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Atticus said nothing more to Mitsu about poking the creature with a stick or why Blade was allowed to touch it. That would just be another argument that didn't need to happen.

Turns out his mind was in the same place as Blade's. "Wonder what badger meat is like."

Riyo blinked a few times at Neko's obvious panic. Hurt? She wasn't hurt. What was he...

"I-I'm not hurt! You... Are..." It was as if he had healed spontaneously. She almost couldn't believe it. As he laid her down, her hand reached up to gently touch the cut and make sure she wasn't seeing things. "Wow..." came a whisper from under her breath.

but why did he think she was hurt now? Her question was answered when she pulled her hand back to wipe off her face. Oh yeah. That.

"Oh. I'm not hurt. Those are just tears 'n stuff. Mother said that they're red because..." The trailing off meant that she only just realized what she was about to say and didn't want to say it anymore. "... Just 'cause..."

Shooting a glance at Atticus, Blade soon looked back at the badger. It seemed the adult had the same idea. Still.. at this point of his life, he had never really killed anything so he was still a little hesitant. Then, hearing the one of the girls mention food more, he felt his stomach rumble.

Well, here went nothing.

Inching closer, he slowly raised the sword over the badger neck area with the tip pointing down. This was a bit tough for him to do given his height, but he managed shakily. Then, closing his eyes, he thrusted it down to try and kill the creature in on go.

Atticus didn't flinch as Blade took his sword to the beast. It was something he was familiar with. "I can sure try." he replied to Mitsu's question. It was probably what they all were thinking about. He was no gourmet, but he knew how to skin an animal and throw it over the fire.

Riyo nodded to the repeat of his question. She knew that normal people didn't cry like that... She'd seen her Mother do it a few times, so his reaction was somewhat unsurprising.

As he held out the cloth, the small girl looked down at it with curiosity. It only took her a few seconds to realize it was for wiping her face. "T-thank you." she said with a soft smile and gently took it from his hands.

It was a bit overwhelming how all this was happening in one day. First she wakes up in a completely different place, which is a dream in and of itself. Then she meets a boy who isn't mean to her, and he even offers to take her with him. Like something out of a cheesy/ over the top drama where things start out so bad and then end up okay in the blink of an eye.

Riyo didn't have to ask him why he was so kind to her. She knew the answer to that. But all this was really unnecessary. "You don't have to go out of your way to be so nice..." she mumbled after she wiped her tears. "You're already the kindest person I've ever met."

When Blade felt no movement coming from the badger, he slowly opened his eyes as he looked down at the now-dead creature. A chill ran through his spine at the thought that he was the one that caused this... but the beast had to die to help keep the rest of them alive.

Shaking his head to himself, he pulled the sword out and stared down at the now bloody tip. He'll have to clean that up. Though, now that the badger had been slaughtered, he didn't have much of an idea of what to do with it. Did they just cut it up and threw it over a fire now? How do they get the skin off? These were just a few questions running through his head as most meat he had seen was already cut up to some extent.

The boy looked from the badger to the others in the area. It was right around now that he realized that a few of the kids weren't here. It was the two cat-people if he recalled right.

"Do you know where the others went?" he asked the two girls.

Atticus limped over to the badgers corpse and picked it up with some difficulty. Damn, these things were heavy. But he wasn't about to let the kids carry it, especially Blade. The boy was bold enough to make the kill, so Atticus would be man enough to carry and skin it.

Though, he too had been curious to where Neko and Riyo were. He'd half expected them to pop out of the bushes when the beast was dead.

"I bet I can get them back without having to search all day." He mumbled to the children and looked down at the dead beast in his arms. "Lets go back to the clearing and I'll make all of you dinner."

Little Riyo had a seat right next to Neko and sighed. "N-no. You don't need to do that..." the small girl paused and glanced around the area. "I'm just so used to everybody looking at me with an angry face that even a smile aimed my way is strange... Well, I can't say that... There's this man who's reaaaally tall. So tall I can't see his face all the way. But I can see him smile. He tells me stuff sometimes... I guess I left him back at the village too..." She had only been mildly disappointed when the man didn't show up in this place, because while he gave her someone to talk to... Sometimes he was a bit unsettling to be around.

"Maybe I just imagined him though... I dunno anymore."

"People can be mean," Neko nodded. He knew all too well what people were like, human or not. In his small life he had met people who had wanted to kill him, skin him, sell him, and even eat him. Something about absorbing his powers though he didn't really understand. Hopefully he never would, he wasn't about to become a meal himself.

With a shrug Neko didn't know what to say to Riyo about the man. He really wasn't sure how he had gotten here in the first place, maybe it was magic that had brought them all here...but why? "I wonder what the others are doing?" It was an off topic question but Neko couldn't help but wonder. He had no idea why but deep down he felt worried...that was strange.

"Yay food!" Mitsu was fast on her feet and beside the adult to follow him back to the clearing. If there was anything that would make her behave it was food.

"My leg will be fine. And it's alright Poke. I'm sure there will be ample opportunities to pick more berries." Atticus said in passing as they made the short journey back to the clearing.

Before all else, Atticus went about bandaging his bleeding leg, and did it with the quickness one would expect from a seasoned doctor. The pain was still there, but it was dulling out. "Alright. Who wants to get a fire set up?" After they got the fire started, he figured the gruesome job of preparing the animal would be on his shoulders.

"I... Dunno..." Riyo responded awkwardly. She couldn't say that she was as curious about their well-being. She had never met anybody outside of cat people before, but she had heard stories about them. They weren't to be trusted.... Not that she particularly trusted anybody of her own species, she guessed.

It made her wonder if they even knew the black cat story. Or... If this boy did, for that matter. "Hey Neko... Did anybody you ever met tell you a story about the first black cat?" she asked, playing it as if out of curiosity, though it was hard to say how something like that would come out of thin air.

As they re-entered the clearing Mitsu took to running about Tobi close at her heels. Apparently she wasn't too worried about the process of making food, she was only four after all. When food was ready she was called for, that's all she knew. So in the mean time she circled the clearing, jumping over sticks as if they were huge logs, making faces at Tobi, and gathering up rocks. She was about the throw the stones she had collected into the lake but the water seemed to have her mesmerized. Her brother had told her there was a large frozen lake far north of where they lived. She had never seen it but she was certain it couldn't compare to the free flowing water that existed here.

Neko's tail gave one last thunk as it hit the ground and lay still. At Riyo's question his face was suddenly full of sadness. "Yeah, I've heard of it." It's all he had heard growing up. His mother had told him the story, it was a means of explaining why they couldn't live in a village. If other people, especially those of the feline tribes saw him they would think he was the black cat. It wouldn't matter that he wasn't, though what he was really wasn't any different, but they would still hunt him down and kill him. His mother had been rather angry that people still clung so hopelessly to tales like that, but she had never directed that anger at him. It still surprised him, even at this early age, that his mother had never hated him.

Casting a careful glance toward Riyo at first he hoped she wasn't thinking along the same lines as the adults he had met did. One look at his tail and that seemed to seal the deal. It didn't even matter that nothing else about him fit to the story. Wasn't the black cat supposed to have red eyes?....Red eyes. Neko stared at Riyo's eyes for a long moment, the wheels slowly turning. He then looked to her ears, her tail, and then back to her eyes. Brows furrowed for a moment in thought. The pieces had started to come together but at the same time they really didn't fit. At least in his own mind.