It was a hot and humid morning. The sort of morning where the long-furred students looked at the short-furred students with envy; and where the scalies, all issued portable air conditioners, had them running full blast before class had even started. The grade seven class of Little Middleton Elementary quickly began to fill with the unmistakable scent of sweaty anthro boy as the students began to file in slowly by ones and twos. The usual hubbub rose as everyone settled into their seats, pushing desks together to sit with their friends and chatting about the latest gossip.

“Gods, it’s hot. Why can’t we get some rain already?”

“Ugh, I don’t want it to rain, it takes so long for my fur to dry.”

“Yeah, but you’re soaked now, not to mention you smell!”

There was the sound of a paw being lightly smacked against damp fur, and laughter rose from the back of the room.

“Not my fault you’re a dog. You think we all smell. And I bet you like it.”

“D-do not!”

More laughter. A paper airplane flew across the room, smacking into the blackboard. The chattering was getting steadily louder and more out of control.

“Hey, where do you think Hunter is? I haven’t seen him in like two weeks.”

“Maybe he’s sick.”

“Maybe he died.”

“Don’t say stuff like that! I heard it was some weird holiday or something. Part of his religion. I don’t know, I’ve never heard of it.”

“Oh yeah? What was it called?” There was the sound of shuffling, and then a ping as someone took out a phone.

“It was a cra— a mra— rowl— I don’t know, some word I can’t say. I’m not a cat, I just can’t say cat words,” The phone beeped again as it was put away, “Anyway, he’s always been a bit weird, right? Remember when he showed up with all his fur painted?”

“Yeah.. I have to admit, he kinda pulled it off though.”

“You think? Got a crush on him or something? Oh, that reminds me. Word on the street is that Jim is going to ask Adam to the dance next month.”

“What? I thought Jim was going out with Ash, I didn’t even know he liked guys!”

“Well, apparently she dumped him last week after…”

The door creaked open one last time. Silence descended on the classroom as, one by one, the students looked to the front of the room. There were several audible gasps. A tall, sleek black panther cub had confidently strolled into the room, his muzzle split in a wide, toothy grin as he looked around at everyone. Hunter had arrived at last, but he wasn’t exactly the same kitten they had last seen a fortnight prior. For one thing, he carried himself far more confidently than he had ever done before. For another, there was the way that he was dressed, or rather the way he wasn’t.

The first thing the class would notice about Hunter was that he wasn’t wearing a shirt. This might not be that surprising for anyone that knew him, as he was known to complain about them and always took his off as soon as he left school property. The second thing they would notice was that he wasn’t wearing any pants. Instead, there was a brown leather loincloth tied to his waist, the front and back flaps moving a little when he walked. Once they got over this, they would see that across most of his body, the fur was shaved back to the skin in complex swirling patterns, and that the exposed skin was in fact tattooed, the inked and scarred tissue standing proud of his skin. The fur would grow back in time, but the markings would be there forever, permanently visible across his arms, legs, back, chest, and even his face. He sported a few new earrings as well, giving him four silver rings in his left ear and three in his right. Additionally, he had a ring in each nipple, which had to have hurt, and one through his nose. He wore a fang on a cord around his neck, although that wasn’t new. 

He’d worn the fang necklace for as long as anyone could remember. It was important to him in some way everyone close to him intuitively understood, but couldn’t explain if anyone had asked. He even wore it though gym class, and while sleeping, only removing it to replace the cord when it wore out. It had always been one of his most prized possessions, and it meshed well with the rest of his look.

For a long moment, the silence was so complete that one could have heard a pin drop with complete clarity, but Hunter seemed entirely unfazed, confidently striding in and flashing the class a very sharp toothed smile. He took his seat, his tail waving back and forth as he nonchalantly dug around in his desk, sighing a little at the sheer amount of work he would most likely have to catch up on For this reason, he usually didn’t take actual time off of school for tribal holidays, but this one had been particularly important.

With that, the spell was broken. The rest of the class began whispering anew, many of them just a little bit more blushy than they had been a moment before.

“Whoa! He looks… different!”

“Why doesn’t he have to wear a shirt?”

“Shirt? Why doesn’t he have to wear PANTS?”

“Do you think those are real tattoos?”

“They look real…”

“Youch! That must’ve hurt!”

“A-and his ni—his chest, did you see?”

“Woof…”

“Is it hot in here?”

“We’ve been through this. It’s very hot in here. Stop saying it, you’re making me sweat more.”

“Just think cool thoughts.”

“Like what?”

Hunter, for his part, seemed either not to hear or not to care that almost the entire class was talking about him. While they gossiped and sweltered, he sat and doodled dreamily in his notebook, sketching out wizards and dragons, and black-furred felines with bows, shooting at feral cave-painting animals. He was lost in his own world until the bell rang, making him jump in his seat.

