NOVEL NEXT CCXXVIII – Expectations and Reality
“I guess I had expected something like this… I just didn’t want to admit it before we came here,” said Val-Kas’j with a sigh after the group got together later that evening. They were standing away from the crowd and chatting together, with some skills to prevent their conversation from being overheard by others. “They’re all just… normal people here, not really much different to the humans, or our villages, for that matter.”
“I know what you mean,” noted Ilavakide with a barely perceptible nod of her head. “It’s much easier to not have other thoughts when all we think of demons were the monsters that butchered our whole village just because we don’t worship their so-called gods,” added the girl with a sigh of her own. “When you know they’re just people it’s a bit harder.”
“Not that it stopped us that much with the humans,” noted Legisvula with a shake of his head. “Thanks to their gods, these people will drop everything to try to kill us if they know our patronage. I find it easier to not have as much sympathy when I know that bit,” he said decisively. “The world’s not a nice place. We learnt that from early on in Navef, and all we’ve seen so far just reinforced that notion, to me.”
“I agree with Legisvula. These demons are just people who made their own choices, even if many of them weren’t exactly given a choice, in some sense,” added Nalihimatu with a huff. “Since those choices, the ones their own people enforced upon them, result in them going to kill us if they knew of our allegiance to the Deities of Yore, they cannot fault us for defending ourselves either, if preemptively.”
“It’s just how the world works, kids,” noted Esperanza as she sighed as well. “The only place where things are clearly defined as good and evil, in black and white, are usually in fairy tales. The real world rarely if ever has such a convenient divide. Everyone thinks of themselves as the good and righteous side and often view their foes as lower than animals, or work to create such a perception amongst their people.”
“From what I saw back then, it had definitely reached such a point with how the followers of these usurpers see us. They view us not as people, but as vermin to exterminate in the name of their gods. Entreaties just fall into deaf ears, and pleas to uncaring hearts,” she added with a shake of her head. “They would kill us just like they would kill a cockroach that landed on their food.”
“Enough with the moral crisis, I say. We can simply treat the demons as we have done with the humans so far, no reason to do it differently anyway,” said Esperanza in the end. “Now, what have any of you learned so far about the demon society here out of what you experienced today? Other than what we had just discussed, of course.”
“There’s a pretty clear division amongst the demon tribal lines,” volunteered Nalihimatu. “They definitely prefer mingling with their own kind more, and hybrids are not as common as in our refuges, other than Ma’Varok and Tesh’ka ones. “Each of their races also have many separate tribes that seem to have at least some sort of rivalry between them, if maybe more of a peaceful one.”
“They were most curious about which tribe Nali and I descended from, though we pretended that we had no idea of our heritage as our families had been living in the wilderness for generations,” added Ilavakide. “Apparently our fur patterns don’t match the tribes they know of being in this region, so they thought we were offshoots from some tribe that lived deeper in the demon territories.”
“Will that cause any problems?” asked Esperanza rather worriedly. That was not something she had taken into consideration. How was she to know that the demons could tell which tribe they were from just based on their fur patterns!?
“We don’t think so, Exalted One,” replied Nalihimatu with a shake of his head. “Apparently there are well over a hundred different tribes amongst the Ragah-Fiq alone, and while the demons do not intermarry between races as often as we did in our village, intermarriage between different tribes is very common. At worst they thought we were probably descendants of such people, since children from such unions tended to have mixed fur patterns.”
“I guess that makes sense. If there’s that many tribes and intermarriage isn’t uncommon it’d be a complete pain to keep track of who hails from which tribe after a while,” said Esperanza as she nodded. “Are the other races also trackable in the same way? I don’t think anyone accosted me or Esfria about where we come from, but this is not a Nevilosk village so I can’t be sure.”
“Nobody really asked about our group being together, so I think it is not uncommon to see Ma’Varoks like me and Tesh’ka like Legisvula together,” said Val-Kas’j with a shake of his head. “There’s also a pretty large group of Ma’Varoks we ran into, but they didn’t exactly ask about our origins. Some of them do have tattoos that I suspect might signify their tribe, but not all of them have it, so I am uncertain if there is a requirement before one is allowed to bear them or something.”
“Something to investigate if we can phrase a question right, then,” nodded Esperanza at the description. “They also seem to have less presence of clergy compared to the humans. Back there every village had their temple and clergy contingent. Did any of you see signs of those here? I did notice that they replaced the statues at the temple but I didn't see any people who looked like priests or the like.”
“We didn’t see any, no,” said Ilavakide.
“Neither did we. I saw some people praying at the temple, but nobody actually guided them in the prayers,” said Legisvula. With his small stature and stealth skills he could easily slip into places unnoticed, much less when all he had to contend with were civilians who had no skills to contend with his abilities. “There’s definitely signs of people keeping the place maintained and cleaned up, though.”
“Another thing to find out while we’re here, then, I guess,” said Esperanza. They had not planned to stay at Landeboug for too long, perhaps only two or three days, so as not to draw suspicion. The way that the place that served as the town’s only inn was basically a large tent where people would sleep next to each other also made for a good excuse for their group to meet and ‘get along’ with each other, fortunately. “Let’s split up again for now. It’s almost dinnertime and it’d be odd for us to be missing. We’ll continue our investigation tomorrow.”
“Yes, Exalted One.”
The group split up and made their way back to the inn-tent, near which some of the demons they knew were the inn’s staff were roasting one of the massive hocks of the [Crawler] that Esperanza saw being slaughtered earlier over a fire pit. Apparently that would serve for their dinner that night, which was not a big surprise since it was freshly slaughtered meat, something most people would find to be a treat, given how most meat would be preserved for later usage.
When a generous chunk of the roasted flesh was presented to her on top of some thick maize porridge, with a large leaf taking the place of a plate, Esperanza found that the meat glistened with fat and had a subtle, but fascinating aroma. Like most reptile meats, the meat itself was something that could best be described as if someone crossed a chicken with a fish, with a mild taste more like chicken but a softer, somewhat flaky texture like fish.
Some very fatty fish, in this case, given how the [Crawler] that was slaughtered looked almost bloated, its once centipede-like figure more akin to a caterpillar by the time it was deemed good for slaughtering. The thick fat layer was sweet and succulent, and lent a fantastic richness to the meat as a while, which married well with the sweet-savory maize it was served with.
After washing down the succulent meal with some local ale made from maize and fruits, most of the people retired to the inn-tent, where bedrolls had been laid out on the ground in groups of twos and threes. It was a rather unusual experience to share the night with so many people under one roof, but other than the noise – quite a lot of them snored – it was not very different than what Esperanza remembered of camping trips in her previous life.
