Many of the people in the lower areas of Esh—which is quite the number of them, actually, especially taking into account that this whole area is inside the bounds of an absurdly spatially-expanded castle—are of different races. I see minotaurs of white, brown, black, and even colors that are reminiscent of Highland cows like ginger and gold. The latter variety is much longer haired than the former.
There are humans whose hair apparently grows in any number of fun hues here on Ackellia, which I have several interesting hypotheses regarding the origin of, and even those who resemble humans but aren’t, somehow. Their skin colors are typical of what I’m familiar with from Earth, however. Ranging from pale white to as dark as night. I pass by a very striking human woman I with skin so dark it seems to absorb light but her hair is such a vibrant shade of yellow that it makes her even more striking, if that’s possible.
I didn’t personally see anyone change or shift, whichever is the politically correct term here—I’ll have to get some more information about that sort of thing because I don’t want to be rude simply out of ignorance; I spent many years on Earth simply avoiding people because I always ended up accidentally offending others despite the lack of intention to do so, after all—but I would imagine that these must be members of The Children that Sytoria had mentioned.
I get small impressions through my extremely powerful sense of smell of power, of predation, of grace. It is a whisper through my olfactory senses against the part of my brain that seems to catalogue and interpret such things. I am not familiar with some of the impressions of the actual kind of shifter they are, as I imagine many of the animals they shift into don’t exist on Earth and, as such, cannot be translated to something I would understand or recognize.
Some of them, however—improbably, even, given biology cannot be transferred from a Universe that hasn’t been Integrated or one that is “lighter,” whatever that means—I do recognize. I smell the wolves among them, the bears, the tigers. I am surprised that they exist in this place, somehow, considering they are Earth animals, though they could be genetically superior and simply evolved that way over time, despite Sytoria’s implication that the Gods created everything in this place. I doubt it, somehow. I also doubt the Gods would tell their subjects they are not, in fact, all powerful. It might affect their worship.
That also brings up the question of what worship even does for them? Aethos didn’t say it explicitly, or even really imply it, but the conclusion I’ve reached is that it has something to do with their own brand of cultivation, which Aethos did say was not the same as it is before Deification. I can’t prove that and I doubt any God that I chose to speak to, if I were even willing to do that in the first place, would spill those beans. I imagine they would be rather impossible to put back in the proverbial can.
In any case, I should probably stop jumping off of my brain trains every time another one passes close by. I chuckle at the picture that pops into my mind of doing exactly that.
Eventually I find Stitches. It’s a quaint building the size of an average two-story house in America, which isn’t small but in the space in which it’s located it appears to be. The whole of the lower portions of Esh have been literally dug out of—or into; whichever way you want to think about it—the ground. It is essentially a whole floor like you’d find in a strip mall but much, much larger, and the walls and ceiling are made out of dirt rather than wood, tile, and drywall and instead of stores there are entire buildings set up to shop at or eat in.
The buildings are located on either side of three different “streets,” which branch off from the main one only to meet again on the other side and then continue on to another set of stairs that leads farther down into the ground. They’re also all different sizes, shapes, and colors—which you might expect from buildings normally—but make the space seem much less planned than it might otherwise due to the haphazard way each building clashes with the others around it.
For example, Stitches, which is emblazoned with a neon-yellow sign atop the flat roof of the structure, has walls somehow even more yellow than the sign but just as bright, but still managing to look almost normal, with orange trim. It looks like a wood building at first glance, but everything seems to have been masterfully designed out of stone. Sytoria can’t be the only one capable of controlling stone the way she is, otherwise I can’t imagine how she gets anything done given everything is made out of the stuff.
The windows are decorated with mannequins of different races wearing outfits presumably made within its walls, bright orange lights that surround the windows despite the source not being visible, even to my own eyes. It is as if little balls of light have simply been glued to the borders and somehow stayed lit. The door of the shop is the same orange as the trim and lights, and there’s even an orange stoop in front of the door. All in all, it is a very festive establishment and the clothing is well designed. If the building was by itself, it would look homey and inviting but given the buildings on either side of it were shades of brown or red and much less aesthetically designed, it looks out of place.
I can hear someone softly humming a slow song from inside, a strange zipping sound accompanying it. I don’t hear any sewing machines or anything like that, but perhaps the magic serves that purpose instead? I haven’t the foggiest idea of how the magic works here beyond the broad strokes of how it’s supposed to, which isn’t even as good as saying I know how to do something but don’t understand it, because I don’t even know that much.
