***
Bo’s heart pounded as he ran just fast enough to keep ahead of the horses. That was the good thing his mother gave him, he’d always thought; the speed to get away from those who saw his defect and desired to rip him apart as if he were some beast. As far as he was concerned, it was the human race that was the beast—if something was unfavorable or difficult to understand, they lashed out to kill it just the same.
Bo raced through the bushes and over rocks and branches, finding the narrowest routes he could to try and stop the horses. But they were relentless. The knights were fox hunters, and Bo was the prize that they would stop at nothing to gain and destroy.
He remembered well the first time he had been chased like this. He had been no more than eight. A village mother had seen his arm and had shouted about a monster trying to attack her son. Then she had pointed at him. And from there, the hunt was on. The village had picked up every torch and sharp blade it had, hoping to destroy him. Bo had only wanted to have a playmate. Living with his fox-demon mother and seeing the boy play with parents that looked like him, Bo had wanted to join. But he’d left his arm uncovered, despite his mother’s warnings, unperturbed himself by how it appeared. That night he had been chased back to his mother’s side. At the sight of the villagers, she had made herself look the size of a home and had whipped her nine tails menacingly. And when she couldn’t scare them off…
Bo had kept his mother, but the village had paid the price. As soon as he could after that, he left her side, and she bade him a tearful farewell. But Bo resolved then that he would find a way to live in coexistence with humans. “I don’t want anyone else to die because of me,” he had told her, stroking the tears from her fur.
Now, though, he had no mother to defend him, and he was going to die.