"Jah," Esme, the youngest of his sisters, pulled on Jarek's clothes to get his attention. Her eyes sparkling as she asked, "Did you get anything for us?"
"No, I couldn't. But, I promise that I'll buy you and Alisa whatever you want tomorrow. Okay?"
A mischievous look appeared in Esme's eyes as she asked with a con man's smile, "Whatever I want?"
"As long as I can afford it, okay." It didn't take Jarek long to figure out where he had gone wrong. Knowing his sister's mischievous nature, if he hadn't clarified what he meant, then she would undoubtedly take advantage.
Unlike Esme, Alisa's interests were less aligned with what Jarek brought and more concerned with his experiences. "What's the city like? Mari told me that some of the streets are paved in gold, is that true?"
Jarek couldn't help but snort. He knew Mari quite well, and even before he left, she had had a knack for spinning tall tales. From the looks of things, she hadn't changed at all. "There are no streets paved in gold, and if the King was ever foolish enough to do something like that, then believe me when I say most of, if not all the gold, would be gone the next morning."
Before they could continue to pester Jarek, their mother decided to intervene. "Esme, Alisa, that's enough. Your brother just came home from a long journey, so give him some time to rest. Alisa, go fetch some water from the well so your brother can take a bath, and Esme, take his bags to his room. After that, you can go play with your friends."
After letting out a small shout of joy, Esme picked up Jarek's bag and dashed out of the room, with Alisa not too far behind. With the girls gone, Jarek finally had the space he needed to relax a bit.
"Have you eaten today?" his mother asked with obvious concern.
Jarek nodded. "I ate breakfast with Master Osric this morning, but I feel like I haven't eaten anything all day."
"Alright, let me make you something to eat."
At her words, Jarek frowned. His mother was acting a bit too extravagantly. Even when he mentioned that he was hungry, he hadn't expected her to offer to cook for him. After all, before he left, food was a scarce commodity that needed to be well rationed. In fact, he had been planning on going out to buy some food for himself so as not to bother her too much. But now…
"Mom, where did you get so much food from?"
"Oh, Reynard gave it to us," his mother replied as she got into the kitchen and began preparing the ingredients. "I didn't want to accept it, but he insisted that if he was to stay here, then we had to accept it."
Jarek turned to look at Reynard, who just smiled. "Since I am imposing my presence on your family," Reynard explained, "I figured I might as well show some gratitude."
"Thank you," Jarek said after a few moments of silence. It would have been ungrateful of him to do anything else. While in the city, Jarek had been unable to fully enjoy its luxuries because of his family. Every time he ate good food or slept in a great room, his thoughts turned to his family, and he couldn't help but feel a bit guilty for living a good life while his family suffered and lived off the goodwill of their neighbors. Since Reynard, though a guest, was deciding to help them, even if it was only for the duration of his stay, then Jarek couldn't feel anything but gratitude.
It was then that his distrust of Reynard began to fade.
Alisa soon returned with a bucket of water that Jarek used to take a bath. Next, he ate the food his mother cooked for him. With a full stomach and feeling refreshed from his recent bath, Jarek soon fell asleep.
"Jah! Jah! Wake up. It's time for dinner. Wake up, Jah."
Jarek opened his eyes to see Alisa looking down at him. After letting out a deep yawn, he slowly sat up and sniffed the air. "Something smells like chicken," he commented.
"That's because it is chicken," Alisa confirmed. "Mrs. Tamsy brought some earlier, but you were asleep. Mom says you're going to have to go thank her tomorrow."
After washing his face, Jarek joined the rest for dinner. In the living room, the lantern was now turned on and placed at the center. Also, the old bench had been temporarily moved to one end of the table to accommodate everyone in the house.
Even though he wasn't feeling too hungry, Jarek accepted his food with gratitude. It didn't take long before Alisa began bombarding him with questions about the city. She had been keeping them to herself while he was asleep, and now that he was awake, she had no intention of missing the opportunity.
