Learning to sew was honestly rather fun. There was quite a bit of practice involved, though, and seeing Reya try to teach me was amusing.

Since she couldn’t exactly tell me what to do, there was a lot of gesturing involved, and keeping my eyes on both her and what I was actually working on proved rather challenging. She would sometimes gesture for me to slow down, or tap her feet at a certain speed to show me the rhythm for the pedal.

When I made an especially crooked stitch, she put her hands on top of mine to show me how to guide the fabric through the machine; which wasn’t much at all. It felt more like I was holding it back as the machine pulled it in faster.

I didn’t exactly get away unscathed either, nicking my fingers more than a few times, but since my skin was rather tough, it left barely any mark at all. That was the benefit of being high level, after all.

After a few dozen minutes of practice, Reya deemed me decent enough to let me go loose on our actual clothing. We cut the patched out together, hers turning out more beautiful than mine, of course. Most were squares, but we had some more specific shapes, too.

All of Matt’s robes were mended exclusively with flowers, for example. Ann got a few flame patches, and with the small amounts of light blue and pink fabric, we were able to stitch together a makeshift trans patch for Liam. The rogue was rather happy with his gift, and hugged Reya and me upon receiving it - this one was mostly made by the cleric, since I was not that good yet.

Honestly, seeing how doable this was, especially with the machine being reasonably quiet, I was tempted to throw the whole thing into my inventory. Storing rolls of fabric would be a lot easier to get in bulk and replace that full on shirts. Then again, patches would only do so much, eventually.

Worth a thought, anyway.

Eventually, we deemed it good for the night. The group got together to discuss over Matt’s meal. Emilia cried a little, happy to finally be eating good food again.

We presented our evening’s spoils, with me showing off our stitched up clothing. Emilia had found some tools; hammers, nails, some wooden boards and such. Enough to reasonably reinforce this place if needed. Nothing that would outlast a powerful monster, but the metal scrap was useful for her.

She’d scraped together a bit of armor. By moulding the metal using her Qi, she made it fit her. It wouldn’t be nearly as strong as something that was properly forged and tempered, but it would take her Qi and be reasonably defensive enough. A good spare set to have.

Liam scouted out the surroundings, picking off some remaining, smaller monster who may come nearby. He had also maintained all our weapons, sharpening them, and even lightly oiling the metal with some stuff Emilia found. The budding spirit in my spear seemed rather pleased with it, so I was pleased as well.

Marie and Chris had taken apart the bull and turned most of its bones and horns into arrows. The fletching were a bit cobbled together, but they would fly. The tendons had been turned into spare bowstrings. As for the muscles and hide… none of us could do leatherwork, especially not this quickly, so we had simply stashed it away for now.

Ann had mostly been trying to get some runes that might work during the eclipse, but not found much luck yet. She did manage to alter them into a somewhat monster-repellant spell, though. It needed active concentration, and would only supply a weak, subconscious effect, but it might be enough to keep us safe for a few more hours at night,

All in all, the evening had been productive. I was rather pleased with it, honestly. Plus, Ann and I got our own room. There was a decent amount of space in the basement, especially after we cleaned up a bit, and so we could afford such a luxury.

Additionally, neither of us had to take the first watch for once. It was quiet. Calm, even.

Holding onto Ann, I ran my fingers through her hair, petting her head. She hummed slightly in response, hugging me tighter. “This is nice,” she murmured.

“You’re nice,” I replied with a wink she didn’t even see.

She laughed, though. A quiet giggle. “You’re nice, too. But I meant… this place. Being able to sleep under a roof, y’know? It feels less…” she trailed off.

I ran my fingers through her hair once more. “Less violent?”

“Yeah,” she nodded up against me. “I don’t feel like I’ll need to blow something’s head off in the next minute or two.”

“You’re plenty mindblowing already, don’t worry,” I teased, smiling.

Ann giggled again. “Idiot.”

A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

“Mhm,” I hummed my agreement. “Yours truly.”

The mag let out a contented sigh, wrapping the blanket a little tighter. It wasn’t particularly cold, and we didn’t particularly need it, but blankets gave a feeling of normalcy in a world that’d been slightly upturned.

Ann murmured something.

“What was that?” I asked.

She shook her head slightly. “Just… talking to myself.”

I rolled my eyes. “Uh-huh. If that was you talking to myself then I must be into guys.”

“What?!”

“Yeah, rather unbelievable, I know,” I smirked. “So. You don’t have to tell me what’s up, but I’m here to listen if you’d like.”

Ann’s somewhat shocked face softened at that. “... thanks, Fio,” she said. “I appreciate it. Really. I do.”

I ran my fingers through her hair again, and Ann cuddled up to me once more. “Always gonna be by your side, love. No matter what.”

“... No matter what?”

“Yeah,” I assured her honestly. Then paused. “Well, it’s a slight exaggeration. If you stab me to death I might not be thrilled, exactly, but you get what I mean.”

Now it was Ann’s turn to roll her eyes; a duty she performed amicably. “Uh-huh. You just had to ruin the moment.”

I smiled. “What does that make me?”

