B 2 C 6: PARTY TIME
“Whadja get whadja get!?” Come excited cries from Lil, Spice, and the Mana twins. I look over towards Teuila,who waited until the fight was over to assume her Valkyrie form. A show of support and faith. She believed in me, even when she saw it was more powerful than the one I originally told her about. I gaze down at the littlest amongst us, clamoring for attention, answers, and excitement. I peer over at Agwai who now has a hand on Lao’s shoulder as they double over with laughter. Mataalii is rolling his eyes, making a “big whoop” gesture. He probably didn’t realize it was something like five or six times stronger than it originally was, but I’m definitely never, ever going to mention that to him. Let him think what he wants.
Luni however, Luni has the smuggest “I told you so” expression on her face that I’ve ever seen or imagined on anyone, and I break into laughter upon seeing it. I feel like the luckiest being in all of existence, and right now, I’m not crippled with fear. I know Te is transformed for my sake right now, but hopefully she knows that she doesn’t need to be, yet also how much I appreciate it.
Oh, I guess she does know, as she beams a smile my way. I wonder if I’ll ever get used to having my feelings for people draw their attention to my thoughts. That brings my thoughts around to the fact that it’s only my inner circle, at least one of which is only because of a tether that was strained for so long. Hm, I’m also going to need to do a bunch of energy capacity training again, ugh.
“Alright, alright alright, hold on. I um, hey everybody, sorry about the rude awakening, and, well, being a big doofus.” I hear some calls of “darn right” from my family, and I shake my head. I close my eyes, rolling them, laughing. “Anyway, the reason I did this was because I wanted to show all of you what throwing a party can be like. I want us to feast tonight. I’m going to need all of your help though. Yes, even you Mat.” Mataalii opens his mouth wide, tongue out, and points his finger at the back of his throat.
Various members of my family clamor around, excitedly asking what their tasks or jobs are. Lao and Agwai stand in the back, holding one another, gazing at me with pride, and gazing at the rest of us with love, and adoration.
As I start to hand out supplies, equipment, and tasks, various family members break off to think about how to complete their tasks. Some break off to actively work on them. My inner circle hangs back, off to the side as I approach Mataalii. Mat holds up a hand as I approach. “Now just wait a minute.” He calls, but I continue my approach, and toss my arms around him.
“I need your help brother. I don’t know what presents to get everyone, especially you.” My statement catches Mat completely off guard, probably compounded by my surprise hug. My statement is mostly the truth, I do know the presents I’m getting, making, or already have, for some of the family, but I don’t know what to get every single one of them.
Mataalii looks around me to my inner circle. My inner circle immediately try to look inconspicuous, and do a horrible job of it, as they suddenly strike up whistling, and I can feel them rocking back and forth in the senses from my danger wraps. It takes almost all of my willpower to not burst into laughter. Mat seems satisfied however. “Presents, really? Even me? But, we don’t like each other.”
My face adopts a neutral expression, half frown, half angular smile. “Have I ever said that I don’t like you, Mat?” As I ask this, Mata makes a disgusted face, as if I’d offered him a honeydew when he wanted a sword. Once more, I struggle to keep my laughter stifled. Some things run in this family. Something about the faces of melons, now, tomorrow.
Mataalii finally caves, “Okay, well, um, you have to have, some, ideas, right? Who are you struggling with?”
“Well, you, obvee.” I begin.
“Obvee,” he interrupts.
“The Mana twins, Sugar, Luni, Ag. Um, yeah, I think I can handle Lil and Teuila and Lao, I definitely know what I’m getting for Spice.” As I answer, Mata gives me an incredulous glance that essentially says “Really?”
“That’s almost everyone, what the heck?” Mata grabs his head and tugs on his hair.
“I told you!” What, did he expect me to be lying?
“I guess, I guess I didn’t believe you. You always seem to have some plan, like you know everything to do.” Oh, his explanation is actually kind of sweet. I guess he has a lot of confidence in me, faith that he wouldn’t admit to, normally. “Okay, give me a minute. I can do this. Can you take a trip to the caves before this party of yours?”
