Chapter 22: Nest

Shulk held the amethyst up to the light, checking for blemishes. He didn't see any. The next step was to polish it so he could better use the magnifying glass to check for smaller irregularities.

There was a knock at the lab door. Given the sound came from down low, it was either a child or a Nopon.

Shulk put the amethyst into a drawer and went to open the door.

"Hi, Riki."

"Hello Shulk. Riki has important news for Shulk and only Shulk."

For me specifically? That's odd. Shulk showed Riki into the lab proper. "What is it?"

Riki hopped up onto the desk. "Yesterday, Riki was helping Melly and Ponspectors do mapping. We find cave that lead to big clearing in rocks, like Riki take big round bite out of pollen cake from above. Clear area, no monsters, pretty trees, clean pond, only one way in or out, far from distraction. Riki think it perfect place to build house that Melly doesn't know she wants."

"A house for Melia?" Shulk's first instinct was that this was a great idea. Sure, she would eventually move to New Alcamoth once it was done, but she really needed a place of her own before then that wasn't just Fiora's old room. "That's a great idea, Riki."

"Of course it a great idea. But Riki worried that there be some problem he not think about, because he no know how to make Hom Hom house. So, he first go to Shulk, big brain Hom Hom with many knowings about how to build things."

"Oh so you're looking for a...risk assessment?"

"Is close enough. Riki look for advice on things he not know are important." He tilted his head. "Shulk want to visit site? It a bit more than one hour walk from colony entrance."

Shulk considered what else he was planning to do today and decided this was more important. "I'll get ready."

It took more like two hours to reach the target location, mostly because Riki was not fully used to the path and took Shulk a couple minutes in the wrong direction multiple times. But eventually, they reached a cave entrance.

"Cave is only way in or out of clearing," Riki explained. "Ponspectors try to go up and around, but find clearing surrounded by circle of sharp mountains. Very very dangerous to go up, even more dangerous to go down. So clearing very safe from anypon on foot, just add door to cave."

Shulk nodded while looking at a copy of the map. It was certainly a strange sight - a cave in the side of a gentle cliff face, leading to a perfectly circular indent in the raw rocks above surrounded by toothy mountains. There were no such formations anywhere on the Bionis.

"It almost looks like..." If he squinted, and imagined the formation at a smaller scale... "It looks like the sort of crater that things leave behind when dropped."

Riki tilted his head. "What Shulk mean?"

"Well, you wouldn't know, it's not the sort of thing Frontier Village would ever see." Shulk worked out a way to explain it. "You know the Anti-Air Batteries?"

"Riki know. Big guns in Colony 9, used to protect from Mechon attack."

"Not just Mechon. Sometimes things would fall from higher parts of the Bionis, and they protected us from those too. We called it debris. Blowing up the big pieces so they wouldn't damage the colony was a big job. So every five years or so, as a training exercise, the colonel would drop a bunch of stuff on purpose. Sometimes he'd send a unit to do it, other times he'd get Colony 6's help. Because it was for training, they never got everything, but they only missed the stuff that was far away from the colony. And when that happened, and something big hit the ground, it would sometimes leave a circular hole like this."

"So Shulk think this hole from big huge rock from sky?"

Shulk frowned. "When you put it like that, it sounds crazy. But it looks very similar."

"All Riki know is, it safe space." He gestured toward the cave. "We go in."

The Ponspectors had returned since the original mapping and left behind pollen orb torches, so the cave was well-lit. (Though he noticed a blank spot where a creature had presumably eaten one or carried it off, so they'd need to be replaced with more permanent ether lamps.) It was a short journey to the other side.

Shulk looked around the clearing. A pond, a cluster of trees with a few loners scattered around, and effectively nothing else but grass, all surrounded with looming rock walls.

"I see what you mean, Riki. The cliffs are a bit scary-looking, but it sure is peaceful and private here."

Riki started to hop. "Riki will show you where he think house should go."

The pair walked to a point in the clearing a bit beyond the centre, furthest from any of the trees.

"Right...here!" Riki stomped a foot in the dirt.

Shulk nodded and took another look around from the new location. "How big a house were you thinking?"

"Riki did not think very specific." He scratched his head. "Not want put too much work into house Melly not live in for too long. But on other paw, Melly very picky. Need house to be good enough for Melly to want to live here, or Melly just stay with Dundun."