It doesn’t sound like whoever’s inside—most likely Abenjiirin—is expecting me, which is enough to make me stand in front of the door for a full ten minutes debating whether to knock or just walk in, wait until someone comes by or go back up to Sytoria’s office and ask her personally how it works here so I don’t embarrass myself, stick with the ripped robes I have or just run away into the forest, never to be seen again because I can’t force myself to open the fucking door!
Well, I guess the autism is still there, even if the sensory issues don’t seem to have reared their ugly head just yet.
Luckily, someone does come by. A rather rude someone, too, because they attempt to push me out of the way of the door to get inside rather than just asking me to do it. It doesn’t work, though, and I remain exactly where I was. Apparently I’m stronger than I realized, and I had already realized I was much stronger than I used to be. The reason I realize this is because the person who tried pushing me was a minotaur. A large one, at that, nearly a foot and a half taller than me and definitely more than twice as wide. He—If I hadn’t been able to tell based on smell, I would have known because of the, um, appendage barely covered by a dirty brown cloth that wraps around his hips and underneath said appendage in a manner resembling briefs—is covered by black fur from cloven feet to wide, sharp horns. His face resembles a bull, quite obviously, but there are differences that make it seem less uncanny and more natural. Eyes toward the front, shorter snout, less cow-like mouth, more human-like teeth. Designed for talking rather than simply chewing, if that makes sense. His body is very humanoid, despite the large proportions and the fur.
It makes him look quite good, honestly, especially as I would have expected a cow-person hybrid creature to be grotesque at best, monstrous at worst. I am pleasantly surprised that I don’t have any hidden prejudices toward a creature of a different species, after all.
I stare up at his shocked expression—okay, so I cheated because I definitely wouldn’t have known it was shock unless my nose had told me since it looked so much more like anger to me—with a confused one of my own.
“Excuse you?” I say, before I even really think about the words coming out of my mouth. I might have been scared had I not just taken the whole of his push with barely a twitch of my body or literally torn the throats out of several humans with my talons in less than a few seconds. Instead, I’m just confused. Not even angry. Probably should be, honestly, but I’m not sure I have the energy for it right now.
The minotaur snorts, then, and I only chuckle slightly because it definitely was the snort that a bull makes in those bull fights before stopping myself. I smell the anger he’s feeling. It’s a violent sort of anger.
“Get out of my way, little bird. I have somewhere to be,” he says, lowering his face to mine, looming over me. He’s probably attempting to be intimidating.
“Typically if someone is standing somewhere you’re headed, you ask them to move before you attempt to do it for them, no? Is that different here, or something?”
Of course it isn’t. I don’t know. It’s not like drawing attention to it is going to make him feel ashamed, probably.
Not surprisingly, it doesn’t. His hand reaches up to the large axe on his back I hadn’t noticed somehow as if to draw it. I roll my eyes and lower my stance slightly, ready to kick a bull’s ass, when the door dings behind me and a very chipper voice calls out to my would-be punching bag. It sounds human, though I can tell he’s a minotaur without even turning around. I’d place him at about my age.
I’m telling you, this nose I have is insane now. Genders and species and emotions? What can’t it smell? Apparently bullshit isn’t on that list.
*Eyebrows, eyebrows*
“Heruutin, I see you’ve misplaced your clothes! Did you come to order another set?”
The minotaur is still staring daggers at me, though he removes his hand from his axe. He still smells angry, but now there is irritation shining through it. Not with me, either.
“I didn’t just walk here wearing my only my subligar for fun, Puff. Take my gold and give me the pants,” Heruutin, which is apparently the bastard’s name, growls at the young shopkeeper. The word he uses for his dirty underwear comes through to my ears weird, as if the translation was off somehow, like the word he actually spoke didn’t have an exact translation to English so it found a similar one. Except I have no idea what that word is, or where it comes from.
A corner of my mouth curls up in disgust at the childish aggression this presumably fully grown adult is wielding toward someone so nice.
“Watch how you talk, bull, or I’ll watch it for you,” I can’t help but to say. I’ve finally managed to find the energy to be angry, it seems, now that it isn’t me the aggression is directed at. I don’t know why, either, but the reaction is visceral. I didn’t know I could growl. It even sounds is threatening and somehow distinctly avian. Do birds even growl? How is my growl avian?
“Are you Puff’s little bodyguard, birdy, since he’s too weak to fight for himself?” Heruutin’s spittle flies from between his teeth in my direction, though I dodge the worst of it. “Step off the threshold and let’s see how well you fly, huh?”
