Chapter 15: Chapter 15: there are five threes in fifteen. But there are three fives! THREE!

“This place is kind of creepy,” says Rhine, walking behind Hineni as they go through the seating area with all of the tables. They walk past the broken window, but Hineni doesn’t mention it.

 

He turns around. “This is my family home.”

 

“Your family home is creepy,” replies Rhine, looking up at the high rafters above them. Obscura, having been behind them before, is now sitting up there, watching them with wide eyes. Rhine yelps, ducking behind Hineni.

 

“Who~”

 

Their frog hunt had been successful, honestly. Rhine’s river magic, while impractical in many settings, is ironically extremely well suited to hunting frogs. By causing a cascade of water to rise up, he could flood the pond and cause all of the surprised frogs to scramble out from the water and to the edge, where they could be easily caught.

 

Now, was this an important thing for them to have spent their evening doing? No, honestly not. But Hineni had fun and he thinks Obscura did too, though she seems to have taken a liking to scaring Rhine, who seems particularly jumpy around her. Then again, Hineni supposes that this is a reasonable reaction. She is a literal deity and Rhine is a child. Plus Obscura is certainly a little… intimidating, especially with her talons. Her interest in spooking him doesn’t help of course.

 

Anyways, given his own lack of terror, maybe he himself is just the one who’s weird? Though, maybe he's just adjusted to her now. “This is where we’ll be working,” says Hineni.

 

“What’s our job?”

 

“Making weapons,” explains the man, looking back up towards the rafters. Obscura is gone. But there is a clamber coming from the kitchen, so he supposes that she got back to her cooking.

 

“Huh? I don’t know how to do that,” says Rhine.

 

“That’s fine,” he says. “How good are you at chopping wood?”

 

Rhine scratches his cheek. “Uh, I’ve never chopped wood before.”

 

Hineni stares at the boy for a moment. “Can you gather materials from the dungeon?”

 

“No. I mean… yes, I mean… uh…” Rhine fidgets. “I can go down to floor three.”

 

“That’s not very far,” replies Hineni, sitting down at favorite booth. He gestures at the spot across from him. He isn’t sure, but he’s confident that he could get deeper than that by himself. Then again, he is older. “What can you do then?”

 

“Do you have any river-related work?” asks Rhine, sitting down.

 

“I do not,” replies Hineni dryly. He rubs his forehead. It’s still hard for him to talk to people like this, even if the person he’s talking to is someone as young as Rhine, but he’s fighting his way through it. “Where do you live?” asks Hineni. “There’s got to be something?”

 

“I live in the tower-quarter,” replies Rhine.

 

Hineni claps his hands together once, pulling them apart. Ah, of course. It’s obvious, of course a naturally powerful, if not untrained, caster like Rhine lives in the tower-quarter. The boy’s robe looks a bit worn and raggedy, but the material is an expensive one. “You’re a magical crafter? Are you willing to learn to enchant weapons?” asks Hineni.

 

Rhine shakes his head. “No, uh, I can’t.”

 

“But you live in the tower-quarter?” asks Hineni, somewhat confused. “Everyone there is a crafter?”

 

“Uh…” Rhine rubs his arm. “My parents are there. I haven’t really started.”

 

“WHO~!” blurts out Obscura from the side, appearing very suddenly from next to them. Rhine lets out a terrified yelp and scrambles away across the bench. The two of them look at her, one of them terrified and one of them confused. “Fear! Fear Obscura!” she hoots, flapping her arms.

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“Hey,” says Hineni, poking a finger into her fluff. “Don’t be mean.”

 

“WHO~” argues Obscura, her body transforming from her humanish shape into the form of a giant owl that towers above the table, as she bends over forward and looms over Rhine, her eyes wide and shining with a haunting, yellow glow. “Fear! Mighty Obscura!” Rhine is pressed as far back against the wall as he can go, shaking in terror.

 

Hineni sighs, having already gotten up, he is now pushing his way back in past Obscura, as he squeezes himself back into the booth, pressing himself through the fluff of her leg. There is a clacking of glassware being set on the table as he puts down the food that Obscura had cooked and brought, but left hidden one booth away so that she could come over and scare Rhine one more time.

 

“Mighty Obscura burnt this one,” says Hineni, lifting up one of the pancakes, covered in syrup and ground up nuts. Obscura turns her massive head his way, looking down at him. “See?” asks Hineni, pointing at the pancake she had tried to hide by putting it in the middle of the stack. A very wise thing to try and do.

 

There is an explosion of feathers and a second later, Obscura is gone, leaving only Rhine and Hineni and a single feather that lands down on top of the pancakes.

 

“Don’t mind her. She’s weird,” says Hineni, pulling the sticky feather off of them and setting it to the side.

 

Rhine looks at him with horrified eyes. “Should you…” he lowers his voice. “Should you be talking about a god like that?” he whispers, his eyes shifting around as if they were being watched. Which they are, actually.

 

In all honesty, no. If any of the other servants of the other gods said something bad about their patrons, it’s very much in the realm of possibilities that they simply would stop existing. In a sense, gods are, given their nature, above the law. Murder is as illegal for them as for anyone else, but who is going to storm the palace of a literal god and arrest them? Nobody, that’s who. But Hineni has accepted his fate. If Obscura wants to eat him for calling her weird, then that’s fine. Besides -

 

“It’s okay,” he says. “I’m weird too.” He takes a fork, setting a few cakes on each of the three plates. “Thank you for cooking. They look great,“ he says. “Are you going to eat with us?“ asks Hineni, looking down beneath the table where he can feel her moving around. A small feathery head peeks up from the side, clicking its beak angrily as the small owl glares at him with furious eyes. “If you’re mean to someone,” explains Hineni. “Expect meanness to come back to you.”

 

“Respectless Hineni!” complains the owl. “Hineni is granted Obscura’s gifts! Obscura’s presence! Obscura’s love!” she hoots. “But he is mean! Bully! Bully Hineni!”

 

Hineni raises an eyebrow. “If that’s a ‘no’, then I guess I’ll just eat these three too?” he says, pointing at her plate. This doesn’t seem to impress her. But Hineni knows what her weak spot is. “Actually. I think I’ll just eat one of yours,” he says. “That way I’ll have four and you’ll only have t -”

 

Before he can finish his sentence, Obscura is sitting next to him, shifting back into her human form. But she keeps the glare on her eyes. “Reverence! Obscura is divine! Obscura demands reverence!” she complains. Hineni gestures across the table to Rhine, who is sitting there, quite literally shaking in his boots that appear to be a little too big for him. “Good! Fear! Fear Obscura, little human!” she says, staring at him and moving her head in a circle above her stack of pancakes.

 

Hineni sighs. Apparently she’s going to have to get used to being around people, just like himself. Oh well, it’s something that they can work on together. A couples’ project, if you will. He puts three cakes onto Rhine’s plate. Not one more and not one less.

 

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It is nighttime. Hineni hammers away in the forge. Today, he’s making something different.

 

The man wipes his sweaty forehead on his arm, turning his gaze to look at the custom order that had been pinned up on the board of the adventurer’s guild. The sheet of paper is now up on the wall, by his work-table.

 

A scythe. It’s unusual for farmers to put in orders at the guild, but not unheard of. What is unusual though is the material.

 

Hineni’s gaze sinks back to the piece of burning hot metal clasped in his tongs. Despite the incredible heat radiating from it, it doesn’t emit a glow of any kind. It just looks like it always does. Sleek, silvery. It’s not as rough looking as iron and carries a strangely polished sheen to it, even after the heat and all of his hammering.

 

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