He put up his fists. He was ready for whatever was to come. Why had he instigated this situation again in the first place? No, it didn't matter. This wasn't something he thought through in the first place, it wasn't something he should really think about. Or so he felt.

Benjamin wasn't a warrior by any means, but he did take quite a few self-defense lessons at his father's insistence. He hoped he would at least not be completely destroyed... Whoa, when was that guy so near? Benjamin managed to block the first probing jab. Ouch! That hurt! It was by no means as good as the ones used by imperial Knights or the Princes, but his arms were mechanically augmented. How strong exactly was that Katzgart fellow? Well, Layla did warn him...

“Oof, so that's one of those rumored imperial augments? It's been a long time since my fist hurt this much from hitting something. This might actually end up pretty fun?”

Benjamin had never seen a cat smile before. It sent chills down his spine. It wasn't so much that he was a dog person, but he honestly had never been that great with cats... No good! If he didn't pay attention, he would easily end up on the floor from Katzgart's attacks. They came one after another, faster and faster, until, was that a kick? He saw it coming, he knew it would hurt like hell if he didn't block it, but he also knew that it was too late.

He was thrown off his foot by the force of the kick. As he hit the back on the floor all air escaped him. Fuck, was it already over?

“Benjamin!”

He could hardly see it, but it seemed like like Layla stepped up? Idiot! What was she doing? If she got hurt. Strangely enough, Katzgart froze in place.

“Get out of the way, disgusting thing! The business I have is with you handler! I'd rather not even touch you...”

Disgusting thing? Not even touch? Is he talking about Layla? How... Dare he! Through sheer anger, Benjamin managed to stand up and go after Katzgart, deftly going around Layla.

“What are you saying to her?”

He thought he might get a blow in, but the cat easily deflected his blow and threw him on the ground. By now, the fight had attracted quite a few people. Katzgart shouted as much for the spectators as he did for Benjamin.

“The truth! What else? Look at her! She looks almost human, yet so completely inhuman, like so many others! Other rulers might accept them, but I won't! It's already a huge favor that I even let something like her step in this city!”

Then he tried landing a few punches on Benjamin's face, but with his free arm, Benjamin blocked most of them. It hurt, really bad. He probably had a broken nose... Katzgart let go of him, looked like he was satisfied, probably thinking Benjamin had had enough for now. Oh how wrong he was... Benjamin stood up and raised his fists once again.

“What's wrong with how she looks? From my point of view, you're a weird bipedal cat. Is that really a good way of judging someone's content of their character?”

Oh shit, he looked angry. Katzgart probably didn't like to be called that... It was no use, Benjamin could block almost none of the attacks that came, and the blows came, one after the other, unrelenting. The best Benjamin could do was keep standing. He had to stand.

“You think you're funny or something? What's with that look? Do you think you're better than me or something? More moral? I could break every single one of your bones right now! Don't think I won't fucking kill you for this kind of thing just because you're protected by the Duke!”

As if to drive that point home, he grabbed Benjamin by his clothes and lifted him with one arm, preparing to hit with his other hand, which was already balled into a fist. Benjamin had no more strength to resist.

Before he could hit Benjamin, Layla grabbed his arm in an act of desperation.

“Please! Isn't this enough?”

Katzgart's reaction was instantaneous, as if he had just touched a hot stove. He let got of Benjamin and jerked around in such a way that Layla fell on the ground. He trembled of anger and frustration, letting a heavy breathing that was not not commensurate with the ease with which he was beating Benjamin.

“Don't, fucking, touch me!” He kicked Benjamin before he said anything in protest. “What is wrong with the two of you? Are you here just make me look ridiculous? Shame me? Undermine me? Is the Duke finally resorting to an underhanded method of getting me out of power?”

He lifted Benjamin off the ground, this time with both hands, looking him intently in the eye, looking for an answer. That was Benjamin's objective all along, this exact scene. He was barely conscious by now, but he managed to say what he wanted to say.

“If you think this makes you look bad, then you should think hard about why it makes you look bad.”

This seemed to make Katzgart even angrier, but he did nothing. After all, the Katzgarts had not maintained themselves as rulers of Palma by being unable to feel the mood of people. All around them, what did the people think, what did the people feel? No matter how you slice it, Katzgart looked like a bully, beating up on a man who stood up for his principles and the fair treatment of a companion who clearly also cared about him. He looked like a tyrant, abusing someone unfairly. This was the kind of image that the Katzgarts managed to avoid for centuries now, even while maintaining a strong hold on power. Katzgart let go of Benjamin, seemingly much more calm. He spoke with a low voice, almost like a whisper, with barely contained fury.

