Chapter 23. Not Permitted to Enter: Knock First, or Get Impaled? Possibly Both.

Chapter 23: 23. Not Permitted to Enter: Knock First, or Get Impaled? Possibly Both.

I waited... She seemed to be picking her words carefully, the way she did when something mattered.

"It is a civilization," she said at last. "Not a village or a hideout."

"It’s a real one, with settlements, laws, border guards, and a government of its own..." She exhaled. "Many clans live there... beastwomen who chose to separate themselves from the human kingdoms generations ago."

"It is called Elarune."

"Elarune..." I repeated. "That sounds really nice, actually... But is it that nice from the inside?"

"It is safe... For beastwomen only, that is." She hesitated. "Humans are not permitted to enter... and who are you?"

"A human... with his obsession about beastwomen actually." I stared at her. "Anyway... not permitted, like, we’d have to knock first, or not permitted, like, we’d get impaled...?"

"Possibly both."

"Great... fucking great..."

"The law was not made out of spite," Elsbeth said, ignoring me. "Many of Elarune’s people lost their families to the hunts, or to the wars, and yes... even to the slave markets."

"To some of them... humans are more than strangers."

"They are a reminder of everything that has been taken... Even beastwomen who were born outside Elarune sometimes have to prove themselves before they are allowed to stay."

’What... why though...?’ I asked that in my head. ’I think this is a serious problem if they have to do that as well...’

I looked at the women huddled around the small fire, scraping up the last of their meat. One of them, the fox woman who had hesitated in the cell, was feeding bits of bread to the younger girl who clung to her side.

"Then that means... are they even allowed to be in there as slaves?" I asked.

"They would have a chance to live safely," Elsbeth said. "Magnara holds a position of great importance there..."

"B-but... what about me?" I panicked for a second. "I could get ambushed by them at any time!"

Elsbeth didn’t answer right away. In the faint firelight, her red eyes were unreadable.

"That," she said, "is the problem."

She told me, a little haltingly, that she’d visited Elarune once, when she was younger. She hadn’t been born there, but she had friends among some of the clans, and she’d seen with her own eyes how hard the people were toward humans.

Even those who came with good intentions were turned away at the border before they could say a word.

But I think... I’m lowkey safe...? I did save those slaves, though.

"But they respect action more than words," she said. "That is the one thing I know about them..."

"You did not simply claim that you wanted to help beastwomen, but you proved it by risking your life to free those prisoners, and you are not coming to Elarune alone."

"You are bringing the beastwomen you saved, and they can speak for what you did... they’re your protectors there."

I thought about that for a minute, watching the sleeping shapes around the fire.

"Though... they still might not like you," she went on. "They might threaten you..."

"But they will have a reason to give you a chance."

"I wasn’t... doing it for a reward," I said. "I just didn’t want them going back into cages just for them to do everything they wanted to them."

"I know... That is why I believe it might work."

"Then I’m going...!" I clenched my fists. "Maybe I’ll try changing their minds."

She stared at me. "You have not even seen it yet."

"I haven’t seen a better place to take them, either."

"You truly do not know when to stop, do you?"

I grinned at her, and it hurt my ribs, but I did it anyway. "I’m working on self-improvement."

"Work harder."

But there was an almost imperceptible softening in her voice, and I decided to take it as a victory.

Magnara came back from her scouting around the middle of the night, and she must have caught the last part of our conversation, because she looked at me with an expression I couldn’t quite place.

"Elsbeth is right about one thing," she said, lowering herself onto a boulder with the axe laid across her knees. "The people of Elarune will not welcome you simply because you freed a few prisoners."

"That’s fine, I guess... I wasn’t expecting a parade anyway."

"Good... If you had been, you would be disappointed."

She was silent for a moment, looking out at the dark rim of the mountains. When she spoke again, her voice had lost some of its edge, and I realized she wasn’t talking to impress anyone.