Their usual teacher, Mr. Maxwell, was apparently out sick, and the substitute was a severe old ferret with a very severe bun named Ms. Snipes. They had had here before, and she really wasn’t a bad teacher, but she was very strict and very old-fashioned about some things. She liked to walk up and down the rows with a wooden ruler as she lectured, smacking it in her palm as she passed if she thought you were goofing off. She had never actually used the ruler on anybody, but everyone had the impression that someday she might.

Ms. Snipes stood at the front of the room, frowning the frown of someone who had very recently bitten into a slice of lemon, believing it to be an orange. She knew something was off, but it was too early in the morning for her to quite know what it was yet. She held up a clipboard with the class list. The student handbook stated very clearly that during roll call, each fur was to stand up beside their desk and say “present” when their name was called. Most teachers didn’t bother with this after the first week, but this was Ms. Snipes, and she was a stickler for rules. One by one, they stood as their names were called. Everything seemed to be proceeding to her satisfaction until she finally got to “Sharpfang, Hunter.”

Obediently, the panther boy stood. His dreamy expression faded away, replaced with one of complete alertness. His sharp golden eyes focused intently on Ms. Snipes. “Present,” he said, making a small bow. He looked every bit like a warrior from some historical drama in miniature.

Ms. Snipes suppressed a shudder as those intense golden eyes bored into hers. There was something hawkish, almost predatory in those eyes. The panther boy had always been like that, a little, but his new… look… only amplified it. And then it finally dawned on her just what was wrong here. She pursed her lips and brought herself to her full height (although in reality, she was only a little bit taller than he was.)

“Hunter,” she said in a calm tone, but one with a warning in it, “I’m sure you think you’re being cute, but today is not costume day. Go and put on your clothes. I won’t mark you late. And wash that paint off.”

“But ma’am, I’m not wearing a costume. This is my clothing.” Hunter looked genuinely confused, He glanced down at himself, his loincloth was secure around his waist and… that about covered it. It was covering all the important bits, and that was what mattered, right? He glanced back up at the teacher, tilting his head to the side in a silent question.

“I’m serious, Hunter. I will not put up with this ridiculousness in my classroom. Go, and come back when you’re wearing something appropriate for your age.”

“I am. In my tribe, this is how boys my age dress. Boys and men of the panther tribe have always dressed this way. It is my right. It’s cultural, ma’am,” Hunter said, a fiery glint in his eyes. He wore an expression of extreme seriousness that looked almost comical on his young face. Almost. His voice was soft, but his tail bristled, This was clearly very important to him for whatever reason, not least because he appeared to be the only one relatively unaffected by the heat of the day. He made no move to leave.

They glared at each other, teacher and student, for a long moment. All eyes were on them, the class was holding its collective breath, waiting for something to happen. Surely the moment one of them broke eye contact, all hell would break loose. Surely the tension between them couldn’t hold, and the heated air between them would explode or something. Of course, most of the cubs had watched the same animated movie on TV the night before, which may have had some influence on their thinking.

The teacher’s eyes narrowed and her expression soured more and more as she finally took in all the little details. She began to notice that the tattoos sprawling across his entire body were more than just paint, that they were permanent. Of course, the kitten was far too young to make a decision like that. And the piercings.. well, those could be taken out, but still! To force the poor boy to go through that kind of pain at his age had to be… but on the other paw, the kitten’s face was set in a defiant expression. He was actually proud of.. whatever all this was. even Ms. Snipes had to admit that she had never seen the young panther look as comfortable with his body as he did now. Although… it was distracting, and it was probably abusive. Yes. That was the right word for what this was. Someone.. his parents perhaps, had put him up to it. As a substitute, she’d never actually met them, but they must be as wild as the boy looks. It was a wonder they even sent him to school, probably half feral—

“Excuse me,” the boy said, cutting through her thoughts, “can I sit down now? I think we’re holding up the rest of the class.”

“Right. Yes. Sit down,” she snapped. Hunter bowed again, his tail finally relaxing, and resumed his seat. The teacher moved on down her list of names, and slowly the class relaxed. For a second there, it looked like the panther was going to start a fight, but it didn’t seem like they were in for that kind of excitement. Not that day, at least.

However, the teacher seemed a bit distracted and ineffective, even for a sub. She assigned them some questions out of the textbook , but otherwise didn’t engage much with the class for the rest of the morning. She didn’t even make her usual rounds around the classroom with her ruler, which was lying on her desk. What she had done several times was grab the class phone and take it out into the hallway. Many times someone would look up and see the door shut, with the phone cord curled around the doorway and the teacher nowhere in sight.

