Fantasy Cursed Island

[Deadwood Deer]

Veo nodded grimly. "I told him not to go, but Ras never listens," she shook her head. "The maze minotaur got to him, but it was... different..." Veo didn't seem to have the words to describe it. "The beast's chest exploded, and this... thing came out. It ripped Ras apart!" Veo slid down the wall to the floor, head in her hands, sobbing. "It called me 'mama'!"

 

[Fangs9090]

Emil walked over and sat next to her, putting an arm around her shoulder. For all the words he knew, none seemed to be right for the moment.

 

[Deadwood Deer]

Veo leaned into Emil, sobbing into his shoulder. Just like how Emil didn't know what to say, she didn't know what to do.

 

[Fangs9090]

Emil was quiet for a few moments. "I don't know what can be done about nightmares, but when you need a shoulder to cry on or just someone to talk to, I'll be here."

 

[Deadwood Deer]

Veo gave a weak nod and sniffed. "You're... you're very kind." Her flowers turned a pale blue as she started to calm down some.

 

[Fangs9090]

"As are you. You don't deserve the troubles the world has given you. But I'll do what I can to help you through it."

 

[Deadwood Deer]

"You're sweet," Veo curled up against the bard. "Ras would have loved you."

 

[Fangs9090]

"I wish I could have met him." Emil kept his arm around her.

 

[Deadwood Deer]

"He was... he wasn't a violent bull. He couldn't hurt a fly. His mom was scared he'd never find love, he was considered a cripple because he wasn't strong." Veo shook her head, "She taught me medicine. Ras was always hanging around, trying to be a part of things." It was frowned upon in minotaur culture for the men to do womanly things like medicine. A bull that couldn't lift a weapon or wrestle in the mud was weak and pathetic.

 

[Fangs9090]

"So, he was special among his kind. That's a burden in itself. But he sounds like a good man."

 

[Deadwood Deer]

"He never fit in," Veo agreed, "Whenever we had a patient, the calves loved him. The other bulls," she shook her head. "His father used to get grief for his son 'acting like a cow'."

 

[Fangs9090]

Emil shook his head as well. "Some things don't change from one society to another."

 

[Deadwood Deer]

"What other societies are there?"

 

[Fangs9090]

“Well...there’s a good few, though they mix together in bigger cities. But they almost always have some general expectation of individuals.”

 

[Deadwood Deer]

"What's a city?" Veo, having been born and raised in the ruins, like most of the party by this point, had never seen the world outside.

 

[Fangs9090]

Emil paused for a moment. “Ah, right. A city is a place where a lot of people live close together. And I do mean a lot, often up to the thousands.”

 

[Deadwood Deer]

"Is that a lot?" Numbers were also in limited use down here, at least in Veo's settlement.

 

[Fangs9090]

“...yes. That’s a lot. Ah, you know the bookshelves we found here, with all those books?”

 

[Deadwood Deer]

"Mm-hm, Niudisa got excited about it, I don't know how she didn't squish herself."

 

[Fangs9090]

“Well, imagine if there was one person for each page in every one of those books. That would be about how many people are in a city.”

 

[Deadwood Deer]

Veo looked a bit confused, "There can't be that many people! How do they feed themselves?"

 

[Fangs9090]

Emil smiled. “Well, some of them live outside of the city, a little way away from the others. They own a big area of land and they use it to grow food, more food than they could eat on their own. Not only do they feed themselves, but they sell the rest to other people, and then they can eat, too.”

 

[Deadwood Deer]

Well, now Veo was even more confused, her nightmare momentarily forgotten in favor of trying to understand what the devil Emil was claiming. She was certain he was lying, there was no way farming could produce that much food! Her village could barely generate enough food to feed everyone on a good harvest, and that was farming mushrooms and edible lichen combined with hunting! "I don't believe you."

 

[Fangs9090]

Emil chuckled. "I suppose that's fair. It does sound a little farfetched when I saw it out loud. How about this? When we get back to the surface, I'll take you to a city and show you."

 

[Deadwood Deer]

"I'd like that," Veo leaned back down against Emil, snuggling into the fuzzy bat.