Triiffic-Soul: Can I Be In Control?

Chapter 16 – Learning

Anna was lying down on the floor not wanting to move, she scribbled down random shapes. Mostly clouds, moons and stars.

It was somewhere mid-to-late summer and it was boiling hot. So hot in fact that Jen and George only worked for a few hours today in the morning and just before night, so the family was often in the house together.

[I really don’t understand why you two have been complaining so much.] (Red)

[...what’s wrong with you…] (White)

[Eregh….] (Lilly)

Jen yelled out, “It’s schooling time!” Pulling back the curtain between hers and Anna’s side of the room. 

“Okay…” Anna hopped off the ground and started making her way to the kitchen table, which was where they studied.

Jen sighed, “Why isn’t she excited for it?”

“Well not everyone is a nerd like you.” Said George.

“Pardon?” 

“Oh, nothing.” George waved and went back outside to continue his work. He was upgrading their food storage. Some animals had broken in and tore a hole in the wood.

“Okay, today we are going to learn about geography and dates.” 

[We might actually learn something interesting out of this.] (White)

[Wake me up if we do, otherwise, I’m clocking off.] (Red)

[You can’t even properly sleep if the body isn’t as well.] (White)

[No matter, my point still remains.] (Red)

Jen asked, “So do you remember what time of the year it is?”

Anna replied, “Summer, and near the end of the year.”

“Correct.” 

It was near the end of the year. However, not that many from this town or the nearby one knew the date. Everyone knew the general idea of when a new year began, but it wasn’t an important event. People didn’t do anything special for it, cause they really didn’t care about it. Celebrating the new year was something only really big towns and cities did. 

The only two people in town who kept track of that were the town chief and Jen. 

Jen kept track of a lot of things, and she knew a lot, all of which she was always excited to teach to Anna.

“Okay we will continue with actual dates later, but for now let’s start with geography lessons.”

The lesson started small. 

Jen talked about their home, the farming town Four. It was two hours away from a larger proper town named Ihere. 

The other seven farming towns were a bit further away. The two closest were about two and a half hour walk, but then the rest were about thirty minutes spacing out between them. 

“Why is our town built so much farther away?” 

“Well sweeties, it's because the land in between didn’t have as good farming land and the areas that did require a lot of work chopping down the forest which no one wanted to do. So they just settled with having it a little further out. This is only for distance to each other though, all the eight farming towns are about two~three hours away from an actual proper town.”

The big difference between these farming towns and the ‘proper towns’, were the paved roads, larger size, access to traders and the market, and a better standard of living. Many proper towns had farms as well. But the reason these farming towns existed was to slowly spread farmable territory. 

White laughed, [Yeah right, most of the time is just an excuse to say ‘Look see, this is the border, I have people living here.’ Argh, always annoying.]

“Understand everything so far?”

“Yeahes.” 

[Should… we just ask what country we live in? To finally get that discussion out of the way.] (Lilly)

[...Probably, but would it be weird to ask that?] (White)

[We’ve read enough books, Anna would know what a country is.] (Lilly)

“Okay, well now let’s talk about the nearby area.”

Jen pulled out a poorly drawn map. Signed by herself. Within the centre of the map was a house which represented the town. To the north was the border which Jen labelled as ‘bad land’, to the east was a large forest, slightly to the north and west was the farmland, and further west after the farmland was another forest.

Jen added again, “Don't go into the forest, especially at night, alright?”

“Why would I anyway?”

“Well, curiosity for one. Not necessarily at night, but I can totally see you going into the forest to explore during the day, after playing with some of the other kids.” 

[...I wonder if there is any monster nearby] White worriedly wondered.

Jen raised her finger, “But as I said, don’t, it has got some larger creatures in it. Like bears and wolves, both of which would tear you apart.”

[At least I don’t think that they are too common here. They definitely wouldn’t build near the border otherwise.] (Red)

[Was that how it worked in your homeland? Sensible, but where I was from and the nearby countries they really didn’t care. They would always try to build closer and closer into Monster and Demon territories.] (White)

[I’m shocked, I knew people who did similar stuff to other countries or provinces territories, but never monster territories, people had enough bad experience to know to never build a town close to them.] (Red)

[...So what do monsters even look like anyway…?] Lilly asked, interrupting their conversation.

[...Have you never seen what one looked like before?] (Red)

[Sketches, but they never look like a creature that actually exists.] (Lilly)

[Cause they don’t.] Red replied, [...Wrong wording, but yeah they don’t look like something that should exist, but somehow they do, and they are bloody dangerous.]

[For that on all accounts, I can agree.] Said White, with a slight anger visible to both of them.

“Okay!” White replied, and wanting to know the answer to what they discussed earlier, White finally asked, “If that is the nearby area, what country do we live in?”

Jen smiled “I’m glad you asked. We live in the country of Cancole. It’s overall pretty small compared to some of our neighbours. The Nevald Kingdom is kind of North East-ish, we touch a little bit of the Jenate Republic, but only a small amount, which is mostly just uninhabitable land. Finally, the Arisea Station is to the far south. The smallest country by far, but it has the most diverse population of people. I’ve always been curious to visit, but the trip would be expensive and we would have to basically uproot our lives. And of course, to the direct north of us is the border to the monster lands.”

[Fuck…] (White)

[What…?] Red asked concern, Lilly stayed quiet but she also felt the waves of emotion pulse from White for the moment. 

[I’m just closer… to where I lived then I realised…] (White)

[I’m going to guess, that’s not a good thing…] (Red)

[No, not really.] (White)

Their geography and date lesson continued for another hour with the conclusion to it leading Jen to happily announce that they will be doing this daily until the weather cools a bit.