Chapter 376: Apprenticeship

“I’m sorry. I’m really, really sorry.”

 “It’s okay! But you really shouldn’t run at people carrying brooms because you never know how much higher CLR they are from you and if you trigger a bad response, you could get badly hurt so make sure to use your words in the future, okay?”

“Um, yeah, sure…”

“It’s okay,” Fiona patted Violetta’s side. “She talks too fast.”

So ensued another round of apologies and assurances. Now that Roy and his knights were calmed down, and Violetta wasn’t trying to bash anyone in the head with a broom, the situation had progressed to the stage where the young woman was profoundly apologizing for the misunderstanding. The interaction between Sabina, Fiona, and Violetta made Jadis idly wonder if D was perhaps the patron god of children. Certainly, they were capable of prompting chaos with little effort, something he held in great regard.

“Like she said,” Jay stepped into the conversation before it went in any more circles. “It’s fine. We just don’t want any kids to get hurt. Try to keep them out of the storm drains, okay?”

“Right,” the purple woman nodded up at Jay, still showing some timidness when addressing her directly. “I’ll, uh, try to do that.”

That seemed to be about the best promise Jadis was going to get, so she mentally shrugged and let it go. It really wasn’t fair to put all the responsibility on Violetta, anyway. She wasn’t the parent or guardian of any of these kids, she was still practically one herself.

Well, that felt a little unfair. Jadis was twenty-two years old. That wasn’t that much older than Violetta’s seventeen years. Still, Jadis felt a lot older than she was numerically. Responsibility did that, she supposed.

Violetta was Fiona’s older cousin and neighbor to all the other kids that had been running around. She happened to be the oldest among them, less than a year away from unlocking her primary class, while the next oldest was a boy only fourteen years old. It wasn’t her job to watch the kids. Apparently, from what Jadis had gathered from Kerr and Sabina and from the context of the conversation, it was pretty uncommon for there to be any kind of babysitters for children old enough to take care of themselves, at least among the regular working folk of the empire. When the children weren’t at the local temple learning to read and write, they were left up to their own devices. If they were old enough, they might work in an apprenticeship, but otherwise they went unsupervised.

Having grown up in a suburban environment in Pennsylvania, Jadis couldn’t imagine leaving kids free to wander without any kind of adult supervision. Stranger Danger wasn’t really a thing, she guessed, which felt utterly bizarre. Then again, in a world with literal god-blessed paladins running around, maybe families felt a little more secure about the safety of their children from predators. At least in the big cities where lots of high-CLR, righteous sorts of people were frequently found. It was the smaller villages where people with high levels were less common that Jadis imagined had a greater chance of something happening. Sort of counter-intuitive to what Jadis would expect from her own experience back on Earth, but she supposed it made some kind of sense.

She still didn’t like seeing kids running around in dangerous places without anyone looking after them.

“I’m surprised you aren’t in an apprenticeship!” Sabina was saying to Violetta while Jadis had been briefly lost in thought. “You’re old enough, aren’t you? Even those boys over there look old enough to be doing work around a shop. Are you taking a day off? Or do you not have any work? Could you not find any work? Or were you fired? I hope you weren’t fired, that would be awful. You don’t seem like you’d be the sort to get fired, unless you were waving a broom at the shop owner, because that would get you fired.”

“I—I don’t have an apprenticeship,” Violetta managed to get out before Sabina continued with her inappropriate rambling. “The workshops here can’t afford any more apprentices. They’re full up on unskilled labor. I’m just, uh, sweeping up the streets because I don’t have anything better to do.”

“Oh! Well, in that case, you should come work for us.”

“What?”

Both Jay and Violetta exclaimed at the same time, staring at Sabina. For her part, the half-elf looked surprised by Jay’s surprise and turned her gaze up at her.

“Well, yeah, she should. So should the three boys over there who look big enough to work. I’ll need help around the forge for all the crafting I’ll be doing and it makes sense to hire some local kids. I don’t necessarily need a bunch of people with smith classes, I can do most of the complicated stuff myself; in fact, I’d rather do all the complicated stuff myself so it’s done the way I want it. I just need some hands who can carry things for me, or hold things, or fetch things, or all those other little helpful tasks that apprentices do. Three or four kids will do the job nicely! That’s what my father did with me and my siblings, after all, and it worked out well. So we should hire Violetta, and maybe those boys there, and then I wouldn’t have to go searching for any more people because that’s probably all I’ll need for now.”

