Chapter 235: The solution
Lyra was still processing everything that the females said. The world that they lived in was not an easy place for especially females to survive. With ferals, strays, and other dangers lurking around, women here are required to have multiple mates, and that too strong one if possible. These were not the only things that females had to worry about because, after safety, the next important aspect of survival was hunting. And without having their beast forms, it was almost impossible and far too risky for females to hunt in the wild.
Hunting is the main source of food in the beast world because most of the ones that did farm were herbivore beastmen and the carnivore beastmen and females were not able to consume plants and grains like the former. The only lucky ones here were omnivores like herself but they were less in number. So in conclusion, snake females who are prominently meat eaters have to heavily depend on hunting. However, by their previous words, it was clear that this was not possible in the cold season because of the males going into hibernation.
As they continued to stand outside, the snow started to increase and due to this, Lyra, Victor, and Peter went inside an empty stone house. On the other side, the snake females returned to their respective houses to stay away from the heavy snow. Meanwhile, Peter closed the entrance of the house with a flat boulder successfully blocking the cold wind from reaching inside.
"You are covered in snow, sweet girl," Victor said as he shook off the snow on his mate’s head and clothes.
Lyra gave a sheepish smile in return earning a playful glare from her mate. On the other side, Peter lit a fire with a flint and available dry wood scattered inside the empty house.
As the three of them settled near the bonfire, Lyra parted her lips asking the question that she was so curious about from a while ago, "Don’t females of snake tribe take other tribe’s beastmen as their mates?" this was bugging her for a long time. The reason females in this world took multiple partners was to ensure survival. When she first came into the beast world, the polyandry thing did bother her for some time but soon she realized the importance of that practice. It was needed for one’s survival. Especially for a woman. But that was not the only reason she took her mates. She loved all of them and wanted to share her future with them.
Coming back, according to her observation, the snake females seemed to have only snake males around them. She was skeptical at the beginning but her doubt soon came true because the females themselves said about the problems that they faced during the cold season due to their partners going into hibernation.
"That’s true my queen" confirmed Peter, "Our females don’t like having mates from outside the tribe"
"Why?" She asked curiously as leaned against her mate’s broad chest. Just a moment ago, Victor took her in his arms as he saw her shivering from the cold wind.
"As you know, we snake beastmen are considered ferals. Other tribes outside ours shun us. We rarely get a chance to have a mate and if we do, then the outside females treat us pathetically. Most of the females from other tribes remove our spousal marks as soon as they get a chance and that leads to the death of our kind" Peter had a bitter smile on his face as he continued, "Seeing all of this, the snake females decided to not mate with outsiders in order to give a chance to our males as much as they could. They voluntarily sacrificed their comforts for our sake. We snake beastmen will forever be grateful for our females"
There was a silence that prevailed as soon as he stopped talking.