Adorable Raine is adorable, as usual, but aside from that...
Interesting note: it is now canon that there exist animal dogs in the twokinds universe (or at least that's how I interpret Maren's statement), just like we know there exist animal domestic-type cats. And *that* makes me wonder if there also exist animal
wolves. After all, in the real world dogs were domesticated from wolves; we know that the twokinds universe's prehistory doesn't necessarily *have* to work quite the same way, but there's no reason it *can't* either.
If that did turn out to be the case, that would have to have made for some interesting reactions when humans met wolf *keidran* for the first time. From what I understand about the backstory, humans originated somewhere on the eastern side of the continent, while wolves originated on the western side, and the two didn't meet for a long time. Presumably the domestication of dogs from wild wolves would have taken place earlier in human history; I can't see how humans would have *wanted* to domesticate wild wolves after they had become long-term enemies with wolf keidran.
I can also see humans in the twokinds universe taking an even stronger dislike to wild wolves after that time than we already did in the real world. Humans have persecuted the heck out of wolves throughout most of our history in pretty much every area the two species overlapped densely enough to come into frequent contact. Wolves also figure prominently in legions of old legends and superstitions, rarely positively. It's only relatively recently that there's been much notion of conservation, and even in portions of the world where that's the case wolves still often come in for more than their fair share of hatred. But in the twokinds universe, where humans have been in an antagonistic relationship for centuries with, and fought off an *invasion* from, *sentient* wolves...? Anywhere there's reasonably dense populations of humans, I'd expect wild wolves to have been exterminated even more thoroughly than they were in the real world. I wouldn't be surprised if there's not a single wild wolf left in the human empire, or at least anywhere less remote than the northern coast or the foothills of the northern mountains.
And, of course, if there are animal dogs (and perhaps by extension wolves) and animal domestic cats in the twokinds universe, does that mean there might also exist animal foxes and animal big cats? I personally wouldn't be surprised. If so, big cats (or, at least, cats bigger than bobcats and other cats of that general doglike size) are probably as exterpiated within densely settled human territory as wolves (if they lived there to begin with), but the smaller cats and foxes are probably still around just as they are in the real world.
Which leads into the other interesting question - if there *are* animal analogues of the various keidran species, what would those keidran think about them? What would wolves think about their wild counterparts, so like and yet unlike themselves? Would they regard them as competitors, or as inferior copies, or as lesser but still family, or what? Would they resent humans taking wild wolves and breeding domestic dogs from them? What would dogs think about the fact that their counterparts are essentially purpose-bred domestic servants, and created by the humans no less? What would foxes think about how small and seemingly insignificant their animal counterparts are compared to those of other keidran? What would the fierce big cat keidran think about their tiny cutesy-fuzzy-harmless relatives that the humans keep?
Wild animal keidran counterparts may not exist at all (though personally I'm going to consider them my headcanon until proven otherwise
), but they're interesting to think about.
Maren has a serious case of Resting [censored] Face, doesn't she?
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