“What happened to Thorne?” I repeated my question. I stopped walking and glanced down at my travel companion. “Amy?” I asked, an annoyed tone to my voice after having been met with silence for over 10 seconds – I mean cycles.

  Amy sighed and jumped off my head, looking up at me as she sat on the ground in front of me. “Do I have to answer?”

  “Only if you want to continue bumming a ride off my head,” I countered.

  Amy grumbled something that I couldn’t make out fully about ‘dumb math’ before sighing rather dramatically and gesturing toward a tree that was just a couple feet off the path we’d stopped at. “Fine, but if I’m going to tell you we should rest. That collar makes it so you don’t naturally restore Hit Points and Stamina, and any Stamina you do spend is marked as expended, rather than spent.” I opened my mouth to ask a question, only for Amy to cut me off. “Do you want me to explain the differences between spending and expending Stamina, or do you want me to answer your questions about Thorne?”

  “I want the answer to both,” I said, grumbling as I sat down on the ground in front of the tree a little too forcefully and immediately regretted it as the full weight of my body came down on my tail. “Ow…” I winced. Amy chuckled at that, though her chuckle ended as she noticed the glare I was giving her.

  She curled up at the edge of my feet as I adjusted myself to account for my tail. Once I’d stopped moving, she said, “Elaran Thorne was a proud member of the Morvian Beastfolk tribe. His father and mother passed away when he was a pup before he was eventually enslaved.”

  My hand found its way to the collar at those last words, and as it did, I noticed Amy’s left eye open and quickly pulled my hand away from it as I noticed the glare she was giving me.

  “I won’t go into the details for his whole life, mainly because there is no need, and I suspect that you don’t actually want to know his whole life’s story, anyway. At least, that’s not what you were asking about.”

  I nodded my head. “I want to know what happened to Thorne that allowed me to be in his body,” I said.

  “Oh, that’s easy,” Amy said with a yawn, both eyes open now. “He died.”

  I blinked. “What?”

  “Yeah, Thorne’s dead.”

  “Dead like me, though, right?”

  “Oh, no. He’s dead dead. Gone. Enjoying the great backyard in the sky, or whatever it was that your mother told you happened when your pets died. Unlike you, he didn’t get a second chance, though I doubt he’d have wanted one anyway, had he been given the choice.”

  “Wait, really? Do you know how he died?” I asked. Something about the way Amy looked at me after that made me quickly add, “Can you even tell me how he died?”

  Amy chuckled at that and once again closed her eyes. “Yes, I do know how he died. If you want, I can tell you what I can about it.”

  “Yes please, I’d appreciate that!” I said, extremely surprised at the apparent transparency I was going to get for once and not wanting to hesitate on accepting it out of fear of it being taken back.

  “Thorne was killed in Ivywood fighting against an agent of the Unknown.”

  “The who?”

  “The Unknown.” Amy said while stretching, eyes still closed before she curled up into a different position. “My understanding of them is, unfortunately, rather limited, and the information available to me is essentially non-existent or something you wouldn't understand. I do know that prior to the battle that he perished in, he fought against a slaver pair and he was badly wounded. Given the time between the two fights, and the reduction to the natural healing capabilities of Beastfolk caused by the collar, I wouldn't be surprised if Thorne's defeat had something to do with that, although it is hard to gauge the strength of the Unknown.”

  I nodded my head. “Is that why you're suggesting we rest now?”

  “Partly,” Amy said, before adding, “but also because it's easier for me to consult logs when I'm not also walking.”

  “Uh…” I trailed off, unsure of what that meant exactly. Amy offered no additional context, so I just decided to ignore it for the time being. “Is there anything else you can tell me about Thorne?”

  “Oh yeah, loads. For starters, his full name is Elaran Thorne,” Amy said, repeating what she'd told me earlier about his name.

  “Yeah, you mentioned that,” I replied, staring at Amy expectantly. Apparently she was waiting for me to figure out something, though, because after an awkward silence she opened a single eye again and looked at me. After another moment of silence she sighed and closed it again.

  “His name is Elaran Thorne,” she repeated for a third time.

