Chương 44: More Than Distance

Roy had built enough things by now to know that completion rarely looked the way he imagined it would. The waystation was finished - actually finished. The roof had been sealed, and the private rooms had beds and simple storage chests. The broad common room held two long tables, benches, and a hearth large enough to warm the center of the building without forcing every traveler to crowd directly around it. Kaelu had insisted on several changes during the final stages.

Roy had disagreed with approximately half of them, but Kaelu had been right about most. Roy was choosing not to dwell on that. Instead, he stood a short distance from the new building with both hands on his hips and admired what they had made. It was larger than the cottage, which still felt strange. For most of Roy's life, the cottage had been the largest permanent thing in their world. It provided shelter, security, and apparently dragon-hatching capacity.

The waystation had been built for none of those purposes - it existed for people who were not here yet. That distinction had seemed practical when Uncle first suggested it. Now that the structure stood in front of him, Roy found it unexpectedly satisfying.

"You are staring again." Roy looked over. Kaelu stood beside him holding a short length of scrap timber.

"I'm inspecting what I built."

"We built it." Roy frowned. Kaelu's expression remained perfectly neutral.

"That distinction feels unnecessary."

"It is extremely necessary."

"You watched me transmute half the structure into place."

"And before that, I stopped you from designing half the structure so that only you could ever repair it." Roy looked back at the waystation.

"It still feels mostly like I built it." Kaelu gave a quiet grunt. Roy had learned that particular grunt meant Kaelu was either amused or deciding not to argue. A delighted trill came from the fields. Both men turned as Nimbus floated several feet above Kiana's experimental plot, her pale-blue body bobbing gently as she concentrated. Kiana stood beneath her with both hands raised.

"Less." A thin mist descended. Kiana watched the soil.

"A little less." The mist softened further.

"Yes. There." Nimbus chirped. For several seconds, she maintained exactly the amount Kiana wanted… Then enthusiasm crept in and the mist thickened. Kiana immediately pointed upward.

"Nimbus." The Cloudbelly Drake froze. Roy covered a smile as Kiana sighed.

"You were doing well." Nimbus gave an apologetic chirp.

"I know," Kiana crouched and pressed her fingertips into the earth.

"This crop does not want the ground soaked all the time. It needs to be damp, not drowned." Nimbus floated lower. Kiana's shoulders stiffened for the briefest moment when the drake's face came close to hers, but she did not retreat. Instead, she held up the soil.

"See?" Nimbus sniffed her fingers, then sneezed. Kiana jumped, prompting Roy to laugh. She shot him a look from across the field as Nimbus chirped happily. Kaelu folded his arms.

"They are both improving." Roy glanced at him.

"Kiana or Nimbus?"

"Yes." The field itself justified the patience. Young corn stood in clean green rows. Bean shoots had begun establishing themselves nearby, and the first broad squash leaves were already spreading low enough to shade patches of soil beneath them. Blackloam had done what they hoped, at least so far. Clover's product had made the soil usable, and Nimbus was learning how to maintain it. A low rumble came from behind Roy. He turned to find Shale standing perhaps ten feet away, covered in dirt and completely silent.

Roy stared.

"How long have you been there?" Shale blinked. Kaelu looked at Roy.

"He is larger than a horse, and you still failed to hear him?"

"He walks quietly when he wants to." Shale thumped his tail, spraying dirt across the grass. Roy looked beyond him; the Burrowback had come from the far side of the new construction area. Which meant—"You finished." Shale turned and began walking away. Roy followed, and Kaelu fell into step beside him.

"You actually understood that?"

"He came to get me."

"He could have wanted food."

"He always wants food." The new well sat farther from the cottage than the old one. Just far enough that Roy could choose the position based on the underground water rather than where his grandfather had once found it convenient to dig. At first glance, the upper portion looked unimpressive. It was simply a circular shaft with excavated earth and stone piled nearby. Then Roy reached the edge and looked down; darkness swallowed the shaft long before the bottom.

He knew the depth - he had designed it - but watching Shale produce it in a morning still felt ridiculous. Kaelu stopped a safer distance away.

