As the day went on, Babi and Alice wound up going all over Minopolis, making their way through the many twists and turns of its city streets. It didn’t take long for the deer to to get turned around, as to her so many of the locations looked the same, but traversing this place was no matter for her minotaur driver. She got to witness firsthand as he innately navigated the ‘corridors’ of the maze, not needing a moment to get his bearings straight. For any other species, the layout of Minopolis would have been vastly inconvenient, and Alice had to believe this wasn’t completely advantageous for the bovines either, seeing that they would have to walk down entire city blocks at points, only to walk back the other way on another street.

Babi didn’t care though, not giving so much as a huff of discomfort as he went from one destination to the next, using the most efficient route possible. If the reindeer had known this, she would have assumed that it was the result of making this sort of delivery countless times prior, but for a minotaur this sort of trek was all intuition. A feel for the constructed landscape around him, the very masonry speaking to him on a subconscious level to tell him which roads to take, and which paths to avoid.

One thing the bull couldn’t discern through sheer intuition though was the time of day, and with the buildings around him as tall as they were, he could not see the sun to make a good estimate. He could make a guess based on the time it should have taken him to unload his goods for the three places he had stopped after leaving the slave market, but he was supposed to be at the place at a very particular time, and it would not have been good for business for him to show up late.

The minotaur knew of a fairly easy way to find out, but he loathed the thought of relying on it. Still, promised the deer to leave her with one of his aquaintances, so he needed to know if he had time to do one more delivery prior to dropping her off. Parking his cart on the side of the road, he set down its handels, before making his way to the buildings.

“I’ll get the baskets ready.” Alice said the moment Babi’s hoof touched the sidewalk. With how heavy the fruit containers were, the reindeer really couldn’t haul them around like her minotaur guide. So to do her part and uphold her end of the agreement Alice would instead move them to the more accessible position of the cart’s seat.

“There is no need,” Babi replied, “This isn’t a delivery point. I just need to check something real quick.”

The minotaur made his way to a screen stationed on a wall dead center between two of the maze embedded buildings. These things, devised through Antlertean magitek, were placed all over the city. Minotaur rarely messed with anything their enslaved deer produced, confusing as they were, but this particular contraption had an easy means to get what he wanted from it. Pulling a small glowing crystal from a pouch attached to his loincloth, the minotaur found a slot at the bottom of this fixture’s frame. An inserting of the powered stone into the slot was all it took to activate the device, with the screen coming to life, granting a bird’s eye view of Minopolis upon it.

“Hold on,” Alice said, leaving her seat to join the minotaur because of what she saw, “Is that a map of the city. I thought you minotaur didn’t need those.”

“We don’t,” spoke Babi begrudgingly at the notion that one of his kind might seek a guide to navigate this city, “It’s not the map I need, but this clock.” The minotaur pointed to the corner of the contraption, and there it stated the current time of a little pasted ten o’clock.

“Oh, it tells the time too.” Alice stated, looking at the numbers. It never ceased to amaze her how far ahead of the other species the Antlerteans were with their technology. “But if all you don’t need is a map, why did your people have one built?”

As if fate itself was answering her question, an Antlertean stag suddenly walked up to the screen. “Excuse me.” he said, stepping to Babi’s side to get a good look at the map. “Ok, so I’m here… and the master said to go to G9…” The male deer looked at the map intently, counting the amount of turns he’d have to take, leaving as soon as he believed he had figured out the way to his destination.

“As you can see,” said Babi while Alice watched the random stag walk away, “Our deer are not as adept at navigating this place as we minotaur, even those who have lived here since the construction of the city as it is now. It was honestly becoming a problem to send them on errands or let them leave the house. From my understanding, it got so bad that search parties had to be sent after lost does and stags. Eventually we got so fed up with having to hunt them down that the senate had to commission these maps to be built. Don’t ask me why they had to make it into some device that needs to be powered with their magic. The best I can assume is that they did it just to include the clock function to it so it had some benefit to us as well.”

And here I thought the maze was meant to be confusing to prevent slaves from finding the exit and making an escape, Alice thought to herself.

Though considering the situation more, knowing the location of the exit wouldn’t do a fleeing slave much good if its gate was closed. So long as that was there to prevent free entry and exit from the city, the outer wall of the city might as well have been solid.

