Justice for the Forest-Beasts

Chapter Eight - In Which There are Many Creatures

Puddle and Rain led the twins to the village. However, the term "village" was quite generous. The little community was very small, consisting of eight primitive wickiups and a single decrepit house. The house had been built with a combination of stone and wood, much like the houses in Castle City. The wickiups, though, had clearly been handmade. Two of them also looked far more old and worn down, like it had suffered through a few more storms than the rest. In the center of the village was a simple but large stone fireplace, filled only with charred wood and ashes. There were ten or so log benches haphazardly placed all around the fireplace, some of them accompanied by odd instruments. Estelle played the piano and Lucian played the violin, but neither of them had ever seen instruments quite like the ones in the village. There were all sorts of people hanging around outside. Estelle counted seven of them, from where she and Lucian stood.

"Everyone! Come here!" Rain called out, waving xyr arms to get everyone's attention.

The people in the village gradually gathered together near the fireplace, and the twins noticed that the number of them had grown. Now, there were eleven people. Estelle wasn't even sure where many of them had come from.

Rain stood in front of everyone, with the twins standing stiffly beside xem. It felt awkward, looking at all of the people who'd gathered before them. They were the people that had been forced into poverty by the twins' ancestors. All except for what seemed to be one human in the village, they were the people condemned by most of the country.

"Hello, everyone," Rain greeted them all with a smile.

"Why're you back so soon?" One of the people asked. It was a young cattle-beast, surely no older than twelve.

"I will say. Wait," xe told them, before addressing the whole crowd, "My friends." Xe gestured towards the twins, who waved politely to the crowd. The crowd responded with their own waves, along with whispers and muttering among themselves. "Names are Estelle and Lucian. You think, 'The prince and princess! Why here?!' I know. Do not worry. We are friends. No trouble."

"We're here as an escape from our home, as ironic as that sounds," Estelle elaborated, taking the initiative to speak to the crowd, "We are very excited to meet all of you, and I hope you don't hold a grudge against us for all of the racism and classism caused by our ancestors. We promise that if either of us came into power, equality among all species would be our first goal." Estelle glanced over at Lucian, who was making sounds of fear. He stared at the crowd, fidgeting in an attempt to calm himself down.

"Okay, that is all," Rain told the group, "Continue with your day."

With that, the crowd promptly separated, returning to what they'd been doing before. One person stayed, stepping up to Rain and the twins once the rest of the crowd had dissipated.

"Hello," the person said. He seemed to be a warlock, with light skin and brown hair that had been put into a messy ponytail. The start of a beard was barely apparent on his chin and upper lip, and he looked quite sturdy and kind. "My name is Bramble, it's nice to meet you two."

"It's nice to meet you too, sir," Estelle responded.

"Nice to meet you," Lucian echoed in sign.

"Ah, you aren't very familiar with our culture, Estelle, but we don't really appreciate any gendered terms like that. Just. . . avoid them, if you can," Bramble said politely, "No harm done, but it can be seen as pretty rude around here."

Estelle felt a bit dumbfounded, hearing such an odd rule. She was used to using formal titles, and she could already see herself slipping up. She repressed groaning in annoyance, and instead said, "My bad, I'm very sorry. Thank you for letting me know." But after that, her mind got thinking. "You all treat gender a lot differently up here, don't you? I noticed that Rain uses pronouns that you don't really ever hear in the city. Xe also told us a bit about it—something about living up here."