Chapter 107: Chapter 107: Frozen blood drips through small veins. It smells of owls.

Hineni exhales, watching his breath leave his body as he stands down in the ice-cellar. The damp vapors loosely drift towards the ceiling, the disturbed frozen constructs around himself crackling from the weight and the heat of his body.

 

“— Go away,” says Eilig from inside of her doll-house, before he has the chance to say a word.

 

Hineni rolls his eyes, walking towards the small home. “Is there ever going to be a day when it’s ‘oh, hi! I missed you. Let’s talk about fun things and have a cup of tea together’, or something like that?” he asks, leaning down towards the window. “Cut me a break, will you, Eilig?”

 

He looks around the doll-house. It’s dark inside. Usually, the interior is lit up by a series of ridiculously small lanterns that he had paid an extravagant sum of money for, while also receiving a lot of very odd looks from the craftsmen.

 

“Probably not.”

 

He tilts his head. “That’s an unusually tame response for you,” he notes, peeking in through the windows. “Are you okay? You seem a little… unenergetic today.”

 

“Just tired. Go away.”

 

Hineni sighs, rubbing the back of his head. “I know you’re not feeling so well these days, Eilig. But at least let me check in on you.”

 

She sighs, but doesn’t reply.

 

He can hear a tired shuffling from the other side of the tiny door as she walks through her home. There isn’t a buzzing of wings or a theatrical stamping or knocking. It just sounds like she’s dragging herself through the house. “We’re about done setting up the move,” says Hineni. “Sockel found a good property. Cheap. We’re gonna build something new there. Something… bigger.” He looks around the small ice-cellar. “I’m hiring an architect from the magic-academy here to set up some stuff about magical leylines or whatever,” says Hineni. “I don’t understand it. But Sockel told me that they can make it so it’s not a problem for you there.”

 

Eilig sighs.

 

Hineni nods, looking back at the doll-house. “Don’t worry. We’re taking your doll-house, obviously and Kleidet can’t leave the city because of her brother, so we’re probably not selling the old house,” says Hineni. “We’ll make her the manager of the guild and let her run it for us while we’re gone.”

 

“Whatever,” says the voice from the other side of the door.

 

Hineni stares at it and says nothing.

 

Eilig says nothing.

 

“— I’m not leaving till I see that your arms aren’t falling off or anything, Eilig.”

 

She sighs again, this time noticeably longer and with more emphasis on letting him know that she’s annoyed. “Yeah, I know,” replies Hineni. “But that’s life.”

 

“I don’t want to.”

 

“Please?” he asks. “You can’t expect me to work all day while worrying about you.”

 

“I’m fine, get out of my cellar already, would you?” she asks. “You smell like owls.”

 

Hineni rolls his eyes. “Everything smells like owls in this house, Eilig. It’s just what it is. Me, you, Rhine, everybody.”

 

“And why are you smelling people, weirdo?”

 

“I’m not,” says Hineni, tapping against the tiny front-door with a finger. “But it’s unavoidable, honestly. It’s like living in a stall, it just smells like… uh…” He leans back, scratching his head for a moment, as the word escapes him for a specific animal that lives in stalls. “— Anqas,” says Hineni, remembering. He hits his fist into his open palm.

 

There’s a small buzz and it’s quiet for a time longer.

 

“Fine,” says Eilig. “But don’t say that I didn’t warn you.”

 

“Warn me about what?” asks Hineni, watching as the door opens. Standing inside of it is a small, unblurred figure, shaped like any other person in the world, barring the scale of her gestalt. Her hair is an off-white tone, similar to the blue of Rhine’s, but if it had frozen over in the depths of a long winter. It’s pulled back into a tight, long braid. But many strands escape it in eye-length long bangs on the side of her face that are pinned up with a tiny charm, the shape of a water-lily. She’s sickly pale like a drowned ghost, lost in the frozen wastes. The small dress, a muted, frosty blue with trims of fluff, clings to her bony figure like a burial shroud that was far too large for its corpse. Two long, moth-like wings protrude from her back.

 

The magic that obscures her figure to all of those who don’t have a special gift that allows them to see creatures such as fairies clearly, seems to have lost its effect.

 

“There? Happy now?” she asks. “Then get out of my cellar.”

 

“Eilig…” says Hineni, leaning down to look at her. “What the hell?” he asks. “Why can I see you? Are you always this bony?” He examines her sickly looking body. “I’ll get you some food.”

 

“Shut up,” says Eilig, crossing her arms and looking away. “I don’t have an appetite, okay?”

 

“Even Rhine has more meat on him then you do, Eilig,” says HIneni. “I would’ve said I’ve seen orphans who look healthier, but I guess I haven’t.”

