Okay… so all of that probably sounded a bit negative. I didn’t mean for it to be. The boys have made loads of progress and are doing great in so many ways. It is simply that those things worry me a lot… I think about them most of the time. The fact that Svampe has recovered enough to talk… as well as not only leave his room… but actually leave the house and do stuff about the farm is fantastic. I love them all to bits and they are all doing amazingly well.

  Tadwick and Alexi have had their second names changed now. Well, I say changed… Alexi never had one before… so, he has just gained one. It was Tadwick’s suggestion. He said it would make us a proper family. We asked Alexi what he wanted and he said the names were a good idea… although I am pretty sure that he only said that because Tadwick told him to. So, they both go by Vesidia now. And to be fair… I will hand it to Tadwick… it does give us more of a familial feel.

  Alexi has taken to calling me Father… which is definitely an improvement on ‘Master Dwynfel.’ It is sweet that he is embracing that we are a family rather than a master and slave… but it does still feel rather formal.

  Alexi is doing incredibly well with his studies. His reading and writing are way above what you would expect of a 9-year-old. He’s better than I am actually… he can do the fancy joined up writing, and his calligraphy skills are truly phenomenal. He is way better than I am at maths as well.

  Tadwick… well… he is not so thrilled about the academic side of things. He can read and write… but the writing is largely illegible and his reading is much more what you would expect from a child. He can pronounce his R’s properly now… which is good.

  Athletically, well… the kid is fit, I genuinely didn’t think it was possible for an eight-year-old to have abs… and not abs due to being skinny and malnourished… like… properly defined abs. The kid is definitely not the skinny little twig he used to be. He is definitely above the average weight for his age… but it is more muscle than fat. He started copying Nomius’ fitness routine a couple of years ago… and it has certainly had an effect.

  Speaking of which… all three boys look different now. Alexi less so than the other two… he has mostly changed because my mum and Kiyui have actually made him some clothes that fit him now… instead of him flicking between wearing my old clothes and that butler outfit. They made him a variety of clothes and told him to wear whatever he wishes on any given day. It is the only way we can work out his preferences. We tried asking him what clothes he wanted and he just kept saying “Whatever you think is best.”

  We have noticed he opts for smart attire quite often. He likes a long-sleeved shirt with long trousers. Normally a white shirt with dark trousers. He likes shirts with collars… or a turtle-neck jumper. He often wears a cravat. And he always puts gloves on. I think it is a habit he developed from his life before us… Petri always had him covered from the neck down to hide the scars that he had inflicted on the poor kid.

  I mentioned how much Svampe has changed earlier. Honestly… the guy is huge now. Full on man. Completely different to the sweet boy that we first met in that cave all those years ago. He wears a pair of baggy black trousers most of the time. When he is in the house, he doesn’t wear anything on his top half… probably because it is a faff putting shirts on, what with those tendrils and that massive flower that grows out of his back. When he leaves the house, he wears a large hooded cloak… similar to what Flora used to wear. It has a gap in the back for the tendrils and the flower to poke through. He does this even though he doesn’t actually leave our farmland. Poor guy really doesn’t want people outside of the family to see what he looks like.

  Tadwick on the other hand… he is pretty much the polar opposite of those two. He will use any excuse to get naked… and even when he has his clothes on, I wouldn’t exactly say he is well covered.

  He has taken to wearing this weird pink half top thing. Kiyui informs me that it is called a crop top. Basically, it leaves his entire midriff on show… probably to show off his ridiculously buff abs. He is very proud of them. He also wears a pair of knee length shorts. He used to wear much shorter shorts… but we had to put a stop to that because his penis kept popping out of them. Not that he was bothered by it… but you know… I’m not walking around with him in public with that thing flapping about all over the place.

  He has also cut his hair… it actually looks very smart now. Gone are the long wavy ginger locks. He has a very short style now. I think he opted for this look because his old hair was really not great when he went swimming… by the gods… the frizz was extreme. All in all, the new hairdo is much more practical.