“Heruutin, I understand your mother didn’t love you as a calf, but that’s no excuse to act out like this. You could have just said you needed a nap. Here, let me help expedite the process,” I go to leap at the asshole with less brains than an empty box but Abenjiirin’s hand holds me back, gently asking me not to do it and let me handle it. Had it been an instant later and my fist would be buried in Heruutin’s eye socket. It might have gotten stuck on the way out, too, when I was much too shocked to think about the best way to keep his face from exploding.
Maybe I might have some issues, after all. I know this is a surprise for everyone involved, certainly.
If you encounter this story on Amazon, note that it's taken without permission from the author. Report it.
Abenjiirin smells happy, though. Silently thankful for what I had done. No anger, somehow, which surprises me. For the minotaur to have gotten so immediately irritated, there must be some serious history there. I’m sure Puff isn’t the most creative insult that’s been thrown Abenjiirin’s way.
I still haven’t looked back, my eyes refusing to leave this fucker. I can see that some of the others who were around have stopped to gawk at the display, but only out of my peripheral vision. I ignore them. If they want to interfere, they can. They should have done it the second the minotaur had tried to push me without provocation. It tells me both that he’s done it to other people and that he’s a real keeper. Hopefully the other minotaurs aren’t like this, but I’m not hearing good things about them right now.
“That monster—“
“Can’t they just leave that boy alone?”
“Poor Abenjiirin.”
“Is someone getting a guard?”
“Who’s that silver fella?”
“Heruutin could use a good humbling.”
“I’m glad someone is protecting Abenjiirin from his clan.”
“Those bastards don’t belong in Esh.”
“Leave him alone!”
The final call is louder than the others. It’s a little girl’s voice coming from deep within the rapidly accumulating crowd.
Abenjiirin’s smell shifts to shock and exasperation, though about what exactly I can’t be certain.
“Heruutin, if you give me the gold, I’ll go get your order right away and you can go back home. They look rather nice, if I say so myself!”
Is he really still being nice to this jerk? He doesn’t even appreciate it!
It’s literally making him angry that you’re being nice to him, dude, I think to myself, though I don’t say it out loud. It’s not my place to interfere with how he wants to handle things. I stood down as soon as he indicated he wanted me to.
Heruutin reaches into his subligar, or underwear, or whatever, and pulls out a coin pouch similar to the one I’m carrying.
“Did you just pull that out from your sack, you nasty? You’re going to give him your dick change covered in ass juice?”
Abenjiirin laughs behind me, bright and happy. It makes me smile slightly to myself.
Heruutin has a different reaction, though, throwing the pouch. Or trying to, anyway. I catch both the pouch and his wrist in my hands, the left palming the pouch and the right gripping his wrist. I’d moved so fast that even I didn’t really notice myself doing it. I did it without thinking. Damn, I’m doing a lot of stuff without thinking in the last few hours. I have to screw my head back into place. Maybe when I’m finally alone I’ll digest some of this, calm myself down, force myself to think straight.
For now, I’m pissed. And I have a perfectly valid outlet.
I break his wrist with a single squeeze, the crunch his bones make probably more satisfying than it should be, and kick him backward. I hadn’t expected it to be that easy, if I’m being honest. I know I’m not the strongest by any measure, but the vibe I got from both Sytoria and her guards was that I’m more physically powerful than most people as a baseline. Aethos had also gushed about the Zenithal form for a while, too, which included details about our strength and speed. This is a minotaur, though. I barely squeezed yet. I had much more strength to put into it. I’m genuinely not even sure if I meant to break it or if I had just wanted to hurt him a bit.
The slight horror Abenjiirin feels somehow serves as the cold bucket of water on that feeling. I turn toward him, then.
He’s shorter than Heruutin, I notice immediately. Still a good six inches taller than me, though, not including the horns. He’s also much less muscular, more fat settling around his body but not to the point where I’d consider him overweight. I’d say stocky. He has a little tummy. His horns, which seem to have a swirling pattern engraved in them, are shorter and closer to his head. They appear … soft, though not in the tactile sense. Unthreatening.
In fact, everything about this minotaur feels unthreatening.
His fur, which is copper, covers the backs of his hands that aren’t hidden by the dark-green blazer he’s wearing, and his chest and stomach that are left exposed at the front. There don’t appear to be any buttons on it. Maybe they don’t do buttons here? He’s wearing a matching pair of pants, as well, that are perfectly tailored to his bovine legs. Around his neck is a baby blue scarf that looks more worn than anything else he’s wearing. It’s well-loved, an old friend of mine used to say. She had this blanket that was falling apart everywhere, basically, whose worn appearance resembled this scarf. It’s important to him, I can tell.
