Chapter 20 Wine, stargazing, and two surprises
It was one of the last hot days of summer, as the heat would start to cool down rolling into fall. Fall was still months away, but as we got closer to it, the temperature would begin to decline. Today, we all finished a hard job preparing wine. With my class and job level for farming going up, we should get one, maybe two more harvest periods for wine again this year.
It was hard, tedious work that involved Silk and I picking the grapes and Tems crushing them, but also both of us keeping an eye on Tems to make sure she didn’t run off the machine because then we’d have to wash her feet again. She behaved like a child sometimes, to be fair, she was only ten years old with a very short-lived race. She was already considered an adult for her race, even as a hybrid, as kobolds could start having children at three. She would be middle-aged if one of her parents wasn’t a human; she would still die far before me, and it was only now that I realized how much that would hurt me when it happened.
That was if we both lived to old age, which wasn’t very common. Silk might outlive both of us just because she was more hearty, and my plans to raise Tems endurance to increase her lifespan were underway. Every point of endurance would increase the lifespan of a person. She had forty years left if she were a full kobold; her lifespan was most likely somewhere between kobold and human.
That’s why elves lived so long, it was because they lived longer on average and spent the first hundred or so years just increasing their class/stats up to a competent level. Elves weren’t allowed to leave their village until they were at least a rare level of their class. I was getting close to level twenty-five again, and this might be the last time I purchased a skill this year. After getting another skill, I planned on leveling to fifty and checking the skills for that level.
If I had to purchase more than two at that level, that would mean I wasn’t going to evolve my class for at least a few years. That was fine with me. The biggest problem with classes is that they make people want to rush them to the max level to evolve them. Higher-ranked people had the tendency to pass on higher-ranked classes to their children.
I think it was a hidden trap. It would give you a leg up in the short term, but you’d lose the ability to purchase any skills in the common tier of the class. You’d start out with a higher base of stats and skills, but someone who leveled through the common tier would be more of both compared to you. That still made those higher-level starts more appealing to most people, as the highest death rates in the world are people in their common tier.
If everything played out like I wanted, I’d struggle for ten or so years, then live life at a casual pace. That’s what made this time of peace and just lying on the grass looking at the stars so special. Because they were so rare, this was the first time I really sat down and just relaxed with both of my girls for more than an hour that didn’t end up with the three of us naked and entwined with each other.
Silk pointed out another constellation to the two of us. “That’s the guardian Oberus. It’s named after the bodyguard of the first king of this kingdom. You see that group near that top that sticks out, that’s supposed to be his spear.” Tems loudly oohed and aahed as Silk pointed out a few more. I asked. “So, what was your plan for the future, Silk? I’m pretty sure you didn’t plan on ending up with me specifically, so if it’s something we can help you with, I wouldn’t mind doing so.”
She sat in the quiet air, only the sound of crickets chirping could be heard until she responded. “I… I always wanted a family. I grew up in a big family, but was treated as more of a second mother than a daughter. I left home earlier than I should have just to have some room to breathe. It wasn’t until years later that I realized how much I missed them…” She paused again, deciding if she wanted to tell me everything.
“When I went back home, my family was gone. They had to move to a lower-quality village because Mama… My mother and one of my sisters got sick. I was the start of their children leaving, and I was the first and last to come back and check on them. After a few more years of taking over childcare again, my mother and sister died; what they had couldn’t be cured by anything but a specialized healer, which we would never be able to afford… My father didn’t take it well.”
She sighed before continuing. “He got drunk one night and beat me almost to death before kicking me out. Even after he sobered up, he still blamed me for his wife and child’s death… The disease could remain idle in someone for a long time, but only from severe exhaustion could it really take hold… If I were there.” I cut her off. “Did you know she had the disease when you left?”
I knew she blamed herself, so I had to frame it from an outsider's perspective. “No, it has no symptoms until it activates, but if I didn’t-.” I cut her off again. “It’s not your fault, Silk. How could you have known what would happen? You did go back and take over again when you realized you still missed your family… If anything, I’d blame it on bad luck.”
It sucked but sometimes everything didn’t work out perfectly. We sat in silence like that for a few minutes, just looking up at the stars, before Tems broke the silence. “My Mama raised Tems to be the next leader of the kobold tribe, but Tems' brothers got rid of me. Tems almost died and starved, making it here. Tems would have if Tems didn’t eat Husband's food. Tems was lucky.”
The story she just told didn’t make her sound lucky, but I wasn’t going to tell her that. She did view me as an idol more than an actual partner, even with me trying to show her over and over again that we were partners and not a leader and subordinate. I think she was now understanding the difference in how we handled leadership compared to her kobold… Whatever you call a group of kobolds.
Den? For some reason, I was thinking clutch, but I know that’s not it. Warren, like rabbits, since they weren’t under the leadership of a dragon. Once they have a dragon leading them, they become a ‘dragon color’ tribe of kobolds. So if they served a red dragon, they’d be red tribe kobolds, and they’d take on some of the aspects and personality of that type of dragon.
Another few minutes of silence as I thought about the intricacies of kobold burrows before Tems interrupted the silence by loudly vomiting. “Bleugh!” I leaned up, looking to make sure she was okay. “Tems is fine, must have just ate something bad.” No… She had eaten an entire chicken before. Beak, bones, talons, and feathers included, and the worst thing it gave her was gas.
My brain couldn’t figure out what happened before Silk sat up in shock. “Kobolds don’t suffer from morning sickness when they get pregnant because they live in a cave! They’ll just puke whenever there is a chemical imbalance in their bodies from the pregnancy.” My eyes went wide in shock at her words as what she said sank in. I was just about to respond when Silk stood up and ran over to a bush before vomiting as well… What the fuck!? My brain short-circuited as the thought of both of them being pregnant this early into our relationship sank in. “Well, I guess you wanted to start a family. It’s just sooner than you’d expect, right?”