Chapter 9 - Education
The next day arrived in a blink, sunlight pouring through the windows, roosters screaming like they were being hunted, and the distant clatter of farm tools already echoing outside. Another peaceful morning on the Samsworth farm... except for the quiet war about to begin in the house.
Education.
Ever since I celebrated my fourth birthday, my mother had taken it entirely upon herself to handle our primary homeschooling. Despite her deeply imposing physical appearance, featuring sculpted biceps capable of hoisting a massive oak barrel with a single hand or casually tossing sacks of potatoes, she was remarkably intellectual when it came to classical literature and structural knowledge.
I had to constantly remind myself that my current processing unit belonged to a young child, because my preserved memories of a completely uninterrupted past-life virginity occasionally resulted in deeply awkward, intrusive thoughts regarding her impressive, hourglass figure. Trapped in the body of a toddler, my inner monologue occasionally defaulted to sheer embarrassment.
If she weren't my mother, I would absolutely have a crush on her.
Right now, she stood at the front of our modest little study room, chalk in one hand, tapping it thoughtfully against her chin as she faced the blackboard. She wore her usual apron, smudged slightly from breakfast duty, and her golden hair was tied up into a messy bun, already showing signs of battle fatigue from wrangling two restless kids into sitting still.
"Alright," Reyna said with a smile that had far too much energy for this early in the day. "Today, we're doing arithmetic, again. Because certain people," she glanced meaningfully at Lyra, "think subtraction is a kind of sword move."
"It sounds like one!" Lyra protested, slumping back in her seat beside me with a groan.
"Subtraction: a deadly combat maneuver designed to permanently remove a singular enemy asset from the active battlefield," I added dramatically. I precisely mimicked a sweeping horizontal sword strike through the empty air. The display immediately earned me a quiet giggle from Lyra and an exceptionally sharp, warning look from our mother.
I instantly corrected my posture, sitting up completely straight.
We were currently seated at a sturdy, deeply scratched wooden table. Our primary textbooks lay wide open in front of us. These were handwritten volumes, carefully passed down through multiple family generations, featuring brittle pages where the black ink had faded into a pale charcoal color. My mother had even gone out of her way to scribble personal notes, localized math shortcuts, and structural corrections into the wide margins. I found the addition incredibly charming, though it was occasionally frustrating whenever her hurried handwriting became completely illegible.
I subtly peeked over at Lyra's open page. Instead of solving the assigned equations, she was actively sketching a highly detailed, brutal sword fight between the numbers five and two, complete with tiny stick-figure casualties bleeding ink across the margins. She noticed my wandering eyes and offered a wide, mischievous grin.
"Focus, both of you," Reyna said, tapping the chalk against the board. "Now, let us test what you've learned so far. What's five minus two?"
"Three," I answered instantly, not needing a single second to calculate.
"Two warriors lost to a sneak attack," Lyra added helpfully.
Mom sighed but smiled, shaking her head. "At least you're both... engaged."
There was an immense, undeniable comfort to be found in these quiet moments. Learning within a household filled with genuine laughter, being taught by a maternal figure who cared infinitely more about our conceptual understanding than rigid, institutional formality, was a luxury. My mother's true strength didn't merely reside in the dense muscle of her arms; it lived within her infinite patience, her uncanny ability to seamlessly transition from an axe-swinging frontier barbarian to a calm, deeply articulate academic teacher at the literal flick of a switch.
Personally, I loved mathematics. Clean numbers made absolute sense to my modern mind. Unlike unpredictable human beings, numerical values strictly followed immutable rules: cause, effect, and logical progression. If only every other variable in this fantasy world was as beautifully straightforward. It was that exact appreciation for mathematical logic that had driven me to pursue chemical engineering in my previous life.
"Okay, moving on to the next one," Reyna said, scribbling a fresh equation onto the dark slate. "What do we get with eight minus four?"
"Okay, next one," Reyna said, writing a new equation on the board. "Eight minus four?"
Before I could answer, Lyra blurted, "Depends! Is four retreating, or being defeated?"
I groaned softly, burying my face directly into the open pages of my textbook. It was going to be a really long lesson, but I didn't really mind.
***
After an hour filled with fine white chalk dust, exaggerated artistic sighs from Lyra, and Reyna's incredibly patient conceptual explanations, the morning lecture finally reached a natural intermission. Our mother stood up straight, stretching her muscular arms high overhead until a faint, satisfying pop resonated from her shoulders, before clapping her hands together once.
