It takes several days before the structure really begins to take shape. After about a week and a half, the plans and the outlines of the first walls have all been placed. The work on the road has been continued so that it leads up towards the hill now. All of this happened in spite of the siege and the arrows and the spells flying towards the city day and night. The sapling in the center of it all has begun to grow stronger and taller, its base showing the first hint of ‘woodiness’, as it changes from a green, pliant thing into something firmer and stronger.

Hineni watches as the owl-god puts in a great amount of effort to prance around the sapling in some sort of odd dance.

Feeling him watch, she stops, turning her head.

Hineni shrugs. “Just watching.”

“Who~” hoots Obscura. “Do not fear. Obscura is not performing an alluring dance for the tree,” says the owl-god.

He lifts an eyebrow. “Well. Guess I’m relieved then,” he replies sarcastically. She doesn’t seem to pick up on the tone.

She nods, lifting her arms and shaking a leg. “It is a magical dance. The tree will find it most pleasing and grow to reach out towards me,” explains the owl-god.

“Is that how trees work?” asks Hineni, jokingly.

“It is,” replies the owl-god, matter of factly. “Observe.” She holds her arms out over the sapling, rustling her feathers above it as she continues her dance.

— Rhine walks by, yawning, carrying a sack of clothes over his shoulder, as he is on his way to get changed.

The boy stops, looking at her and the tree for a moment.

Obscura scratches the top of his head, playing with his blue hair for a second, before Rhine walks off without saying a word.

“See?” asks the owl-god. “I am an irresistible Obscura.”

“Huh…” replies Hineni, shrugging.

He looks back down towards the tree.

…Did it just grow a little?

It is a week later.

Hineni stands there with his hands on his hips, looking around in pride at the first room of the external house around the hill.

“An actual room,” says a voice from next to him. Sockel.

“Wow,” says Rhine. “I missed having rooms.”

“It’s hardly been a few weeks,” notes Hineni, looking at the two of them. Sockel and Rhine have both wandered inside the room that belongs to the exterior house. They lay down on the floor, staring up towards the ceiling. “…Really?” he asks.

Sockel and Rhine both sigh.

“Being outdoors is nice and all,” says Rhine. “But I feel like I was getting a little paranoid, you know?” He shakes his head, rolling it over the floorboards.

“Because of the literal war-zone that we’re living in?” asks Sockel.

Rhine shrugs. “No. It’s just… the sky is like, really big, you know?”

She rolls her head to the side, looking his way. Rhine is staring up toward the ceiling. “Okay. Random,” replies Sockel, looking back at the ceiling too.

Rhine lifts a hand, pointing up at it. “It’s just nice, having something above my head. Especially with all of the weird monsters around here.”

“It’s fine,” says Sockel. “The monsters stay in the forest. So it’s fine out here.”

“Mhm,” replies Rhine. “I’m sure it is, until it isn’t.”

“You know what?” asks Sockel. “Since we don’t have a dungeon here, we’re going to start training you on the front-lines.”

“Huh?” Rhine sits upright.

Hineni shakes his head. “Sockel. You’re not dragging Rhine into the war. I need him here for our work. Besides, he shouldn’t be killing people at his age.”

“Oh, don’t be a baby,” replies Sockel, sitting upright too. “When I was his age, I already killed a few people.” She knocks on Rhine’s head. “His personal development has stagnated.”

Hineni raises an eyebrow. “You know, Sockel,” says the man. “I’m not sure if you had the best upbringing, honestly.”

She waves him off, getting up and then yanking Rhine up to his feet. “I turned out fine. Look at me now,” she says, gesturing to the empty room. “I have my own office and everything.”

“It’s just an empty room, Sockel,” notes Rhine.

She waves him off, walking to the door. “That’s because you don’t have any imagination. That’s why you wouldn’t survive a day out here without your Auntie Sockel. Remember that,” she says, leaving.

Hineni calls after her. “Sockel. Stop trying to force Rhine to become codependent on you.” He sighs, the two of them standing there. Hineni looks back towards Rhine, who is staring his way. “…What?” he asks. “I’ve been going to Seltsam, to learn some bigger words now and then.”

“Oh, huh…” says Rhine, surprised. “Neat.”

