The seeds that had been planted in him were beginning to grow. Those feelings that had been buried in him by doubt broke through the soil like the grasses that pierced through the snowmelt. The world was waking up, and so was Kiche. Although he was broken, somehow he still remained. The coming spring held strange promises that stirred in his heart. The wolf-who-wished-to-be-a-man could not understand these stirrings. He trotted through the sibilant stalks of grasses, wondering and thinking, although he felt as if he did too much wondering and thinking these days. There was something growing inside of him, he could feel it.
And it scared him.
A sudden flash of brown fur in the meadow grasses caught his eye, distracting him from his burdensome thoughts. <i>Rabbit,</i> he decided, figuring that he had accidentally stumbled upon it and scared it out of its hiding place and its wits. That the little creatures always ran away from him was something he could never understand. He had never been a threat to them, had <i>never</i> tried to eat them. Alright, sure, he was competition, he ate their leaves and their berries, but he wasn’t… he wasn’t some <i>savage</i>. The world in his head never seemed to match up with reality, and this was just one of the many things he could never explain for himself.
Though he abhorred killing and blood and the barbaric practice of hunting, he was suddenly curious. It occurred to him that he didn’t know the first thing about hunting. He was not as worldly as he had thought. <i>But how hard can it be?</i> No matter how he tried to accept the heathens, old, invisible prejudices remained, ones so small he didn’t even notice they were there. Kiche still assumed heathens to be unintelligent, lazy beasts. Hunting, in such a context, could not seem so impossible. Why he felt the need to try it, he couldn’t say. Perhaps it was just because he was hungry, but it felt like there was something else in him too. It was like there was a hungry child growing in him, crying out for food. <i>Real food.</i> That thought brought him to a halt. <i>Real food?</i> Hadn’t he been eating real food all along? What did “<i>real food</i>” even mean?
Lifting his muzzle to the gentle winter breeze, he searched the scent trails for the traces of that rabbit. He found it easy enough. Over the past few months, his nose had grown better with practice. He was no longer quite so deaf and dumb as he had been when he had first stumbled into Relic Lore. Without the caution of a practice hunter, Kiche galloped after the lingering smell. But he was too loud, too obvious. He didn’t realize it, but with every step he drove every creature deeper into their burrows. A half hour ticked past, and now the sun was high in the sky. Frustrated, he gave a small snarl, wondering what he was doing wrong. </blockquote>