Weaponsmith - Chapter 112 (Patreon)

Water trickles noisily, the creek quietly making its presence known. Nightbirds sing in the distance, their shrill voices not muffled by the deep, heavy forest. Crickets chirp and a contrastingly peaceful aura is present in the air.

An owl hoots off in the distance.

Obscura turns her head, sharply looking off to the side, towards the direction of the call.

She turns her head back, looking at Hineni, who has lifted an eyebrow. “Many owls do not find sleep in the big-big forest,” she explains. “The night has become loud. The mice have scampered and hidden and the rabbits are feasted upon by things that do not fly.”

Hineni nods. He had never thought about it, really. But he supposes that the war must be pretty intense for the local ecosystem too.

He an Obscura are walking near the edge of the city, wandering around to look for any particularly nice trees, near the edge of the forest.

At night, the war stops, because the deep forest is full of all manner of horrific monsters that can’t be named with a single word. So all of the soldiers retreat to their camps and fires and stay there until the sun returns again. However, Hineni has been assured that the presence of the owl-god will deter any such predators.

“Big hungry creatures do not stalk where other big, hungry creatures roam,” says Obscura, seeing him looking into the forest. “Perhaps on days where this is little food. But in these days, there is much meat in the forest.”

“I’ll take your word for it,” replies the man. He looks up at a tree, bathed in moonlight. It’s tall, swaying body dances in the moonlight and cool breeze. “What about this one?”

Obscura clicks with her mouth and takes his hand, pulling him along. “Fool,” says the owl-god. “This tree has no branches. It has many fine, poky needles that would ruin my beautiful feathers with their sticky sap.” She shakes her head. “Such a tree is a poor home for owls and for Hineni-men.”

“What about just one Hineni-man, singular?”

She hoots. “The Hineni-man can not be so,” she says. “As he is two with me,” explains the owl-god. “Singular Obscura and singular Hineni make a non-singular Hinura.”

“Hin-what?”

“It is their names, combined,” says Obscura. “They are building a nest, yes?” she hoots. “Soon, we will wed and there will be young. They need names.”

“I think we can come out with something better than that,” he says. Hineni turns his head to look at another tree. “What about this one?”

Obscura looks and then clicks with her mouth. “It is rejected. Look,” she says. The owl-god uses her other hand to run along the tree’s exterior with her talon. A piece of the bark peels off. “This shape of tree has soft, weak skin. It will not survive the nibbles of time and of threats.”

“Huh… interesting,” says Hineni. “There sure are a lot of different kinds of trees.”

She nods. “We need one that has many branches,” she says. “They must be plentiful, but they must also be high up.” She turns her head around to look his way, walking on. “Low branches will allow predators to climb it. High branches act as a throne upon which to sit.”

“So… no needles, because they’re sticky, no low branches and no weak bark?” he asks.

Obscura nods. “You will forgive me for being picky,” hoots the owl-god. Hineni shakes his head.

“It’s fine. This is fun. It reminds me of walking through the city and looking at houses together.” He turns his head, gesturing towards another tree. “What about that one?”

“It is ugly. Queenly Obscura will not reside in an ugly tree.”

“Oh.” He looks at the tree. He isn’t really sure what’s wrong with it. But maybe he just doesn’t have an eye for these things. Considering she’s half-owl, or… three-quarters owl?

– He isn’t sure.

But anyway, considering that, she likely has a better judgment on this topic. He’ll trust her instincts. As long as they organize a place to live for everyone to feel safe and at home in, that’s enough for him.

___________________________________________

“It sure is good that the military took care of our move for us,” says Rhine, looking as several more carts arrive. They’re carrying boxes, presumably full of books from the library. “This would have been a real pain to do ourselves.”

“I’m sure it will come back to bite us in the ass somehow,” replies Sockel.

Hineni shakes his head. “Considering all of the taxes we pay, I’d call this a fair trade,” he says. “Anyway, we found one,” explains the man, referring to a tree.

“Really?” asks Seltsam. “Neat! What kind of tree is it?” she asks. “Wait, should I get a book on trees?” The hooded figure looks around herself, trying to find a book. But she seems to become more and more distraught as she notices that all of the books are still packed in large crates.

“It’s a tree, Seltsam,” says HIneni. “It has branches and normal leaves and it's mostly made out of wood.”

The librarian doesn’t seem too pleased about not being able to do her cherished work, but she appears to notice that she has no choice at the moment. “So… is this really real?” she asks. “You want us all to live in a tree? How is that even going to work?”

“It’s gonna be a big tree,” replies Hineni.

“Yeah, you mentioned. But…” She looks at the others. “I mean, it has to be really big.”

“It’s gonna be. Don't worry about it,” assures Hineni. “I know it sounds kooky, but think about it,” he says. “Avarice is a dragon, right?”

“...Yeah?”

“Well, he lives in a house. Dragons usually live in caves.”

“I guess.”

“Could we live in a cave?” asks Hineni.

“Sure, but it would be cold.”

He nods. “Exactly. So we’re doing a tree.” He looks down at the soil. “Nothing a little god-magic, a little time and some creative magic can’t fix,” explains Hineni. “Besides, now is the perfect chance to try something like this out, what with the leylines being all wobbly.”

He looks up towards the sky, where a visible wavering is apparent, behind the rising smoke coming from all around them.