“Looks like I’ll have to drop you off next, if I’m to make it to the Forum in time for my appointment.” Babi said, checking the clock one more time. “It’s shifting my order of deliveries a bit, but it shouldn’t be a problem. Get back in the cart. We’re leaving now.”

Alice did as she was told, and the minotaur took his place at the front, wasting no time in setting off to the next destination.

Not long after, the pair arrived at a small store set up not too far from the Forum. A general store, one built to accommodate the minotaur of this side of the massive maze city. It sold a little bit of everything, from clothing, to tools, to small Antlertean made knickknacks that served little purpose besides to sit on a shelf as parts on them moved about through the power of a small crystal charging it. Most of what it had to offer could be seen through a large window next to its front door, including a small section where they stocked food. This was not just a stop to drop off Babi’s reindeer passenger, but also one more place the farm bull needed to stop anyways.

Carrying a couple bushels of his purple peaches in his arms, Babi had Alice open the door for him and follow inside after, the two were greeted as they entered. “Welcome to Pasion’s Emporium.” said a feminine voice, immediately indicating that it was not the owner who was addressing them. “Oh, Babi! Is that you?”

“You know it is, Sophia.” Babi said back to an Antlertean doe standing behind the shop counter, otherwise ignoring her as he made his way over to some empty food displays. Setting his baskets on the floor, he turned to Alice. “Take the passion fruit out of the basket, and put them in these. After that, I’ll consider this trip paid for.”

Alice agreed to this with a nod, and silently got to work. However, the other deer in the store was not silent, as the minotaur’s deep voice was easy to pick up in this enclosed space. “‘Paid for’? Did one of your does break something important on the farm?”

Babi understood why the Antlertean would ask such a thing, as it was not a common practice to attribute any kind of ‘debt’ to one’s possessions. If a slave damaged a tool or ate produce without permission, that came out of his pocket, with no possible means to be reimbursed. It was one of the hazards of using slave labor instead of doing things yourself, that you might have to consider the damages they might cause as part of your budget.

“Mind your business,” Babi said, “And fetch your master for me. I need to discuss something with him. Something more important than the cost of wagon wheels and plough chisels.”

“Right away, sir.” the Antlertean said, ducking into a door right behind her counter.

Babi spent a moment looking around the shop as he waited, picking out some things he needed to restock his supplies back at the farm. Rope, nails, some order slips for fertilizer, and some other odds and ends. He had just about finished when the Antlertean doe returned, along with a minotaur Babi knew as Pasion.

This bull had purple eyes, and a body of black fur, with some white patches splotched around in random places on his body. Not that one would be able to tell with how he dressed, as the bull was covered from the neck down with a purple shirt that matched his eye color, a red sash, and long black pants that covered his figure far more than most minotaur would. This general estetic of garb was what the minotaur considered ‘merchant attire’, worn by the strictly business oriented minotaur who bought and sold goods, as it made them stand out among the rest of their kind, who preferred to keep their bodies mostly uncovered.

“Babi, my good business partner,” said this minotaur ecstatically, presenting himself as good natured and charismatic, the two most important qualities of any merchant, especially by those who used it as a means to hide their true intentions, “I thought this was going to be another routine exchange of goods today, else I would have been out here waiting for your arrival.” Stepping out from behind his counter, the merchant approached his fruit supplier with open arms. “What aside from your delivery brings you in today?”

Babi raised a hand, rejecting the embrace Pasion was offering, “Nothing lucrative, I fear. More a favor I want to ask of you.”

Pasion put his arms down, and considered his fellow minotaur’s words. ‘Favors’ were seldom asked for among the bovines, as the interest for such debts were often steep. “Don’t tell me you went over budget and need a loan. I’m cutting things pretty tight here myself.”

“Of course not,” Babi replied, while assuming that Pasion was not as bad off as he claimed, and that he was just trying to build on the debt of guilt Babi would accrue from such an ask, “It’s something fair simpler than that. Just… close your shop for ten minutes.”

Pasion gave the other minotaur a sideways glance, as it was clear this was not the actual request, and such an ask meant there was something secretive going on. Something that couldn’t be talked about in the back of the store, or risk someone else stepping in on.