  “Yeah, you said that already–” I began, only to finally have it click what she was trying to get me to realize. My expression turned to that of confusion as I pulled up my character sheet. I ignored all the extra details on it for now, as I expected that Amy would go over it with me at some point in the future. Instead, I focused on the top part that had my name listed.

  Character Sheet: Naomi Reyes

  Name: Elaran Thorne

  Age: 18; Gender: Male; Race: Morvian Tribe

  “Do you guys refer to everyone by their last names here or something?” I asked, thinking about how that was regularly a thing on TV shows back home. “I guess it's not a bad thing to know my new full name, even if I'd been using it wrong this whole time.”

  “The various Beastfolk tribes are all different in their naming conventions, but the Morvian tribe might be one of the easiest ones for you to understand. Like humans, they take the name of their partner upon union, though in their case they introduce themselves with their surname followed by their forename.”

  “Okay, I guess that's not too unusual. So it's acceptable for me to introduce myself as just Thorne?”

  “In non-formal situations it would be acceptable, though doing so would imply some things you might not want.”

  Reading on this site? This novel is published elsewhere. Support the author by seeking out the original.

  “Such as?” I asked, curious.

  “Well, humans would likely assume you've been a slave since birth and that you were separated from your parents at birth, or shortly thereafter. That's not necessarily a problem, and might actually be the better way to introduce yourself to some of the humans we meet, depending on how long you have that collar on.”

  I frowned at that, finding my hand instinctively reaching for the collar, only to force my hand back down onto my lap once I'd realized it. “Okay, I guess…”

  “The dwarves and elves would likely take pity on you. The moiraquens would likely straight up ignore you, as they generally try and avoid getting involved in the politics of the other races, and nothing is more politically charged right now than slavery.”

  I nodded my head at that. “I guess that makes sense.”

  Before I had a chance to ask any extra questions, Amy quickly said, “There’s a lot to unpack here and it's a lot more complex than I care to explain right now. All you need to know is that both the Beast- and Birdfolk are on edge with humans, and the humans still treat both like they’re second class citizens.”

  “What do the slaves think?” I asked, almost afraid of the answer.

  “Slaves are treated better than how the Americans treated their slaves back on Earth, so while they’re not happy with their current lot in life, most accept it as their new way of life.” I wasn’t exactly sure how that was supposed to make me feel, and apparently my face showed that as well. “Generally speaking, if you own a slave here on ;Algion, you’d be vastly more wealthy than a slave owner back on Earth; that collar around your neck would have easily allowed a family in a small town such as Ivywood to live in relative comfort for multiple generations without the need to work.”

  “If that was supposed to make me feel better about being a slave…” I began, only for my voice to trail off because I was even more confused now than I was before. “What's to stop them from just killing me to take the collar?”

  “Well, for starters the collar’s tampering detection works regardless of if the slave is alive or not, so killing you wouldn’t make it any easier to remove,” Amy replied, to which I nodded. “You remember that shock from when you tried to remove it?” I shivered at the memory, nodding once more without saying anything. “The same thing would happen to them, only magnified.”

  “Okay so…it just sounds like it's a good way for someone who doesn’t like me to kill me then, assuming they have more Hit Points than I do or whatever.”

  “That’s not a bad train of thought, honestly, and was actually a problem that early iterations of the Slave Collar had, or so I’m told,” Amy said, causing me to frown. “Modern collars – and yes, I’ve already checked, yours is modern – come equipped with a set of rather complicated intention spells on them that will only include you in the shock sent out if the other person has the intention of removing the collar to help you. In such cases, you’d both receive a shock, though the strength of the shock you’d receive would be only a fraction of what they ended up feeling. The goal is to keep the slaves alive, after all.”

  “How does that even work?” I asked, my frown having been replaced with a look of concern.

  “You lack the fundamental understanding of how magic works that is necessary for you to even hope to understand how the simplest of the enchantments work,” Amy said, before adding, “Though don’t feel bad. While it is true some beginner magic users might be able to understand the theory behind some of them, they’d have no hope at being able to actually execute any of them until they were at least at Class level 40. Even then, to put one of those together would require an intense amount of time, energy, and Mana.”

