“Thanks,” August said, “If you can put it over by that stump? It’s going to be one of the legs for our workbench.”

Kalter moved to do just that, and August followed her over, removing the other leg from his inventory to place beside it. Kalter eyed the sudden appearance of the log with an odd glance, not quite surprised, but something close to it.

“The saw works?” Kalter asked.

Given she’d just seen him using it, it wasn’t really a question she wanted an answer for, but more something to try and bridge the strange air between them. August found himself once again thinking about their time in the forest before he reached up to touch the back of his hair.

“It works pretty well,” August admitted, handing it over for her to look at. “If you want to try it—I marked out the other two on that log.”

Kalter took it without comment, flipping it over to look at, and August returned to the log without waiting, picking up the [Bone Axe] as he went. He came to a stop at the last of the markings, leaving the closer one for her. August lined it up, lifted the axe back and then swung it down. It slammed into the log with a loud thump—he’d been right; it was much louder than the saw.

Kalter came to a stop beside the log, inside his range again—he felt her smoothly drop into a crouch, one knee touching the ground and an array of hands reaching out to settle on the log around the marking as a fourth-placed the saw on top of the line—he glanced over at her, and the mental image overlapped with the visual from his eyesight. The saw—in his own hand—had bit into the wood with each push and pull. In hers, it sunk into the wood, sliding through the rough material like fingers through sand.

The jealousy he’d once felt was gone now, replaced by something like a quiet appreciation—and in Kalter’s case, a small amount of unease when he remembered how impossible it had been to escape her grip. August tugged the axe free of the wood and then swung it back down again before eyeing the indentation he’d made. It was far rougher than the saw had been, and he’d be forced to clean it up afterwards.

“It might be better to just see this one as well,” August frowned, pulling the axe free again. “I’m making a mess of the end of it, and it needs to be level.”

“Leave it, and I’ll do it,” Kalter said, the saw already passing through the log and into the dirt. “I’m done with this one anyway.”

August just nodded, stepping back as she stepped towards the place where he’d been standing, and he moved towards the piece she’d just cut, leveraging it up and then vanishing it into his inventory. He ferried it back over to the stump with the others before turning his mind to the next step—namely, he needed a log now to actually turn into a set of boards. The tree they’d used for the legs was probably thick enough to make a set of planks out of, but there wasn’t enough of it left over because they’d want it to be maybe twice as long as the legs had been. August picked out another log, a few shades thicker than the one they’d been working on, and then used the axe to mark out two more lines down its length. Kalter finished cutting the last leg and brought it with her, dropping it next to the others.

“What now?” Kalter asked, “This one?”

“We’ve got the four legs; now we need to make the planks and the frame,” August said, eyeing the log. “I don’t have the blueprint for planks yet, so this is going to be something of a test run—Kalter, could you cut these two as well, please?”

Kalter shifted a bit at the word before moving forward to do just that, and he watched as she crouched down in front of the log. The task that would have taken him ten minutes per section to do took her about one and a half each. August couldn’t lift either of these sections well enough to put into his inventory, but he might have been able to drag them back to the stump. Instead, Kalter picked them both up off the ground and brought them along with her.

“The only type of planks I’ve ever seen being made were run through a circular saw, and I only saw a few seconds of the video, so most of the process was probably missing—so this probably isn’t a good way to do it,” August admitted, frowning at the log that was almost as tall as he was. “Could you stand this one up on its end, please?”

August stepped up onto the chopping stump, putting him about eye level with Kalter, and she stared at him from over the top of the log. He reached for the saw in her hand, and she handed it off to him without comment. He carefully placed it on the end of the lop and made a straight line cut, just deep enough to leave a clear marker. He made three more directly afterwards, creating a square with all four corners inside the ring of bark.

“Do you think you can cut downwards from that angle?” August said, dropping back down to the ground. “If not, we can lean it against the stump—the goal is to just follow those marks straight down and kind of turn the entire thing into a box.”

Kalter held her hand out for the saw, and he gave it back to her. He watched as she took a step backwards, tilting the log towards her face until she could see the markings, and then aligned the saw with the first of them. She didn’t seem to have any problems cutting from that angle, and he moved around the side to make sure the cut was staying relatively straight. Kalter worked her way down, turning the rounded edge of the log into a flat plane, and at about the halfway mark, she turned the entire thing over with a quiet request for him to add the four markers on the opposite end. August did his best to make them roughly the same as the first ones and then handed the saw back over.

“Perfect,” August said, eyeing the almost perfectly straight edge. “If you want to take a break, just tell me, and I’ll do some—you might have to lean it against the stump for me, though.”

“Something like this isn’t tiring,” Kalter said, voice still untouched by the effort. “Am I doing the other sides as well?”

“Please,” August said.

He watched as she did just that, turning the log into a long piece of worked lumber with four flat sides, essentially a long—roughly square—beam.

“I think I can see what we’re doing now,” Kalter said, eyeing the end of it. “How thick do you want these to be?”

August borrowed the saw again and aligned it with the end of the post, roughly two centimetres away from the edge. He marked the line and then moved across the same width, marking the next—he kept on going until there were twelve potential planks.