"What about the Festival of Lights? How do they celebrate it?" Alisa asked.
"By wasting money," Jarek answered almost instinctively. "It isn't much different from how we do it here, just with a thousand times more money involved, and nobles trying to outdo each other. But last year's Festival was something else. So, someone created this device that can be thrown high into the sky and then it pops into flames, and the sound it releases is like thunder. It's… I don't know, you just have to see it yourself, but I have never seen anything like that before."
"Fireworks," Reynard said. "They're called fireworks."
"You know them?" Jarek turned to look at Reynard, surprised.
Reynard nodded. "I'm one of the creators. Well, not exactly the creator, but I brought it into the kingdom."
"I thought it was-"
"Ambrose?" Reynard cut in. "No, I gave Ambrose the recipe and let him take the credit. I have no use for fame."
"Really?" Jarek was still skeptical. "Okay, what's the recipe for it?"
"Nope. Not telling you. It can be used as a weapon, and with a few tweaks, it can become very dangerous. There's a reason it's thrown high in the sky before it explodes; on the ground, it could really hurt people."
"Okay. So where did you get the recipe from? Who made them first?"
"They were created by the Ch-... you won't know them either way, so there's no point in telling you. The place is very far away."
This was the second time Reynard had used the excuse of somewhere being far away to avoid saying its name. It was a bit weird, but Jarek decided not to mention it.
"Well," Jarek continued with his story. "The Royals also celebrated the last Festival in public."
"Did you see Prince Bertram?" Esme and Alisa asked simultaneously. Then a second later, Alisa suddenly became very interested in her plate.
"Yes," Jarek answered tentatively, wondering what he was missing. "What's going on with Prince Bertram?"
Esme pointed a finger at Alisa. "Alisa likes him. And Mari too."
Ah, Jarek thought as Alisa began to blush. "You haven't even seen him. What if he's ugly?" He asked her.
"I've seen a painting of him," she admitted.
"The paintings of the Royals exaggerate their looks," Reynard pointed out.
"Is it so wrong to like someone? Why are you all ganging up on me?" Alisa immediately protested as she folded her arms across her chest.
"Alisa," their mother spoke, "no one is ganging up on you."
Jarek was quiet for a moment before deciding to say, "It's alright if you want to like him, Alisa, but don't harbor hopes of anything coming from it."
"Why?" she asked. "Because I'm not like the noble girls?"
"I'd be worried if you were like the noble girls," Reynard said, "most of them are either whores or whores in training." The entire table went silent, and Reynard froze, looking at the adults awkward expressions. "I'm sorry, I shouldn't have said that word."
Jarek agreed wholly with Reynard, he had heard stories about some of the noble girls that would make a jaded man blush, but his mother had a rule about not using certain words in front of Esme and so he stayed quiet and watched her to see how she would act next.
"What's a whore?" Esme asked, looking around with a curious expression.
"Nothing, dear," his mother replied. "It's just a bad word used to describe certain girls."
Seeing the way Esme's eyes lit up when his mother said it was a bad word, Jarek had an inkling that in a day or two, Esme was probably going to use it to insult someone. He looked around and caught Alisa's eye. Alisa had the same knowing look he did.
"Two days," Alisa said to Jarek, and he immediately understood what she meant. She wanted to make a bet with him that in two days Esme would use her new word.
"Three," Jarek replied to her. After the bet was over, they would negotiate what the winner would get.
Reynard looked between Jarek and Alisa and then a knowing smile appeared on his lips. He leaned in slightly and, looking pointedly at Esme, he said, "One day." Jarek and Alisa gave him a surprised look, wondering how he had figured out what they meant from the few words they had used.
Their mother, on the other hand, watched this quick bet with raised eyebrows. "What are you all plotting?"
"Nothing," Reynard, Jarek, and Alisa said simultaneously, before bursting into laughter.