"Alright you two follow along after me. Let's get you started on training."

"Me too?" Kay asked, after wiping off his tears-stained face with his sleeve.

"Of course you too. You heard the part of the conversation where we said you would be staying here right? Our rooms are super nice so we aren't cheap. But but but! If you work here, you get food and rooms on the house. Very nice right?" Vita said, petting Kay's head.

"That is really nice. I liked the library but they didn't feed me. I wasn't always sure where I was going to get my food. I didn't like digging in the garbage so I would often go to businesses at the end of the day and buy their scraps such as potato skins. Oh and the head pats are nice as well" Kay says.

"No more of that for you! We are going to feed you well, so you grow up nice and strong and handsome. I mean look at that face." she says and puts her hands on his cheeks. "Such a cute face."

"Excuse me, Vita? Beg your pardon I do not mean to be rude. Shall we get Kay a room before you begin training us? I know that I had much appreciation that you did that for me." I told her. Also, I think that it would be good to re-direct Vita away from his face.

"Rightie'o!" Vita says cheerfully. "And how long to do you plan to carry Cat around for?”

"I cannot profess to know. He is rather warm and soft, and it feels nice to carry him around."

"Yes. Carry me, love me, praise my soft silky fur and cute paws." He says, rolling in my arms so he is on his back looking up at me.

"Do be careful mister Cat. I would sorely hate to drop you."

"Please don't call me mister. I'm not old. Just call me Cat."

"Ami! Don't get distracted and follow us. Follow, follow." she says. Kay and I follow her to the front desk.

"Mama Tia! You wouldn’t believe it but we have a second new worker!" she shouted. The wolf-kin woman appeared out of somewhere and made her way over to us.

"This the other one?" she asks. "Oh hey, I fed you last night. You like my food so much you wanna stay here to get more of it?"

"That is a reason, and a very good one at that. Your food is good, the atmosphere is nice, I will be joining Cat's guild at some time, the beds look soft..." he says, getting carried away. "Oh! And I was told that I would be staying and working here and that sounded like a good idea. Who doesn’t like food, sleep and money" he said and gave a shy laugh.

"You are quite the cute one. Also, it looks like those clothes fit you well, yeah?" she asks, looking him over.

"Yes! Yes they do. And they are so comfortable. I like them very much. Crestin is grabbing my belongings out of the library so I can have all of my clothes here with me! Yay!"

"Haha, you sure are an energetic little one aren't ya. It's good to have a lot of energy, so I will keep ya fed to help you keep up that energy."

"I would appreciate that a whole lot and I am in no way suspicious about the overly kind nature of everyone here. Nope not at all." he said, positively beaming at Mama Tia.

"Also, we have the wardrobe in there so make sure that you hang up your clothes. Especially the work clothes we will be giving ya. Now then off with ya. You have a lot to learn." she says and waves her arm at us.

"Alright Kay you will be in room 22!" Vita says and rushes us to the stairs. She guides us up to the third floor where Kay would be rooming. "This is it!" She says, unlocks the door and pushes it open.

"Wow! This is my room huh? Look at how big it is! Look at the bed, and my bathroom, and this is where I will hang my clothes, and I can stack my book up over here. This is wonderful!" Kay says, He really does have a lot of energy.

"Vita, pray tell, are Kay and I going to be doing the same job or are we to be trained in separate areas and skills?" I inquire.

"That's a great question." Vita says, tail twitching and swishing back and forth. "I already know that you will be doing teatime, as well as mixing and serving drinks. What about you Kay? Hmm... I think that you might make a good door greeter. Well, can you cook? Navigate around tables?"

"I am able to read and check out books but that doesn't really work here does it? How about being quiet and staying out of the way, that is probably my second best skill, but I'm up for trying anything! And eventually I will be able to float people's food out to them!" Kay says with a broad grin.

I could tell that he was envisioning doing such things. How whimsical. I can imagine that others would rather enjoy such things,

"Don't worry Kay, we will find a way to put you to work, even if it is only cleaning. We had a position for one person, who knew that we would be hiring two." Vita sounded so happy as she said it. "Let's start by introducing you to everyone. After that we will get you fitted into your uniforms."

