Four Monarchs

Chapter 3 : Venturing Into the Wild

"We'll head southwest, you two head north." Pigris directed. Endaris and Batra nodded in response while Lewis chose to acknowledge it with a statement of his own.

"Yeah, no. I have to get back to my own kingdom," He declared in a snobbish tone. "I need to get back as soon as possible, I am sure my mentor has been missing me and I must inform him of the monster situation."

Pigris deadpanned. "Are you serious right now? We can't not to be traveling in pairs right now, and we don't have the resources to make it to your kingdom on foot. We need to stay together and focus on getting enough supplies to sustain ourselves, after that we can all go our separate ways and we never have to see each other again." Pigris spoke with such finality to his words, his voice that of a fine silk embroidered with determination and certainty. Pigris was bred for leading, he was demonic royalty after all, as such he was raised in the arts of strategy and coordination.

Lewis' eyes ignited with fury. How dare they attempt to keep him from his rightful place within the lands of Goatewland, his precious kingdom home. "I do not need permission to return home, especially not from someone of your kind!" He shouted in protest.

Pigris' chest swelled with anger at the comment. "My kind?!"

Lewis nodded. "Yes, everyone knows that you demonic kind are but all creatures of evil and cruelty." He accentuated his statement with a disgusted leer in the boar's direction.

Everyone in the group stared at him with sheer, unbridled confusion. "What?" Batra questioned her level voice contrasting with the previous shouts.

Lewis' face flushed in embarrassment as their eyes peered into him. "Well, you know, haven't you all read the stories about how evil they are?" He asked, his confidence fading in the face of everyone's bewildered stares. A moment passed and the trio in front of him had persisted in their confusion. "How have you never heard the stories?! The libraries of Goatewland are filled with book of their misdeeds!" He stubbornly insisted.

"Are you basing your basing your opinion on Pigris, on folklore?" Batra's question held a clear base of judgment.

Lewis' face scrunched into a scornful glare. "No! The people of Goatewland are clearly just more educated on such matter than the likes of you swine!"

Pigris' hand met his face as he made a failed attempt to massage the confusion from the lines of his face. "So, you are claiming that your people know more about my people, than my people know about my people?" Pigris phrased carefully, framing each word with contempt to further drive his point of astonishment.

"That's redundant." Endaris interjected, her tone flat as ever.

"Yeah, like a really dry tongue twister." Batra joked, a smile now etching into her features

Lewis' embarrassment burned in his face and his stubborn spirit burned with anger in his chest. "I am not wrong!" He declared as if fact, not daring to budge on the opinion he wished to hold, despite the deadpans the rest of the group directed towards him. Lewis crossed his arms with a defiant glare. He had read every book in those libraries hundreds of times, he knew the stories even if their truth was besmirched by this liar of a king.

Pigris rolled his eyes, a frustrated scoff leaving his mouth. "We do not have time for this, we need to prioritise the task at hand." Pigris didn't honestly care what Lewis thought, he had better things to do than worry about the bigoted thoughts of some lousy mortal. Survival was what mattered, not proving that he was right and Lewis was clearly uneducated.

Endaris nodded in agreement. She felt the need to be pliant, amiable, getting along with these people may be her only opportunity to make things right. "The boar is correct, we have bigger problems right now than petty squabbles, we shall go on with the plan Pigris laid out."