Right after pointing out Markus’ room, tiger girl did a spin at the sound of a loud snore and immediately noticed Cyrus dozing away on his own super plush bed.

“So is everyone just living like kings down here, or…”

“Just some of us,” Markus said, wiping sleep from his eyes as he turned to sit up, pulling the robe he wore back over his shoulders as he did and fastening the waistband. “Take it your accommodation isn’t so grand?”

“I’ve got a hammock,” tigress said with all the enthusiasm of a Poe recital, rolling her eyes.

“Anyways!”

She immediately switched tones, chipper and upbeat, waltzing into his cell without warning and presenting a pair of weighty tomes for his inspection, one with red bindings, the other purple. “Ta-da!”

“What’s this?” Markus asked, his eyes still groggy, staring at the two covers as he blinked away blurriness.

“They’re books!” Tigress said with a triumphant smile, her eyes bright and glinting, her ears pointing straight up. “I, uh, borrowed them from the grand library upstairs. You have a soul contract, so getting you past the barrier to the library would be difficult, and technically, I’m not even meant to be there because it’s restricted or whatever. But I make rounds nearby, and I figured if I could just hop in and take a couple of books…”

Markus reached his hand out to take one. The cover was nondescript, weird markings and symbols adorning it. It looked like no language or set of glyphs he’d ever seen.

“That you’d maybe be able to learn some secret about your contract, or even about this place, and use the knowledge to escape!”

Markus glanced up at the tiger girl, two hands on the remaining book as the other two sat at her hips. “I thought you wanted me to beat this place? I thought that was your big fantasy.”

“Ehhh, beat it, run away with me… what’s the difference? Either way, it’s freaking exciting.”

“Huh.” Markus didn’t know what to say to that. He blushed. He managed a smile, slightly embarrassed by the two green eyes trained on him. “Thanks. I appreciate that a lot.”

She smirked at him. “No problem. Just what I do.”

That only left the problem of how to… wait.

The book’s writing was beginning to change before his eyes. He could see it shifting, the other language being enveloped by letters and symbols that he intrinsically understood, something that read to him just like English, despite the fact it still looked almost entirely different.

How this language translation stuff worked was utterly beyond Markus. It was mystifying. Then again, so was everything about this place, for better or worse.

Still, this was definitely one of the cooler features of being stuck on a fantasy world. He glanced up at tiger girl, returning her smile. “Alright, cool girl, let’s see what you’ve brought me…”

Markus glanced down at the book he’d received.

A Comprehensive Guide to Entrerean Tax Codes.

What… what was this?

He opened the book to a random page.

—Tax Code M states that the recipient is entitled to an allowance against all quarterly taxes of up to 400 silver, offset by the size of the couple’s dowry at a rate of 2 silver for each 10 of value up until a maximum of 2000 silver or the summative equivalent until the value of the dowry has been settled up to a third of its value. A dowry of 200 silver or less is exempt from this ruling. Couples earning more than 20 gold pieces per quarter have their allowance reduced by a rate of 20 silver per gold piece they earn above—

What the…

“Hey. What is this?” He flicked to another page. It described the process of claiming expenses on medicines specifically used to treat animals. “This is a fucking tax book.”

“Oh, shit. I must’ve grabbed the wrong one. What about this one?”

Markus stared at the title. Really stared at it.

He cleared his throat.

“I Married a Vampire and Now Everything Sucks.”

“Shittt…” Tiger girl tore the book away from him, ears splayed, her tail twitching, circling the room as she tried to hide the trashy romance from him. “I must’ve just accidentally grabbed the wrong ones! Or… I put them down for a sec. Someone must’ve swapped the ones I was holding! I…”

“Can you…” Markus squinted at her. Studied her. “Can you not read?”

“I can read!” tiger girl exclaimed, nodding exactly three times in a row. “Of course I can read! Why wouldn’t I be able to read? Pff—what a silly thing to say, heh.”

Markus grabbed the evil tax code book and flicked to a random page, shoving it in front the tiger’s muzzle. “Read this.”

“Uhh…” She twiddled her thumbs as she stared at the imposing black letters, then suddenly pointed behind Markus. “Hey, what’s that?!”

He shouldn’t have fell for it, but part of him thought that maybe Ember had returned. By the time he was looking back at her, she’d thrown the book into the corner of the cell.

Which… didn’t really accomplish much. She was turning red.

“Okay, I can’t read great…” She smiled sheepishly. “But I have… other qualities! Wanna see?”

Markus raised an eyebrow, completely ignoring that question. “So you just grabbed a couple of random books and ran with it, hoping at least one of them would be something useful?”

“...yeah. I tried to pick ones that looked all serious or magicky.”

Markus stared at the books. The vampire novel on the floor did have a certain magical quality, yeah, and the tax code book looked like it could well have been the Necronomicon for how intimidating it looked…

“Okay. I appreciate the effort.”

Tigress stared at the wall behind Markus. “Yeah. Glad I could help.”

“Hey, no, I mean it!” Markus walked across the cell, picking up the trashy vampire book and sitting back down. “Most people just come here to make me fight or fuck with me somehow. You genuinely tried to do something thoughtful to help me. It means a lot.”

