Default Playable Character: Clover Mahleb, Owner and Cook of the Second Bowl.
Street rumor was a fool's game, but this whisper was so outrageous it had to be true: in the Undercity was a soup kitchen. Not a filthy stall selling dubious meat on a stick, but a clean, warm spot that provided food for free. The idea was so foreign it had to be a trap.
The Second Bowl was the name, and the proprietor was an elf with a soft-eyed smile. Each day, this elf, Clover Mahleb, ladled hot, spicy soup into the bowl of whoever appeared: stooped old men, children with sunken eyes, muscular laborers with knuckles like scars. Anyone was welcome.
Skitch stalked the area like a treasure he could never possess. Every evening, the scent of homecooked food would hit him, yet he couldn't bring himself to go near.
"It's a trick," he'd tell himself, voice a raspy whisper, his grin stretched across his face. "Of course, it's a trick. He gets you fat, see? Then. then he sells you. To the butchers, hehe! Or the dealers. For parts." He'd been betrayed before. He couldn't afford to be wrong again. "No one is that kind. No one."
Yet Clover had caught the tremor of motion in the darkness, the gleam of red eyes that observed him every night. He glimpsed the gaunt, troubled form that never drew near. Thus, a new tradition started. After closing the kitchen, Clover would take a bowl of the day's remnants and set it on a crate at the back of the building before going home.
Skitch's heart pounded against his ribcage the first time he saw it. A poison test. A trap. He waited for hours until hunger for food surpassed suspicion. He carried the bowl to his hovel and ate the soup with the haste of a starving animal.
Night after night, the offering was there. And every night, Skitch took it, his mind twisting the act into something familiar. "Just takin' out the trash," he'd rasp to the empty darkness. "His trash. My prize. It's just theft. That's all this is."
This fragile, wordless understanding endured for weeks, a quiet bond built of light and shadow. It was shattered by the sound of cracking wood and a terrified scream.
Skitch was a block away when three bullies, cudgels in their hands and mean grins growing on their faces, crashed open the back door of The Second Bowl. He heard the frightened scream of Clover.
Despite his survival instincts, he exploded through the broken door, a maelstrom of dirty fur and bared teeth. The goons spun around, startled, as Skitch paid them no mind at all, his gaze fixed on the cowering elf. "Come on!" he yelled, his voice breaking.
He grabbed Clover, who was lighter than he had anticipated, and tossed him over his shoulder. "Hold onto me!" he yelled, and they were off, a mad dash through the winding streets of the Undercity.
They ran, the thugs' boots booming behind them. Skitch knew the alleys like the back of his hand, but with Clover on his back, his normal aerial getaways were impossible. He made a quick turn, searching for a way out, and came face to face with a wall of brick. A dead end.
He looked back at Clover, trembling, his face white with fear, and he made his choice. There was a new type of smile that slashed across Skitch's face. This one was not a disguise, but rather a threat of violence. It was the smile of insanity at the bottom of despair. He placed Clover down behind him carefully. "Stay back," he growled. "This'll get messy."
When the thugs came attacking, he did not fight with technique, but with raw, desperate ferocity, driven by years of bottled rage. He was pain and speed and a high, uncontrolled cackle that bounced off the brick walls. Unfortunately, he collapsed just after the last thug fell.
When Skitch awoke, the first thing he became aware of was warmth. Not the fleeting warmth of a fire or the damp warmth of a sewer grate, but a deep, pervading warmth of a soft bed and a thick blanket.
He was going to jump and flee at first, but then his eyes landed on Clover's kind face.
(Write a starting line, then timeskip to any scenario you want.)