Hilda's point of view
“Okay class, today we're going to go over a little bit of history. If we have time I'll also go into different races and animals… This might help you in the future so please pay attention.”
The children all seem to be quieted down by the other mothers who are also watching. With the inclusion of more humans… The thought of more comfort has changed slightly to one of distrust towards people. I can see the looks I get from some of them for choosing a non human as my mate… I think I'm more comfortable around non-humans now because of this. With each passing day I realize more and more how special this place is. Slowly changing the minds of those around to be more open minded towards non humans. This place is the only one I could imagine raising my daughters now. I continue.
“The earliest recorded history is far, far back. Over 10,000 years ago. The first recorded history was written down on slabs of stone as pictures. It had shown many things, like the wars that had taken place all the way back then. Many of them even show how the civilizations have ended… The most popular belief is of a great demon war. This is how most of the demon tribes have come to exist. Through the demon lord pushing war on everyone. Many people were killed in the process…”
I left out how the demon tribes came to exist of course. Many of the children are so young they wouldn't understand… Even if they could they should be spared on that knowledge. Every single person of the demon decent was born from rape victims of demons as they burned, looted and razed the land. I continue the story.
“Somehow, we managed to push the demons back. They still exist but their numbers are far less than what they were originally. The process of making demons is extremely difficult and it was one of the death god's attempts at wiping out all of the life god's creations. When it failed he switched his plan to the next. As recorded history will show… This is where the great dragon war comes into place.”
I can see the shocked looks on the faces of the mothers and children now. All of them are entranced by my story. I had forgotten that most of them came from the slums, this sort of knowledge would have been out of their reach. Most of them probably don't even know how to read… I hold back a laugh when I think that this is as much a lesson for them as it is for the children. I continue with my story.
“Over the next 9,000 years the death god spent most of his time making dragons. He made thousand's of dragons, some even say tens of thousands of dragons. Almost 9,000 years after the end of the demon war is when he enacted his next plan. In one fell swoop he sent dragons to destroy any city inside the central continent. Hundreds of thousands of people lost their lives in a single night. People didn't just sit around and die though. They fought back. Us humans fought as if our lives depended on it. Some of us fled but not many managed to get away… Taking a single continent was all they could muster though. The cost was too high for them. Many of the dragons lives were also ended but that is why the central continent is still so dangerous. The sheer number of dragons in that particular continent still outnumbers all of the other ones put together… Not to mention the things in that continent that could live through constant dragon attacks. Making them particularly resilient.”
The few children that had not sit down to listen to the story now have done so once they heard about the dragons. The entire room focuses on me now… This must be how Kline feels all the time, with the center of attention on him as he tells stories to children. I need to focus on teaching more than telling a story.
“So in the next thousand years any attempt to recolonize the central continent has been thwarted. Most settlers die, the few that make it out tell gruesome tails of what happened. Over the past thousand years we've kept to ourselves, the small wars we've had compared to those 2 are barely worth mentioning. The southeast continent is at constant war with the northeast as we are at constant war with the northwest. The lives lost to our perpetual wars pale in comparison to what happened 1000 years ago but as war continues to approach… That difference continues to get smaller and smaller. So… Now that I've discussed some of history, who is still interested in learning about different races and monsters?”
All of the child's hands shoot up. I even see one of the mothers hand rise then fall once she realized that none of the others did so. She looked slightly embarrassed but I doubt that anyone in this room would leave after hearing such a violent depiction of the history of the world. I could have gone into more detail about the small battles each continent had in forming but that is small potatoes compared to the bigger wars. I start by asking which race they would all like to know more about.
“The mouse people!”
“Ah, those are the murine folk. We've become allies with them because of Kite and they have a rich and beautiful history behind them. They age far slower than normal humans. They also believe in life debts. If you manage to save ones life, they will serve you until you or they die.”
1 of the children raises their hand. It was a human. I pointed towards him for him to speak and he does.
“What about the weird mouse people I saw when we took a trip to Merideth. They looked different from the mouse people around here.”
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“Ah, those were beast race rat people. They are far different, unlike any of the other beast races or even the murine folk. They tend to stick to the shadows… Unlike the murine folk they tend to be thieves and work in far bigger packs than the murine folk to steal and kill people in their way. It is often thought that the original thieves guild was started by a giant pack of these beast men rats.”
1 of my daughters now raises her hand. Gobda asks telepathically.
“How… Or what is the difference between the 2 races though? Like how did they both come to exist?”
“Gobda use your words when you want to speak. The other children didn't hear you.”
She repeats what she said out loud now and I answer her.
“I'm not entirely sure myself actually. The creation of the beast races has been disputed for as long as they've been around. It isn't actually stated in history when they had shown up, they were just there 1 day. Some people think they are part of human druid rituals to make the hybrid people. Others think it was through people evolving to suit certain situations… Others still say they were originally monsters who had grown so strong that they had broken through the bounds of being monsters… It isn't for certain… In the same way that murine folk don't have a defined past.”
One of the murine children raises their hand now… I think it is Nami's younger sister. 1 of the few friends I had made since living here is Nami. She is just so goal driven it is hard to not appreciate her hard work. Many of the protective measures we had put on the children were from her suggestions. From having security guards watch them when they play outside to even making their play area's safer. She is a very diligent women, because of that I respect her and want her family and mine to get along. The little murine child speaks.
“I think we have a story of how we were created. My mom used to tell me a story before… Anyways, she would tell me the story was as old as our people because it was about the birth of our people.”
For being a child she is quite articulate… I know they age slower, I wonder what her actual age is. She could be around my age… Perhaps even older than me. She continues talking.
“The story goes that long, long ago there was a village near the ocean. The fisherman of the village were constantly under attack from sea creatures from the ocean and bandits from land. They had no protection from anything attacking them. The villagers just put up with it… Years of this went on with no end in sight. The village was on the verge of collapse, so many of them had died because of their inability to fight back. They prayed to any god that would answer them. And do you know what happened next?”
Now even I'm on the edge of my seat listening to this little girl speak. She would also make a great story teller… I wonder how many times her mother told her this story for her to remember it so perfectly.
“The god of life answered the call. She promised to make the fisherman strong enough to defend their village but at the cost of their appearance. The appearance was of a hideous creature. Unimaginable strength was to be given to them but at the cost of their looks. They accepted the trade and the hideous creatures serve and protect the village… Years pass, then decades… Soon enough the small village had grown into a thriving town… Although their appearances had been twisted to that of ugly creatures. They still found love… Generations continued and the few of the original hideous beings died off… Then all of them did… Soon enough there was no trace, only the part of the DNA they left in the residence of the city...”
What an interesting love story. It proves the kindness of all people… She wasn't done though.
“...At least… That was the first side of the story my mother told me… As I grew older, it seemed that another story had arisen over the years. No 1 knew which story was the truth, so each child was told that story first and this story once they were older… The darker story of our people. It starts in the same way, a village under attack asking for the aid of a god… This time the god who offered aid was the god of chaos. Offering the protection of the village at an unknown cost… The cost turned out to be a curse on our people… He gave all of the villagers and the offspring of those villagers a curse… They would live longer, much harder lives than that of a humans. They would be shunned by those who looked different then them…”
What a gruesome story. Changed into those that no 1 would ever look at as people again. She sort of looked down at her feet now, perhaps embarrassed by the next part. Continuing to speak.
“At first… I always thought that the second story was the real story… We were put under rule by humans and their leader tried to turn us into slaves but… A single person managed to free us… A single person managed to change my opinion.”
She wouldn't say it but I had already known which person she was thinking of…