“Where are we?” asks Hineni, wandering around.

“Huh? We’re home,” says Rhine.

“Home?” asks Hineni.

He looks around himself, staring at the odd, wooden walls and the knotted, hard floor. The place is furnished, and there are decorations and nick-nacks scattered around, together with warm rugs and soft bedding.

“Is this our tree?” he asks, blinking.

Rhine knocks on the wall. “Sure is!” says the young man. “Hey, uh…” He looks around himself. “Where’s Eilig?” he asks. Hineni winces. “We figured she’d come back with you.”

Hineni sighs and puts a hand on Rhine’s shoulder, shaking his head.

“…Oh,” says Rhine. He looks down, rubbing his arm. It’s quiet for a while. “Should I, uh… do you want me to tell Seltsam?”

“No,” says Hineni, patting his shoulder and then letting go. “You’ve done enough, Rhine. Are you okay?”

“Are you?” asks Rhine, looking back up at him.

Hineni stares back for a moment and then sighs. “No,” replies the man, as he keeps on walking. “What’s going on here, Rhine?” asks the man, wanting to change the topic for now. “What’s with all the gods?”

Rhine walks after him. “They’re here to talk about the whole death-fake-world thing and now what the plan is from here.”

“They should stop meddling with reality, maybe,” says Hineni.

“Preaching to the choir. But tell them that,” replies Rhine. “Oh, hey, check it out!” says the young man, running to a door and pulling it open. “This one’s mine.”

Hineni leans over, looking in. “Nice,” says the man, looking around the room at the furnishings and the staff propped up against the wall. “You’re gonna have a hard time sneaking girls in all the way up here, though.”

“Yeah, Sockel and I talked about that too,” notes Rhine, looking at him in confusion.

“I really have to figure out what the hell she’s teaching you,” sighs Hineni.

Rhine laughs, awkwardly closing the door again. “Anyway. The tree’s really big, look!” says Rhine, running down the hall to a window. Hineni follows after him. “Careful,” warns the young man. “You uh, you gotta get used to it first. I got super dizzy and scared.”

“What?” asks Hineni, looking. “You afraid of hei-”

Hineni stares out of the window, feeling his own legs weaken for a moment. He grabs onto the wall to hold himself stable as his eyes wander across the landscapes, far, far below. The forest, the city, all of it is rather minuscule from up so high. Hineni can see straight towards the edge of the horizon and then even a glimmer more, as the sun comes to rest after a long, eventful day. “Holy hell,” mutters Hineni.

“Right?” asks Rhine. “It’s crazy! I didn’t know anything could get this big, but the tree just keeps growing and growing.” He shrugs. “Especially since all the gods have started gathering here.” Rhine points over his shoulder. "There's a big meeting going on soon. All of the gods want to chat, I guess."

“Wait…” says Hineni. “You’re telling me we have house-guests?”

“I mean… yeah,” remarks Rhine.

Hineni sighs. “I was hoping the tree would just be ours, you know?” He looks out of the window. “That’s why we have the whole exterior struc…”

“Yeah, about that,” says Rhine. “It uh, you know…”

Hineni stares out of the window.

The whole exterior structure that the military had built with all of its amenities has simply been crushed out of the way by roots as large as towers. The entire hill has been consumed by gnarled, growing wood.

“Seltsam had a really bad day,” says Rhine. “Sockel and I had to stay with her for the whole afternoon and move the books here, and she wouldn’t stop crying the whole time.”

Hineni rubs the back of his head. “Yeah, fair,” says the man. “She had her heart in that library. Where is she?”

Rhine waves for him to follow, and they walk through the literal tree-house. It’s not a house that has been set upon the massive, heavenly branches of a tree so large that it can be seen from the outskirts of every city in the nation, but rather, it is firmly inside of its hard, steady wood like a series of organically grown tunnels and chambers.

“There’s a new library. It’s a little smaller, but I think she likes it more,” explains Rhine, walking around a corner and stopping.

Hineni, lost in his gazing, bumps into the boy and then looks forward, staring at a regal, wispy woman, standing there. Rhine’s mother. Behind her stands Sockel.

The room goes quiet for a moment as Hineni steps forward. But Rhine stops him, holding up a hand against his chest and then looking back towards the woman.

Sockel blows a strand of hair out of her face. “She came with the frog. She asked to see you.”

“Can… can we talk, dro-” She stops. “— Rhine?” asks the woman, looking at him. “Please.”

Hineni looks at Rhine, who lowers his hand and thinks for a moment. “…Okay,” replies Rhine.

“You sure?” asks Hineni.

“I am,” replies Rhine, looking up at him. “A man needs to confront things like this, right?”

Hineni looks at him for a moment and then nods. Rhine nods back. He walks past the woman, heading to Sockel, who quietly nods for him to follow her.

They walk off, down the corridor. As they go, the blue-haired woman and Rhine simply stare at each other from a cold distance, neither of them sure what the first word ought to be.

“You sure about this?” asks Hineni as they leave.

Sockel shakes her head. “Yeah,” replies the elf. “Rhine can kick her ass if he needs to. But I think she means it.”

“Means what?” asks Hineni.

