>>5323968Eventually, the tutelage comes to an end. On the last class, Cris gave him a Misericorde dagger. In Silverport, openly carrying weapons is a common practice, and she hopes that he could wear it proudly in the academy. As for Zeal, he gave her a whetstone and some oil for her falchion.
After Zeal got into the academy, they dated properly once more.
He still has that dagger (in fact, it was the one he pulled out during Pine’s fight with him)
Zeal thinks that the environment of Silverport is a lot different than Shadowfall. People are more open (literally, they show more skin) and are a lot more forward when it comes to relationships.
Of course, there’s always the nasty side of things. The stress of the studies can break people, as seen with people in the recreational potion store, spending as much time as possible to avoid facing reality. Seeing complete strangers fuck each other and take memory loss inducing potions afterwards was quite sad to say the least.
Pine was quite shocked to learn the stigma between mixed race relationships. When she traveled with mercenaries as a camp follower, it was encouraged. Because they can’t breed, they could cut down on money being spent on contraceptives or having to worry about taking care of pregnant women.
She also talks about her own relationship. She used to date a human a few years ago. Pine didn’t grow up with much wealth, and spent most of her time as a cook and doing odd jobs to get money.
One of those jobs was babysitting a child named Makari, but she wasn’t able to say her goodbyes. At the time she didn’t know that Fern became Makari’s guardian and worked on a ship, only now did she found him again.
Zeal remembers hearing a thing or two from Fern when he mentions about a goblin babysitting Makari.
He found it quite strange, considering Silverport doesn’t have the same stigma between different races.
(Cont.)
