Arc 722, 25 Ashan
Chapel Series
#1 - Step By Step
“You’re what?!?”
Silk’s voice split the air, following Elisabeth as she moved quickly through the trees towards the chapel site, cold air nipping at her nose. Following along behind the determined settlement leader, at a distance, were the guards, who nervously chatted amongst themselves as they tried to chase her down. There was only one problem – she was faster than they were.
“I’m leveling the chapel site!” she called back to the small group trying to catch up with her.
Elisabeth had known it would drag up not-so-old anxieties, but it couldn’t be helped. She had tried to sneak out to the site by getting up early, but Ronan had spotted her and the game was over. While she didn’t blame them for worrying, at some point, the guards – and settlers – needed to realize that while she would make mistakes, she possessed the ability to learn from them. This was one of those times.
After breaking free of the trees, the mage turned south – the area where the chapel would be. To the north sat Munny Farm, and with a glance that direction, Elisabeth saw that the farmhands were already fast at work, working on the fields and getting things ready for the early crops.
Ronan was the next to try his hand at talking to her, shouting his bit as someone finally brought up the proverbial elephant in the room. “Remember what happened last time? What’s to say that’s not going to happen again?” The reference was to when Elisabeth tried to level the entire farm site by herself quickly, pushing her abilities had suffered an unfortunate overstep that had resulted in some temporary illness. However, the experience had taught her a valuable lesson, and she was determined not to repeat the same mistake.
“Maybe Balthazar…” Silk began, but Elisabeth interrupted, turning on the chasing group, standing her ground. “Is not here! Balthazar is not here.” It was a sharp rebuke, one that stopped the guards in their tracks for a moment. The young woman rarely raised her voice, and while her tone was not shouting, it was far more intense than she usually employed.
Taking a moment, Elisabeth closed her eyes and quickly found her center again. The guards unknowingly had traipsed across a sore subject and bore the brunt of repressed frustrations. Holding herself to a higher standard, Elisabeth quickly made amends. “Balthazar is not here. Balthazar is working, doing other things to protect Scalvoris and its people. I’m sorry I allowed my emotions to seep through. You didn’t deserve that.“
Balder stepped forward towards her, sighing as he spoke. “We get it, Elisabeth. I think it’s okay to miss Balthazar. Especially now when you are about to get married. No one is going to fault you for it.” Silk nodded her agreement, and Ronan, in typical Ronan style, shrugged his shoulders.
While she was grateful that they understood and were gracious, the mage wanted to quickly move past the subject, which she needed to address on her own timeline. Luckily, there was an equally compelling subject at hand.
“Anyway, I know what I did wrong last time. I tried to do too much, too fast. The chapel will take up far less space than the farm and fields. I want to level out the area around the structure site as long as I’m at it. It will make it easier to plant the garden once we get to that point."
Sir Storm of Haven, self-appointed settlement protector and all fish bits within, strolled up to the small group and immediately flopped down on the cold ground. It had been a long walk from Haven House and at such an early break in the trial. The light was barely hitting the shores of Faldrass, and yet his girl rose and ran out of the warm place they slept into the brisk chill of Ashan.
It had to be said that while Elisabeth thrived in cold weather, her fussy feline companion did not. At all. Cold weather was something to be enjoyed from next to a fireplace or blazing fire pit – anything involving heat, really. Barring that, blankets were enjoyable and cozy, but were any of those things present currently? No. No, they weren't. As such, Sir Storm of Haven was truly and utterly vexed.
Ignoring the feline for the moment, Haven's guards considered what Elisabeth said for a trill, and then Balder spoke. "Alright. Please tell us your plan."
Gesturing towards the chapel site, she began explaining. "Supplies have slowly been trickling in, and Professor McGerman and his crew will arrive in five trials. I will take two trials to do what I did last time, with the farm, in one. That should allow for enough rest and replenishment. In addition, tomorrow, you three, and a few others will assist with shovels, getting the larger rocks clear of the site. The combination of all those things – longer work time and smaller work area, should keep me from overstepping again." It truly was sometimes a matter of experimentation with magic - basing actions on observable results from a previous attempt.
Approaching footsteps caught the group's attention, turning to see Edwin moving towards them. Seemingly, he had decided to track Elisabeth down and called out to them in a cheery tone. "Good morning, all. Thought I would find you lot out here." While his main task in the settlement was taking groups out into the neighboring forests to hunt and document flora they came across, the schedule he kept allowed for a few trials in the Haven as well. "Five trials until building begins, so I guess Elisabeth is about to do something a little crazy? Am I close?"