“Hell if I know. That she’s sorry or whatever. Who cares?” Sockel shrugs. “- Library?”

“Library,” replies Hineni, having the oddest sense of deja vu.

“You know Rhine’s been sending her most of his wages all of this time, right?” asks the elf. Hineni looks at her. “I did some digging. It turns out that they’re not actually that rich,” explains the elf. “Most of it got lost when his dad died.”

Hineni looks back over his shoulder and then keeps on walking. “Rhine’s a good man. I’d do the same thing.”

“Even if she’s a frog and she beat him?” asks Sockel.

Hineni looks at her. “Considering you’re only telling me this now, I assume you feel the same. It’s not my choice to make. But I’d make the same one.”

“You really ruined Rhine with your weird divine-manhood stuff, you know?” she tsks. “I’m trying so hard to get him to loosen up a little, but he’s always ‘no, Sockel, we can’t kill them’ this, and ‘no Sockel, we can’t do that. It’s immoral’ that.

Hineni laughs. “Sockel. What the hell are you teaching Rhine all day?”

“Life stuff,” replies the elf.

“Like what?”

“Like mind your business,” replies Sockel.

Hineni rolls his eyes. “It is my business.”

“He’s turning out fine, right?” asks Sockel. “So don’t poke your nose where it doesn’t need to be. You handle your stuff and I’ll handle my stuff, and Rhine will be normal enough.”

Hineni stops, and Sockel walks on a few steps, looking back.

“Sockel. No shit. Who do you work for?” asks Hineni. The elf tilts her head. “At first I thought it was the horse. But he’s dead, right? And I doubt you’d honor a contract that can’t pay you. Then I thought you were working with Death, but then you saved me there with those throwing kni-”

Sockel steps back, holding a finger against his mouth to shush him.

The elf leans in. “Don’t ask so many difficult questions, okay?” says the elf.

Hineni lifts an eyebrow. “It was one question.”

“Yeah,” replies Sockel. She pokes at his chest. “One too many. You just have faith in your old Auntie Sockel, alright?” she asks. “I work for me.”

“Which leads us where?” asks Hineni.

Sockel spins her finger in the air, turning around as she saunters off. “It leads us to the library, which is this way,” says the woman. “Anyways, I told you, didn’t I?” she asks, waving him off. “I’m retiring.” She taps her head.

“Ah, right,” says Hineni, walking after her down a few different halls until they get there.

“Here we are,” says Sockel, opening the door for him.

“Is this some sort of trap?” he asks, looking into the room and stepping inside.

“You already fell into the trap when you signed my papers,” replies Sockel.

Hineni smiles, turning around to look at her. “Hey, Sockel.”

“What?”

“Thanks.”

– Sockel rolls her eyes and slams the door on him, leaving him in the library.

Hineni looks around the room. It’s definitely not as large as the other library was down below, but it’s very… cozy. The shelves are made out of rootwood, carved right into the tree, and there is a heavy, deep smell of antiquity in the air.

“Hello!” calls a voice from the side. “Oh, h-hi,” says Seltsam.

“Hey,” says Hineni, walking in. “Sorry about the whole ‘hugging you’ thing before,” he says. “It was a moment.”

“T- that’s okay,” says the voice from behind the shelf. “I always wanted to have a moment, you know?”

“I feel you,” replies Hineni. “Nice place.”

“Yeah, thanks!” says Seltsam. “It’s really great and…”

Hineni stares at the shelf he’s standing in front of. The voice comes from the other side.

“— She’s not coming, is she?” asks the voice, rather abruptly.

Hineni shakes his head.

“No. She’s not, Seltsam,” says the man, looking up at the little fairy house up by the shelves above.

It’s quiet for a while as someone shuffles books on the other side of the shelving.

“She told me, you know?” asks the librarian. “About your blood.”

Hineni nods. “I guess that’s why I was able to see you without freezing,” he says. “Magical blood. But… ah…” He shakes his head. “Let me guess. She only promised not to tell me specifically, right?”

“Yeah,” replies Seltsam. “I was supposed to be the fall-back when she got sick back in the old house,” explains the librarian. “She wasn’t sure if she was going to live long en- enough.” There is a loud sniffle. “So she wanted me to… you know… t-tell you…”

“You good?” asks Hineni

“N- no,” croaks a cracking voice in a defeated tone.

A book drops to the floor, and it’s quiet for a moment as Hineni lowers his gaze away from the shelf, as if he were looking into her distraught face.

Then she screams, and a dozen more fly from the shelf, scattering all around the floor as someone slumps down.

Hineni walks down around the shelf and looks at the chaos that has unfolded; a heap of scattered, open books lie everywhere, and in the middle of them is a person who has lost their best friend.

“Sorry,” says Hineni, stepping over the books as he walks to her and kneels down, placing a hand on her shoulder. “Seltsam.”

— The librarian howls and grabs his shirt, pressing herself into it. “DON’T LOOK AT ME!” she screams at him as she falls apart like so many books all around them. “- Don’t…”

Hineni holds her and shakes his head as she cries into him. “I won’t,” says the man, looking at the books on death and resurrection that lie scattered around. She already knew before he got here.

Seltsam howls.

“I promise,” says Hineni.