"Well, if we make it good enough, it could be like a cottage or something, even after she moves back to the city. It'd turn into a place for her to take a break and unwind, rather than live in full-time."

"Oooh, Riki likes this idea."

Shulk started sketching out a floor plan in his notebook. "If we get enough volunteers, we could get even a pretty good house put here in a month. Two floors and a basement, with enough room for some guests to hang out. Could even finish the basement if we have time, that'll give her some extra rooms for, I dunno, storage or maybe an office. But just the one bedroom, no one's going to be sleeping over or anything."

Riki looked at Shulk, but said nothing, and started to cycle between several "thinking" poses while hmming and hawwing.

Wonder what he's thinking about, Shulk thought. Why does he seem to be so conflicted over what I just said? Was he just thinking smaller, and I've gone way beyond what he expected?

After what must have been over three minutes, Riki snapped back to enthusiastic nodding and bobbing. "Riki agree with Shulk. Shulk can make full design for Melly's house, while Riki will start recruiting helpers for building. But is BIG SECRET! Melly no learn about this until we surprise her!"

"Sounds good." Shulk had already started the second floor of his sketch. "It's kind of a long walk though. We'll want to build a transporter."

"Yes, very good idea, Bird People device very helpful for getting people and materials into clearing."

Shulk had a nasty thought. "Ooooh. That reminds me, we'll need utilities, and there aren't any out here."

"You-till-ill-teas?"

"Running water, sewage disposal, electricity, that sort of thing."

"Oh. Yes. Melly is Bird Person, she needs Bird People house parts."

"Actually, I wonder..." Shulk reached into his bag. Aside from lunches for the two of them, he'd packed a couple surveying tools, and from them extracted an ether compass. "Maybe there's a buried ether deposit around here. If it's a matching element in a convenient place, she could get her water and power from there."

Riki blinked a few times and shrugged. "Riki only know Nopon house parts. Riki will let Shulk use his big Hom Hom brain to figure this out."

Shulk held the ether compass flat. It was a fairly expensive and good-quality one, with a full nine ether needles plus a magnetic needle. He waited for the needles to stop spinning.

"...Hm, that's odd." He lightly tapped the compass, but again, only the magnetic needle picked a direction and stayed there. All the ether needles were drifting aimlessly. "The ether needles are all wandering, like they can't find any significant ether anywhere. But if there was really nothing at all out here, they'd eventually point back to the colony, even this far away. So what could it mean that they aren't settling at all?"

Riki lifted himself up to get a look. "Maybe ether in all directions at once?"

"Hmmmm."

Shulk picked a direction and started walking. At first, the needles continued to drift. But he noticed they were starting to prefer one direction more as he walked - it didn't take long before they were all pointing mostly the same direction, only wobbling a little. He turned to his left and started walking in a circle.

"I've got it," he said after some time. "There's a huge ether deposit right under us. It was pointing in all directions because we were standing on top of it."

"Perfect!" Riki cried. "Nice and big ether source for Melly's house to sit on!"

"Wonder how that happened. How did all this different ether get under the ground in this weird hole in the rock and ring of mountains?" Shulk stared down at the compass. Each needle was tuned to one type of ether: fire, water, electric, wind, earth, ice, light, dark, and pure. He'd seen a bunch of them point the same way when near devices such as engines that used varied mixes of ethers, but not in the wild, and certainly never all nine.

"Shulk said hole look like big rock fall from sky. Maybe rock was full of ether crystals, hit ground and go melty."

"Yeah, maybe." That actually made a good amount of sense, assuming the ridiculous premise of giant rocks from the sky. He wrote a note for himself to think about it later.

There was a scary rumble.

"Riki getting hungry."

Shulk nodded. "Me too. Let's go sit under one of these trees."

The duo picked a tree, unpacked the lunches, and ate. Shulk continued to sketch during the meal; by the time they had finished, he had both the ground and upper floors mapped out, as well as most of the basement.

Riki leaned over to look at the drawings. "Shulk really putting effort into project from start."

Shulk chuckled. "I want to make sure it gets done right. I'll do whatever has to be done, measure the counters, plan the pipes, set up the wiring, all of that. It'll take time out of the other stuff I'm doing, but this is more important. Melia needs this."

"Riki no doubt. Shulk help make house bestest house for Melly."

