The rest of that spring and summer passed without much of note happening. Things started to settle back into their normal rhythm. Bjorn and Meira working on their various tasks around the farm. The only real and main difference was the addition of a few extra hands around the house.
Caiden and Adriana ended up spending the entire summer together with Bjorn and Meira. It was nice, not just because they had extra help, but also for the kids. They fell back into their normal routine. While Caiden was out doing things he hung around Bjorn and he taught the boy as he worked. Adriana spent most of her time around Meira and she taught her.
As they worked together Bjorn and Caiden talked, not just about their work, but also about life in general. It wasn't every day though, some days Bjorn and Caiden worked next to each other the entire day and spoke less than 10 words to each other. Other days their work was secondary to Bjorn teaching or Caiden just asking a thousand inane questions. It was the same for Meira and Adriana except that they normally talked the entire day about who knows what, but it rarely stopped.
There was an added benefit from their time working together for both pairs. The kids learned new skills that they could take with them later in life. They also gained tons of life experience outside the watchful eye of their father. It was actually quite a treat to watch both of them grow.
Over the course of the summer they slowly became more and more confident as well as more self assured. They were learning who they are and what they liked. As it turned out Caiden liked gardening, but not farming. He hated Carpentry and liked masonry. He could go either way with any other skill. He actually managed to pick up on masonry quite fast. By the end of the summer he was almost as good as seeing and knowing how a stone would break with the chisel as Bjorn was, even with his years of experience. He still was slower than Bjorn because of skill levels as well as lacking the ability to easily move stone.
As for Adriana, she liked gardening and actually also hated farming. She did surprisingly well with both beekeeping and Carpentry. Under her watchful eye their two hives that they had managed to make spread into 6 hives. Soon they had entirely way too much honey for them to ever use so they started to make pots to hold the honey until it could be sold in the spring. That was how they found out she had a knack for pottery making as well. She absolutely hated doing masonry, and building anything.
One thing that they actually shared in common was that they both loved being out in nature. They both decided to start to join Bjorn on his evening runs. He also continued to teach them how to fight as well as use weapons. Caiden was more partial to using the sword while Meira liked using a bow considerably more. They took to his teachings with wild abandon as if they were trying to stop something in the future. Which, Bjorn realized is exactly what they were doing. Even though they would never admit it they were training to make sure they could defend themselves from their father. It was just a happy accident that those skills could be used against others.
About midway through the summer they celebrated Caiden’s and Adriana’s birthday. As it turned out neither one of them knew when their birthday was. Aiden had never celebrated with them or would tell them, just that it was summer when they were born. So early spring Bjorn set to getting them a gift. One early morning he went into Chrome’s shop and talked to the smith. He convinced the man to make two daggers and a sword. Several weeks later he made the trek back to town again.
That evening when he returned with the daggers sword and a small pouch he found all 4 of them sitting around the table. Adriana and Caiden were arguing as siblings often do. Alaric was nearly 1 year old. They had progressed to him eating normal food and finally got weaned off of breast milk. Because of this Meira was trying hard to get her son to eat, for his part he was being obstinate.
When he opened the door all 4 sets of eyes made their way over to the door and watched as Bjorn made his way inside, new weapons behind his back. “Welcome home love. Dinner is in the kitchen. I can get you some if you’d like.” She knew why Bjorn had made his way into town so she was trying to act nonchalant to not tip off the other two.
Her efforts paid off as Bjorn slowly made his way into the house and made his way over to the table. He sat down and waited. He sat there talking to the siblings for a few minutes, their argument forgotten.
Eventually Meira made her way back into the room with a plate in her hands. It wasn’t filled with a meal for Bjorn, no. It was filled with cake. She set it down on the table in between where the two kids were sitting. They looked at the cake and then looked up at Meira in surprise.
“What is this?” Caiden asked.
“That.” Bjorn said. “Is a cake. I hear it is customary here as well to have cake on your birthday.”
Caiden’s face fell. “It is, but we have never had one. Nor have we ever celebrated our birthdays.”
“That doesn’t matter anymore.” Meira sat down at her spot pulling Alaric into her lap. “You are here, we want to celebrate with both of you. We know that you don’t know when your birthday is so we just picked a day.”
