^^ Theo Dyeing Hair ^^

The fact that we were capable of feeding 400 people was... impressive.

The fact that Rhea was instantly willing to do so was... terrifying.

Still, it was a big success, as we fed everyone and sat around the glowing statue of the Three Women, the group filling the whole plateau close to bursting.

James revealed some low-yield sparklers he'd made (apparently he knew how to make fireworks,) and handed them out to kids, who chased each other around immediately, to the amusement or concern of everyone attending.

Helen had fixed up a small DVD Projector, and was using the wall of a tent to play a documentary about Redwood Forests; she'd intended it for the kids, but several dozen adults were just as enraptured by it.

Johann took part as well, teaching several kids, -and some adults,- how to properly crack stone with a hammer, and it swiftly became a game of sorts, seeing who could crack a Boulder into gravel quickest, with kids having smaller boulders and hammers than the adults to even it out.

Sam and Cassidy (once all the food was gone,) were riding the kids around on the horses, showing them how to brush and care for them, and generally having a good time, while Rhea and Nick were off with a small group of expectant or new mothers and Elders, speaking to them about whatever that was all about.

Clark was busy as well, treating everyone in attendance alongside Luna and Medea, of the bumps and scrapes they'd gotten along the three-day journey, which wasn't that bad.

Of course, it wasn't all fun and games; there were guards posted at the entrances and inside the tent that covered the train and each tent that covered one of our projects, as well as up in the caboose, preventing anyone from getting in and having a look around, though they were invited to switch shifts every hour and enjoy the festivities as well.

But me, I was stuck with Luna's Mother, her Father, her sister, and both of her grandmothers. The air was tense, and no one was speaking. Apparently, they'd all come because they thought I was marrying Luna, due to her mother's misunderstanding, and now that her sister had informed them that no such thing was ever discussed, they had no reason to be here except stubbornness.

"So, a Statue of Yeera, carved from a mountain... aren't you worried it's too ambitious?" Luna's father asked, trying to start a conversation.

I smiled. "You don't see the Metal Sculptures of the Maiden, the Mother, and the Crone? It'll take time, all good art does, but nothing is too ambitious. This is the only Canvas worthy of a Deity, in my opinion."

He hummed, staring up at the statue whose outline was already finished, and the details of the face and one sleeve were started. "I suppose... but the other side, that one is still all mountain, isn't it? You'd have to carve it down from full."

"-Giving me more room to work and more freedom to shape it however I like, yes, it'll be quite amazing." I finished his sentence casually.

He chuckled softly. "Yes... that will be a beautiful sight, when it is finished. Do you intend to do the other Gods?"

"Eventually, yes. I have some sketches for each, and mountains selected already... but I'll need to know more about each god, from people who've spoken to them, before I finalize anything." I nodded, and sipped the wine that Sam had brought me several bottles of with an irritating wink and nudge.

The elder that I'd already met, Hela, I think, picked up the bottle next to me carefully, and squinted at the label. "So... what is this made of again?"

"Red Grapes."

"Red Grapes... Curious... and it is Alcoholic, like Whiskey?" She asked curiously.

"Less potent, but yes."

"I see..." she hummed, and poured some into the glass I'd handed her. "Beautiful glass, quite clear... well, if poisoned alcohol is how I go..." she muttered, and tossed the small mouthful of wine back.

I laughed at her immediate look of surprise, and shook my head as she swallowed. "It's something you sip, Mrs. Hela, not throw back like Vodka in a shot glass!" I explained, and she grinned, smacking her lips at the taste while the others of her clan laughed at the exchange.

"Yes, I imagine so... it's very sweet. May I?" She held out her glass again with a laugh, and I filled it all the way, then topped my own off.

I held out the bottle to Luna's father, who accepted it and spent a moment looking at the label, like Hela had. "I've never seen rows of grapes so uniform... it looks quite unnatural."

