Sunlight filtered through the wreckage like reluctant memories—soft and golden, but far too late to be helpful. The warehouse, or what was left of it, groaned beneath the weight of its own skeleton. Cinders curled in the air. The scent of ash clung to the ruins like the ghost of a very specific explosion.
A figure stepped over the threshold.
Boots silent. Cloak shifting. Mask catching the morning glare like a glinting omen. The Beast Hunter moved with precise, deliberate grace—each footfall a practiced echo in a place that had forgotten peace. A hand brushed the ground.
Fur.
Still faintly warm.
The hunter's gloved fingers pinched it, held it up to the light. The edge was frayed, not torn—blasted apart mid-shed. Explosive shedding. Rare. Controlled.
Deadly.
She pocketed it without a word.
Nearby, a bandit—a leftover scrap from the auction—was muttering curses under his breath while trying to nail a scorched support beam back into place with more hope than craftsmanship. Hair wild, shirt half-burned, sanity questionable. The moment he spotted the cloaked stranger, he straightened.
"Hey. This place's off-limits. We're closed. Permanently. So why don't you—"
The hunter didn't respond. Just moved—a blur, a streak of sudden violence—and the thug found himself slammed against a blackened wall, air shoved from his lungs.
A blade—not large, but sharp enough to suggest firm opinions—rested just under his chin.
"Name," the hunter said, voice muffled and metallic. "Who handled the Flufferbeast?"
"W-What? I—I just hauled boxes! I don't know nothin' about no fluffers or beasts or—"
The blade pressed in, a whisper away from blood.
"Don't play dumb. You saw it. Or what was left after it was done."
"Are you talking about the explosive furball? I'm afraid you're a day too late for the auction! Little shit wrecked the place."
The dagger pressed a breath closer.
"He left a trail. Where does it lead?"
"North!" he squeaked. "That's where we abducted him, he's probably with his party by now."
A pause.
The thug gasped as the weight on his throat suddenly vanished. He slumped like wet laundry, coughing curses and reconsidering his career path.
But the Hunter was already gone.
Not a step. Not a sound. Just... absence. Like she was never there to begin with.
She now sat crouched on the crumbling rooftop of the adjacent ruin, Wind stirred her cloak, pulling the edges like a whisper through parchment.
She pulled something from her satchel—a worn tome, bound in monster hide, edges scorched and pages dog-eared with experience and opened to one of the pages.
FLUFFERBEAST – [Status: Extinct]
Temperament: Pacifist. Deeply gentle. Unaggressive by nature. Abilities: Accelerated fur growth. Shedding as a defense mechanism. Controlled kinetic fur detonation under extreme stress and incredibly agile.
Habitat: Forested mountain ranges, now all uninhabited. Known History: Once thrived in communal sanctuaries. Vanished without trace centuries ago. No remains. No sightings. No reason.
Note: Highly intelligent. Non-hostile. Avoid confrontation. Status: Declared extinct. Memorialized in five separate cultures.
The Hunter stared at the sketch. Peaceful eyes. Fluffy silhouette. A creature built for calm.
And yet… she had seen the wreckage.
She held the fur up to the light, watching the strands glint faintly with residual charge. The scent of smoke still lingered. This wasn't defense. This was a battlefield.
A Flufferbeast had appeared.
---
Elsewhere...
Poffin hung upside-down from a curtain of a random window.
Not because he was caught.
But because he chose to.
He had, moments prior, attempted a triple cartwheel somersault off a barrel to snag a hanging fruit tart cooling on the window ledge. It went… sort of well, in the sense that he did end up with the tart.
Just not… upright.
There he dangled by one hind paw, tart gripped triumphantly in his teeth, tail swaying like a lazy metronome of mischief.
"Worth it," he mumbled around a mouthful of jam.
A passing child screamed with delight at the "funny flying doggo," and Poffin blinked slowly, narrowing his eyes in what might've been a war flashback. Or indigestion. Hard to tell.
Ash deliberately picked him up by his stubby leg and glared at him with the look of a disappointed father.
"Let go! I was mid-heist!" Poffin protested, kicking as he was hauled down like an unlicensed chandelier ornament.
