Chapter 466
The Nyust’taa of the Principality has sent word requesting assistance from whoever will listen in their Holy War against the keelish. That they are reaching out at all is an indication of the current state of the conflict. Do nothing to assist or hinder either side.
-Communication from the Marshal Inuksuk to all members of the Beastkin Corps.
Trai
“The Misti Hawar have all retreated. The shadow monsters have retreated or been killed,” Trai reported to the Zaaktif. In private, or other times, she might have called him her uncle or played around with jim, but she was satiated and happy and in public. There was no reason to do anything other than give her report and then get back onto the walls.
“Very well,” Ashlani responded as he stepped back with a nod. There were small splatters of blood across his chest and arms, but if they were his, the wounds had already healed. However, given that he had only fought against the shadow monster, it had to be his own blood.
Trai shrugged off the confusing information as, after all, it wasn’t the first time that the Empire’s leader did something that didn’t seem possible to anybody else. That’s why he was the Zaaktif and the rest of them were his followers. She didn’t mind that, she didn’t want to be a leader. They were things she wanted, and now, finally, she was able to indulge in them.
Even as she walked away from giving the report, she didn’t clean herself from the fight she had against the few Misti Hawar that had thought themselves capable of sneaking into the back lines. Blood filled her snout and mouth, and she gloried in it. In truth, Trai had always hidden what she most enjoyed, and perhaps that was why she hadn’t evolved to Keel. She did enjoy hunting, raising hatchlings and caring for eggs. Tending the fields was boring, but it wasn’t so bad, and fighting in the sand pits was always good fun, but none of these things called to her.
She’d never felt ashamed of her true desires, but there was little opportunity nor reason to ever express her desires. In private, though, she didn’t hide that, by Nievtala above, she loved killing.
It wasn’t something that fit in among other members of the Empire. Not because they eschewed violence or disliked killing, but because her own feelings were significantly different from theirs. The closest to her own desires that could be found nearby was Wisterl, and she didn’t love killing. Only fighting.