What goes into a home? The structure of it, what keeps all that weight up?

What keeps it from blowing over, or collapsing in an earthquake?

There was so much that went into building something, and I was taking a crash course. Even for this little house - a tree house.

But a home, it was more than sticks and bricks. More than furniture and frippery. At the heart of every home was safety, that's what I wanted. What I missed most.

Just a place where I could sleep, and know I'd be okay.

I missed my family. Nothing made you feel safer than somebody strong, somebody watching over you. Somebody you knew - who'd put their very life in front of your own. Had already done so, that had chosen to do so as a career.

And while my father was a bared blade to live around, I wouldn't have truly felt comfortable there, even if I was safe My mother had been the sheath, ornate and beautiful. That covered all his edges.

So I built my temporary home in the trees, and I thought a little bit more about what it meant to be a man. Amongst my stolen branches where three forked to form a solid foundation, I did the best that I could.

Through gathering forays and my coins, slowly a sticky shack became to emerge, and once more I realized what an absolute idiot I was. Because I could shape living material. Organic material. The problem was that I knew it. But it wasn't known, neither engrained into me nor a habit. I wasn't reading instructions, I was shooting from the hip. So after struggling for ten minutes to weave a stable floor from vines to lay my foundation I just slapped a piece of wood down and it stuck.

Stuck?

I tried to rip it back up and couldn't. I didn't try to break my back over it, but I was strong - it wasn't going anywhere.

I tried it again with a random branch of tree, pushing it into the side, and ripping it out and saw what happened. The tree had grown into it, like they absorbed each other. More then nails and glue the wound had fibrous splinters - they'd grown together!

And then I was off, the shitty vines sucked away and forgotten, I was shaping. Shaping wood as easily as pottery that needed no kiln. Now my house didn't emerge, it grew. No windows, nothing fancy at first - just a narrow door with a drop bar, one I planned on growing shut when it was time to sleep.

It was mentally exhausting - and I realized, it ate my mana. I hadn't been thinking about mana because nothing said I was using it - but there it was. I only noticed because I started feeling empty and wondered the cause - and I sensed the bar there.

Stamina too had some missing -

It forced me to curtail what was probably going to end up as a palace. But I had a long bench to sleep on, and even a little shelf that I shaped a nice round throne on top - like a bar stool. For the Queen. So maybe it was a palace after all?

And there was food of course. Me and the Queen both breakfasted on the fruit after I had managed to peel one. I wondered how I had any nose left at all if they were eating these things all the time.

With the casing cracked I found what was almost like small pale orange wedges, except with a bunch of tiny bites instead of a crescent - that part reminded me of a bitter pineapple. On the bottom of each was a fat black seed that attached to another round thing in the center. Hesitantly I bit into this as well and found it to be the true prize.

It had the firmness of a kiwi, and was both wickedly sweet and tangy, which helped balance the more bitter chunks. All together it was a juicy, filling snack - a meal after three, and I loved it. The queen appeared to as well. I had dropped a chunk of monkey in with her in case she ate that but she just ignored it, gorging herself on the fruit.

I looked around and admired my work, how far I'd come in just a day. Nothing was getting me in here, which had been a growing concern as more and more monkeys came to watch. I'd be able to sleep tonight, I was resting right now.

But I had a feeling it was only a matter of time before they got enough balls between them to take another run, hopefully it'd take them a couple days. Especially now that there wasn't any fruit to fight over.

After I finished my house, still I couldn't stop crafting, I enjoyed it so much - one idea flowed into another. Even though I already had a small axe now, had been forced to part with my coins so I could gather the thick saplings I thought I'd be needing for my walls - at least I had thought at the time.

I kicked myself. Literally. When I found out I was going to be able to just 'craft' instead of cut them down by hand. But it only sort of worked. I used so much of the potential by doing it, I hadn't even known about the mana then.

It was better to cut them. Not as exhausting. Then there was the gravity and weight to worry about since I had to be touching what I wanted to craft - which was a lesson that cost me two finger tips.

The axe wasn't that bad of a purchase.

But I learned a lot more about what I could do trying, and then I pushed that knowledge into crafting something I needed just as badly as a solid place to rest. I needed a better weapon.

A spear was no problem, except all the wood was green and I had to make it too bulky to affix a decent point to it. It felt like it would bend too easily, better then scissors but I didn't trust it.

I tried growing a branch around a round rock, and it felt like it could do a lot of damage. But it also felt like swinging a big lamp at around, awkward and silly.

