[Emmett]

Spending time taking care of garden space is hectic. Especially when you have to till the soil anew for new plants, then afterwards you dig up a shallow pit to place the new seeds in, cover them back up in the soil, and then water the soil, but not too much. Then you have to walk up and down every other row, looking for any greenery that's not supposed to be there, and if any pop up, remove them. The utmost care must be taken when you notice that soil is drying up near an active plant, as you need to loosen it back up, but being even a little aggressive could kill the plant. It's not so bad when you're only growing a garden for subsistence, but when your farm is enough to feed significantly more than that, it can get hectic in short order.

Especially when beetles and other unwanted pests get involved.

This was how I spent my first hour after my real breakfast, leather glove in hand to pinch out any beetles, and out of luck against more mobile winged opponents. If only Jacqueline were here; she could probably whip out some fire that scorched pests and only pests while leaving crops intact. I just had to shoo them away. I thought about using the hand-glowy spell to scare them but I also didn't want to accidentally kill the plants.

After I sent a mosquito away from one of the grain stalks, I went to double-check every row of garden soil to make sure nothing was missed. It took a fair clip of time, but I found only a few patches in need of additional water, which was pretty solid when you think about it.

Satisfied with my work, I gathered up my little bundle of tools and waltzed to the shed to deposit them back in their rightful place. I pushed the back door open, and waved to Jacqueline.

"Done with the usual maintenance," I announced.

"Excellent," Jacqueline said, "I'm thinking of harvesting a little bit extra for the sendoff. I'll handle that myself though. You should go help with the schoolhouse."

"Ah, okay! Mind if I take a fifteen-"

"You can take your break while you walk."

Guess not. "Oh, okay. Be seeing you." I took a soft breath, traversed from the dining room to the living room (Well, more like an antechamber, since not much living happens here, but whatever), and I pull the door open to exit.

The first order of business was to get housing set up again for everyone. There was a good year or so where we quite literally lived out of makeshift tents. When the winters got harsh, we would all huddle together in one giant tent while Jacqueline tended flames of warmth. Say what you want about her being harsh, but she kept all of us alive year after year.

We all worked on building our own and each other's houses, every able body was pitching in their share of the labor. Even I helped, back when I wasn't exactly speaking to anyone. Though, looking back on it, they really didn't seem to like me. They would double-check and scrutinize my work, and I got a lot of the flak for anything that went wrong, even if I was nowhere near that area that day. It was as if every remaining native of the village wanted me gone and was only tolerating me because I did some work. Hells, I even got that feeling from Jacqueline and she kept me.

It really wasn't until Barbara that I felt I had a friend or even acquaintance post-Aegis, but I knew better than to let my guard down around her. Last thing I wanted was for Patrick, his dad, Justin, Alex, or Jacqueline, or really anyone to get so much as an impression I'd harassed the new woman. It was a survival thing.

Just thinking about that made my stomach turn a little.

It wasn't really until the second and particularly third years that we got a reasonable number of houses up. We got some police and bureaucrats coming in from New Bezoun proper, mostly to look for arsonists to arrest. Half the village offered me up, Patrick included, but Jacqueline put her foot down. They did, however, mention that since Charade Gin wasn't much of a village anymore, that they'd strike it off the maps, and declare it open territory.

So our rebuilding got delayed even further by the constant threat of bandits, and the occasional crime lord. I wanted to help fight them off, but we already had several capable magi and I'd just get in the way. I'd see some plumes of fire, though, and fuck if it wasn't scary and awesome at once. And also Jacqueline's; fuck you Patrick.

I made it to what could have been called a warehouse in the making in the more urban areas of Sollun, but for us would serve as a multi-roomed schoolhouse and communal storage facility. A couple of the women were starting to get pregnant and a place of education would be critical in the upcoming years.

Besides, education attracts more people which rebuilds villages faster.

I circled around to the front of the building and gave a firm knock knock.

"Ah, fancy seeing ya Emmett!" one voice called.

"You know you could have just come in through the walls that aren't up yet?" another added on, "Get your butt in here!"

"It's polite to knock." I opened the door, and regarded the two shirtless men before me.

"Stephen, Draco," I greeted the light-skinned man hammering a nail into the corner of a room off to the side to try to keep it together, and a dark-skinned man holding together several planks of wood arranged in what looks like a jigsaw puzzle formation, with some substance, probably egg whites, holding them in even further.

"You wanna work on building up some tables?" Draco asked, "We're about to get our first classroom."

"Shouldn't we finish up the walls first?" I asked.

"In theory you're right, but walls are tricky little snots to build, especially out of wood."

"Justin could in theory raise some stone to make the walls," said Stephen with a hearty whack of the hammer, "But it would attract too much attention too quickly, and a lot of us were proud of living in a village built mostly out of logs, so we're gonna show the world that Charade Gin never quits, and build out of prettier wood!"

"But doing that requires some tricky woodworking, and I'm the one best suited to it," Draco added.

"Understood. I'll get to work then. It's in the room Stephen is working on, right?"

At the nodding of both senior tradesmen, I walked into the room and found quite an array of dowels, wood blocks with jigsaw cuts and juts, egg-white glue, nails, hammer, and a parchment with diagrams describing how to assemble the desk, along with another pile of uncut material, and a scroll there.