"Alright," she said, her voice carrying the distinct flavor of relief that only a parent-turned-teacher could possibly muster. "The individual assignments are clearly written on the board. The two of you have exactly one hour to complete them. Do not make me walk back up these stairs to check on your progress every five minutes."
Lyra groaned, her forehead touching the table. "Can't we please take a break?"
"You have already taken three separate micro-breaks, young lady," Reyna replied without missing a single beat, already moving swiftly toward the exit. "Now, I have a massive basket of winter potatoes to scrub and a mountain of laundry that needs to be beaten into absolute submission. I fully expect both of your assignment pages to be completely filled by the time I return."
"Ughh.." Lyra groaned.
With that final warning, she vanished through the doorway and headed downstairs. Her heavy, rhythmic footsteps echoed clearly along the wooden staircase, quickly followed by the distant, comforting sounds of clattering ceramic dishes and her soft, melodic humming. She was always humming. Somehow, my mother could effortlessly execute a full upper-body physical workout while simultaneously preparing a multi-course lunch and singing a traditional lullaby from the northern highlands. She was multitasking incarnate.
I leaned casually back in my chair, turning my head to glance over at my sister.
Lyra was currently hunched forward over the table like a reinforced soldier taking cover in a frontline trench. Her charcoal pencil was jammed violently upright into the soft grain of the wood, her left leg bouncing in a rapid, anxious rhythm against the floorboards. Her sky-blue eyebrows were furrowed so tightly they almost met, her lips slightly parted in intense, agonizing concentration as she stared blankly at the mathematical problem written before her.
Tap. Tap. Tap.
Her index finger drummed against the table in a frantic, rapid cadence, as if she genuinely believed the arithmetic might reveal its secrets out of sheer physical intimidation. In stark contrast, I had easily finished my entire sheet of assignments several minutes ago.
Lyra, meanwhile, was visibly, spectacularly drowning.
Poor creature, I thought, letting out a quiet sigh. For a long while, I chose to say absolutely nothing, content to watch her struggle. But as the minutes ticked continuously away, my internal empathy meter began to spike rapidly.
"You know," I said casually, resting my chin comfortably in my open palm, "you are technically supposed to write the numerical answers onto the actual parchment, not repeatedly stab the furniture."
She snapped her head toward me, glaring with pure heat, though her cheeks puffed out slightly in deep embarrassment. "I was thinking."
"Is that what that sound was? I thought a woodpecker got inside."
Her pencil wobbled precariously in place as she finally pulled the lead tip free from the paper, a cloud of visible frustration settling over her face. With a heavy, defeated sigh, she rolled her golden eyes toward the ceiling.
"I'm just... not good with numbers, alright?"
I hummed thoughtfully. "Want some help?"
She hesitated instantly, her lower lip tightening. I could see the fierce, localized pride flashing within her golden eyes, actively clashing with the quiet, structural practicality that usually emerged whenever it was just the two of us.
"...Fine," she muttered under her breath, the words spoken so quietly they were almost lost to the wind.
I scooted my wooden chair directly beside hers, doing my absolute best to repress a smug grin. Lyra could effortlessly hoist a massive hay bale and hurl it across the farmyard without breaking a single sweat, but basic mathematics? Mathematics was her undisputed mortal enemy. Yet, for all of her tough bravado and wild physical energy, she never allowed her personal pride to permanently get in the way when it came to family. She always possessed the maturity to ask for help when the situation truly demanded it.
I leaned over to take a look. "Okay, so..." I tapped the page lightly. "You're not actually subtracting here. You're just placing the numbers side by side, like you're trying to make them sit next to each other."
She blinked in confusion, tilting her head at a sharp angle. "Wait, what do you mean?"
"You see this part?" I pointed. "Instead of taking one number away from the other, you're kind of... pairing them up. Like you're hoping they become best friends instead of canceling each other out."
Lyra stared at the paper, frowning at it like it had betrayed her. "Ohhh," she said slowly, scratching her head. "So that's why it looked wrong... I wasn't taking anything away."
"Yup. Let me show you a trick that might help."
I gently took the pencil from her grip and sketched out a clean, fresh example. Then, I carefully talked her through the sequential steps, breaking down the abstract concepts the exact way I always wished my primary school teachers had done for me: simple, incredibly patient, and leaving plenty of open operational space for minor mistakes. To my absolute surprise, Lyra actually followed along perfectly. Her gaze didn't wander off toward the windows, she didn't make any funny faces, and she didn't complain once. She was listening. She was truly listening to me.
