“The statue. You kept looking at it. Does it have anything to do with this offer of yours?” Franz asked.
“There is power in the monument, yes; it attracts and houses minor spirits. Were it to be destroyed, the forest would not fall upon you - the forest needs not a monument as a reminder. However… I shall be able to harness the power of what your monument represents to fuel a protective array around your hamlet. I only need local materials to channel the power.”
A melancholy silence fell over the room at that, but none spoke of the matter. The villagers of Arthal provided what the strange old man asked, as they had the tools to ascertain a tree’s age without killing it. It was a simple necessity, as the hamlet had originally been built to supply the very type of wood the old man asked for. There was no surprise as to why; such ancient wood had superior properties in every aspect, and could be used for applications with strange material property requirements.
Franz sat up there, watching quietly. He would normally spend around half an hour like this before coming down, but his time of peace did not pass as normal this day.
There was a distant rumble, like the engine of a cargo half-track, but far fiercer. Then came the slight rumbling in the ground. He got up and walked a short distance to the top of the hill, and from there he saw a machine comparable in size to a tractor, but with only two wheels and carrying two figures. The machine stared at him, its headlights stylized as the eyes of a mammoth’s skull, its tusks as rams protecting the front wheel.
It tore down the dirt road, only to slow and come to a halt right next to him.
Standing there, having to look up at a woman, Franz was absolutely certain that these were the exact people that the strange old man had built the hamlet’s barrier to defend against. The one driving, a towering, monstrous woman with a bronze arm and eyes like a wild beast, felt like a wolf staring at him from the treeline, like she might tear his throat out at any moment. The sky was clear, so why did the air smell like an oncoming storm?
The other, a blonde in a strange, pseudo-militaristic dress, wore a skull-faced mask and possessed a single, double-pupiled eye. But… There was something unsettlingly familiar about that blonde. Where had Franz seen her before?
“You wouldn’t happen to be from that logging hamlet down there, would you?” came a question from the giant woman. Her voice was deep and husky, yet boisterous and open all the same. Franz, however, knew well enough to play it safe with someone who broadcasted her cultivator status this brazenly.
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“Yes, lady cultivator. However, our hamlet is of no interest.”
“No honorifics. I am Zelsys Newman, either of those names is fine. This is Zefaris Newman.”
“What a curious coincidence, one of my neighbors’ children is a Zefaris. She ought to be around your age,” Franz remarked, desperately trying to release the tension which he alone felt.
Zelsys twisted her neck to an uncomfortable degree to look back at her co-rider, who had started staring a hole straight through Franz’s head. It was at this point that he noticed the guns on her hips. The blonde reached up to her face and removed the mask.
“I know, father,” she said. “I hope she won’t be angry with me for borrowing her name.”
Confusion turned to surprise and sudden relief as Franz recognized his own daughter’s face, changed so severely after all these years.
“...Sophia?”
----------------------------------------
It was an awkward, but belated reunion.
The whole of the hamlet - that is to say, a few hundred people - gathered to welcome the returned daughter who had, to them, passed into folk myth for her act many years prior. A generation of children had been raised being told of her deed and how drunken fools had chased her away for doing what they themselves had been too cowardly to do. Many eyes gathered to Zelsys as well, as was inevitable, though for once, she made an effort to not stand out. It was a futile one, but she made the effort nonetheless. The people of Arthal had the good courtesy to mind their own business, and only a few tactless children tried to peer through the windows of Zef’s family’s home… Soon after which the angered barking of their parents drew them away.
It was a modest, but well-built home, with a structure of thick, treated logs and an interior of pragmatic simplicity. Most of the furniture was clearly handmade, yet once more, the maker’s skill showed through, and only a few modern essentech amenities were to be found, primarily a water heater and water purifier. The home had a single central, L-shaped room, with a few doors to other rooms and a small upper floor.
There was significantly less crying than Zelsys had expected. Indeed, neither Zefaris nor any of her direct family shed tears or played out other overly dramatic displays of emotion. Zel bore witness to a great deal of hugging and listened to the blonde recounting her long and storied military career, while she herself ended up dragged into playing the role of heavy machinery in pulverizing blueberries within a large basin. It was a bit inappropriate to put Carnifex to task in this manner, but the efficacy of a Fang Ripper as a giant blender could not be understated.
Both her father, Franz, and her mother, Eva, looked exactly how Zelsys had expected them to from Zef’s brief description of them. Both were blonde, tall Ikesians, with Franz having pale-blue eyes, a square jaw, and a triangular nose, his hair short and graying. Eva had hair tied into a thick braid that went halfway down her back, green eyes accentuated by deep crow’s feet, and a narrow face that retained a youthful appearance despite her evident age. It was obvious where most of Zef’s facial structure had come from. Zel liked Eva’s demeanor, how she showed not an iota of fear or apprehension towards her, treating her as if she were nothing more than a daughter-in-law, and treating the Fang Ripper as nothing more than what it was being used for at that very moment - a very handy tool.