The Haja family has been in a lot of turbulence for the last three days.

Razeff was the one with the most stable mindset. He had learned to know

and love Hamish as his own father figure and he was shaken by his death like everyone else,

but due to their different natures Hamish and Razeff had spent the least amount of time with each other.

Being in the position he was in, he decided it was best to postpone any of his expeditions and focus on

taking care of the house chores, leaving the other two to grief in their own pace without having to worry about keeping order in the house.

He did the cleaning, cooking and laundering by himself. Razeff also talked to their neighbors to inform them of their current family situation and received a lot of support from everyone in the village.

The support went over just mental reassurance to helping with the labor and presenting the family gifts to help them in these times. Once the other two recovered, they would also cooperate in their preferred method of burial.

Hemilia had been a lot more closed off from the outside of their house for the last few days. She was the one, who spent the most amount of time with her father.

Whether it be through her upbringing or her filial piety in his age, she had seen the best and worst sides of her father. That is why she was very emotionally torn by his passing:

There was a part in her that wanted to have her father back, who had been with her since birth but on the other side she was happy for him. In areas with little advanced technology and less developed medical science a death of old age was a very peaceful one. It must have been a painless death, which made her truly happy. Moreover there was the smile on his face when they found him in his bed.

Even though she knew all that, she was obviously conflicted and thus needed a little time for herself.

When she needed him or when he had nothing to do, Razeff often joined her and provided a great emotional support which stabilized her condition a lot faster than she could have on her own.

Most of the time however she and her husband both had one person to focus on: their son, Haja.

Surprisingly or Unsurprisingly, the one, who was the most shook from Hamish’s passing, was their child, Haja.

The bond that Haja shared to his grandfather was one, he held dearly in his heart. The amount of time he spent with him could be considered as the highest he had spent with any person in his life, even including his parents. Since Hamish had a limited mobility and thus often stayed in one place at a time, his parents often entrusted him with taking care of Haja, while they were working on one thing or another. The biggest factor for him taking it to heart this much was simply his young age and concurrently his inexperience with a situation such as this. In his core, Haja was a smart child and even when he gave his grandfather all those utensils to ‘have a comfortable sleep’, he unconsciously understood that those sleeping aids wouldn’t solve his grandfather’s problems. He vaguely understood the concept of death and tried his best to give this important person a last happy night.

But knowing something and accepting it are two separate actions. In that sense he dealt with the situation in a similar manner as his mother did, just with a tad bit more of emotional outbursts due to immaturity. Two days after it happened, his mother told Haja what Hamish had planned before his death.

<<You see, Haja. Both your father and mother as well as your grandfather have always wanted you to grow up and become what you wanted to be. Razeff and I had planned to educate you ourselves once you turned 10 years old. This means learning reading and writing and asking the village neighbors to do an internship in their craft if you are interested in anything specific.>>

<<How is that different from what I’m doing everyday?>>, Haja questioned.

Hemilia let out a sigh and continued with a slightly exhausted smile on her face.

<<Sigh, you are right. This is no different from what you are already doing. Actually you are already doing more than Razeff and I had planned for your future. >>

She let out another sigh. It was a visibly straining topic for her which showed that she was very troubled by whatever she was going to say next:

<<Anyways, while your parents didn’t notice it, father noticed your potential fairly early and has made preparations to give you a gift.>>

<a gift?>, thought Haja.

Hemilia reached around her back and held out a book. It’s pages were held together by the fibers from a lush-cactus and it was barely thin enough to fit into ones pocket.

Hemilia let out another sigh. This many sighs made Haja very tense and uncomfortable. Once she realized that, she patted Haja on his head and embraced him as if to reassure him that everything was fine. Then she took out a letter from the hem of her clothing and gave it to Haja.

<<Father Hamish told me to give you these two things as a gift. He told me to, once you are able to read and write in Ayrillian, you should read this letter, which he wrote a long time ago.>>

Haja’s mother took one last breath before she continued for the final part of the message.

<<Lastly he has been preparing a long time by persuading Raylon, the merchant and with our consent he wishes for you to study under Sir Raylon as a traveling merchant.>>

Finally, she had dropped the bombshell.

Of course, this much new information was a little too much to handle all at once for Haja. He got a few tears into his eyes and had an oxygen deficiency. In other words, he had a panic attack. Thus he ran outside the house before his mother could stop him in order to cool his head, which was throbbing from all the thoughts and emotions inside it. At that time he met the merchant, Raylon, whom his grandfather wanted to meet for his sake and thus the current situation was created.

Going forward in time a bit, currently Sir Raylon, Hemilia and Razeff are sitting inside the Haja family’s house and the couple is explaining to Raylon, what happened during his last visit. Meanwhile, Haja has fled to the tailor couple a few houses away from home and is trying to calm himself down a bit.