"How deep?" Roy told him, and Kaelu seemed to look into the shaft with greater appreciation.

"He did that today?"

"Most of it." Kaelu stared at the drake. Roy smiled.

"You look impressed."

"I am deciding whether I resent him." Shale looked over. Kaelu added, "Professionally." Shale simply yawned. Roy crouched and scratched beneath the drake's jaw. Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.

"Good work." Shale leaned into his hand hard enough to shift Roy sideways.

"Hold on…" The drake leaned harder. Kaelu caught the back of Roy's shirt before he lost his balance near the opening. Roy straightened.

"Thank you."

"You should finish the railing before congratulating him again."

"That is on the list." The well itself was relatively simple, but the shaft needed a stable lining. The lowest sections needed to admit water without letting sediment collapse inward, and the surface needed a protected wellhead. Everything beyond that was convenient. The stranger part lay several dozen feet away. Kaelu followed Roy's gaze toward the broad, sloping passage Shale had excavated separately. It descended gradually beneath the earth before curving toward the aquifer. Kaelu looked at it, then at Roy.

"I still find that ridiculous."

"It is practical."

"You have made a second entrance to the water source for a dragon."

"Yes."

"A flying dragon, mind you… Who already creates water." Roy sighed.

"Nimbus redistributes water. She does not create an infinite supply from nothing." Kaelu gestured toward the tunnel.

"So naturally you built her a private underground drinking chamber."

"Exactly."

"I was mocking you."

"I know." Roy walked toward the opening. Winter snow had once provided easy access to moisture nearly everywhere, but that was gone. Nimbus could still fly to the stream, but relying on that every time she needed to refill would become increasingly inconvenient as the settlement grew and her responsibilities expanded. The access tunnel solved that; its slope was gentle enough for her to float or climb through. The turns were deliberately broad, and the lower chamber was large enough for considerable growth.

Both the human well and Nimbus's chamber would draw from the same aquifer, but neither would interfere with the other. Kaelu leaned slightly toward the tunnel.

"How large do you expect her to become?"

"I don't know."

"And you built for that uncertainty."

"Yes."

"That part I approve of." Roy looked at him.

"Only that part?"

"The rest remains strange." Shale lumbered toward the shade; apparently his contribution to the project had concluded. Roy crouched beside the prepared stone.

"Back up." Kaelu moved as Roy placed both hands against the material. Weave answered as the stone softened beneath his Transmutation. It stretched into the shaft in a slow continuous flow, crawling down the interior walls and forming a reinforced lining as it went. Roy closed his eyes: Dimensions, thickness, water pressure, and filter layers. His model existed clearly in his thoughts, and the stone obeyed. Kaelu leaned toward the opening, prompting Roy to open one eye.

"Careful."

"I am not going to fall."

"I almost did."

"You were being attacked by affection."

"Shale is heavy." Roy returned his attention to the transmutation. For a while, neither man spoke as stone continued settling. The silence was comfortable for a time. Kiana's voice occasionally drifted over from the fields, with Nimbus chirping in response. Uncle moved in and out of the waystation carrying supplies—a bundle of blankets, a box of cups, cooking tools Roy did not remember them owning. Roy had stopped asking where Uncle found things; the answers were never useful.

Eventually Roy glanced toward Kiana again. She was crouched beside one of the rows. Nimbus hovered at her shoulder, watching as though the woman were delivering a lecture of enormous importance. Roy smiled, then looked toward Kaelu.

"So? Thoughts?" Kaelu raised an eyebrow.

"On the well?"

"On staying." Kaelu's expression changed. It was only slightly, but that was enough to make Roy slow the transmutation. Kaelu glanced toward the field.

"Kiana loves it. She has checked those plants every morning since they came up."

"And after breakfast."

"And before bed." Roy smiled.

"She's not subtle."

"She believes she is." Nimbus produced a happy trill from across the field. Kiana said something neither man could hear, which made Kaelu's expression soften.

"She has not been this excited about farming since we first arrived in Bellhaven."