Melia stretched her arms and legs before re-packing her paperwork and standing up. She'd commandeered a room in what was originally the Colony 6 reconstruction HQ for the planning of New Alcamoth, and had been spending a couple days working with others getting the initial plans in order.

She left the building, thinking about what to make for dinner. She'd indulged Dunban's preferences last night, so today it was Shulk's turn - perhaps another try at some homemade pizza, with pepperoni on one half and olives on the other. But once she reached the transport hub, the collection of transporters that would send her back to Colony 9, a different thought entered her mind: she didn't want to have to go back.

She had been getting used to living in Fiora's room, but there was no shedding the sensation of being cramped. It was a bit easier now that Dunban had gathered his courage and started to sell or donate his sister's and parents' things, but even the room being a bit emptier of possessions didn't do much for her need to feel alone. At least that's what she believed it was, given she had noticed she was feeling less stressed when going on walks outside the colony, and felt disincentivised to return to being cooped up in someone else's house.

Well, there was nothing that could be done about it. Perhaps in a few months, there would be enough new houses in one of the colonies (probably Colony 6, it was expanding the fastest) that there wouldn't be any more refugees to move in, and she could rent one for a few years until New Alcamoth was habitable. But for now, she had to do with living with her friends. She stepped through the transporter to Colony 9.

"Ah!"

"Aaaah!"

Shulk had been walking onto the transporter pad on the Colony 9 side. The two were not close enough for any safety features to trigger, but enough so that it was a surprise to see each other.

"Hi. How did it go today?" asked Shulk.

"A significant amount of progress was made."

"Good." Shulk's eyes darted around a bit, like he was unsure how to continue. "Well, it's a good thing we ran into each other because, uh...I was coming to get you because, um...I have a surprise for you."

Do you now? That might explain some things. Melia kept a straight face and awaited an explanation. She had a suspicion this had to do with him having effectively vanished for the past month or so. She'd expected him to spend a lot of time in the lab, but whenever she went to check he didn't seem to be there, enough times now that it was unlikely she was just always missing him. They were both still living in Dunban's house, so it wasn't like they never saw each other or didn't talk every day, but it was still decidedly odd that Shulk had been so sparse.

Shulk was hoping for a response, so he fumbled a bit. "It's, uh, well you have to come see it. I don't...I don't have it on me." He chuckled nervously.

"By this you mean, it is too large for you to carry?" She didn't have any idea what it could be, but this was a logical conclusion.

"Yeah." Did she guess it? I hope not. How could she?

"I suppose I await this reveal then. Go ahead, attempt to delight me."

Shulk pointed out an unlabelled transporter pad that had not been present in the morning. Melia focused her ethersense on it to determine it didn't go as far as any of the others.

"That's it?" she asked.

"Uhhhhh..." Shulk didn't seem ready for what had to come next. "Can you...put this on?" He held out a strip of cloth.

Melia blinked once. "What is it, and for what purpose?"

"I-It's a blindfold. I...well, I don't want you to maybe catch sight of it too early. It...well we've established it's big." He tried to chuckle again but only got some air out.

He is incredibly nervous, Melia thought. He has spent the past month on some passion project and is worried that I won't like it, or otherwise react in a way he does not expect. It would behoove me to act predictable and accept his demands, at least for now.

"Very well, I accept this request." She carefully tied the blindfold onto her face, blacking out the world.

Shulk tested the blindfold by holding a hand up to her face, waving it, and pretending to throw a punch.

Melia couldn't see the hand, but her ethersense revealed in vague terms what Shulk was doing. She had to force herself to not react to his motion.

"Okay, here we go." Shulk took Melia's hand and guided her towards the pad.

The two passed through the transporter without further word, appearing in the rock-walled clearing. Shulk continued to pull Melia towards the destination. Once there, he stopped and let go.

"How does it feel?"

Melia cast her mind around the immediate vicinity. Grass. Some trees. A pond. No significant wildlife. Yet something felt unusual about the earth, as if the land was...radially polarised? She pressed her ethersense deeper, tuning her mind further into the uncanny underground. Then she found it.

"I feel like a great power lies beneath us. New yet ancient, idle yet chaotic, of more intertwined energies than should be stable in nature."

Shulk tilted his head. "Well, you're not wrong about that. There's a huge ether deposit buried here. My best guess is that meteors in this world are more solid and can actually cause damage when they land."

Melia turned towards him. "Is that the surprise?"