Jadis considered what Sabina was saying, quickly thinking the suggestion over. It was true that Sabina did need some helpers around the smithy, or at least she would once it was completed. There were a lot of projects that Sabina was going to be working on and she couldn’t do it all alone. She’d figured that she’d be hiring a couple of professionals to assist her talkative lover, but if Sabina said all she needed were a few unskilled hired hands, she wasn’t opposed to the idea.

Jadis had originally planned on getting out of Eldingholt after staying the two weeks Prince Kestil had asked of her, but now that she had some plans to expand Fortune’s Favored as well as improve their technological assets, she’d altered her plans a bit. At the very least, she’d need to stay within a couple of days travel of Eldingholt so that she could renew her bond with Sabina every few days while she worked on the enchantments. Jadis didn’t know how long it would take the smith to complete the main projects that Jadis had asked her to work on, but she wouldn’t be at all surprised to learn it would take a few months. That was a pretty short amount of time, really, for a technological revolution.

So, Jadis did need to hire some helpers for Sabina. She could easily agree with that. However, was Violetta the right person for that job?

Looking the young woman up and down, Jadis carefully considered what she saw. Violetta was… unique in her appearance. She was purple—not that uncommon from what Jadis had seen of elves. Her skin was a very light purple, like mauve, while her shoulder-length hair was a dark purple that had a bluishness to it. If that was all there was to the girl, Jadis would have assumed that she was an elf. Except, there were some noticeable differences. For one, Violetta’s eyes weren’t a solid, bright color like other elves, but instead she had normal sclera like a human and irises that shone a bright silver color. Her ears were pointed but were much smaller than most elves. In fact, her ears were closest in shape to Sabina’s ears. She was also a lot shorter than most elves. She was even shorter than Eir, who was already a petite woman. At a guess, she figured Violeta was probably no more than four and half feet tall. Most notable of all were the markings on Violetta’s face. She didn’t have many, but she did have some lines that ran from cheek to cheek across her nose, as well as one thick line that went from her bottom lip down her chin and all the way down to her neck.

“I’m sorry if this question is rude, but are you half elf and half gnome?”

Violetta stared up at Jay, a frown puckering her forehead.

“Yeah, I am. What of it? You got a problem with me being a mule?”

“No, not at all,” Jay shook her head, though she was confused about the name Violetta had called herself. “I was just curious. I’ve never seen anyone who looks like you do. No elves or gnomes where I grew up, so I wasn’t sure if you were just a particular type of elf or gnome I hadn’t run into yet.”

“Right,” Violetta snorted. “Lots of big, purple gnomes running around the aqueducts.” A second later, she seemed to think better of what she’d said and hastily added, “I mean, I guess if you’re not around a lot of other races like in the big cities, I guess I can see how that’d be confusing…”

“No, that was a rude question,” Jay assured the younger woman. “You would have been in your rights to tell me to fuck off.”

Jay’s rough words brought a giggle out of Violetta, but a censuring gasp from Fiona.

“That’s a bad word,” the little gnome girl said as clutched at Violetta’s skirt. “I’m going to tell Priest Herman.”

“You’re right, that was a bad word,” Jay smiled apologetically down at Fiona. “Do me a favor and let that one go, okay?”

“Why? You’re telling on me to Momma about the drain tunnels.”

“…Fair enough.”

Switching her attention off of the little girl and back to Violetta, Jay put a hand on Sabina’s shoulder.

“If you’re interested in working for Sabina, come by Fortune’s Favored Headquarters after you talk it over with your parents. Tell the boys that are old enough over there, too. If they want the job, tell them they have to bring their parents with them and we’ll discuss duties and wages. Sound good?”

Violetta perked up, her interest obvious, but she didn’t immediately jump at the offer. Instead, she cautiously asked a couple questions.

“What kind of work is it? You were talking about a smithy?”

“Yes!” Sabina explained. “I’m a smith and an enchanter. I make all kinds of things, mostly weapons and armor, but pretty much anything. You really don’t need to have experience, just the wits to do what I tell you and not to stick your hands in the fire. Who knows, you might get an enchanter class if you hang around me!”

That definitely caught the girl’s interest, as it did the boys who were still standing far enough back that they couldn’t easily be caught. Doing her best to keep from looking too excited, Violetta nodded her head in agreement.

