"Mogrim! Move it!" I grumbled a little at the shout while picking up the pace from my relaxed jog. Fortunately for me, the trainer only had a second to spare on me before moving onto the next victim. Training alongside me were the usual dwarven children, along with hundreds of beastkin and harpies. From what I could see, the Training Hall was nearly at max capacity, the dwarven trainers certainly were as they were sweating heavily while trying to keep everyone working.
"Mrow." Yuki groaned next to me. "This place is too crowded. I can't hide and nap anywhere."
"You shouldn't be napping anyway." I grumbled. She responded with more cat-like moans that were lost among the echoes of hundreds of feet and wings.
It had been a few weeks since the surface-dwellers had come down into the depths of Dul Vulkhan and they were integrating well. Their warriors were diving into training like there was no tomorrow. Yuki was working hard to teach the dwarven language to everyone who had the ability to learn.
"Ahem." An adult fox beastkin strode up beside us as we bickered and matched our pace. He then said something in his language in an inviting tone.
"Yuki?" I glanced at our resident translator. She was getting very tired of the job.
"He invited us to dinner." She said with a flick of her yellow cat ears.
"He did?"
"Well, not him. Chief Haiku. He's been asking me to spend more time with the beastkin tribe for a while, something about learning about my ancestors."
"I don't see what's wrong with that. I spent five years learning about my ancestors." There was a lot more I learned about, it was only nominally about my clan's past and a bunch of dwarven kings. I just went outside the lesson plan.
"Mrow, but learning about people fluffy ears like mine is boring. I'd much rather be napping with you, Mochi."
"It's Mogrim." I felt my brow twitch. In the course of her translation work, Yuki had instilled in all the beastkin and harpies that my actual name was her pet nickname for me. It got old quickly. "It's been two years since you've learned my name, when are you going to call me Mogrim?"
"Mrrh, when are you going to stop being cute, Mochi?" She tried to lean against me but nearly lost her balance thanks to the heavy pack on her back. "Quit dodging me when I'm trying to take a break!"
"I'm not cute!" I protested with a huff. At only twelve years old, I may have been only three feet tall on tip toes, but that was perfectly normal for a dwarf!
"Heh." The fox beastkin said something in his language that seemed to teasingly agree with Yuki. I glared upwards at the man twice my height.
"Tell him that we'll be there. I'll prove that I'm definitely not cute in one on one combat tonight." Yuki translated my words, with a few of her own comments for good measure, and the foxman jogged off.
Later that night, Yuki and I washed off the sweat and grime of the training hall and made our way to the Surfacer's Hall. This was the tentative name given to the spare hall occupied by the beastkin and harpies.
"Ah, welcome, Mochi!" A brunette harpy woman opened the door to the hall. She spoke in surprisingly good Durinn, or so I thought. "Welcome, Mochi. Welcome Mochi."
"It's Mogrim. Not Mochi." I corrected her.
"Welcome, Mochi." She answered with a smile.
"Mo-grim…"
"Welcome, Mochi."
"..." I glared at the happy harpy. "You don't know any other words of Durinn, do you?"
"Welcome, Mochi."
That seemed to answer my question. I was here for dinner and not a language lesson so I put the issue aside. Yuki greeted the harpy in her language and we were let inside.
I hadn't seen the dwarf hall since they had moved in and I took in the atmosphere. Inside felt like a small village, although a bit cramped and enclosed by granite and darkness. A sort of controlled chaos that felt homely, relaxed, and like family. Beastkin mothers attempted to control their children as they played around the stone pillars while at the same time preparing dinner for the families. Harpies in the rafters were singing and loudly chatting in their nests. Menfolk gathered around the stone tables with snacks and watered down beer as they discussed the events of the day.
Our harpy guide led us to where the wolf beastkin Chief Haiku and the harpy chief Zeliphis were eating at the head of the hall. It was rather surreal seeing lanky beastkin and pretty harpies eating and drinking where burly dwarves once feasted.
"Moch- I mean, Mogrim." Chief Haiku greeted me in clumsy Durinn. "Welcome to The Surfacer's Hall."
"What he said." Chief Zeliphis fluttered her brown wings as she picked up a mug of beer.
"It's good to see you again, chief." I greeted the wolfman with a relieved grin as he corrected what himself and called me by my actual name. "Your skills in Durinn are amazing after spending just a few weeks working at it. How are you enjoying life underground?"
"I admit that it is difficult, I miss waking up with the sun and the air down here is rather stale compared to the forest. I do not regret my decision though. My people work, eat, and sleep without fear of demons." He then turned to Yuki and said something in their language.
Yuki replied in the dwarven language. "I don't need practice, chief. I live with Mochi now and don't plan on leaving anytime soon." She leaned against me and began purring on my shoulder.
"What did he say?" I asked.
"Just that I needed to practice the language of 'my people'." She replied with a nonchalant shrug. "As if I'm not speaking it enough already helping the chiefs learn dwarf, besides, I don't think I do since you can't speak it and you keep my dinner plate full."
"Maybe you should practice a little?" I said. "These are your ancestors, after all." Languages and cultures in my old world were lost all the time from the next generation not bothering to learn from their parents, not to mention my dwarven blood rebelled against ignoring the past.
"Nya, I'm good. I've got you, Mochi. Purr."
"It's Mogrim." I grumbled. "Mogrim. Not Mochi."
"Boss-dwarf." Chief Zeliphis chirped. "Food's getting cold. Sit. Eat."