Adriana looked back at the cake, her eyes filled with greed. But she never had the chance to eat cake, to her it was a mystical item that they had heard about in stories. She then looked back at Meira, hesitation plain on her face.
“Go on. It is for both of you. Eat as much as you want.” Bjorn said with a chuckle.
That was all the prompting the kids needed, they dove into the cake with rather impressive gusto. In a span of 10 minutes they ate nearly all of the cake. It wasn’t anything fancy, it was a basic cake without any frosting. They didn’t have access to the cream that they would have wanted to make a frosting, but they could still make the bread part sweet, moist, and fluffy.
They both sat back stomachs a little distended from overeating on the sweet treat. They both had a look of contentment on their faces. Once they were finished Meira went to pick up the plate. Caiden put his hand over it clearly, still laying claim to the remains of the cake.
After she sat back down Bjorn felt like it was time to reveal their next surprise. He reached into his bag of holding and first retrieved one dagger and then the other. There was nothing special about the daggers other than they were new. Bjorn wanted to make sure that they would last so he had Chrome make them out of high steel. They had simple foot long blades with simple handles and small cross guards which were only on one side. Even though the blade looked simple the blades were finely made. There was a small grove that ran down the center of the blade, a blood groove. It also was double edged. From the look it was obvious that it wasn’t an everyday use blade, no it was a blade used for fighting.
Bjorn set a blade down in front of each of them and spoke. “Meira and I have talked about it for a little while and we have decided it was time for you to have a way to defend yourselves. Before you can actually take these though you need to understand something. These are not toys, these are the real deal. When I first came to the Eld I had a dagger very similar in design to these daggers. I used that blade to kill both people and monsters. Let me say that again, these are not toys. You got that?”
Caiden was the first to nod. “Yes.” He said simply and reached out his hand grasping the dagger and pulling it from the soft leather sheath that it sat in. He sat there admiring it. Adriana was a little more hesitant and slow with grabbing the dagger but she still did and looked it over.
“Now, we have decided this for several reasons. The first one is that having a well kept dagger has a number of uses. Obviously you can use it as a tool, as you do with many of our shorter working knives. These can obviously be used for almost all of the same purposes. The second reason we got you these is so that you can protect yourself if you are out in the woods. Bjorn and I may not always be there to help protect you, so you need something to take care of yourself. Running isn’t always the best option. The last reason is so that if your father ever decides to get physical with you you can defend yourself.”
That last reason caught their attention and they gave her their undivided attention.
“Now having a dagger isn’t any use without knowing how to use them. Up until now I have worked with you mainly on hand to hand combat. Now I think it is time for us to start working on how to use a weapon. Which leads me to my next gift.” He reached into his bag and pulled out first the sword, handing it over to Caiden. Then he grabbed his backup bow, which didn’t have nearly as heavy a draw weight.
When Caiden saw the sword the dagger was totally forgotten. He took it in his hands and stared at it in wonder. It was similar to the dagger, simple in design and look, made out of high steel. It was surprisingly heavy for how small the sword was. Its double edged blade was a little over 3 feet long, perfect as a short sword, and for Caiden to start to learn how to fight with. The reason he got a sword was because he was enamoured with the weapon.
Adirana’s bow was made out of ebbenwood and was just a little too small for Bjorn. The only reason he had kept ahold of it for so long was it was the only one he found that had a similar draw weight and length to what he needed. Alaric always told him it was a good idea to have an extra bow on hand at all times as an archer. Bjorn took those words to heart and brought it along through many of his adventures.
“I’m sorry your bow isn’t new. As you well know there isn’t any fletcher in Leefside so the only option was one of my old bows. It might be a little heavy for you but we can work on that. It is a solid bow and will do you well if you take care of it. Which reminds me.” He took the sack and set it down on the table as well in front of Adriana. “That is a sack of arrowheads. As an archer it is always a good idea to learn how to make your own arrows. You never know when one might break. If you can retrieve the arrowhead you can still make use out of it.”
While he was speaking Adriana got up from where she had been sitting and came around the table. Tears were streaking down her face. She ran over to Bjorn and threw herself at him, wrapping him in a massive hug. “I don’t care. Thank you.” She said as her tears soaked into his shirt. Caiden did the same with Meira, but his reaction was slightly different. Instead of tears his face was plastered in an almost idiotic grin.