Her ears perked a little. “Yeah. Of course I did. I’m pretty thoughtful, aren’t I?”

“Yes.” Markus nodded. “Yes you are.”

“Heh. Thanks.” She perked up, her tail squishing, all self-doubt seemingly absolved immediately. “Sooo, whatcha doing?”

“Surprised you didn’t ask me if I ‘come here often’,” Markus laughed. He sat back down on the bed, noting that tiger girl, for all of her bravado, stood right in the centre of the room, looking unsure where to stand or what to do with her arms, switching from a hand under her chin to down at her side multiple times in the course of ten seconds.

“What’s your name?”

“Rika,” she said, lightly beating her own chest. “Daughter of Light.” Her ears folded. “I… usually just go by Rika, though. Don’t know why I mentioned the ‘Daughter of Light’ part.”

“Hey, Rika,” Markus said, doing his absolute hardest not to make her feel more mortified than she already appeared. “I’m Markus. Markus Brown.”

“Markus, huh? Does it mean anything?”

“Why wou—do most names mean something special here?”

“Well, sure! Like Rika means Daughter of Earth, and Markus Brown probably means Badass Human with Face Fur, and—”

She covered her mouth, her cheeks tinging red. She’d been more ballsy when they’d been walking together. Probably because she knew she’d be able to ditch at any time. Now, sat in his cell, she had all the outward fortitude of a paper tige—

…no. You can think of something better.

Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

“Can most people in Firrelia not read, then?” Markus asked, trying to break the silence before it became too awkward for either of them.

“Oh! We’re back to that, huh?”

Shit. Maybe silence was better.

“I dunno, maybe half of people can. Probably less? I’m not really sure.” She shrugged. “I came from a very small tribe. No books there, or nothing you’d really call a book. We had scrolls with drawings on them. Murals. Shit like that, y’know?”

“Yeah, I guess so…” Markus stared at her. “You don’t really sound like you’re from some little hick village. You sound like you talk to people.”

“Eh, I’ve been around. Go from place to place looking for work.” She shrugged. “Always someone out there that wants the bengai to lift and pull shit for ‘em. So it works out for me.” She snickered. “None of those guys were lining up to teach me to read, though.”

“Hmm…” Markus nodded and listened, rubbing his chin. He watched as she looked him over, still looking like she might try and run at any moment. “So, that library. You said it was a ‘grand library’? And you weren’t meant to be there?”

“Yeah, but it’s no problem,” she announced, puffing her chest. “No one watches that shit properly. I was in and out clean. I can move pretty quiet.”

“What would happen if you got caught?” Markus asked. “Would you get like, flayed alive or something?”

“Eh, no. I’d probably get shouted at. Told not to do it again.”

“Seriously? That it?”

“Yeah,” Rika nodded. “They’re really hurting for good labour down here. Employee turnover is nuts if you don’t count the imps. I’m still awesome for pulling the heist off though.”

“Yeah…” Markus stared at Rika, then at the book in his hands. She fidgeted, shuffling her feet, her tail twitching. “You think it’d be super hard for me to get in there?”

“Those barriers are no joke. They’re set up at different sections of the dungeon to keep certain people in and other people out. There might be a way, but I’m not sure what it’d be. Sounds difficult.”

Basically what he’d expected to hear. But in that case…

Markus grabbed the cover of the tax code book, tapping on the spine, making Rika’s nose twitch. “So… any interest in learning to read?”

Rika blinked. Her tail batted against the floor. “Like… you teach me?”

“Yeah. Like I teach you, and then you can tell what to look for and grab me better stuff, assuming it’s in there. It’s a pot shot, but I could use whatever info on this world I can get my hands on, and that’s the best way I can think of to do it. So… you in?”

“Oh, I’m fucking in,” Rika grinned. “Holy shittt, I’m gonna learn to read! I-I mean. Cool. Yeah. We can do that.”

“Okay, come here then.”

Markus patted the bed beside him. Rika leapt back as if he’d just turned on a vacuum cleaner.

“Like… next to you?”

“Yeah.”

“On… your bed?”

Markus felt it was hit turn to blush. He averted his eyes. “Yes. Stop making it weird and come.”

“If you say so, weirdo.”

Rika marched over, sat down next to Markus, her tail pushing up against his leg as she took up half of the side of the bed, and grabbed the book straight from Markus’ hand, staring long and hard at the cover.

“Okay… whassitsay.”

***

Markus had never taught anyone to read. He’d figured it wouldn’t that difficult in practice.

“And so this little squiggle is an A, yeah?”

She was pointing at a lower case E. For the third time.

This was gonna take a while…

***

“Tee-ayyy-ekksss. Did I say it right?”

“Yeah, but also no.”

“Well how the fuck does that work? Why are a bunch of stupid lines so difficult? I wanna punch ‘em.”

“Don’t punch the book please.”

“Fine. Tell me what I did wrong.”

Markus scratched his head. How the fuck did he explain this?

“Those are letters. They’re the things that go together to make a word.”

