War of the Races - The Verdant Realm

Chapter 4- Mwanje Kottrheim

It was as we were riding in the car-like shuttle that I sat outside by the window. Bastet sat in the middle, and Leandra sat by the other door. Everything had been awkward between us since the morning. But it made me realize that I had grown quite fond of her over the past eight years. I respected her very much. To have been able to climb to the rank of Magistrate when so young was an impressive feat. Then, to have taken my training on as a personal task. Well, now, I know that it was not entirely altruistic.

I had always known that she was much older than me, and I could definitely see how being promised to a small, delicate alfar child would be—humbling. But I didn’t know just how much older she was than I, “Leandra?”

“Yes, my Lord,” She answered while still looking out the window.

I felt like she left herself open to being teased, but considering her sensitivity, I left it unsaid and instead continued, “I have known you were much older than me. Hell, you’ve been around the house since I was a baby, and in the last eight years, you’ve been training me. I understand this must be humiliating for you, and I am sorry for that. If this is too much, and you don’t want to be mine, then tell me. I will go to my father and yours, and I will tell them that I don’t want you.”

Leandra turned to look at me as I spoke, and Bastet looked like she was watching a tennis match, the way her head kept swiveling back and forth between her and me. Leandra’s eyes opened wider in surprise and then narrowed in thought before she turned back to the window and asked in a quiet, almost shaken voice, “Do you not want me?”

I felt surprised and ashamed. What she had taken from my statement was not what I meant, and so I tried to explain, “That’s not what I said. I said, I would tell them I don’t want you; I never said I didn’t want you!”

I exhaled heavily, feeling exasperated already with this world. I didn’t expect there to be so much political bias or racial prejudice. With a shake of my head, I continued, “I—just want to know what you want. If you don’t want me. Don’t want to be my pet,” I almost sneered at the word. I hated the idea of owning Bastet, or Leandra, “then, I accept that and will do everything in my power to reverse this.”

By the end of what I had to say, Leandra was staring at me. She remained silent for what felt like at least a minute before she answered, “You say the strangest things, my Lord.”

Bastet nodded vigorously in agreement, “Yes, all the time, but I love all the weird things he says.”

“Yes, well, you’ve been with him since birth,” Leandra retorted sarcastically, “What he says is normal to you while it is shocking to me!”

Bastet's long curly hair was pulled back in a loose ponytail, exposing her shoulders, and as she tensed up with indignation, her fur stood on end from her neck all the way down to the small of her back and down to her tail as she snapped back sharply, “You think I am naive? Because I am thirty-six, or because I grew up in my Lord’s house? You think I am blind to how all other alfar treat their animals? Of how they treat us? I’ve seen our men, women, and children beaten, our sisters’ and mothers’ r***d in broad daylight while no one did a thing to stop it, and our brothers’ and fathers’ run through by a Master’s sword on a whim or in a fit of rage; right in the middle of the road. So, don’t ever think that I am that naive. I know how the world is, and I am thankful every day of my life that I am Viridian's pet! Not just because I love him and the strange things he says, but because he treats me like a person, he protects me like I am more than just a pet, and he has never raised a hand to me in violence! If being thankful for that makes me immature and naive, then I guess I am.”

“No, no, you’re right,” Leandra admitted with a shake of her head as she apologized, “I am sorry, Bastet, and I am sorry, my Lord.”

“Stop calling me your Lord,” I corrected, figuring I might as well set the ground rules now if we were going to become—Master—and pet, “We may have to live in this world and play by its rules in public, but in private, I want you to call me Viridian, or Virdy, or something else that is just—ours. No more of this Master and Pet s**t!”

“s**t?” Leandra mouthed silently to Bastet a silent question of what the word meant.

Bastet just shrugged and mouthed, “I know.”

“Oh, for f***s sake,” I exclaimed in exasperation, “Will you two be serious! Can’t you see I’m trying to have a moment here with you two?!”

Bastet and Leandra both started laughing, and even I, after realizing what I said, couldn’t help laughing myself. With a good laugh to lighten the mood, Leandra cleared her throat and confessed, “My Lord Vir—Viridian, it was an honor. No, let me rephrase that. It is my great honor to be so trusted and loved by your father and mother, and my father and mother, so much that I was promised—no—I mean— I was given to you—as your pet the day your mother found out that she had conceived you. I was given to you even before Bastet was, and I am proud of that fact. I know that one day you will be a great man. It’s just that I want that great man to take me. To challenge me and subdue me. I don’t know if this makes any sense whatsoever to you, but I want a man who is powerful enough that he can see me—in all my fury—and not shrink away in fear. Do—you—think you are that man, my Lord Viridian?”