The longest bone I had, which was light and sturdy I merged with the wings I had stored after pushing small holes in them. They flowed down it in a long line, an overlapping serrated blade.

It felt good in my hands, except too light - with my strength it felt more like a willow branch. It didn't feel solid and looked like a warped glass machete. On top of that I struggled to get the blade sharp enough, and I was disappointed to see my attempts of running my finger over it., or pinching it just dulled the natural bite -

I just didn't have the control, as I pinched to flatten and scrape, I couldn't figure out how to get the material to just...fall off sharp. It was frustrating.

But all of them were better than a single scissor blade. And it was just back-up, I was glad to have them as I moved through the jungle, back on the hunt. And I could keep my pain stick in my pack pack - have my hands free. I could now summon a weapon from inside in a second instead of pulling the Pain Stick or keeping it at the ready.

And now when I moved - I moved.

The monkeys - for all their skill and deftness, they lacked my reach, the raw power of my legs. My strength. While their design and weight allowed them to float the distance, where my only choice was to explode.

I moved like a pinball, bouncing off the walls of bark, sending myself shooting away with the bend and flip of my feet, and my reach. The key, I'd realized, was knowing the trees, trusting them. Low to the ground the branches were strong and solid, fat enough to easily run across full speed. But they were further apart.

In the middle, they were thinner, I was still getting use to the balance -because they had more give. It was here that had the most places to grab, swing and jump from. But I almost had to ride their movement - I had to move with them.

Up top was the trap, for me at least. The branches too thin and tangled, and the leaves too thick where they glowed and devoured the sun. And there was plenty of prey in the middle, plenty of easy coins -

Bats. They hung from the branches like nothing more than leaves, curled up, and I'd have never noticed if not for one of my bouncing dashes practically landing on top of one. I almost fell out of the tree as a branch of dried leaves jumped up and started attacking me - wide fangs emerged that in no way craved the juice of a fruit -

We both retreated from the surprise encounter, as it didn't like the taste of my Armor, and I realized how insanely creepy bats were. But now that I knew what they looked like?

Now I killed them before they woke up -

My axe swung -

Clink

My machete -

Clink

My rock stick -

Splat.

Clink.

I tested the weapons, got use to their weight and how to aim, tested how they felt extended out from my body, swinging overhand or under. The spear was useless - or I was with it, I couldn't find the balance, too many branches. It felt like playing pool in a crowded bar. It just knocked the bat down and tumbled - I climbed down after -

Spotting the herd of deer clustered, grazing, and I forgot all about the bat. I was just about to dive into the center, already planning a giant hat rack that would make my father's mount look petite - before I could start wrecking havoc, one jerked it's head up, and I saw the stained blood across it's mouth and chin -

The long strip of meat in its mouth, sharp teeth -

Holy fuck!

I had seen them clustered and assumed they'd found a nice shrub or some tasty grass and realized my ass had almost been grass.

And they weren't the only animals I gave a large berth too. The snakes, they were lime green and shimmering. They stuck out almost as much as the Queen did, the cautious colors warned me.

There were brown snakes as well hidden in the branches, I found myself eyeing every vine twice and my happier, carefree path slowed.

I snuck up on sleeping sloth, hanging from the treetops. I almost thought it was too far away to be worth the bother, but it looked like it had soft fluffy fur. I was climbing toward it when I realized something else -

It wasn't breathing. Except I know sloths are really slow. I can't see it breath.

My curiosity fought with caution, I pulled out a dead monkey, throwing it at the sloth - branches collapsed over it pulling the monkey into a mass of leaves, but I was already springing away, half tumbling and tearing through the branches.

A giant spider -

Done. Done with tree tops. Stick a bar of gold up there and I'll design a fishing pole, or a long grabber. No more tree tops.

I found more Enemy Friends, packs of what could be dogs or dingos and - bats were the best thing for me to fight, to earn coins, to work for what I truly wanted... something magical.

It was the spells that captured me, the idea of real magic at my fingertips. I could sense them in the store, new they were there - but I couldn't see what they did. How much they even cost - I had to have one.

I searched harder and harder for the bats, killing them, one coin at a time -

Checking each time until finally, my first option appeared.

Light. 100 coins.

More then everything I'd spent, and for all it seemed useless I almost bought it anyway, just to have it. Real magic.