The next morning Bjorn took Adriana and they went down to the woodworking awning and they got to work. Bjorn dusted off a skill that he learned long ago and hardly had a chance to practice, bowyering. They spent the entire day talking about all the various things that Medera taught him.
He talked about the archers paradox which neither Medera or Meira had ever heard about. Basically when an arrow is fired from a bow the arrow wobbles back and forth as it flies through the air. At least at first, then eventually the fetching takes over and right the arrow as it flies. He then moved on to talking about how fetching works and why it is important. Lastly he talked about making all of her arrowshafts out of different types of wood would affect how the arrow flies. He made sure she knew the importance of picking the type of wood that she made them out of as well as the amount of rigidity that each arrow shaft had.
She drank it all in as he talked. Listening to everything he said, hanging on each word. He had no doubt that she would remember that conversation for the rest of her life. By the end of the day he had told her everything that he knew about making arrows, which truth be told wasn’t all that much, but any information was good information.
The next day they spent the entire day working together to make up her arrows. After they finished they then moved on to teaching her how to use and fire the bow. In the evenings they took on a different routine. All 3 of them would run in the evenings for around half an hour. Then Bjorn would work with them for an hour on how to use their daggers. Then he would spend an hour with Adriana teaching her and working with her on how to fire her bow. Lastly she would go and work on getting better, as she did that Bjorn spent another hour working with Caiden on how to use his sword.
Meira also tried to awaken magical abilities in the kids. She still wasn’t able to straight up teach any spells as she wasn’t a journeyman in any of her spell skills. So her only option was the rough transfer of information. They ultimately decided to try teaching Adriana first, as she had the higher mental attributes. Her intelligence was 13 and wisdom 12 while Caiden was at 10 and 8 respectively. They didn’t know for sure if the higher mental attributes would affect someone’s ability to learn but it seemed like it would play a part. They were running off the same logic of when they were learning magic from the mages in Blackrock Bay.
The first transfer that they went with was life magic. Meira had Adriana sit down as she placed her hands on her shoulder and the top of her head. Meira’s eyes began to glow and her body took on the faint color of life magic and one thing that Bjorn couldn’t see while she transferred spell to him was the streams of light that left Meira’s eyes and flowed into Adriana.
The time it took for Meira to transfer life magic into Adriana took several minutes. Much longer than it took for her to transfer her spells into Bjorn. When the information transfer was finished Adriana’s head tipped forward. Caiden was ready though, he caught her and lowered her to the ground carefully laying her on her back.
Her vestige scared all three of them present. She had two slow streams of blood that were flowing out of both of her nostrils. It wasn’t anything extreme but enough that the flow didn’t seem to be slowing or stopping. Thinking quickly Bjorn pulled up some of the surrounding grass and shoved it in her nose. At the same time Bjorn began trying to stop the bloody nose Meira was casting weak slow heal on the girl.
It was 30 seconds before there was any response from Adriana. Caiden was getting worried by the time she woke up, not that he would never admit it but he was worried for his sister. Adriana’s eyes slowly fluttered open as she took in the sky her eyes slowly drifted around as if she was drunk. They didn’t want to focus on anything, she also didn’t respond to any questions or noises that they made.
“Is that what I looked like when that dwarf stuffed too many spells in my head?”
“Pretty much.”
The fact that she was awake made them not worry too much. Just like when his mind got overloaded Adriana’s condition slowly got better and better until she started to respond to words. The entire process took just under an hour before her eyes cleared and she could respond to questions when talked to.
That was where they decided to call it for the day, let Adriana’s mind process all of the new information that was forcibly inserted into it. By the time they went to bed she was better, but not 100% yet. In the morning she wanted Meira to teach her Create Water. She begged and pleaded but Meira held firm.
“In a few days we can try and teach you water magic, but for now we need to make sure that your mind has fully processed the new information that you just got.”
After Caiden watched his sister learn how to cast magic he too wanted to learn. To which both Bjorn and Meira rejected fully. His sister had higher mental attributes and she had a rough reaction to just the one spell. They had little doubt that Caiden’s reaction would be worse, potentially deadly. That was a risk that they didn’t want to take, even with Caiden’s insistence that he didn’t care he wanted to learn magic as well.