Most of the designs were Draco's handiwork, combining woodworking techniques from multiple cultures, but in a perhaps haphazard way. It took me a little while to figure out how everything was supposed to assemble, but when I did, I got to work, first by coating the relevant sections of wood in the glue, then sliding the components into piece, making the desk legs connect to the desktop, attaching the cabinet underneath, and reinforcing certain areas with nails and some metal plates. I got the impression it was very much a function-over-form deal. I also suspected it wasn't the most professional of designs, but I could also see that being part of the charm.

All I knew was I spent a good deal of time assembling all the pre-cut desks, that I ended up going over toward the second pile. Opening the scroll I found instructions for how to make the cuts and smooth out the wooden dowels. The "scroll" was really multiple sheets rolled up as one, so I took my sweet time reading up.

My reading was interrupted by Draco knocking and stepping in. "Hey, how are ya hanging on?"

"I'm alright, just reading up how to cut everything. I was going to ask if you wanted me to-"

"Did you-" He walked up to one of the desks and laughed. "Emmett, you got the wide brackets backwards! They're supposed to be inside the desk, not out!"

"That's why it was annoying to get them in there!" I buried my face in my hands. "Sorry."

"It's all good, I should have built one up for ya to use as an example," Draco said, "That said, we're gonna keep them."

"Huh? Won't it look bad?"

"Battle scars, lad!" Draco threw his arms open. "We are Charade Gin, the village that got pasted into the dirt by the Emissaries of Total Manure and we're still here!! New Bezoun abandoned us, a couple of our surviving magi abandoned us, havens, Patrick's about to abandon us, and look where we are! Still here!"

I smiled and sighed. "I'm glad. Wait... abandon?"

"Yeah, Patrick's not much, but he's still fighting in the front half the time," Draco said before approaching me to whisper in my ear, "Between you and me though, I think the lad's got an ego trip. He's not coming back."

I stood there, stunned. Someone had something bad to say about the golden child?! A lot of emotions were welling up in my chest just then. I blinked and looked up to him, my eyes obviously being some flavor of distorted if he laughed.

"Well, It's about a quarter past eleven, whaddaya say we start heading to the South Gate?"

"Early break?" I asked, "Jeez, I should start living with you instead of Jacqueline."

"Don't you let her catch you saying that now."

"Understood." I followed Draco out the door, and waited for him and Stephen to get their shirts back on before walking out of the door.

It took another several hundred seconds to get from where we were working, toward the Southern Gate of the village. We just kinda silently wandered over, being that we had all worked several hours at length. We were also about to be in public polite company, and we can save our private conversations for, well, private. I could swear I heard the two of them talking about women earlier.

The three of us strolled down the road-turned-dirt-delta and the area was bustling. Barbara and Jacqueline were working together preparing meals and drinks, the full town guard was arranged at the southern side, and several more people whose names escaped me had dispersed into cliques to chat about the latest rumors, as well as a bunch of women who may or may not have been married to someone. Justin was off to the side, standing upon an amber spell circle with his eyes closed, and Alex, his lighter-skinned counterpart, stood in the direct path of the gate, fencing with Patrick to pass the time.

Oh right....Patrick. A bit taller than me, in definitely better-fitting clothes, ocean-blue eyes, and a wicked curl to his smile when he saw me.

"Why I'll be. The lying sack of shit actually did show up!" he said, getting whacked solidly across the cheek in the process. "Ow!"

"Didn't call time," Alex said, "And don't bog yourself down in old grudges Patrick. Magic doesn't like that. Justin how's the surroundings?"

"No one approaching," Justin said.

"Hmph." Patrick scoffed and took up his foil again.

"Alright, enough you all!" Jacqueline called, "Food is ready!"

The lot of us gathered up to the mobile wheeled merchant stands that Barbara and Jacqueline were working in, and a line quickly formed for food. Patrick, the child of the hour, was allowed to grab a meal and drink first, followed by everyone else. Even I got to eat, though Patrick made some pretty hurtful comments about how I should have been offered up as a meal instead.

"To Patrick!" Jacqueline calls, and the entire town raised their glasses. "To Patrick!" they called.

"To Patrick," I said.

"To Me!" Patrick roared.

The mead really did go down sweetly. Barbara really outdid herself. Normally she only pulled out ales, maybe a few whiskeys. Honey was really hard to come by, so to make mead for everybody was... did we even have bees?!

"How did-"

Patrick kicked my glass to the side, spilling the drink. "Mead's too good for you."

"Hey!" Barbara shouted, "I spent a lot of effort on that mead!"

"And yet you waste it on-"

"Patrick, you need to look good for the dignitaries," Jacqueline lightly chided. She would have roasted me alive for much less but whatever.

"Alright. It's not like I have to deal with Emmy McLiarson for very long." He sauntered back off next to Justin and Alex, while Barbara took my glass and refilled it.

"Here ya go, Em," Barbara said, downing a glass quickly of her own, "You deserve to have some fun too."

"Thank you Barbara." I gave her a soft smile and took a sip.

"Hey Jackie, I'm borrowing your boy for a few after Patrick ships off!"

"The fuck you're not!" Jacqueline shouts back. "I still need him to run some errands after!"

"Isn't he eighteen now?"

"Yeah and if he knows what's good for him he won't piss me off enough to evict him!"

I let the two women bicker over me for a little bit before a group of four figures with robes and staves marched into the town.