Gossip: A Glimpse at the Study Group

I got up in the morning and ate breakfast.

Mom and Aija made it for me.

I ate with mom, dad, Oliver, Erik, Tony, Aija, Kosti, Selja, Miss Tabatha, Mister Beard, and Mister Big.

We all ate together!

I didn’t eat much in the village, but I eat lots of good food here!

I can have seconds, which makes me happy!

After I eat breakfast, I do chores.

Today I helped dad in the field.

The tomatoes were really big!

Dad said it was thanks to big brother Mukohda.

I finished my chores, then ate lunch.

Mom and Aija made it, and we all ate together.

After lunch, I studied.

I don’t like studying, but mom and dad said I should study hard, so I study hard.

Mom and dad said that I only get to study because of big brother Mukohda.

Mom, dad, Tony, and Aija say thank you to big brother Mukohda every day.

Mom and dad say that I have to be thankful too.

I don’t understand, but big brother Mukohda feeds me lots of tasty food, so I love him!

When I grow up, I might want to marry big brother Mukohda.

When I told mom and dad, they looked happy.

I wonder why?

Every day here is fun. Today was fun too!

“Finished!”

“Oh, done writing already? Let’s have a look.”

“Okay, Miss Tabatha!” Lotte passed her notebook over to Tabatha, who quickly read through her work. Her handwriting still left a lot to be desired, but all things considered, her essay was quite well written.

“Nice writing, Lotte! You did good.” Lotte’s assignment had been to write about what she did today, and she’d certainly done just that. “Time to present your work! Can you stand up and read your essay to everyone?”

“Okaaay!”

The study group that Mukohda had recommended was well under way. Lotte stood up in front of her fellow pupils and read her essay out loud. Her parents, Alban and Theresa, looked a little uncomfortable about it, especially toward the end. Kids are really good at observing adults, especially when the adults in question think they aren’t watching.

“Aha ha ha ha ha! You’re gonna be Mukohda’s bride, eh, Lotte?”

“Looks like we’ve got a li’l gold digger on our hands!”

The beastfolk twins, being the insufferable jokesters they were, got a huge kick out of her essay.

“Hmm, I dunno yet. Big brother Mukohda feeds me lots and lots of tasty food, so I think marrying him might be okay!” Lotte replied thoughtfully, and the twins exploded with laughter. “Hey, hey, dad? What’s a gold digger?”

Lotte’s question came from a place of pure, innocent curiosity, and Alban’s pained silence came from a place of intense, awkward discomfort.

“Do you know, mom?” she asked, turning to Theresa, who unfortunately fared just as poorly as her husband.

Thankfully, Barthel the dwarf was there to lend a helping hand by way of brutal honesty. “Bein’ a gold digger means marryin’ a rich man fer his money, Lotte,” he explained bluntly.

“And if you marry a rich dude, that means you can buy anything you want and eat all the tasty food you want!” said Luke, stoking the flames.

“Yeah! It means never having to worry ’bout money, and living a life of luxury!” added Irvine, who also seemed dedicated to exacerbating the situation. Thankfully, their sister was there to settle the matter with a few swift blows to the head.

“Shut it, you two! You’re not helping!” she shouted, but it was too late.

“Oooh, wow! Then I really do wanna marry big brother Mukohda!” Just the promise of all the delicious food she could eat was enough to settle the matter for Lotte. Meanwhile, Tony and Aija were whispering with their daughter Selja, who was blushing furiously. The natural parental desire for their children to live a life free of toil was apparently manifesting itself in the most awkward way possible.

“Anyway, what about you, sis?” asked Luke. “You’re not gonna try and romance your way into a piece of Mukohda’s fortune?”

“Hmm,” Tabatha replied, “I’m grateful for everything he’s done for us, of course, but I can’t say I’m interested in marrying the guy. He’s not exactly my type, if you know what I mean.”