“Definitely, just tell me what you need.” I start to smile wider, and tears form in my eyes.
Mata shoves his hand in my face, “Stop that, you’re gonna make me sick.” I laugh, as I swat his hand away, which is followed by his other hand blocking my face, I swat that one, the other returns. Yeah, some things definitely run in this family. “Okay, Okay, okay, so it’s going to go like this.” He apparently reaches his conclusions well enough to share with me.
“Okay, so, my babies, I mean, my twerps.” When Mat slips up, I feel a flood of emotions well up in me. I know none of us are biologically related, the closest are the twins, who probably just hatched from two eggs at the same time. Yet still, his true feelings just slipped through. What do I even do with that information? Well, nothing for right now, I guess, Mata is continuing to explain. “So, it’s gotta be something to keep them entertained, you know? Even if they can’t use it, something they can try to play with. None of us have inventory magic like you. Closest is Lu with those magic bags, so it’s gotta be something that’s not dangerous to leave laying around. Getting any ideas?”
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“Yeah, yeah. A couple of things. A glider style harness, but on a zip line, from the roof of the house, to the pond. Sound cool?” Mat nods at my question.
He carries on, “So, Sugar, you’re really having trouble with her? She likes, like, everything, well, breaking everything, and maybe putting it back together, some of the time. Have you ever heard of a geode? In the caves, sometimes there’s these round rocks, and sometimes, there’s really pretty, shiny rocks inside those rocks. She would get a kick out of those. What are you so sure that you’re getting Spice?”
I answer honestly, “I’m making pencils, charcoal drawing sticks.”
“Oh, oh that’s pretty thoughtful actually, yeah, I think he’d really like those.” Mata seems to be appraising me, looking me up and down. “Really though, you can’t think of anything for Lu, or Ag? Can you make anything that they can make music with?”
“Oh! Great idea! Thank you so much Mat. What about you?” Mata makes that disgusted, but playful face again as I ask.
“One present I want is you to stop calling me Mat, only my b. My twerps can call me that.” Oh, oops, he actually has attachment to that, he continues as I realize my mistake. “So uh, y’know, it’s kinda hard to ask someone for your own present dude, y’know? Oh wait, sorry if dude is like, not right, or something. I don’t mean it in any particular way.” I chuckle at Mata’s concern. He starts to mutter. “Maybe, just something, to, y’know, something cool, like, yeah, cool kids, ‘n’ stuff. To make me, like, you, you know. Sh’up.” I haven’t said anything but Mata shoves me away by my face.
Mata’s request feels like a punch in the gut. This brother of mine, who has seemed to nearly wish death or exile upon me on several occasions, wants to be like me? I mean, I guess I’m flattered? But I’m a mess! No one should want to be like me! Ugh, what can I do to symbolically give Mataalii something? Oh, oh I think I have an idea, but I need to make sure it won’t break the magic of the item. Mata says something like “Done here,” and stalks off.
Alright, so, zip lines and glider frames for the twins. Pencils for Spice, geodes for Sugar. Instruments for Ag and Lu. I kind of already gave Lil and Te their presents, but I think I can do something else, special for them. Half of this item for Mata. For Lao, an item I can’t believe I’ve been holding onto since the serpent. I figured whoever was in control of auto-pilot me would have handed it over, since they seemed to hand out other things. Lil’s charring some twigs for me right now, I’ll wrap them later, it’ll literally take me an instant to throw the zipline up, so the twin’s gliders I’ll construct in my inventory now, with new dorsal material from Vampguppy.
Huh, that reminds me, Teuila hasn’t had the cloak I made for her, not for a long time now. It’s not in my inventory. I wonder if it’s in Lil’s, or in one of Luni’s bags. I hope it didn’t disappear due to evolving and unevolving, I can’t remember if it always showed back up if she was wearing it first. I guess I know what I’m making for her, too. For Lil, I’m going to try to find the spot I first saw them, and dig it up. The exact chunk of rock they were laying on when I first spotted them in Fire Biome is what I want to get Lil. I want to start a kind of dragon hoard sort of place for them.
