This Town {Ain't big enough}// Cass

The sun was high in the sky, beating down mercilessly on the district as it settled into its noon time positioning. This, coupled with the rumbling in his stomach told Sebastian that it was about time that he found some lunch to eat. He was in the mood for something filling, maybe something of the meat variety and there was no shortage of rodents to be found crawling around the district. With a trusty sharpened stick and a good eye, it was pretty easy to skewer one and then slide it up the wood to make room for another and then another. After about forty-five minutes of exertion, Sebastian had stabbed three rats and slung the pole over his shoulder. He was going bare chested for now, and some blood from the rodents trickled down his back. True, winter was fast approaching, but this early in the day the temperature still went up just enough to warrant not wearing a shirt. His reaction time was improving the more he foraged for himself and it was a fact he was well and truly proud of. Just the other day he had kicked a squatter off of his gang's turf and it had only taken around ten minutes to render the offender a scared and bloody mess. Sure they had gotten a few good licks in and Sebastian was still sporting some bruises on his ribs from the fight, but he had come out on top and that was all that mattered.

Just how at that very moment, what mattered was finding a nice secluded place to start a small fire and begin roasting his catches. He'd eat two of them and bring the other one back to Zanita in a little while and hopefully, he'd come across something else with which to supplement it before he got back. The rest of the clan were quite capable of finding things on their own, and honestly, sometimes he had to wonder where exactly they did, but he always reminded himself that he was probably better off not knowing. Zanita was capable of finding her own stuff too, that he knew as well, but it just felt good to bring her something every now and then. Made him feel just a little more secure about everything to do with the two of them. Maybe he'd try to catch and kill a rabbit for her She liked those right? Sebastian started to brood as he continued walking down the street, ignoring the sudden chill that came with the reddish liquid drying on his skin. Zanita liked it when he did certain things and lately that certain thing usually involved being nicer to her brother, which was something that was generally hard to do. But, he supposed that maybe, just maybe he could try to insult him every other hour instead of every hour on the hour. That was an improvement right? Yes, that was a good deal better than the usual. Kovu had better appreciate it.

He walked for another couple of minutes, ignoring the stares that he got from some of the passerby and continuing on his way. People like the ones that stared had not the sense to keep their noses out of his business. It was actually quite rude to stare the way that they did or so it seemed the more he thought about it. Hadn't they ever seen a shirtless homeless boy walking down the street with dried blood on his back and dead rats on a stick? It wasn't like that was the first time he had done that or anything and other people did similar things all the time. Eventually, he decided that they were either jealous or afraid or some combination of the two. Like the grocer that always stepped back inside and watched him from behind the pane of glass in the window or the kids that watched him with big eyes while they were rooted to the sidewalk until their parents pulled them along, whispering the entire time. It was never people that he knew, because most of the people that he knew were also living on the streets and knew better than to stray into his gang's territory. Of course, there were always a few that did, whether by accident or by design and so there was always at least one person that needed a good pounding or a solid thrashing. Today however, he had been pleased to see that nothing needed to be fought over and so he'd be able to get back to the tent within a good time limit.

He began to hum a little ditty as he turned a corner but then stopped short. The street was deserted, not a sign of a person or an animal. Except for one. And one with whom he had experience with in the past. About a dozen feet away from him, coming up the other side of the road, Sebastian saw a girl. A girl with red hair. Not just any girl that he had met in the past, but a very specific one that had a fake sword that she had waved around. A girl that had decided to challenge him about nothing, but had paid quite a lot for having done so. Her name danced around on the tip of his tongue before vanishing into the crevices of his mind. But that was alright, because it wasn't as if her name was all that important anyway. What was important was that she had kicked him below the belt and he had given her a good old fashioned beat down. Getting attacked like that had a way of making a person reorganize their priorities and he wondered idly if the girl had learned her lesson the first time. She hadn't seen him yet, and so he swung the stick with the rats on it down and placed it in the gutter before striking a stance in the middle of the street with a smile on his face. Not a friendly smile, but a feral grin that showed his teeth.

The last time they had met had gone rather poorly for her, and he was looking forward to a repeat performance. Zanita would understand why he was late getting back; heck, she had half wanted to find the girl that kicked him and give her a piece of her mind. This was not a simple waste of time and energy for a fight, this was practically a matter of honor and Sebastian was eager to see it through to the end. The girl drew closer and after a minute or so, he was certain that she had seen him. What remained to be seen was how she would react upon knowing he wasn't going to budge, that if she wanted to get around the corner, she was going to have to go through him. It reminded him of the gang he had once belonged in. They had kicked him out for several reasons and if there hadn't been so many of them, he'd have stood his ground like he was now. It was prudent to pick ones fight's carefully, better to win a fight or to avoid one that would result in a most humiliating defeat. Then again, he had lost a fight to Zanita the one time and he had been pretty sure that he was going to win that one. But that was then and this was now, and soon, soon that pesky redhead was going to be lying on the cold, unforgiving ground.

He let a guttural growl escape his throat, as much for ambient sound as for a scare tactic. That kind of crap worked pretty well whenever he needed to settle a dispute in the gang's stomping grounds; it was something innate, primal that the same type of person as Sebastian both understood and respected. It was almost animal like but it worked, because the streets of district nine could be as dangerous as any jungle and force was the only thing that was universally understood. It was a language in its own right, with bruises and black eyes instead of verbs and adjectives, blood instead of nouns, and broken bones instead of prepositions. But before that language could be spoken, another needed to set things off correctly, and so Sebastian issued a challenge that rang out loud and clear down the almost empty street. "Hey! Remember me? Cause I sure remember you. Princess." Yes, that was the name he had given her the last time they had tangled, a name that for whatever reason incited and angered her to no end, and when an enemy is blinded by emotion, it is the best and only time to launch a flurry of attacks. Perhaps this would catch her off guard so bad that she would hardly offer a challenge. One could never really tell with those who weren't real fighters. But it sure was fun to find out.