“Ouch, getting the not-my-type treatment from you? Now I just feel sorry for him!”

“Where do you get off being all choosy, anyway? How old’re you, again?”

“Oh, that’s it, you little jerks!” The twins took their teasing a step too far yet again and got a fist to the skull for their trouble. Everyone else chuckled at their improvised slapstick act.

“I’m right there with ya when it comes to bein’ grateful to Mukohda, anyway,” said Barthel in an unusually earnest tone. The others nodded in agreement.

“This country guarantees slaves like us the bare minimum to stay alive, at least,” said Peter, breaking his usual silence, “but I still thought that becoming a slave would mean losing my freedom and working myself to the bone...”

That assumption was not mistaken, by all reasonable standards. Even if they were guaranteed what they needed to live a stable life, a slave was still a slave. It was far from unusual for slaves in Leonhardt to be tasked with the sort of work that no one would ever agree to do unless coerced, and long, backbreaking hours were considered the norm.

“Gotta say, compared to the way we lived when we were adventurers, this place might as well be heaven.” Once again, everyone nodded in agreement with Tabatha’s words.

“Yeah,” said Luke, “I’m with you there. We never knew when our next payday was coming in the adventuring business, if it ever came at all... Not having to worry ’bout finding a bed to sleep in and a meal to eat every night’s the best!”

Irvine nodded. “’Sides, Mukohda keeps feeding us top-grade meat and stuff like that! Dunno if the guy even knows we’re slaves at all. I’m more worried ’bout him than I am ’bout myself, these days.”

“And that’s not to mention how he’s given people of our standing the opportunity to learn to read and write,” added Tony, who was illiterate in spite of his age. “I’ve never met a man of his like. He’s almost a god.”

“You said it!” agreed Alban. “We grew up without ever getting the chance to learn all those things. I always assumed that’s just how it had to be, but now that I’m finally learning to read and write, at least a little... I really can’t tell you how much I appreciate it.” Having been born into a family of destitute farmers, Alban was genuinely moved to have the opportunity to study after spending all his life uneducated. Aija and Theresa nodded in agreement with their husbands.

“Way I see it, we’ve gotta pay the man back,” continued Barthel. “Mukohda asked us to watch over this house for him, so we’ve gotta make sure nobody who’s not supposed to be here so much as sets foot in the place!”

“You’re not wrong about that, but let’s get back on track for now. C’mon, people, back to your books!” The twins groaned with annoyance, but Tabatha wasn’t about to stand for their whining. “You’re not getting out of this that easily. Mukohda told us to hold this study group, remember? Knock it off and get to work, already.”

“Peh! Thought we’d finally made her forget all about it. Sure, we owe Mukohda a lot, but studying? At our age? Screw that!”

“Right?!”

A vein started visibly pulsing in Tabatha’s forehead as she listened to her brothers’ whining. “Look at Tony! Look at Alban, and the rest of ’em! They’re working their hardest to learn how to read, and there you two are, not giving a damn! I’m ashamed to call myself your sister!”

“But, I mean, c’mon!”

“We already know how to read and write just fine!”

“You wouldn’t be here if you were ‘just fine’ at it! That does it, you two’re getting extra work on top of the usual assignment! If you don’t finish it before the session’s over, you’re skipping breakfast tomorrow!”

“What the hell, sis?!”

“This is tyranny!”

“Shut up and work!”

Barthel and Peter sighed as they watched the beastfolk family’s back and forth.

“Those two never make it easy, eh...?”

“Luke and Irvine are nice enough when they’re not running their mouths, but, well...”

They gave up on the siblings and their spat, Peter quickly falling back into his role as a student and Barthel stepping in to act as his teacher. When all was said and done, Oliver, Erik, and Kosti—none of whom had stopped studying to join the discussion in the first place—probably had the right idea. Tony, Aija, Alban, and Theresa, meanwhile, quietly cautioned their children to not let themselves grow up to be like a certain pair of twins.