“Fine, you win. But I promise you, one day I will make you regret this. Mark my words.” Then he spoke loudly, so everyone watching would hear him. “You have but a week to recover and leave my city. This is but a simple lesson that I hope this man has learned. Follow the law, and such a thing will never befall you.”

Then he left that place. An angry expression still on his face.

\

The next few days for Layla and Benjamin were quite a bit more complicated than she had anticipated, though for a different reason than the originally thought. To be honest, even after the situation kind of resolved itself and Benjamin got out of the fight without a permanent injury, she was still ambivalent to the whole thing.

On one hand, she would be lying if she said she didn't enjoy the dinner, even with all of the looks on them, and she couldn't be unhappy that he went so far for her. But on the other hand, it did hurt her to see him lying on a hospital bed with cracked bones all over. An on the third side... She certainly didn't like being constantly bothered by journalists seeking a statement on what had happened. Although, Benjamin didn't seem to mind it so much.

“Well, I'm just an idiot. I didn't really think it through. I honestly just think that judging people by their appearance is wrong, if you ask me about it, I can't really make a really good argument for it, but... I just feel it. It's not that I wanted to call out or provoke Mayor Katzgart, I just want people like my friend here to be accepted.”

Once again he was speaking to journalists. Meh, hypocrites. She remembered the names of the publications that they worked for from the last time she had been to Palma, not one of them had been a strong proponent of complete equality for all. Yet now, when this new stupid hero showed up, in a blaze of popularity, they all flock to the idea. Heh, hero, huh. That was a positive point of the whole thing she supposed. She hadn't even known him for very long, but now Benjamin was a very important person to her.

“And do you have to say about your experience of the event? Anything to say to Mayor Katzgart?”

And here they came for her statement! Damn it. What was with the first, extremely vague question? How stupid. And what that woman mean “Anything to say to Mayor Katzgart?”? There was no way Layla was going to antagonize him any more than she already had. Ugh, thinking back on it. They were still in a very bad situation. After she kept pestering Benjamin he did confess that Katzgart whispered to him that he would regret this whole thing. She in no way wanted to say something to Katzgart. Once again, she put on her best smile in front of the journalists.

“No comment.”

Fortunately it only took her repeating the same phrase three more times for the journalists to finally leave. Meanwhile, Benjamin was looking quite happy lying on the hospital bed.

“This is amazing! I never knew a place could have so many different news outlets. In the Empire we have only the state-controlled Imperial News.”

Oh, Imperial News, that dry boring propaganda thing that Layla had stopped bothering to read a week after having moved to Destroia. This really must be quite novel to him, so he probably looked at all that attention with a very naive mindset, never mind that probably not all of them would be flattering in their description of him.

“Well, I suppose this does count for a very interesting new experience for you. So, are you glad you came to the Wildlands?”

His smile in response was almost dazzling.

“Yes, of course! I'm counting on you to show me more interesting things!”

Looked like they were going to be together for a while yet. That was a... Comforting thought. But also raised some worries.

“As long as you don't try to get yourself killed at every stop... I'm happy that you did what you did, but I am still worried about you, you know?”

Of course, he averted his eyes for that conversation. Good grief, for someone that sometimes acted so scared, Benjamin sure didn't value himself as much as Layla would have liked.

It had been almost a week since that unpleasant event, but Katzgart was still incensed about it. Scattered on the desk of his home's office were every issue of every paper that talked about it. In the computer on the desk was open even single article written on the topic in city's network. He spoke with some of his friends through a voice-chat program.

“So, have you been reading the news? The whole thing didn't get as bad as you thought, in part thanks to me. You're welcome by the way. But it still doesn't look very good.”

That was Jean Sorel, owner of a good number of publications in Palma, as well as a few other cities in the Wildlands. Katzgart certainly owed him a few favors this time around, even if only for the great chuckles. He turned to one of the articles featured in the Daily Palman which gave him a good laugh.

Unlikely hero a closet pervert?

After a quick recap of the incident, inserting more than a few implications here and there, the article painted a not so rosy picture of Benjamin Sutton as something of a thrill seeker that abused his closeness with Duke Prelestia as a way to have fun. As nobody was able to completely clarify his relationship with Layla, speculations abounded, as was regular for a tabloid such as the Daily Palman. Although it did take a few days, it did not take much effort to discover that the Insect-ascended mutant he was with, Layla, worked at a brothel in Destroia, which set the flames of speculation ever more ablaze.

Good, that fucker deserved every ounce of public embarrassment he got. But it was still not enough to divert people's attention from the whole problem. His glanced passed by an article: Segregation, right or wrong?

Contrary to the seemingly neutral title, the article was almost completely against the very notion of segregation, criticizing it from various angles. Katzgart sighed.

