Morning came all too early for Sen’s tastes. The sun wasn’t even up yet. Instead, there was a kind of gray, pre-dawn illumination that made it just possible to see. Despite the early wakeup, though, Sen felt good. In fact, he felt better than good. It was like energy was bursting from his entire body. Sen felt ready, if not enthusiastic, for walking all day. A quick peek under the bandages on his hands showed that the cuts from the previous day’s mad flight were healed. The skin looked healthy and perfect. Stunned, Sen looked around the campsite. Cultivator Feng had let the fire die down to a small bed of coals. It was enough for Sen to warm his hands over, but looked like it would be easy to put out. The cultivator himself was sitting a little way off from the campsite in a cross-legged position. Sen studied the motionless man for a while. He decided that Feng must be meditating. He’d seen monks sitting like that before to meditate. Or is it cultivating, he wondered. What’s the difference?

The longer he studied the sitting cultivator, the less comfortable Sen felt. It was almost like he could feel the man doing, well, doing something. It wasn’t anything he could see or hear. It was more like something underneath his senses. Like a current in all of nature itself. Something that made his very soul shiver. It wasn’t that the man was acting hostile. He was just sitting there. Yet, Sen couldn’t shake the sensation that something was wrong. It was like he was under observation. Sen froze. He’d felt that sensation before, all too often, right before something awful happened. He slowly turned and looked over his shoulder. A lightning bolt of fear left him fixed in place, mouth open, and staring.

Not three feet away was the biggest cat Sen had ever seen. It was massive, bigger than the biggest dogs in town. Much like the cultivator, it wasn’t doing anything specific to threaten Sen. Its mere existence was more than enough for that. Even worse, Sen felt his eyes trying to slide away from the beast as it almost seemed to disappear into the foliage behind it. The cat eyed him curiously for a moment, then stood, and stepped forward into a stretch that nearly brought its massive front paws, paws big enough to crush him, to Sen’s feet. It was the motion of the cat that forced a strangled cry from Sen’s throat. The beast’s eyes snapped up, and then to Sen’s right.

“Easy little brother,” said Cultivator Feng.

Relief washed over Sen. He hadn’t heard the cultivator move, but his presence was a comfort in that terrible place. The cultivator would no doubt slay the beast as he had done with the boar. Except, nothing happened. Sen glanced at Feng. The man stood next to him. His posture was relaxed and the cultivator’s face serene as he gave the big cat a nod. It was only then that Sen finally realized that the cultivator had been talking to the beast.

“Aren’t you going to kill it?” Demanded Sen, his voice cracking.

“Why?” Feng asked. “It’s been here for an hour. It would have done something by now if it planned to.”

As if to prove that it was somehow friendly and harmless, the beast slumped onto its side and began licking one of its paws. Sen was not tricked. Anything that big with paws, claws, and teeth was not to be trusted. He glared his distrust down at the massive cat. Once again, his eyes tried to look somewhere else as the cat seemed to almost fade into the ground.

“What is it?” Sen asked, forcing his eyes to stay fixed on the beast.

“Ghost panther,” murmured Feng. “You don’t see many of those.”

The cultivator chuckled to himself like he’d told some particularly amusing joke. Sen didn’t laugh. He didn’t see anything funny about a giant predator lounging in their campsite. Then, Feng’s words finally struck home in Sen’s mind.

“It’s a ghost,” Sen yelled as he stumbled backward and promptly fell over his own discarded blankets.

Sen knew better than to treat ghosts lightly. He’d heard stories about hungry ghosts. What could be hungrier than a ghost panther? Feng let out of derisive snort and shook his head, almost like he couldn’t believe Sen had actually asked him that.

“It’s not a ghost. It’s a ghost panther. Look at it.”

Sen studied the beast with wary, distrustful eyes. It only took him a moment to make the connection. The cat clearly had a physical body, demonstrated by the fact that it idly batted a small stone into the underbrush. Somehow, some way, the animal could fade into the background. Then, finally, he understood the joke that Feng had made. In spite of himself, Sen sighed at the terrible humor. Through all of that, the cat watched him. Sen was certain that he saw laughter in its huge, feline eyes.

Sen got to his feet and muttered under his breath, “How was I supposed to know?”

Feng seemed ready to get moving, stopping only long enough to give Sen some leftover boar meat and another peach. After a moment of thought, Feng tossed the big cat a piece of meat. The cat went from casually lounging to pouncing toward the meat almost instantly, catching it in mid-air. Then, the cat went back to lounging while it chewed on the meat. Sen did his best not to imagine the cat doing that to his leg. Instead, he turned his attention to his own breakfast. For a boy who had gotten most of his meals from the trash for years, sometimes forcing down food that was only questionably safe, the boar tasted heavenly.

It was fresh. Fresh enough that not even a hit of rotten sourness marred the experience. He’d been too hungry and distracted by pain the night before to enjoy the food. With those impediments out of the way, he was free to relish in the flavors of the food. Free to bask in the fact that he didn’t need to fight off rats or dogs to get it. Meat in any quantity was a rare treat in Sen’s world, so he didn’t take it for granted. He lingered over it, chewing slowly and deliberately. It wasn’t juicy in the same way it had been when it was hot. It was still tender, though. The spices were unfamiliar, but they gave the meat an almost sweet crust with a hint of spiciness. After he slowly, but inevitably, finished the boar’s meat, he turned his attention to the peach.

Fruit wasn’t quite as rare as meat. There were orchards outside the town, after all. Yet, rarely had Sen enjoyed fresh fruit. The peach was firm. Its sweet juice was almost an assault on Sen’s untrained palate. He found himself letting out a little moan in pleasure. Once again, he found himself feeling almost overfull with energy. It roiled inside him, the energy washing out from his stomach into his chest. Then, it expanded out into his limbs and head. The energy left him with the sense that he had woken up a second time. Everything around him seemed sharper, clearer, and it was all he could do to sit still. By the time the peach was half gone, Sen felt like he might vibrate apart.

Abruptly, he became aware of the fact that the cat was so close that he could feel its hot breath on his face. He forced himself to move slowly as he turned his head. The cat was so close that he could make out the individual hairs on its face. At that distance, the cat’s whiskers no longer looked delicate, but like tiny spears that jutted from around its fearsome maw. If the cat had actually been looking at him, Sen might have screamed. Only, it wasn’t looking at him. Its eyes were fixed on the half of the peach in his hand. Sen looked closely at the beast. It wasn’t hostile. It didn’t even look hungry. If anything, there was an expression of yearning in the cat’s eyes.

Sen sighed. He supposed that he owed the beast something for not murdering him in his sleep. He lifted the rest of the fruit toward the beast. It sniffed at the fruit but didn’t take it. Sen frowned.

“You want it, don’t you?” He asked, lifting the fruit a little closer. “Go on. Take it.”

The cat’s eyes flicked to his face for just a moment, as though it was trying to weigh his sincerity. Then, the cat lowered its mouth toward his hand. Sen steeled himself for the betrayal. At this range, the massive beast could take his arm off and flee into the forest with it before anyone could do anything. It turned out that Sen’s fears were misplaced. The beast picked the fruit up so gently that all Sen felt was the barest brush of fine, soft fur against his palm. The cat backed off a few steps, as though it could sense Sen’s apprehension. It didn’t immediately swallow the fruit like Sen thought it would. It seemed to take its time with peach in the same way Sen had, savoring the sweetness of the flesh, before it finally let the fruit slide down its throat.