We sat across from the two chiefs and their council. Harpies and beastkin, who I assumed were their family, served us a stew and watered down beer. Their cooking tasted unique and delicious, they must have brought some spices from the surface.
"How is the stew?" Chief Haiku began. "My wife says that the dwarven stoves are well made but take some getting used to."
"It's quite good." I replied while savoring the taste. "How did your tribe cook out in the Demon Wastes?"
"Open fires for the most part, but we always needed to keep loose soil and a shovel nearby so that we could erase the flames instantly if the lookout spotted demons. It led to many half cooked cold meals eaten in fear."
"Mochi never lets that happen here." Yuki purred as if I was the one responsible for the food in Dul Vulkhan. "Every meal here is warm, chewy, and delicious."
"I just purified some of the extra meat taken in the hunts." I clarified. "Almost none of our meals are cooked by me, and none of those are very good." The magic powered cooker was still in development and the lack of a grocery store meant there were zero spices I was familiar with.
"Just keep the food coming." Zeliphis said as she tore into a piece of dried demon boar. "We winged-folk just love eating our fill, as long as it's edible. Have a piece, you look thin." She tossed a strip of jerky onto my plate. Before I could sample it, Yuki snatched it up and gobbled it down. The harpy grinned. "Little catgirl, how's your relationship with the boss-dwarf? Have you kissed yet?" She said several words in their language that made Yuki go beet red.
This time she spoke in the beastkin language without paying any heed to her earlier statement about not needing to practice the beastkin tongue.
"What is she saying?" I asked Chief Haiku. He cleared his throat and glanced nervously at his wife.
"They're talking about one of the harpy and beastkin traditions. Where, ahem, relations with harpies aren't considered infidelity and where alliances between harpy and beastkin tribes are sealed with an, ahem, shared descendent."
As the wolfman finished the explanation, a harpy girl my age landed on the back of my chair. "Hi, I'm Neryth!" She gave me a winning smile that could've won an election.
"Mrow!" Yuki yowled. "Get out of here! Shoo! Mochi's mine."
"No fair." Neryth said as she fluttered just out of range of Yuki's claws. "Shareing is caring. You should share the boss-dwarf."
"Never!" She chased the harpy off like a feral cat, leaving me on my own. Chief Haiku glanced at his wife again.
"It may be tradition for the survival of our races in the Demon Wastes, but it doesn't stop beastkin wives from getting jealous when they see harpies bearing their mate's features flying through the forests." A small shiver went down our backs as a lightning quick glare flickered towards us from the chief's wife. She struck me as the type of woman to keep a grudge hidden deep in the recesses of her heart for years to whip it out to stab you in the heart only at the most devastating opportunity.
While Yuki was occupied, another harpy girl just a bit younger than me landed on the back of my chair and attempted to introduce herself. However, she forgot to speak in Durinn so it sounded like a bird chirping. I looked to Chief Haiku for translation. He mistook my plea.
"Don't hold it against them, Sir Mogrim. Chief Zeliphis sees that we have a tie to you through Yuki and they seek something similar with one of their own." All while he talked, the harpy girl on my chair chirped happily on as if I had any clue what she was saying.
A few minutes later, Yuki pounced on the back of my chair and nearly caught the girl in her enraged jealous claws. I had never seen her like this before and did not know what to do.
"Chief Zeliphis," I said to the harpy woman, "do you think you can ask them to stop landing on my chair? I think Yuki is about to break out her weapons."
"No." Her answer was crisp and clear. "The council doesn't trust the dwarf magic stone you swore on. They want our deal sealed in the traditional way, with a harpy child born from you when you come of age, or at least a harpy companion considering your age, so you don't kick us out tomorrow on a whim."
"I've sworn on the ancestral oathstone." I stated with a frown. "If I went back on my word to allow you to stay, the ancestors themselves would reject me." More than once in dwarven history books, a broken oath was severely punished in ways that left the offender wishing for a death that only came in the most dishonorable way possible.
"The oathstone is not mentioned in our traditions or laws." Chief Haiku said. "Neither we nor the harpies can fully trust it. We beastkin have Yuki to vouch for you though, so we trust your honor after witnessing your interactions with her."
"I see." There wasn't much I could say to convince them, we had only known each other a short while and they had only lived down here for a few weeks. After some more time among dwarven culture, they would likely realize how compelling an oath on the oathstone was, but that wouldn't help me until then. "I will do what I can to convince you that I will keep my oath and will not evict you from the mountain."
"So you'll take one of our young harpies as your companion to befriend and eventually make a nest with when you come of age?"
"No he won't!" Yuki caterwauled. "Mochi's mine!" She resumed her chase of the various harpy girls who had started treating it as a game as they fluttered about the stone pillars.
For the rest of the evening, I chatted with the two chiefs and learned more about their culture while Yuki occasionally came back to guard my chair and rest against me. The harpy children thought it was a great game to play tag with Yuki. It was a productive and fun time with them, I never got a chance to prove to the fox beastman that I was most certainly not cute in single combat, but it was still time well spent. I carried an exhausted Yuki out of the hall on my shoulder with a few harpy songs stuck in my head and a pocket full of notes on their traditions.
"Mochi's mine…" Yuki muttered in her semi-conscious state. "You can't have him…"
"If you're going to call me yours, then maybe you can call me by my actual name?" Her response was to nuzzle against me like an insecure cat and fall fast asleep. I wondered why she felt so attached to me, but something tugged at my heartstrings to make me pat her lovingly on the head until she purred contentedly.