"Not entirely." He approached, stepped around behind her, and undid the blindfold.

Melia fought to remain still. Feeling Shulk's fingers prodding her head in the darkness was a new sensation, and she wasn't sure whether she wanted it to stop immediately or continue forever.

The first thing she saw once the blindfold fell away was the small wooden gazebo that the transporter had been placed in, painted beige and blue. She could also see a cave in the distance, a dark hole in the far rock wall.

I recognise this place. This is the mysterious clearing within the rock walls that the Ponspectors discovered while I was with them a month or so ago. I must have been very disinterested to have not noticed the ether deposit before...then again, even now I did not notice anything was amiss until I focused my senses towards the ground. If that is not the surprise, yet a transporter has been placed here, something else must have been discovered here. Or perhaps constructed.

She turned around slowly in case she would need to be told to stop.

There was a house in the clearing. Two storeys tall, it was painted in the same beige and blue as the gazebo, though with additional trimmings in the form of a deep lavender. A bench was sitting on the front porch in front of the window, covered from the inside by a blue curtain. The front door was on the left side. It was an unusual sight compared to a typical house in the colonies. Shulk stood off to the side with a nervous smile.

Melia's first reaction was confusion. "This is a strange place to build a house, is it not? Away from any existing settlements? I can't imagine it would be very convenient."

Shulk shrugged. "It's got a transporter linked to the hub network, and it's plugged into the buried ether deposit so it won't run out of power for at least a thousand years. It's probably more convenient actually, because the transporter can be turned off. There's a control panel both next to the pad and in the house." He pointed towards the cave. "We put a door at the cave entrance as well, so that can also be locked. A whole house and clearing that no one else can get into."

"When you put it like that, it's..." Melia looked around, taking in the size of the clearing in the rocks, figuring out how much she wanted to say. "Cleaners and guards have always had free reign to enter my chambers, and in the past few months I've been sharing accommodations with others. I've had little if any privacy for my entire life. I...to be honest, I struggle to comprehend the scale of this isolation."

"It'll probably be a learning process, yeah." Shulk stepped towards the house and waved her closer. "C'mon, I'll show you around."

Melia nodded and followed.

As they approached, Shulk kept speaking. "I designed pretty much the whole thing, and helped build a lot of it. I made sure it's up to code in every aspect, and then went a bit further, because who knows what the weather might be like around here. So for example, the code says you only have to cover down to 5 degrees, so I over-insulated the heck out of it, I think it'll still be warm inside if it drops down into minus 10 outside. In the same way, it should also stay cool inside if it gets real hot out. I don't know what the numbers would be for that but I'm guessing 35 degrees would still be good."

They reached the front door. Shulk pushed it open and they stepped inside.

The front hall was fairly open. A window sat in the left wall overlooking two staircases, one leading up and the other down. On the immediate right was a coat closet, while further forward the room extended further to the right with an open doorway to the next room. The far wall had an open doorway to the kitchen. Everything was either off-white, or the same sky-blue or deep lavender from the exterior.

"This is rather expansive for a Homs house," Melia commented.

"Well, most Homs houses are in colonies that no one wanted to expand," Shulk replied. "They had to be built compact so they wouldn't take up too much of the Bionis' land, not when we had to also fit in barracks, defences, farms, and so on. But here, we've got all the room we want. It was a different kind of fun to design, actually."

They stepped through the doorway to the right. Melia noted a powder room behind the closet as they passed by. The right room stretched to the back of the house. The front half had a couch and a couple chairs, while the back half housed a dining table and several more chairs. Two windows and a fireplace occupied the right wall.

"It felt wrong to put a wall here," Shulk explained, "so it's both the living room and dining room. Didn't really need a fireplace, since the furnace is powered by the ether deposit, but Riki insisted it needed some of that old-timey feel. I think it worked out okay."

Melia nodded. "I suppose you are expecting our friends to visit often? To have enough chairs for us all and more?"

"Well it wouldn't hurt. Better to have too many chairs than not enough."

Another open doorway on the left led to the kitchen. A window on the left wall overlooked a counter, which wound around the back wall through a cluster of cabinets, a dishwasher, a large sink, a stove and oven, and a refrigerator. An island sat in the middle, surrounded by a bunch of stools.

Melia looked around in surprise. "This is a large kitchen for one person."

