He saw the contingent of humans approaching a while ago, but other than informing some of his fellows nearby, he thought it would be best to observe for now. The others, looking to him, agreed.

It was an unusual party, he reasoned, nine people all on horses, seven of them carried expensive weapons and armor. The only ones on the island with the resources to arm themselves thus were the Royals.

Whatever reason they had to show up then, he did not know, and that's why he explained to his fellows they should be cautious.

They were born on this island, already slaves, working their entire lives in the mines and deprived of freedom or education. They did not know many things about this world and instead came to rely on him and the others who had been recently captured.

As the party came closer to their camp more and more Snakemen took notice and, spreading the news, all of them became aware of the humans, yet did not move. The Snakemen were many, but deprived of proper nutrition and education at arms the seven guards armed with swords and shields would be more than enough to best any rebellion.

As the humans approached, he saw that a woman led them. She calmly dismounted from her horse in front of the camp, she then said without much fanfare. “I am the monarch of this island, Petty Queen Eriu of Lull, I'd like to talk to you; whoever is your leader, if you would be so kind.”

This immediately made him concerned, why would the queen request an audience with slaves? This had all the air of typical human treachery.

All the same, once she mentioned a leader, all others looked to him, with a small sigh he got up from where he was sitting, and slowly shuffled towards the party.

A man beside the queen stepped towards him as he came closer, but she held him back with her arm and came forward herself instead, gazing at the man, “Don't worry”.

She certainly looked like a queen or at least wealthy, if nothing else. She wasn't wearing a dress, but her quilted clothes were clean, expertly-made and warm, a sign of wealth, she also had the green eyes customary to people from Aedhag, which was the ancestral home of the royal house of this island, if he recalled correctly.

She turned towards him, her facial expression betrayed no clear purpose “Are you the leader?” he nodded “What is your name?”

He thought for a second before spitting out “Silver-Eyes.”

The man beside her started to step forward again, saying something about etiquette, “A slave must kneel before his liege, and never look them in the eye” but the woman quickly shushed him.

“That is the name we gave you, but is it your true name?” he was surprised by this question, a lot of slavers would christen their loot anew, completely disregarding their old names.

When he first set foot on this island, a bureaucrat looked over him and the others and without asking turned to the pirates that had captured them, he asked the pirates for names, age, illnesses and so on. The pirates said their catch was healthy and young but did not know their names, so the bureaucrat gave them new ones on the spot and he filled documentation. He was called Silver-Eyes unsurprisingly because of his eye color.

“Why do you want to know?” Silver-Eyes asked bitterly.

“The most important things to me are respect and understanding, if I do not use your real name, I neither respect nor bother to understand you. So I would like to know your actual name,” she said many weird things for a human, especially for a queen.

“…My name is Casteddu” he finally replied, after considering everything for a few seconds, “So, why have you come before us today, your majesty?”

“It is nice to meet you, Casteddu” The queen gave him a small bow to the astonishment of her guards “I have recently started to administer the island and have decided to change certain arrangements, especially concerning your people.” This left a bitter taste in Casteddu's mouth, he had nothing but suspicion of humans, although their situation was already precarious, he was afraid it would only get worse.

“Oh, by the way, all the books I have on the subject of Beastfolk refer to your people as Snakemen, is this how you refer to yourselves?”, an inane question out of nowhere sent him into a state of confusion, just as he had steeled himself for whatever vile thing she would impose upon them.

He did not know if she was a master negotiator constantly throwing her opponent off-balance or simply a naive idiot with a little bit more empathy than your average human.

Seeing the expectation of the party in front of him, he composed himself and decided to answer without betraying any signs of unease, “We call ourselves Arboreans, and we categorize things a bit differently from you humans. For us there is no such thing as Beastfolk; one of us and a Taurean have about as much in common as a snake and bull, so why should we be grouped together? It is a weird distinction created by you.”

“Besides,” He continued, spite getting the best of him “what is the idea of Manfolk? You say that you are purer because you have no animal characteristics. But most of you have rosy skin like pigs, live in the mud like pigs, don’t bathe like pigs, are you not pigs? Pigmen is how we refer to you in the mainland.” He immediately thought he said too much there in the end, and expected punishment, the men around the woman certainly looked about ready to go hit him, but she simply nodded.

“You are right. Then excuse me for using the other terms beforehand, from now I shall refer to you as Arboreans.” She coughed to clear her throat, “Today, I'd like to free the Arboreans of this island”