All the Dust that Falls

Chapter 112: Fine Dining

I was grateful that the children were cared for after Beatrice's little speech. Of course I was. I didn't have to race after then, trying to keep them from harming themselves in numerous ways or prevent them from making messes. Well, not as diligently, at least. It was nice. I could finally focus on keeping the castle clean.

The skill choice was something new. I only realized later that the system had started calling them skills instead of mutations after I reached Level 50. I wondered why that was. I still needed to choose one. The option that I would have chosen without a thought was sadly redundant. As much as Purify sounded perfectly up my alley, I already had my Air Purifier. That left two skills, neither of which I was very excited for. The Smite just didn't seem very useful; I didn't even know what I would Smite.

This only left Divine Sword. I didn't really mind swords. I had used them enough to fight off various mess makers, and they were useful. Did I really need my own divine one? I didn't really think so. The normal ones I had used had always served me well enough. But with the lack of any better options, I ended up picking the sword.

Once I made my choice, I knew what to do. Activating a simple command, I extended my arm out, and a sword of pure light materialized in it. Swinging it around a little, I observed it. Sure, it looked pretty, but would I ever use it? Probably not, I thought as I dismissed the blade and went back to doing important things like cleaning the castle.

It was spic and span, shined, and waxed in under two hours. Once my rounds were done, though, I started to miss the little mess makers. The women had taken joint custody over what had been my charges. Each of them took care of the lot for a few hours a day, making my role completely superfluous. I didn't have to watch over them as the women were doing a good job making sure that none of them got hurt too badly.

As I watched, I found that the kids were much more resilient than I had initially given them credit for. They could go tumbling into a bunch of rocks, get scratched all over, and even have blood running down their knees and still get up and run after the others. Well, some of them could, and others would cry. It was interesting to see that they didn't come with factory-standardized responses, and all had their own built-in actions.

I also noticed that when an adult was watching the children, and they tripped, the child was 320 percent more likely to cry if the adult comforted the child. However, if the women just told the kid that they were okay, acted happy, and clapped a bit, the child might do a roll, get back to their feet, and run after the others. Humans were truly odd. Every time that I thought I was getting closer to understanding them, they would go and do something so completely against my expectations that I felt like I would have to scrap my models and start over.

After watching a couple hours of the kids playing, I started to join in more. Now that I was taking less of a supervisory role, I just joined in the fun. The kids took great joy in chasing after me when I grabbed whatever they were playing with and started to zip away. I would dodge between legs and spin just out of reach. Sometimes I would let them catch me.

They had to win some of the time, right? After enough chasing, I would throw the ball or whatever we were playing with. One of them would run to get it, and they would work together to prevent me from touching the ball bearer.

Group organization wasn't their strong suit, but they certainly tried. Diving in front of me certainly slowed me down a little, as sometimes I would need to move sharp rocks from underneath them before they landed. They really needed to be more careful. The first few times, I tagged the bearer almost right away, but then I realized that wasn't as fun for them. So I slowed down to just a little faster than them and tried to make them work for it.

After we had been playing for several hours, Mary eventually came out to the front door and started banging on a triangular piece of metal. Immediately forgetting the game, the kid holding the ball dropped it and ran over the castle entrance, followed by the flock of little humans. What was going on?

Before I could go inside, I needed to clean myself. I ran my sensors over my outer casing, and my gears locked up from what I found. How had I not noticed so much dirt? The kids, of course, were rolling all over in it, but Mary had made them wipe their feet off before they went inside. I had tiny muddy handprints all over my back, and my wheels were caked in sod.

To fix this, I spun as fast as I could, getting rid of a lot of the dirt. Still, the rest had to be scraped off with my Air Manipulation. It was tedious, as I needed to direct the flow of air to get into every nook and cranny. Eventually, I felt that I was both presentable and able to go inside without worrying about trashing the place.

I followed them inside, trundling back up the ramps that Tony had fixed. The gaggle of voices led me to a room just off of the kitchen where someone had set up a long, low table sized perfectly for the small kids. I stopped in horror at what I saw.

All along the table, the children "sat" on benches but were mostly lunging across the table to grab from a stack of brownish disks. My sensors indicated that they were a low-density combination of flour, sugar, and eggs, primarily combined and cooked. The small, grubby hands would rip a disk from the pile before jamming it right into their mouths messily. I saw one kid pick up a glass of water and completely miss his mouth when trying to drink, spilling the whole thing down his front.

Cooked eggs were not supposed to be eaten with bare hands! This was very wrong. I looked around, hoping to find an adult in sight, but they were all somewhere else. All 26 of the kids were just having at it. This just simply wasn't allowed.

