Location: Armathane, Ducal Archive Hall / Alec's Study
Time: Day 179 After Alec's Arrival
The first reform began not with a sword, but a letter.
A simple circular issued to every county steward, county scribe, merchant clerk, and military officer under Midgard's seal:
"Effective immediately, all Midgard Company records and ducal administrative logs will transition to the Common Midgard Script — standardized, phonetic, structurally simplified. All personnel are required to begin literacy training in the standardized form. Regional dialects will be preserved for cultural documentation. Official business will be conducted in Unified Common (U.C.)."
There was no debate.
Because Alec did not ask for permission.
The scribes read it first.
Then the counts.
Then the ducal palace staff.
By the end of the day, nobles across the duchy were asking the same question:
"What the hell is Unified Common?"
And the only answer they received was a second letter:
"What comes next will not wait for your hesitation."
📜 The Education Directive
In the newly expanded wing of the Midgard Company compound, Alec stood in front of a wide oak panel, chalk in hand. Behind him sat two dozen scribes, foremen, junior administrators, and apprentices.
The lesson was the same every morning:
Sound. Symbol. Use.
Function-based grammar.
Simplicity over tradition.
Writing as infrastructure, not art.
He was teaching them modern English. To read. To write
He need a language that will quicken his modernization efforts not slow it down.
And English it was.
"This language is for function," Alec told them. "For roads. Ledgers. Orders. Not poetry. Not flattery. Communication is speed. Speed is survival."
He was not gentle with correction.
"'Their' is possessive," he snapped at one merchant's son. "'There' is positional. And I don't care what your father owns if you can't spell either one."
But they learned.
Fast.
And by week's end, seven had passed the first Company Lexicon Exam — the first true written test ever issued by a government body in Midgard.
80% had passed basic reading and writing skills.
📘 Private Lessons – Serina
Her fingers ached by the third page.
Serina sat across from Alec in his study — not the outer offices, but the inner sanctum where he kept his true work: scrolls and parchment from both this world and his own mind.
The lesson had started easily enough.
"You speak well," he said.
"I read better than most," she'd replied.
So he opened a leather-bound volume, inked in fine script — French.
"Repeat after me," he said.
"Je suis."
"Je suis," she echoed.
"Tu es."
"Tu es."
Then he gave her a sentence.
"Je suis une femme."
She blinked. "That means?"
Alec looked at her. "It means, 'I am a woman.'"
A beat.
Serina stared at the page a second longer than she needed to.
Her cheeks flushed.
She repeated it — quieter this time.
"Je suis… une femme."
They continued for an hour.
He corrected her accent.
She corrected his outdated local phrases.
By the end, she was scribbling in both French and English, side by side — elegant, crisp, intentional.
And yet, Serina was only half-listening to her own voice. Her eyes kept flicking to Alec's hands. The way he held the page. The way he spoke without raising his tone, yet made every word feel final.
He never touched her.
Not yet.
But she felt him beside her like gravity.
"Serina was a naturally" Alec thought.
He had expected her to struggle with learning and comprehending two language at once.
English and French.
Which wasn't an easy feat at all.
🌙 That Evening – Serina's Reflection
She sat in her chamber, the lesson book open on her lap, candlelight washing the pages in gold.
Her writing wasn't perfect. Her accent wasn't clean.
But something in her had shifted.
This wasn't courtship.
This was education. Elevation.
Yes she was surprised when he introduced the new languages but she didn't expect him to teach her two.He said the others were for privacy amongst partners.
A new world was being built, and Alec wasn't just showing it to her — he was teaching her how to read its bones.
She traced one sentence with her fingertip.
Je suis une femme.
"I am a woman," she whispered to the dark.
And for the first time, it didn't feel like a statement.
It felt like a declaration.
🏰 Outside the Inner Circle
Of course, not all embraced it.
Lord Bellan of Bulcrest sent a formal protest.
The High Guild of Language and Ink threatened to withdraw all apprentice contracts.
Even the clerics muttered that Alec's new script lacked the elegance of divinely inspired writing.
Vaelora's response was a single document, sealed in black wax:
"Education is not subject to nobility. Intelligence is not a religious prerogative. You may protest. But you will comply."
🧭 Alec's Personal Notes – Excerpt
Midgard is fragmented linguistically.Five dialects. Three alphabets. Dozens of traditions.
That ends now.
Unified Common will standardize administration, speed up military briefings, reduce clerical fraud, and allow expansion into controlled education.
French and Spanish were reserved for his close partners.
Language is the first weapon of conquest.
If they speak as I teach, then they will think as I shape.
And when they write in my language, they will live in my system.