"...That makes more sense," she mumbled after a moment, her brow smoothing. "I think I get it now."
A strange, small warmth bloomed deeply within my chest. Helping her master a concept that I excelled at felt incredibly unfamiliar, but it was an undeniably good feeling. Besides, there was something inherently hilarious about watching a girl who could easily slam my body into the dirt get completely tripped up by single-digit subtraction.
A few minutes later, Mom came back to check on us.
By that point, I had already returned to my side of the table, casually flipping through the advanced pages of my magic textbook while stealing occasional, covert glances at my sister. Lyra was still fiercely hunched over her assignment sheet, her pencil gripped incredibly tightly in her fist, her eyebrows furrowed in pure, unadulterated concentration. A tiny, triumphant smile tugged at the corner of her lips, and the absolute tip of her tongue peeked out slightly from the side of her mouth: her universal, unmistakable thinking face.
It was, honestly, kind of adorable.
She was so utterly absorbed in her work that she didn't even notice Mom entering the study room. Her entire world was that sheet of paper, those numbers, and getting it right. Mom stopped a few steps away, her arms crossed loosely, a faint smile on her lips as she watched us. I looked up when I heard her footsteps, but Lyra didn't so much as flinch.
"So," Mom said softly, strolling closer to the table, her voice carrying a gentle, teasing tone that she exclusively reserved for moments when she was pleasantly surprised. "How are my two star pupils doing so far?"
Lyra jolted upright with a tiny, startled gasp, completely caught off guard by the sudden voice. Her grip slipped, and her charcoal pencil flew directly from her fingers, rolling quickly off the edge of the table.
"I—! I wasn't slacking off, I swear!" she blurted out automatically.
I snorted, doing a poor job of hiding my grin. "No one said you were."
Mom chuckled, bending down to grab the runaway pencil. "Relax, sweetheart. You looked more focused than a hawk watching a mouse."
"I was trying really hard," Lyra huffed, quickly snatching the pencil back from Mom's hand. "I honestly think I managed to get every single one of them correct this time."
"Oh?" Reyna remarked, her genuine curiosity instantly piqued. "Mind if I take a quick look at the results?"
Lyra handed over the paper with something resembling pride. Her chin lifted slightly. "Check it out. I think I even did that long one without counting on my fingers."
Reyna accepted the paper, scanning the written text once, and blinked. She paused, then blinked a second time.
Then, she cleared her throat with diplomatic caution.
"Well," she began carefully, choosing her words with extreme precision, "you have definitely written actual numbers down. That's... progress, I guess."
I leaned over to sneak a quick peek at the page, and my heart instantly sank into my stomach. Every single written answer was completely, spectacularly wrong. They weren't even remotely in the ballpark of "close but not quite"; they were wildly, astronomically off the mark.
Reyna offered a deeply sympathetic, pained wince. "Sweetheart... two plus six does not equal twenty-six."
Lyra's facial features slowly contorted, her hopeful, triumphant expression instantly crumbling into something akin to ultimate betrayal. "But... but Kyro explicitly said to!"
"Hey, wait a minute!" I quickly raised both of my hands in a defensive gesture. "I told you to add the top value and the bottom value together! You literally just combined the raw digits next to each other like some kind of chaotic math soup!"
She groaned and dropped her head to the table with a soft bonk. "I tried so hard..."
I felt a little bad. Okay, more than a little.
She let out a massive, dramatic groan and dropped her head completely flat onto the wooden table with a soft, dull bonk. "I tried so incredibly hard..."
I felt an immediate pang of guilt hit my stomach. It felt terrible, honestly. She really had put everything she had into trying to understand the material.
I reached my arm across the gap, gently placing a comforting hand onto her slumped shoulder. "Hey, it's alright, Lyra. You are genuinely getting better at this. I promise you will get it completely right next time."
An abrupt, heavy pause blanketed the room.
Without a single word of warning, her right hand shot upward like a blinding physical blur, her fingers instantly locking around my wrist with the force of a hydraulic vice. My past-life engineering instincts went wild, screaming about immediate physical danger far too late to formulate a countermeasure. Before I could even finish processing the thought, she violently twisted her entire torso, utilizing her massive leverage to yeet my small body completely sideways with the absolute grace and power of a seasoned Olympic wrestler.
"You are the exact reason I got the answers wrong!" she yelled at the top of her lungs.
"Wh—! J-just hold on a min—WOAH!"
I flew directly out of the wide-open second-story window with a loud, startled squawk.
"AHHHHHHHHHHHH!"
