Chapter 40: Chapter 40: A four has found us. Ten fours have come to pass. The thing with four fingers is here

Hineni slowly sways from side to side, his legs moving in a surprisingly coordinated fashion, considering that he’s never danced before in his life, let alone with another person, with someone who is holding his hand. He lowers his gaze, looking at the soft tufts of hair, coming from the head pressing itself sideways against his chest as they move, the two of them swaying through the sickly moonlight. The pale glow shines in through the tall glass windows, which line the unnaturally vague and empty structure, far up and high out of their reach.

 

But that’s okay, the two of them just move, they just sway from side to side, drifting across a ball-room floor of some grand palace. But it’s entirely empty, save for the darkness of the night and for the two ghosts that they might appear to be for an outsider, watching through the windows, as they waltz through the shadows cast by the light of the witching hour.

 

She’s a little clumsy, actually. He isn’t much of a dancer himself, of course. Since again, he’s never danced before. But she seems to be having an even harder time of it, constantly tripping over herself to fall onto him. Not that he minds.

 

Somewhere, off in the darkness, behind the lightlessness of the night that his eyes can’t see through, an orchestra is playing a soft, haunting melody. It sounds like it’s coming from another room. It’s a little embarrassing, dancing. But they’re alone at least, more or less, so he feels safe. Despite the fact that he’s never been here before, wherever this is.

 

Hineni lowers his head, pressing his nose down towards her hair to smell it.

 

The man stiffens up.

 

- She smells like frogs.

 

The person he is dancing with lifts her head, the moonlight shining in to reveal her long, black hair. It glints off of her glossy, emerald green eyes which are as wide as the span of the ballroom that they find themselves inside of. She opens her mouth to speak.

 

“…Ribbit?”

 

---

 

Hineni wakes up, clutching his heaving chest with one hand as his eyes scan their comfortable, familiarly ratty bedroom. His heart beats frantically inside of himself, striking against his ribs. Startled by his sudden jumpiness, Obscura lets out a loud hoot, transforming into an owl as she flops off of the bed sideways in surprise.

 

The man looks around himself. He’s at home. It was just a bad dream. It was just a terrible dream.

 

Hineni lets out a sigh of relief, bending down to look at the owl-god, who is rising back up, scanning the darkness of their home for a threat. “Sorry,” apologizes Hineni. “I just had a bad dream. Everything’s fine.”

 

“Who~…” she hoots, turning back into her half-human gestalt as he helps her climb back into the bed. Obscura lays back down and he covers the both of them, sparing one last glance around the dark room as he grabs her and wraps them both tightly back into the blanket.

 

The man lays there for a moment, pressing his face into the back of her head to smell her hair. It smells the way it should. He lets out a content sigh, planting a kiss there, before letting his head rest softly once more on his pillow.

 

“Weird question,” asks Hineni. “But do you want to try dancing together sometime?” he asks.

 

Obscura, her back leaned against him, rolls her head to the side and looks over her shoulder and then nods, nuzzling herself back into a comfortable position as the two of them return to sleep.

 

---

 

The forge is aglow, burning through their wood with incredible speed. Even on a low-burning heat like this, the amount of fuel that it burns through is simply out of control, given their very limited ability to collect wood. Especially since he’s trying to heat the house with the furnace as well and not just lighting the forge for some metalwork.

 

“We really need this charcoal operation up and running, Rhine,” says Hineni.

 

“Not a problem!” states Rhine, proudly. Hineni looks down, the boy has a box ready and everything. He plants his boot onto it, gesturing with his arms towards the side, towards the sketched plan that is nailed up onto the wall. “Rhine! The magnificent river-wizard has come to the rescue!”

 

“…Magnificent?” asks Hineni, raising an eyebrow.

 

Rhine plants his hands on his hips. “I’ll also accept ‘great’, ‘honorable’ and ‘amazing’.”

 

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“Boy.”

