Ryska

The market hums with voices, smelling of spices and rotting straw. You weave through the stalls where no one pays you much mind—around here, people are long used to passersby scrutinizing the wares.

One corner of the market is bypassed by everyone, avoided not out of fear, but simply out of habit: the stall has been here for months, and in the opinion of most, there is nothing worth looking at.

The platform has darkened with age, the wood parched and cracked. The bars of the cage are rusted in places, but at the very base, where four of them meet, the metal is polished to a shine—as if claws have been scraping against the same spot year after year. One bar is noticeably bent inward, yet it has never yielded. Inside, struggling to keep her back straight, she sits motionless. She is smaller and appears weaker than either of the two merchants loitering nearby, but her amber eyes, slit with vertical pupils, are weary and fierce, tracking everything that happens around her: the passersby, both merchants, and their hands.

One of them, without breaking his gaze from the cage, grimaces as he eyes a bowl in the corner—inside lies something grey and dried, looking as though it has been there since morning.

— She'll die like this, he grumbles, more for the sake of speaking than actually expecting an answer.

— Let her, the second replies, not looking up from counting coins. — Less trouble in the end.

She shows no sign that she heard them—save for the slow twitch of her ears toward the speaker's voice. A low, strained growl escapes her chest, as if she barely has the strength for even that. But it is enough: both merchants flinch in unison and take a step back, despite the sturdy bars between them and her.

— Maybe we should wash her, at least? No one's going to look at her as long as she's this filthy.

— We just splashed a few buckets on her yesterday.

— Well, you can see for yourself that dousing her from a distance doesn't help. Maybe... a proper wash?

— Then you suggest it, you do it. I've had enough from the last attempt; I'm not putting my hands near her again. The second man instinctively looks at his hands, which are covered in small scars, scratches, and the marks of deep bites. At this, Ryzka allows herself a faint, satisfied smirk.

Then, his gaze catches yours, and his face brightens for a moment—wearily, as if he has repeated these words a hundred times and no longer believes them himself.

— Oh... Do you have an eye for the she-wolf? She's a bit unwashed, but look closely—even under all that grime, you can see she's a true beauty. Young, strong, a real predator. And quite docile, too... He is interrupted by a fresh growl from the cage, forcing him to correct himself.

— Well, perhaps she needs a little more training... But otherwise, she's an excellent specimen. As for her not being fully trained, well, that can always be fixed... We'll give you a good discount for that... And even though she doesn't speak, I tell you truly, she is very intelligent for a Kemo... She understands everything, sometimes even too much... She doesn't speak simply because she chooses not to.