Miraculously, Thorskil just so happened to be casually walking past the side of the house at that exact millisecond, cradling a large woven basket filled with iron farming tools. He calmly looked upward toward the sky, tracked my falling trajectory, and perfectly caught my body mid-air, absorbing the kinetic impact seamlessly into his open arms.
"Whoa there, champ," he said, his voice entirely calm and unbothered.
"Oof!" I let out a sharp gasp the moment my body made contact with his chest. I looked up into his face, my eyes wide. "D-dad!"
His focused gaze locked onto me, his mind clearly wondering what anomaly had caused his son to rain from the sky, before his eyes followed the trajectory back up to the open second-story window.
He let out a deep, rumbling chuckle, turning his attention back down to me. "Rough homeschooling session upstairs?"
"I do not want to talk about it," I mumbled into his flannel-clad shoulder, completely defeated.
Back inside, Mom yelled Lyra's name.
"LYRAAAA!"
***
The following morning, I quickly discovered that peace was a absolute lie. The early sun had barely peeked its head over the eastern horizon when I rolled out of bed, stepped into the hallway, and found Lyra already sitting cross-legged directly on the floorboards like some kind of golden-eyed gremlin waiting in ambush.
"Teach me how to cast magic," she demanded, her wide eyes flashing with hopeful intensity.
Didn't you just threw me out yesterday? I COULD'VE DIED, YOU KNOW! I mentally screamed.
I aggressively rubbed the residual sleep from my eyes, letting out a long, exhausted sigh. "No."
She didn't offer a single word of argument; she simply vanished from the hallway in an instant. That lack of resistance was honestly far more worrying than an argument.
During breakfast, while I was carefully chewing on a tough piece of salted morning meat, her upper torso suddenly leaned directly over the table. Her hands were tightly clasped together in front of her face as if she were actively praying to a deity.
"Teach me magic?"
"No," I replied flatly, without missing a single bite of my food.
Later in the afternoon, while I was inside the wooden outhouse, right in the absolute middle of my private business, the door creaked open slightly.
"Kyro," a muffled voice whispered from a distance that was far too close for basic psychological comfort, "will you please just—"
"Lyra!" I screamed at the top of my lungs, my face flushing with pure panic. "Get the hell out of here!"
"I just wanted to ask a question!"
"THIS ISN'T THE TIME OR THE PLACE!"
She closed the door, her footsteps retreating with a soft, disgruntled, "Fine," acting as if I were the one exhibiting weird behavior.
By mid-morning, I falsely believed I had finally earned a sacred moment of absolute silence. I was safely ensconced within the quiet study room, happily curled up in the corner with my advanced textbook, Source of Power.
Then, the window frame creaked open. A familiar, golden-eyed face slowly rose into view over the sill like a predatory jungle cat stalking its prey up a tree line.
"Teach me magic?"
I violently slammed the textbook shut with a loud crack. "No!"
She blinked in surprise, then quietly dropped backward out of view, vanishing into the bushes below.
***
An entire day passed, and she hadn't spoken a single word to me since that final window incident. I was currently outside in the backyard, carrying a heavy canvas sack of fried seeds toward the pig trough, finally enjoying the cool afternoon breeze and pretending I lived in a wonderful reality that lacked older sisters.
I took a few steps forward when suddenly..
"KYRO!"
"GYA—!"
She exploded directly out of a nearby berry bush like a wild squirrel caught on fire, the sheer shock almost causing me to drop the heavy feed sack right into the dirt.
"Teach me magic?"
And that was it, I'd reached my limit.
"Lyra, I said no! God, are you completely deaf or just incredibly dense?!" I gritted my teeth violently. She froze in her tracks, startled by my tone, but I was entirely too far gone to halt my momentum.
"You keep relentlessly pestering me like some annoying, buzzing fly, operating under the childish assumption that if you bug me enough, I will just magically give in to your demands! Newsflash: magic is absolutely not designed for idiots who cannot even execute basic subtraction properly! You are entirely impulsive, you never think about the future, and you treat every single aspect of reality like it is a game because you have never had to deal with real, lasting consequences in your entire life!"
I couldn't stop the words from exploding out of me like a volcanic eruption, but the structural damage was already done. The phrase "idiots who cannot even subtract properly" echoed heavily through the clearing.
She flinched violently as if physically struck, her golden eyes widening to the size of saucers, her mouth slightly agape as her lower lip began to tremble uncontrollably.
Ah, damn it... I thought, my anger instantly evaporating as a wave of cold panic washed over me. I braced my body for the impending, brutal physical beatdown, but what occurred next was something I had absolutely never calculated.
