It has been two months since the incident in the barn. Things have been… difficult… but they are getting better… I think.

  We have been making more of an effort to spend time with Svampe… whilst also trying not to make it obvious to Tadwick and Alexi that something is going on. I mean, Alexi is very observant, he has probably noticed… not that he would ever say anything, given the way he is… but still.

  The first month after the incident was very stressful. I think we probably stressed him out more than we helped him. We all struggled to let Svampe be alone… looking back… I think we crowded him. If there was ever an unexpected noise and he wasn’t around me, then I would instantly panic and go to look for him. Tadwick knocked a broom over in the kitchen one night when he had popped down for a drink and I honestly nearly died. As did Tadwick when I burst into the kitchen. The tension was definitely high.

  The second month has been better. Emotions are a bit more settled. And Svampe has been coming to us and asking to spend time with us instead of us pouncing on him the second he is alone. I think the fact that he is coming to us and asking for time is what has relaxed me a bit. I know it is what we asked him to do… but it shows that he listened and is seeking out comfort when he is feeling low. Instead of resorting to… that.

  Interestingly… I think the times when Svampe has been at his happiest has been when Tadwick has dragged him into silly games and things. It is a completely different dynamic… I think because Tadwick doesn’t know about what happened, he therefore doesn’t feel in any way awkward around Svampe. When I am with him, I am always so afraid that I’ll say the wrong thing, or bring up something that may upset him or something. I have no doubt that he will pick up on how nervous I am. Which won’t help the situation.

  The plan to get him out and about has been going ahead… albeit slowly. We have taken him to town for a few little errands… picking up feed for the animals, delivering milk and wool, etc. He always wears a big cloak thing when we go out. It disturbs me how much he looks like Flora when he dresses that way. Fortunately, he doesn’t wear a terrifyingly creepy mask like she did.

  When we are in town, he is always very… hesitant. He struggles to interact with anybody that isn’t us… and when he does… you can hear the anxiety in his voice. He is getting slightly better… but I just worry that we are pushing him too much.

  It was Tadwick’s ninth birthday a week ago. Given that it is the height of summer, we took the boys to the lake for a play about. We also brought Svampe. I genuinely think this brought him out of his shell quite a bit more. Like I said before… being around people that don’t know what happened seems to be much better for him… and the boys certainly didn’t seem bothered by his tendrils and scars.

  In fact, they were very interested in them. Demanding that he used them to fling them into the water… which was nothing if not funny to watch. He even took his clothes off and got in the water with them… which is a big step forward for him. He is so sensitive about people outside the farm seeing his back… the fact that these boys made him feel comfortable enough to do that is amazing.

  Thinking about it… those boys probably didn’t even think twice about the scars and stuff. Charlie has adjusted to only having one hand very well. He waves his stump around without a care in the world. And of course, they have all been friends with Alexi for a long time now. And he is absolutely covered in scars. Not to mention the fact that his body is drastically different to the rest of them… what with being a jackal… as well as having a vagina. Kids may be bewildered by things that are different initially, but they are very accepting of things once they have had time to get used to them.

  Today is the first time that we have actually taken Svampe to town to work on our veg stall. So, we are hoping that the confidence that he built when spending time with the boys last week will have boosted him enough to speak to strangers with a bit less anxiety.

  How we manage the stall has changed a lot over the past four years. This is mainly due to Rosario & Wynrun. Their invention of the refrigerator has meant that we can bring multiple glass bottles of milk to the market and keep them cool in the two fridges that we bring with us. The fact that they run off those magic battery things is brilliant. It makes the fridges completely portable. The chilled milk has become one of our biggest sellers. We charge a bit extra and people get a small amount of their money back if they return the glass bottles to us.

  The other thing that has changed is again because of those two. About a year ago, they managed to perfect a freezer. Which is a large kind of… crate like thing… that freezes everything inside using ice magic. Again… it runs off those battery things. We ended up getting three of them. It means that we can freeze our excess stock and sell it out of season, later in the year. It has completely revolutionised how we do the farming. They are truly marvellous inventions.

  The only drawback is that the magic batteries need to be charged regularly. Which would be a massive problem if my mum and Kiyui weren’t talented with magic. The freezers need to be topped up every couple of days and the fridges once per week. If we had no mages in the family, then we would need to either return and exchange the batteries… or pay for a mage to come round and do it. Neither of which would be great from a financial perspective.

  Speaking of mages in the family. Kiyui has been working on the ‘detect mana’ spell. Which is meant to be for detecting magical glyphs and traps, etc. But he says that he can sense a build-up of mana in Alexi. Alexi says that his kind were forbidden from practising magic in the Anubis Empire. He was told that his magic was unnatural and would release havoc upon the world. Which we obviously suspect to be absolute bollocks. Likely another way of keeping him in line and making sure he had no way to rebel.

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

  Most of Kiyui’s spells are a tad unconventional and not commonly used by mages, so my mum has been trying to teach Alexi a few basic spells. This is the first thing that I have seen Alexi struggle with. I think it is because he has spent so many years repressing his magical ability. Being encouraged to tap into it is so foreign to him that it is borderline impossible for him.

  That being said… he has managed to create fire from his finger tip, as well as cast the create water spell. So, it would seem that we have a third mage in the family… although he does need a lot of practice at this point.

  Sorry, got sidetracked again… how did I even get here? Oh yeah… the refrigerator thing. So yeah, anyway… we have set up stall in the marketplace. Tadwick and Alexi are playing football in a side alley nearby with the other boys. My mum is manning the stall with Kiyui and Svampe. Olly came with us to do some of his wool deliveries. I still find those earrings of his weird. I’m so used to seeing him as his natural self back at the farm that when he puts them on to come here and suddenly, he is a hazel-eyed brunette… it is just weird… I’m not used to it.

