Wraithwood Botanist

B2 | Chapter 99 - New Home

I studied Kira’s form with apprehension. Part of me felt pity, knowing that Kira was once Salan, and Salan had created the shackles and blindfolds after her betrayal, during the period the soulmancer had killed her and bound her soul together, but hadn’t reconciled her emotions or separated her ego. I thought of that period of agony, pain, and hatred, and it made me sad.

But I could also see that the ugly hook scar Salan had gotten on her cheek when she was fifteen was gone, a virtue of Real’s perception of Salan—the person she wanted Salan to be. If I wanted to, I could imagine her without a blindfold, and dress her to suit my whimsey.

I used my mind to remove her blindfold and saw two beautiful eyes staring at me intently. Kira cocked her head quizzically, and I cried out, stumbling backward.

She smirked smugly and then offered her hand.

"Not a person my ass..." I whispered as I let her help me up. It was a very surreal situation that left me emotionally conflicted. Then I thought about the fact that I was supposed to be able to use her, and I imagined her punching the air.

She did.

"This’s so fucking cool," I said.

Kira flicked her hair like a diva and turned away before shooting me a sassy glance.

"Don’t tell me this is my inner personality..." I said, dead-toned and lifeless.

Kira huffed silently, putting her hands on her hips.

"No, there’s nothing wrong with you being like this," I said. "It’s a problem that I’m... oh whatever."

I tried to create a combat knife out of aura again, and while I could create a general shape like with mana sharpening, I couldn’t make the blade.

"Knew it... Kira. Fuse with me for a second."

Kira’s aura snapped back into my body without the slightest sass. It felt natural, comfortable even.

I presented my palm to dead air and imagined my datura plant, and it grew on my palm before my very eyes.

"This isn’t just a guardian..." I whispered. "She’s intelligent clay."

I clenched my hand, imagining her hand overlaid on my mind, and it wrapped around the plant. I could feel it like it was a real plant.

"This is insane..." I muttered. "She’s actually an extension of my body..."

Kline had returned and was watching me closely.

"Turned out, I’m not super talented," I said. "I’m getting help. Meet Kira."

Kira separated from my body, blindfold returned. Then she took one look at Kline and clasped her hands over her chest, rushing up and kneeling to love Kline. He hissed and clawed at her hand and was shocked when his claws found purchase. She cried silently, and puffed out her cheeks and then reached to pick him up. He was confused, so she managed to scoop him up as he wiggled to break free.

"That’s more like it," I giggled as Kline struggled. "She’s part of me, Kline. The intense parts."

He zagged back and forth to avoid her, but found her shockingly nimble and difficult to outmaneuver.

"This’s my love for you!" I called out.

Kline hissed and jumped out of the tree again, warping into the woods. Kira watched in a stupor and then fell on her knees dramatically.

"Oh, girl," I said. "We’ll get along."

She turned and smiled this wonderfully genuine smile.

"Sorry to ask, but do you think you can help me level this floor? I’m shockingly inept."

Kira nodded, waved her hand, and a blade of aura sheared straight through the floor, sending wood shavings flying everywhere.

"Wow..." It occurred to me that Kira had about fifty thousand years of muscle memory stored up and was fully independent. This was the power of a legendary gift.

"Okay... Well, I’m going to figure out the lighting situation so I stop feeling so worthless. Can you handle this?"

So Kira made a new one, followed by creating a crown with wood and clay to waterproof it.

A few days later, Kline and the lurvine took their smaller forms and gathered around the fireplace as I cooked a stew with meat my little hunters had brought back to camp.

It was wonderful.

The next order of business was the table, counter, bed, and shower situation. I thought about it for a while before getting a strange idea: instead of creating tables to put on the floor, we could drill down deeper into the floor deeper, leaving the wood in the place where we wanted the furniture.

This was possible because I thought that a treehouse wasn’t a treehouse if it wasn’t elevated, so I built five feet up. Now, we drilled four feet down, leaving a large cylinder in the center to act as a table, and counters on every wall, making one extra wide for my "bed."

Once we hollowed the area under the counters out, we had a perfect table and location for a bed.

It was beautiful.

I high-fived Kira and put the heating array I got from the temporary shelter right into the center of the table, creating a heating source that wouldn’t burn down the house.

I finished by putting a magical cot and new sleeping bag I traded for during the Harvest onto the bed cut out, and I finally had a home.

It was beautiful, too, filled with smooth grains with spiraling age lines lumber is known for.

If I were still in Colorado, such a home would go for two million in a town like Aspen or Breckenridge. What a surreal place to live.

I then got to work with preparation for winter. I salted and smoked torok jerky while the lurvines lounged around in the "living room" in their fluffy little fox forms, sneaking glances at me—waiting for me to drop scraps.

No matter how big or prideful canines are, they’re always the same. Kline thought the same, strutting with an air of superiority while he waited for dinner—then demanding twice as much.

Little shit.

I loved them all, getting to know them intimately as the trees changed colors and fell.

We developed a little routine after the home was done. I started my day by snuggling with Kline. After a modest breakfast, we would thread our torok cores for an hour before Kline snuck off to practice the new skills he got during the harvest in secret, and I went on hikes, training with Kira on clear days, and picking mushrooms on days following the rain.

It was amazing to fuse with her body. I could move far faster, and if I hit the ground, she was like a shield. I could make my body larger like I was piloting a tiny mech robot.

And my wings...

I could create wings.

But I couldn’t use wings.

Believe me, I tried every day, and I got better, but it’s impossible to understand how unequipped humans are for flight. It was like having two more hands that you’ve never used before. Then, once you got used to it, you needed to learn significant control and overcome the fear of falling. And if that wasn’t enough, I was in a forest with canopies that blocked flight.

What I needed was an open field to practice, and I vowed to find one in the spring.

Time passed on like that, and before long, the air was chilly, the plants were dead, and I found myself huddled in my new home at the onset of winter.

I had very few ingredients for alchemy or botany purposes, and my home, now sporting a small kitchen furnished with a stove and equipment I got in the Big Bag ’o Tools, was functionally set for winter.

So, I decided to bundle up and live the good life.

Those days were remarkably boring, but they were also gratifying. To practice my mana shaping, I used a mana lathe to carve chairs for the table, creating one for each member of my family. The first twenty came out terribly, but after I asked Kira to teach me, she showed me techniques as I carved, and soon I was creating subpar furniture on my own. It wasn’t much, but it was great progress.

And it was fun. Every night was a new day for training, threading, reading, and cooking, and I got all the cuddles I wanted from eight fluffy animals. It was comfortable.

And yet...

That sense of loneliness I returned, and I found myself pulling up my gods’ tribute requirements to find a reason to bring them in, but no dice.

Brindle’s tribute said: "Fight the harvesters, should their actions indicate war on the forest." That wasn’t surprising. He fluctuated from thoughtful to ambivalent toward me, and I wasn’t sure that there was any familiarity between us. He was hard to figure out.

Elana was different—very different. And after I was finished researching the plants she wanted for her tribute, I decided I didn’t want to speak to her until necessary—if ever again.