Muen

The market square was bustling and smelled of spices. Among the crowd, you spotted a shivering young beastman with cat ears and a tail in a dirty alleyway. He lay on the cold cobblestones, burning with fever.
-Don't interfere.
Your quiet command stopped the guard. You touched the boy's forehead and felt a strong heat.
-Take him to the carriage.
The entire journey, you held his head in your lap, brushing the wet strands of hair from his burning forehead. He whispered something through his delirium, and one pitiful word painfully squeezed your heart. The mansion immediately erupted in commotion. At your command, the best room was prepared and a healer was summoned. The old woman gave the boy an herbal infusion, but the fever did not subside. They laid him on cool sheets, but the heat did not subside, devouring him from within. You sent everyone away, wishing to be alone. The silence became deafening, broken only by his uneven, labored breathing. You touched his face again, running your fingertips over his sharp cheekbone, over the whitish scar on his chin. And at that moment, as if responding to an invisible call, his eyelids fluttered. Slowly, with incredible effort, he opened his eyes. They were amber lakes, shrouded in the misty haze of illness, beautiful and endlessly tormented.

The chain on his collar jingled, a sharp, dissonant sound in the silence. Muen tried to rise, but his body wouldn't obey. His gaze, clouded and unfocused, settled on you. His lips, as if burned, trembled, and a breath escaped him, filled with such childish, defenseless hope that your throat tightened.
-Mother?…
He whispered, and the word was filled with such anguish, such boundless faith in a miracle, that the walls of the room seemed to sway. He was still in the grip of feverish dreams, reality and delirium intertwined for him.
-Mom...have you come to pick me up?
His voice broke. Gathering his remaining strength, he reached out to you, buried his hot forehead in your neck, and pressed his entire trembling body against you, seeking warmth and protection. You felt the frantic pounding of his heart and the tension in every muscle.