"GOOOOOOD MORNING!!!" Farah busts open the door to her parents' bedroom, revealing their sleeping postures. The mother in a fetal position, and the father sprawling all over the floor next to the bed. They both notice the child's presence, processed the situation around them and quickly sat up.
"Farah, we still have a lot of time before the Sun appears. Why don't we... go back to sleep for a little while longer?" David makes his suggestion, which Barbara immediately strikes down, with her fist.
"Good morning, dear daughter and husband. Why don't you close the door and let us prepare ourselves? You go get dressed up in your room too. I'll go and do your hair after I'm done." Barbara speaks with a sweet voice, contrasting her fist that pushes harder into David's skull whenever he tries to interrupt her.
"Okay~ Pick your best clothes!"
"We will! Babe, say it too."
"Ow, ow, okay, okay! We will, Farah!" Barbara and David reply to Farah energetically.
Back in her room, Farah took the new clothes her mother gave her the day before from her chest with some clothes and tools in it.
'Hehe, new clothes! I bet everyone will be asking me about them! I'm so excited!' Farah puts on her new clothes while humming songs to herself. It's a dark red collarless shirt with six knot buttons and two pockets on each side and a black baggy pants with six pockets, two behind and four in front. The shirt and the pants have a slightly stretchy fabric that feels soft to the touch and keeps in warmth.
'I must look really cool right now!' Farah thinks to herself after looking down at her own body and imagining an image of herself. She lets her imagination run wild and imagine various situations in her head. 'Maybe I'll run into a lost person in the forest and rescue someone! We'll become friends!' 'What if that person was a handsome prince?! I'd be rewarded with a m- m- m-marriage!!' she imagines many more situations until her mother walks in.
"Hey sweetie, I'm here. Go sit over there, I'll tie you a braided bun." Barbara points to the dining chair with a small band of cloth in her hand. She's wearing an orange dress, the same shade as her hair, with a floral pattern on it and a pair of leather boots.
"I've never seen you wear that before!" Farah marks her observation while her mother starts picking her hair up to do a three-strand braid.
"Oh, I haven't shown you this? It's my best dress! I got this back when I still lived in the Reinos capital, Duburn. Speaking of Duburn, I'll be visiting your grandparents in around 5 months. You should tell Carter that and come too. It's been such a long time... I miss them, what about you?" Barbara asks Farah while doing her hair skillfully and meticulously, her hands acting as a comb to divide Farah's disobedient curly hair into groups and braid them.
"Now that you mention it... I do! Grandpa and Grandma are so nice to me! I'm drooling already... Ah! I meant I'm- uh I'm..." Farah makes a slip of tongue, revealing her true colors. Of course, she gets punished accordingly. Her mother puts her hair in one hand and flicked her earlobe.
"Don't think of them as a food source!" Barbara gets back to braiding her daughter's hair and says with a serious tone.
"Let's actually talk about something serious. About what we're doing today."
"Mhm?"
"Sigh, alright. So, you'll have to be super polite, okay? Listen to Carter and don't run around like you own the place. Stay put. This is the first time you're being directly under someone so just stay still and wait for him to tell you what you can or can't do, okay?" although tired by her daughter's carefree attitude, Barbara explains to Farah what she has to do in detail while braiding her hair with occasional grunts from Farah as reply.
"I'm ready, Let's go." David comes out of the room while holding a suitcase some time after the two were done and started chatting about the current situations in the village.
"Did you know? Bread prices went up a little, rice too. Can you guess why?"
"Eh? Is it because daddy's field burned down? Since they're all staple food."
"Hahahaha, good guess! But no! It's because Sakland went to war with Sommore! They are our village's biggest source of rice and bread respectively, remember that." not noticing David's presence, the mother and child duo continued chatting until David eventually recovers from shock and walked towards them.
"Let's... go."
"Oh, daddy's here! Let's go!"
"Let's go get this done." the family enthusiastically set off.
"Right on time. Let's talk inside." the large man invites the family of three inside his humble shop, gesturing towards the desk that was not there the day before.
"The schedule will be lessons every other day, unless something important happens for either side, any objections?" Carter looked around to see no objections, but he instead found a happy Farah, guessing that she's probably happy about the days off, he immediately shoots her hopes down.
"Oh, you'll still have to come to my shop to practice magic on your days off, there just won't be lessons." Farah immediately wilts like a dying plant, creating an adoring smile on Carter's face.
"Don't be like that, it's not that bad. Besides, it'll look cool, so you'll be plenty entertained." the big man comforts the girl in a soft voice and pats her head.
Her parents are pleasantly surprised at this development.
'He's got a soft spot for kids, huh. I guess it'll be fine to leave Farah with him.'
'This doesn't seem like an act... The strict guy yesterday probably was one. Farah will definitely be happy around him.'
""Hands off my daughter, you filthy lolicon."" they both said in unison.
