Enna is a Land God: Book 3

Lunch with Monsters

Braid sat in silence with the other members of his party. All of them were clean and currently sitting in a well appointed cafeteria within the estate of Enna, this nation's Land God.

If he had to describe it, Braid would say that they were all in shock. Yes, they had been sent here to discover the happenings of the forest, but none of them would have ever thought they would find what they had. An entire community... of monsters! Different monster races living together under the apparently generous hand of their new land god.

And generous was putting it mildly. 

Braid did not know too much about land gods other that they were all vastly different and wildly powerful, most choosing to take a hands off approach to their charges. But he did know that this Enna was very much involved with the development of the Forest of Monsters. There was no way that hundreds of foxkin and goblins evolved themselves, after all. She must have done it.

But, why?

By her own admission she had been born human. Not that Braid understood how a woman went from being an average human to becoming a land god, but still... Why would she take to monster kind so readily.

Braid looked around the hall. It wasn't very busy at the moment as it wasn't a meal time, but there were a few stragglers hanging about, gawking. He couldn't blame them, he would stare too if a group of monsters came and sat down in the guild hall as if it were nothing. Given how humans were forbidden from entering here, he had no doubt that the vast majority of these monsters had never seen one before.

"That Trixie lady, she was very nice..." Porsha stated softly, running her fingers through her hair, staring down at her plate of untouched food. They had been served some kind of roasted beast along side root vegetables.

For some reason, it shocked Braid to know that they ate such normal food here. He had just assumed that all monster just ate raw meat. Preferably human meat. Having thought about it, he saw now how foolish and biased that may have been. This whole ordeal was a bit of a cultural shock.

Trixie had been the foxmen woman that Enna had put in charge of their party once she decided that she had said what she needed to and left, taking her massive hobgoblin body guard, the equally humongous fox beast, and the strange talking cat, with her. She claimed that Trixie was her personal maid and in charge of all the others, and told the monster to look after them.

And Trixie had done just that. No word of complaint, no hostility to a race of beings that would have killed her on sight had the situation been reversed. She had been polite and stern, but had softer eyes for the innocent Porsha, almost mothering her. 

They had been brought to empty bunk rooms that were currently un used and Trixie got them settled in. Ordering other servants to go and fetch them a change of cloths and the like. Before any of them knew it they had been lead to the baths- escorted by Trixie and the two huge hobgoblin guards that had been following them closely since their arrival- and told to wash up.

The guards were reluctant to let the girls and Trixie go off to the woman's baths on their own but the older fox monster waved them off. "There are others in the baths already, besides, what would these lovely girls gain from attacking a land gods personal maid? Her wrath I would imagen."

Somehow that seemed to placate the two hobgoblins. Though Braid couldn't see why. Sure, angering a god was never overly smart, but she was just a girl. Clearly even a rather naive one given her reaction when he told her of the fate of the goblins caught parading through Pern's borderlands. 

"Yes." Stated Reinga, using her fork to toy with her food, eyes hooded as she thought. "If I did not know better, I would simply think her a fox beastmen... Its rather disconcerting." It wasn't a side of the wolf assassin that Braid had ever seen before, still and contemplative.