Mako slowly opened his eyes, the red and blue colors catching the light as he stared up at a bright cloudless sky, a color that was almost similar to Mako's left eye color. A sort of fog could be seen in both eyes but it quickly passed after Mako blinked rapidly, allowing his vision to come into focus.
Pushing himself up, Mako shook his head before taking a good look at his surroundings, pushing away a dark gray blanket that had been thrown over him. He felt rather hot underneath it even though it was a rather cool morning with a biting wind. It could even be said that the blanket was rather suffocating.
Mako was currently sitting on the outskirts of the burning village, a fire that had went down after nearly everything had turned mostly to ash. It was still too hot to go anywhere near the village, but thanks to the cool breeze, the people were able to at least stay relatively close to it.
Surrounding Mako was the villagers, all of them scattered around him doing various things. Some of them were sleeping on the grass and others were rationing out the food they were able to save in their escape from the knights. Most of the demihumans that were awake all had rather negative emotions on their faces, ranging from sadness to rage, from disgust to disappointment.
"Oh, our saviors awake," someone shouted suddenly, causing Mako's ears to twitch. This voice caused every person who wasn't asleep to immediately stop what they were doing and look in his direction.
There was a moment of complete silence, a brief lapse in any talking, only the sound of the wind blowing through Makos ears. However, the seconds following that was different as practically everyone started walking or running towards him, each person shouting out something that Mako, despite having great hearing, couldn't make out.
The next thing he knew, Mako was surrounded by various types of demihumans from dogs and cats to raccoons and foxes. Not only that but the noise that followed the lot of them was deafening to the point where he couldn't even hear himself think, he could sit there and wait for the noise to drop.
After a few minutes or so, everyone seemed to finally quiet down and one demihuman who seemed to be the leader, a tall sturdy looking Raccoon gentleman, stepped forward. "Okay okay, thats enough, lets give our savior some breathing room as I'm sure he's still tired."
Many of the demihumans stopped talking while those who hadn't lowered their voices to mere murmurs. Some backed away, heading to wake up the demihumans who were still passed out on the floor.
"Savior, how are you feeling?" The raccoon man asked, his voice also lowered. "I hope you don't mind but we took the liberty of stripping your clothes and bandaging your wounds and tending to your numerous burns."
It was then that Mako noticed that he was almost naked, clad only in his checkered boxer shorts. His upper torso was wrapped up in bandages and parts of his legs also looked to be in the same situation, tightly encased in a layer of gauze. Oddly enough though, probably because he wasn't moving much, Mako couldn't feel very much pain even though the bandages made it seem like his injuries were sever.
"You guys are pretty good at tending to wounds," Mako responded, flashing a rare smile, his tail wagging. "I don't feel any pain from my wounds. Did you guys give me some sort of medicine to relieve the pain?"
The raccoon man also smiled, the other villagers erupting into light chatter after hearing Mako speak his first words. "Well, actually we have a youngling here who knows healing magic. She's quite gifted and was able to heal you up right quick."
The raccoon man turned around and looked towards someone in the crowd, someone who slowly stepped forward, the other people backing away to give the person some room.
The person who stepped forward was a female who looked to be around 18 or 19 years old and had the ears and tail of a fox. She was shorter then Mako by at least half a foot (standing around 5'2) and had bright blonde hair and dark pink eyes. She had a baby face but it was offset by her obviously mature and curvaceous body that was further enhanced by her gray form-fitting sweater and black leggings. Altogether she was quite a beauty and Mako inwardly nodded in appreciation.
"My name is Mana," The girl said, bowing slightly before continuing. Her eyes stared into Mako's, a clear intelligence and curiosity could be seen from this simple gaze. "I'm glad to see that your awake. Your injuries were quite severe and took some time to heal but you should be fine now."
Mako tilted his head a little. "Thank you for healing me but what exactly happened? Also, where the hell am I anyways? Who were those guys who attacked your town?"
Mana blinked and looked back towards the raccoon man who also looked back at Mana. "You mean that you don't know? Your saying that you helped us, putting your life at risk, without even knowing?"
"I'm not clear on all the details but judging from what the guys said to me, I'm gonna assume they were knights or rather slave traders," Mako crossed his arms in front of his chest, his brows furrowed slightly. "Judging from what that fatty said, they worked underneath the highest ruling authority or at least claimed to work for some sort of queen. Have I gotten anything wrong so far?"
Mana shook her head. "Thats all about right, but I'm gonna assume that your a foreigner. Most people already know about the state this country is currently in. For you to not know would be bad so I'll fill you in."
