Yeah, it was that awesome. How had they not worked that out yet when their presumed-dead prince had been restored to them completely whole?
The seventh councilor wanted to know, “How much magic did that take? How many times could you do it?”
Perian and Trill exchanged glances.
“We’ve never measured, Councilor,” Perian answered after a moment. “As you may be aware, I exhausted myself into amagical coma for days the first time I healed the Prince. Helping Kinan regain a full body took a great deal of energy which others were kind enough to help provide us. Like humans, our energy isn’t inexhaustible. We have a different way of replenishing some of it than humans do, but it still takes time to recover. The two big healings we accomplished took the help of multiple members of the castle under extraordinary circumstances to help heal the Prince and Princess. Please don’t assume that’s the norm. We can’t work without breaks or without re-energizing our magic. There’s a lot we still need to discover about ourselves because it’s been hidden for so long. Trill and I both grew up not knowing what we were. Trill learned when he was fifteen, and I didn’t realize until this year after everything that happened here at the castle.”
“Why is that?” the third councilor asked.
“As we’ve already said, keeping it a secret has taken a toll. And carnalions often choose to leave their children with the human parent.”
“Why?” the third councilor pursued.
He didn’t seem particularly antagonistic about it, just as though he wanted to understand.
“They aren’t particularly parental, Councilor.”
“Are you saying they don’t have feelings?” he pursued.
“Are you saying that humans who choose not to have children have no feelings?”
The man shifted awkwardly at Perian’s pointed question. He didn’t have any children, if Cormal remembered correctly, though Perian probably hadn’t known that.
“No, of course not. But you’re saying they’re different from humans.”
“Of course I am,” Perian answered, sounding faintly annoyed. But really, Cormal was so impressed with his ability to remain calm with this group. “They’re not human. They’re beings whodon’t come from this world. They’re not the same as us. But that doesn’t mean we can’t find points of commonality. They’ve been able to blend in amongst us for centuries. And just like one human is different from another, so is one carnalion or one child of two worlds different from another. We each have individual personalities and likes and dislikes.” Perian shrugged. “But carnalions seem to prefer to live an unfettered existence, for the most part, at least those that Trill and I have encountered. We don’t actually know for sure if that applies to all carnalions. There’s no way to know right now.”
Triumphantly, the ninth councilor said, “Exactly! What if you’re wrong about this entire thing, and you’ve been telling us about one or two carnalions who aren’t as terrible as the rest?”
Kinan took this one.
“Then we would discover that and act accordingly.” His voice was stern and no-nonsense. “Councilors, as we have already indicated, we aren’t saying that carnalions or Life Mages should face no consequences moving forward. We’re asking that they be treated like humans and accorded the same rights.Ifthey commit crimes, they should be punished for them. So if you enact this change, and a month from now, a carnalion willfully kills a human by fatally feeding on them, then they would be tried for murder. But they wouldn’t be killed simply for existing.”
“What if leaving them alive gives them the chance to kill more people?”
Impatiently, Cormal said, “If they were indiscriminate killers, then chances are they would already have been identified by the Mage Warriors. We have watch stations and reports coming in from across the country at all times, as you know, and we investigate all such reports. We rarely have reports of carnalions, and we believe this is part of the reason for that. Carnalions clearly possess higher intelligence, and they’ve beenusing it for centuries. Even if you don’t believe that they possess fellow feeling towards us, then at least believe that they’re smart enough to know that if they kill humans, they’re likely to be killed. They can be motivated by self-interest just like a human can. So give them a reason to be good.”
Cormal gulped in a breath. “I lost sight of that, and you saw the harm I caused. I was scared of the stories we’d been told, and I didn’t consider how Perian had been behaving in the months he’d been here. I drove him away, and I may have deprived the Prince of months where he could have been cured. Far from harming anyone here in the castle, Perian did a great deal of good. Let’s offer that chance to everyone.”
It was the second councilor who said, “I agree that Perian and this Trill fellow seem quite reasonable. But they aren’t carnalions, as I understand it.”
“They—” the ninth councilor began to protest.
“Silence!” The Queen snapped. “I believe the second councilor has the floor.”
The ninth councilor snapped his mouth shut.
The second councilor cleared her throat. Her gender beads were two female beads and one nonbinary today. She’d told Cormal she appreciated being referred to with her majority pronoun at a given time, but she rarely felt a hundred percent like anything.
She continued. “By your own admission, children of two worlds are not the same as carnalions. How much of the… reasonable behavior that we’ve been witness to today is due to your human heritage?”
She at least did Perian and Trill the courtesy of talking to them directly.
“I was raised by my human father,” Perian conceded. “He protected me to the best of his ability and loved me just as I was. But I am also still my mother’s child. She visited periodicallywhen I was younger but stopped when she was badly injured. She didn’t want to be tied down, but she also didn’t want to risk deciding to stay due to her injuries and putting us or others at risk. I think that demonstrates very reasonable behavior.”
Trill cleared his throat. Molun and Arvus stepped closer to him. Trill gripped their hands tightly.
“I was raised by my mother and grandmother until I was fifteen. When we found out what I was, my grandmother locked me in my room without any food or water and waited for nature to take its course.”