“Sophia, shut down the shop for lunch break, and pull the window curtain closed.”

The doe got to work right away, locking the front door, flipping over the open sign, and making sure the window curtain reached one side of its frame to the other. “It’s done, master.”

“Ok, Babi,” Pasion said, intrigued, but not entirely amused by what it was this long term business partner of his might have been bringing to his doorstep, “You have ten minutes to explain what kind of trouble you are in.”

“No trouble at all,” Babi assured, “This is not something illegal, nor am I trying to pull you into some foolhardy investment. The favor is simple, but also difficult to explain. It will be easier to show than tell.”

Looking over to the cloaked deer standing in the produce section of the store, Babi gestured her to come over. Alice knew what had to happen if she was gonna stay here while Babi did his business with the minotaur king, as there was no way she’d be allowed to keep her hood up the entire time she waited if the store’s owner let her stay. Joining with the two minotaur, she lowered the covering and let her face be seen.

Pasion was surprised, to say the least, by what he saw, as he had never seen a deer with features quite like hers. “Babi, have you been selectively breeding your slaves to make this doe?” he asked, as it was the first thing he could rationalize when taking in this doe’s appearance. “I don’t know how you got her fur so bright, or her nose to be so broad, but I suppose it’s an interesting look. I couldn’t tell you if our brethren would find the novelty interesting enough to want to buy one though.”

Alice shot Babi a sideways glare, which the minotaur easily translated as ‘If you don’t tell him, I will’. “No, no.” Babi started, “I’m not making a sub breed of Antlerteans. I would have never been able to keep something like that a secret long enough for this doe to be as old as she is, and the fees for patenting such a thing is not something I want to deal with.”

“Then what’s going on here?” Pasion asked, “You’re not telling me you got first pick of a new breed brought in from across the sea, are you?”

Alice let out a groan, the frustration of being seen as another enslaved female getting to her. “I’m not his slave. I’m from across the sea, but I came here myself.”

The merchant minotaur had trouble processing that information, as every female he had ever met belonged to a minotaur. However, the other party in the room understood the situation plain as day.

“Master,” said the doe still standing behind the counter, who was leaning over it so far to get a better look at her guest that her little tail could be seen happily wiggling, “That’s a reindeer. One of the three lost tribes my kind left behind when we set sail to form our kingdom on this island. I can’t believe I’m getting to see one in person.”

“So… this girl is a visitor who came here on her own accord.” Pasion said, finally catching up to what was happening, “A… free female?”

“That is correct.” Babi said, “She showed up in my farm yesterday, and wanted to learn more about our culture. It seems like she’s trying to form an opinion about it, acting as a… hmmm… what would you call a creature who studies other creatures?”

“An anthropologist.” Sophia said, answering the question quickly.

“Then that is the role she is taking,” Babi said, just agreeing with what the Antlertean said, “She wanted a tour of the city, so she could understand how we do things here, but she is worried other minotaur would want to enslave her if they knew what she was.”

“I can understand that,” Pasion said, “It’s not hard to see one of the slaver’s guild might certainly slip her into a collar if they knew she was a breed not of our common deer stock.”

“Thank you!” Alice exclaimed, this being the first time her fears were confirmed by any creature of this kingdom.

“Anyways,” Babi continued, not wanting to feed into the reindeer’s beliefs that she was in some sort of danger, “The one place she didn’t want to go was to the Forum, so since my next delivery is going to be there, I was hoping you could watch her for a while. Long enough for a trip there and back.”

“Just watch her, you say.” Pasion had to admit this would be an easy task, seeing as he had not taken his eyes off her since her reveal.

“Oh come on master, let her stay.” Sophia pleaded, her tattoos glowing lightly to show how much she wanted to spend time with this foreign doe, “She doesn’t look like she’s the type to cause problems.”

“Fine, she can stay here while you finish your delivery.” Pasion agreed, “But I do have to say, this is a strange request.”

“One I hope I never have to ask of anyone else,” Babi said, going to the counter to get the items written down and their price deducted from what he’d be paid for his next delivery to this store, “But you have my thanks for taking up this burden.”