His ears, which are that of a cow but a bit bigger than I might have otherwise expected and hang lower around his face than Heruutin’s, are covered in the same fur, though there is less of it, leaving a light, light brown skin at the tips. It’s not peach, but I hesitate to say that it’s brown, too. Olive? His snout is the same color, which is why I notice at all. His eyes are almost the same green as his suit, though slightly lighter. I imagine the only reason I notice that is because my eyes are so much better now. It’s subtle, in other words. His left ear is also pierced, two silver rings adorning the middle portion in a way that compliments his softness somehow. Atop his head, between his horns sits a patch of longer hair that falls down over his forehead, not quite touching his eyes but close enough.
Then I see the thing I’m pretty sure Heruutin was insulting when he called him Puff. His tail. Abenjiirin’s tail resembles a cat’s tail more than anything. Thick and poufy but still ending in the much larger tuft of fur that most cow tails do, which is the only thing marking it as a minotaur’s tail in the first place. Heruutin’s, in contrast, is mostly without fur except at the end, where the collection of black fur sits. Thin like you’d expect. For some reason, I feel sad when I see it.
Probably sad for Abenjiirin, if anything.
“I-I, uh, I’m sorry,” I stammer in his direction. “I didn’t mean to—I didn’t think it would—”
Abenjiirin opens his mouth, his scent forgiving, when Heruutin’s shock seems to finally catch up with him, a harsh Moo escaping his throat.
Silence.
I look around in confusion, my brows furrowed.
Everyone looks and smells so shocked in so many different ways I can hardly describe them all but there’s a morbid satisfaction underneath the shock that I latch onto. Something is scandalous about what just happened. Not me having broken his wrist, though I do kind of feel bad about that, if only because Abenjiirin had signaled he didn’t want us to fight, but the sound.
It had sounded exactly like that of a cow—or a bull, though I wasn’t aware of the distinction back on Earth if there was one, so that remains true here—which is what had caused everyone in the surrounding vicinity to freeze in complete and utter shock and … delight?
I look sideways toward Abenjiirin and he’s just as frozen as everyone else, eyes wide, mouth slightly parted.
Then comes the laughter. Not from Abenjiirin. From the crowd. Loud, sweeping laughter and pointing in Heruutin’s direction. What had been scandalous about that? I don’t get it. I also don’t get why they’re laughing. It’s making me uncomfortable, even, the intensity of it. Abenjiirin, too, apparently.
“Guys! Stop it! Just let him be! The injury is punishment enough; can we all just stop?!” He yells, then, surprising even himself at the volume of it. One of his hands comes up to stroke the scarf around his throat. For comfort, probably.
It does stop, too. At least, most of it, anyway. Some tittering lingers while Heruutin stays there on his ass clutching his wrist with his opposite hand, unadulterated shame wafting from him that apparently drowns out whatever anger he’d been feeling. Ashamed of the moo? Is that some sort of taboo for some reason? Aren’t they cows? This seems like a huge cultural difference that I should clear up with Abenjiirin when, or if, he lets me into the shop.
Heruutin gets up slowly as everyone stares at him, his head hanging as he quickly makes his way through the shopping area to the other staircase I’d noticed before. That must be where the residential area is. Or it’s where the minotaurs specifically stay? They’d mentioned a clan, but I don’t know. I’ll ask.
It isn’t until his horns fall from view that things pick up again, the people going back to what they had been doing and largely ignoring us. I snort. Some concerned citizens they are. For all their muttering, they don’t care. At least not enough about Abenjiirin to come and make sure he’s okay.
“Thank you,” Abenjiirin says, drawing my attention away from the dispersing crowd and back to him. He’s smiling awkwardly but warmly.
“You don’t have to thank me for that,” I say, gesturing behind me with a thumb. “Those fuckers should have done the same. Plus he tried pushing me not two seconds before you came out of your shop. It’s nice, by the way. I like the color scheme,” I had begun awkwardly rambling near the end, though Abenjiirin either doesn’t notice or doesn’t care. He smiles for real this time, his eyes closing under the size of it. His happiness smells like summer.
“Still, I appreciate you sticking up for me. You might not be surprised since you’ve already come to that conclusion, but it doesn’t happen often. Don’t be too harsh, though. My family is full of massive, muscled, horned people who carry huge weapons on their backs. I’d probably be reluctant, too, but you seem to have handled it well,” he chuckles. I flush in embarrassment.
“Uh, yeah, about that. I don’t know what came over me. Well, yeah I do, anger, but I wasn’t trying to shatter the guy’s wrist. I just wanted to, you know, hurt him a little,” I mumble awkwardly, shame flooding me for some reason. Abenjiirin waves his hands back and forth.
