Farron hugged the sheet close to his body. It worked to cover him, but he had to keep it close to his body to ensure it didn't get caught on any branches that stuck out. His mouth was dry, his legs ached from walking for so long, and sweat was beginning to stain the smooth sheet he wore.
He couldn't imagine how Elise made this journey and still looked as beautiful as she did. Her tunic was slightly dirty, but she didn't look strained at all. On the slope of a mountain, she leaned on her staff and looked at a wooden home built in a sturdy, low-hanging tree.
Pointing at the home through several trees, she nudged him. "We're just about there. It's just through those few trees, so you can stop complaining now," she chuckled with a smile.
"Agh, finally!" Dramatically, he exhaled in relief. "Thank you!"
Her amusement at his lack of stamina showed in a bright smile illuminating his world and spreading from her face to his.
She encouraged him, "Come on, we're nearly there. Try to keep up!" She settled into a slow run down the slope as he lagged behind. He groaned but tried to keep pace, and in a short few moments, they were at the base of the tree, where a short ladder led to the base floor, which was only a small platform.
One wall was open, but the air was comfortable enough that climate control wasn't needed. Despite being in a forest, the air was not so humid as to be uncomfortable. Instead, it was pleasantly cool and even slightly dry. This floor was small, but it seemed cozy.
In the middle of the room was a small couch, while a staircase leading to a second open-air floor spiraled upward on the right. From the platform, they watched the sunset. Although the tree was low because it was on a slope, the tops of the other trees seemed to duck to afford them a view of the blazing orange and royal purple from the base floor.
As the massive golden entity sank, it tinted the tops of the sea of trees below a myriad of entrancing hues.
It was beautiful.
Almost paradise.
Farron sat on the world's edge, stunned by the decadent vista before him. The home itself was humble, but everything about it was luxurious.
Elise watched him from the side, studying his reaction for several moments before breaking his trance. "You like it?"
"Uh, yeah, yeah… Yeah, it's amazing. I love it."
"Good. Do you really want to keep standing there, half-naked, though?"
"Ah, no, sorry, not really. Is there anything else I can wear?"
"Not in your size, no. I live here alone, so I only have clothes for me, but I can sew pretty well, so I can alter this sheet to make you something temporary to wear in an hour or two, and I can make you something more permanent tomorrow if you'd like."
"Sure. That sounds very nice." He smiled. "Thank you for doing this for me. Honestly, I mean it. You're very kind, and if there's anything you need me to do tomorrow, let me know."
He never cared about anything he deemed superfluous or unnecessary, but he cared about impressions. There was no objective value in anything, but he did recognize the subjective value in politeness. He was being forced to live, and the easiest way to do that was in a society. And, so long as he was in a society, maintaining the facade of congeniality was beneficial, as people would have a more favorable impression of him, and life in the society would be easier.
Besides, she was pretty, so he didn't mind doing a few things for her.
With an enchanting smile as beautiful as the sunset he just witnessed, she replied, "Of course. I might ask you to fetch a few things, but you can spend most of tomorrow relaxing, and we can talk to pass the time. Might have to head into town the day after for food, but we shouldn't need much else."
Her smile put him in another daze, but he quickly recovered and said, "Ah, yeah, that sounds good."
"Good. Now, let's get started on your sheet."
She promptly went upstairs and told him to wait down there while she found a needle and some white thread. He surveyed the house in the meantime. Walls surrounded the house on three sides. The bottom floor hosted a small kitchen and table, while two closed doors led to two enclosed rooms.
The second floor also had walls on three sides, but much of it was built on a sturdier branch at least 20 feet (6.2 m) across and had offshoots the size of his torso, so the second floor was larger than the first. At this moment, Elise returned with the needle, thread, and a knife.
Curious, Farron asked, "What's the knife for?" He joked, "You're not gonna stab me, are you?"
Sarcastically, she joked in return, "Nah… I wouldn't have put up with your complaints for so long if I were going to kill you, now would I?"
"I hope not... Would you?"
She smiled but declined to answer as she approached his back and realized an issue. She couldn't reach his head. Embarrassed, she had to ask him to move him to the stairs so she had something to stand on. After that, the process proceeded smoothly and quickly.
In short order, she cut a hole in the top for his head and sewed together the sides of the sheet to make long sleeves for him. She also sewed together the sides from his chest to his waist. Unfortunately, because of his height, there wasn't enough fabric to fully cover everything, so she had to leave slits down the sides that exposed most of his legs, but most of it came together very nicely. It looked like a robe of sorts.