“I’ll make sure we all talk it over with our parents as soon as they’re back from work. Some of them work in these workshops here, so they’re probably already overhearing all this. We’ll, uh, let you know.”

Jadis had to chuckle inwardly at Violetta’s choice of words. After having spent most of the day telling people the same thing, it was ironic to hear the statement directed towards her.

With Fiona safely delivered and an unexpected job offer extended, Jadis felt like it was time to go. After saying a few quick farewell, she gathered up the group and headed back to the headquarters. Once they had all made it back onto the main road that would take them to the stairs that led to the surface, Kerr let out a long, loud sigh.

“Well, that was a waste of time.”

“You think so?” Dys glanced down at her archer. “Sabina might have just found some helpers, though.”

“You can find kids who are willing to work like that anywhere,” Kerr waved one hand dismissively. “Probably could have gotten a couple from the workshops next door, honestly. Of course, once the parents know we’ve got Alex in the building, there’s no chance they’ll let their kids work for us. As nice as Alex is, she’s still just a Demon in the eyes of, well, pretty much everyone. No one will want their kids hanging around her.”

“Maybe,” Dys sighed and shrugged. “Then again, maybe they’ll be okay with it if Eir is there. A priestess or cleric’s word goes a long way. Might even be able to arrange something with Aurea.”

“Maybe,” Kerr mused. “Got to admit, that’s a fucking hilarious idea. Bringing a high priestess by so she can assure some parents that their kids are safe to hang around a Demon? That has to be a first.”

“Well, better they work under some kind of supervision than running around in dangerous places, I guess. What’s the point of having connections if I don’t use them to help people, anyway?”

Kerr murmured agreement to Jadis’ sentiment before lapsing into silence. They continued along for a ways, following behind the others for a while before Dys asked a question about something Violetta had said.

“Hey, what did that girl mean when she said she was a mule?”

“Oh, that,” Kerr shrugged one shoulder. “She’s talking about the fact that she’s a half breed.”

“I don’t follow,” Dys tilted her head in confusion.

“Right, I guess you wouldn’t know,” Kerr paused as she shot Dys a glance. “It’s because some race mixes don’t work out very well. A human and an elf works out just fine; just look at Sabina. But some crossbreeds rarely happen, and if they do, the offspring are usually sterile. Like a mule. She’s a gnome and elf half-breed. She probably won’t ever have any pups. Just how it is.”

“Well, that’s fucked up,” Dys frowned at Kerr’s explanation.

“Yeah, it is,” Kerr agreed. “If you can breed with someone, your kids should be able to breed when they’re grown up, too. No fucking idea why the gods made it so that it doesn’t always work that way. Bunch of merde, really.”

Jadis couldn’t agree more with Kerr’s sentiment. What was the point in making the different races compatible enough that they could have children, but not all of them compatible enough that their children wouldn’t be sterile? Genetics and DNA probably had something to do with it, Jadis was sure, but she wasn’t going to just handwave an explanation like that. Gods were real. She’d spoken to several of them by this point. They had to have known what they were doing when they made the genetic sequences of the various races. She didn’t think it would be something they just happened to overlook.

Then again, thinking about D, maybe it was an oversight? From her experience, the gods did not come across as infallible. Her very existence on Oros was because of a loophole in a divine pact that they had apparently overlooked. Wasn’t that proof enough that the gods didn’t always get everything right?

Whatever the case, the idea of someone like Violetta having that stigma over her made Jadis unhappy. She didn’t think it was right that she was so casually calling herself an insulting term. She clearly had to have heard it from others, and she’d been hackles-up the moment she thought Jadis was calling her out on it.

“I hope our children aren’t like that,” Kerr murmured quietly as she strode next to Dys. “You know, when we have them. That’d really fucking suck piss.”

Jadis was startled by the voiced worry. She’d never given any thought to the possibility that her children might not be able to procreate themselves. She knew she was compatible with her lovers, if for no other reason than Lyssandria was so insistent that she breed with them. But her children? What guarantee did she have that they would all be… normal, in that respect?

“They’ll be fine,” Dys said after a moment. Placing a hand around Kerr, she pulled her therion lover in close to her side. “We’re going to have generations of giant, pale, therion-Nephilim hybrids running around, all of them with your horns. I promise.”

“Yeah, of course they will,” Kerr grinned up at her. “Lyssandria wouldn’t fuck us over like that.”

“No, she wouldn’t,” Dys agreed with complete confidence, doing her best to push any little doubts out of her mind.

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