Orou spent the rest of his day exploring the city, listening to the various opinions beastman had of the king and becoming feral. He still didn’t have an opinion about it until he stumbled upon a small tea shop with two beastmen sipping on black tea and discussing with each other. There was no one around them, but Orou decided to sneak closer to them and listen to what they were saying, after all, they looked to be quite engrossed in the topic they were discussing.

“You do know that if we keep discussing this, we could get executed? One of my friends recently spoke about this topic and not an hour later, he was dragged off to Hangman’s square where he was lined up along with the rest of the so-called ‘revolutionaries’,” the shorter of the two beastmen wearing a big, stylish hat which covered most of his head spoke up, his voice slightly trembling. He resembled a big mouse with two comically large eyes and even bigger ears.

“It’s fine, there’s no one here anyway. So, what do you think about this? We’ve been raised all of our lives to not even dare think about expressing emotions and eating meat in fear of becoming feral. I remember my mother told me horror stories about becoming feral and eating everyone around me, but it isn’t that bad, is it? I’ve seen a man turn feral and, honestly, the only thing that changed was his demeanor. It was like he had a shackle removed around his neck.” The taller of the beastmen had a large cane by his side and was playing with a pocket watch that he had laid on the table. He had two large tusks, slightly resembling an elephant.

“I’d very much so like to keep my head attached to my neck, but even if I do get a bit emotional at times, that’s what the crystals are for. Besides, there must be some reason for the king to disallow any talk about it. I’m just a poor shopkeeper, what do I know about the various things in the king’s mind,” the mouse like beastmen shrugged his shoulders and took another sip of the tea, occasionally looking around for anyone, that might be approaching them.

“The king’s full of nonsense, he doesn’t know anything about managing a kingdom. I wouldn’t be surprised if the city fell even before the revolutionaries arrived,” the elephant-like beastman laughed before his partner loudly shushed him. Leaning in closer to his partner, he continued: “Who doesn’t know the story about the king and his brother, every child that turns twelve has to hear it. What some people might not know is that the tale goes quite a bit differently. I don’t know if this is true or not, but I’ve heard a story from my father once.”

“The story goes like this - Once upon a time, there lived two brothers. The two of them would compete in everything, their appearance, how many maids they could make blush and most importantly, they competed in combat. The two of them were prodigies in combat, but because of that, one could never come on top of another. Unfortunately, one day, the king got ill and after several days of struggling with the deathly illness, he passed away. After his death, the whole palace got searched and those tending the previous king were interrogated for his last will, but there was none to be found. According to the laws of the kingdom, the throne should have been passed to the current king, but his brother had something to say about that.

“He proposed that the throne be passed to the victor of a duel, and while the king didn’t have to accept, the provocation and the mockery he received from his brother provoked a split second decision, guided by anger. The king’s brother knew that the two of them were evenly matched and on the day of the duel, he let his anger run rampant. The two of them fought with skill and grace that had been never seen in the kingdom, but in the end, the king’s brother, letting his anger guide his strikes, overpowered the king. Just as he was about to deliver the last strike, their own sister got in between them, begging to spare the king.

His mind was so clouded by emotion that he didn’t recognise her and with a single strike, he cut his own sister in half. This gave a chance for the king to retaliate and, striking a deadly blow to his chest, his brother fell. The king spared his brother from death and instead, he sent him on exile, having the late king’s shaman work on something, that would trap him forever. Ever since that day, the king has banned all talk of this and created new laws about keeping your emotions in check. Ironically, after tens of years of being the king, he seems to have signs of turning feral himself.”

Finishing the tale, the elephant-like beastman sighed and his partner, still thinking about what he heard earlier, said to him: “So, in the end, the decision to prohibit all emotions was a decision that the king made while being influenced by his emotions. Going feral means unbottling all of your pent-up emotions and the first time you do that, the emotions you feel are going to be intense.” Orou was intently listening to both the story and what they had to say, but they were interrupted by several beastmen walking nearby. The two of them immediately switched the topic and even after the beastmen had passed, they weren’t in the mood to continue talking.

Orou disappointedly left the small tea shop and noticing that the sun was setting, he started slithering back to their house. To Orou’s surprise, Grizz had arrived back before him and sitting next to his table, he was writing something about calling in his connections at the top and how the person in question would receive a lot of monetary reward for helping him out. Sealing up the letter, he turned his head towards Orou and smiled, though his face looked quite exhausted.

“So, what have you been up to? Mar didn’t tell me anything important and I wasted half a day dealing with the damn guards. They’re too arrogant to deal with bribes and even after haggling with them for hours, they tell me that not even they can exit the city. The medallion that they use to open up the barrier simply doesn’t work and they have to deal with the pressure of people holding them accountable for trapping them in the city. I couldn’t care less about their feelings, but after contacting a few more people, it really seems that the king had decided to lock down the city on his own. The court is panicking and thinking about how to stop the people from revolting while the revolutionary army is about to knock on the city gates.”

Grizz seemed calm when Orou entered the shop, but once he started talking about his day, his emotions were unleashed upon Orou. Taking a deep breath, he stopped talking for a few seconds before saying: “We’ve got two days before the army is here. I still hope that I’ll find a way for us to escape, but if not, we should be prepared. I don’t want to fight anyone, but I’m sure as hell going to be prepared for when they come.”