Chương 348: Epilogue 22, Foundation, part 2

"This is… incredible," Little Crow remarked as he stepped upon the black thread that remained taut in the air even beneath his increasingly enthusiastic leaps and bounds. His words weren't directed towards the look of the thread itself however, but were due to the fact that both his wife and any other would-be walkers upon the thin tightrope had simply fallen straight through.

"I will admit that I am most pleased myself," Braid replied, nodding his masked head, the skintight fabric moving enough to clearly convey his expressions.

"It took a lot of trial and error, but through this effort and the loom Mistress Gleam provided, it was eventually possible to find the right composition. This thread shall only be corporeal to one of your celestine lineage. Had it not been for my essence powers, I would have been unable to even spool it up myself."

"Then on behalf of the Tengu Clan, I thank you for taking on the research. Your remaining commission will be delivered to you soon."

"Sure, sure," Braid shrugged, seeming almost disinterested in the money compared to the actual development progress.

"Should you want more, I can make it, though I shall need more hair from your family members to work with if that is the case. Oh, and I did manage another prototype that I thought might interest you," the weaver said, bringing forth another spool of white thread.

"Oh?"

"You see, it was easy to reverse the process once I figured it out. This one is corporeal to anyone not of your lineage instead. I thought it might be useful as well."

"That… Yes, that will work indeed. How thin and strong can you make it? The possibilities for wire traps–""Husband! Less family business, more partying," Amica complained where she now floated at Little Crow's side, having now lost interest in the threads.

"Not to cast any shade upon your fine work, Braid. But there is a time and a place."

"Sorry dear, sorry," Little Crow called.

"I'll be right with you. Why don't you go off and find us some more to drink, no?" As soon as Amica had floated off, Little Crow then quickly leaned closer to Braid while a rather impressively subtle privacy screen sprang to life around the celestine.

"The family will buy all you can produce. But what about…?"

"Some telekinesis-resistant ropes, as ordered."

"Good man! It's great that you finally got to gold rank so that you could make these! I can't wait to surprise her for our wedding day!" Little Crow all but giggled, snatching them up before throwing Braid a wink and gliding after Amica.

"Was I really that slow?" Braid wondered aloud, only for a familiar squeaking voice to answer.

"For you? Nah. For the rest of us not completely absorbed in work for two decades? Yes. Gods yes. I honestly thought you had stalled there for a moment~," Wander piped up from behind Braid's collar.

"Myriad was the trickiest, but stalled? No. I just didn't see the point in rushing."

"That's what I said too, but compared to you I was speed incarnate~."

"Huh…"

"Huh? What do you mean 'huh'? Wait. I know that feeling. Oh no…~""I wonder if I could actually make a thread that can express that concept of speed. Not just enhance it, but be it…" As Braid fell into murmuring to himself, the party all but forgotten, a few hundred rats all over the compound slapped their paws to their faces and groaned in unison.

"Peony? Dear?"

"Not now, Sun."

"If you stare any harder at that gold-ranked sword, I'm afraid your head might burst."

"It's just so… So…" Patient Sun reached out and laid a comforting hand on his wife's shoulder, earning himself an annoyed look that soon melted to affection.

"I know, dear. And you'll get there eventually."

"So you've said for the last couple of years. Or is it a decade now?"

"And you have come closer, despite the cores. You craftspeople and your mysterious ways."

"It's just so wonderful," Peony sighed, managing to complete her sentence from before as she glanced at the sword at the garden table; an exquisite work of silver and gold spiraling along one another to form a double edged blade.

"Such depth to the magic. And Kite's gods-damned power just keeps spitting them out."

"As will your own looting power, should you reach gold."

"And there we are, once more at the core of the problem. At this rate, you and the kids will pass me by."

"Given that I have yet to venture that far from Convergence? Unlikely," Sun said with a shrug.

"How can you be so calm about it?"

"Honestly, love? Because of you. You, the children, the guild… We live a good life, don't we?"

"... Yes. Yes we do."

"I remember back in Bastion. The Stoic family all but excluding you from local circles, your ventures out on your own, fighting hard for each scrap of material. Now though? You've accomplished so much. The Living Armory of the Autumn Wanderers."

