argail
( diary entry )
The argali sheep—ugh, where do I even begin with them? Always stirring up trouble, always trying to act like they’re the ultimate underdogs. Their range overlaps with the urials just enough to keep everyone bitter, but unlike those "civilized traders," argali live like scavengers. They’ve been pushed farther east over the centuries—Kazakhstan, Siberia, Tibet—the margins of the world. Frankly, they’re exactly where they belong.
They used to be grouped with the Moufloniforms—the urials and the mouflons—before someone got smart and split them off. And now? Well, recent “scientific studies” conveniently divided them into nine new species. Nine! That smells like political sabotage to me, but apparently, the argali just shrugged it off and stayed loyal to one another. A few mouflons even defected to their side, which… ew.
What’s worse? There’s evidence that one of these species is some kind of transitional form—a halfway point between a mouflon and an argali. I shudder at the thought. It’s bad enough knowing I have any domestic sheep blood in my veins; I can’t imagine living as a walking, wool-covered identity crisis (being a wolf is bad enough).
Oh, and their “lifestyle.” While the mouflons build walled fortresses disguised as barns and the urials broker deals, the argali roam like beggars. They scrape the earth for food, wandering across barren wastelands, acting like they’re noble survivalists instead of, you know, dirt-poor.
But I’ll give them this: they’re fighters. During the War of the Wool, it was supposed to be all sheep species—argali, urial, mouflon, and domestic fluffballs—united against the bighorns. (My kind, in case you forgot.) But the alliances didn’t last. Infighting broke out, and the argali turned against their supposed allies. It’s no surprise the urials were the first to step in and “handle” them. Those loyalist sheep will always come running to save the Mouflons’ reputation.
And us? The snow sheep? My kind were on the other side of that war, branded as enemies of Ovis. We weren’t part of their ridiculous games of alliance and betrayal. No, we stood our ground, independent and untamed. The Mouflons and their cronies tried to crush us under their hoofed empire, but we held fast in the mountains and valleys, watching their endless squabbles from above.
But enough history. Let’s talk about her.
She walked into the cafeteria like she was stepping onto a battlefield, the kind of girl who could flip a table and make it seem like a power move. Her cloak—a tattered gray thing made of wool—fluttered behind her, trailing threads of her homeland’s rugged history. Beneath it, she wore a black dress, dripping with ribbons and frills. It was the kind of outfit that screamed decadence while managing to look like armor.
The sword at her hip, slightly curved and whispering of faraway battles, was more than just decoration. Her eyes—ice blue, colder than a glacier—froze the room as she entered. The temperature seemed to drop, and I swear I caught the faint scent of frost on the air.
Her hair was… a statement, let’s call it that. Tied with dried branches and twisted into wild locks and curls, it looked like something a goddess of the steppes might wear. Around her neck hung golden coins, jade tokens swayed at her side, and red beads adorned her horns. The base and edges of her horns were encircled with massive copper rings, gleaming like a war trophy.
And the money. The stench of it. Not the clean smell of fresh coins, but the old, metallic tang of blood-soaked wealth. Her family’s hoard wasn’t built on clever trade deals or sheepish ingenuity; it was loot, plain and simple. Coins from every species imaginable jingled on her person, even a few made of ivory—trophies of carnivores who’d probably tried and failed to take her family down.
She sat at her table, surrounded by her entourage—a clique of girls who hung on her every word. Her chef had prepared her food, flown in from whatever corner of the steppe she hailed from. She didn’t even glance at the cafeteria slop the rest of us were served. Typical.
The room buzzed with whispers. The domestic sheep kept their distance, their wool practically bristling with unease. They didn’t trust her, which, honestly, I respect. They’re fluff-brained idiots most of the time, but even they could see she was trouble.
She didn’t care. Civilians without weapons? Nobodies to her. That’s what I hated most about her—well, besides the obvious. It wasn’t just her confidence; it was her total disregard for anyone she deemed beneath her.
And where was I in all this? Oh, just at the edge of the room, pretending to blend in with the walls while scrubbing dishes. The cafeteria was part of the dorm complex—a labyrinth of halls and underground spaces where students from a dozen dorms mingled. I hated it. The forced socializing, the fake camaraderie. My own dorm was in ruins, far away from all this nonsense, just the way I liked it.
I watched her from my corner, notebook tucked under one arm as I jotted down observations. She was here for a meeting, I’d overheard—something about an alliance with one of the domestic sheep leaders. As if they’d ever trust someone like her.
“Look at her,” I muttered to myself, scribbling furiously. “Coins jingling like a walking treasure chest, a sword she probably doesn’t need because her glare could kill… She’s not here to make friends. She’s here to take over.”
Her posse laughed at something she said, their voices high and sharp. I glanced at the domestic sheep again, their eyes filled with equal parts fear and envy. They hated her. They wanted to be her.
And me? I just wanted to figure her out. She wasn’t just another rich kid flaunting their status. No, she was something else—wild, untamed, and dangerous. The kind of person who didn’t just play the game but rewrote the rules to suit her.
She didn’t fit into the tidy boxes Ovis loves to put everyone in. And that made her someone worth watching. Because in a world where everyone else is trying to blend in, the ones who stand out are either the best allies—or the worst enemies.