TRC - Book III: Lord of the Glass Desert (Male x Monster Girl)

Chapter 42

Note To readers:

First off, my apologies for the long silence.

Please allow me a moment to explain...

In Dec my Dad had a heart attack. Firstly, he's doing fine and he received treatment quickly enough there was no damage to his heart. Being a good son, I spent the next month with my Mom and Dad helping them out until he came off driving/lifting restriction. When i returned home in Jan I thought my marriage of 26 years was ending and my attention was largely directed toward that. Working to repair my marriage triggered my wife to have a nervous breakdown and fall into a deep, but thankfully brief depression. We spent most of Feb and some of Mar figuring out how to fix what was broken and what our marriage is going to look like in the future. As of writing this we both feel that our relationship is stronger than it has ever been.

This is just the cliff-notes of what's been going on in my life keeping me from posting. That website that starts with P helps pay the bills and so became a priority during all of this while my readers here fell by the wayside, and for that I am deeply sorry.

I won't promise this won't happen again because life is life, and sometimes it throws a bunch of shit your way all at once. But, I will say I greatly appreciate you sticking with me.

My most heartfelt thanks

-Blu

(Now on with the story!)

Kal spun to face the oni's direction. "Ikuno. No."

"Um, Sir?" Olvo cautiously asked as his new employer stood glaring at a wall.

"Kal can speak to us over long distances," Kashka told the office manager, "and Ikuno gets upset at the mention of his new wife. Captain Kolas informed us of how Silvermoon's laws work."

"Then you know the marriage can be annulled?"

"What? No," said Kal, turning around. "How?"

"Silvermoon's laws make it so that a son inherits his mother as a wife when his father passes away. This ensures the widow is cared for after losing her husband, especially later in life. The arrangement seems awkward to outsiders, but it works. However, if the widow decides to take up with another man, then the 'marriage' to her son can be annulled as long as their marriage was never consummated," Olvo's face wrinkled in disgust. "I can submit the paperwork to annul the marriage to Mrs. Darrow, but submissions to the city's administration often take several days to process. I wanted to speak with you about this now as I assume once Holm has gone over all of your holdings, you will want to inspect your new properties, including the estate where Mrs. Darrow lives."

"Should you really be calling her Mrs. Darrow?" asked the cat.

"Let's not go there," said the mage. "Calling a woman I've never met Mrs. Kal just feels wrong."

"I could use your surname instead," Olvo offered.

"I don't have one. The closest we had to surnames was our professions in the town where I grew up. Were I still there, I would be known as Kal the Farmer. I suppose it would be Kal the Wizard or Kal the Mage now. But since I'm the only mage in town, and thus master of my profession, they call me Master Kal."

"You don't have a family name?"

"My parents were both farmers. So, my family name would be 'Farmer,' along with every other farming family in the area, regardless of actual relation."

Olvo thought for a moment. "No, 'Farmer' won't do. I respect those who work the land to make the food I eat, but the title holds little weight in the merchant business. Would you consider, perhaps, Warlock, or Magus as a surname? It describes your profession and will let those we deal with know there is power behind your name."