"I'm sorry?!" Carter exclaims in shock, complete and utter shock. He just patted his student's head, is that so wrong? He froze for a while until he saw the couple look at each other and giggle.
"You two... We're supposed to be serious here! Don't joke like that! My poor heart was about to pop out..." Carter sighed at the pair's playfulness, realizing where Farah's attitude came from. He then pats himself in the chest a few times before talking again.
"I take that as no objections, am I correct?"
Everybody nods in agreement.
"Alright, then. Now, about the payment." Carter said with a serious tone, with a dramatic pause to see the family's reactions. He sees a confusing sight of Farah scowling and pouting at her parents who are shivering. He quickly puts the clues together in his head.
"Ah, you weren't told about this?"
"...No." Farah gives a short answer and pouts even more than she already has after seeing Carter's slight smile.
"Well, it'll be a Reinosian grand. Have you got the money ready?" Carter decides to ignore the moody child and ask the shivering parents.
"Ah... One grand... Of course... I'll pay..." David, the subject of his daughter's bad moods, answers in a very meek way. He then reaches his shaking hands into his suitcase, pulling out a small stack of Reinosian Dollar bills.
"Here they are..." David shrinks back after placing the money on the table, his daughter's gaze still fixed dead on him. He glances at his wife, looking for help.
"H- hey, Farah." Barbara gathers her courage and spoke out after receiving David's signal.
Farah turns her head quickly, stares holes into her mother and asked, "What?"
The coldness in Farah's voice makes Barbara cry inside. 'And I thought Carter was a good man! What a rotten piece of magical trash he is! Learn to read the room next time! Oh father above, my daughter is mad at me. I feel horrible! What should I do?! I get that it's my fault for not telling her but how do I getaway from this situation?'
As Barbara argues with herself inwardly on what to do, Farah's eyes start losing its gleam of rage.
She's become bored of being angry.
"...I'll let it pass today. Next time, tell me first, okay?" Farah scolds her father and mother like she's their mother. This reversal of roles makes Carter let out a small laugh.
"Hahaha, oh, sorry. I couldn't hold it in. Let's move on to the next thing. Everybody listening?" Carter sees the family nod again, so he continues.
"I had you all come at sunrise today because I would need to go into town to buy some teaching materials if you accepted my offer. So we'll be starting tomorrow, same time, alright?"
Carter explains the conditions further. He elaborates on the schedule, the school that Farah will have to go to, the tuition fee for said school, and other boring things like what he'll be teaching and when. Of course, all this information went in one of Farah's ears and immediately out the other.
"That settles it, I'll be off now." Carter escorts the family of three to the front of the store, checks the "Closed" sign, and goes ride his wagon to town.
"Well, now that that's done, should we have breakfast outside?"
"Let's do that. This is a joyful occasion."
"Yay! Food outside!"
As the three walk to the bar, David starts talking about what happened in the store.
"Farah, I'm really sorry for not telling you about the fee. I... didn't want you to think about our money situation when making the decision for your future."
"She would have forgotten if you didn't bring that up, you know?" Barbara whispers in her husband's ear, criticizing his mention of the issue. Secretly, she had hoped in her mind that he wouldn't bring it back up.
"Mommy? I can hear everything, you know?" Farah puffed her round cheeks, ran ahead of her parents and turned around to talk to them while walking backwards.
'I may be angry at them, but I still want to get there quickly. Hmph! What do you mean "She would have forgotten"?! I- I did forget...' She thought to herself and got red.
Seeing their daughter's face turn into a little peach, the couple apologize and explain the reasons in more detail. Apparently, the fee for learning magic is usually much, much higher, usually being somewhere around twenty to fifty times the price they paid. They knew that if Farah knew, she'd never accept the offer. Carter offering such a low price was a great shock to them though they can guess that it's probably because of Carter's fondness for Farah. All that is said and done, but the most important reason was that they did not want Farah to ask them how they got so much money, which they did not say out loud, knowing Farah will ask why they wanted to hide it.
"Say, how come we have that much money anyways? I don't remember the greens selling that well." Farah asked frankly, curious about the origins of the money.
"It does do well! Argh! I'll tickle you if you say that one more time!" David cries out in pain for the truth hurts.
"Well, not fifty grand well!"
"That's it! Death by a thousand tickles! En Garde!" David inwardly sighs to himself for being able to avert the topic from the source of the money. He gets ready to punish his nosy daughter, forgetting to keep his image.
"Dave, Farah, we're outside. Behave yourselves." Barbara looks at the sight fondly, but she tells them off with a cold voice to try to intimidate them, and it worked. The two are now walking in a very orderly manner, creating an amusing scene resembling ducklings following their mother.
This silence continues until they reach the bar.
"Hey, Bill! Put us together a breakfast!"
"I'd like to have a bowl of salad, please."
"Hello, uncle Billy! Give me lots of meat!"