Exactly one week later they decided it was time to try for water magic. They once again got Adriana to sit on the ground. Meira stood behind her in the now familiar pose and began channeling her mana to try and awaken water magic in Adriana. At first things seemed to be going smoothly, then it continued, and continued. By the time 3 minutes had passed a frown started to find its way onto Meira’s face. By 5 minutes she tried to break the contact, after a prompt told her that incomplete transfer could cause irreparable harm to the subject's brain she stayed the course. In total it took 6 minutes and 47 seconds for the transfer to finish.
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Something odd happened though, every time that they had tried this process with Bjorn and then Adriana’s first spell the light finished floating out of Meira’s eyes and into Adriana’s body. This time though the deep blue light of water magic flowed back out of Adriana’s body and flowed back into Meira’s. This worried everyone present.
Adriana’s body was stiff as if every single muscle in her body was tensed up. She stayed in place where she had been sitting. Blood ran freely from her nose, at a much more worrying rate than the last time. Joining the blood flowing from her nose was two different trails of blood coming out of both corners of her eyes.
In an instant Meira began casting healing magic on her once again as she saw the horrified look on Caiden’s face and the worried look on Bjorn’s. Bjorn pulled a healing potion from his bag of holding and with some effort forced her head back and her mouth open. He poured the contents down her throat and held her mouth shut, messaging the mussels in her throat to get her to swallow.
His worry made him check her pulse. First he grabbed her wrist and felt, it was hard to tell as the beats were so rapid that they almost felt like one steady beat. Bjorn put his hand under her shirt and put his hand on her heart where he could feel the beats. They were rapid, entirely too fast to count. It felt like more than 4 beats per second though.
“Don’t stop casting.” Bjorn said, even though his words were useless, Meira wasn’t going to stop.
Caiden just wisely stayed back and watched fear plain on his face as he watched his sister struggle to stay alive. He didn’t want to get in the way of those who knew what they were doing.
Ultimately it wasn’t anything that they did that brought her down from the dangerous heart rate. Exactly 2 minutes after it began her heart rate began to slow and her body began to relax. The blood that was flowing from her eyes and nose slowed and then eventually stopped. Those two minutes felt like 10 though as they watched Adriana hoping she wasn’t about to die. By the time her heart rate returned to normal her body was fully relaxed, but she was still unconscious.
Bjorn picked her up and carried her up to the house and laid her down in her bed, Meira and Caiden not far behind. For the next 6 days Caiden stayed by her side as she was in a coma. He barely left her room as he kept an eye on her, he fed her when it was time, he slept by her side, and he helped clean her after her body did its natural processes. To Caiden’s horror at first, he learned that girls do in fact poop, and that when in a coma they do not stop pooping.
On the 7th day Adriana finally woke back up. She was groggy but awake. After several preliminary questions they learned that she didn’t remember much about that day. After several hours of questions as well as giving Adriana time to go through her prompts they learned why it didn’t work and what happened. As it turned out Adriana didn’t have an affinity for water magic, something that Bjorn just learned was a thing.
He had wondered why magic wasn’t a commonplace thing. Afterall, as long as someone had at least journeyman rank in a school of magic they were able to teach the spells that they knew to anyone. So why weren’t there more spellcasters if that was the only thing stopping someone from teaching others, well that and greed? All it would take is one benevolent magic user and there would be thousands of new spell casters.
Meira also had known that there was a likelihood that the magic teaching would fail due to a lack of affinities. “Almost every living being has some sort of affinity for a school of magic. Most have an affinity for a single basic spell school, but there is a possibility to have an affinity for a combination magic. Even rarer is someone with several affinities for basic elemental magic. The issue though is that there is no real way to test what your affinity is. You have learned first hand how expensive it is to learn new spells, and that is just from spell books. Most spell casters charge double or even triple to teach a new spell. When you learn from a journeyman spellcaster you are guaranteed to learn the spell if you have the affinity for it.”