 

“Wow. Thanks. Bye.” She turns her head to the side to stare down at the ground. “Asshole.”

 

Hineni blinks, rubbing the back of his head. “…Sorry,” he says. “I came here because I was worried and now I’m even more worried.”

 

“See?” she asks. “A lot of good it did for you to insist on wasting my time. Now both of us are uncomfortable. Good job. Dick.” The two of them stand there in awkward silence for a while. After a moment more, she turns her head to look back towards him. “— Why are you staring at me?”

 

“Can’t a man at least try to understand what his own sister looks like, if he’s never seen her before?” asks Hineni.

 

“Not without coming off as a freakish weirdo. No,” replies Eilig, lifting an eyebrow.

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Hineni shrugs. “I mean, at this point…”

 

“Look, it’s fucked. Everything is fucked, okay?” says Eilig. She points at the ice. “I’m losing control over my magic. The ice is doing all sorts of stuff that I don’t want it to,” explains the fairy. “I don’t want to eat and I haven’t put on a clean dress in three days… I think.”

 

“That seems about right.”

 

“You know how when a cat is ready to die, it wanders off by itself to find a comfortable spot?” she asks. “That’s me. This is my comfortable spot.”

 

“Tough shit,” says Hineni. “You’re going to have to live a while longer and you’re going to have to like it.”

 

“You can’t make me enjoy life!” she yells, turning his way.

 

“That’s where you’re wrong,” replies Hineni. “If I have to find some obscure god from the back-ass end of the world to shrink me down so I can go in there and tear you out of that doll-house, I will,” warns Hineni. Her wings buzz. “Seltsam called me an asshole once, because -”

 

“— Yeah, that was a good call.”

 

Hineni clears his throat. “- Because I told her that this was her home, but I was still acting like it was mine alone the whole time,” says Hineni. “Guess what?” he asks, leaning down towards her.

 

“What?”

 

“You can’t say that we’re family and then try to fuck off before I can make this work. Asshole,” says Hineni, lifting a finger and prodding her. She grabs his digit with both of her hands and then bites it.

 

It doesn’t really hurt.

 

Hineni lifts an eyebrow. “…Really?”

 

Eilig looks back towards him. “It felt like the right thing to do.”

 

“Do siblings bite each other?” asks Hineni.

 

“Hell if I know,” replies Eilig, pushing his hand away. “I guess we really are past that at this point though.”

 

“Yeah.”

 

It’s quiet.

 

“So?” asks Hineni.

 

Eilig tsks and turns around, turning her back to him. She stands there for a moment. “Bring me some candy, boy.”

 

“Really?” asks Hineni again.

 

“— Next time, I’m biting your eyes. Candy.”

 

“Aren’t you supposed to be the older one?” he asks. “How about I get some food-food?”

 

“How about I freeze your ass to the ceiling, shit-head?” she snaps. “— Candy!”

 

Hineni nods. She seems to be back in spirits. If he needs to get some candy for that, then this seems like a small price to pay. He straightens himself back up, turning to leave. “I like your hair, by the way,” he says, waving a hand over his shoulder as he heads to the ladder.

 

A tiny door closes behind him, not slamming. It just closes.

 

---

 

“I can still have my own room, right?” asks Rhine, pointing at a room. “Actually, can I have a bigger room?”

 

Sockel plants a hand against his face, pushing him back and away from the plan they’re sketching. “Woah there. If anyone needs a bigger room, it’s me,” says the elf. She takes her pen and scratches through Rhine’s claimed room, moving a section of his wall away and claiming the lost space for herself.

 

“Huh?!” snaps Rhine. He grabs her wrist and pulls it to the side to get back to the table. “As if!” he says. “Just because you’re gaining weight doesn’t mean you need more space!”

 

“Look who’s talking,” says Sockel, pushing against him. Rhine pushes back. The two of them seem to be matched in strength these days. Hineni nods, proud of Rhine. He’s gotten a lot stronger over these months.

 

“Good spirit, Rhine,” says Hineni, looking down at the plan. “If you want something in life, you have to fight people like Sockel so that they don’t take it from you.”

 

He looks down over the plans. The ‘house’ will be a little bigger than this one. But most importantly, it will simply be crafted to a much higher standard of efficiency. This old place has its charms because of its age and the quirks that those bring. But it does cause a lot of problems too, even after all of the renovations. The ‘bones’ of the house only allow for so much to be done with it. They’re a limiter for potential.

 

Hineni looks down at the plan, running along its corridors with a finger. His other hand holds Obscura’s.

 

— And, given the weapons that he wants to make with monster parts and with plunder from the war, it seems like it’s time for them to raise their metaphorical ceiling a little higher.

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