As she made the final stitch, she exclaimed, "There! Done!" The sun had gone down, but after sticking herself with the needle by accident twice, she had gotten up to light a glass ball by hitting it twice and then holding it. A blue light glowed from it but only illuminated a small area around them. She didn't know precisely how the ball worked but explained to Farron what little she did know.
It was based on a form of magic that could be activated and drew on the user's energy, so she was reluctant to use it because it would only make her more tired, but she couldn't finish her work without it and was planning to sleep after she finished, anyway.
With the final stitch in, she deactivated the ball and plunged the house into darkness.
From the shadows came Farron's voice. "Again, thank you for this."
"Of course. It's likely time to head off to sleep, though. I'll stay in a room down here, but you can sleep upstairs."
She searched for his hand in the dark, and after finding his waist, she found his hand from there. With gentle and thin fingers, she took his hand and led him up the stairs and down a hall to a door, slowing down to ensure he could find his way despite being functionally blind.
Inside the room, she positioned him beside an invisible bed before she tried to jokingly run into him and knock him over onto it. Surprised, he fell with a brief shout after being tackled.
With a laugh, she said, "Alright, you can sleep here. I'll be downstairs if you need anything."
"Got it. Thank you for the surprise," he jested, which made her giggle. Her heart was beating hard. So hard she feared he might almost hear it.
When she left, he cuddled into a soft, cloud-like bed and quickly drifted into a blissful sleep. His head was full and chaotic, but walking for hours on end drained him. His new body had more stamina than his previous one, but it was clearly still not up to par. Before he drifted off, however, he asked Life to open his screen again.
-
Event countdown: 89 d : 14 h : 01 m : 34 s : 234 ms
-
The following day, Farron awoke to the sun streaming in from the door at a shallow angle and quickly checked the countdown.
-
Event countdown: 89 d : 02 h : 31 m : 12 s : 685 ms
-
Groggy, he made his way out of the room and found a living room on the second floor. In it, he found Elise in a simple medium-length skirt, sewing a dull-colored shirt on a cushioned couch.
Looking up, she greeted him, "Morning." Seeing his ruffled brown hair, slow, ambling gait, and lack of alertness, she noted, "Well, you certainly look awake."
He paused, confused, and slurred, "I do?"
She laughed at him, "No, I was being sarcastic. I guess you're just not a morning person." He only grunted in response, now understanding his mistake but not having the presence of mind to respond intelligently. "Come here, I'll show you how to sew," she offered.
He slowly plodded over and plopped himself onto the couch next to her before rubbing his eyes to get the sleep out of them. They chatted softly for a few minutes before Farron asked, "There's no coffee here, is there? Do you know what that is?"
"Of course, I know what that is. I'm a lord, too, you know. I was, at least. But no, I wish we had coffee."
"You were a lord? Wait, what do you mean that you were?"
"How do you think I know so much about getting out of the contest? Mine was ranked fourth iron, so I could fail it without paying very much. Had a bad start, so I just wanted out. What's your contest's difficulty ranked? It shouldn't be very high, so maybe you can fail easily, too."
"Uh, seventh iron. So, a little higher than yours but not by much," he lied.
She continued designing, cutting, and creating his clothes for the next few hours as they chatted lazily about their past worlds. Hers was very similar to his Earth, but there were a few significant changes, like the names of brands, what was popular, and some of the technology.
Her world, for example, never put computers into cars. Everything in it was manual. Eventually, as Farron explained why electrically powered windows were better, she finished the outfit and made him try it on in the next room. To his complete surprise, it fit him. It was slightly snug around the chest, and the pants were a little baggier than they should have been, but it was well-made and roughly his size.
As he returned to the room, he exclaimed, "It fits! I don't know how you did it without measuring me, but it works!"
"Oh, well, I got some of the measurements while you were asleep, like your arm length and shoulder width, but I couldn't get all of them, so I guesstimated the rest."
He nodded and teased her, "Right… Slightly creepy but ok. Thank you anyway, though!"
Upset, she complained, "Well, I didn't want to wake you up!"
"I know, I know, I'm just kidding with you." He smiled.
-
Event countdown: 87 d : 18 h : 12 m : 45 s : 241 ms
-
Further along the path, Elise made a request. "Hey, could you hold my staff for a second? Arms are getting tired."
She was holding a massive wooden staff that she sometimes used to support herself and get a grip on steep slopes. He mocked it as a stick once or twice, to which she always responded with indignance, but he agreed to hold it for her.
When he held it, he remarked, "It's damp. What on Earth?"
"Yeah, sorry. My palms are always sweaty when I'm doing something. Don't know why, but I think it's a medical condition. It gets worse when I'm active, nervous, or anxious, but it's normally not too bad."
"Huh. That's interesting. Does it get in the way at all?"