“So you can understand my surprise when you have the affinity to learn 5 of the basic spell schools. My guess it has to do with your latent potential synergy. I do know for a fact that the 5th spell school is due to your latent potential, as even if you have an affinity with 5 or even 6 different basic spell schools you are skill capped at 5. Don’t worry, though that is only true for basic elemental magic. Anyone can learn a two school combination magic as long as they have both of the basic elements that comprise the spell school, combination schools don't take up one of the 4 slots everyone gets . That might change for more complicated spell schools, but I have no clue. As for me, it is no major surprise that I have the affinity to learn 4 different spell schools as both of my Abilities have to do with magic casting.”
It only took a few days for Adriana’s mind to fully return to the present and she was back to being herself. After just a little deliberation they decided not to try and teach her neither fire or air magic. The entire experience was not one that Adriana wanted to go through again. It also wasn’t something that Meira was ready to be responsible for. After seeing what a failed magical transfer did to his older sister Caiden no longer asked to be taught magic, he wanted no part in that.
Instead he threw himself into helping Bjorn with what he was doing. That ended up being, widening the river. It was slow, and ultimately not fun. They spent the better part of several months slowly digging out the wet, soaked mud from the river and transporting it to a hill that Bjorn had slowly been building from the excess soil from all of their projects. The progress was slow for all of the reasons that one might suspect.
Digging up mud was not fun in comparison to dirt. The soaked soil weighed at least three times as much as the regular dirt did. There was a benefit from the extra weight though as Bjorn finally progressed again, gaining a single point in strength, bringing the total amount that he had gained naturally up to 7 points, only 4 more to go before he became capped.
The next reason why the progress took so long was because the river continually deposited new soil and silt into the river, it wasn't a fast process but it was apparent. As they worked the slower part of the river would still carry a small amount of soil with it and deposit it right where they were working to widen the river. This actually helped ever so slightly because it would help erode the river bank and wash it down river to be deposited when it widened out again.
Because of the natural erosion that was taking place they started as far downriver as they could. And that was where the third reason why the process was slow came into play. Initially they only wanted to widen the 300ish feet of the river where it narrowed. But Meira came up with a brilliant idea to make considerably more work for Bjorn and Caiden. She wanted to expand the garden and she didn’t want to do so across the river because it would be harder to protect against pests.
Because Bjorn loved Meira and wanted to keep her happy he obliged with her request. They started down at the bend of the river. Erosion was by no means fast but since they claimed their land close to 3 years ago the bend in the river changed by a few inches taking up more room of the opposite bank. To stop this process Caiden and Bjorn decided together to extend the channel that they were already making to encompass the bend in the river as well.
They first extended the stone wall that Bjorn had built to help keep the bridge that he built in place. That took the better part of a week just to do that. The wall extended out into the river itself. Once they made the wall meet up with the existing wide part of the river they stopped for the time being. That was when they realized that if they cut the area that the river had to flow in half then it would cut away the far bank where the fields sat considerably faster.
They then moved to the far bank and after a few gestimations they figured out that they wanted to move the entire river about 10 feet. They then went 10 feet back from where the river ran and began digging a trench. The trench part took considerably less time as Adriana and Meira helped out with that. With the portable pocket and the bag of holding they actually made quick work of it and soon had a trench 5 feet deep, 4 feet wide and about 300 feet long. It ran neatly around the outside of the river following it almost perfectly.
Bjorn and Caiden then began the arduous task of cutting hundreds and hundreds of stone blocks out of the granite that Bjorn found. Eventually Meira and Adriana made their way to the granite field and started digging around as most of the stone that was naturally above ground was already used. They actually didn’t have to dig far as only after a foot they ran into large boulders that peppered the field. They quickly began excavating around the outside of the boulders making it so that Bjorn and Caiden could come and cut them later.
The extra set of hands with Caiden was a massive help, Bjorn’s output of stone blocks nearly doubled. Before when it was just him and with a lower masonry skill level he could produce 2 stone blocks per day. Now however that he had spent more time working with the stone he was considerably more efficient. Together he and Caiden could cut 5 and a half stone blocks per day and get them shaped down to that same 1 foot by 1 foot by 2 foot block that seemed to be Bjorn’s go to when building with stone bricks. Even though Meira and Adriana hated masonry they came and helped out occasionally further increasing the brick output.