"From a twelve-year-old girl," Ash muttered, setting him on the floor.
Seren offered the poor victim—now clutching her half-smashed custard tart with watery eyes—an apologetic bow and a pouch of coins.
"She's never going to trust small, fluffy creatures again," Lyra whispered. "She's gonna grow up thinking all rabbits are agents of chaos."
"...Aren't they?" Poffin asked.
Somewhere behind a chimney, the Hunter watched through a spyglass.
Expression unreadable.
Hand tightening around the spine of her book.
This… this was the creature that had leveled a warehouse and scattered a black-market bestiary like confetti?
Poffin hiccupped.
A tiny pop sounded—just enough to singe the fruit tart crust.
The Hunter lowered the glass.
She'd seen enough.
And yet… she needed to see more.
Because somehow, this upside-down pastry thief might be the most dangerous mystery of the century.
Ash paused.
Something prickled at the edge of his awareness. That strange, tightening feeling between the shoulder blades—like a bowstring being drawn behind his back.
He turned.
The street was calm. Empty. Just the evening hush of cobblestone alleys and flickering lanterns. A cat yawned on a barrel. A paper sign flapped lazily in the breeze.
But no one was there.
Still…
---
The Hunter had studied the archives well. Meticulously. She had read about the pacifist furballs—how they lived in forested glades, how they avoided conflict, how they loved berries.
All kinds. All colors. Sweet, tart, fermented, even the kind that gave hallucinations involving sentient muffins. The texts were unanimous:
"If you want to befriend a Flufferbeast, offer it berries."
So, he did.
A modest wooden bowl, nestled just outside the tavern in the early morning mist. A rainbow of handpicked berries, each polished to a soft sheen. Some local, some rare. The kind of fruit even nobles would side-eye with envy. Arranged with the artistry of a gourmet trying to woo a royal.
And there he was.
Poffin.
Bumbling out the front door with the grace of a tipsy duck, he paused. He blinked at the bowl. Sniffed. Tilted his head
Then looked back at the berries.
He approached… sniffed closer.
Paused.
Raised an eyebrow.
And in that moment, there was hope.
He picked up a berry.
Held it between his paws.
The Hunter, watching from a rooftop perch, leaned forward just slightly. Breath held. Pen poised.
Then Poffin yeeted the berry at a passing goose.
Direct hit.
The goose honked indignantly. Poffin roared with laughter, pulled out a meat skewer from seemingly nowhere, and walked off, chewing and snickering
The Hunter sat back.
"...This is no Flufferbeast."
The Hunter flipped through the archive again, her gloved fingers gliding over the worn pages like she was trying to feel the truth between the lines.
"Flufferbeasts are known for their gentle disposition. Affectionate by nature, playful with companions, and submissive in confrontation. If approached calmly, they respond with docility and may even attempt to nuzzle their handler."
She slowly looked back up at the building across the street, where Poffin was currently trying to win a staring contest with a squirrel.
"Submissive, huh."
Disguised in a traveling cloak, hood up, demeanor softened, the Hunter approached. Not with menace. Not with bait. Just calm steps and an open hand.
Poffin froze.
They locked eyes.
The Hunter kneeled, open-palmed, gently extending the universal sign of "I mean you no harm."
Poffin sniffed the air suspiciously.
Then sniffed the hand.
The Hunter nearly smiled beneath her mask.
Progress.
Poffin blinked. Tilted his head.
Then—
He slapped the hand aside with all the arrogance of a cat rejecting a peasant's offering, grabbed the Hunter's ration pouch from her belt in one swift motion, and ran.
"GET BACK HERE YOU FUCKING MENACE!"
Poffin zipped into the alleyway, laughing like a hyena on helium. The Hunter gave chase. For science.
At some point in the pursuit, Poffin stopped, turned around with a mocking pose, and threw back the pouch which was now empty.... except for a few bread crumbs.
The Hunter stood there, hands on knees, out of breath and dignity.
"That… is not… submission."
She looked up to the sky as if it would offer answers.
"...What are you?"
The Hunter sat in the shadow of a chimney, one boot planted against the edge of the rooftop, her beast archive open across her knee. She flipped to the worn, faded sketch of a Flufferbeast, captured in watercolor innocence—round cheeks, soft eyes, a daisy in its fur like a tiny woodland monk.