Not that playing with my wood wasn't cool, I enjoyed it. But I wanted something new I could get into. All magic had to be cool. Would it make me glow? Would it follow me like a firefly in Spyro? What did it do?

But there's a vast divide in coolness between being able to use your dick like a flashlight vs shooting bolts of lighting. I imagined my mana coursing through me, a raw tempest unleashed as I fried my foes and made them dance.

And somehow I managed to not give into temptation.

I kept saving.

And hunting.

And I moved faster and faster, more excited the closer I felt I was to my goal.

Clink.

Clink.

Clink.

But even at 125 coins, the spells offered were just as mundane. Summon water and food. Heat Shield. Cold Shield. I couldn't argue with the value of food and water - all for just a few points of mana, but would it really help me?

Two stat points were better. What was bread and water compared to 40% more strength? Speed?

Swing. Swing. Swing.

Kill. Kill. Kill.

Clink. Clink. Clink.

No, what I needed was range, not more strength. If I could attack from a distance then I could get coins faster and safer. I could take on the animals on the ground without leaving myself open to attack.

And with each kill I grew more confident -

Each kill I got closer to being stronger -

Clambering through the trees, brambling over the bushes, I didn't even realize that I had found what I was reaching for. It wasn't a spell, and it made me no stronger - not obviously, but it was more magical then I had ever imagined.

I found Peace.

Balance.

I searched myself, accidentally - I poked at the sadness that existed inside me out of habit, that raw knot of feelings that were always hurt. The spirit that had been broken.

I felt my steady breathing instead, a focused mind that had forgotten it wasn't happy, that didn't think about the pain. That wouldn't understand the word bored.

I wasn't gnawing on old wounds until they festered. I brushed them tenderly, found them scabbing over.

And bravely. I turned to the deepest - the worst, the wound I couldn't bare to even look at, as each day the rot and poison had spread deeper.

I looked to my father -

And in his imagined eyes, the older mirrors of my own, the ones that had been filled lately with that crushing weight of disappointment.

And I looked through my past, from the beginning - I watched that disappointment grow with each new day, with each new failure I struggled against, and I finally saw it truly, saw that it was even worse then I had imagined.

Because his eyes were a mirror of my own. And the disappointment I saw there, when he looked at me. It was exactly the same as my own - a disappointment in myself.

Disappointment in himself.

How hard had it been for him - a Marine. A hero. To have me as a son? As he strived to instill in me a path, discipline - tried to lead me. Only to turn back each time and find me more lost. Struggling to swim when he was trying to teach me to fly.

Lesson after lesson. Hour after hour of patience.

He asked me once - if I wanted to play sports and it shamed me - how many people ask him what sports I played? If I had the ole' Abbot touch? How about a girlfriend? A hobby? A life...

And for him to have to just have to shake his head.

And still he never got angry - sure there were rules, and I was punished if I broke them, but I wasn't ever abused. Wasn't ever even threatened - he never even asked me to change. He just made sure I had the tools needed to survive, the resources. It was up for me to do something with them.

All for what? For me to grow up a wimp. A momma's boy?

Pussy.

Sure it felt bad when I failed, I didn't like it. But I accepted it.

But for him? He would never accept failure. He hated it, he didn't, couldn't understand it. Attacked it on sight!

Even through all of that, still - his disappointment hadn't been aimed at me, he'd kept it all for himself. And what had I given him in return?

I cut him out. Because that was easier than trying harder.

Easier than facing the hatred I had for myself, for never being good enough - not to stand next to him.

Not as a Son. Not in battle, as a Marine. Not even as an adult, as a man.

Not anymore.

No longer did I look inside and see a wound, it was a scar. That when I got back I wanted to show him, look him in the eye and see that disappointment fade.

And tell him.

'Thank you. Dad.'

I was torn from the branch, teeth deep in my side, though my armor as I reached and gasped - my right hand felt leaves, branches tearing off and falling with me. Gritty slivers of bark shiver my nail beds as I was ripped down.

My left hand caught something thick and heavy, I grasped uselessly, holding tight to something that dropped at the same speed I did. I felt across it - the fur, and realized that my grasping was nothing but a long, chilling pet -

-16 HP.

I smacked into the ground, the world shaking, a real concussion. My right arm snapped. My ribs cracked and I caught the orange and black fur, stripes and soft white -

So much color.

-20 HP

And I realized that none it had mattered.

He'd never know, never hear the words.

Because...I'd failed.

Nothing can save me.