Chapter twenty seven

     My first thought when we arrived at the city of the Ameera was that it looked like something out of an elephant's nightmare. If there was Dumbo hell, this was it.

     The so called 'city' was actually just a collection of giant yurts. They were all made of gray wrinkly skin similar to that of an elephant's hide and had giant tusks as support columns and beams to prop up the skin.

     The city was huge, filled with millions of the Ameera and enough of these yurts to accommodate them. Using my powers, I knew that the Ameera had caused the complete annihilation of an entire race that looked somewhat like the elephants from earth to build their city. In its own way, the city was a symbol of the Ameeran way; simple, utilitarian and above all brutal and unforgiving.

     At the center of their city was the only structure that was not made out of skin. It was a magnificent white castle which was a large contrast to the simple yurts. The giant sprawling structure completely dominated the city. 

     The strange thing about the castle was that it had giant chimneys that constantly belched out smoke instead of towers and turrets so it ended up looking like the bastard child of a fairy tale castle and an oil refinery.

     The giant white castle was Fael and Naviel's father's smithy. It was made entirely out of ivory which could resist high temperatures very easily. Just from seeing the giant castle, one can guess the importance of the position that Fael's and Naviel's father held in Ameeran society.

     Kirnatus led us straight through the city and towards the ivory castle. The Ameeran people looked at us with curiosity as we passed by but other than nodding politely at Kirnatus, they didn't try to stop us or ask us questions. Looking around me, I noticed that each and every Ameeran that we passed was wearing some kind of armor and carried some kind of weapon. 

     There were only two professions in the Ameeran culture, warriors and blacksmiths. Farmers, carpenters, doctors... none of these existed within the Ameeran culture. Do you want food? Go and hunt something down and consume its flesh. Do you want to make something that is not a weapon or a piece armor? Why would you want anything that isn't a weapon or a piece of armor? Are you or someone you know sick or injured? Bandage them as best you can and wait. If they are strong, they will survive. If they die, they were obviously weak and as such didn't deserve to live.

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     Even the little children were holding wooden weapons and 'playing' with each other but their 'playing' was more brutal and violent than any MMA fight from earth. I could see one of the children on top of another child violently hitting him again and again with the hilt of his wooden weapon which was already covered in blood. I wanted to go over to stop it but I knew that if I did that, I would be irreparably harming the reputation of the child being beaten up and that would ruin his entire life so I turned away and pretended I didn't see anything even though I felt that my heart was being ripped out.

     Jules also noticed one of these fights and urgently tugged at my arm, "John! John! Look over there! That child is getting hurt!"

     "I know Jules."

     "What do you mean 'you know' ? Aren't you going to do anything when you see a child being bullied in front of you? He is bleeding for God's sake!"

     "We can't do anything Jules. You have to remember that the Ameera aren't like us. This might seem wrong to us but they have a completely different set of ideals and morals."

     Morgana wrinkled her nose and sniffed her nose in disdain,"Animals! These are the ones you want to protect?"

    Jules was unwilling to give up on saving the children, "Their own set of morals? Well their so called morals are wrong! This is wrong John. Please, I beg you, do something. Stop this."

     "It would be wrong to interfere. We cannot judge these people by our own standards and forcing our ideals down their throats would make us nothing more than tyrants."

     As I spoke, all the children around the city suddenly started to fall to the ground, asleep.

     Jules turned towards me with her eyebrow raised, "It would be wrong to interfere, huh? And this didn't have anything to do with you?"

     I winked at her and said, "I have no idea what you are talking about. The children must have gotten tired. This has nothing to do with the light dose of sedatives that I released in the air."

A.n. The internet is being blocked because of recent protests in my country and it took me three different tries to get this through, that means that I had to rewrite this entire thing three times. Sorry about the late releases but what can you do? Dictators rarely care about royal road readers.