The beastkin woman falls forward, her hands catching the ground so she doesn’t land on her face. She can see nothing, and only hears a ringing in her ears for a few moments. She clutches her ears with her hands, receiving the sting of a strong headache. She doesn't know what's going on anymore. Could this really be just a dream? The pain is quite real though.

Wait… How can I move my hands? Where did those three… What’s all this smoke?

The woman looks around to her right and left, but only sees smoke in all directions. She breathes a bit, but starts coughing. The three humans who were restraining her are nowhere to be seen. The ringing continues so she cannot hear what’s happening around her.

However, she soon sees the blurry masked face of a new person right in front of her. She looks into his eyes, though her eyes are still teary from the smoke and she can’t even see its color. She doesn’t know what she should feel. Is this man here to finish her off? The man quickly picks her up off the ground, his strong arms holding her firmly in a princess carry.

As her hearing returns, she hears the crowd of human supremacists around her shouting in utter chaos. She immediately becomes frightened.

"Stay calm." The man says as he runs out of the gas cloud while carrying her.

She wraps her arms around his shoulders to prevent herself from being dropped. She soon sees the now visible crowd of humans, a few of them angry and trying to stop the man, some others running away in panic. However, the man carrying her is not a weak man or a slow man.

He dodges everyone trying to lay hands on him or her with grace. Though not a lot of people are focusing on the man carrying her away. She notices that most of these humans are looking in fear towards the center of the crowd, the area where she was being held. She peeks her eyes behind Dzan to see… someone is fighting the people within the crowd by themselves.

While her eyes are too watery from the smoke to see clearly that far away, she watches this blurry person dodging attacks and dancing through the audience while attracting the crowd’s attention. His jumps look inhuman. Is he a draconid? She hears a taunt.

“Come on, you ugly fuckers! Is that all you got? Is this the best the loser human race has to offer? You’re making me feel ashamed to be a member!”

He’s laughing… That one is this man’s accomplice? She wonders to herself as she looks towards the man carrying her.

He is wearing a hood and a piece of cloth covers his nose and mouth. However, as her eyesight starts clearing up, the middle aged woman notices that the man's hair isn't black, but dark purple. Although she could have mistaken him for a human from afar, up close he is clearly a beastkin.

She holds him tightly as he quickly escapes to the edges of the crowd. He then dashes past the exit to the side street and slows down in a crowd full of people on the main road, moving closer to the entrance to Maz square. The woman, feeling him slow down, looks around in caution. There are some humans in her vicinity, but a number of demihumans as well.

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She feels safer.

She looks towards the man and finally registers that he saved her life. However, she cannot allow herself to feel anything other than pure anxiety as it dawns on her that she still doesn’t know where her daughter is. If she’s kidnapped, the mother will have to go back to that violent area in order to find her.

How can I find her when I don’t have any strength to take on that crowd of fucking scumbags? Can I ask this man to help me? Shit… Where is she? Is she–

As the man finally stops walking, the woman turns around in his grasp to look in front of him. She notices someone standing there some distance away. There is a person with light purple hair who stands beside a young, pink haired girl. It is her daughter.

The woman jumps out of her savior’s arms, nearly tripping, as she runs towards her daughter. Her daughter stands there for a moment until they meet each other's eyes. Her daughter runs over to her in the same manner, as both of them start crying.

"Oh my god, where were you? A-Are you alright!? Who grabbed you!?" The beastkin mother asks in sheer relief. The girl doesn't say anything, only crying as she hugs her mom. The woman holds her daughter and strokes her pink hair as the demihuman with light purple hair walks over.

"I-I'm sorry, ma'am, I thought that it would be too dangerous to leave that girl in a crowd like that so I brought her somewhere safe. I hope y-you can forgive me." The person sputters.

The woman looks over to this stranger who had taken her daughter. Her expression is one of sharpness for a brief moment, until she considers what this stranger has done further. In retrospect, that was probably the safest thing to do for her daughter in that situation.

Fuck… What if she had been held in that circle too? That man tried to cut my ears off…

She’s still wary and a little angry at this stranger who stole her daughter away, so while her expression loses its sharpness, she still frowns. However, she grits her teeth again, turning her anger towards the rally of human supremacists who wouldn’t just let her and her daughter pass. They were the true enemy in all this.

The woman finally sighs, her face slightly confused.

"What is your name?" She asks.

"Hm? Ah, my name is Sigvor! The man who carried you out here was named Dzantemir. What’s yours?"

"It’s Pieroly… Oh?" The woman turns around and sees that the man who carried her, Dzantemir, had already left.

"Dzan went to go check out things with our friend. I don't know how he got out here, but he was the one who freed you from the grasp of those three men. Without his help, Dzan would not have been able to save you."

“Yes… He fought that entire crowd of people by himself, didn’t he?”

“Haha, that sounds like him, yeah. I can’t really explain what’s up with him, but… well, I can at least say that he’s brave. *Sigh.* Honestly, I didn’t think he was such a guy when I first met him. He honestly just looked like a guy who could hold his alcohol…”

Sigvor laughs. Pieroly notices her daughter’s bright expression while watching Sigvor. Pieroly’s own wariness dissolves a little. The demihuman who saved her daughter continues praising her friend, the person that Pieroly didn’t get a clear look at.

“Today though… you should have seen what he’s been doing to help people. That guy, Ajax. He’s special.”