“Anytime, I suppose…” said Pasion, the situation making him show a level of discomfort only another minotaur could tell. It had to feel a bit weird, having a strange female in his store, the first creature from a foreign land that came here of her own volition, and the first ‘free’ female he had ever met. This was not something he could have anticipated or prepared for.

Still, the merchant’s doe seemed to be pleased, practically humming as she added the cost of Babi’s supplies to the ledger.

“I’ll try to be back in an hour,” Babi said as he made his leave.

Once outside, the farm bull wasted no time collecting his cart and heading the most direct path to the Forum, moving as fast as his bulky bovine body would take him without exerting himself. He hoped that all of this would go off without issue, not liking the secrecy, but understanding the paranoia the reindeer possessed.

While laws were in place, and not all minotaur were out to put every female into a collar, the king himself highly supported the subjugation of all non-minotaur species, which was a sentiment shared by enough people in Minopolis that the idea of an eventual invasion of foreign lands was a common topic of discussion. A majority of the senate seemed to oppose something like a full scale takeover of other nations, due to the potential cost and risks of such a venture, but they made no efforts to actually bring an end to the slavery policies Minopolis held. Their kind enjoyed the benefits of having another species bound in servitude to them to want to ‘do the right thing’, and grant the Antlerteans their freedom, even though the population crisis that started this had long since been averted.

These were not matters for a simple farmer like Babi though. Better to let the politicians bicker among one another, than to put stock in things that he had little say about in the first place.

The store opened up again shortly after Babi left, as soon as Pasion got Alice set up with a place she could sit and wait in the back, out of sight of any customers. During this time, Alice requested to the minotaur that he didn’t speak of her to anyone, even after she had left the city.

While the minotaur merchant had no obligation to keep the doe’s visit a secret, he could see no benefit in revealing it either. He wouldn’t even get so much as a finders’ fee for simply saying he saw a new kind of deer in the city. “I’ll consider it an NDA between me and Babi.” he said, knowing that his business associate would not appreciate any nonsense being brought to his doorstep over this.

With that settled, Pasion went back to the work he was doing before having to deal with this situation, which turned out to be taking inventory of all the items stored in the back, and checking his records to see if everything matched up.

By this point, Alice was practically being ignored by the shop owner, which the reindeer had mixed feelings about. She didn’t believe she and this new minotaur would have anything to discuss that she hadn’t already heard from Babi, but it also felt like she was being dismissed on the merit that she was a deer. This was a baseless conclusion, only assumed because of the minotaur didn’t see the deer they enslaved as equals, but Alice didn’t find it an unlikely premise that she was seen the same.

It was fine though, since Alice was only here to wait until Babi returned. She did her best to wait quietly and mind her own business, but with nothing else to occupy her time, she found her eyes drifting over to watch Pasion tally his stock. It was so strange, seeing this beast of a creature, who’s enslaved doe was minding the front counter at that very moment, going about his day like any other shop owner. It nearly offended her with how ridiculously mundane and normal this was. Not just this moment, but the entire trip. She had been expecting more of what she had seen in the slave market, where the deer were being irrefutably exploited, but the minotaur were not meeting up with her expectations at all.

Before entering Minopolis, the Gift Giver had zero doubt that she would see slaves bound in restrictive and exposing ways, towed around town by leashes that were pulled taut due as those wearing the collars they were attached to resisting like their lives depended on it. That public displays of intercourse upon females would be rampant in the streets, where she would have to constantly avert her eyes to avoid witnessing purely non-consensual acts. Casual gropings, acts of discipline and humiliation inflicted upon the oppressed citizens of this land for no reason, and tears flowing without end from the eyes of a victimized population. These were what Alice was prepared for. She was not prepared for tranquility and open endorsement of the minotaur’s tyranny.

Alice swore she had seen things like this when she had projected her consciousness into the future, but now she was wondering if that was all something she deluded herself into believing. She loathed to think it, but things were far too peaceful in this city. It was hard to root out the corruption when it was hidden behind the smiles of those who had every right to be angry or miserable. The Antlerteans, far as the reindeer could tell, had zero issue with how their masters treated them. Alice was having a hard time maintaining her belief that they were being mistreated, since she had seen so many freely walking around the city during the ride on Babi’s cart.

None of the minotaur Alice had revealed herself to had tried to make so much as a motion to capture her. None of the deer gave the slightest objection to their status in this kingdom. How could a society built upon such overt evil and despicable practices be so subtly idyllic and picturesque?