This astoundingly uncharacteristic lack of discipline had exactly the effect anyone would expect, and soon enough everyone was chatting again, few were trying all that hard to complete the assigned work. For his part, Hunter himself was working on some of the things he’d missed, reasoning that nobody ever cares to mark things a sub assigns, and if they weren’t going to learn anything, he might as well take the time to get caught up. In fact, he was the only person working. Partway through last week’s trigonometry homework, he felt a sharp poke in his side. He looked up and saw one of his friends, a rabbit rather stereotypically named Jack, holding a pencil with the business side out.

“Hey. Earth to Hunter. I’ve been trying to get your attention for ages,” the bunny boy murmured, “you really that into math?”

“Ah, no. Sorry,” Hunter said, his paw wandering up to his ear and playing with one of his earrings, “what is it?”

“I don’t know, maybe Sniper’s out of the room and you’re the only one still working? Maybe we’ve all been dying to ask you what the hell’s going on with you? maybe uh… your loincloth is askew and you’ve been giving me a show for the last five minutes…”

“Oh,” Hunter pulled his loincloth back down, a hint of a blush showing on his black-furred muzzle for the first time.

“Oh? You come in like that and survive a standoff with Sniper and all you have to say is ‘oh’? Where is your head at? Where’ve you been? Why do you look like.. that now?” Jack was blushing himself, rather more obviously through his grey fur. His eyes jumped here and there, looking over the panther boy’s body. He looked like it couldn’t decide whether to be embarrassed or interested. A few of their classmates shot occasional glances their way as well, all looking similarly blushy.

“I have decided to fully embrace my people’s culture. I’ve spent the last two weeks taking part in various rituals, some of which.. well, you see the results.”

“Y-yeah… I do. Didn’t it hurt, though?”

“I was given a great honour. The pain i endured with pride, and it didn’t really matter in the long run. Besides, I think you like it. I’ve seen you looking..”

“R-right. And the… you know…?” Jack gestured towards the kitten’s waist. He was starting to get a bit huffy, and his face was red under his fur.

“The loincloth? It is traditional. It covers what it needs to cover. What need does a hunter or a warrior have for anything more?”

“Right… It looks good on you, by the way. It all does. So is that all you did for the last two weeks, get tattooed?”

“No, there was much feasting and celebration, it was a holiday, after all. And besides, a panther’s first hunt is a very important time.”

The words ‘first hunt’ made Jack’s blood run cold. He knew that his friend was a carnivore, and he knew that it probably meant he just shot an arrow in the direction of some feral a few times and called it a day, but as a prey species himself, something about the word ‘hunt’ sent a shiver down his spine and called out to some preyish instinct deep in his soul, telling him to run, or at least to be wary.

“What was that like?” he asked, shoving the feeling back down inside of him. Hunter was one of his best friends, after all, and would never do anything to hurt him. Probably.

“It was… wonderful. The chase was exhilarating,” the panther said, his intense golden eyes lighting up in remembered excitement, “I have never felt so free, so alive as when I was chasing—“

Hunter was cut off by the sound of the PA speaker crackling to life. “Would Hunter Sharpfang please come down to the office. Hunter Sharpfang to the office, please,” the overly loud, distorted voice said in a bored tone. The panther cub closed his book, stood, and calmly walked out of the room to a chorus of ooooooooooh and Hunter’s in troooooouuuuuble~.

When Hunter arrived at the principal’s office a few minutes later, he was asked to have a seat until his parents arrived. In contrast to Ms. Snipes, the principal spoke quite kindly to him, asking him to have a seat until his parents arrived. Hunter tried to point out that sending him home wouldn’t accomplish anything, as he was going to show up looking the same every day, but he was waved off. Ms. Snipes herself came in after a few minutes and took a seat opposite him. She didn’t seem to have anything to say to him, though, merely shooting him a glare now and then as she took in new details of his appearance that she disapproved of. She was of a generation that didn’t approve even of boys having earrings, of which Hunter had a few even before this, so she was naturally inclined to disapprove of the rest of it. She had built up his parents in her head as some kind of half-wild beasts, and was ready to chew their heads off as soon as they showed themselves.

When they did come in, however, Ms. Snipes was visibly taken aback at how… normal they looked. Normal to her sensibilities, at least. Unlike their son, they weren’t covered in tattoos and wearing feral animal hides around their waists, but they were dressed in regular clothes. There were some concessions to their heritage, they both had small tribal tattoos on one of their arms, and they both wore those fang necklaces and had at least one earring, but clearly, neither of them had taken it as far as their son had. Panthers rarely did anymore, although she had met hardly any other panthers in her life, so she wouldn’t necessarily know that. She had jumped to the conclusion that he’d somehow been put up to it, pushed into making decisions he was really too young to make and would almost definitely regret later. All of that started to fall apart in her mind when she saw them, but she held on tightly to that disapproval for as long as she could.

