Oust was not a fan of his most recent exercise. He was sitting cross legged beside the bear, deep in thought as instructed. He was to work towards freeing his mind of the lingering things that bogged it down... Something the tiger had no inkling as to what the bear meant by, once again. The tiger let out an exasperated sigh, and the bear spoke calmly over to the large cat.

"Finding it hard to focus your mind, Young one?"

Oust was happy to express that feeling.

"Yes... I don't know what I'm supposed to even be doing. I don't know what you mean." The bear chuckled, expecting as much as he replied.

"What I mean is to think about something that troubles you. Think about what bothered you and accept that it did. Think about how to change it, if possible, or accept that you can not if so, and then let it go. Inner peace is never easy to achieve."

Oust almost let out a groan. He hated the vague instruction. Simply processing his turgid emotions was something he was just learning to let himself do again. Sir Corper spoke once more, noticing the tiger's defeated approach.

"Let's start with something not so recent... Think about one of your worst and earliest memories. Those are often easier to deal with than something fresh... If you're comfortable, feel free to tell me about it. Speaking it can help you accept that it happened, so you may put it behind you."

Oust closed his eyes again, thinking back much further into his childhood than he had allowed himself to in a long while. The tiger immediately knew which bad memory was his earliest... or at least, which of those early, painful ones from his childhood stuck out in the forefront of his mind. The cat took a ragged breath in and shuddered out during the exhale as he began telling his tale.

"I was around six years old at the time..."

A young Oust was waking up early one morning, much as he had been for the past several mornings since his discovery. The pudgy cub excitedly crawled out of his bed with gentle, scarlet eyes gleaming in happiness, throwing his shirt on before pulling his pants up next. The lower bit of his tubby stomach protruded out of the bottom of his shirt as the cub dressed himself eagerly. His friend was waiting for him, and the tiger just didn't want to wait on the dawn to go meet him that morning, so the eager cub was dressed, and out of his quarters an hour earlier than usual that day.

The young tiger made his way down the hall, passing his brother's and sister's quarters on the way out to the garden courtyard his mother loved tending to. As he passed through the doorway, the tiger cub made a beeline directly towards a tree near the far end of the garden border. This was where the first friend the tiger had ever made lived, a small, striped, feral chipmunk the cub had named "Twitch," due to the way the feral's nose fidgeted in place as the chipmunk went about its day.

Oust reached into the small pocket of his pants and pulled out four whole hazelnuts he had saved from the dinner table the night before, just as he had the last few days up to that point. The tiger cub took a few paces towards the tree and whispered up into the limbs.

"Psssst! Twitch! I brought you some snacks." The tiger cub waited a moment, and was starting to worry the chipmunk didn't want to be friends anymore until he saw the rodent poke it's head out of a hollow in the tree a few branches up. The chipmunk's nose twitched into the air a few times as it smelled around for danger before the rodent emerged the rest of the way from the safety of its den.

The rodent walked to the end of the branch and scouted down a bit, coming closer to the cub that had been offering it such sweet treats the past few days. The feral took a leap of faith and scurried down to the earth below, edging ever closer to the wide-eyed cat in anticipation of its morning reward.

Oust simply took a seat, plopping down as he held out the first hazelnut in an outstretched hand, inviting the chipmunk to get closer to him with the motion. Twitch no longer hesitated to get near the tiger cub, finding itself getting comfortable with the idea of eating from the cub's hand over time.

Oust let out a thrilled giggle as the rodent took the first treat from his open palm, and began quickly cracking into the nut, expertly freeing the tasty insides from the shell, and scarfing them down within a matter of seconds. Oust spoke to the feral with a happy voice.

"You sure are good at cracking them open. I have to ask my mom to help me still. Do you want another one?"

The skittish chipmunk edged closer once again, signaling to the tiger cub it did, in fact, want another hazelnut. The tiger smiled a hearty smile as he reached his hand over and plucked the second hazelnut from his stash. The chipmunk took this one in the same way, much to the cub's delight. Twitch finished the hazelnut and nudged closer to the tiger once more, eager for more offerings. Oust placed the next hazelnut on his lap, hoping his idea would work. He had to fight back, letting out a delighted laugh as the rodent quickly climbed onto his lap without hesitation. He didn't want to scare off his new friend after all.

