It was a cold and snowy day. The people stood at home for most of the day and so did Kalmia and Dedrik. Kalmia, busy doing the chores, even if she didn’t like to even after two seasons, picked up a picture, cleaned on the spot where the frame was standing, and put it down again. Over the last half a year, Kalmia has been staying with Dedrik she improved her housekeeping skills and learned the basics of reading and writing. Her handwriting wasn’t yet the best it could be, however it was readable enough to get her somewhere.

Unbeknownst to Kalmia, Dedrik had her do that so that she would learn to stand on her own feet and take care of herself.

Kalmia sighed. She desperately needed a few days off and get a bit of time for herself to finally get some information about herself and her situation.

Dedrik was sitting at the kitchen table while Kalmia was doing the chores.

“What would you like to do tomorrow?”

“What should I do? It’s a day like any other.”

“Wait you don’t know?”

“Know what?”

“…Nothing.”

“Huh? Whatever.”

Dedrik got a grin on his face. Kalmia didn’t know what Yule was. This means that he could surprise her even more by celebrating it together with her.

Kalmia went up the stairs and into her room. she has been living in this room for half a year now. It was more spacious than the room she had at his fathers house – and she didn’t have to share the room. During the last few months she was being kept busy by Dedrik and – at some points – regretted staying with Dedrik due to the amount of work she had to do, however it was an unbeatable offer to have him pay her and stay in his house.

The staying in his house is not just figuratively. She didn’t go out of the house much. Especially since autumn has started and she got cold whenever going outside.

Dedrik tried to tempt her into wearing high socks but Kalmia still refused. No matter how cold she felt, she wouldn’t wear them.

She sat down on her bed and looked at a shelf that was next to it. In the shelf she had easy to read books. She grabbed one of the books and opened it. The book was an epic about a strong man, who fought on the battlefield and some day fought a god and triumphed.

When she finished the Book she was reading she went down to the kitchen table. Dedrik was already waiting there, prepared to teach her a bit more.

“Now that you know how to read and write, we will start calculus.”

“What is calculus?”

“It is… hmm… hard to describe. Can you tell me what 1+1 is?”

Kalmia used her hand counting to find out

“Uh… 2?”

“Correct. And with that you did calculus.”

“I see…”

“I will teach you how to properly calculate in your head up to 100×100.”

Kalmia looked at her hands”

“Not with your hands but with your head.”

Kalmia looked at Dedrik with a confused look on her face.

“How am i supposed to do that?”

“It’s very easy. You just have to memorize it. It takes a lot of time but it isn’t hard. And if you know how to calculate this amount, you can multiplicate and divide anything. before that though you first have to learn how to calculate with plus and minus.”

“Aha…”

“Trust me, you’ll need it when you buy or sell anything. Not just because of the money you pay but also because of the items you receive.”

After that, Dedrik taught Kalmia how to add up and subtract from. She learned that after nine it becomes ten and after nineteen it becomes twenty. For each of these steps up until two hundred.

Kalmia heard of it for the first time and didn’t manage to memorise them all that fast. Because of that Dedrik told her to repeat these over the next few weeks and she wouldn’t have to learn with him for the next two weeks but rather repeat everything she has learned so far.

After the learning session Kalmia went up into her room, started to wear a pyjama and laid down in her bed. It was already dark outside and as always she would get up early tomorrow.

Early the next day Kalmia was surprised. Dedrik was already up and made breakfast. He even brought it up to her room and put it down on the ground in front of the door.

What’s going on?

Kalmia ate her breakfast and went down into the kitchen. Dedrik was sitting in front of the fireplace and looking through documents. Kalmia looked around and everything looked a bit differently. There was a weirdly woody decoration hanging everywhere. It looked as if someone took some branches of pine trees and hung them up on the walls. Next to the fireplace were some weird boxes. They were wrapped up in some kind of decorated paper and laid there on the ground. Kalmia was very interested in what that would be.

“Good morning Kalmia. I wish you a happy Yule!”

“Yule? What is a Yule?”

“It is a tradition we have for celebrating your bonds with the people around you.”

“Sooo… like birthday?”

“Well… not directly like birthday but it has its similarities.”

“And how does one usually celebrate this Yule thing?”

“One burns a large log in the fireplace of the house and watches that with friends and family. After that one eats a goat that is cooked in a special way. At the end of the day there is a cosy get together in which people give each other gifts. If a family is poor they like to skip out on the Yule celebration as it can get quite expensive relatively quickly.”

You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

“But… I don’t have any gift for you…”

“I don’t need anything. You should think about yourself first.”

“…”

“Come here. Let’s play some games today. Have you ever played chess?”

“Can’t say I did.”

“Would you like to learn chess?”

“Sure, why not.”

