After a long evening of bouncing up and down, pun decidedly intended, we retired. The rubber had held up admirably, without any visible damage of note. As people left I inspected it, and it seemed that the extra reinforcement had done it's job perfectly, sure there were one or two small deformations, but I couldn't even find any cracks in it, so I called it a resounding success.

There were a number of ways I could have gone about building a boat, designs and plans that might have worked, but there was only really one that I strongly considered. A basic raft shape should work, it wouldn't be super efficient, or ideal for any given circumstance, but it should function. Sometimes you simply had to do what would serve now, not worrying about what might serve later.

Building a basic frame was easy enough, if only because of the massive amount of wood Chien and I needed to harvest for the bark. It seemed wasteful, but once we left it could serve as the firewood for this little town for awhile, or building materials I didn't really care. The townsfolk did give us odd looks though as we brought tree after tree back.

“We don't have to bring all of these back boss, it's not like we need them all,” he complained one day.

“We're taking the trees down one way or another, no need to make waste.”

“I suppose.”

From there everything was fairly straightforward. The thickest sheets of the rubber bark were used as the base, though the addition was minimal. Thinner sheets served for the sides in the form of tubes, though I was making the bottom slightly inflated too, for added comfort. The real issue was getting it all together and done properly.

Our raft was about fifteen feet long, about eight wide, and while that might seem like quite a bit, and it would decidedly make for limited places we could go through it would also be serving as our shelter in case of storm of whatever. A small rig so the thinnest sheets of rubber we could find would serve as a tarp over it and we'd be dry, though netting was impossible, sadly, we could at least keep rain away. The different parts would all be sealed together, but not connected internally, so they might be replaced if needed. There would also be plenty of room for our stuff, as even compacted we'd gathered a goodly bit on the sleds and whatnot we'd had over the trip.

It took us a full week to gather all the rubber thought we needed, and another to get the design lain out over some logs that would serve as out building frame. A third week to get more rubber, since we'd underestimated significantly. That's when we ran into a problem.

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“How's that supposed to keep its shape?” Isha asked as she watched us pull the frame out, and the tube we were looking at instantly collapse into a floppy mess.

“We'll fill them with air,” I said confidently, then realized my issue.

“How? And how will that help?” she asked, only to see me sigh.

“Don't worry, the boss has got this,” Chien said confidently.

There was no pump, and even if there was we didn't have a proper valve. I'd love to say that I could just build one, but I really couldn't, I had no clue how the valves on inflatable rafts and whatnot worked. I could picture one, sure, I'd even used a ton of them in my former life, but I'd never tried to figure out how they functioned.

As was my normal solution, when my knowledge failed, I fell upon my magic. We already had bellows from our earlier forging that wouldn't do well for a pump, but would kinda work, and we were already having to seal around, leaving only one bit open for the end because of how we had to sew these together. Making a one-way barrier was weird though, unintuitive.

It took a full day for me to get it, because there were so many moving parts. I needed a opening that would let air in, but not out, that would let the tip of the bellows in and out, and could be held for a long period. Several times did we make it about halfway to where it needed to be, only for my control to slip, uninflating the whole thing in an infuriating sound that resembled nothing so much as a whoopee cushion, which was fitting I supposed.

Finally we did though, and Chien rushed to get the last whole sealed up. It would be the weakest point, but with both the sewing and the heat treatment I felt it should hold.

“Let's never do this again,” he complained when it was finally done, leaning back against it. “Good pillow though.”

“Chien, that was just one side. We've still got the other, the back, and the floor to go.”

“Fuck,” he grumbled, it was in English too. He'd heard me say it one too many times over the course of our years long association. There was a similar word in the local elven dialects, but it didn't have the broad use, or the good hearty power of an old fashioned fuck.

The rest of it was at least easier, taking us only another day. I'd have liked to have more air pressure in the parts, but there was only so much I could justify fighting with it. At the end of the day Isha and I laid in it, looking up at the stars as we rested on some light furs.

“This is comfy, why did you never make something like this before?” she asked as she snuggled up to me.

“Never really occurred to me.”

“Well, when we get back I want something like this for our bed.”

“I'll see what I can do. Glad that you decided you're happy to continue.”

“Oh, I'm not happy,” she said, moving to straddle my stomach. “I've made friends here, we could still stay.” She must have been able to see my face because she leaned down. “But I can see you don't want to, so I'll go.”

I'd not really been paying the attention I should to her, or I would have known she'd been making friends. For our part Chien and I always kind of kept people at arm's length, but with weeks here it seemed Isha had made connections.

“Thank you,” I muttered.

“Oh, you don't have to thank me, I told you already there'd be a price.” Her voice was mischievous and I could see her teeth as she smiled.

“And what's that?” I asked, holding her close.

“You're taking a break from all your wild adventures, no wars, no wandering about the world, none of that nonsense.”

“It's not like I want to...”

“You could have told them to shove it in Atal, but you didn't, you will in the future until your break is over.” Her voice was hard.

“Alright then, and how long a break will this be?” I questioned.

“Until our first child is grown,” she declared, fingers entwining with mine.

“I think I can do that.”

On reflection I had to agree, something like this raft would made an excellent bed.