"Flufferbeasts are known for their kind-hearted nature and gentle playfulness. By instinct, they avoid confrontation, and are notably submissive in the presence of authority or unfamiliar figures."
She lowered the book and narrowed his eyes at the scene below.
Poffin.
Currently trying to intimidate a bakery clerk into giving him a seventh free sample by growling like a rabid plush toy and puffing his cheeks for dramatic effect.
The Hunter sighed, closed the book with reverence and exhaustion, and whispered to herself:
"...Lies. All of it."
The Hunter had had enough of field theory. It was time to go practical.
From the archive:
"Flufferbeasts form instinctual bonds with animals. Their overwhelming empathy often calms even the wildest of creatures."
A bold claim. But perhaps Poffin was simply misunderstood. A product of poor nurture, not nature. A stray data point on a very fluffy bell curve.
So, like any good researcher, she rented a goat..... for some reason.
A big goat.
A mean goat.
A goat that had been returned by three petting zoos, two nomadic warbands, and one cult that "couldn't spiritually handle it."
Its name was Cinnamon. It had one eye and a vendetta against leather boots.
The Hunter placed Cinnamon in the alley just behind the tavern, well-fed and mildly sedated (for fairness). She waited on the rooftop, fingers steepled, watching as Poffin, mid-honey bun heist, wandered around the corner and stopped cold.
Silence.
The two locked eyes.
Empathy time.
Cinnamon took a cautious step forward.
Poffin's ears perked.
A beat.
A moment of connection.
Then—
"BAAAAAAAHHH!!!"
—Cinnamon charged.
Poffin shrieked something that didn't quite translate into any human tongue, flipped backward into a fruit stand, rebounded off a crate of watermelon, and somersaulted onto Cinnamon's back like a caffeinated rodeo champion.
What followed was three solid minutes of complete chaos.
Bystanders screamed.
A barrel exploded.
The town bell inexplicably rang four times.
Poffin rode Cinnamon down the street, both screaming in opposite tones, like a duet between a cat in a blender and a baritone with nothing left to lose.
Eventually, the goat crashed into a fruit cart, Poffin was flung twenty feet, landed in a hay bale—and emerged victorious, chewing on a ribbon that may or may not have been part of the mayor's curtains.
The Hunter stood on the rooftop, arms crossed.
"What... in the actual fuck"
The Hunter kept his distance, cloaked in shadows and rooftops, watching as Poffin's day unfolded in a beautiful ballet of nonsense.
First, he robbed a fruit stand using only cuteness and misdirection. Then he climbed onto the roof of a bathhouse and refused to come down until someone brought him something deep-fried. He wrestled with a pigeon. He got distracted by his own tail. He insulted a bard's music with purely interpretive dance.
All of it cataloged. All of it absurd.
But the Hunter wasn't the only one watching.
From a nearby alley, Ash had been following Poffin all day long. Partly because he's worried someone will take Poffin again, though it barely took him all of his will (and mana) to not interfere with the chaos he ensued as he is one mischief away from getting the entire party banned from town at this point.
But it's mainly because of whoever was hiding behind the chimney just across the street, the one who had been tailing Poffin all day.
Ash had noticed the strange presence long before the chase began. The subtle crunch of a boot where no boot should be. The faintest displacement of air. The feeling—intangible, but unmistakable—that something was just off.
So, when night fell and the shadow moved again… Ash was ready.
The confrontation came fast. The Hunter tailed Poffin from a distance in the dead of night when a figure suddenly dropped down from the roof and abruptly halted her pursuit. Ash looked back at Poffin who was still oblivious to his "followers".
"I apologize, but this is as far as you can go"
"You..." The Hunter muttered underneath her mask.
"You've been following us," Ash growled. "Why?"
The Hunter said nothing at first. Just reached into her coat and showed the tuft of explosive fur—still faintly singed from the auction. He held it up between two fingers.
"That thing you travel with… it shouldn't exist."
Ash stepped forward, stance wide, ready for anything. "He has a name. And whatever your business is, it ends tonight."