Three years after the invasion.

Zen woke up, stretching as wide as he was able in the little cot he slept in. It was much too small for him but oddly comforting, reminding him of simpler days on the farm with too many of them squished into a too-small house. They could have built a bigger one but as Grandmother Polina always said “Living with too little grows character and I would know about growth, I’m a farmer.”

He had always complained about it when he was younger but after coming back from experiencing the wider world, he couldn’t help but believe some people needed to have just a little less comfort growing up. There was only so much privilege and entitlement a person could have before it became a little obnoxious.

Life had been good as of late. While still new, things were going well with Mel and he was starting to think that it might be something that could work for them both in the long term. He hadn’t expected to find a partner out here in the frozen north but things had just evolved ever since she had arrived from the south a few months ago.

The south. It was strange thinking of his old home as the south. All of his life, he had lived in the north with places like the capital being the south. Now the entire kingdom was “the south” to him.

The last time she had been up to see him, Zalia had offered for him and his family to come down and live in the town Indis had given her. He had been tempted, a beautiful, nature-filled place where the people and animals of the land lived in harmony, protected over by the magic that Zalia had imbued it with. Who wouldn’t be with a description like that? After all, it definitely sounded more pleasant than the frozen north. Life there sounded… easy.

That had been part of the reason both he and his family had decided against it though.

Sure, he had given up on the life of an adventurer and member of the Morning’s Shade but that didn’t mean he wanted to live an easy and boring life. No, he still wanted a challenge and they had found that here in the north. Learning to farm and live in a place that naturally didn’t want you to do either in it had been a fulfilling day-to-day life. Building a friendship with the Born of Heat and Stone people had been an amazing addition to that, though had turned out to be the easier of the two.

They worked flawlessly with each other, like a hivemind. They basically were one, from what Zalia had told him. While it was a bit harder for them to work in the same way with the humans now living with them, they had taken to it and after the difficult early days, things were good.

His younger cousin Jasper had been working with Glemp quite a lot and under his teaching and guidance, had taken an alchemist class. Glemp loved to talk about how much easier it was to work with Jasper than it had been to work with Zalia, which always got a laugh out of Zen. Having worked with Zalia himself, he tended to agree. Not that he didn’t love Zalia and respect her greatly for the things she had done, she just tended to be very strongly inclined about her decisions with little room for argument. It worked out more often than not but it felt a little like working for Zalia, not with Zalia.

He groaned a little before throwing himself out of bed. The sun wasn’t up yet but his father had always said getting up before the sun got the work done.

His mother Annette was already up and handed him a bowl of mushrooms, bread and meat. They traded for the mushrooms from the Heat and Stone denizens, made the bread themselves and the meat came from hunting parties that were a combination of both their peoples.

After eating, he bid his family a good day and left, walking further up the mountain toward his current project.

While his mother, grandmother and two younger siblings, Jaz and Harry, worked on the farm below, he and his father had been building a house up the mountain. The houses made for them by the Heat and Stone denizens out of obsidian were nice but just weren’t as easy to make comfortable. The colour and hardness of the material made it feel like a bit of a prison no matter how much you decorated.

So, when Zen had gone to his father and told him that he wanted to build a house for himself and his possible future family, he had agreed.

The forest below had been cleared away a bit to accommodate the farming fields, the wood put away in the mountain for future use. Zalia had even used some of her magic to make the fields warmer and protected from the snow which was a boon for the growth and continued life of the crops. Previously, they had been trying to farm the natural plants in the north, various types of berries for the most part. With the strange mini biome Zalia had made, they were able to grow some of the more traditional crops they were used to. Eating bread again was great.

This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.

The wood from the clearing had dried out nicely now, the process sped up a bit by the constant high temperature inside the mountain. It was this wood that he and his dad were using to build the house.

Zen trudged through the snow to the frame of the house, looking over their previous days' work with fresh eyes. His dad had taught him to always check your work the day after and it had saved him more than a few mistakes in the past.

His dad arrived a few minutes later, layered up against the cold. For some reason, he and Grandmother Polina had never developed the Cold Resistance passive that the rest of them had. Zalia had given some explanation about developing passives being harder the older you get when he had asked. He had no idea how she knew that but it did make sense.

“Ready to get to?”

His dad nodded and they started building.

⪼ ⪢ ℋ 𝒶𝓃𝒹 ℋ ⪡ ⪻

It was later in the day that they finally stopped. They had made good progress that day with the framework all done now. A few more days and they might have some of the walls going up. One of his dad’s mates had fashioned the stone floor for them with his stonemason abilities and would come by when they were doing the walls to help. He was a builder with the stonemason specialisation which made him the perfect man for the job to help finish off everything. While Zen and his dad could build it themselves, the builder would help to properly weatherproof everything so that they didn’t have constant drafts blowing through the house. That was especially important when they were living on a frozen mountainside.

Today, Mel was coming over to meet his parents. They had seen each other peripherally a few times but today was the day they would meet properly. His nerves were a little wrecked but he was certain they would like her. She was honest and hardworking, an earth mage with a landscaper specialisation. It was quite unusual to ever go for a utility specialisation when choosing a mage class yet she had done so. With the specialisation she obtained Plant Manipulation as well as a skill that made a landscape she created provide benefits as long as it existed. Examples she had given of that were fields that helped plants grow, gardenscapes for houses that radiated calm and happiness, even defensive scapes that provided defensive bonuses to those using them. It was a truly unique class combination that Zen hadn’t ever seen before and one he knew his family would love to make use of. Just another piece in his belief that they would like her.

He also thought Mel and Zalia would get along well, which filled him with dread. He loved plants and ritual magic as much as the next guy but if those two ever got to talking about it, it might be the death of a few hours of time.

In comfortable silence, Zen and his dad arrived at the family home. They were put to work by Annette as soon as they entered, set to cutting up the few vegetables they had, butchering meat, preparing herbs and starting the oven fire to bake bread.

Polina was sitting on the couch with baby Ingrid in a cot, simultaneously rocking the cot while crocheting. Jasper would still be with Glemp for a while yet, with the rest of the cousins making themselves scarce for the night and taking his younger siblings with them. Today would just be his parents, grandmother and the baby Ingrid.

When dinner was almost ready, he quickly washed up and put on his only nice clothes. He made his way down the mountain to where Mel lived, in a smaller one-person house and knocked on the door. Mel opened it within seconds, wearing her own well-tailored thick leather coat, auburn hair pulled up into a ponytail. She had pleasant features, not stunningly beautiful but the face of a hard-working woman who has spent most of her life in the sun and fields, just like Zen.

“Hey, are you ready?”

His nervousness was growing but he tried to contain it.

“Hey, yeah absolutely!”

She caught on to how obviously nervous he was.

“... are you?”

He nodded a few times, nervously wringing his hands. Then forcing his hands to stop.

“Yes, let’s go then!”

They walked up the hill towards his family’s home, Mel chatting casually while he tried to reciprocate as concerned thoughts rushed around his head.

When they arrived he opened the door and led the way in.

“Everyone, this is Mel. Mel, this is my Father Anton, my Mother Annette, my Grandmother Polina and my baby cousin Ingrid.”

Mel stood beside him as he made introductions.

“Hey everyone, wonderful to meet you all”

His mother came forward first and gave Mel a big hug.

“Come on in, dinner is just ready.”

Mel hugged her back.

“Smells lovely!”

Zen’s worries faded away as an easy conversation sparked up between Mel and his mother, his father chiming in every now and then as he set the table. He wondered why he had even been worried in the first place.