small black authority figure, nodding to some, ignoring others, occasionally stopping to deliver what appeared to be extremely serious assessments of whatever they were doing.

There were wolf cubs playing something near the eastern huts, a complicated game that involved a great deal of running and no apparent rules.

Two small figures, a boar cub and an otter cub, were attempting to build something near the fire. It was not clear what. It was becoming increasingly clear it was not going to work.

Yàn Shū, from the safety of Wēn Jìng’s hip, watched everything with as much focus as he could muster.

Mo Xiao reappeared beside Han Shān without any warning, which was becoming a pattern.

"You can sit there," he said, pointing at a log near the cooking fire. "That’s the good log. The far one has a splinter. Bái Máo found out yesterday. He cried."

Han Shān sat on the indicated log. "Thank you."

Mo Xiao sat beside him.

This appeared to surprise Mo Xiao himself slightly, as if his body had made the decision before his brain had weighed in. He straightened. Put his carved stick across his knees. Looked at the activity in the clearing with his Alpha expression, which was very serious for a four year old but very genuine for any age.

"You came a long way," he said.

"From the Northern Peaks, yes."

"Alone?"

"Yes. I then met the fox, and came here with them." He gestured at Zhāo Yàn, who had already migrated toward the wolf cubs. "And her."

Wēn Jìng had found the woman at the cooking fire and was already deep in conversation, Yàn Shū having been deposited on a blanket nearby with his bark scroll and a piece of charcoal someone had produced for him, which was the greatest thing that had ever happened to him.

Mo Xiao looked at Han Shān sideways. "You don’t seem like a cub who needs people with him."

"No."

"So why did you come with them?"

Han Shān thought about this honestly. "The fox needed someone to make sure he didn’t do anything else stupid."

Mo Xiao looked at Zhāo Yàn, who had now inserted himself into the wolf cubs’ game and was explaining, at some length, how it should be played. "Is he often stupid?"

"He’s often brave. It looks similar."

Mo Xiao considered this. His ears moved slightly, a small, involuntary motion. "My father says those are the same thing."

"Your father sounds wise."

"I said that already."

"You said he was the best hunter. That’s different."

Mo Xiao looked at him again with that narrow assessing look. "You listen carefully."

"Yes."

"Most people don’t."

"I know."

The fire crackled. Across the clearing, Zhāo Yàn had somehow ended up at the center of the wolf cub game, his three tails streaming as he ran, his laughter carrying back to them in the warm afternoon air. Another wolf cub had drifted closer, no longer watching from apart but hovering at the edge, drawn in despite himself.

Mo Xiao’s carved stick lay across his knees. Up close, it was not just a stick. Someone had spent time on it, smoothing the edges, carving small marks near the handle.

"Did you make that," Han Shān asked.

Mo Xiao looked down at it. His ears went very slightly pink, which was difficult to see against his black fur but not impossible. "My father helped."

"What are the marks?"

"Our clan markings." He ran one claw along them, careful and familiar. "Every panther in Thousand Fang will have them. We’re deciding what they look like." He paused. "I made a suggestion."

"Was it accepted?"

"Not yet." His jaw set slightly. "It will be."

Han Shān looked at the marks. They were clean, well-considered, the work of someone who had thought carefully about what they wanted to say and how to say it. "They’re good marks."

Mo Xiao looked at him.

"Balanced," Han Shān added. "Clear. They’d be visible from a distance."

Mo Xiao looked back at the stick. His ears were doing the thing again. "That’s what I said," he muttered. "No one listened."

"They will."

"You don’t know that."

"I know marks. The Northern Peaks have had the same clan markings for six generations. Good marks last." Han Shān paused. "Those will last."

Mo Xiao was quiet for a moment. The game across the clearing reached some kind of crescendo, Zhāo Yàn’s voice rising above the others in what was either a victory cry or a protest. It was genuinely difficult to tell.

"You can come back," Mo Xiao said very carefully. "If you want. When you’re in the Eastern Hills again." He looked straight ahead at the fire, not at Han Shān. "Thousand Fang will be bigger by then. We’re adding three new families before winter."

"I know," Han Shān said. "My mother mentioned it."

"Your mother knows about us?"

"My mother knows about everything." He paused. "She said Thousand Fang was going to be significant. That it was the kind of place worth watching."

Mo Xiao’s chin came up. "She’s right."