With a typical arch of her eyebrow, Elisabeth gave him the first smile of the trial. "Not crazy. You've all got a few more trials until I go into crazy mode. We'll talk right before the wedding about 'crazy.' " The hunter, for whatever reason, possessed a calming ability on the young mage, similar to that of Balder, so it was nice to have him around when she started to feel overwhelmed. Unlike Ronan, Edwin's teasing was always light and meant to provoke a smile from her.
Ever quick with the wit, Ronan decided to get Edwin up to speed on the events before his arrival. "Well, she's already done the yelling, so I think we've moved past the crazy for now. She's got a mind to level the site with magic. Says she knows what she did wrong last time." Having knelt to pet Storm, Edwin nodded at the guard's assessment and stood back up. "Then I guess we should let her get to it. I'll stay here, and you three can get back to whatever it is you need to do totrial."
The guards exchanged glances and, realizing the battle was over, shuffled off to attend to their duties, leaving Elisabeth and Edwin to attend to the site. Oh, and Storm, but the feline wasn't interested in doing anything that resembled work. As soon as Elisabeth set down her bag, he gingerly padded over and made a nest on top of it, obviously preferring it to the cold ground.
Edwin, her self-appointed guardian for the trial, chuckled at the cat's antics and began walking towards the farm. "I'll check on you in a bit, after I toss a few ideas around with Edward. Behave, young lady…."
Finally alone, Elisabeth got down to work, knowing where she wanted to begin.
That very moment, the one she was present in right then, was the first moment in creating something unique and special for Haven, and there was a need to be mindful of that. In her opinion, a chapel dedicated to Vri needed to be on a meaningful foundation- virtues and ideals essential to the Immortal.
Closing her eyes, Elisabeth took a trill to find her center and pushed on to reflect briefly on what the chapel would bring to Haven. Vri meant something to her that was hard to explain, regardless of how often she tried. She once thought that Love was the main Domain that she connected to the Immortal through, but that was no longer the case.
The ever-present tug of her spark, which grew stronger and stronger with time, flared to life as she began her work. For the farm, they had cleared the site of grass first before she had used defiance to level it out, but this time, she wanted to do the opposite – sort of. Elisabeth planned to level part of the area that trial, and then the settlers could use the rakes and shovels on it the following trial while she moved on and completed the rest. If it required an additional trial to finish, that was fine too.
Raising her hands, Elisabeth worked her way along the edges of the space. When she had prepared the farm site, it had been Ymiden and the soil much warmer, although she didn't anticipate any differences with the ground being cold. The orange sand, nestled in much of the earth of the….
Wait...
No.
In a rush to get things ready for building, Elisabeth had wholly missed something important despite all the thinking about what the chapel meant and its symbolism. Something that needed rectifying immediately.
One break later, Elisabeth stood in the same spot, yet this time was joined by Edwin, Balder, Ronan, Bran, Gilbert, and Bryn – all looking expectantly at her, waiting for the mage to explain what was going on.
"I was starting to level the site, and I realized something. Well, a few things, actually. This chapel won't belong to just me or Balthazar – it belongs to all of us. I told Professor McGerman that I wanted us involved in the building because the process should be as sacred and important as the finished product. Something about using magic seems inappropriate for this specific project, so instead, we are going to do this without magic. Hands in the dirt, and together. It's the memories of the journey that will make this place special."
The farmhands provided the rakes, shovels, and spades, and Elisabeth briefly went over what needed to happen. First, any grass in the area required removal. Similar to when they had cleared the land for the farm, the grass grew in sparse clumps, so she surmised it wouldn't take long for that. Then, large rocks needed to be cleared from the site and relocated. After they did those two items, the rest was a matter of digging down rises in the soil or filling in holes. Herman's crew would do the final leveling once they arrived, but preparing the ground in this way allowed a jump start to the process.
Before they started, however, Bran insisted on drawing a boundary line in the ground with the spades. The chapel was one thing, but Elisabeth had indicated that she wanted to clear some area around the chapel-to-be for a garden, so it made sense that they figure out within what area they were to be working in. The group made quick work of that task, giving everyone a better understanding of their boundaries.
