There were no captive animals kept by the people. One of the central beliefs of all the free people was that nothing should be enslaved. In a remarkable symbiosis many animals chose to stay close to the farms. Perhaps this was for protection or because they knew that they would not be harmed. The people built shelters for them and at night the animals always returned. Cows and sheep grazed the set aside meadows where crops could not be grown and chickens spent days scratching the dirt in the scrubland. Pigs were not kept but ran wild in the forest although often they returned and led the farmers to truffles and mushrooms. In this arrangement the farmers obtained milk and eggs and the animal’s safety and shelter.

Honey gathering was a skilled affair but the people prided themselves on their ordered skep gardens. Atop each skep was the separate honey store the bees laid down for them. In many a cold, relentless winter the people would return the honey so the bees could last until the hazel tree catkins signalled the start of spring.

The people were not naive; they knew only too well that life and death are intimately interwoven. Foxes would kill chickens and sometimes the wolves would come down and take young cattle. Nature was indeed cruel and red in design and yet they had collectively elected to be better. Children learnt by their parent’s example though often they could see natures black heart in the shape of the hawk swooping down on a songbird or the weasel descending into a rabbit warren to commit genocide. It was the game of life and the people had elected to play it as seamlessly as possible. If they had been given life as a gift, then they could not take it away from others; for it was not theirs to take.

Of course the enemy knew this and despised them all the more for it. The Darcrast saw it as the great weakness in the people and delighted in raiding the villages at night to slaughter cattle. Some they took but some they left to rot as sign to the people. For this the people hated them. In the matter of the Darcrast there was no idealism. They knew life when dealing with the Darcrast was to kill or be killed and as ever in all they did; they elected life.

To kill without provocation diminished them as a whole but Asthralain wondered how deep their consideration of sentience in other things went. Was it for a blade of grass or an ear of wheat? If everything around us lives then something must perforce die to allow us to survive. Was it then semantics, or somehow disingenuous to be vegetarians? After all the sentience of the forests was not in question and the people revered these. Should this reverence not be extended toward all living, growing things?

She mulled things for a while but no clarity came. In the end she decided that if nothing else the world was a better place because they actively strove to cause no harm. Besides grass would always regrow and nuts and berries fall without intervention. She would discuss things further with Ibbero when the time permitted.