The Dark Mage

Chapter 14: Tanuki Society

     Buck then grinned. "That's another thing I like about you. You've got a good family, even if I had a misunderstanding with your dad at first."

     Natalia then relaxed in her chair while taking a sip of her pint while listening to the jazz band play 1920s Szolsuran jazz. "I get that. Of course, my dad only does that because he cares about me, and now he knows you're not part of the Ringtail family business. Whatever happened to them after you left anyway."

     Buck then looked around to make sure no one was listening. "I have never heard from them since I left for America. Only the latest news is that the Metropolitan bishop of the Tanuki clan excommunicated Don Ringtail which in Tanuki clan context is socially worse than being a convicted felon. For Don Ringtail to be excommunicated is a social execution where any reputation he may have had means nothing now. Corrupt judges under his payroll? Politicians under his payroll? His henchmen? It doesn't mean anything if you've been excommunicated, because even the mafia bosses in the Tanuki clan will not touch the to avoid the shame of others with torches and pitchforks. But despite all the crimes the Ringtail syndicate was responsible for, even what they did pales in comparison to Inari. Heck, if I had to choose between two bad options of serving under Inari or the Don of the Ringtail syndicate, I'd choose the Don of the Ringtail syndicate every time. At least the Dons of the Ringtail syndicate took care of their loyal members while Inari just uses them until they are no longer useful and disposes of them."

     Natalia then didn't look the least surprised and said, "I wouldn't expect anything better from her based on what I know from Finnigan and Zenko and with even friar Victor having a difficult time finding something good to say about his sister instead of silence. But about friar Victor... I think if you didn't know any better, he might come off as naïve or unrealistic, but I think his idealism and that he actually lives what he believes has honestly been a blessing to both myself and the people I know, even if he doesn't think he's really doing anything extraordinary. But I guess if acting on what you believe and not just projecting it to virtue signal is extraordinary, the world has clearly hit a new low."

     Buck then remembered friar Victor had recently returned to the Kitsune clan and said, "Let's just hope this about him changes the Kitsune clan for the better. They need friar Victors, Zenkos, and Finnigans a lot more than the Tanuki clan. After all, they probably don't even have a church to give them the gift of civilization but are stuck worshiping idols made in their own image using the history of the Tanuki clan as an example."

     Natalia then tilted her head in curiosity. "What was our clan like before then?"

     Buck was then silent before answering honestly. "We really don't know, because the Tanuki clan didn't have a written language before the 1200s, and that was thanks to friar Victor who used his knowledge of Szolsuran and his own clan's written language to create a written language for our clan's native tongue. And it was because of him that we have written records of our clan's oral history beyond the few writings of Szolsuran historians like Thessalonius and Euripus and the ancient Kitsune historian and explorer Amenhotep who was historically one of the first 9-tails all the way back in the 200s. And interestingly enough, it was Amenhotep's catalogs of all the knowledge to the then known world that helped friar Victor assimilate into Szolsuran society during his exile. But that leaves a long dark age where we don't know much of anything about our clan's history for more than a thousand years and even longer than that before Amenhotep and Thessalonius had written anything down about our people, and from what they wrote down, there was very little. So, in reality, the history of the Tanuki clan begins in the late 1200s with friar Victor recording the customs of our people and seeking to understand us so that the gospel could reach us in a way we would understand."