My breaths shorten as my brain wrestles with all the steps lying ahead.
“Can I count on you to help?” Lazul asks.
My mind goes blank as I force a smile Samson would see through instantly. Lazul does not. Prematurely overwhelmed, I chirp, “Of course!” and let the resulting immediate regrets plow me over like a flood…
~ ~
Gather stone for retaining walls. 0/500
Five. Hundred.
The very idea is daunting while I trudge back home.
My arms already feel like soup just thinking about lifting my pick fifteen hundred times. Because, here’s the funnest of facts, it takes three whacks with the starter pick to dismantle the small rock piles.
Even if I’m relying on the magic embedded in my tools and not the full-swing animation, fifteen hundred is stillone thousand five hundred.
Over one thousand hits.
I’d hope for a tragic fate to befall Lazul, except that I’m trying to practice thinking about everyone here as though they arereal people, which means that there are real risks associated with not taking protective measures against landslides, and it is verysmart to ask for help from someone who can transport hundreds of chunks of stone as easily as I can.
The earth is still moist even a week and a half after the storm.
During my sad days, each time I headed out to a forage area there were new trees down. The weak roots in the wet ground just…give up.
The creepiest part is not hearing the massive trees fall. The limbs are too wet to crack. One way or another, overnight, they just lie down and die.
This is a real disaster.
And hating Lazul because his job isn’t to be outside with a pickaxe is really quite a heartless move. There is something to be said about a lord who is resourceful and not too proud to ask for help.
Hating him because he has rooms available at his manor yet stuck me in a place with anouthouseis a different story.
But hatred doesn’t exactly help anyone, now does it?
Maybe I can smaller the fifteen hundred number?
Let’s say I aim for one hundred rocks a day.
That’s three hundred whacks a day.
That is still…going to take me a whole week. And who knows when more rain is going to come or how long it’s going to take to construct the walls themselves. Maybe I can deliver supplies in tandem? So Gabbro, Austin, and Pyro can get started?
Right as I’m about to fade into the abyss beneath the weight of Too Much Responsibility (AKA, go back to bed), Samson calls, “Lemonade.”
My heart jumps into my throat.
There, perched above the old porch steps of my farmhouse, is the most beautiful pair of shoulders a girl could hope for.
My tongue ties and twists, vomiting, “Shoulders, what are—” A jolt shoots into my bloodstream. I didnotjust say what I think I said. Or, rather, I did not just say what I tried to. “I— I mean—”
“Shoulders?” Samson rises, browarched, full of judgment, probably. Rolling his big beautiful shoulders back, he asks, “What about them?”
What aboutthem?
“N-nothing.”Outside of the fact I fall asleep picturing them in my obsessed fangirl brain.“Samson. I meant…I meant to saySamson.”
He watches me, stoic. Then, “But you saidshoulders?”