The next few hours were spent with Kalmia learning how to play chess. It took her half an hour to learn the rules and another hour to grasp the game completely. Even after understanding the game she would regularly get checkmated by Dedrik. It was obvious that that would happen but it was quite frustrating to Kalmia.

After a while Kalmia had enough of chess. She thought she had Dedrik in a trap so often just to end up defeated herself.

After Kalmia stepped away from chess, Dedrik asked her to come out with him and search for the log to burn. Kalmia didn’t want to go out but in the end still came with him. She felt like she owed Dedrik to properly celebrate Yule together with him.

Kalmia tucked her tail away and took a thick coat that Dedrik has given her. The coat was not just quite thick but it also reached down the Kalmias knees. With that she stayed somewhat warm but her legs still got quite cold.

While walking over to the market and the shop that sells logs, Kalmia shivered a lot.

“So what do you say, which Yule log we will take home?”

“Hmm… how about that one?”

Kalmia pointed at a log that still had all of his twigs and branches attached.

“But young madame, that one is not yet prepared.”

“We’ll take that one.”

Dedrik wanted to make Kalmia happy and stood fast on the ground of buying that specific log.

“It will do if Kalmia wants that log.”

“Sure… That log will cost 30 chai.”

“Make it 20.”

“But if i pay you 20 i sell at a loss. how about 28?”

“Hmm… 23 and no more”

“Lowest i can do is 26.”

“Deal.”

Dedrik was stronger than he looked. It seemed that he could effortlessly pull the log through the market with some ropes. Once we reached the house they went into the kitchen and put the log there.

Afterwards they went out again to buy a slaughtered goat to eat at dinner time.

Once again at home, Dedrik prepared the Log to be thrown into the fire. this included taking of the bark and cutting of twigs and branches. the branches and the bark were used to start the fire. As soon as the fire got going, Dedrik threw the 1,5 meter large log into the fireplace. Quickly the fire began spreading all over the log, which first turned black and afterwards turned ash gray. As soon as the fire started burning Dedrik poked up the goat, which was already skinned and gutted, took a long metal rod and put it through the goat. It reached out on both ends. Next Dedrik hung up the goat on two spots on the wall to each side of the fireplace and had a tool to turn it with.

“I will do this one. Just watch.”

Over the next 4 hours Kalmia and Dedrik talked a bit while he constantly had to turn the skewer.

It was already dark outside as Dedrik got up.

“Kalmia, could you get us forks and knifes? also a large knife, please.”

“Sure.”

Kalmia went over to a drawer and took the largest plates and the largest knife she could find.

“here.”

Kalmia reached Dedrik a plate and the large knife. While Dedrik began cutting down some of the meat, Kalmia prepared the table.

Once the dish was on the table, Dedrik took out a bit of salad he had prepared the day before. The dish was very meat based and the salad should balance it out a bit. Kalmia however took a large piece, that originally came from the breast of the goat and chomped down on it. It was gone within seconds and Kalmia took the next piece. It was just as large as the previous one and came from the back this time.

Dedrik was fine with getting a medium large piece from the back. He couldn’t eat a lot anyways but Kalmia seemed to always have a hunger this strong so he purposefully took the largest goat they had. It barely took twenty minutes until the goat was left with only its bones laying on the plate.

“So… what now?”

“Now we go to the traditionally last event of the day. The gift exchange. Don’t worry. I don’t expect anything from you.”

Kalmia looked a bit sad. If she had known something existed she would have prepared a gift for Dedrik.

Dedrik and Kalmia went over to the small wrapped up boxes.

“These are for you.”

Dedrik took the two boxes and put them in front of kalmia.

Kalmia sat down on the ground to open them. In the first box, there were a few books in there. ‘Menise class 1’, ‘Calculus class 1’, ‘Draconic class 1’ and ‘Magic class 1’

“huh? what does this mean?”

“Open up the next one and you’ll know.”

the next one had three pairs of uniforms. They were white blouses with a dark jacket over. Not just that but also black skirts and thigh highs.

“What are you telling me with this?”

“You are going to go to an official school. I taught you enough for you to be able to learn at school and you got a far brighter future ahead of you if you study.”

Kalmia nodded with her head. She didn’t want to leave Dedrik, who cared for her as if she was from his own blood.

Suddenly, when she thought about that, she got very sad and thought about her father. She left him all alone back in that rotting village. Also Adam, whom she had last seen badly hurt.

Both the past and the present made Kalmia sad. Slowly a tear started to roll down own her face. then a few followed. After a short amount of time she started fully crying. She was a young girl. With the hormones of a young girl. She was a lot less sentimental when she was still a boy but since she became a girl she felt like crying a lot more often.

Dedrik took her into his arms to calm her down.

**CHAPTER 5: END**