Markus felt Rika’s tail bristle against his skin as she glared at him. “I know what a letter is. I’m not stupid.”

There was a small but very real chance she might crush him entirely if sufficiently provoked; Markus decided to exercise caution.

“Okay, okay. Well what you did was sound the three letters in ‘tax’ out phonetically. Phonemes are—”

“Hey, this is really hard. And boring. I like you, dude, but I’m gonna need some motivation to not pass the hell out here. Can you help with that?”

“What do you want?” Markus asked, a tad worried what she might say in turn.

“Little praise wouldn’t hurt. I am doing pretty good for a first timer.”

Markus blinked. He hadn’t really considered how he was coming across. Was he being too stern?

“You’re doing a great job,” Markus said, and he meant it. “You’ve picked up a lot in an hour. I’m proud of you.”

Okay. Now she was purring.

Purring.

Markus wanted to freak out? But the noise was oddly calming.

“Okay, go on, you can tell me now.”

Markus considered just getting on with it, but another thought popped into his mind.

“Hmm… tell you what. If you keep going and doing a good job, then I’ll read to you after and you can learn like that. Would you like that?”

“What, like tell me a story? Like people do at campfires?” Rika regarded at him with narrow eyes, recoiling a little.

Eh, maybe that was a bad idea.

“Well, kinda. I was thinking you could learn a bit as you listened, or—”

“No.” She tilted her head. “I don’t want that.”

“I figure—”

“If I do good and I get this right, I want you to just read to me. Okay?”

Markus looked at her. He didn’t really know her, but the calm of her voice juxtaposed by the permanent scarlet tinge of her cheeks made him feel a measure of happiness against the backdrop of dreariness he’d grown accustomed to.

“Sure. I can do that.”

This was nice. He was glad he got to do this.

“So… where were we?”

“Okay, so you did a great job sounding out ‘tax’, but what you were doing was saying the letters themselves phonetically. A phoneme is like a sound that a letter makes. They go together to form words, and some of the letters don’t have sounds when you read them, like there’s no ‘E’ sound at the end of ‘guide’, despite it having an ‘E’ at the end. Do you understand?”

“Not at all. Keep going.”

“Okay, so my name’s Markus. Emm, ayy, arr, kuhh, yew, esss. Emayarkuhyuwes. Doesn’t sound like Markus, does it?”

***

They eventually made some progress, enough that Rika was able to pick out at least two words from the book’s title and say all the letters in them, then say the full word even without looking at the book the whole time. She still had to check it occasionally, but she was steadily improving.

Markus was slowly improving as a teacher, too. He’d not been bad with language stuff in school, but he hadn’t had to use any of this stuff in years, and he was pretty sure he had a habit of overexplaining things. He found that the more he simplified, and the more he waited to ensure that Rika understood the small details of what he was saying, the faster she began to learn.

Now they were sat together, I Married a Vampire and Now Everything Sucks in Markus’ hands as he continued to read aloud from the second chapter.

“The moment I saw her, I was transfixed. Her eyes were mesmerising, deep pools through which I could glance the epoch of my greatest joy, or perhaps my untimely demise. A swirling miasma of black mystery reflected my sordid desires, my greatest fears… all of it was laid bare to her, and through her subtle, serrated smile, I watched her as she passed my way without a second glance, her motions so fluid, so regal, so assured, that the entire room pulsed and breathed to her effortless rhythm.”

“There was not a man here among us fifty present who had any business being hers, all of us earthly and transient, frivolous and fragile, our riches and our youth paling in the wake of her endless and eternal splendour…”

“And yet, I didn’t need a second glance. No one else in the room had even received one.”

“She had chosen me. And in my heart, I already knew that I had—Hey, are you enjoying this? I can grab the tax book if—”

Rika batted Markus with her tail. “Don’t stop!”

“Alright, fine. You really like it that much?”

“I don’t understand half the shit coming out of your mouth,” Rika admitted. She sighed. “All I know is, it sounds pretty when you say it.”

Markus smiled. He picked the book back up.

“And in my heart, I already knew that I had chosen her.”

***

Within half an hour, Rika was asleep. Asleep laying on Markus.

Snoring.

It was kinda comfy, even if his shoulder was beginning to ache after a solid minute.

She was really fluffy. But she needed to lay down. Markus began moving her and putting a pillow beneath her head when a voice sounded behind him.

“Whoa, what the fuck?” came the sound that made Markus absolutely jump out of his skin.

Luckily, Rika seemed to be a complete log, and barely stirred from the sound.

Markus wheeled around, just in time to find a certain treacherous imp waltzing into his cell.

“You shacking up with the locals now, huh?” Didn’t take ya very long, did it?

Markus cleared his throat. Explaining this was way more hassle than it was worth.

“Hey, Abrah. This isn’t what it looks like.”

“Sure it ain’t.” He shrugged, then slumped his shoulders. “I don’t give a fuck. I’m just here to get paid. You never fucking paid me. Wanted to see if you got that chest open yet too.”

Markus glanced at the ornate chest in the far end of the room, still locked, still sat with a metal tool jammed inside the lock.

Eh, screw it. Guess now was as good a time as any.