Alright, first thing’s first, I’m going to have to take down one of these humongous trees, partially to make space, partially for the lumber, for Sugar and Spice to complete their task. The best tree is the one that my tent is currently leaning up against, it’s smaller, out of the way, while still being on the perimeter. Without a second glance, I send a radiant copy of a sword spinning through the tree at an angle from above. Everyone turns from their tasks to watch as it falls, their attention drawn by the loud crack as it begins to shift. The tree falls away from camp, and hangs slightly amidst other trees.
I can barely even remember what I used the last tree for, from back in the swamp. I think I was using the lumber to help shape the dugout doors, and reinforce their interiors while Lil was drying them out, so they wouldn’t cave in before Lil finished. Yeah, that’s right, all that lumber eventually ended up charred from doing that over and over, I left it in the last dugout we ever built. Trying to remind myself to get a move on, and stay in the present, I shake myself from my reverie. Focus, focus. I approach the newly felled tree, I’ll need to be claiming it in chunks, cylinders about a foot to three feet thick. It will be incredibly difficult, but not as bad as the last time I was trying to do this, with the paltry energy capacity I had back then, when my main energy capacity was locked away from me. I suppose, in a way, my energy capacity is locked away from me again now, now that I’ve just gone and handed over so much of it. Anyway, I claim the wood of the trunk until it’s flush with the ground, which helps the tree fall free from its current precarious angle. Once there, it doesn’t take too long to finish the rest of the tree, as well as to gather the vines and leathery leaves as well.
Oo, my inventory capacity went up from the stuff I snagged from the pond earlier. I thought my previous capacity was some sort of ultimate possible limit. I don’t even pay attention to mind’s eye boxes anymore, that might be a dangerous habit. Right, right, no getting distracted. I set the lumber off to one side, for Sugar and Spice to deal with, near where I set the last of my clay. Somehow, at some point when I was on auto-pilot, I must have gone back to the swamp to get more. Lil did say I sometimes disappeared for several days at a time, but that’s a heck of a travel pace. Right, right, stop getting distracted. I’ve got so many more leathery leaves now, I can make us comfy beds, but not yet.
I steal away over to the pond’s deep end, and I begin claiming the granite of the shelf of the near side of the deep end of the pond. I claim this mineral in step form, so that it’s easy to climb out of, because the inverse of a step is still just a step. I randomly eject the rectangular prisms of granite off to the north, near the cliff, not sure what to do with them. I lazily swim across the pond, and chisel essentially a half-fist-sized eyelet, to tether the zipline to. Then I think twice on it, and chisel another one, so that the twins can use two at the same time if they don’t want to take turns, or go on the same glider harness.
My inventory crafting magic nets me a bunch of wood shavings as I hollow out and carve down some lumber. Lumber that I’m going to use as the basis for drums. I let my crafting ability stretch some vampguppy leather across the now hollow cylinders, the drums even come out looking pretty nice. I sit on the steps I’ve carved into the pond, letting my feet float while I carve several spoons by hand, with chunks of wood left over from the lumber I’d used to carve the drums.
Lil will catch up to me later with the charcoal, I’ve got the gliders, the drums, the spoons, the wraps. Sugar and Spice are taking care of the dance floor, and the stage. I feel a bit lazy with Lao’s present, that doesn’t sit well with me, but I’m not sure what else to do about that. I love our matron so much, I want her dream of an idyllic, comfortable life to come true. One where she watches us become our best selves. I want her to be able to watch over us in comfort.
Time for a quick trip to the caves to search for geodes, and then up to the top of the cliffs. That one should be pretty easy, I remember it like it was yesterday, and even if I didn’t, I could just look at my memory to see how far I walked. Anyway, I’m sure that I was overreacting when I was first terrorized by thoughts of heading deeper into the caves.