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"Please, lord Lycan, we have no money to pay the taxes this month. You have too many soldiers for our lower class to support." pleaded a low born peasant who was kneeling in front of the throne, six other peasants kneeling behind her.

The ones in front of the throne were a family of rabbits, four girls and 2 boys, they looked to be in their mid teens. They were dressed in tattered rags, clearly evidence they were from one of the lowest of families.

Lycan sat in the throne, a strong and imposing wolf. His fur was jet black, he had golden yellow eyes. His body was finely toned, weighing at 200 lbs of muscle mass, and that weight was only increased by his finely polished, silver plated armor, with magma red cloth embroidered into it. He crossed his arms, leering at the groveling rabbit as she made her case.

"If you don't have the money to support our troops, then you can do so with your bodies." he decreed, "Guards, put them in chains, and dispatch a unit to their village to round up the rest of their family. The females will breed meat for our troops, and service their urges when not in heat. The males will be used as food." He ordered, and as the rabbits looked up in shock, several canine guards marched up to the throne with shackles, restraining the begging and screaming rabbits before dragging them from the court room.

"My lord, you brother Moon returns from the academy." said another guard who entered the throne room as the rabbits were lead outside. Lycan seemed to cheer up at the news and beckoned with a paw. The guard nodded and with a sweeping presentation of his arms, Moon, Jakra, and Skalma entered the throne room, although Moon was looking over his shoulder at the new slaves as they were lead out.

"Ah, my little brother returns as a proud mage!" Lycan greeted excitedly, "Welcome home, Moon, I see you kept that otter with you, and maybe acquired some new stock as well?" He rose from his throne, advancing towards the wolf who finally turned his attention back to him.

"Actually, brother, I freed Jakra. She's my body guard now, and this is Skalma, our bard." Moon corrected. Lycan face pawed with a sigh at the revelation of Jakra being freed, but he didn't sound angry, but rather more like he was pitying a niave child.

"Oh, you're still clinging to that, are you?" Lycan asked, "Father and I hoped some time on the road would teach you better, but evidently not." He moved his paw away from his face as Moon looked at him in confusion, as Lycan began to explain.

"Maybe it was our fault." he began, "We kept using the words like nobility and honor, we should have used superiority and power. You grew up thinking we held our position because of our charisma. You clearly would never have survived in the food chain if you didn't show mage talents." Lycan said, and as Moon listened, it slowly began to sink in what he was trying to tell him. His family was, still is, just as speciesist and corrupt as the others?

"After you left, father decided to correct that mistake from happening again, so we began teaching Crescent the proper ways of the nobility, you should have seen how proud father was when she turned out to be a mage as well. Our family is growing quite famous since then." Lycan continued, a grin of pride on his muzzle as his eyes seemed to peer off into the distance at the memories.

"Wait, you mean all this time..." Moon asked, "We've been a family of tyrants?" he finished, his mouth hanging open, he could scarcely believe the reputation and honorable pride he had spent his life imagining his family to be was little more than a child's fantasy.

"Well how did you think we fended off assassins, spies, and usurpers all these years?" Lycan asked, "We thought it was cute watching you pretend everyone loved and cherished our family, but we thought for sure you'd give up such fantasies as you grew older. It was one reason why father chose to give you a slave as a parting gift, so you could witness first hand what it was like to be a high ranking family. Its also why Crescent wasn't given one, she already knows the privelages of her station." the older brother monologued.

"So now you know the truth." Lycan finished, "If you want to change your ways, I could have both those girls in shackles for you." He offered, but Moon held up a paw signalling a negative as he soaked in the information that everything he thought his family was about had just been a fantasy.

"I - I'm sorry brother." Moon said, "I have indeed learned much of how the world works over the years, but I didn't want to believe our own family took part in such acts." He explained, "I would like a meal and some rest, I've had a long journey." He requested. Lycan nodded and snapped his fingers.

"Take my brother and his... companions... to the feasting hall. We have a celebration to begin!" Lycan ordered, and the guard that let the three of them into the throne room began to escort them back out again.

