Merchant's Son

Jo'Sien Catraso is a khajiit. If you do not know what a khajiit is, I suggest you look into the Elder Scrolls series of games.
If you do know what a khajiit is, you do not know Jo'Sien Catraso.
If you know what it means to be a man, you may understand some part of who Jo'Sien Catraso is.
What I will now begin aims to tell you who Jo'Sien Catraso is. But whether it manages to, is up to you.
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The First Story
Two men stood on a stone platform. The first, a shorthaired young man with simple brown hair and dull blue eyes. Handsome, quick, but ill at showing both. Breton by birth, he was blessed with the mind of an elf and the body of a man, and the ineptitude of both. He stood, his dull features alight with passion unbefitting his common nature. He gripped a sword so tightly that his knuckles whitened under his leather glove. It was a small, simple thing- short, with dull edges and a nasty enough point.
At the other was a man with the head and tail of a cat, his body cloaked in sleek, thick fur. He wore a simple leather doublet that covered his shoulders atop a heavy dress shirt, whose loose cuffs were fixed tightly at his wrists by leather bracers, flowering around his palms nicely. This strange beast stood still, without purpose, the disinterested eyes of a cat laid on his opponent. In his hand was lithe piece of steel, thinner than his smallest finger and long as his arm.
Behind them both, stood a young woman with full blonde hair, whose eyes strayed between the men. She looked upon the beast-man with brazen infatuation, and upon the Breton with honest remorse.

The slow, wafting smell of bread on a warm wind. The honeyed blossoms, fresh upon a green vine. The quiet smallness of the common folk, as they bustled through the town square. All subtle spoilings of the merchant’s son which perched upon an old stone window. While small, with practice he could cramp his legs and position himself just-so, to give himself a safe place to judge the lesser population, and take in its cheapest gifts, his instrument rested in his lap.
The lute was an old piece of wood, with musty and dirty grooves where once the engraving had been as bright and clean as the colored glass of the chapel in the city. Little scratches now littered the carved aperture, marks of the impatient player cleaning its innards with his claws, less than patient. Still, now it sang huskily, dust clogging its throat, the wooden instrument’s tone sweet in the wheaty summer air.
Up the stone steps to the youth’s room, came a familiar firm voice.
“Jo.”
The youth slipped off the stone parapet, his feet bare against the cold floor and making no more noise than the shift of sand.
“Coming, Father.”
Ra’Daak Catraso was a large cat with little penance for his girth. Unlike his son, he bore huge tufts of gold and rusty red fur all over his, like a great beard that spread in all directions. His cheeks were so hairy that the fur rose up in his eyes, making his gaze perpetually stern.
“O, spoilt son of mine.” The fat man spoke, looking down. Jo resembled little of his father- dark, sleek, and skinny where his father was amber, huge and fat. His insult did little to get a rise from the cat, who merely gazed elsewhere, eyes unfocused. Such oblivious youth, his father thought.
“All these gifts. Learning. Skill. Art. Love. But it is my son, of all men who incites such hatred.” Ra’Daak spoke firmly. While they shared little, what they had in common was split between them evenly- Ra’Daak the merchant, and Jo’Sien the youth both had silver tongues.
“Many fathers among the men would cheer to see their son possessed of youth and vigor enough to fight for the love of a woman.” Jo said slyly, pacing around his father for the door.

Ra’Daak shut the door in Jo’Sien’s face, the firm oak snapping with the iron lock, the dusty light of early evening flooding in around every seem.
“Bah. Fight for love.” His father laughed, his humor weak.

Jo shrugged simply, opening the door when his father stepped back, his face bright with golden light.
“Careful, father. Lest that cynicism spread to your impressionable child.” Jo said dryly, before stepping out into the evening Morndas light.
“Do not draw blood, Jo’Sien. Even I cannot keep the guards off you if you do.” His father called to his back.
Lute over his shoulder, the youth walked along the Imperial roads towards the market district. Despite the crowds he passed as a shadow, having walked among these numbers since he was a child. Blade at his hip, the words passed through his head. A bitter spit on the last bastion of his youthful idealism- challenged to a duel, he was expected to, at most, disarm the man. To the crowds, a duel between the children of nobility meant fun for all, with the winner gaining glory for his family. To their eyes this was all in the name of an imperial lass no different from the two other girls he had been visiting with that week.
Jo did not have such temporary vision.
Watching the crowds gather, Jo sat with his knees to his chest atop one of the market district’s main tradehouses. It was past time, they had all gathered. The Breton boy was standing on the stone platform, looking around. The boy didn’t see Jo- Jo was invisible to them all. None of them knew he sat and watched them before the fight. He relished little moments like this- moments of power.
As Jo dropped down, he relished still- they did not know how he had sharpened his blade for this day.

The boy swung his short sword at Jo. For the girl he loved, for the passion he felt burning in his blood. He was took young to know it himself, but he had felt the touch of innocent love, and grasped so tightly to that dream that he could not let go of the girl who had left him for Jo. If only the cat would fall, then he could go back to that dream.
But Jo, unlike the boy, had taken lessons. Jo felt his heart beat wildly, unpredictably hammering with each swing he deflected and slipped around. Only one or two were needed to make his hands shake with excitement. But while the boy had passion, it soured quickly into rage. And rage became predictability. And for even a novice swordsman like Jo’Sien, predictable blows were dull blows. They struck air. At first it was a thrill, watching the boy’s passion melt in front of him. That domination made his chest swell and eyes burn, with each blow Jo managed to turn aside.
The act crescendoed, when Jo disarmed the boy, ripping the blade from his hand and tossing it behind him. The Breton fell to his knees, heart broken, innocence lost. Jo raised his hand, twisting the rapier in his grip, and at the collected outcry of the crowd looking on with such voyeurism, plunged its sharpened, brittle tip into the boy’s chest. A wild spurt of blood sprayed his white shirt. With just as primal a wrench, he tore the rapier from his chest, and stood, watching the innocent bleed.
Screams tore the sky, the crowds erupting with noise and fury. The guards rushed up to Jo, who stood still, savoring the last moments of the boy’s life, as he attempted to stem the wild spurting shots of blood with his paling, trembling fingers.
It was not a sweet taste. Jo knew this. It was heart breaking. Innocent of fault, he had fought for a woman who had left him and broken his heart. He had been full of life, and now it was spilling out with every twitch. More than tragic, more than domination, more than ugly, more than beautiful- it was such a powerful image that Jo felt the illusion of emotion once more touch his callous heart, and in doing so- removed all regret. The boy had died, so that Jo could feel again.