A Den of 12

In a forest that is overrun with trees, shrubs, vines, and grass there is a singular disturbance. In an empty patch comes smoke from a lone small hut that could only fit a single person.

'Hmm, welp seems good enough, I should probably get some food now. I guess my outdoor training didn't go to waste, let's see hut, fire, ah traps I should put those up. She always told me I was forgetful, sigh.'

But while going to hunt food he was clueless as to what was to come to him. Near his hut was a cave full of life behind him. In the entrance were twelve children with no adults accompanying them. But while eleven of those children are sleeping soundly, a lone child is outside keeping watch with features that resemble both a human and a cheetah. Seeing the smoke from their cave he rushes to the others with him in the cave.

"Hey! Wake up everyone."

"What do you want?" Said a red child with strangely sharp teeth and a tail. "It isn't time to switch the night watch, and why do you need to wake up everyone?"

"Look over there! It's smoke, there could be fire."

"Do we have to move?" A pale white girl said anxiously when a taller green girl answered behind her, "No Eleven, that means there might be other people here."

"Exactly Two, that's why I woke you guys up! We should try to take any food we can from there."

"But that's a crime." Interjected a human boy.

"Hey Three, What do you want then? Want us to starve? We haven't eaten in two days."

"I also agree with One but we should scout out the area first." Said Two.

"How about One, Two, Three, and Five come with me and we'll see what we can get." Says a boy with violet skin and sharp ears.

"What should the rest of us do?" Says a winged girl with talons and feet of a bird.

"Keep watch and help us only if we are in trouble."

With a plan in place they go to the source of the smoke, while trying to be silent and hiding behind trees as they walk. Near the source of the smoke, a fire, they notice a small hut and come to realize that they might have to fight someone. Readying to rob the hut, the children named One through Five all grab a rock incase they have to fight against someone in the hut.

"Okay every go in on 1"

"3, 2, 1!"

One then kicks in the door seeing an empty hut. Expecting that the owners of the hut could come back soon they then rushed into the entrance to take all they could. While there was no meat, they saw that there were vegetables so they ran towards them but once they all got inside of the hut the door behind them closed. Suddenly a net that was on the floor shoots up and catches them all, hanging them from the ceiling. With the trap being set off it caused a loud noise to be heard from the children outside. After calling the names of those from inside they got no answer causing the rest of the kids to rush inside of the hut thinking they got hurt by someone. Opening the door they saw them hanging in a net but behind them was the bigger threat, the man who lived in the hut came home.

"Let's see here, three beastman, a ghost, a human, a harpy, a blue oni and red oni, an orc, a demon, an elf, and a dark elf. Twelve children in a forest with no supervision sure is an interesting thing to see but children from different kingdoms is even more interesting."

Outside of the forest lies four kingdoms: the human, beastman, mythics, and elf kingdoms. Usually they don't get along with each other so it is a rare sight to see people from the different kingdoms living together and helping each other. Beastman shares both human and animal features with the features most animal-like seen on the ears, hair, hands, arms, legs, and feet. Next are mythics which is a kingdom of multiple races once thought to be nothing more than folklore from the human race. Lastly are elves which is a race of humanoid people with sharp ears and green eyes if they are regular elves or yellow eyes if they are dark elves. These elves task themselves to protect the forest's they live in with dark elves pursuing the power to protect the forests and regular elves pursuing the ability to support the conservation of the forest.

So you mind telling me who you are? And what do you want?"

"Who are you!" The cheetah beastman yelled. "Why should we tell you? You better not hurt anyone here."

"Wow, you sure are angry. But why are you mad? I'm the poor soul who had his home intruded upon. Oh and my name's Crow by the way."

"We have no names."

'Slaves huh' Crow thought to himself.

"So what did you come to my humble abode for?"

"Umm" The beastman guiltily said. "We haven't eaten in days so we had to find food to eat."

Thinking to himself, Crow had found something that he could do for them.

"How about this? I will provide you all with food and you guys help me making this hut bigger since you all won't be able to live here and doing chores."

'Is he trying to sell us? I have to get out of this net. But what about the others? I can't leave them… I have to accept it for now and run with the others when we can.' One, the cheetah beastman, thought to himself.

"I accept."

With One, acting as the leader for the group of kids, accepting Crow frees him and the four other kids who were stuck in the trap.

"I'll go get some more meat for you all. Here's some wood and start by tying them together."

With that Crow left the kids to do their own work and One decided to tell the others his plan of escaping. After a short debate they decided to run away in the opposite Crow to hopefully get out of the forest and into civilization.

"Wait! Everyone, stop."

"What is it Twelve?"

"Look over there."

Twelve, a goat beastman, saw in the distance a monster called a Horned Wolf. A Horned wolf is bigger and stronger than a wolf and has two horns and three tails. Now knowing that a Horned Wolf is near they try to go past it quietly but being in a forest there are many things that can make noise. Ten, a harpy, then accidently stepped on a branch and broke it. This catches the Horned Wolf's attention towards the kids.

"Everyone run!"

While everyone is running, One throws a rock to the wolf to get its attention. Since he is a cheetah beastman he can run fast enough to not get caught by it. "Go run and try to get Crow here" yelled One. Crow is the only one that could possibly help them in this situation now but even if he could they still don't know if he would since they ran away from him. But with no other choice Eleven or the ghost girl runs to get Crow since she is the only one who can't do anything to help as ghosts cannot touch anything physically. One then runs away from the rest of the group and climbs a tree, hoping to buy some time. The rest of the group sit still and watch the situation, ready to go in case anything goes wrong, forcing them to have to fight the wolf without Crow.

Once Eleven reaches the house she sees Crow cooking a meal meant for all of them. She then explains the situation to Crow, while out of breath, but Crow doesn't react to being told this and just points to the table in the front right corner of the hut. It was a crystal ball that showed One in a tree while the Horned Wolf repeatedly rammed into the tree trying to bring him down. Eleven seeing this then begs for help from Crow which he then silently leaves the hut with the kitchen knife he had. Eleven staring, concerned, at the crystal ball sees Crow appear at the scene. Even though he had just left he already made it to the scene. Crow then walks slowly, going to the wolf's head where he then lifts up his knife and slices the head cleanly off. Confused by the situation, One and the rest of the children don't leave their positions and after Crow cleans his knife he then says to everyone.

"How long do you guys plan to stay here? If you're going to leave then leave now if you don't want to leave come with me."

Silently One climbs down to a tree and he and the other children follow Crow back home. Expecting to be yelled at they all apologize to him but Crow doesn't show anger. He simply says in a disappointed tone, "Get some rest, tomorrow you're all training." The children were left confused with what Crow was talking about but they all didn't want to say more than they had to and stayed silent. Eating and later falling asleep on the cold floor, leaving Crow to sleep outside, their first day together had ended.