"And you?" Roy asked. Kaelu looked toward the completed waystation, then the cottage and the work around them.

"There is plenty here I could contribute to."

"That sounds suspiciously positive."

"It is." Roy waited. Kaelu sighed.

"Yes, Roy. We are seriously considering it." That was enough to make Roy smile.

"But," Kaelu continued before Roy could interrupt.

"My work is still in Bellhaven."

"You could travel."

"I could." Roy paused. Kaelu's tone made it clear that the obvious answer was not the whole answer. It didn't take much for Roy to understand where he was going.

"Bellhaven." Kaelu nodded.

"That is the larger concern." Roy released a slow breath. He was not surprised, even if he disliked it. Only a few weeks ago, Bellhaven had tried to impose control over the family and their dragons. Things had improved since then, significantly, but nobody had actually established what happened when Bellhaven residents began choosing the new settlement instead.

"You think they'll see it as us taking people."

"I think there is a real chance," Kaelu looked toward Kiana.

"We already uprooted our lives once. I'm not eager to do it again, only to find ourselves standing in the middle of another dispute between your family and Bellhaven."

"That's fair." Kaelu looked mildly surprised by the quick agreement. Roy shrugged.

"I don't agree that Bellhaven should get a say in where someone chooses to live."

"Neither do I."

"But whether they should care and whether they will care are different questions." Kaelu nodded.

"Exactly." That was irritatingly inconvenient. Distance was solvable, housing was solvable, and food increasingly looked solvable. Even Kaelu's need to earn coin could probably be solved over time. Political resentment was not something Roy could transmute into a more useful shape. Kaelu folded his arms.

"I am not telling you no. I am telling you that Kiana and I are interested enough that the unanswered parts now matter." That was a better way to put it. If they hated the settlement, Bellhaven's reaction would have been irrelevant; the concern existed because they wanted this to work. Roy looked toward Kiana again. Nimbus misted the next row - this time, she stopped on her own. Kiana smiled and rubbed the drake beneath the chin. Roy nodded.

"Then we figure out the unanswered parts." Kaelu glanced at him.

"You say that as though it is simple."

"No," Roy returned both hands to the stone.

"But it's still a problem." Kaelu's mouth twitched.

"That sounded like Roy again." The well lining continued downward. Stone spread and reinforced, locking into place the final lower layers around the water source. Roy could feel the pressure shift as groundwater began seeping cleanly through the porous sections. Kaelu looked down.

"Finished?"

"Main shaft."

"And the dragon tunnel?"

"Needs reinforcement." Kaelu sighed.

"I dislike that sentence."

"You'll appreciate it later." They started toward the access tunnel for a moment. Roy took a deep breath as he moved, getting himself ready to begin the process again.

"Roy." Uncle's voice stopped him. He stood outside the waystation with a folded piece of parchment in one hand. Shimmer floated beside him, a bit too still for comfort. Roy's attention sharpened immediately. Uncle raised the note.

"This arrived for you." Roy crossed the clearing.

"From Talia?"

"I believe so." The handwriting confirmed it; fast and messy. Nothing like the careful practice letters she had been sending recently. Roy unfolded the parchment, which held only three short lines. There was an attack. You're needed in Bellhaven. Aegis is coming for you. Roy read them again. Kaelu had followed close enough to see his expression change.

"What happened?"

"I don't know." That was the worst part: No names, no casualties, and no explanation of what had been attacked. Talia had left all of that out deliberately; Roy knew her well enough now to recognize it. She did not want him imagining the worst while trapped here waiting for transport. Unfortunately, recognizing the intention did very little to stop his imagination. He folded the note. Kiana was approaching from the field now, Nimbus drifting beside her.

"What is it?" Roy looked toward the sky. Behind him stood a finished waystation intended for future residents. Nearby, a new water system waited for its last pieces. An hour ago, the largest problem in Roy's mind had been how Bellhaven would react if people began choosing the settlement. Apparently Bellhaven had developed more immediate problems. Uncle watched him quietly as Roy tucked the note into his pocket.

"I need to get ready."