  Tadwick and Alexi have even made some friends. They have been coming to town when we set up our vegetable stall and playing with the local kids. There seems to be a group of nine boys that they play with, their ages appear to range from six to eleven. They mainly play football with an inflated animal bladder of some kind, much like the pig bladder balls that Nomius makes them on the farm. I have no idea where they keep getting the bladders from though. They have probably been rummaging in the butcher’s waste. They do five against five and Alexi acts as the referee because they all know that he is good with rules and won’t show favouritism.

  Tadwick is actually pretty good at it. He usually acts as one of the team captains and seems to score quite often. He seems to have a bit of a rivalry with this boy named Charlie, who always captains the opposing team. Charlie is the oldest one of the group. But he’s the same size as Tadwick… that isn’t me saying that Charlie is small… more that Tadwick has become quite tall… and is an absolute behemoth when compared to a standard eight-year-old.

  There seem to be two boys that they have become very close to. Little Johnny and Grant. Little Johnny… Or Johnathan Frostbite to give him his full name… is named after his dad… hence often being called little Johnny. He isn’t actually very little. He isn’t tall either… kind of average height for an eight-year-old. His family is known throughout town for having a particularly strong affinity for ice magic. Although I’ve never seen him use it… he seems much more interested in athletics and physical feats.

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  He seems very into wrestling… him and Tadwick are always flinging each other around… but in a playfighting kind of a way… there isn’t any genuine hostility.

  He is very easy to spot because he has this bizarre mushroom shaped hairdo… if he is in a crowd, you can often pick him out by looking for the black mushroom bobbing about. He kind of smells like mushrooms as well… which is odd. Always wears a skirt, even in winter. He says that trousers make him overheat. Probably something to do with the ice affinity. He’s a sweet kid, definitely Tadwick’s best friend. The two are inseparable whenever we go to town.

  Then we have Grant Thistlewood. He’s ten… but you wouldn’t think it… the kid is a spelk. He’s short… although not as short as Alexi… and incredibly thin. If I didn’t know better, I’d say he was malnourished. The kid can certainly eat… he just doesn’t seem to gain weight. You would think his stature would cause him to be a rather careful individual… well nope. The kid has absolutely no sense of self-preservation. He just dives into any situation head first… absolutely no thought put into the risks whatsoever. Especially where Alexi is concerned.

  He seems very protective of Alexi. Which in all honesty is quite helpful. Alexi is so vulnerable to things, so it is good to know that Tadwick and Grant are looking out for him when they disappear off places. Grant’s family run a bakery, so he often smells of fresh bread and pastries… which is a much more pleasant smell than most of the boys that they play with. Charlie for example, smells of offal.

  I’m also pretty sure Grant must use wax or something on his hair… he has managed to kind of… spike it up at the front… it certainly isn’t a natural hair formation… it looks kind of cool… until he gets wet and it all flops down, giving him an unflattering fringe.

  It is quite interesting observing their dynamics with other children. I don’t get to do it much when we have the stall up, because I’m normally busy selling stuff. But we take all the boys down to Lake Farren sometimes for them to have a swim about and stuff. Kiyui and I have a nice picnic together by the water while the boys splash about and play. They all love it. We even set up a rope swing on one of the branches from the big tree that hangs over the water. They are always using it to fling themselves in. They dive on each other, throw each other around, the splash wars can get very animated. They sit on each other’s shoulders and try to wrestle each other. It is genuinely lovely to see them all just having fun, smiling, laughing, and having a great time.

  I say that… Alexi doesn’t really do any of the smiling and laughing. The last time we went, him and Grant stayed in the shallow water by the edges and Grant was teaching him how to skip stones. Of course… after about three tries Alexi had worked out the mathematics of the situation and was doing it better than Grant. Alexi didn’t see the purpose of the activity… something that he openly stated… multiple times. But I think he could tell that Grant was enjoying teaching him so he kept going with it.