  “Isn’t Mana just the energy used for magic?”

  “Ah Naomi, so young and naive. Asking questions that truly only a melee based Class would ask. No, they’re not the same, just like energy and Stamina aren’t the same. But we’re derailing here.”

  I frowned at that, but decided it wasn’t worth arguing further. “Okay so…My name is Elaran Thorne, I’m a Beastfolk–”

  “Morvian Beastfolk,” Amy interjected.

  “I’m a Morvian Beastfolk,” I corrected, before continuing. “I’m male, which is going to take a lot of getting used to–”

  “You have no idea.”

  “–and I’m 18 again,” I said, ignoring Amy’s interruption. “Anything else that I need to know?”

  “No, I think that’s about the important stuff. Oh, actually,” Amy began, correcting herself. “There are two other things you might find relevant.”

  “Sure, what are they?”

  “Thorne has a sister who seems to have gone missing. Before you ask, no I cannot tell you where she’s at, but I can tell you she’s still alive and on the same continent that we’re on.”

  “Do you know her name?” I asked, eyebrow raised at the mention of having a sibling.

  “I do, yes.” Amy replied, though that was it.

  “And it is…?” I asked, drawing out the last word as I did.

  “Hm? Oh, I didn’t think you’d find that relevant. One second.” Amy went silent for a bit before replying. “Her name was Rose, Elaran Rose. That’s a pretty name.”

  I sighed and rubbed at my temples. “That was way more painful than it needed to be,” I muttered before speaking up and asking, “And what was the second thing?”

  “Thorne had a best friend named Win Ro who might be able to help us remove the collar from around your neck.”

  “And you didn’t start with that, why?” I asked, anger building despite my best attempts to remain calm as I rubbed my temples.

  “Because I’m also unable to locate him currently,” came Amy’s eventual reply. “There’s nothing in the audit logs about him dying or leaving ;Algion. It’s as if he just vanished,” Amy said that last part as if concerned about something, but whatever it was she clearly had no intention of sharing with me.

  “So what, you can just locate people at whim?”

  “It’s a tad more complicated than that, but if you want to grossly oversimplify it, sure.”

  I counted to ten before replying, “Then how would you describe it, Amy?” I said, the heat apparently evident in how I’d said her name that she flinched and opened her eyes.

  “Ah, right, I’m doing it again, aren’t I?” She asked, but before I had a chance to respond in the affirmative, she apologized. “I’m sorry. The only company I’ve had since arriving in ;Algion, aside from you, has been somewhat difficult to communicate with; I imagine I’ve picked up a lot of their less than desirable communication habits.”

  “That’s a gross oversimplification,” I said in a mocking tone, but Amy didn’t seem to mind.

  I closed my eyes and tried to lean against the tree that I’d sat in front of, only to groan and squirm around in frustration at the tail that kept getting in my way. “How do dogs even deal with this?” I asked in annoyance.

  “Dogs curl up and lay on their side,” Amy offered, to which I glared at her.

  “I’m not a dog,” I replied hotly.

  “Then why did you ask–” she began, only for me to cut her off.

  “Doesn’t matter. How do Beastfolk deal with their tails?”

  “Oh, well yeah most of them do sit like humans, I guess.” Amy replied with a nod. “Here, let me just…” she stood up and stretched before walking behind me, taking my tail in her paws, a sensation that was rather awkward at best, and adjusting it in a way that at first didn’t feel natural. It took a couple of seconds for my body to adjust, and I found myself actually quite comfortable.

  “Thank you,” I said, once more closing my eyes. I felt Amy curl up on my lap, a sensation that further surprised me but I said nothing.

  “We have a long trip ahead of us. I’ll make sure no one sneaks up on you, as I don’t need to sleep. Rest.”

  I opened my eyes and was about to say something, only to stop as I noticed that the sun was starting to set. “Guess I lost track of time,” I said, frowning.

  “You woke up near the end of the day,” Amy said with a yawn. “Anyway, rest. I’ll keep watch, though aside from wild animals, there’s nothing nearby for miles.”

  “That’s reassuring,” I said as I gently started to pat the cat on my lap, listening to her as she began to purr.

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