A couple hours later, the feast had been prepared and much of the estate was filling their bellies. Moon noticed the two chickens from earlier had been defeathered, gutted, and tied to a large spit, being slowly roasted over a large fire. There were giant cauldrons with chunks of meat from other slaves simmering in broth with a variety of herbs and spices. Not every member of the guards were predators, so there were at least some meals which had vegetation in their recipes.

"Eat up boys, we have plenty more meat where that came from!" shouted one of the beast folk attending to the buffet line, it was one of the chefs, and he was holding a chain of 10 other slaves of various species and genders who looked terrified they could be used as second helpings at any moment. Given the large number of soldiers, they'd be lucky if more than half of them survived.

Moon was sitting at an elevated table plat form where the top ranking family members were eating. The lower ranking family ate on a separate plat form away from the common soldiers, and the guests of the family ate on a lower platform than that. All three platforms were overlooking the soldiers who were lined up at several tables.

Jakra and Skalma were on the third platform, Moon had been allowed a place at the top due to being a mage, he was sitting directly beside his brother, Lycan. Yet his appetite was not as strong as it had been previously, his mind was too distracted. Rather than digging into the hearty meal before him, he silently chewed it respectfully.

He shouldn't be this shook up, everything he had seen in the past 6 years made it blatantly obvious that his childish ideals were rarely felt even by other children who were his age. Common peasants subjugated each other purely based on species and diet, it wasn't just between different caste systems! Still, the last glimmer of hope for difference that he had clung to had all been a big misunderstanding. It was depressing to say the least.

Below him, he saw Jakra eating her meal easier than he was, yet she could tell he was disheartened, and kept passing glances up to him when she could. Skalma didn't seem fased at all, and was helping herself to the meal before her. Not too big a surprise, she had only just met them and wasn't aware of Moon's back story, and unlike them, she hadn't been raised in high life status, so this treatment was common place for her. A feast at a noble's table was probably one of the greatest moments in her otherwise difficult life.

"A toast!" Lycan shouted, causing Moon to jump a bit as he was startled out of his mood by his brother rising from his seat, " Today, my little sister, Crescent leaves to train at the academy. But in her absence, we welcome the return of Moon, who left for the academy six years ago and returns to us as a fully recognized mage!" He declared, showing off Moon with a wave of his free paw. The other family members gave sounds of applause, while the soldiers below erupted into cheers of pride and congratulations. They held their cups up in toast before downing their drinks.

"Let us hope that the Solar Swords continue to produce more mages throughout the ages." Lycan continued, "Maybe some of you would like to get to work on that tonight, eh?" He added, getting several laughs and giggles from the lower family members before he sat back down to return to his meal.

The rest of the feast eventually escalated to something more wild among the soldiers. Once most of the food had been consumed, slaves were brought in for entertainment, to which the drunken soldiers quickly indulged in their perverted urges. Some of Moon's distant family members retired to private rooms for the night to be with their married spouses, others chose to stick around and enjoy the rest of the party. Moon ate enough to satisfy his appetite and sighed.

As it currently stood, he was likely the only high ranking predator in the land who felt empathy for the lower classes, or at least part of a very small minority, for he hadn't encountered any others who felt the same way. How much longer would it be, before he was just as degraded at them? Years, decades, centuries? It seemed pretty foolish holding to his ideals in a world where nobody else shared them.

"I'm going to bed." He muttered, before rising from his seat and leaving the party. Seeing this, Jakra quickly followed after him, both because of her new profession, and because she knew the emotions going through his mind at the moment. Skalma seemed to be hesitant to leave, but after finally deciding that it would be too dangerous being around drunken, horny soldiers, she pouted as she scampered off with her fellow party members, snatching a final sweet roll off the table as she left.

As Lycan watched his brother and his companions leave, he rolled his eyes before sighing. This had gone on long enough. He couldn't have it be known that the first mage in 3 generations showed compassion and pity to those beneath his station, their enemies would begin to think the family had grown weak and soft. It was time for his little brother to grow up, and he had just the contingency plan in mind to force his brother into it.