Lament of the Lost

Whatever it was, my fear of ending up with a collar around my neck and a master in control of my life again, or Guardswoman Vara’s efforts to get me out of her hide as quickly as possible, the whole walk through the barracks kind of went in a blur. Before I knew it, I found myself sitting on a bench in the hallway of one of the barracks buildings without earrings to muffle the murmurs of more than a dozen beastmen sitting there with me, waiting to be processed.

“You smell her?”

“Yeah, she’s weird... looks like a half, a mix-breed, but...”

“Mommy, why is she naked?”

“Don’t look at her, sweetie. She must be very poor.”

“Really? She looks like Wierin, though.”

The woman smiled warmly at her child, almost as if she wished the boy’s words were true. “She’s not, sweetie. She’s not.”

Unlike humans, the beastmen could tell what I was, or rather what I wasn’t. They knew I wasn’t the half-Terr’den the city guard took me for and saw right through my improvised cover of bare skin. Alas, there was nothing I could do about either, not now, not here. And so, with the blood heating my cheeks, I pressed my ears to my head, wishing I still had Elvira’s earrings, while wondering what the Wierin the boy had mentioned was. A race among the Terr’dens? There were several different beastmen sitting in this hallway alone, three wolf-looking ones, two feathered, a family that resembled some rodents, and...

“E-excuse me, is this seat taken?” came a loud, bull-like voice from above me. Startled, I looked up and froze, staring at the huge...well, bull. And to say huge didn’t do him justice; he was the biggest - well, man - I had ever seen. With black hide, hooves for feet, a bull’s tail, a shirt hugging his beefy chest, and arms the size of my thighs, he took up a good portion of the hallway towering so high that his horns nearly scraped the ceiling.

“A-actually, it’s alright. I’ll stand,” the man blurted out, his voice cracking a bit, the reason too obvious. He noticed my lack of clothing.

As more blood rushed to my cheeks, I managed to force a few words through the lump in my throat. “I-it’s okay, I d-d-don’t mind.”

Well, not quite true. I would have preferred the hallway to be empty, but I couldn’t leave the poor guy standing - I mean, since there weren’t any empty benches left, hard as they were - well, uncomfortable to sit on.

‘For the shit’s sake, get it together, Korra!’

Frustrated with myself and my body, I pressed my wings closer to my chest and tightened Sage around my waist as the bull-man awkwardly took the seat next to me, making me feel damn small. Even seated, my head barely reached the height of his shoulders.

“I am...” The bull-man cleared his throat after a moment of awkward silence as a hog-looking woman emerged from the room where the identities were being verified and the rodent family rushed in. “I am Meneurmut Ironhoof.”

‘Wait what? Why talk to me? Wasn’t he a beastman, I mean, Terr’den? Shouldn’t he, I don’t know, talk shit about me?’

Once again frustrated with myself, I hit my mind with [Indomitable Will], and a little calmer, I tried to act unfazed by his size and the fact that he was the first beastman, or Terr’den I spoke to. “Kor...Korra, Korra Grey.”

“N-nice to meet you,” he said, pausing. “Forgive me; I tend to... get nervous here.”

‘Hold on a second.’

“You come here... regularly?”

It did not take a genius to understand that Sahal was a human empire and beastmen like him were refugees it had taken in - from wherever they came from. Did that mean, then, I’d have to check in here every so often just because of how I looked?

“Yes, I do, but only o-once a month,” said the bull-man, Mr. Ironhoof, confirming my worries. Despite what Mr. Scoresby said, even as a Sahal citizen, I would not enjoy the same freedoms and all because of that shitty bug and that deranged asshole.

‘Hold on, Korra! Let’s not jump to conclusions.’

Perhaps the reason for the regular check-ups was that the big guy wasn’t a citizen of the empire, that he chose one of the other options, or they just didn’t grant one for some reason.

‘Shit! He might be dangerous! Perhaps a pimp looking for a chick here to work for him?’

“You s-see, I’m trying to j-join the city guards,” the bull-man added quickly, seeing my growing distress. “They...they require me to do this to make sure I don’t pose any risk to the safety of the city. Understandable, reasonable. B-but I do hope that this is the last time.”

Lifting my head to look at him again, I had to say that for his size, he seemed way more edgy than I was. He reeked of sweat, with his legs doing a little bouncing dance that shook the bench, while constantly shifting his arms from resting on his knees to crossing them over his chest.

[Mage: 48 sigils]

The breath caught in my throat, and I almost broke into a coughing fit.

‘He’s a bloody mage?’

Since when did mages look like him? The bull-man should be a swordmaster at the very least, or more likely, wield a hammer, and it wasn’t hard to imagine him smashing enemies’ skulls with his bare hands. And it wasn’t just his array that was baffling. He had basically half of the sigils that I had. When I was being escorted through the city, the strength of the people on the streets was not something I had paid much attention to, but now I couldn’t stop to wonder if maybe I was the odd one out - again.

Taking a glance around the hallway at the waiting Terr’dens, my fears only grew. The most sigils of those present, 63 to be exact, had one of the wolf-looking guys, a Hunter. The numbers of the others ranged more or less between thirty and fifty.

“Don’t y-you need to be...?” I stammered out, pausing at the ridiculousness of what I was about to ask. “...you know, stronger? A-and a Guardsman?”

The bull-man laughed awkwardly with a hint of hurt in his voice. “One of the reasons I want to join, actually ... to get stronger. W-what about you? You’re here because you want to be a Guardswoman?”

“Huh? What?” Me a city guard? Absurd. I was a Slave. Who would have me guard their city? Not to mention that I never imagined myself as a police officer.  

“Ah, f-forgive me. I assumed that with the number of sigils you have...” he said, stopping short upon seeing my dark expression. I couldn’t help it; the number of sigils in my grid spoke of the suffering I had gone through, and if I could, I would erase them all without hesitation.