Shulk chuckled. "You'll be cooking here, right? I assumed you'd want a lot of room and supplies."

"I suppose you're right." She thought about how she had to be very careful and economic in using Dunban's kitchen for some meals. This one would be much easier to work in.

"I'll show you the basement now."

Shulk led her down the stairs. The basement was open and unfinished, but the framework for all the walls was in place, and supplies scattered around implied that completing it was planned for the near future. The furnace, air conditioner, and water heater were visible in a back corner.

"It's not quite done yet," he continued. "But I couldn't wait any longer to show the rest of the place off, and it's all done enough to live in. And to be honest I don't really know what the rooms down here would be used for. I was actually hoping you might have some ideas."

"Not at present, but I shall consider it." I'm surprised you didn't simply make the whole thing one big workshop, but I suppose that's not necessary when the lab is still open. Perhaps a storage room, a smaller workshop, and...hmmm, what else?

"Right, upstairs now." Shulk led the way to the top floor.

The upper hall was comparatively long and thin, stretching from the back of the house most of the way to the front. Three closed doors dotted the hall, two pointing to the side and the far one pointing straight on.

Shulk went to open the far door first, to the small room above the front hall. "This is the laundry room."

Melia peeked inside without entering. It was fairly basic: washer, dryer, shelves for linens, and an ironing board, with a front window. She nodded and backed out.

"This is the office." Shulk opened the door at the other end, skipping the middle door for the moment. The room within was mostly empty, with just a desk, a chair, and a window out the back. "Not much in here, mostly because I wasn't sure yet what it needs."

"You think the house needs an office when the colonies are so easily accessible via transporter?"

"Well it can always be turned into some other room, like, I dunno..." He looked around. "Maybe a study. Could fit a good amount of books in here."

Melia felt compelled to say something short. "I like books."

Unprepared for the simple sentence, Shulk started laughing and had difficulty remaining upright. It took him a couple moments to recover.

"Yeah, books," he wheezed out. "Books are good." He started to calm down. "Anyway, now the bedroom."

The middle door from the hall led to the master bedroom. Two windows sat on the house's front wall to the right, with a comfortable reading chair next to one. The queen-size bed was against the far wall. The room was an L-shape pointing to the left, so whatever was in the back-left corner was not immediately visible. Several empty shelves were spread about the walls.

"Every room has blue," Shulk said, "but this one has the most blue. I thought it was a good idea because it's a calming colour, so good for sleeping."

Melia was only kind of listening. She was occupied with the yearning to own such a bedroom, with its large size and soothing appearance. It would be an immeasurable improvement over her current situation.

Shulk kept going. "I assumed books and trinkets and so on would go in here, so that's what the shelves are for. I thought about adding a desk, but decided not to because of the office, so that might change if the office changes. The closet's kind of big, but I felt the room itself was a bit large, so might as well shrink it a bit."

Melia stepped around the L-corner to see two doors, one leading to the closet and the other leading to a bathroom. "That is indeed a fairly large closet." Smaller than mine in the palace, but given how I've lived lately, it feels on that scale.

"And then the bathroom." Shulk led the way into the master bathroom. It was fairly simple - toilet, sink, cabinets, and shower-bath combination, all mostly white.

"Is that a handheld shower head?" Melia momentarily lost herself and dashed forward to grab it from its perch, the hose following effortlessly. "It is! I am truly shocked, I thought no Homs had ever conceived of the concept before."

Shulk nodded. "There's actually a lot of High Entia technology in the house, this one is just obvious at a glance. For example, all the lightbulbs are High Entia-made. Nothing from the Machina, but that's mostly because it's a lot harder to integrate without looking really badly out of place. And it's all metal, so it'd be uncomfortable."

Melia carefully replaced the hose and head. "I don't know why I'm surprised. It was our hope that our races would combine their assets and knowledge. Let this be a blueprint for the future."

"Yeah, I hope so." They left the bathroom.

Shulk was considering taking Melia back downstairs for this next part, but decided to turn in front of the door and do it right here in the bedroom. "So how do you like it?"

Melia took a deep breath to repress her jealousy and collect her thoughts. "I must congratulate you, Shulk. This house is an impressive feat of modern engineering, especially compared to the average dwelling in the colonies. It must have been a satisfying challenge to design, build, furnish, and decorate. I do hope you enjoy living here."