It was all so perplexing. It would only be three years till things would be the way she had experienced them before, with the more apparent examples of minotaur perversion and those enslaved showing distaste for what was being done to them. What would change in that time, and why wasn’t it that way now? Only one thing came to mind, and that was that the minotaur would eventually set their sights on the kingdoms outside of their own.

Now that she thought about it, the Antlerteans had never shown an ounce of resentment to any of this, and it was always an outside species that went against their bovine masters. Every Antlertean had come to accept their lot in life, and were raised from birth to be happy participants in this culture. If the minotaur never left this island, they would have a perfectly peaceful society where all were happy to be a part of it. As she dwelled on it all more and more, a stray thought hit Alice. Shouldn’t this be enough to pay back the debt deerkind owed the minotaur.

The bovines had a kingdom, a thriving population, and enough consenting bodies that they would never have to worry about dying out ever again. Anything more felt like greed on the part of the minotaur. The Antlerteans had suffered and sacrificed for the sins of all other deer. If Alice was to grant this ‘debt’ any validity, was it wrong of her to think this way about it? Why was it prophesied that she had to give herself over to the minotaur? Likewise, why would she be so willing to do so when it would only bring misery to those the minotaur would force into sexual servitude when that time came?

The reindeer came here seeking answers, and she was having trouble remembering what the questions even were. She wanted to avoid her fate as a minotaur breeding slave. She wanted to find a peaceful means to stop the minotaur from inflicting this on her, and all the others she had seen enslaved in the future. She did want to liberate the Antlerteans too, but that looked to be unlikely when they didn’t seek freedom in the slightest. Could all of this be resolved by convincing the minotaur that they have no need to ever leave their island? Was that even possible?

As the reindeer contemplated this possibility, the minotaur in the room suddenly stepped away from the item-filled shelves, and headed for the door to the store front. As he opened the door, he caught his doe just as she was finishing up with a customer, saying ‘And have a nice day!’ to a couple of deer who had stopped to buy some of the freshly stocked fruit.

Pasion waited for the bell above his entry door to sound as they departed, and then said to his doe, “It’s break time.”

“Yes, master.” Sophia replied, her tone still as cheerful as she had presented it before, closing up the register and swapping places with the bull. With him manning the counter, she went back into the storage area, the door closing behind her.

If it were any other day, she would have immediately taken a seat to relax her hooves after hours of standing and attending to the needs of the many creatures coming in to make purchases, but today someone was already occupying her chair, and the presence of this guest filled her with enough energy to not need to rest.

“Sooooo…” Sophia said, targeting the reindeer immediately after the door closed, “How are you enjoying your visit to Minopolis so far?”

“Ummm…” Alice replied, not expecting to be put on the spot like this, since the minotaur had left her alone, “I don’t think that ‘enjoying’ is the right way to describe my time here.”

“Ah, well I guess that makes sense. You are an outsider.” the tattooed doe said, stating things with the confidence of one knowing exactly what they were talking about, while Alice didn’t have a clue what she was referring to. Luckily for the reindeer, the enslaved doe would follow up with an explanation, “We don’t often see new faces on this island, but every once in a while the masters go on a voyage and bring back some new creatures, usually ponies. When that happens, they don’t exactly act like all the others who have been here all their lives.”

“Can you blame them?” Alice asked, more a statement than an actual question.

“No,” Sophia replied, “I get that creatures from beyond the island aren’t used to belonging to another creature. Had enough chats with enough of them to get why. I just thought you’d be different since you were here of your own free will, and that being free might give you a different perspective.”

Alice stifled her thoughts, knowing by now that the Antlerteans did not see enslavement as a normal creature would. “A different perspective? How am I not supposed to see this place as some warped excuse of a kingdom? Excuse me for saying this, but I came here thinking your ‘masters’ were a bunch of savages. I thought you Antlerteans were being exploited and abused, but no matter how many of you I see or talk to, none of you seem the least bit upset about being under the minotaur’s rule.”