"Well, so have you, Guardian of Budding Leaves. How many little local iron-rankers have you trained by now?"

"See, then?" Sun chuckled where he stood behind Peony, hand still on her shoulder.

"We've already succeeded, love. Whatever comes next for us and the family? We're ready for it. Heavens, we're even going to be grandparents soon." In response, Peony leaned her head backward in her seat to rest it on her husband's chest.

"You're lucky you're such a handsome monkey. That way it's a lot easier to accept you making sense." They sat in silence like that for a while before both of the silver-rankers suddenly noticed some of the crowds parting for a small procession of rats carrying a rather massive spear atop their collective backs. If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. Please report it.

"Sorry. Make way! Coming through! Delivery~!" one walking at the front hollered left and right until the little procession came to a stop next to where Peony and Sun sat.

"Hey guys! Kite just remembered another little souvenir he picked up on his last contract that Peony might want to check out. It apparently had some kind of spatial enchantments regarding conceptual reach or some nonsense, and–" Wander had barely finished before Peony had reached down for the spear, only to recoil slightly at the magical feedback of the higher-ranked item.

"Curses. Wander, if you please–?" Some rat-human pyramids later and the spear had joined the sword on the table, Sun only sighing in response, making it Peony's turn to consolingly pat him on the back of his hand.

"You did make sense, husband. And I am happy. As such, I will try to use that happiness as my foundation going forward rather than frustration, you and everyone else at my side," she said before once more donning the many lenses that had been her constant companion during her work for the last few decades.

"But as for now - party or not - the Scavenger of Bastion needs to get to work inspecting this lovely thing right here."

"Well?" Phiona Geller asked with a raised eyebrow as Rachel returned to sit next to her cousin.

"Well… What?"

"How did it go? Your aura is frustratingly opaque."

"It was nice catching up a bit."

"Aaaand?"

"Aaaand… No," Rachel sighed.

"Vista is nice. Has aged really well. I mean really. Just look at him. And look at that backside…"

"And yet still a no?"

"Yeah. No."

"I'm a bit surprised, given the pining way back then."

"That was half a life ago, Nona."

"Not compared to the life we have a chance of living. A few hundred years is a long time, cousin."

"I know that. Gods, don't I. I hate being single…" Rachel grumbled.

"But that one…" she said, nodding at where Vista had kept making his rounds, the swordsman currently speaking to Walker.

"That one might be a bit too driven for my sake. At least these days. He didn't say it out loud, but it feels like he'll always be married to the sword. Anything else would probably just be an annoyance."

"Hmm… You might be right. Still, good on you, Rachel. For not just going for it just because."

"Heh. As you said. We have what could be a loooong life ahead of us. With my little student, the family, you and Mikayel… We'll see when the stars align. Or when the heavens will it, as the people here like to say."

"At least you don't seem to be the only one disappointed," Phiona said, nodding to another woman in the crowd who was somehow never that far from Vista.

"Yeah. Storm, I think she's called. Apparently great at the same thing Vista is: punching through great hordes of monsters. Apparently even competes in that Grand Proving of theirs against him. Those two did wonders during the last surge."

"I take it that you didn't see the almost literal stormclouds in her eyes when you were speaking to Vista?"

"Huh. So that was what that aura pressure was. Her?"

"Yes."

"Well, well…" Rachel said, sizing up the other woman.

"If that is indeed the case, she has been hanging around our little lordling here for way longer than I without any results. You know… I think I just found myself my new drinking buddy. If you'll excuse me, cousin, I believe it is time for me to get over there and introduce myself."

"The heavens certainly blessed us with a lovely evening," Kite noted to Dragonfly, who had been waiting on him atop the roof of their little tower that rose along the side of one of the cliffs of the compound. From there they could easily see all the lands they were responsible for with all the various villages and even one that might soon be bordering on the word 'town' being the most precise.

And beneath them the people - the foundation of their lives - still mingled and partied, the current crowd pleaser being what seemed to be a friendly game of armwrestling between Rachel Geller and Victory Carved in Storm and Stone.