Letting out a piercing shriek that was just at the outer limits of their capability to hear, I got the children's attention. The chaotic scene in front of me froze, and all 52 eyes turned to me. I moved forward and made the nearest kid sit down on the bench. I moved her plate in front of her, found the multi-pointed sticks the humans used to eat, and placed them next to her plate. Then I moved on to the next one.

The first child squirmed slightly, looking at the food. I gave her a gentle yet stern beep, and she slumped in disappointment. Patting her with my arm, I finished getting the next child set up. Some of the ones who were a bit more clever in the games started to realize what was happening, and by the time I reached their place, they were already sitting with their plates and sticks.

Then I started to give each child what I thought was a proper portion of food. The first children hadn't waited with much patience. I think the only reason they were able to sit still for the whole process was because of how fast I moved. In under 45 seconds, each child had food and water. Then I moved to the one end of the table and called out Authoritatively.

The chaos that ensued was slightly more contained than it had been before, but still, many things needed correcting. I had to stop 17 counts of food stealing, 4 of taking other children's eating sticks, 8 counts of water spillage, and so much more. Someone even tried to throw a flattened egg at the kid across the table. I intercepted it mid-air and glared at the offender. Everyone stilled as they realized that one of them might have gone too far. The offender was one of the larger kids. He hung his head and muttered, "I'm sorry," In an adorably high-pitched voice.

This continued for quite a while, but as they learned to eat with a bit more decorum, things gradually got smoother. Still, I could tell that they were getting impatient. Once each kid finished, I made them wait until everyone else was done. I let them squirm impatiently since I felt that making them sit still wasn't a battle I was going to win.

After they were all done, I gathered their attention and dismissed them. All the benches tumbled to the ground as they all left to go run back outside. I went and started righting all the benches. Just as I was about to remove the dishes, Mary and a couple of women came in. Where had they been this whole time? "Oh, Void don't worry about that. We can handle a little mess. You did more than necessary, looking after the kids for so long."

—

Bee was working on trying to order all her manuscripts into some semblance of sense before she bound them. Should her own story be at the beginning or the end? What about the commandments of Void?

As she was trying to puzzle the organization out, she heard a light knock at the door. Looking up, Bee saw the doorway crack open to admit Mary. Her face was tired but still sported her signature motherly smile. The older woman entered, pulling up a chair to face Bee rather than the table. "Honey, how are you doin'?"

Bee sighed. It seemed like Mary was here to stay for a bit. She put the pile of papers down and turned to face Mary. "Hello Mary. I'm doing alright. Just really quite busy."

Mary nodded, not taking the obvious hint. "I wanted to let you know that we're a little worried for you, hun. You've been in here for a very long time, you know."

"Don't worry about me." Bee protested, thinking of all the other issues that Mary and the rest had to deal with. Perhaps she had left them alone for too long. "How is everyone settling into the castle?"

"Oh, Just fine." Mary waved off the concern. "Void has been doing such a good job looking after all the children. You should see them eat. Well, I have never seen Leanne wait like that, much less a four-year-old! He's got them standing behind their seats, waiting for everyone to get in place before taking their seats altogether. They even ask each other to pass the dishes!" She let out a breath. "It takes a long time to teach table manners, and I was dreading having to teach so many at once, especially with only a few older kids to set an example.

"But now you got me off topic. I wanted to make sure you're okay, and maybe talk a bit if you feel like it. I know what you saw was quite a shock. When Tony and Cassy told Trent and I what happened to Greg… Well I couldn't imagine seeing the aftermath myself." Mary sniffled a little. "My son in law was there too, you know?"

Bee shook her head. "I'm so sorry. I didn't know. I didn't actually go into the city, I met everyone when they were already outside."

"Still… I can only imagine." Mary said, her eyes slightly wet. "It's quite a lot to handle. I… you to know that, if you need to talk about it, I'm here for you."

Bee nodded. She hadn't really put much thought into what had happened at Greg. She didn't really want to. Especially not when she had so much to do.

Mary continued. "There was one other thing I wanted to talk to you about. We now have a lot of children under our care and we don't have much to do with them. I was hoping that you might have something. We don't have anyone to teach them trades, and they can't all be farmers. Some are a little young to learn trades, sure, but they'll need something to do soon. My older kids can help out on the farmland with Trent, but the rest will need something to do too. I think the oldest of the kids is six and will need to start contributing soon."

Bee hadn't even thought about that. She certainly hadn't learned any trade, but she had learned her letters and numbers fairly young. "How many of the women know their figures and letters?"

"Hmm, probably a couple. I'll ask around." Mary mused thoughtfully. "Are you thinking of giving the kids an education?"

"Yes, I don't see why they shouldn't all learn to read and write and do simple math. We don't need them all in the fields yet, and it would give them something to do." Bee explained as she thought about other possibilities. Mary was right; people shouldn't be too idle. They now had sixteen full adults and over thirty children to take care of. But why was she responsible for them?