Vita wastes no time in dragging us here, there and yonder about the Inn. We were introduced to other workers and some of the main patrons. We were shown all of the different rooms, such as where to do laundry and where the frozen food was kept. We were also shown where all of the spirits were stored. This would be important for me to know as this was going to be a large part of my job.

After greeting people and being shown locations Vita took us to the wardrobe room.

“Try this one” Vita says handing me a uniform “and for you Kay. Hmm, well which would you prefer?” She was holding what were clearly both a male and a female uniform.

“Both, who would say no to free clothes.” Kay first reaches for the female uniform “can’t wait to see how cute I will look.”

“Excellent, I would be lying if I said I wouldn’t be sad that I wouldn’t get to dress you up. Now then, what color hair should we make these?” Vita says while gently poking Kay’s ears.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted without the author's consent. Report any appearances on Amazon.

‘Oh large containers of chocolate desert, you can’t dye fake ears.’ “Don’t you think it is best if we leave his fur as pure and innocent as he is?”

“Oh, oh oh! That is a good point, I do like that angle. However, I am still dying his hair. Get over here my adorable new play thing!” Vita acts it up a bit even including a cackle.

“Vita I do believe we do not have enough time remaining in the evening to dye his hair.”

“Fine, fine, fine. Tomorrow after your classes then, after all the training you will be too weak to resist me. Hehehe.”

Me and Kay change in the portioned areas, and Vita quickly took our measurements.

“I should have these done in a day or two, now then, let the real training commence!”

Vita had Kay do the same things that she had me doing. He was, well, Kay would be a work in progress and there was nothing wrong with that. Needless to say, serving drinks was not going to be his forte. Mixing drinks wasn't either. Poring tea went atrociously. Finally though, we found something that Kay could do better than others.

"Kay, how are you able to remember so many orders and all of the different positions of people at the tables? Especially without writing anything down?!" Vita asks and exclaims all at once. She seemed appropriately impressed, as that was a challenging thing to learn for certain.

"Well, I want to be a mage so I have to have a good memory in order to memorize incantations. And I plan to memorize many of them. Who knows what spells are going to end up being the most important to me? Do you know? No, no you don't because no one knows. What, was I supposed to have a note pad?" Kay says and laughs. He seems very glad indeed that he found a skill that he was good at.

"I wonder if you would be any good at cooking Kay. Well there is only one way to find out." Vita says and we follow her to go meet the chef. He was a very large man, bear-kin perhaps? Either way he smiled at us as we came into the kitchen.

"Hello George, we have our two newest trainees following me around today. I am trying to find things that they are good at so we can utilize them the most effectively. Do you mind if I test their cooking skills?"

"Hmm. It would be nice to have some help on occasion I suppose. You." he says pointing to me. "You will be making the salad and a pie. And you." he says pointing at Kay. "You will be helping me with the stew and roast.”

George walked us through how we wanted the tasks completed and then stepped back to watch how we did. As he was in charge of all of the cooking it was very important for me to follow his guidelines. I chopped the salad and baked the pie to the utmost of my abilities. It is kind that he is letting us help and I do not wish to bring him shame.

"Very good lass!" he tells me as he watches me work. "I was told that you would be helping out with the tea ceremonies."

"Yes, any time that does not conflict with my training schedule."

"Ah yes, you both are becoming adventurers aren't you?" George asked in what sounded almost like a disappointed tone.

"Yes that's right. We did a lot of testing today and it confirmed what I thought, that we were are going to kick all the butt at it. Kicka pow!"

"Haha you are quite the spirited lad aren't you. Now then, this is how you should be cutting those potatoes. You want to make them all the same size. See, like this." he says, and shows him a chopping technique. "Now you try it."

Kay does his best, but it seems that he is not the best at using a knife. I chuckle to myself remembering his test with small knives, not a surprise at all. Cooking is a good skill to learn though whether he is good at it at first or not. He kept trying though.

"Hmm. The potatoes are a bit more difficult because they need to be cut into uniform pieces. Cut up the onion and the carrots. Those don't have to be any specific size."

"Coming right up!" Kay says, and gets to work. He did much better at this as he wasn't focused on trying to make each potato piece look like every other one. Here he just let loose with his chopping. It looked like he was having a lot of fun.

"Alright, now we are putting the rub on the meat."

