'Three bloody hours. It took three damned hours to get here, if they turn us away I might be having idiots for lunch.'

We had arrived at Ottawa, well, what's left anyway. The once beautiful city had ruined buildings, broken roads and trashed gardens everywhere. The weird part was that I could see people walking around, smell food and hear the chatter of shop and market stall owners. As we walked further, I saw people moving around and clearing rubble and stuff. Of course, I was in my beast-kin form so I could talk to them. I saw a few people glance and take a second glance at the three of us. What I don't know is if it's because of my body, my body (tail/ears) or Mimi's ears.

I went up to the closest person, a brown-eyed, brown haired man of considerable height, and they kept eye contact, good sign.

"May I ask where a food shop and clothing shop is? I have money if that's still a thing."

The man snickered.

"It's good to be prepared but we don't take money anymore, since the storm ended we decided on work for pay in food or other assortments."

I nodded, "Makes sense," I smiled, "where's the nearest place with manual labour? I'm stronger than I look so I could probably help a lot."

The man looked confused, "Well, it'll be about two blocks down and three left, they didn't finish the infrastructure of a new building and they need to finish it. Once they do, we'll be making a community center with it."

I winced slightly, remembering the family I had left though I nodded nonetheless. Sometimes I missed them, I had never seen them again after the massacre in my first life so I don't exactly know what happened to them nor what powers they gained.

"I'll be off then, Mimi, Fin, come on."

As we walked towards the site, I appreciated the blue sky and its fresh air, I drank in the sight of the beautiful trees. The rainy smell was still present two days after but it wasn't weird. It had been a half-year, maybe a bit more, long storm.

Once we made it to the place, I looked for the most officer-like person and found them in the form of a man with a yellow hardhat, orange safety jacket, brown hair, beefy and muscular stature and I assume green or brown eyes, I couldn't see from where I was.

I made my way over and called out to him.

"Hello."

He didn't turn.

"Hello?"

I saw the headphones and facepalmed. I tapped his shoulder. He turned. He took his headphones off.

"What are you here for, food, drink, clothes, books, what."

"You aren't judging me by my stature nor my gender."

"Why would I? The storm has changed people and we need everyone we can get."

"True. I'm here to do any type of work heavy machinery would do and it's for clothes and food. The clothes are for myself, the food is for 7 people."

Fin poked me, "What about you Amber?"

I smiled, "I can just hunt, it's alright."

I turned back and the man was smiling slightly. He then checked his clipboard and pointed me in a direction.

"Go that way and help put the steel bars into the ground. The places are already dug out in the shape of their ends. It should be easy enough if you are as strong as you say. Strong enough to do the work of heavy machinery is pretty strong after all."

I nodded and went on my way. The place wasn't that far away from where the boss was, he had blue eyes by the way, it's probably because he wanted to be able to overlook all the places. I got there soon and prepared myself with some light stretching. I didn't need any extensive stretching for just carrying giant bars of steel.

The bars were grey and had I/H, depends on how you look at it, shaped ends.

I heard someone walking up to me as I grabbed one.

"Oi, you shouldn- what the hell?"

I picked up the first one and twirled it into a comfortable position before walking over to the first place, my tail was moving side to side keeping me in balance the entire time while my ears and eyes scanned the path towards the positions.

I gotta say, I had a smile on my face the entire time for two reasons. One, Mimi and Fin were following me like ducklings would a mother duck. Two, the people who saw me walking with the steel bar had their jaws dropped and it was hilarious.

'I could get used to doing jobs like this.'

I did the repetitive walking back and forth, placing steel beams with little Mimi and Fin following me the whole way. At one point, I even carried two, one in each arm. Mimi laughed like it was a show at the time and Fin had sparkly eyes for some reason.

As soon as I had placed the final steel bar into the ground I smiled and looked at the whole thing. The bars were placed in a shape like two big rectangles with three triangles on the side and a circle in between them. It was a weird shape. Also, keep in mind the spacing was like 10 meters between each bar.

Anyway, once I finished, I walked back towards the boss of the place. I could see him raise an eyebrow at me, turn, see the thing, raise his other eyebrow and then wrote something down on his clipboard. I waited patiently as he wrote before he gave me something. It said, 'Ten Articles of Clothing, Four Large Bottles/Boxes of Drinks and 8 Boxes of Food.'

I smiled, thanked him and left with Mimi and Fin. It was time to go get some food, go home and eat.

"Amber, are we going to go get food?" Fin's eyes were sparkling.

"Yep."

I smiled radiantly, the little girl was an adorable bean.