"You see... I do not trust humans," she said. "I have spent many years watching merchants disguise hunts as lawful trade, nobles look away from slavery, and common people pretend not to see what happens in the next street..."

"Most of them only care about suffering when it happens in their own house."

"That’s... fair," I said quietly.

"But you did something tonight that does not fit what I believed." She turned her amber eyes on me. "You had nothing to gain... you could have been killed."

"And you knew that, but... you stayed anyway."

I scratched the back of my neck, suddenly self-conscious. I had been called a lot of things in my life—a bastard, a scumbag, a dumbass—and all of them had been accurate.

I wasn’t used to people looking at me like I might be something else.

"I won’t say that I trust you," Magnara said. "Keep in mind that for beastwomen like us... trust is not earned by a single good deed."

"No... that makes sense."

"But I will give you the chance to prove I was not wrong to let you come and stay with us all."

She stood up and hoisted her axe back onto her shoulder, and the whole hollow seemed to shrink around her.

"Tomorrow we reach the border of Elarune... And after that, we will see whether you still have courage when an entire city stares at you as if you were an enemy."

I swallowed. "Weirdly enough... and that sounds a lot scarier than getting stabbed."

"That is because you have started to use your brain."

Elsbeth laughed, a quiet, surprised sound that she turned into a cough almost immediately. Millie, curled up beside me with her ears drooping, actually smiled.

’I’m going to see lots of beastwomen... either this is going to feel like heaven or hell covered in heaven because I don’t see bad things about it other than them trying to kill me.’

’But no, to worry... a man like me who tamed lots of women probably can tamed them all as well.’

...

The rest of the night passed in a tired, easy quiet.

I sat against a boulder, listening to the soft sounds of the sleeping women and the whisper of wind through the ravine.

For the first time in what felt like days, nobody was trying to kill me, and nobody was in a cage.

The prisoners had curled up in small groups under borrowed cloaks... with the older ones lying closest to the outside as if they were still trying to protect the others.

The fox woman had fallen asleep with her arm wrapped around the little girl.

Millie sat next to me with her knees drawn up, her white ears twitching gently in the wind.

"Leon?"

"Hm...?"

"Do you think I could be strong someday?"

I turned to look at her. In the dim light, her pale eyes were thoughtful, and she was looking at her own hands again, the way she had in the corridor.

She wasn’t asking whether she was allowed to stay or whether she was allowed to laugh. She was asking about her own future, and that was something I’d never heard her do.

I thought about my answer for a while.

"I don’t know how strong you’ll get," I said. "But I know you already did something that took a lot of courage."

"I’m still afraid..."

"That’s allowed."

"Really?"

"Absolutely~! Being brave doesn’t mean you’re not scared!" I smiled. "Most of the time it just means you keep walking even though you are."

She sat quietly with that for a minute.

Then, without saying anything, she leaned over and rested her head on my shoulder, very lightly, just for a moment.

I didn’t move, and I didn’t make a joke. I just sat there and let her have it.

It feels nice... having a cute bunny girl like her feel somehow saved around me. At least now I have two beastwomen who can protect me from the other beastwomen before I get to tame them slowly.

Not as a slave... but as someone that I can love till I die.

A few feet away, Elsbeth sat by the fire with her sword across her knees, watching us out of the corner of her eye.

She didn’t say anything. She only exhaled softly and went back to staring at the flames.

Out at the edge of the camp, Magnara stood motionless on a ridge, the huge silhouette of her body black against the starlight. She was watching the pass like a statue, and I felt a strange sense of safety knowing she was out there.

I turned my gaze to the mountains.

Somewhere beyond them... lay a civilization that hated people like me.

It might shut the gates in our faces, or threaten me, or treat me like an enemy. And to think that I still might be walking into the worst mistake of my life.

But it was also a place where the women sleeping around me might finally have a home, and I realized, to my own surprise, that I already knew my answer.