"Glowing stars above as well as below," Dragonfly agreed, accepting a meat skewer from her husband before he sat down beside her, both their legs dangling over the edge.

"Lights of our lives and guides of our souls."

"Why love, that sounded a lot like…"

"Something you would say? Why yes it did, Husband. Perhaps you're starting to rub off on me after all these years," Dragonfly smiled, winking demurely at him.

"Well, it would be about time. Remember the first time we ate meat skewers with a good view back in Gilded? We were so young."

"I know! And you were so cute, having already planned out some lines to sound all mature."

"Hey, not all of them. I was pretty good at fumbling my way into some improvised ones, thank you very much."

"Well, that earnestness was as cute then as it is now. Why didn't we actually get together right away again?"

"You said it yourself; we were young. A bit afraid. But heavens, given the results; the life we have now? I wouldn't change a thing. You. The children. Grandchildren. My aunties and my father. So many friends close enough to be family, and so many other boon companions. This is indeed a celebration of life and bonds, Dragonfly. Thank you. For this life. Our life. For what we've made together."

"Aaaand there you've gone and done it again. I thought I was beyond blushing now as a gold-ranker. And not even a fresh one anymore…"

"If it helps, I find you irresistible when you blush," Kite laughed, wrapping an arm around Dragonfly and kissing her hair.

"Especially as it goes all the way to–""Kite!" Dragonfly protested, giggles drowned by a kiss.

"I swear, if you make me start to glow red like a lantern in the sky then everyone will look this way."

"Is that a challenge?"

"Bah! You've certainly grown bolder over the years, that is for sure."

"And that, dear wife, is probably you rubbing off on me in turn," Kite winked.

"Paths intertwined, and all that."

"They have been for so long now too… Decades."

"Want to continue for a few centuries more then? Or eternity, if we're lucky?"

"Heavens, having families as diamond-rankers? How do they even keep track?"

"Dynasties is probably a better word," Kite mused.

"They are said to have excellent memories though. So… Want to give it a try? Side by side?"

"Hmmm. Perhaps. If you ask really nicely." Accepting her challenge, Kite said up and grasped both Dragonfly's hands in his, his aura enveloping hers slightly as he looked deeply into her eyes.

"Dragonfly upon Sun's Reflection, the Flower Blooming in Flame and Teacher of the Lost Generations. You have been the sun of my days and the moon of my nights for close to a mortal lifespan now. Your path is that of the boundless renewal of life after a wildfire, vibrant resurgence no matter what has passed before, and that passion is a shining beacon to all whose lives your flames have touched.

Long have I basked in your presence, and forever more shall I do so as you strive towards the heavens like a blazing comet. Will you let me be the shield to your flames, the haven to your passion? The palm that scatters any spell or curse before you while your axe cleaves through the hordes of those that would tear down this world? Will you accept the continuation of our path, something that was once separate but is now united in truth?

Do you wish to keep striving towards the heavens, side by side with me, through whatever tumultuous times fate may throw against what is ours? Can you be mine? Because, through the blessings of Fortune, the bonds of Unity and actions belonging to us and us alone, I will remain yours." As Kite kept speaking, words spilling from him, he could see Dragonfly starting to flush more and more even in the evening gloom. Then she started trembling slightly, before slightly squirming in place.

Only once he finished did it seem like her spirit was able to breathe again, his gold-ranked wife still seeming a bit unsteady where she sat.

"Oh sweet heavens, you sure didn't hold anything back there," she breathed.

"Gods, Kite. That earnestness of yours almost felt like a mountain bearing down in me. It feels like I'll soon melt through the roof tiles."

"You did tell me to ask nicely."

"You had to have prepared that beforehand!"

"And what if I didn't?"

"Then… Oh heavens, I don't care either way. Of course I will, you earnest fool of a man," she giggled, throwing herself at him with enough force to actually shift some of the tiles beneath them.

"Only if you'll have me, but… I suppose you made that pretty clear."

"To the future then," Kite said with a smile, holding her close.

"Let us cherish what we have, protect what we can and dream of that eternity still obscured by the heavens. Somehow though… I'm not sure if they have ever felt so close."