Vanysa approached the village with slow and steady steps, the fear of her youth flared up in her heart, but she hid it by holding her hands behind her back, clenching one into a fist, and gripping that hand's wrist with the other. She squeezed with enough force that had it been the wrist of an ordinary person, the bones within would have been turned to powder wrapped in flesh.
She pasted a smile on her face to appear as friendly as she could, and cursed her luck when the aged beastman who emerged to greet her was, of all things, a pandaman. He had a thick round body and hobbled out to greet her while using a cane as thick as a human arm to carry himself forward. 'He looks a little bit like the one whose skin I now use as a blanket. But then, they all kind of look that way.' She brushed off the comforting thought and stopped ten paces shy of the old male.
She glanced past him, unlike a human village, there was no sense of caution or really even much in the way of curiosity. Beyond him there were jackelmen and cheetahmen steadily at work in front of racks or outdoor tables, stripping the flesh from kills and tanning leather, the odor of death and blood was pungent in Vanysa's nostrils even from where she now stood, and it set her skin to tingling. Her fist demonized and opened to bare claws… but she held fast and spoke.
"Hi… grandfather." She said through gritted teeth, reluctantly bestowing the honorific on the hated creature.
"Child." He answered in that rough gravel voice held by all those of his race. "What brings you to Laughingman Village? Are you a merchant? I don't see any goods. Are you lost? We get so few humans out here…" He asked and then when Vanysa shook her head, he looked down at her, cockeyed, his snout wrinkling a bit as he inhaled her scent.
He came no closer, and Vanysa wondered, 'Has he noticed something is off about me? It doesn't matter. He's no threat anyway.' She let the dismissive thought slip past and said, "No, not exactly. I'm trying to track down a story."
"A rumor?" He asked and laughed hard enough to bare his teeth, the cane shook in his hand as he restrained himself as much as he could, and Vanysa only waited until he stopped and took a breath.
"No, no, more like a legend. From a long, long time ago." She explained, and to that he tilted up his chin and looked at her with steady interest.
"Go on." He prompted.
Vanysa then relayed what she knew, filling in the blanks with what she considered educated guesses. A human hero riding out in search of his lost bride with a handful of loyal and brave followers, probably to their deaths.
She saw his eyes light up. "We have a story close to that, but it isn't all the same. A treacherous group of people gave up gold to buy off our ancestors, and when we kept our word and withdrew with the tribute, a treacherous human and his followers attacked in the middle of the night. The hills here," he pointed to the one Vanysa crossed over, "are all sacred burial mounds for the dead of that night, and according to legend, we are descendants of the survivors who settled here to watch for his return."
It fit. "So why, with such an ominous story, do you have a name like Laughingman for your village?" Vanysa asked and scratched her head.
The old male shrugged, "I have no idea. But that is how it's always been." He scratched his cheek and said, "The story ends with him riding toward the mountain, wailing in his greed for his lost gold."
"I see… where did the actual fighting take place?" Vanysa pressed her luck and crossed her talons while she wished for good luck.
"Over that way." He said and pointed to an area between two large hills.
"I see, has anything strange ever happened there?" Vanysa asked.
"No, nothing." The old male replied, "Should something have?"
Vanysa dropped her hand back down to her side and then folded it behind her back. "I suppose not. Should I know anything about that mountain?" She asked and turned her eyes away from him and toward the next leg of her journey.
"Just don't drink the water up there. It's cursed, and always has been." The old male added.
"I see, thank you, grandfather. I know enough for now, if you don't object, I'll camp out in the woods tonight… I know we're at peace now but… it's for the best." She replied, and the aged pandaman gave a low, rumbling growl as if to say…
"We love you too."
She smirked a little at the sarcasm and stepped back, her eyes never leaving the old man. 'Hatred dies hard. He hasn't forgotten the days of dominance.'
As distance grew between them, so too rose the temptation for murder. 'How I would love to skin him… he definitely has had our kind for a feast, I'm sure of it… but…' She put the thought behind her, 'He belongs to His Majesty now. He is off limits.'
It was a subtle reproof in her own mind, another reminder of her life as it now was, and that his will was her will, no matter how far apart from her King she might be. 'I wonder if this is how all created beings feel?' If they did, she doubted they were aware of it.
'But if it comes to that, my Lord didn't create all of them… what if… what if their original creators came back? What if they opposed the will of His Majesty?' That grim contemplation passed through her head like a charging army across the battlefield. 'Nobody can know you're thinking this way.' She realized that immediately, a chill swept over her soul to even consider it. 'The Guardians turning on our master… it seems unthinkable but… but if my will is bound to him this way, what if the others are too? Few outside myself know the depths to which his longing for them runs.' She recalled the moment on the long trek into the Beastmen kingdom, the way he spoke of them resonated with her after she'd lost those she loved. 'How far would I go to have them back? And what would I do if they did come back, only to reject me…? Could anyone be whole after that?'
'Even worse, he loves the Guardians deeply, if they abandoned him…?' The treasonous thought crystalized in her mind just as she made her way through the woods. 'If that ever happened…?' She shivered at the thought of it all, then her eyes fell on a deer bending over to drink from a babbling brook.
She shifted into her demonic form and was on it before it could raise its head. Her talons ripped into the soft flesh of the throat and her downward motion carried the body of the animal down on its side. It flopped and kicked and gurgled as it perished, the warmth of its life dripping down from her talons and turned the water red before it was carried away to whatever end the water had for itself.
Vanysa then began to smear the blood over her body and thought to herself, 'It's always best to be prepared.'
Then she waited for the sun to set.