I sat there for a long time and thought about what she said. I didn’t want to say “Yes, I am that man” and seem overly confident and egotistical, and yet, if what Mother had told me about my abilities, and what Leandra and Bastet said about my father, were not exaggerations, then I would indeed be powerful enough to subdue her physically. But was her need for a dominant male simply physical, or was it emotional as well?

Looking across the shuttle, locking gazes with her, my unblinking emerald green eyes meeting golden, I promised, “I will be the man you need me to be, Leandra.”

She smiled at my answer and grinned with an almost predatory purr, “I guess we shall see how far you've come along on that promise in a month, now won’t we!”

“Yes, we will,” I returned with a determined glare.

We rode on in silence for several minutes, and then I remembered what I had wanted to ask before we went off on the tangent about my worthiness of Leandra, “Leandra?”

“Yes, my Lord,” She answered in an overly patient sigh.

“How old are you?” I asked.

Bastet slapped my arm, making me shrug away from her in defence while Leandra looked at me dangerously and answered, “I’m ninety-eight years old, my Lord.”

It was in awkward silence that the chauffeur drove the shuttle through the rest of Valeheim, and I found myself watching the alfar and animal citizens walking through the streets, and my long-kept observations came back to me, and so I asked, “Why do you and Andra obey my father so willingly? It seems to me that either of you two could easily kill him. There are more than enough animals that you could kill all of the rest of us alfar, if you wanted to, and then you would be free.”

Leandra was looking out her window when I voiced my question, but then snapped around to glare at me with her mouth agape from shock, “You really don’t have a filter, do you? To use unfamiliar words and to say shocking things is one thing, but this, this is scandalous—traitorous even! Never may such a fate come upon my Lord, your father! Why would you ask such a thing?”

Nervous now, thinking that I may be in trouble, it took me a few seconds to summon my courage before I answered her, “It was only an observation about you and your father’s strength. Really, I guess my broader question is: Why haven’t the animals rebelled against their masters to gain their freedom?”

Leandra and Bastet both stared at me like I was stupid before Leandra looked away with a sniff of indignation as if she wasn’t going to dignify me with an answer. I caught her cutting her eyes at me several times while supposedly looking out her window, and it was almost a block later before she finally answered, “If we were to fight, and even if we were to slaughter your father, your mother, your sisters, and you, if we killed all the hired alfar that live here, we still would not be free. We would be wild, but we would not be free.”

“Really, why not?” I asked as I remembered my past life’s world history. Of all the wars fought to enslave and exterminate, and for freedom and the right to live.

“Many rebellions have broken out worldwide over the years,” Leandra answered, “Usually against particularly despotic Lords, but once the Lord was killed, the Kingdom retaliates by eradicating every animal that was in the District, from the old to the babe, no matter whether they were a warrior or a civilian.”

“Wow,” I silently mouthed as I shook my head in regret for the innocents who were killed.

She shook her head and continued, “Animals quickly learned that war and killing were not the way we were going to win our freedom. We will never be free until the governments recognize us as an actual Race, and recognize our right to live a life free of their regulations.”

The Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, and the Bill of Rights came to my mind, and I knew that steep and heavy wars had been fought to maintain those freedoms. The existing government of that time had to be forced to recognize those rights, and I felt a deep sadness for the animals. Leandra was right; small rebellions would never win them their freedom, but neither would politics. A war would have to be fought, eventually.

“Also,” She added with a sideways grin and a deeper purr, “Don’t ever sell your father short. I may look strong, and my father even more so, but it’s your father who is the true beast of these lands. None of us comes close to how truly powerful he is, which is why it means so much to us how he has exercised his Lordship so graciously toward us animals.”

That made me very proud. To know that my father was not only powerful, but wise, benevolent, and loved.

The shuttle drove for about thirty minutes once we were outside the city walls, and stopped outside a high wooden wall that surrounded the Mwanje Kottrheim. Shuffling out, we disembarked, and Leandra smiled at me while I took Bastet’s hand. I had to admit to myself that I was a little nervous, but I felt better knowing Bastet and Leandra were with me.