"True. But what are humans, if not unnatural creatures? Nothing we do is natural, is it?" I shrugged, and sipped my wine, looking at the rest of the plateau and smiling. "But still, I'm thankful to you all... to think that a month after our lives went to shit, we'd be somehow somewhat happy again? Rhea misses her wife and children, deeply, and Medea her father, and nothing can fix that; but all these people, having fun and enjoying the Festival... it's nice, and I appreciate your part in it."

"Is this what festivals are like where you're from?" Luna Sr., Luna's Mom, asked, pouring herself some of the wine.

"Mm... sort of. I grew up in a place with no festivals, but holidays, yes, this is what they're like. Food, Alcohol, a little bit of fun, a whole lot of Family, and general Drama... then again, Festivals are just holidays with a lot more people, so I guess this qualifies." I gestured at the humongous group of people, and she chuckled.

"Yes, I imagine it does..." she agreed, and then passed the bottle and some glasses around to the others, until it was empty.

—

Work continued... differently, now that there were people here. Each of the others gathered people with the requisite skill sets, and they secreted themselves away to begin teaching them the basics of whatever task they needed done; Rhea with her molds, and their production, James with his little pools and lightning rods that I didn't quite understand, (he hadn't shared,) Johann with his Forge and the ballistae and crossbows he was now building in small numbers.

Helen seemed to be taking my advice, and making a port to turn crystal energy into electrical, to see how it would transfer, and see if it was sustainable. We didn't know how long the crystals lasted, or how they worked, so she and Medea were studying that one.

Cassidy, Sam, and Clark expanded their efforts to build gardens and harvest both food and medicinal herbs, using a little modern (or... ancient?) knowledge to build irrigation channels and hydroponics gardens. My large golems were enlisted to dig a massive underground plot of land, about the size of an aircraft hangar, (one whole massive meadow caused by the mudslides to the south of the mountain, near the old Dungeon,) then cover it up with wooden framing collected from said mud slides, along with thirty feet of clay and dirt.

The interior, sealed by clay and silicone and heated by way of the lamps all around the room to emit sunlight with a perfect heat/light ratio, -something Medea discovered the Magic Crystals could easily be tuned to do,- would be essentially separated from the conditions outside. This was enough to effectively double the space to grow in... until they started layering the plants over each other on frames, to be fed by water from the lake.

It was an ambitious undertaking, but one that would feed us regardless of season, and even allow us enough to trade with other places, maybe. I was again enlisted to build a variety of small farming golem's to tend these hydroponics gardens, because they had to be secret; otherwise, we'd most likely ruin the agricultural communities of this world and their economies as well.

Cassidy was against eating the fish in the lake, despite the concept of Hydroponics, but before I could tell her to get over herself, she made a valid point; the solid minerals we were getting from the Mana Crystal weren't safe for immediate consumption. They had to be filtered down to biological levels before entering our bodies, which required a biological filter, such as fish and plants. This would make the fish somewhat healthier without farming them, and transfer fistfuls of nutrients to the plants when the solid nutrients passed into their waste with 96% efficiency. The plants would thus have all the nutrients we needed to survive, with a little work, and the fish would remain wild, and capable of being hunted by the villagers, who had no idea about this situation.

Supplementing that diet with Meat was afterwards unnecessary, she explained, and thus her dietary restrictions were met, and her moral issues accounted for, all at once. If others ate the fish and moose and chickens, then so be it, but she could truthfully say that it was unnecessary. That conversation got a little heavy, but I agreed with the main points; we needed a steady supply of food, that was a good way to achieve it. I didn't know if we needed that much food, but whatever we didn't eat could easily go to feeding others.

Finished with them, I found myself without much to do except continue my carving, but I halted on my way up the mountain, seeing my reflection in the shiny metal of the caboose. "Dammit... my hair is turning red again... well, that's today's project!" I trotted down into the train, gathering the necessary supplies for dying my hair.

