Lord Duran stood back up, but he didn’t return to his seat. Pait watched him carefully. Of everyone there, Pait was the only one who had the right to speak to him. He was a lord, after all, and while I didn’t know his rank, this was his castle, and respect needed to be shown. Pait was a representative of Esmore, which meant he had the authority to speak to this man. Comparatively, the adventuring group nor the dwarf dungeon guide would feel like they could open their mouth.

Alysia was a princess and I was a noble, so neither of us would have problems speaking, except that we were currently hiding. She was just a sword and I was a servant and bodyguard. Thus, as much as I wanted to speak up in this situation, I kept my mouth shut and my head lowered too.

“Perhaps, you should explain from the beginning.” Pait offered.

“The beginning… right.” Lord Duran seemed to accept his words. “I suppose I should remind you that there are things I can tell you and things I can’t. You are a foreign nation. If I simply told you everything, that could be called treason. Just telling you what I knew so far might be considered treason.”

“I understand. While I can’t promise I won’t report things to my government, I will try to be tactful.” Pait declared in a diplomatic voice.

The wolfkin sighed and nodded. “Alright, I suppose it’s no secret that we’ve been experiencing civil unrest. Dioshin has always existed with the belief that the strongest survive. Ignoring variants, there are twelve families of animalkin. They are the wolfkin, catkin, foxkin, rabbitkin, hoovedkin, dragonkin, squirrelkin, beastkin, birdkin, apekin, bearkin, and murinekin

“Some species of animalkin are in such a low quantity that they group together. For example, the beastkin are made up of rhinokin, crockin, elephantkin, and hippokin. Meanwhile, the hoovedkin include cariboukin, deerskin, and horsekin. The murinekin includes mousekin and ratkin. One would think squirrelkin and rabbitkin would be part of them, but their tribes are so vast on their own they separated into their tribes.

“Anyway, the leader of each tribe is given the rank of a lord, and the leader of the strongest kin is given the title of king. The strongest kin for the last few hundred years has been the catkin. The lionkin variant, in particular, has managed to reign supreme over these lands. King Roth has been the king for the last ten years.”

“Let me guess, the wolfkin don’t like being under catkin?” Pait offered.

“Not at all.” Lord Duran shook his head. “We’re far too independent to want to be bothered. We prefer to stick to our own rather than rule others. The problem stemmed from an unexpected source. The rabbitkin have grown tired of being suppressed by the catkin. They’ve started revolting, starting a few months ago. They managed to convince the squirrelkin and murinekin to join them a few weeks ago, and that’s why things have recently grown difficult.”

Cats and dogs not getting along. The rabbits staging an uprising. A lion king? Why did this all feel like a bad joke? I continued to keep my mouth shut. I felt like I might be stereotyping. For my animalkin slave girls, not to mention the animalkin population back in Chalm, I would bury my apparent prejudices.