^^ Fort Gate ^^

Dawn came too quick.

I was still chewing my thoughts in a mind-numbing cycle of self-loathing and rage when I returned to the camp and took over the separation of the Moose from Clark, who seemed too worried about saving them to cut them to pieces so we could eat them.

Inside of four hours, I had all nine properly skinned and separated, the organs set aside for individual storage, and the offal tossed in the lake, so I began cleaning the pieces of Bone and Antler that had been taken from the Pits, sorting them into pieces that could be immediately useful; pieces properly sized for handles of weapons or other tools, and pieces that had little to no use; pieces too small or crooked to be useful as anything but Art or to be turned into charcoal.

That got itself finished, and I was still fuming, so I started on the trees, using the Fire Axe from the second train car to take all the lower-lying branches off of each tree, then having the Golems plant them into the stone along the edge of the plateau, about three feet away from each other. When they finished that but still had not even taken a third of the trees, I set them to forming a second and third layer, which effectively made it so that there were no gaps between the trees, except for the two openings; one at the waterfall so as not to interfere with Helen's art or the sunrise, (I wasn't that petty, not even as royally pissed off as I was,) and the other to the south, where the road met with the plateau; this one was the 'Gate', able to open and close and having a guard-post above it to keep watch from. Each side of the gate was twelve feet wide and tall, more than enough for any type of Merchant's Cart.

All the limbs that were chopped off of the trees were gathered together and shaped into wooden Golems by me, and set between the trees in the shapes of bushes, where they would remain unless needed, and the multitude of freshly de-rusted daggers and shortswords Hidden in their branches would get a new layer of rust. Wooden Golems required much less magic than clay or stone, so it wasn't enough to make me tired, but repairing the damaged golem with new clay was.

With that, I decided my work was done for the day, so I walked past Kindle and Luna, -who had arrived sometime this morning and been subsequently completely ignored by me,- and into my room for a shower and a nap.

—

"So... Luna pissed you off, huh?" Kindle sat on the edge of my bed, waking me up.

"I've been hunting and working for two days straight; I haven't slept since before the Challenge. Leave this for after I've had my two-hour power nap, please, I've earned it." I sighed.

"Mm. Letting you go to sleep angry, though-"

"-Will allow me to cool off a bit. Now leave before I snap your head off, Kindle; there's nothing you can do to fix this situation, and you're steadily making it worse." I sighed.

"Now look, this situation is-"

"I'm not some immature child who needs to be coached through a petty argument with her little friends; I'm a grown fucking woman who needs some goddamned sleep!" I snapped at her, and laid down again, turning the light off next to my bed.

She hummed and scooted over next to me. "Will me petting your hair make you more or less angry? Because I've wanted to since we met, it looks like a flower." My bare foot bodily kicked her off the bed, and she landed lithely on her feet. "Got it, another time then... sleep well, I guess."

I sighed and relaxed my body forcefully, one muscle at a time, starting with my toes. By the time I'd reached my shoulders, I was already extremely sleepy. The third pass didn't even reach my hips, and I was out like a light.

—

Dreams were a good place to sort out emotions; no one was actually there, so you could reexamine your biases on how you made them react to certain situations. Plus, when you Lucid Dream, you could take the time to understand each decision, and correct them if necessary. That isn't to say your emotions are wrong, but they are very rarely rational.

Rage was the easiest to get rid of; calming down and examining what had happened to make you angry more often than not allowed you to take a look at it from more angles, even the other parties perspective or logic, if you knew it. But the destruction of trust was a painful one, and even when it was examined, I couldn't come up with a reason I shouldn't be angry or hurt by her actions.

Yes, I'd made clear I didn't feel capable of a relationship with her and her advances were doomed to fail; her having sex wasn't my issue at all, though it had shocked me. My issue was deeply rooted in the fact that she'd broken her word. Even if she'd thought to tell me she'd be by later instead of immediately, or even if she'd simply told me she would be with a lover that night, I wouldn't have been nearly as hurt, only slightly disappointed; an irrational feeling that stemmed from someone else being more important to her than me, despite me rationally knowing that she barely knew me at all and didn't owe me loyalty or time.

Her life is her own and I wasn't demanding even a second of it, but she had offered, and I had trusted, and now my emotions were a tangled fucking mess that I'd been trying to hold together for a whole month since we'd been here; I'd been more tightly wound than a clock, and this had been a convenient lynchpin, is all.

That was unfair, to her and to myself, to put all that weight on her one action, as bad as it was on its own. My trust was very rare, and tied directly to my emotions and my very limited romantic feelings, and she'd broken that trust in a way she had clearly known was wrong, given her panic and attempted excuses. That was all. She wasn't to blame for the whole mess in my head, but a small piece of it was hers. So I set that piece aside to deal with later, and then set about organizing the rest.

The feeling of responsibility was slowly fading, seeing how competent my friends were; they didn't need me to take care of them 24/7, (if that Calendar existed here...) and they clearly didn't need me to create beautiful things. That portion of my worry was easily, and happily unwound, taking the form of a piece of metallic street-art shaped like a helping hand, which made me smile.