Sam looked a little confused as to why I wanted the food coloring, but didn't mind lending it to me, as it was generally useless right now. With that and some conditioner, I was ready... or so I thought. I realized I didn't have anything close to a hair dryer, to set the dye, and I wasn't sitting here for six hours with a wet head to let it set naturally.

So, I headed back to my workshop, wondering what I would need for a hair dryer; a heating element and a coil, simple. The fan would both power the coil and blow the air out the end, which would be all it needed. Building a fan from some scraps, then placing a small induction coil in front of it, and building a housing for it was a simple process, and it only took about two hours, but I successfully made a tiny golem fan that would power a cordless hair dryer.

"God... people would pay me hundreds of dollars for this in New York... wasted opportunities, man." I sighed, and once again took my supplies to my room.

I was mixing the dye, sitting in front of my makeshift vanity in only a towel when someone knocked on the door. "Who is it?" I hummed curiously, and continued mixing.

"Luna? Are you busy? Your door isn't usually-... oh, should I come back later?" I could just envision her blush, as she thought of what I was doing behind closed doors.

"No, darling, come in, just watch your hair." I smiled at her voice, which I hadn't heard in a few days. She'd been very busy, what with the Clan arriving, and then the second clan, the one that had lost the Challenge, what would be done with them was being decided.

"My... hair?" She opened the door, looking confused, and then blushed at the sight of me in a towel.

"I'm messing with Dyes, and your hair is such a pretty white, I'd hate to mess with it." I explained, and set the bowl and comb aside.

"Oh? This is how you make your hair Pink?" She asked, looking at the bowl and standing to my left, though she still seemed to struggle with not staring at me.

"Yes, it is. My hair is naturally Scarlet, but I prefer pink. It looks less like blood." I nodded, and picked up the comb again, carefully dipping it into the dye and leaning my head over the sink, dragging it through my short hair slowly.

"And it only lasts for a short while?" She hummed, sitting down next to me.

"That is Correct... about two months." I nearly nodded, but caught myself and chuckled, dragging a few more lines of pink down into my roots. "Did you want to try it out? Maybe just the tips of your hair, so you can cut it off if you don't like it?"

"I think I'd like a different color... could you make it Cobalt? That's my favorite." She grinned.

"Cobalt? Hmm... I could use some of that Cobalt and Aluminum to make a dye, but it'd take a couple days... hmm... we didn't have much of a use for the Cobalt besides making Vitamin B12, actually, so that's perfect! We can dye fabrics and porcelain and clay as well, much more permanently than hair. Do people like colorful clothes and dishes here?" I asked, thinking seriously about the new idea.

"Well... dyed clothes are usually expensive, so people wear leather and hide more often than woolen garments, and the stuff you ladies have is... amazing. But no, normal people don't wear colored clothes. There's no utility to them, you know?" She explained.

"That's fair... selling to the richer ones won't be an issue, but then we'll need something else... what about cotton?" I asked.

"Cotton? What's that?" She raised an eyebrow, confused.

"You don't have cotton here? It's a fluffy white flower/bramble plant with little pricks in it, but if you take the fluffy parts and weave them, you get a really soft, semi-durable cloth, very good for underclothes or things worn on the skin. Most of our Lingerie is made of Cotton or Silk." I grinned, thinking about something we could grow in the Underground Farm. Silk Worms and Cotton Bushes. Or, if we could trick the Crystals into creating Cellulose, (C6H10O5,) we could possibly skip the farming process for the cotton, and use that to make rope, thread, linens, fabric, lace, and a veritable plethora of other things.

"You've had an idea, I see?" She smiled lovingly, apparently thinking I couldn't see her, because when my eyes found hers, she panicked slightly.

"I have... I don't know if it'll work, but we'll see. And if it's successful, lingerie and ropes will become much more common here, as well as the Sex Toys... look at us, enriching peoples' sex lives an' all!" I smirked, and she blushed.

"W-well, I suppose that's... nice?" She stuttered.