The grass clumps went quickly enough, although Balder noted that there were many more of them than had been at the farm site. Elisabeth wasn't sure but considered it might be due to the closer proximity to trees, perhaps a bit more protected than the farm had been, but it was a guessing game at best.
As they dug up grass clusters, the group noted the soil peppered with orange sand, which wasn't surprising. The sand provided gentle warmth and drainage to vegetation – a combination that had proven very effective. It made sense to Elisabeth and boded well for the garden she was planning around the chapel, although she had already intended to augment the soil with more of the unique sand if needed.
Within Elisabeth, she could feel her spark tug and pull, wanting her to use it. Now and then, the urges were so strong that she had to pause, fighting back the sensation to keep it under control. Balthazar had warned her that as time went on and her abilities progressed, it would become harder and harder to do so, and she agreed with that assessment. That very battle was one of the reasons she was so diligent with her meditation training.
Delilah delivered a mid-trial meal to the workers, allowing them to eat quickly and get back to things. It was already apparent that it would take quite a bit longer to prepare the site without magic, but Elisabeth was alright with that. Once they returned to Haven proper for the evening, she would talk to a few people and see if they could get a few more bodies out to the site for the subsequent trial.
The scraping of the site surface and grass removal took most of the trial, leaving everyone tired and sore, but they were happy with the result – Elisabeth most of all. Site preparations were grueling physical tasks, and the group filled the moments with talk of the wedding, stories, and laughter. That was the foundation Elisabeth wanted the chapel built on.
Arc 722, 26 Ashan
Work moved along faster than the trial before with a few more bodies. Edward and the farmhands could not join them due to the need to tend to the season's first crop, but things were working out just fine regardless.
Dividing into two groups, they tackled the rocks with renewed energy, wedging shovels under the offending objects and removing them to the edges of the site. Collectively, they decided that the only stones they were worried about were ones jutting out of the ground that might impact the building process. Elisabeth had been quite clear that she wanted the rocks saved for the garden, and while the group teased her about it, there was an importance to her in preserving elements of nature. Allowing them to sit out on the ground would let the rains naturally wash the stones' surfaces, leaving them ready for whatever plan she came up with for their use.
The rock removal took them into the afternoon, after which they began the final push to knock down any rises in the soil and fill in holes – mostly from their passionate rock relocation efforts. The issue, as they discovered, with the giant holes in the ground were that one Sir Storm of Haven had decided that they were perfect for napping. He'd get chased from one, pick another, only to get chased from it as well. After a few incidents, he gave up on the group and sauntered off to the farm. Delilah was there, and he was sure would give him the attention he deserved after all the picking on.
By the time the light began to fade, they had finished about one-third of the area. It would take another trial to complete, but if the settlers worked hard enough, perhaps they could be done by the mid-trial meal the following day.
Arc 722, 27 Ashan
At first light, the group assembled again, intent on finishing the job they had started. During the previous trial, they had discovered that shoveling down the bumps and hills in the terrain and shifting that soil to the holes left behind by the rock seemed to be the easiest way to go.
"Elisabeth," Bryn called across to her. "What are you planning to do with the rocks exactly?" Shrugging lightly, she considered his question. "I'm not exactly sure yet. I'm a visual person, and until I see the chapel and how it fits into the environment here, it's hard to know how exactly I want to shape the garden. I know I want it to wrap around the chapel, so I think we could use some smaller rocks to line the pathways or mark the flower beds. The larger ones, perhaps making a few irregular rock walls and planting things in the crevasses?"
After a bit, Edward and the farmhands came to check out the group's progress, lending a quick hand to finish everything up. "I thought you were going to use your wiggly fingers to do this, Elisabeth?" Edward was always straightforward and to the point, which she appreciated. "I was, Edward," she said. "Just didn't feel right. I can't explain it. Maybe I'm overthinking in terms of symbolism or just plain crazy, but I didn't want to use magic here. Not for this. This," gesturing at those assembled, "feels right. All of us, pitching in and using the time to talk and be part of this community we've created together."
Chuckling a bit, the farmer simply patted Elisabeth on the shoulder. "You might very well be crazy, but you've gotten us this far. I think Haven sticking with your instincts is a wise thing at this point." The settlers all laughed at the comment but agreed with the underlying sentiment.
It had taken two and a half trials of hard work, but the chapel site was ready for Herman's crew, accomplished by the many hands of people that continued to care for and help shape Haven into the strong community it was, and it felt right.