The feeling of abject terror at not knowing what the fuck I would do with myself in this new world was... more difficult to handle. I knew I was supposed to build and create things, but what was too much? Was making this world like my own utopia... Arrogant? Wrong? Just because this place didn't have the things my old one had, didn't mean these people were unhappy; they had what they needed, and though a few things would definitely be appreciated, I needed to be sure that we weren't altering the balance of this place, which seems relatively peaceful, all things considered. A set of Scales built itself out of that portion of webs, clearing a path forward.

The paranoia, knowing someone had ordered those artists dead and would likely come for us next, was terrifying as well, and much more difficult to pass; instead of webs, this was the incessant oil that tried to creep up my legs and pull me in, like it had always been. My paranoid delusions, usually balanced by good diet and exercise, would not be quiet for long if I started to get sick or wounded again. These didn't turn into anything; they were, this time, warranted, and so they parted around me for now, but they would need to be addressed soon.

The sick, horrible feeling in my chest from seeing all those people die and be fed to the Wyverns, and being a part of that, was the worst yet; I hadn't meant to bottle it up at the time, but it had seemed... necessary. I'd needed to be strong, so everyone else could relax and feel the peace I emanated. I had needed to be an Anchor for them. Now, they were settled down, anchoring themselves, and I wasn't required to just be strong anymore. I was allowed emotions and pain, just like everyone else, but I would, as always, direct it towards something useful... or artistic. I shaped that web with my own hands, Crafting a Wyvern in mid-takeoff, as realistic as I could make it, and then I walked past it.

More emotions, unnamed and inexplicable, assailed me as I exited the mostly-organized web, but I simply redirected them into the web and statues, until a time when they had names, instead of just colors that caused surges of blood in certain areas of my body. They weren't many, but they did exist... though they were a little Shattered now, they would rebuild in time, if I found someone else to try to be with, someone who had the patience to be with me and not run off into the arms of some skank the moment she was available for a quick and sweaty fuck that 'meant nothing'.

The rage was far more difficult to suppress, this time. Just that phrase, 'it was nothing', or, 'it meant nothing', was enough to make my Fury Volcanic. What wouldn't I give to be able to just... give of myself in that way, and not feel like I'd lost something. That that part of me would feel so casually infinite that giving some away was without meaning or significance, because I could always make more. That making myself vulnerable in that way wouldn't cause me to tremble, wouldn't cause me to panic. She received that, and she treated it like nothing. Worse still, she'd known it was wrong, and tried to hide it, tried to make me feel like it was okay, because it had been nothing, like if she'd felt nothing for that woman, I would somehow be more okay with it, and less angry?

She proved she didn't understand me at all, in that moment. And who could blame her? I was a private, closed-off Individual with severe trust issues. But, I had let her close, closer than most people ever got, and only in one month, -hell, one meeting; that was my mistake. I was so worried and freaked out by being in this new world that the first persons to show me kindness got instantly accepted as perfectly trustworthy, the benefit of the doubt instantly slapped onto their actions, and that made the breach of trust hurt so much more deeply, because for the first time in a long time, I didn't expect it. I hadn't built our relationship on a foundation of 'I'm protecting myself because I know you'll eventually be untrustworthy, but for now you're okay I guess', I had simply trusted her, and it had burned me.

I sorted all these feelings for the second time, as they'd gone cattywompus as I experienced them again to understand them, and formulated what I would say, and how I would act; I definitely wasn't going to forgive Luna any time soon, but Kindle seemed brusque yet kind, which I appreciated, and had attempted to be a mediator for the situation, so I wouldn't change how I dealt with her, for now, though the bedrock of my trust was definitely shaken a bit.

An appearance of Luna in my dream was curious, but not entirely unexpected, given my current thoughts. I ignored her, wishing her away from my current dream so that I could organize my clutter more completely. The smaller feelings and colors tried to gather around her, to my surprise, but only succeeded in making her look like a pastel painting with the colors on her skin.

I shook my head at my/their naivety; trust wasn't easy to mend, and mine least of all. Trying to rebuild what she broke so casually would be a monumental task, one I didn't have the Emotional Bandwidth for right now. I needed to focus, to fulfill my promise to Yeera and build her monument, to make the Children of the Half-Mountain Safe and Secure, to give Artists a place of peace and serenity that could inspire them in ways that they could never have understood, before.

For an artist, inspiring other artists was a beautiful, daunting task that was the most rewarding of them all. I remembered the first time I'd seen a metal statue in one of my neighbor's yard, modeled after my own; it was badly made, the metal cracked, not bent, with no heat-treat so that it would hold its shape, and no base to keep it upright, so it kept falling over and the man had had to right it several times while he worked at it. I'd loved it. Later, I'd loved him. But he'd moved on, and I had honestly not been bothered, in a sense; I had inspired him, and he was making art in Europe somewhere now, a gallery in Sweden, I think.

