Maybe I acted too hastily, I must admit that my base aversion to the very thought of slaves means I acted emotionally. At the same time, how can a person not act emotionally about such a thing? If I had more rationally requested to come see the Snakemen, and waited until my charges had better grasped the situation, most likely they would have refused to allow me to get on a horse at all.

They really seem to be fearful of them, Miles is wholly convinced I now have a death-wish. Kavanagh is confident enough, probably thanks to his martial training, but his less-trained subordinates have a harder time hiding their apprehension, one of them shakes briefly out of the corner of my eye.

It is quite unusual, seeing as we took these people as slaves, at some point we had superiority of arms over them, and I imagine we were less fearful, though I guess at this point all the people that had fought in that war are dead and no one who has actual combat experience against them remains.

Really now, by Lugh's description, the ancestors of the current Snakemen were villagers who were too slow to run away when we came to loot their village. The place they lived in was probably very similar to Algatolla and so were its people.

In the end, all that’s left is the animosity between the two sides. Humans take Snakemen as slaves, but as Miles so politely reminds me over and over, so do Snakemen rulers take human slaves. Raiding is common in this era and this is the most common faith for prisoners taken, not many things can match the potential value of a sentient being pound for pound, beyond silver and gold.

Although, if the description given by Miles is true, having to face a Snakeman with no prior experience against them must be terrifying. Their neck is like the body of a snake and flexible, and can both extend and coil around itself, even with their necks coiled they absolutely tower over humans, apparently over six feet tall on average.

At this point though, I'm less scared of being in danger and more concerned that the nerves of my men will cause an incident I won't be able to smooth over, if they attack the Snakemen that will be it, I’m never gonna win over their trust. I am absolutely positive they will not allow me to meet the slaves on my own, though.

Am I right for taking a stand? Getting angry about things in a place I don’t understand, against people that have been hurt by the conflict in a way I can’t understand? These Snakemen I’m about to meet have had their lives stolen away by humans, likewise, there certainly are families in my domain who have lost much to Snakemen.

Lull is safe from a kingdom bothering to conquer it, given how poor it is, but not from raids. There was a raid a few years ago, apparently, and they took quite a few people away. How would the families of those taken feel about what I’m about to do?

I didn’t even know what the hell a Snakeman was until today. Maybe I really am over my head.

To tell everyone to make peace and forget the past, like we’d all suddenly become best friends and live happily ever after together? Such an ideal vision belittles the emotions of everyone’s who have been hurt so badly by our actions, they are all justified to be angry, fearful and skeptical.

But no, that’s beside the point.

All that matters is that there is injustice happening right in front of me right now, and it’s injustice I have the power to fix. I can’t fix everything and make the world ideal, but I can change this much. Whatever else, this one action I’m taking is rightful, maybe things will get more complicated.

The first step of a new path will always be frightening and filled with doubt. But if I want to change things here for the better, it’s not good enough to just make this place richer. I will make it somewhere anyone will feel welcome to live in, without fear nor doubt.

Yes. I take a long, deep breath and exhale… I’m so worried, but I actually feel a lot more resolute about what I’m doing, now. I’m not gonna modernize this island just because, I have a very good reason for it, and I swear I will do it.

We rode all day long, until we finally reach the small village of Tristan a fair bit after sundown, we greet the local administrator and commandeer the houses of a few craftsmen to stay the night, much as I want to camp and not disrupt these people's lives, but both Kavanagh and Miles insist that at least I should sleep in a house.

Afterward, we continue southwards and then west as we reach closer to Sarda. As it is right now, most transportation in the island is done along the coast, it would be useful if we could cut through the middle, but as the land is very mountainous in the center so this won't be feasible for a long time.

We arrive at Sarda in the dead of night, so we must once again stop to rest. In the morning we find the locals responsible for keeping the Snakemen in check, they accompany us some ways up a dirt road, winding along the landscape into a forested area, until finally reaching our destination, Kavanagh orders them to stay with us but I intervene, the fewer people here the better, in my view.

For their part they thankfully quickly depart after I allow them to, not wanting to deal with the slaves any more than they absolutely have to.

There is their camp, a few hovels with so many holes I wonder how much they can protect from the elements. There is an open fire cooking up some sort of stew, and finally some Snakemen around it.

I dry swallow. No getting cold feet now, let’s do this.