“An idiot.”

“Yours truly,” I said, this time sticking out my tongue at Ann, at which she first laughed, then kissed me. It lasted for a while but was still far too short.

For another long moment we laid there silently, me patting her head and listening to Ann’s breathing. I enjoyed every second of it, letting my mind actually relax for once. I briefly considered the chance of anything interrupting us, but if it did… well, they were in for a surprise.

“Hey Fio?” Ann eventually asked, her voice cutting through the darkness of our room.

“Yes, love?” I replied.

“That thing I told you I’d tell you about, do you remember?” she asked, suddenly sounding unsure.

“Yeah, I do,” I nodded. “What about it?”

“I think I might wanna tell you now,” Ann said.

Taking a deep breath, I flashed a small smile. “Okay, yeah,” I said, patting her head a bit more. “Whenever you’re ready, love. Take your time.”

She smiled at me. “Thank you. I appreciate it, I really do. If it’s okay, can I ask you to just listen for a bit? No questions until I’m done?”

“If it makes you more comfortable? Absolutely,” I agreed.

Ann gave me a long, loving look, then took a deep breath to steady herself. “Okay, so,” she started.

“I’m kind of a goddess.”

I blinked at her for a moment. On the one hand, I instantly had about a dozen questions. On the other hand, this was definitely something to turn into a flirty comment. Something about that made my brain short-circuit, so I just stared at her.

She smiled a little. “Thanks for not flipping out.”

‘Keeping all my flipping out on the inside, got it,’ I noted.

“To elaborate. Eden once had seven divines, as you know by now. Two of those died. But it’s really rather hard for divines to properly die. One of them, after a close battle with an especially powerful usurper, losing all their avatars and a chunk of their temples, sacrificed themselves to gain enough resources for the other gods to make the whole Neamhan stuff happen. That one is never coming back,” she explained.

“However, that still leaves six gods. Out of whom, another one was killed. Specifically, killed in a fight. None of this self-sacrifice.

“During the high point of an old eclipse, this goddess fought against an invading usurper god, out in the void. And she won, but was grievously injured and succumbed to her wounds. Before that though, that goddess of magic cast a little spell, to essentially reincarnate herself.

“The child was born as normal, and grew up as normal, but had from the beginning inherited the goddess’ talent for magic. At her eighteenth birthday, this child received the memories of the dead god - a good chunk of them, at least, a little like a library in their head.

“Now, that also means that this child was never from Neamhan.” Ann paused, gulping a little. “The divines love her, seeing an old friend in her, and willing to grant some favors, made her a body to visit her girlfriend on Neamhan. A girlfriend she met based on coincidence. Simply because the two seemed to like each other very much.”

I looked at her, and the room was silent for a whole 5 minutes.

“Uhm,” Ann said, seemingly uncomfortable with the silence at some point. “So, uh… that’s it… what I wanted to tell you…”

I hugged her even tighter. “Can I ask now?” my voice was calm.

“Y-Yeah,” Ann said, then paused. “Actually. Maybe a few minutes?”

“Sure,” I nodded. “However long you need, Ann.”

I held her tight up against me, one arm petting her back, the other her head. She seemed so lost all of a sudden.

This… was a bit of a shock, but it explained a lot of things, really. Why she knew all those monster names. Why she cared so much about the people in Eden. Why she never talked about her past on Neamhan. Why she had been late to the meeting. Why she had been so angry at Eric…

Ann started crying slightly, and I focussed on her again. “I’m sorry, Fio. I’m so sorry. You must hate me…”

“Ann?” I asked, calling her name as softly as I could. “Do I… sound very angry with you?”

“... No, I- no, y-you don’t.”

“Yeah,” I nodded. “It’s cuz I’m not angry.” Slowly, I placed my hand from her head onto her cheek, wiping away the stray few tears, though more were still coming. “You must’ve been scared, weren’t you?”

“I was… I still am.”

“Yeah, I get that. It’s okay, love. I’m right here. With you. Not going anywhere.” I held her.

“... Okay,” Ann said, speaking shakily into my chest.

“I love you, Ann.”

“B-but I lied. I- I-!”

Once more, I wiped away a tear with my thumb. “I love you,” I said.

Ann cried a bit harder. I think she murmured about loving me too, but I couldn’t be sure. So I talked.

“I get you were scared. I see why you’d think I might be angry, but I’m not.” There was a rule there, that I was breaking. The second one. Love can eat you. I didn’t care. “I like you for you, Ann. Whether you’re a goddess, or a mage, or a warrior, or a cleric, or a baker or a blacksmith or a computer programmer… none of that matters. You’re still my Ann.

“This isn’t going to drive a wedge between us. Thank you for telling me. Thank you for trusting me. I love you just the same. Thank you for caring about me.”

“You sure…?” she asked, her voice a little less shaky.

“Very sure.” I pinched her nose slightly. “I wanna support you. If you have secrets you’d like to share, I’ll listen. What you had to go through sounds so stressful, but I am glad you ended up by my side.”

“Me- me too. I promise there was no trickery there.”

“I believe you, love.” I held Ann for the rest of the night.