As the chipmunk worked on the third hazelnut, Oust extended a steady hand, slowly moving it to the rodent's back. Twitch jumped a bit when the hand carefully and lightly grazed the soft fur on his back, but the small creature let the cub pet on him all the same as he enjoyed the tasty treat. Oust was over the moon in joy at his progress over the last few days.

The tiger held out the last nut to the chipmunk in his higher hand afterward, inviting the rodent to climb into his palm this time. Twitch sniffed into the air twice and moved to take the bait, climbing into the open hand easily as it started munching on the last of the hazelnuts.

Oust was so ecstatic that he was even purring softly by that point, rumbling happily as he stroked the pelt of the smaller creature in admiration. In fact, the young cub was so caught up celebrating the newly established closeness with his friend that he never even heard the near soundless footsteps behind him.

He never took his beaming eyes away from that fuzzy little chipmunk happily eating out of his hand until a low, jolting voice spoke from behind him. It was a voice that always made the cub feel afraid. It was the voice of his father.

"Richta, grab that."

Oust flinched so badly at the interruption that Twitch leaped right out of his palm from the jarring movement. Unfortunately for the chipmunk, it wasn't fast enough to escape Richta Candori, even at the young age of twelve. The adolescent tiger had a hold of the rodent within seconds, firmly keeping a grip on the flailing prey as her younger brother turned to face their father and the fear associated with the menacing beast.

Oust always felt so small looking up at his father, something that never changed no matter how much he grew up over the years. Not that you could blame the cub.

Reiner Candori was an imposing beast by any standard, a wide framed warrior that stood at seven foot nine, nearly half a foot taller than Oust would ever grow to be himself. Every rippled pound of the general was muscle clad in an ivory fur, with dark stripes of black marking his back, shoulders, and arms.

His red eyes were framed by slanted brows above a permanent scowl of disgust for the less-pure beasts he had to live among daily. For the weak surviving alongside the strong was not the natural way of things, not through the eyes of an elitist such as himself, anyway. The head of the Candori house spoke in a tone Oust would learn to mimic in time, a tone that didn't hide such disgust for those lesser than himself.

"A son of mine playing with such filthy creatures... The fault is my own, I've allowed your mother to coddle you for far too long. Richta, come here."

The tigress walked over to her father's side, her head low as she held the squirming rodent all the while. When she had planted herself just a step behind her father's right side, she finally raised her gaze up just enough to meet Oust's own. She didn't dare speak, but her eyes were trying their best to relay something the younger cub just couldn't quite grasp at his age yet.

What Oust failed to recognize was that his sister was apologizing the only way she could for something she hadn't even done yet. Oust slowly looked from his sister, back to his father, barely even breathing as the burly tiger spoke down to his cub once more.

"Starting tomorrow, you train with your sister and brother, I won't allow your idleness, nor your softness to soil my name. I won't allow this weakness to cultivate itself in my own garden. Richta, take care of our rodent problem. Your brother watches."

Richta had been training under her father since she was three, so she knew what was expected of her. She knew what was forbidden, and she knew what disobeying her father meant... Even still, the young tigress found herself hesitating. Reiner repeated her name in agitation, raising his voice the slightest bit as he turned his piercing, red gaze to his adolescent daughter.

Richta took a step forward, yielding to the order as she gazed down at her little brother, who was staring back up at her with a mix of confusion and fear on his face. She couldn't show any emotion, and she knew what kind of heartless monster she probably looked like to Oust. She knew her softer, slower little brother all too well, and that made the entire thing worse.

Unbeknown to any that day, she silently prayed, something she had given up doing long before that moment. Even still, grasping for any possible hope, the tigress prayed with everything she had that her brother would remember the number one rule, above all else, that he would just hold it in... That he wouldn't dare cry in front of their father. That he wouldn't display his weakness before him.

A grotesque "Pop," dully sounded into the air, muffling the chittering chipmunk once and for all as the tigress broke its neck, ending its life as painlessly and swiftly as possible. Her heart broke with it as she watched her brother's big, round eyes overflow with tears as his pain filled cry of horror filled the early morning air of the Candori estate.

***

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