"Sometimes. I dropped my needle once or twice while stitching your robe together, if you remember that."
"Mmm." He teased, "Were you nervous then?"
She tried to laugh it off and give a nonanswer. "Who's to say?"
-
Event countdown: 87 d : 09 h : 05 m : 41 s : 876 ms
-
They arrived in a small mountainous town while it was dark, and Elise led the way to a large home, where a large family of beast-people greeted them. Each was of canine influence and covered in fur, marking them as Canids, beast-people who took after canines. The women and children were entirely clothed, but the men often wore only pants, and there was not a shoe in sight.
That was not to say they were not civilized; they were simply different. This family seemed to be expecting Elise, as she was a regular guest in their home. There were no inns up here. Very few people lived so far from the major population centers. The family was, however, shocked to see that she had brought another person with her.
The mother happily shrieked, "Elise! You didn't tell me you were with someone!"
Shyly, Elise blushed and explained, "Uh, well, no, we're not together, exactly."
"Oh…" Eira, the mother, clicked her tongue. "Shame. You won't be needing separate rooms, though, will you?" She turned to Farron. "I've been trying to get her with someone for forever, but she always refuses! She just sits out there in the woods, all alone. I can't imagine it, truly. The horror of being all alone out there!"
Shocked, Elise shrieked, "Eira!" Farron sat silent as he allowed Elise to deal with Eira, moderately amused
Eira took a step back and laughed, "I jest, I jest. Will you be needing another room, though?"
"Yes, please," Elise hurriedly said before she shot a sideways glance at Farron to gauge his reaction. He only had a smirk on his face, betraying his amusement.
A few hours later, Elise kept mulling over the situation as she lay in bed and looked at the sheets beside her. Lamenting her choice and hugging a pillow to her chest, she thought, 'Why did I ask for separate rooms?'
-
Event countdown: 86 d : 19 h : 32 m : 16 s : 536 ms
-
As they walked through the muddy streets, shopping side by side, Elise thought of something she should have asked far earlier, "Oh, when does your event start?! It's not soon, is it?!"
"Oh, no, luckily not. Life was generous this time. There's still a full 86 days and some until the event."
"Oh, really? That's a long time. Well, that's even better and very lucky, considering your contest's difficulty. The lower-ranked contests normally have smaller breaks, so I don't know why yours is so long. Mine was only a few days."
"I don't know either," he lied again.
-
Event countdown: 84 d : 03 h : 32 m : 54 s : 626 ms
-
A few days later, they began to develop a steady daily routine to provide for both of them, including cooking, cleaning, and more. While they were preparing food, Elise popped the question, "What are your plans now? Is there anywhere you want to go? Are you going to explore or something?"
"I don't have any plans, really. I don't know what to do with myself now. It's going to take some… I don't know... Some time? Soul-searching? I don't know."
"You still don't plan to be part of the Lord's Contest?"
"No. I have more desire to drink a mud smoothie than I have to compete." Internally, he knew it was a waste of his gift, but he didn't care. The gift was his. He would do with it what he wanted.
"Good. The first events are normally easier, so you can probably fail the first or second with little difficulty if it's like mine."
The rank of his contest made Farron uneasy and rather anxious, but he ignored it and instead chose to hope that she was right, that the first contest would be easy, and that he could fail.
-
Event countdown: 82 d : 02 h : 12 m : 34 s : 716 ms
-
A few days later, bored by the lack of work, they decided to incorporate teaching into their routine. She'd teach him skills like sewing, what she knew about the nearby plants, news about this world and its workings, and even what little she knew about magic. In exchange, he would teach her any of the slew of academic topics he knew.
Although he was a chemist by trade, he was a polymath at heart. Though he did not fully embody the ideal of a Renaissance man, he would have still made Da Vinci proud. He explored legions of topics he found fascinating in his free time and had a working knowledge of computer hardware, programming, mechanical physics, some shaky nuclear physics, linear algebra, calculus and its applications, other advanced math topics such as graph theory, number theory, and their cryptographic applications, electrical engineering, western history and literature, philosophy, and more.
He taught her as much as he could remember and even expanded his knowledge as he experimented with magic. Elise knew little about the subject, but she knew enough to point him in the right direction, and he explored it on his own from there.
Over time, they grew closer as they learned more about each other, their mannerisms, what they liked, and other various idiosyncrasies. But not only did their bond change. He changed as well. He was becoming more sincere.
If he faked politeness before, he did it now because he genuinely wanted to be nice. His body was becoming more robust and energetic because he did all the lifting for the two of them, but he also became gentler. He learned to appreciate intricacies when Elise shared poetry with him, and with it, he was able to share some of the themes he was beginning to understand in the literature he was familiar with.