Rick sat on his chair, a severe stare aimed directly at Monica.

Monica’s expression was equally severe, staring down at her paws, brow furrowed in steep concentration.

The air was thick, the tension could be cut with a knife.

“Well?” Rick prompted, crossing his arms, watching as Monica stuck her tongue out.

“… Li…” She muttered. “… tit…” A scrunch. “… le?” She glanced up to his face, then back down, and then back up again. “Li-tit-le?”

“Little.”

“Litit-le.” Next to her, several others broke into giggles. Monica’s head snapped in the direction of the sources, face severe. The silence became deafening.

“Monica.” Rick spoke with an admonishing tone.

The feline deflated. “Sorry.” She muttered dejectedly.

“Not to me, Monica.”

Her ears flattened, but she turned to the others all the same. “Sorry.” She mumbled.

“Jean sorry too.” The maiden gave a slight smile. “Tits funny.” She proceeded to reach up to her chest and squeeze, giggling again.

Monica appeared vindicated, nodding enthusiastically. “Rick tits grab good good.”

A hand raised from the opposite side of Monica. “Sir? They’re being indecent again.” The diminutive young maiden with a white collar declared airily.

“I’m aware Anette, thank you.” He rubbed at the bridge of his nose. “Have you finished your task?”

“I have, sir.”

“Could you read it for the rest of the class?”

The little girl stood up proudly, puffing herself up, unaware of the feline tail that was inching towards her ankles. Monica froze when Rick’s glare focused on her entirely. In response, she stuck her tongue out at him.

“She. Sells. Sea. Shells. By. The. Sea. Shore. The. Shells. She. Sells. Are. Surely. Sea. Shells. So. If. She. Sells. Shells. On. The. Sea. Shore. I. Am. Sure. She. Sells. Sea. Shore. Shells.”

“Very good Anette.”

“Runt.” Someone whispered in the back.

Whatever Anette was going to reply, she didn’t get the chance, Monica’s tail struck. She collapsed, right into the waiting paws of Monica. The feline pulled the little girl on to her lap even as she squealed in indignation. Her tail then lashed twice in contentment before she pointed at the word that was scribbled on her chalkboard. “Word, read, please?”

“Little.” Anette grumbled.

“Litit-le.” Monica replied.

“Lit-le.”

“Lit-le.” Monica’s ears perked up. “Lit-tle.” Her gaze went up to meet Rick’s, and he smiled back.

“Please let go of Anette.” His lips thinned, gaze moving to the back of the room. “And we do not appreciate insults here.”

“No hurt words.” Monica nodded with a growl. “Bad words.”

The maidens in the room paled, heads nodded in haste. “Monica.” Rick chided again, watching her flinch. At least this time she didn’t add a death-glare… little steps. His gaze shifted to the beam of light that was making its way into the room through the open window, it had reached the foot of the table. “Ok girls, time to wrap it up.”

There were several long sighs and muffled cheers.

“Before you go, there’s homework.”

Now there were groans.

“I’d like you all to try to see how quickly you can say the seashell poem. Just practice it a little here and there.” He put his hands on his hip, grinning at them. “Whoever can say it properly the fastest will get candy and no homework.”

Every pair of ears in the room perked at that.

“Monica?” The feline asked, pointed at herself. “Monica candy?”

“You get special homework.”

The enthusiasm deflated right out of her, shoulders slumping as she grumbled the loudest. All around her there were small laughs and giggles, the maidens filing their way out.

“Good luck, Monica.” Anette patted the feline’s head and hurried out, stopping at the door and bowing to Rick. “Thank you for the class, sir.”

“You too, be careful out there.”

The door closed, and Rick glanced at Monica, the maiden pouting more severely now, arms crossed and leveling a half-hearted glare at him. He rolled his eyes. “If you help me pick up, you can go out until lunch.”

Her enthusiasm came back instantly. By the time it took him to bend over and pick up the first slab of smoothed wood, she’d picked up the rest and stacked them neatly next to the dinner table. The feline was out the door before he could even confirm she could leave.

With a weary sigh, he picked up his notebook and scribbled down a handful of things before he picked up the bucket and began scrubbing the charcoal markings off of the wooden slabs. He’d have preferred chalk, and chalkboard, but money money money. His mind ran through the maths, Dia’s healing was getting a trickle of coins in, but-.

Someone knocked at the door.

“Class is over, if one of yours was here, she ran off only a minute ago.”

“Any lessons for some old students?”

Rick’s gaze rose from his work, Kat and Tomas stood at the entrance. Behind them, he could spot their respective maidens standing on guard duty outside. The teacher could only grin. “If you’re looking for a re-evaluation, I’m afraid all scores are final.”

Kat immediately grimaced even as Tomas chuckled. “I’m really not going to miss that part of the old life.” A quick shake of her head and she was right back to a smile. “We heard there’d been a commotion at the castle, Earl took it badly?”

“It was tense, but we parted on good terms.” Rick shrugged, standing up to give each of them a greeting hug. “Where’s Gabriel?”

“Old man’s enjoying doing whatever old men do when left alone with a young and nubile mouse and centaur.” Kat made a show to visibly shudder.

“He’s been taking strolls around the city.” Tomas rolled his eyes and snorted loudly. “Not even the rumors about the attacks slowed him down.”

Rick tensed. “Attacks?”

“Just some rumors about people not showing up.” Kat rolled her eyes. “I too would vanish from the face of the Earth if things were this boring all the damn time.” She frowned. “You look nervous.”

“I’m just hoping no one thinks it’s Monica. We’ve had enough… excitement for the time being.” Rick scratched the back of his head. “Anyway, either of you want something? Miss Angus and elder Pirro give us food for teaching their girls. It’s really good stuff.” His shoulders slumped. “Their help means I don’t need to worry about Monica’s infinite pit too much. And that’s going to have to be enough until I find something else.”

“Chemistry a bust?”

“Chemistry is a joke.” Rick snorted. “Alchemy is the big bucks, and whatever chemistry I mock up would have to be in service of it. There’s a market for substances that have low elemental-energy density, you know, cleansed of the physics-breaking-stuff. So that’s a potential ticket.” A flick of the knife, and some wood was flung off. “But to do that I need to figure out what substances they need, how to make them in laboratory conditions to ensure high purity, and to do all of that I need materials, which means gold, which means…” Another flick, he put down the ‘H’ he’d carved on the table. “That I need to find someone willing to finance a money sink that has poor prospects of an immediate favorable outcome.”

Tomas squirmed. “Thought about talking to Victor?”

“More than once, but I want to have something more concrete in mind before I start talking about money.” He frowned slightly. “How’s the whole ‘living with a merchant’ part going?”

“His wife has not been very happy when she realized we meant it when we said we weren’t interested in taking in their daughter.” Kat rolled her eyes. “We’re probably overstaying.”

“I’ve got two floors above my head devoid of furniture, feel free to crash there if you’d like.” Rick shrugged.

“Small change of topic, but have you thought about Kiara?”

Rick noted the subtle glare Kat shot at Tomas. “Who?”

“The cursed woman.” Tomas commented. “She’d wanted to meet you but I figured with the mess and everything…”

“Oh, sure.” Rick shrugged. “I guess I could talk to her in between classes or something. Area’s pretty safe too, so here seems fine.”

Tomas perked up at that. “Wait, really? We kept hearing how this part of the city was the most dangerous.”

The teacher shrugged. “I’m not going to jinx the peaceful streak.”