Sophia took a moment to think about what Alice was saying, “Abused? Not usually. Exploited? Absolutely. At least I would assume that’s how it looks from the perspective of an outsider. The minotaur put us to good use, and we do receive little in return outside of privileges that you probably take for granted where you’re from. We just don’t focus so much on the bad parts of it. Let me put it this way. Have you ever been punished for doing something you weren’t supposed to do?”

“Like what?” Alice asked, unsure of where the other does’ question was leading, “I never did anything criminal if that’s what you’re asking.”

“No, no,” Sophia said, shaking her head, “Like have you ever had your hand slapped for trying to sneak a snack, or broke something on purpose and got disciplined by your caregivers?”

“I mean, I suppose so,” Alice replied, knowing that while being a Gift Giver made her special among her tribe, she was still subjected to the occasional spanking prior to her gaining her powers and joining the other seers.

“And you also have been rewarded for doing good deeds, right?” asked Sophia.

“Of course.” Alice replied again.

“While you might not see it this way, what the masters do to us has little difference from that. In this kingdom, we are cared for by the minotaur. We get homes, food, and a purpose. We are punished when we disobey, and are rewarded when we follow the rules given to us. The only thing standing in the way of an outsider understanding why we can be happy living like this is that you’ve never lived by our rules.”

“That’s…” Alice didn’t want to believe it was that simple. Other species from the lands she came form had different rules as well, but their cultures didn’t give her the same kind of distaste as Minopolis.

“Maybe if I were to go to a land across the sea, I’d think their people were being mistreated too.” Sophia added, “And no matter where I went, they wouldn’t see a problem with how their kingdom did things either.”

“So you really don’t see any problem with being treated like property?” Alice questioned, as if she needed to be reassured of the Antlertean position on the matter one more time.

“No,” Sophia replied, “But maybe the reason I don’t mind being a slave is because I don’t feel like a slave.”

“I see,” Alice said, taking this doe’s opinion on the matter as an example of how most of her kind felt about it, having seen nothing that hinted to the contrary. If there were outliers to this general consensus, the reindeer had not seen the slightest sign of it. “So you all see the minotaur as… benevolent leaders then?”

“I would not go as far as to call them ‘benevolent’.” Sophia said, “As content as we are with servitude to them, we still acknowledge that they did what they did. It’s just… A lot of the minotaur who did that aren’t the ones we deal with day to day.”

A look of confusion grew on Alice’s face, not following what the Antlertean meant. How were these minotaur, who were currently occupying this stolen kingdom, not the same ones who stole it to begin with?

“You do know how minotaur make more minotaur, right?” Sophia added.

“Yes, I do.” Alice answered, “I also know part of the reason they took your kingdom over was to make doing that easier, right?”

“Would what I said make more sense if I told you my master is younger than me?” said Sophia, not wanting to spell out her point for her guest.

Alice turned the Antlertean’s words over in her head a few times, not getting what it meant for a moment. Then she recalled something that made it clear, that being how Babi’s own mentor was reaching the end of his life.

“You mean literally,” Alice said, “That the minotaur you see and talk with aren’t the ones who took your kingdom from you, cause they are dying out.”

“Right,” Sophia confirmed, “It’s been a long time since then, and while some of the minotaur from that time are still alive, most haven’t been around for a while now. Only a few have been gifted with an exceptionally long life, like our king. In time though, even he will be gone.”

This was something Alice never would have considered on her own, and yet it made so much sense. The minotaur born in Minopolis were the sons of does, raised by deer, and while they might have had been taught some of the traits of the bulls that came before, their time in the care of their den mothers must have given them some level of compassion towards the Antlerteans. Likewise, the bucks and does born during this time were practically their family. This new generation of bovine males might still followed the general premise of the culture and traditions their forefathers had made, for whatever reasons they might have come to, but they clearly sought out ways to make things easier for those they laid claim on.

This was the most amazing discovery Alice had stumbled upon since arriving, finally grasping how this culture could be the way it was. However, this strange form of social cohesion didn’t apply to those who have since been kidnapped and taken from their lands. Thus, there was still something that Alice had to fix and prevent, but learning how the deer and minotaur coexisted, and that she didn’t need to rescue one from the other, was like a great weight being lifted from Alice’s shoulders.

“You know, I think that puts things in a way that I finally get it.” Alice said with a smile that displayed her satisfaction with this explanation, “It’s just so weird that your culture has developed in such a way. If I hadn’t seen it with my own eyes, I’d never have believed it.”