"Eeghh.." She trembled.
She began to cry. Massive, heavy tears welled up instantly in her eyes, spilling over her cheeks. She tried desperately to blink them away, sniffling once, then twice, her small fists clenching tightly at her sides.
"I hate you!" she screamed, her voice cracking under the emotional weight. "I don't need your stupid magic anyway! I can become strong without it!"
She spun around on her heel, leapt cleanly over the tall pigpen fence with the raw agility of a wild deer, and sprinted down the dirt path without looking back a single time.
I instinctively reached my hand out toward the path. "Lyra, wait!"
But she was already gone. I stood there in absolute, deafening silence, the heavy sack of seeds dangling uselessly from my shoulder, the distant sound of her sprinting footsteps growing fainter with every single beat of my heart.
Later that afternoon, after I had mechanically finished the remainder of my daily chores, I sat by the study window once again. The textbook was open in my lap, but my mind was completely adrift. No matter how many pages I turned, Lyra's tearful, betrayed face hovered vividly behind every single line of text. Guilt churned violently in my stomach like a toxic chemical reaction.
She was just a kid. A stubborn, incredibly noisy, bush-leaping maniac of a sister, but still a kid.
I shouldn't have said that, that was just wrong.. I should go and apologize.
I let out a heavy sigh and snapped the book closed. "I am heading out for a bit," I called out to Mom.
She peeked her head up from her massive wooden weaving loom, offering a warm smile. "Alright, sweetie. Have fun, and make sure you don't wander too far from the perimeter!"
***
The mid afternoon sun hung lazily overhead as I walked briskly along the dirt path leading toward the local village, desperately hoping that Lyra had simply gone to cool her temper with her usual group of friends on the grassy hill situated just south of town. Sure enough, as I rounded the bend, I spotted a small gathering of village children crowded together near the crest.
However, they looked deeply uneasy, casting frequent, anxious glances toward the dense, dark tree line of the western forest in the distance. The exact millisecond they spotted my approach, their entire postures stiffened as if they had just been caught committing an illegal act.
"Hey," I called out cautiously, picking up my pace. "Have any of you seen Lyra around here today?"
They hesitated, looking at one another in silence.
Then, one of the younger girls, incredibly small and pale, mumbled under her breath, "She went straight into the forest... just down that specific path..."
I froze instantly, feeling the blood completely run cold in my veins.
"What?" I asked, my voice ringing out sharper and louder than I had intended.
Another kid, covered in freckles with choppy, uneven hair, nodded rapidly, his eyes wide with fear. "She explicitly said she wanted to prove to everyone that she could become strong without any magic. She... she took a sword with her."
I blinked in utter bewilderment. "What sword could she possibly have?"
That was when a scrawny boy with a terrible bowl cut and a deeply sheepish grin slowly raised his hand like he was answering a question in a classroom. "Uh... she took my dad's steel sword. It was resting on the weapon rack in the armory. She asked to borrow it and, well..."
He trailed off, unable to finish the sentence.
I narrowed my eyes into dangerous slits, stepping directly into his personal space. "And you just willingly let her take a real weapon?!"
"She said she'd punch me if I didn't!" he blurted out, shrinking under my glare. "I panicked! Have you seen her arms?!"
I get your fear, little buddy, but WHAT THE FUCK?!
I groaned, stepped forward, and grabbed him by the front of his shirt. "You gave her a real weapon because she threatened you?!"
"I didn't know what to do! She's terrifying!"
I released my grip on his shirt with a deeply frustrated sigh, dragging both of my hands down my face. Of all the reckless, thick-headed, stubborn things to do!
She really meant it. She genuinely wanted to prove to me that she didn't need magic to excel, and worst of all, her complete lack of situational awareness meant she was going to get herself seriously injured or killed.
I turned back to the rest of the gathered children, my eyes wide with absolute urgency. "Listen to me very carefully. Go find Saul immediately. Or go find my dad. Find any adult you can see! I don't care who it is. Just explain exactly what happened. Tell them Lyra has officially breached the western forest perimeter while armed with a steel sword!"
The children hesitated for a single second before nodding in unison, scattering down the hill like a kicked anthill. I didn't waste another moment. Without a single word, I spun around on my heel and bolted down the dirt path, sprinting at maximum velocity straight toward the dark tree line of the forest.
"Hold on, Lyra," I muttered under my breath, my heart pounding against my ribs like a war drum. "Please don't do anything stupid. Please just be okay..."
[End]