Shulk was smiling and nodding as she spoke, but then he suddenly changed to confusion. "What? No, I'm not living here. It's just for-"

"Not you?" Suddenly Melia was even more confused than him. "But...but the over-engineering! The isolated plot! The blue colour scheme! The inclusion of High Entia elements! The entire month you spent on it all! Who else could this possibly be for?"

...She really hasn't figured it out. She thought this was about me the whole time, she went this whole tour thinking I built this house for myself. Wow.

I guess I'm probably about to see some emotion. Hopefully it goes all right.

Shulk reached into his pocket. "Oh, I have something for you. Close your eyes and hold out your hand."

Melia was further confused by this, but slowly did so. She then watched through her ethersense as Shulk took something out of his pocket, something small and inert enough that she couldn't quickly tell what it was against the ether of a person, and held it above her outstretched hand.

She then felt a key land in her palm.

Without waiting for further instruction, she opened her eyes to see it was small, gold, and engraved with the emblem of the royal family.

"W-W-What is this for?" she asked, trying to suppress the new and unidentifiable emotion that threatened to provide its own answer.

Shulk tried to smile proudly, and mostly succeeded. "This house. Your house."

Melia's train of thought dashed in a dozen different directions and refused to pick one that had words attached. The common element was pure disbelief.

"T-t-t-...n-no, t-t-that...that can't...you can't...!" The unidentifiable emotion was swelling, and if she couldn't figure it out what it was in the next few seconds, she had no hope of containing it.

Shulk stepped forward to put an arm around her.

Melia responded with a wail and latched onto him as if she would fall out of a tree if she didn't hold tight, followed by sobbing.

I think she got it. Shulk cautiously patted her head. He considered that they hadn't hugged since...well, he couldn't quickly think of when, so it might've been back in the world of Bionis. I wonder if she likes hugs to be a rare thing, or she just isn't used to doing it.

Meanwhile, Melia had become aware that she'd lost her composure, and had vaguely decided to just let her feelings run out than to try and forcibly interrupt them. She still wasn't sure exactly what emotion was happening, but she had a guess that it was some combination of relief and gratitude, with a large helping of disbelief that Shulk had done all of this for her.

Shulk craned his neck to get a glimpse out the window and saw that the volunteers had started to arrive. He could already see Reyn at the barbecue.

"Let me know when you're ready," he said, "and we can go get dinner."

"Mmmmm?" She wasn't sure she had any words yet, so she didn't elaborate.

Shulk pointed outside. "Riki said we had to have a party when the house was done. "We" being the fifty-ish people that helped build it. They're probably expecting you to say thanks and all that. So once you're ready, we should head out there."

After some consideration, Melia pushed away from Shulk. "Y...You go on ahead. I need to...I must cast my eye upon everything once more now that I have the correct context for it, and...I would like to do so at my leisure."

Shulk suspected she just wanted to be alone so she could prepare a thank-you speech, but that was okay. "All right, I'll wait out on the porch." With that, he left.

Melia waited to hear the front door open and close. She focused her ethersense outside to see Shulk taking to someone - ah, it was Riki - before sitting on the bench on the porch. Riki then moved away, so presumably Shulk had told him to not bother her.

She wasn't lying just to get Shulk to leave; she really did want to have another look around now that she was no longer misinformed. It didn't actually take all that long - in hindsight, many of her initial thoughts were rooted in jealousy, so she'd already formed some of an opinion in the context of the house being hers. Only a few minutes later and she found herself back in the foyer, having finished looking over everything.

Despite all the crying that had happened earlier, it felt like the truth hadn't really sunk in yet; somehow the back of her mind still told her that this was Shulk's house rather than hers. It might take a while for that to be fixed.

Melia cautiously opened the front door and stepped back outside. There was indeed a large crowd milling about, but luckily none of them were currently paying attention to her.

She turned to Shulk on the bench. "I am ready."

Shulk nodded and stood up. The two then left the porch and approached the party.

Riki was hanging at the near edge of the crowd, waiting for them. Once they got within earshot he started to get the attention of everyone.

"FRIENDS! PARTYGOERS! BUILD-HELPERS! NEW HOMEOWNER MELLY IS HERE!"

Applause travelled through the crowd. Melia decided to just let it die rather than responding or cutting it off.

There was an awkward silence.

Riki looked at her with confusion. "Melly is not going to say speech of thankfulness?"