“Glad to be of help,” Sophia replied, expressing how pleased she was by involuntarily making the markings on her body glow slightly, “I do have a few more minutes before my break is over. Got anything else I can help you with before I get back to work?”

“Actually, yeah,” Alice said, now really excited to learn more about the inner workings of Minopolis. “Can you tell me what the ‘Deer Depository’ is?”

Some time after the two does talk, Babi returned with his cart nearly empty of all produce, save for a few remaining baskets of purple peaches left inside. It had not taken him too long to deliver the order to the Forum, taking a little over an hour.

Pasion had spotted his approach, and already informed Alice that her ride had returned. The reindeer put her hood back over her head, and went out to meet Babi before he could make his way back inside. She did not do so in a hurry though, each step feeling slow and heavy.

“I hope the wait wasn’t too dull,” Babi said, “I did as much as I could to prevent delay.”

“It’s fine,” Alice said coldly, placing a hand on the seat of the cart, hoisting herself into it, “Let’s just finish your delivery and get out of here.”

“Did something happen?” Babi asked, as the reindeer had not been in this quick a rush to leave before.

Alice didn’t reply. She was having trouble finding the words. Her silence would have been telling, if not for another voice interrupting it.

“Hey!” Sophia said, calling from the store entrance, waving to get Alice’s attention. Not even needing a response, she dashed over to Alice’s side, getting the reindeer to turn her head her way. “I know our talk didn’t end off as well as it started.”

“That’s… not your fault.” Alice replied, trying to be polite, while still trying to process her thoughts about what she had been told.

“I know,” Sophia said back, “But I’d still feel bad if you left like this. So I asked master, and he said I could give you this as a gift for stopping by.”

The Antlertean presented to Alice a passion fruit, one of the ones from the batch Babi had delivered that day. Not really thinking, Alice took the fruit from Sophia’s hand, and looked to Babi.

“If he wants to give it to you, then I have no objections.” Babi replied, “Just keep it separate from the batch in the back.”

“Thanks.” Alice said, placing the purple peach into an inner pocket of her cloak.

Sophia could tell this did little to improve the reindeer’s mood, but she had to accept it for now. “You’re welcome. And hey, if you ever end up back in Min… I mean, if you’re ever in this part of Minopolis again, feel free to stop by.”

Alice gave the doe a nod, then faced forward, prompting the Antlertean to head back inside. The moment the door was closed, Babi began his trek to his final delivery destination.

For a few blocks he walked in silence, feeling that asking any more questions about Alice’s stay with his business partner would not be well received by his passenger. After a few blocks though, the silence between the two was broken, as the reindeer asked a single question.

“Why didn’t you tell me how the slaves were stored at the Deer Depository?”

Author's Note

So this one came out a little later than intended. It needed a bit of a rewrite at one point, which delayed it by a few days, but all in all i enjoyed how this one came out. For those wondering, I am going to add a few more chapters to this in January (as I have done in previous years) and try to get it to a good place to set up for next year, where thing will start going a bit faster, and Alice's fate and goals go head to head with one another.

My goal with these "Cultural Exchange" chapters is to show that despite what those from other kingdoms would see as a major problem with Minopolis, the kingdom really isn't that bad when it comes to those living in it. Most of the monsters of their history are gone, with the few remaining being the king, his few remaining close allies, and some aging members of the minotaur senate (who had never been all in with how their king wanted to run things anyways, thus why they created a means to out vote him on many of his extreme ideals of how to treat the Antlerteans).

Minopolis isn't a kingdom of savage brutes and their victims, but one of two people who share a tragic history, and have decided to work with what they have. By our standards of morality, this would be a bizarre concept that few would agree with, but then again the Master/slave dynamic, or even just the concept of doms and submissive, has been a lifestyle that many chose to enter into. As the Antlertean slave of this chapter puts it, she might be a slave, but she doesn't feel like one, cause she is hardly treated as one.

I hope I presented that in a way that didn't feel forced, but I supposed it's up to the individual reader if I accomplished that. That aside, I hope you all enjoyed, and prepare for the next chapter, where we will see the less civilized side of Minopolis' citizens.