So I didn't have the time or energy to rebuild what she obviously didn't care about or have the patience to attempt with me; I had responsibilities, and as much as it cut me to ignore her, I did so, building my work of art to hopefully inspire generations to come.

The cliff itself was my canvas: 164 feet tall and wide, with a 164 foot deep base, slowly tapering to a 92 foot precipice with a 45 degree angled slope. I could build into the mountain, and I intended to do so; just like Art, the piece would have layers, hidden depths of color and wonder that would be discoverable only through exploration.

The exterior was gorgeous; a hooded woman whose face was so far in shadow as to almost not exist, wearing billowing robes into the folds of which flew, -or walked or slithered,- all manner of creatures and people, representing Yeera accepting the souls of the dead into her Afterlife. Between her feet though, in one of the centermost folds of her robes, you'd find an archway made of a dark, shimmering crystal, beckoning you into the interior.

Once inside, you'd find yourself in a cathedral-type room, not exactly a church, but with comfortable seating, stained glass murals and mosaics on the walls that depicted this world's history, (Blank for now, because I had no idea,) and a variety of musical instruments, including an Organ made of the bones and horns of the Wyverns, though the sound couldn't travel out of this chamber because of the sound-absorbing qualities of the stone around it. But at the back, behind the organ, you'd find a hall leading into a spiraling labyrinth of Art, headed upwards through the statue.

Each individual Wall Mural or Hall Collection would tie into the Main theme, 'inspiration', but each would be its own type of inspiration: kindness, Agape, Philia, Eros of all specialities and sexualities, including Grey and A-Sexualities, disabled and abled, long and short-distance; then, the types of inspiration that didn't stem from human interaction: natural sound, -burbling creeks and whistling winds, howling storms and rumbling rockslides,- natural colors, -forest greens and browns, desert reds and golds, valley green and wildflower hues, ocean blues and greys and whites and blacks, Lightning as well as the entire fire spectrum, Dawn and Dusk purples and greens and oranges and reds and, twilight and stars with their pinpricks of light, and the Moon and all her pale white and blue beauty.

Traveling further up into the labyrinth of beauty would lead you to the darker side of Art, the side which showed Pain and Torment: sadness and loss, heartbreak, anger, existential dread and its many, haunting faces; Death, War, Famine, Plague, Rape and Suicide, Societal or Religious Persecution, and all the other most horrible things to exist. But, when you passed that section of the labyrinth, you found yourself in the most beautiful of all the portions of the labyrinth, the Eyes of the Beholder. A hall of mirrors, each different to give you different perspectives of yourself, and what you could be or what you already were.

Inside the literal Eyes of the Statue that was the outer shell of the Labyrinth of Inspiration, you could see yourself as others saw you; truth, not something to make you feel good about yourself, simple truth. Some people would think you're too thin or too fat or too tall or short, some would think your big tits and ass made you look like a whore, others would see you in your cute little black dress at the club and think you were an inspiration and a rock star for showing them women like them could be sexy and happy. That was the simple truth, was that the judgment of others' eyes wasn't always flattering, but sometimes it was. Those sometimes were the best times.

But after you were done either flattering yourself or feeling sorry for yourself, you would look out of the eyes, out over the valley and the village so far below, and be reminded of how small you were, and how far you had to grow. A gut-check, sure, but if you couldn't survive being told you were about as important as the ant you stepped on to get here, you didn't belong in the world of Art. It was a cruel, unforgiving place that chewed up and spat out anything that was less than perfect, so you had to have the gall to stand by your piece and defend it, and call it perfect as it was as loud as you could until people believed it.

Then the walk out through the labyrinth's exit path would show you both successful and ruined Artists. Starving Artists, living with nothing but their art, which was beautiful and soulful and full of effort just to express an emotion, whose work would only ever gain real fame and worth after their deaths, but was nevertheless glorious; juxtaposed to Influential Artists with their own galleries of carelessly drawn, mathematically perfect sketches and portraits with no emotion whatsoever, so perfect that they could be turned into Paint-by-Numbers. It would show you the differences between Aesthetically Perfect Decoration and Art, and demand you to choose a path.

If you chose Decoration, you were redirected through the labyrinth again, and the door would close behind you, preventing you from changing your answer. If you chose art, it would lead you up to the top, inside the head of the Statue, where total silence reigned, and you could meditate on the subjects you'd seen or simply leave and walk the ramp up into the Caboose, and from there your path was your own.

The entire place was wheelchair-accessible, despite the fact that I wasn't sure if they had wheelchairs in this place, it was mostly reflexive, keeping to building codes. (Except for the extraordinary amount of Gratuitous Nudity and educative depictions of the human body in the Sexual Inspiration Halls; it doubled as a sort of Kama Sutra and a Health Ed textbook made entirely of pictures, and I was sure that Blatant and Unapologetic Pornography in a public space violated several laws, but I didn't really care.)

"This is beautiful..." the Dream-Luna spoke, and I stiffened, confused by its sudden Display of Independent Thought.