  Nomius and Dolly have stayed back to man the farm with Derek. I’ve been popping around town, delivering a few of our regular orders. Kiyui seems to be very invested in one of his books at the moment. I returned to the stall to get the next delivery a moment ago and Kiyui is sat on the ground next to the stall reading intently. He’s been like this a lot recently. I wonder what book he’s reading.

  I bent down to read the book title. ‘The Cunt of Saint-Laurent.’ Okay… what the hell kind of title is that?

  Dwynfel: “Kiyui… umm… what exactly is that book about?”

  Kiyui: “Ah… well, you see, I have recently discovered a new genre.

  Dwynfel: “Which is?”

  Kiyui: “Erotic literature.”

  Dwynfel: “What? Isn’t that just romance? You always read romance novels.”

  Kiyui: “It’s like romance, only it doesn’t skip over all the sexy stuff. In fact, it often goes into a wonderful level of detail.”

  Indira: “It’s true, I’ve read that one. It certainly gets rather racy in places.”

  Oh, for fuck’s sake… why has my mum read that?

  Kiyui: “Romance novels always seem to skip over the sex scenes. The couple kiss, then the next paragraph they wake up in bed next to each other. This is much more interesting.”

  Dwynfel: “But… umm… ‘The Cunt of Saint-Laurent.’ That sounds like something that would heavily feature… lady parts.”

  Kiyui: “It certainly does.”

  Svampe: “Can I read it?”

  Kiyui: “Sure, I’ll wing it your way when I’m done.”

  Dwynfel: “But… umm… I rather thought that you would be more interested in… well… ya know… gay stuff.”

  Kiyui: “Oh, I very much am. But gay erotica is not as common, and also very… samey.”

  Dwynfel: “Are all books like that not samey?”

  Kiyui: “Well sure, they all have a level of similarity. But the gay stuff, urgh, the relationships are nearly always deeply weird in some way. And they nearly always start in some dodgy predatory manner which is just annoying.”

  But most romance novels do that. Pretty much every one of his romance books that I tried to read seemed to involve what I can only describe as low-level stalking.

  Kiyui: “Honestly, the relationships nearly always start off with what is basically one guy sexually assaulting the other. The other guy will be repeatedly saying “No, stop, this is wrong” while physically encouraging it and basically sliding his pants down in preparation. It doesn’t set a good example for people unfamiliar with sex, nor is it representative of the vast majority of relationships.”

  Okay… granted… that is a bit weird.

  Kiyui: “Don’t get me wrong… some people do need a little push to get through their nerves sometimes, that’s what I had to do with you.”

  Dwynfel: “Kiyui! Not in front of my mum!”

  Kiyui: “Oh please, Dwyn. She knows full well we’ve had sex at this point.”

  Indira: “It’s true. I’d be concerned if you hadn’t after all this time.”

  Dwynfel: “That’s not the point… I’d still rather you didn’t know the details.”

  Kiyui: “I would hardly describe that as giving details. Details would be…”

  Dwynfel: “No!”

  Fucking hell… I swear he’s trying to give me a stress-induced heart attack.

  Dwynfel: “Can we just go back to you explaining why you are reading about some horny woman please?”

  Kiyui: “Fine. The gay stuff seems to always be written as either weirdly predatory with a highly questionable relationship, or the relationship is written well, but the sex is terrible. The former is normally written by gay men and the latter is normally written by straight women. From what I have come across, women are much better at writing relationships, but when it comes to gay sex mechanics, they completely fail. Seriously, I read one where one of the guys got a bad stomach because his boyfriend came inside him. Somebody cumming up there isn’t going to give anybody a bad stomach… a sore arse from all the pounding maybe… but not a bad stomach. It's the same when straight men try to write lesbian sex scenes… the lesbians that I know say that they are so bad that it’s laughable.”

  Well, I mean. That does make sense to me. I have absolutely no idea how lesbians have sex… I certainly wouldn’t be able to write a sex scene between them. Certainly not a believable one. I mean… thinking about it… what do they do. I mean… they don’t have penises… so like… what do they use? I know Kiyui and Thomas have both talked about using tongues down there. But like… that can’t be all they do? Fingers! They must use fingers. But like… on each other… at the same time?

  I don’t know and my mind is running away with itself again. And if it runs too far down this rabbit hole, I’ll end up with uncomfortable trousers again… so let’s drop this for now. I’ll ask Kiyui about it later. I bet he’ll know. But I definitely don’t want that conversation in front of my mum and Svampe… so I shan’t be asking now.

  Kiyui: “So basically, my preferred type of erotica is straight couples when it is written by a woman. Because then the relationships are good and the sex is better than in the gay stuff. Plus, it is normally from the perspective of the woman… and what with being a bottom, that is the perspective that I enjoy reading from.”

  Svampe: “What do you mean about you being a bottom?”

  Kiyui: “Well…”

  Dwynfel: “No!”

  Kiyui: “What? He’s seventeen. He’s old enough to know.”

  Dwynfel: “I don’t care how old he is… I’d rather not discuss the intimate side of our relationship with him… especially not in front of my mother.”

  Indira: “This stuff still unnerves you, doesn’t it, sweetie?”

  Dwynfel: “Very clearly… so could we all just move away from this…

  Suddenly raised voices started coming from the alleyway where the boys were playing.

  Tadwick: “THIS ISN’T FAIR!”

  Charlie: “OH, SHUT UP!”

  Dwynfel: “You know what… discuss what you like… I’m going to see what’s wrong with them.”