“Don’t worry about it. I’m not a fighter myself but I’m used to it at this point. They’re all like that,” he gestures toward the hole that Heruutin had gone into with his chin, “all the time. It’s why they were laughing at Heruutin instead of helping him.”
He says he understands but he smells slightly sad. Not at me, I don’t think, but at his family, maybe. Or that people were laughing at them?
“Oh yeah, sorry if this is a rude question but I’ve never met a minotaur. Why were they laughing when he, uh, made that noise?” I didn’t want to call it a moo in case it was rude.
“Oh, right! I forgot about that in all the craziness. Welcome to Esh! My name’s Abenjiirin, but you know that already. You’re Zed, the Zenithal. I’ve never met a Zenithal before, so this is a first for both of us. Auntie told me that when she said you were coming by to get fitted for some clothes,” he laughs, smiling brightly again as he sticks out a hand for me to shake. He seems to do that a lot. Laughing and smiling. Being happy.
The left side of my mouth quirks up in amusement and I reach out to shake his hand, careful to keep my talons away from his skin. I haven’t figured out how to retract them yet, which is embarrassing, but I also haven’t had any time. I know they retract because I can see the space where they go underneath the hardened bits at my fingertips. “Thank you,” I start and then follow it up with, “Auntie?”
He freezes and I smell his embarrassment momentarily before it shifts right back into the normal baseline of joy.
“Major Sytoria. Sorry. I call her Auntie,” he says quickly, as if trying to wave me from the subject.
“Do you mind if I ask why? She mentioned that she likes you but didn’t say that you guys were that close,” I look down and realize that we were still shaking hands and I pull it back. Abenjiirin laughs before shrugging, his hands placed into pockets that I hadn’t noticed initially, either. Damn, eyes that are basically perfect but I still don’t notice shit. Great. Seems more active a function than the smell. I probably have to think about it instead of how my nose just seems to tell me things.
“She and my mom were close before she died. She just shifted her attention to taking care of me after that, which I’m thankful for. She also makes the best pies, but don’t tell her I told you that.”
“Oh, I’m sorry. That really sucks. I know how you feel, though. I lost my mom when I was a kid, too.” I obviously don’t mention that I basically killed my mom, even though logically I know it isn’t my fault, or how we didn’t have the best relationship. I pat myself on the back mentally. Good job, Zed, not making things awkward for once.
“I’m sorry,” Abenjiirin says, his voice taking a more subdued tone. “I miss her a lot. I’m sure you miss yours, too.”
“Yeah,” I say, hopefully convincingly enough. It seems to work, anyhow.
“Oh, I’m sorry again!” He says suddenly, his voice brightening again as he chuckles to himself, “I never answered your question. About the moo,” he clarifies, which is good because I had already forgotten I’d asked. I nod, anyway. Also I’m glad that they do use the word moo to describe it.
“It’s considered shameful in minotaur culture. Like you’re so not in control of yourself that you fall back to your baser instincts. Babies moo. Children do sometimes, though they’re discouraged heavily. Teens are punished. Adults are shamed. Heruutin will be censured heavily for doing it in the first place, but also because he did it in public, and especially during combat. The last one is essentially the worst part.”
“So I basically made him cry for his mommy is what you’re saying,” I supply and my eyes widen when Abenjiirin actually laughs. Like belly laughs, his hands clutching his stomach as he bends forward, taking deep gasping breaths in between each guffaw. I can’t help but smile.
His joy, as I said, smells like summer.
“It wasn’t that funny,” I say when he’s done laughing, wiping the tears that have gathered at the corners of his eyes. He shakes his head, still smiling.
“It was! It was hilarious. Heruutin is very close with his mother. There are people in the minotaur community that make jokes about it behind his back, though I don’t participate. In fact, I discourage it. I don’t want people to feel like that,” he says, and, though he doesn’t say it, I can hear the implied words he left off. Like me. He continues before I decide if I want to say something about that, though. “It was funny because people call him a momma’s boy and your joke reminded me of it and made me think that he was going to do exactly that.”
He looks around for a second, noticing that everyone had gone in the other direction, and then gestures behind him.
“Alright, Zed. Follow me. We’ll get you set up with some new outfits. How much did Auntie give you, anyway?” He asks, stepping back through the doorway and into the shop.
I pick up the pouch I had dropped when I blocked Heruutin from throwing his own and give it to Abenjiirin. He opens it and his eyes go comically wide.
“Wow! Okay, Zed, guess you’re getting a wardrobe,” he chuckles, walking the rest of the way inside.
What exactly does a “wardrobe” entail and why do I feel like I’m going to hate it?