It took several months but their work was complete on first the outer wall part as well as the second wall that was used to redirect the water. They left that section of wall low when they finished it. Their reasoning for doing so was so that the water from the river wouldn't cause undue erosion. So instead of finishing making the wall high and funneling all of the water into the now narrowed river it was still able to flow normally until they did their work moving the soil that comprised the riverbanks.
That part was one of the slowest parts of the entire process. They dug the soil out of the bank, slowly and steadily they moved the river bank one muddy shovel at a time. It went into the bag of holding or the portable pocket. When it was finally heavy enough they would go to the far side of the river and take the soil they removed and place it in the river, slowly moving the water.
By the middle of the summer they had finished with the first two parts of their ecological project. They dug out the wide side of the river fully so the water flowed against the stone wall that they had built. When it was fully dug out they finished the top layers of the narrow side so they didn't have to worry about overflow. Then to finish off that part of the project they just had to finish backfilling. It took all four of them the better part of 4 months but the project got finished and they had successfully moved the river.
From there the 4 split into two different groups. The boys went one way and the girls the other. Meira and Adriana made their way into the newly expanded garden area and got to work building raised beds, and preparing pockets of land for other plants. Finally they worked on extending the stone path that ran through the center of the garden.
Bjorn and Caiden moved on to the part of the river extension project that they started on. They moved up the river to the stone bridge and started widening out the river in that spot. It was still too narrow and as such the flow rate down the river was too high for what they wanted to do. Widening this section of river wasn't nearly as bad as it could have been. For the most part it was wet and soft dirt, so the only obnoxious part was that it was heavy, but after a month of digging and moving mud that wasn't that great of a deterrent.
Finally as it started to near fall their work was done. The river was wide enough so that the water flowed at 3 or 4 miles per hour rather than the 8 to 10 it had been. As they worked Caiden constantly asked Bjorn what they were doing and why they were doing it. Finally once the river had been widened he relented and started to tell the boy.
He outlined what they wanted to do and the purpose for it. At first Caiden was confused. As if a switch got flipped in his head, understanding dawned on his face and he started to get excited.
Finally Bjorn and Meira fully explained what they were building and why to both of the kids at the same time. They first started by laying out the footing of the building, it was going to be fairly large and mostly square. The foundation was also going to put up right against the river's edge butt up against the wall holding the river in place. They spent a full day surveying the land to find out where exactly they wanted it to go, then place out how they want it to go, and finally what size they wanted the building to be. Once everything had been figured out it was time to start work. Adriana had to drag Alaric away kicking and screaming as he knew something was going on.
The farm wasn’t the only thing that had undergone massive changes over the last few months. One thing that still continued to throw Bjorn off was the fact that 1 year on the eld was the equivalent of almost a year and a half back on earth. So now that they were nearing the end of Alaric’s first year in the eld he had the same development that would be expected from a 18 month old on earth. As such he had made massive leaps and bounds in his development.
The first major development was that he was able to walk independently. Which was fantastic to see as a parent, and at the same time horrifying to see as a parent. Alaric managed to get the adventurous personality that his parents had. He would walk around with surprisingly intelligent eyes for a 1 year old. Everywhere he went he watched and saw, as if he was drinking in his surroundings. This was exceptionally terrifying when he apparently had absolutely no self preservation instincts.
As such he was constantly getting into trouble and doing things that he shouldn’t be. It was a full time job keeping an eye on him. After having to deal with a wandering child Bjorn finally understood why some parents have leases on their child when they go out. He used to mentally mock those kinds of people. Now however he seriously debated making a leash that he could tie to his belt and drag Alaric along behind him, as well as stop him from wandering off.
He was also learning how to properly express himself. He had a handful of words that he could say now, the most predominant one though was no. As tons of parents throughout history have decided, Bjorn and Meira both decided that teaching their son to say “no” was a mistake. It just so happened to be Alaric’s favorite word. Outside of no however he knew probably close to 35 or 40 different words. Even if it loathed him he had to ask the midwife to find out what Alaric’s milestones would look like. In regards to speaking he was well ahead of the curve.
There were also other smaller less important developmental progress that Alaric made but it wasn’t as important as his motor skills increasing. He was able to pick up items and move them with little difficulty. This led to the surprisingly uplifting and cute pastime in their home. With Alaric being mischievous he mainly snuck away to do one thing, and that was to stack rocks.