The crowd by now had all about dispersed, the intial excitement about their wolf savior waking up having faded. They began to resume their tasks of passing out rations and tending to their families. The only one who remained was Mana who took a seat next to Mako.
For the next half hour or so, Mana began to give him a long summary about what had happened, not only to the village but also to the country of Paladin, the country where the Golden Lion Kingdom resided. It wasn't exactly a happy tale. In fact it was one of corruption and murder, a story filled with blood and betrayal.
Around 2 years ago there existed a king who wanted his kingdom to flourish, who wanted everyone to exist peacefully and live together in harmony. This wasn't something that was beyond his reach either as he was loved by his people and readily followed his example, treating other species with respect and kindness. It stayed this way for about a year, a time of prosperity for the kingdom in which all species flooded into where they could be free from things such as slavery and discrimination against other races.
However, things came to a rather swift end when one day the king was poisoned and eventually died later that day. Rumor had it, the one who has poisoned him was his own flesh and blood daughter, Amareigh Vanguard, the same one who took the throne shortly after his death.
The first change didn't come immediately as the supporters of the king still held his ideals deep in their hearts and refused to change anything. However, in a months time, those high ranking advisers who supported the king began disappearing one by one, dropping like flies. Eventually there was no one left to stand in Amareighs way and she gained complete control of The Golden Lion Kingdom.
The first law passed swiftly after she gained control, and it was one that sent the kingdom into a full scale war. It was a law that legalized slavery, it established that any species other than humans were allowed to be captured and sold to others regardless of status or relation.
This single law sent all species scurrying, prompting them to flee from the kindgom in rapid haste. About half of them made it while the other half was enslaved and sold to other kingdoms for things like ransom or auctions, bringing in the largest profits the kingdoms had ever seen. Though it was the biggest increase in money that had ever been made, it drastically decreased the number of people living in the kingdom as most of the citizens had been demihumans or elves.
Due to the decrease, slave traders began hunts for demihumans around the entire kingdom, attempting to flush out any lingering species that had been foolish enough to remain. They eventually began to search farther and farther from the kingdom to the point where they reached the outskirts until they finally reached the few small villages of species that remained in Golden Lion Kingdom.
"So your basically saying that the root cause for you guys living out here and struggling to get by is all because of Amareighs orders?" Makos expression was unreadable as he stared out at the remains of the village. "Why didn't you guys just flee to another kingdom?"
"Actually, this village was getting by just fine for around fifty years and probably would've stayed like that if they hadn't found this place." Mana plucked pieces of grass from the ground as she talked. "Its not that easy to move away from everything you've ever known. While most people did move away, the few hundred of us who were descended from the founders of the village decided to stay. We can't just walk away from our homes...well from I guess we could now."
Mako pushed himself off of the ground. "This country is dumb as hell, but its also familiar. Corruption, betrayal, murder, death....its all something that I'm quite familiar with. I've experienced things like this before. No matter what world you go to, it always has these things. Wherever humans are, things always seem to turn for the worst and bring out the worst in others."
Mana stared at the wolf boys back, he pink eyes transfixed, unable to look away. Her curiousity in this boy who couldn't be more then 16 increased by a significant amount. She wondered who he was and where he came from, a certain air surrounding him like a cloak.
She had lost her family to slave traders around a year ago, leaving her alone to fend for herself. It was lucky that she had been able to support herself otherwise she would have starved to death. The only she had left was the village and now even that had been taken from her. She wasn't sure what to do and she damn sure didn't have any clue about what to do next.
However no matter how badly her life was turning out, she felt in her gut that the boy who hadn't even lived longer then her had experienced much more pain than she could even imagine. When she had been bandaging him earlier, she could see the numerous scars over his body, scars that ran deep and long.
Still though, it was clear that despite that pain, this boy was still living on, going as far as to save some people he didn't even know. Some would call that foolish and stupid while others would call it "Butting into others business", but Mana found it rather amazing. This boy truly lived up to the stories surrounding the rare wolf type demihuman.
"Excuse me," Mana said, also pushing herself off the ground. "I dont think I caught your name before. My full names Mana Castro and its a pleasure to make your acquaintance savior." She bowed low to Mako, almost to a full 90° angle.
Mako took his eyes off the village and looked to the girl who was currently humbling herslef before him. The corners of his mouth twitched before turning into a smile. "Theres no need to bow, My name is Mako D. Carson and the pleasure is all mine."