“Yep, it's pretty bad. I'm not sure how long I might be able to hold it. Yesterday, there were already a few council members calling for a need to at least revise, if not completely repeal the law. Stupid, they are way too focused on pleasing people and don't see the long term effects of things.”

It almost baffled him. One even had the nerve to call him a bigot. It hurt, but more than that, it made him angry. How dare they? Did they have no idea of the past?

“Hehe, you say that, but you didn't listen to your father when he told you to think of the long-term effects right after you took up your position as Mayor.”

The one who spoke this time was Obolochkov, a turtle-ascended who worked as security secretary of Palma for quite a few centuries now. Of course, what he was talking about was the time when Ludwig Katzgart, shortly after becoming Mayor of Palma, decided to work on amending the original segregation law, which only admitted non-mammal-ascended people in a very small sector of the city.

“You shouldn't give them a hand like that, soon enough they will ask you for an arm. Yeah, yeah, I remember that. I was younger and much more foolish then, just like that piece of shit, too worried about grandstanding to think things through. People used to think of me as a reformer, now I'm a reactionary bigot. Can't laugh at that, honestly.”

Yet he would still survive as Mayor. Through more and less authoritarian phases, the Katzgarts ruled Palma. When he was young, Ludwig Katzgart dreamed of ruling over an open, prosperous and free city. But there were very few things he was unwilling to sacrifice to make sure that it didn't destroy itself. Claws, words, fist, information and guns were all weapons available for holding on to power. If one of them was insufficient, no Katzgart would hesitate to reach for others. After all, they were the most suited to rule the city.

As they prepared to leave the city, Layla wasn't sure what was the most uncomfortable: The glaring guards acting as if somehow she and Benjamin might at any moment decide to stay in a city whose ruler very likely would have them murdered if he could do so without consequence, or Benjamin himself, cringing at every stupid insinuation or speculation the tabloids heaped on him.

At first, he seemed completely enamored of the idea of free press, greedily consuming everything he saw written about the current political climate of Palma. He didn't like it very much when it was constantly implied by tabloids that the two of them were lovers. Although Layla wouldn't mind if it was actually true, the feeling was in no way reciprocated by Benjamin. Still, did he have to look so bothered by it? He should have known that was going to be one of the end results. Surely, even the Empire had its share of gossiping?

“Come on, look at the guards, they are still glaring at us. Since we are going with a caravan, we have to keep a schedule.”

For someone who already swore off giving tabloids even a single other coin of product, he really cared about their opinions.

“But... What is wrong with these guys? I didn't mean any of that, and how can they infer so much from you not saying anything?”

Layla strained hard not to roll her eyes.

“I already told you, they're gossip machines. Of course they are going to say outrageous things, just act like they don't exist and you might feel slightly better.”

Oh look, one of the glaring guards was approaching them now.

“Ma'am, your caravan is scheduled to leave in less than an hour, should the two of you really be dallying around?”

What a nice way of saying get the fuck out of my city. Layla tried smiling, but the guard did not seem at all amused. Slightly more nervous she subtly plucked the paper from Benjamin's hands and put on the stand.

“Leave it there, okay? It's all fake anyway, right? Let's go.”

She pulled him out of the shop. It was remarkable how distracted Benjamin could sometimes be, considering that at other times he could be quite paranoid about things.

“Fine, fine, which city are going to now, again?”

This time, Layla let out a sigh.

“I think this might be the third time I have to say it. Daedalusgrad, the capital. It is one f the biggest cities in the Wildlands and full of things to see, inside and around its periphery. Aw, I really wanted to see more of Palma, it is quite a nice place, all things considered. Well, at least I got a nice dinner.”

Even if ended with Benjamin get beaten half-to-death and them becoming the talk of town...

“Hey, we could always visit again, right?”

Sure, if they could think of something really good as apology for the Mayor. They were embarking on the caravan and there were still glaring guards. Surely, if they came back they would be welcomed with open arms, no doubts about it.

Benjamin wasn't sure of it, but didn't it seem lately that Layla looked at him more and more like he was an idiot? Was that the whole “familiarity breeds contempt” thing? Sure, he was quite engrossed by the whole free press things, even if a lot of them had quite a few lies, it was still fascinating. But he was fully aware of the glaring guards! Though after a while he wasn't completely sure at this point what they were there for. In the Empire, a glaring guard was usually followed by a not small act of violence. So a guard that just stand there glaring feels... inconsequential, maybe?

Even if he still hurt quite a bit, he felt that this stop in Palma had its merits. At the very least, he learned that the Wildlands weren't this paradise of freedom that he originally thought they might be. But hey, still interesting, right? He wondered what they might find at the capital, Daedalusgrad.