"It is, my dear, most assuredly so! Self-Care is quite important, and it fosters stronger bonds with your partners if you're able to meet their needs in a variety of ways; boring routines without a little bit of spice will lead to stagnation, after all, and we can't have that, can we?" I laughed, and used the last of the dye, before gripping the hair dryer and turning it on with a thought.

She flinched at the high-pitched whine coming from it, and then the air blowing out the other side, but gazed at it in wonder as the dye visibly dried, and I combed it further in, until my entire head of hair was dry and neon pink once more. "What... is that?!?"

"A hair dryer. I finished it about an hour ago, because I realized I needed to dry my hair, or I'd have had to sit and wait for it to dry for six hours. It can also dry paint, if used carefully, and a variety of other uses." I shrugged, and used a clean comb to fix the mess the dryer had made of my hair.

"That is... a little frightening, but also seems incredibly useful. My hair usually takes several hours to dry properly." She hummed, sitting next to me again.

"Mm. So Cobalt, Huh? I can get you a dark blue, but actual cobalt would take a few days." I examined some of her hair, and nodded. "Thick, dense, it'll hold color well, but you have to be careful; color it too often and you'll damage your hair."

"I think I'll wait... I want to see what you manage." She smiled, her emotions swelling towards affection again.

I decided to see, so I gripped her chin carefully, and kissed her cheek. She stared at me for a moment, and I nodded. "I will try my best. Not just because I think it'll work out for our Clan, but because you asked. How does that make you feel? I'm honestly curious."

She smiled and laid her head on my shoulder. "Well... it's nice." Her emotions reflected a deep sense of satisfaction, as well as an increase of her heart rate at the unexpected physical contact.

"Good. Now, I'm naked, my dear, so unless you intend to assist me in my shower,-"

She hopped up swiftly, clearing her throat. "Well!!! I-I think that, Uhm...!"

"Calm down dear, I was just teasing you. While I do want to take a shower, and you're welcome to join me, there's no sexual undertone to that offer, Luna." I patted her shoulder gently, and opened the shower door.

"Wait... how is that not sexual?"

"It's a shower, Luna. I'm not suggesting you lather me up, there's room for both of us without being smushed together. I just wondered if you'd want to try the shower." I chuckled, and hung up the towel, revealing the bikini I was wearing underneath.

"Oh... well... I can't say I'm not curious... and knowing you're not entirely naked is... calming." She sighed.

"Mmkay, I can leave the swim suit on, I suppose. You can borrow one, if you want." I pointed at the drawer that had them, and turned the water on at my preferred heat, around 90*.

"How is it so hot?" She asked, seeing the steam, and I smiled at the sound of her armor being removed.

"I built an aqueduct up at the top of the mountain, and a system to pull water from the lake; it heats up the water with sunlight on metal, then pipes it back down here, and I can pull it through the showerhead, which is so much better than a waterfall." I chuckled.

"I was curious about that, to be honest? The way you managed to get water up the mountain? Did you use magic? We have something similar in the capital, which we pay a mage to operate, but you don't have a mage, other than young Medea, Correct?" She asked, and opened the door a little, coming in with the towel around her waist.

"Correct? We used some basic physics, really, but I wouldn't want to put your Mages out of work... they're already trying to kill us because of the Artist's inventions, which caused the Challenge, and if we cause even more trouble with them..." I shrugged.

"I see... you think the Mages were the ones who paid the Mercenaries?"

"Who else has that kind of money? And who else could send an Adamantite Golem?" I asked simply, and stepped aside so she could feel the water.

She hung the towel up, covering herself self-consciously, and stepped into the spray looking a little trepidatious. Immediately, though, she groaned and turned, letting the high water-pressure massage her shoulders and back. "This... is worth it... fuck the Mages, I need one of these..."

"The head also detaches, if you have other areas you'd like it to reach." I smirked, and handed her a bar of soap, turning my back to her and turning on the second showerhead, -which was supposed to get your back, but in this regard worked well for two people showering- while she muttered at me for teasing her. A new, very urgent knock on my door made me frown, and sigh heavily.