“Your son came to school this morning dressed completely inappropriately,” she finally said, a bit lamely. Somewhere inside, she already knew this was a losing battle. The fire had gone out of her.

Hunter’s father sighed.

“Yes, I was afraid this might happen. Hunter has chosen to embrace the old ways, and there’s nothing you or I or anyone else can do to stop him. It is his right, regardless of whether you approve of it, to wear the loincloth and everything else. He won’t be disruptive, will you buddy?”

Hunter shook his head vigorously.

“Nope! I don’t mean to cause any trouble, and I apologize for any offense I have caused,” said Hunter, knowing that his class’s lack of focus that day certainly wasn’t his fault, at least not after the first few minutes. Ms. Snipes’ being absent all morning was the cause of that, but he politely refrained from mentioning that.

“If you need to have the legality of the situation explained to you, we can always give Elder Sharpclaw a call,” said Hunter’s mother.

“Now, I’m sure we don’t have to bother him. He’s a busy man,” said his dad, giving the ferret a Look.

“I think,” the principal, a very put-upon looking old husky, cut in, “we’ve taken up enough time on this. I’m afraid this is a cultural matter, Ms. Snipes. Even if I wanted to stop this young man from expressing his culture, Ms. Snipes, I couldn’t without getting into considerable legal trouble. He’s not hurting anybody, and as long as his behaviour and his marks remain, as I see from his file, exemplary, I don’t want to see him sent down to this office again. Am I clear, Ms. Snipes? You can go back to class, Hunter. You aren’t in trouble. Mr. and Mrs. Sharpfang, thank you for coming, and I’m sorry you had to take time out of your busy day for this.”

Hunter stood up and bowed politely at everyone in the office before padding out. That seemed to be a panther tribe thing, as his parents did the same before leaving as well, even as they were glaring at the teacher. Ms. Snipes likely wouldn’t be subbing for Mr. Maxwell’s grade seven class again. Hunter went back to class and once again immersed himself in the bland world of trigonometry, the shirtless feline being the only one cool enough to concentrate on much. He drew several envious looks for that, but as with any group of cubs his age, they did a good enough job distracting themselves, as well.

The rest of the day went by fairly uneventfully. Several other cubs approached him at recess, asking him questions and openly admiring his new look. Everything came together in a way that, in reality, only enhanced his already cute boyish good looks, and even if it was a bit strange, people got used to it fairly quickly. Though he might have been oblivious to it (or perhaps not, it was hard to tell with him,) he had several new secret admirers.

By the time gym class rolled around, Hunter’s seeming immunity to the heat had long worn off, and he was as sweaty as everyone else. Their gym teacher had probably been warned, because he didn’t do much other than raise an eyebrow slightly, and didn’t say anything. He did have them running laps, though, which put Hunter’s loincloth tying skills to the test for real. It stayed on without too much trouble, though the flaps moved back and forth a little suggestively as he moved, always threatening to reveal a little too much, but stopping just short every time. Judging by the looks on everyone’s faces, they all noticed, and gave it their all to keep up with him just to get a look. Hunter seemed to be in a state of bliss as he ran. His body seemed to be built for it, in fact. Developing muscles rippled and flexed right along with his loincloth. His fang necklace bounced against his sweat-soaked bare chest again and again and again. An outside observer might think he was doing it on purpose, and several of the boys who weren’t running likely did, but he was only doing what came naturally. Jack especially watched his friend quite closely, for some reason.

“Hey Hunter,” Jack said to the panther cub in the showers at the end of class, “you uh.. looked really good today.”

“Thanks,” Hunter flashed his friend one of his signature charming smiles as he scrubbed himself clean, somehow anot noticing how the rabbit’s eyes followed the arc of the washcloth being dragged across the panther’s chest, “You too. I had a great time on holiday, but I missed you too, you know.”

“Yeah… can you tell me more about your tribe’s sometime? I’ve got a lot of uh… questions.”

“Sure. Actually… do you want to come over to my house tonight? You can stay over if you want. I think I’ve got a ritual I can show you, if you’re interested.”

“A ritual? Like some kind of religious thing? Are you sure you want me around for that? Sounds like some kind of secret panther tribe thing.”

“I mean, if you don’t want to…”

“No!” the bunny boy almost shouted, “I want to! I don’t know if I’ll get it, but I’ll be there for you!”

“Don’t worry, I think you’ll like it.”

“Hey, want to catch a movie, too? I hear the old theatre on Main is showing one in colour!”

“Colour movies are silly, they’re never good… I’m in.”

Jack grinned to himself. He knew his friend couldn’t resist the siren call the B-movie. And gimmicky movies were always B-movies. He chuckled and turned off the water, grabbing a towel and tossing it to his dark-furred friend.

“Great, it’s a date! I mean uh.. well, you know.”