Me and Kay kept following all of his instructions and soon enough we were done helping with the meal. Vita wanders back in.

"So George, how did they do?" she asks.

"She seems to be decent at baking, which is what you said you were wanting her to do. He seems like he could be good at cooking with a bit more time. Didn't test his baking skills. I will do that tomorrow."

"Sounds good! Goodness Ami is there anything that you aren't good at?" Vita asks me.

“Shields! You should have seen her just topple right on over.” Kay couldn’t resist piping in.

"Well, at least I did not find myself trapped beneath my own armory. Anyways, I was told that I am not quite the most adept of cleaners. I can keep my area clean but when it comes to large scale cleaning projects I am not altogether too talented.”

"Haha, well it's a good thing that I don't have you set to clean anything. Well then, now for the fun part. Come on both of you, let's teach you some bar dances!"

"Yay! That sounds awesome!" Kay says, beaming and grinning from ear to ear.

He seems like he can make anything fun. It seems as though Kay has had a very difficult life so far, and yet he is one of the most upbeat people I have ever met.

"Well then, follow after me! And Kay, we don't really have the guys join in on the bar dances, until now. So, I hope you find a way to have fun with it anyways!"

"I don't mind at all. I saw you all dancing last night and it looked like a lot of fun. I'm just glad that I can be part of it, and I particularly like the part at the end where people toss money onto the stage."

"And to think. Yesterday you seemed so adamant not to leave the library." Vita teases.

"That was yesterday. You can't hold my today self accountable for what my yesterday self said." Kay responds.

How does that make any sense. Are you not the same person no matter the day? I ponder over Kay’s words of wisdom, though I’m not sure how wise they are.

"Where should we practice? I don't want to disturb the people here. I guess we can go to your room Kay as you don't have any of your belongings in there yet." Vita suggests.

"That makes sense?" Kay replies, although it ends up coming out as more of a question.

We make the way to Kay's room and push things aside, making the largest space that we are able to.

"So, the essence of these it to have fun, and make sure that the people watching us are having a good time. We like putting a smile on people's faces and I believe that watching a good dance can make anything else that people are doing more enjoyable. Now then. Watch and learn. We will call this stomp dance number one."

I watch Vita as she moves lightly, noting the way that she places her feet and the flourishes that she does. It is very important to have a good flourish.

Kay and I follow along and we all just end up having fun with it. She woops and cheers as me and Kay learn. In the thick of our learning and amidst our mistakes we end up accidentally creating a new dance. By the time she is done teaching us all she can for the night I am rather quite tired and my body is thrumming.

I know that it is indulgent, but I fill the tub with hot water and slowly slide in.

I am out and drying off when a knock comes at my door.

"Hey Ami, I have that rockeaters book for you. I am not sure why you wanted it but Crestin brought it along with my belongings."

"One moment."

I quickly dress in my pajamas and open the door.

"Thank you." I tell him as I receive the book.

"Wow, you look good even in pajamas, not fair. Night Ami. See you for school in the morning."

"Goodnight Kay..." Was that as awkward as I thought it was?

Once the door is closed and locked, I make my way to the bed with the book. It was rather thick. I am not certain why, but I thought that it was going to be a children's fairy tale with a name like that.

Rockeaters: Compiled Literary Stories of Those That Eat Rocks

"Well then, let's see what this is about."

I open it and skim the table of contents. The book seemed to be composed of half fairy tales and legends, while the other half aimed to be a more accurate historical record. I glimpse through the sections that contain the fairy tales, they seem to be sorted by locale and each one even offers descriptions and artistic interpretations. So much information! Now then, why is it that Kay and Crestin cannot remember my absorption of the mana crystals? Is that covered within these pages?

I open to the first chapter and start skimming.

‘While not all the same race, the name rockeater is given to those that are able to absorb mana crystals. This absorption allows for growth of stats, proficiency and aptitude. It is said that rockeaters are not able to decide what was raised, and may not even notice a change at first. Other times, depending on the amount of mana that was contained there within the mana crystal, there was a very noticeable change to one aspect.

Rockeaters have no choice over what they are. Birds fly, fish swim, and rockeaters absorb mana crystals when they come into contact with their skin. Races that are said to birth these individuals are...

Thud. The book slips out of my hands, hitting the floor as I fall asleep.