To Bjorn this was no surprise that he liked to stack rocks, after all he was a boy, as well as his son. Alaric learned the lesson that almost every man knows, and that stacking rocks is surprisingly fun. At first he would stack rocks out in the open so that everyone could see them. As the summer went on though he began hiding the rock piles in very unexpected places. It was not uncommon to be working or traveling around the farm grounds and come across a small pile of rocks. Every time he did so a smile spread across Bjorn’s face.
As suspected with his motor skills increasing, his spatial awareness increased. For the last year Alaric hasn’t shown any signs of understanding that there are such things as different sizes. That coupled with his new spatial awareness, and lastly with him paying more attention to his surroundings he rarely slipped and fell, or trip on his feet as he ran.
Soon summer turned into fall and it was finally time to start harvesting. Unsurprisingly everything went plenty smooth as they had double the hands that they normally did. Caiden and Adriana did well so well in fact that Bjorn and Meira decided to give them part of the profits from their crops come spring when they sold them to the traveling merchants. Though they didn’t tell them that was what they were going to do.
The normal harvest tradition of helping your neighbors pull in the crops took place. At first Bjorn and Meira had ever intention of bypassing Aiden’s farm and just moving on to the next one but something surprising happened. Caiden stopped them as they were walking through the trees and said that he didn’t want to skip his dad’s farm. Even with everything that Aiden had put Caiden through he still loved his dad and wanted to help him out the best he could.
Not wanting him to go there alone, Adriana, Meira, and Bjorn all followed Caiden and helped their father with his harvest. There were a few times throughout the months where they lived with Bjorn and Meira where they saw Aiden and his arm had been in a sling. Not during harvest, he seemed to have made a full recovery from his fight with Bjorn.
When they entered the clearing that was Aiden’s farm the man stopped what he was doing and glared over to the group. The glare continued even after Caiden said that they were there to help. In the spring they had planted enough work for the three people to accomplish, when his kids abandoned him for the summer he had spent the entire time wondering how he was going to bring them all in by himself. So instead of turning them away like he wanted to he begrudgingly accepted the assistance.
He talked occasionally to Caiden as the group worked together, but not to anyone else. Caiden didn’t care, it just didn’t feel right to him to not help his dad. Each night when they finished their work Caiden and Adriana went back to the farm with Bjorn and Meira. Throughout the few days where they helped Aiden bring in his crops he still would only talk to Caiden. There were many different times though where Bjorn caught Aiden glaring daggers at Bjorn, or at Meira, only while her back was turned. More than once there had been a glaring contest between Bjorn and the farmer. They only ever stopped when Meira came up behind Bjorn, silently giving her husband her support. Each time she did so Aiden would quickly avert his eyes and go back to working.
Once they finished pulling in the crops for Aiden the quartet moved on to the next neighbor while Aiden stayed behind. The rest of the harvest went the way that it had in years prior. By the end of two weeks everyone had finished with harvest between Bjorn’s and Meira’s and Leefside. So they went back to the farm and life returned to normal.
Meira and Adriana spent their days preparing the crops to be overwintered in the basement of the house. Bjorn and Caiden returned to working on the next project, which slowly started to take shape. The shell of the building was slowly going up and the ground was dug down around 3 feet into the ground. Not enough to be a true basement, but to be on the main floor they would have to walk into the ground for it. This was so they could build the waterwheel and have the shaft it was connected to above their heads.
Finally 2 weeks after they finished with harvest one night at dinner Caiden announced that he decided he was going to move back in with their father. His reasoning was that he missed his dad, and he missed his home. After some heated words were exchanged between Caiden and Adriana she ended up storming away from the table and headed to her loft.
Bjorn and Meira told Caiden that they supported him and would never hold him here. They made sure that he was well aware that he could come back and he would always have a room in the house. He thanked them and told them he would leave in the morning and of course he would come back.
The next morning Adriana came down from the loft with a slightly sour look on her face. She too announced that she would move back in with their father. Her reasoning was that she didn’t want to leave Caiden alone with Aiden.
They told her that they understood and told her the exact same thing that they told Caiden the night before. There were some tear-filled goodbyes from the kids, even though they were going to live less than 5 minutes away. They promised they would be back. Finally they left the farm and made their way back into the forest heading towards their fathers.