“Right?” asks Hineni, not willing to explain his true, ulterior motives. Self improvement is fine and all, but that’s not really why he’s doing it.

“’Co. De. Pen. Dent,” says Hineni slowly. Obscura hoots, nodding her head intently. She clicks with her mouth for a while, making several oddly excited hissing noises, before she repeats the word after him.

“Co-dependent,’ says the owl-god, pronouncing the ‘co’ like she would do if hooting.

“‘Co’. Not ‘coo’,” corrects Hineni. “It means when someone is overly reliant on someone else and can’t function without them.”

The owl-god nods, memorizing her new word for the day. They had been doing this little ‘game’ of sorts for a while, ever since he had explained the word ‘connotations’ to her months ago in the old house.

The thing is that he honestly isn’t exactly the greatest book-learner in the world. It’s not like he had ever gone to school or anything. So instead, he gets Seltsam to teach him new words now and then that he can then, in turn, peddle as his own wares to the owl-god.

“Codependent,” says Obscura. He nods. “My Hineni is truly a wise creature,” says the owl-god. “Perhaps she was often mistaken about his foolishness?” she says, running a talon along his neck towards the collar of his shirt, holding on to it.

“I guess so,” replies Hineni, grabbing her hand.

“— Get a room, you two,” barks Sockel loudly from the other side of the hill.

Hineni blinks, looking back towards his not-yet-but-sort-of-is-already-wife.

He realizes that they just so happen to have a room now.

He squeezes her hand, holding on to his shirt, and the two of them run off.

“I’m disgusted,” says Sockel, looking at him.

It is the next day.

“Don’t be a baby, Sockel,” says Rhine. “We’re all adults here.”

They look towards him before staring back at each other. “Anyways,” says Sockel. “Guess my office needs to be in a new room, now that that one has been tainted.”

“Please,” says Hineni. “As if you’re squeamish.”

“I’m not,” replies Sockel. “But it’s about the principle,” she explains. “It’s like building a new toilet and then having a stranger be the first person to use it. It’s wrong.”

Hineni waves her off. “Then I won’t tell you about your old room in the old house.”

Sockel narrows her eyes. “What about it?”

“Nothing,” replies Hineni. “I’m not going to tell you about it.”

She points at him. “Explain, or I’m taking Rhine and moving into the forest.”

Hineni shrugs. “Well, you know. You and Rhine didn’t move in for a while after we met,” says Hineni. “We had the old house to ourselves for a long time.”

“Oh no you didn’t!” snaps Eilig from the side. “Do you know how often I had to go hide and cry in disgust while I was trying to fix things up?!” Sockel lifts a hand, rubbing Eilig’s back with a finger in a consoling motion.

“Anyway,” says Hineni. “Let’s get back on track here,” he says. “What’s on the agenda for today?”

“— Fire,” says Sockel.

“Sockel.”

She rolls her eyes. “Fine. I’m checking out what businesses are left in the city,” she says, looking around at the ruins. “Not everyone left and some people are still trying to scrape by.” She rattles a small coin-purse on her waist. “This is our shot to make some easy connections.”

“Sounds good. Me and Rhine are making repairs today,” he says, watching as a cart pulls up to the side of the hill. The man points a finger to the side, towards the make-shift forge. The driver of the cart nods, waving once, and begins unloading the crate of damaged weapons and armor.

“Eilig and I are looking into the gods of the region,” says Seltsam. Hineni looks back towards the stack of crates that they’ve set up here for her to hide behind. “A lot of the gods of this area never left it,” she explains. “They’re definitely still involved in what’s going on now, and with the owl-god ‘coming back home’, as it were, there’s definitely going to be some trouble eventually, knowing our luck.”

“Good idea,” says Hineni. The owl-god has the frogs as an enemy; he already knows that much. But there are surely other forces and factions at play in the deep-forest that were very happy about both the frog and the owl-gods leaving for the north.

“- And I will tend to the little-now-bigger tree,” says Obscura.

Hineni nods. “Okay, sounds like a plan, everyone,” he says. “Let’s get to work, and try not to get killed,” he finishes, watching the daily explosions start to ring off all around the forest as the war-effort resumes for another day.