Shumil

A shumil is a feybeast that can be found in Ehrenfest's forests. It's prime season is the summer and it loves the summer fruit rutreb.

A shumil looks like a small rabbit and due to its cute appearance and small size it is a popular pet kept by nobles. While they can have a variety of colourations, the most common colours are a very dark shade of blue for the fur and gold for the eyes. A grown shumil is about knee-high with a seven year old child.

Sylvester compares Myne to a shumil due to her hair- and eye colours and making her chirp "pooey" (ぷひ puhi) which is a shumil's cry.

Shumils are generally quite tame and will choose to flee, rather than fight under most circumstances. When fleeing they will try to get to higher ground, making the top of hills a good place to ambush them.

The only time shumil will stand their ground and fight is when they have young. If their children are in danger, shumil's eyes start to glow in multiple colours like rainbows and they become very agressive.

Shumils are among the weakest of feybeast, weak enough that even commoner children can hunt them when foraging in the forest.

Shumils yield meat, pelt, bones, feathers, and fat that is considered useful to commoners. When commners want to hunt shumils, they gather together in groups, one group chasing the prey and the other group holding the net. The net group waits up a hill, as shumils have the habit to escape to high places. The chase group looks for shumils in the vinity of rutrebs plants with stones in their hands.

After successfully trapping them in the net, they stab their knives into the trapped prey to slice the shumils' throats and hope not to kill them of to early. If they die before being properly bled, the meat taste of the blood will seep into the meat, making it taste worse.

Following that, they remove the shumil' talons on the front feet, due to them being poisonous. The next step involves the river. They drag their prey to the river and butcher it there. One needs to be careful when butchering a shumil. If the feystone near their heart is hit or scraped with the knife, any part of the carcas that is still connected with it will melt into a black sludge.

Shumil are a popular pet among the nobility. Some nobles even go so far as to create highbeasts that look like a giant, winged shumil.

Shumils are also the most popular motive for those attempting to create a drivable highbeasts, a kind of highbeast pioneered and recently introduced at the Royal Academy by Lady Rozemyne and since copied and adapted by Professor Hirschur.


 * Sylvester kept a shumil called "Blau".
 * Shumils make "phiiih" and "pooey" sounds.
 * Shumil's meat is soft and delicious especially in summer.
 * Hunting shumils also meant saving the commoners' rutrebs' share.
 * Their shy nature has led to commoners using the term "scaredy-shumil" like we use "scaredy-cat" on Earth.