  One thing that did make me laugh was that the last time we went… after about an hour… a group of girls showed up near where we were, and suddenly all of the boys ducked down to hide their lower halves. Grant and Alexi were in too shallow water to do that… so Grant panicked and jumped behind Alexi. Alexi… who was completely clueless as to why everybody was hiding just stood there. So, Grant reached round from behind Alexi and concealed Alexi’s nether regions for him. So, then everyone was concealed… except for Tadwick… who was just stood in the water… bold as brass… asking why everybody was “being so weird.”

  Next thing Charlie started arguing with him. Charlie shouted at him to “get down… there are girls over there!” Tadwick just looked round, saw the girls… then turned back and asked “Why?” Charlie looked so baffled and I was even more baffled by the response he gave… which was “because you can’t show your dick to a girl unless you like her!” Tadwick… still unfazed said “but Alexi is half girl… you aren’t bothered about him seeing you.”

  All the boys just looked over at Alexi… who was still stood in the shallow water, making no effort to cover himself. He was just stood, looking marginally confused… with Grant clutching his genitals for him. When everybody stared at him, he simply lifted one hand and waved. Kiyui was pissing himself laughing at this point. One of the other boys pointed out “that’s cause we like Alexi.” Which, to be honest, is fairly sweet. I’m glad they all accept him for who he is.

  Then Tadwick turned towards the girls and started bounding his way towards them announcing “well, I don’t know if I like them yet… I’m gonna go talk to them and find out.”

  At which point Charlie dived on him and tackled him down into the water. The whole thing turned into a ridiculous wrestling match… with all the other boys joining in… Grant looked like he wanted to join in, but didn’t dare move from behind Alexi until the girls had gone. And the girls clearly had no intention of leaving yet… they were too busy watching all the naked boys wrestling and laughing their heads off. It would appear that according to preteen boy logic… penises are not for girls.

  Charlie did later offer a further explanation. Which was “if you show your dick to a girl, then she might get pregnant, and you don’t want to have a baby with a girl you don’t like.” Which, to be fair, is true… you don’t want to get a girl pregnant that you don’t like. The rest of it obviously shows a lack of reproductive knowledge, but I can appreciate the sentiment at the end.

  Although, following that logic, it does now concern me that they are all perfectly fine impregnating Alexi. Not that they can, they aren’t old enough, but they seem to think that women get pregnant just by seeing a penis… and thank the gods they are incorrect about that.

  The reason I bring this up… aside from the fact that the whole ridiculous situation made me laugh… is because I find it interesting that Tadwick and Alexi are so completely unfazed by nudity… it doesn’t even occur to them to cover up in front of anybody. I get it with Alexi… a lot of horrid shit happened to him… and he wasn’t allowed to do things like get dressed unless commanded to do so. Tadwick on the other hand… I’m not sure where he gets it from… I would blame Kiyui… but he was like that from the second we met him.

  Maybe it has something to do with growing up in an all-boys environment initially. There wasn’t a single female in that orphanage… so it isn’t like he would have needed to cover up to avoid offending a lady’s delicate dispositions. Then again… most of the ladies that I know certainly don’t have delicate dispositions.

  Or maybe… and I hate to say this… but maybe it is to do with increased confidence due to his… size… in that department. Agaroth… in a wonderfully eloquent turn… said once that “the kid has big dick energy.” Maybe it is a combination of all of these things… living in an all-boy orphanage, being well-endowed, and being raised in a house with Kiyui… as well as Olly and Dolly… as well as Lucas and Nomius… fuck it… even my mum doesn’t seem to give a shit about nudity… okay, it probably is mainly being raised in our house. I think I’m the only one who objects to nudity out of everybody who lives there.

  Anyway… I’m getting off track again. Tadwick and Alexi are clearly different from the others… but they still seem to fit in and have fun. Basically, the boys are doing very well… despite their issues. Their skills are improving… they are getting fitter and healthier… they are making friends and generally just being fantastic and I wouldn’t trade any of them for the world.