 

“- Boy, what a fantastic helper that Rhine is, huh?” asks the blue-haired Rhine coyly, clearly in high spirits today. Hineni turns his head, looking at the schematic. Perhaps he is right to be. It’s an excellent drawing. He isn’t sure if it’ll work, but at first glance, he honestly doesn’t see why it wouldn’t. Rhine has once again worked hard. Perhaps it’s best to let him have this moment of pride? Why not.

 

Hineni finds himself laughing while lost in this train of thought. “Sure. Let’s agree on that,” says the man. “What do we need?”

 

“Ta-da!” proclaims Rhine, pulling out a list that was tucked into his belt. It’s covered in some gunk and bits of dried clay. “I wrote down everything we need and the measurements for it too!”

 

Hineni lets out an impressed whistle. Okay, maybe the boy really does deserve his arrogance. He looks the list over that Rhine is holding open towards him, a bright, white smile painted on his face. It seems to be hiding something else behind it, but perhaps it’s just alight because he’s taking joy in Hineni’s bewildered face.

 

“Rhine,” says the man, planting a hand on his shoulder. “This is great work, thank you,” he says, nodding to him. “Let’s get started with this right now. We need the kiln as soon as possible.”

 

“Actually,” says Rhine, lifting a finger, his smile growing even more prideful. He steps down from the box, running over to the back corner of the room where the clay barrels are. He lifts a tarp off of them.

 

“Ta-daaaa~!” beams the boy, revealing a stack of ready-made clay bricks and some other assorted materials.

 

Hineni stands there, lost for words. A project of this size and the boy had managed to get it ready all by himself. He was expecting a rough schematic at most, but here Rhine is, having not only made an excellent schematic, but also a list of materials and then he went even further and got those materials ready too.

 

Hineni lavishes him with praise, as is befitting, promising to get him a reward for his hard work. Though Rhine already seems content with the man’s approval and his hand on his shoulder.

 

The two of them set to the task of putting the charcoal kiln together, as per Rhine’s schematic.

 

---

 

“It almost feels counter-productive, doesn’t it?” asks Sockel. She leans back on the legs of her chair, her legs kicked up over the top of the counter as she stares at him curiously. In her hands is the curved, blessed knife he had given her. She seems to be cleaning out her fingernails with it. “You burn wood to burn the wood that becomes the charcoal and then you burn that to run the forge.”

 

“The numbers are your part. Your job is to tell me if it works out or not,” says Hineni. “But charcoal burns longer and at a more constant temperature than just wood, especially damp wood.”

 

She laughs, waving him off with her hand with the knife in it. “It’s all good. We should hire some woodsmen to deliver wood,” says Sockel. “A month's worth for a building this size is somewhere between four and nine-hundred Obols, give or take.” She shrugs. ”For a low-heating budget.”

 

“That’s kind of a big difference, Sockel.“ Hineni sighs. “I’ll let you know when I have them. Until then, you’re going to have to help us get wood too,” he says. “We need all hands right now.”

 

Sockel reaches down and pulls out a small envelope from below the counter. With a flick of her wrist, she throws it to him, the letter spinning with surprisingly pinpoint accuracy right into his awkwardly reaching hand, stretched out in an attempt to try to catch it. “And waste my talents out in some stupid forest?” she asks, returning her gaze to her hands and to the dagger. “Why do you think I moved to the city to begin with?” Hineni looks at her for a moment, before turning back to the envelope in his hands. “It arrived today.”

 

The man looks at the envelope. It’s a poorly made envelope, even by the standards of this neighborhood. The glue is thick and pasty and stained through the exterior of the paper, leaving bubbles. The paper itself is rough and looks to actually be a page out of some old, faded book. Hineni narrows his eyes, trying to decipher it. It doesn’t even look like it was an interesting book.

 

“Avarice…” he says, quickly turning the envelope around and tearing it open, reading through the simple bank-statement.

 

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