Melia shook her head. This was exactly the question she was hoping to play her plan off of. "How could I possibly? No words exist that can express the degree of my thanks towards you all. Concocting a speech would be a waste of time when we can simply return to the merriment."

"Is speech enough. Riki welcome Melly home!"

There was more applause; it tapered off faster than the previous round as people got back to their food and conversations.

Riki spun back around. "Riki will let Melly do what she wants at party. Have fun!" He hopped off towards a group of Nopon craftsmen.

First I'll solve the hunger problem. Melia looked at what people were eating. Hamburgers and hotdogs appeared to be the main attraction, with some other mystery items she couldn't identify at a glance. All the other times she'd sampled something from a grill, she'd requested something she was already familiar with. She supposed this was as good a time as any to try a burger - they were basically meat sandwiches, right?

She stepped up to the grill, manned by Reyn. His apron featured a drawing of a cut of meat and read "Now It's Prime Time".

"How goes it, Reyn?"

Reyn grinned. "Beau'iful. Perfect weather, great turnout, everything's just peachy. You here to order?"

"Yes. I would like a hamburger."

"What'd'ya want on it? We got cheese, ketchup, mustard, relish, onion, lettuce, tomato, pickles, the fancy olive, and o' course the chef's special Reyn Sauce, a trade secret obviously."

Melia had no baseline to work with, so unless she wanted to take a shot in the dark as to what toppings she liked on a hamburger, she should have either everything or nothing. She reached deep into her lexicon to try and find the correct "hip" and "cool" term.

"The works."

Reyn looked surprised for a moment but nodded. "Comin' right up. It'll be just a tick." He flipped a patty on the grill and slapped cheese on it. "How 'bout you Shulk, the usual?"

Shulk had been sticking by Melia's side the entire time. "Yeah."

"Got it." He reached for more cheese.

Melia decided to hang around and watch Reyn do his work. He showed a surprising amount of skill at managing all the different orders, though he had a hard time with peoples' names.

It didn't take long for him to take the burger meant for Melia and place it on a bun on a paper plate, then start putting a bit of everything on it. The stack grew ever taller.

"And there it is." Reyn applied the top of the bun and stuck the olive on top. "One everything burger for Melia." He held the plate out to her.

"Oh dear." Melia took the plate carefully as if the slightest motion would cause the burger to tip over. "I seem to have miscalculated."

"Just give 'er the squeeze and it'll be fine. Worst case, some stuff will spurt out the backside."

"That is not very encouraging."

Melia placed her hand on top of the burger and started to flatten it. This crushed the lettuce and squished the bun, which helped somewhat, but it remained imposingly tall.

"Here." Shulk slipped a dozen napkins onto her plate.

"Thank you." She placed a napkin in her hand so whatever inevitably spurted out wouldn't soil her glove and cautiously picked up the burger, wishing she had a place to put down the plate so she could use both hands. She then opened as wide as she could and took a big bite.

It was surprisingly tasty; she'd gotten most if not all of the toppings, which almost overpowered the meat entirely. However, it was quite a lot to take in all at once.

"And one usual for Shulk." Reyn put just ketchup on a cheeseburger and handed it to Shulk.

Shulk took the plate somewhat absent-mindedly. He was transfixed by the visual of Melia successfully getting a full bite of the tall burger.

Reyn beamed at Melia. "So how is it?"

Melia dabbed at her mouth. "Somewhat overwhelming, to be honest, but overall a positive experience. At the very least, I know which toppings I'll be leaving out if there is a next time."

She started to wander around, listening in to the conversations around and participating in some of them, Shulk following her every step. From this, she learned much from behind the scenes of the house they had built for her - the efforts to sneak materials and volunteers around beneath her notice, the attempts to secretly learn what her preferences in a home might be, the challenges in integrating the intended technologies in new ways. It was a pretty impressive effort overall.

Not long after Melia finished her burger (having managed to control its mess reasonably well), Dunban approached and asked when she wanted to move her things into the new house. She immediately hurried to pack, which took not long at all due to how much she had avoided spreading herself out across Fiora's room, and in no time she had her fully-loaded two suitcases and handbag placed on the front porch.

The crowd eventually began to thin out as people left. The high rock walls gave the illusion that the sun set earlier, so by the time everyone had gone, it seemed much darker out than it actually was. In the end, only Melia, Shulk, and Riki remained.

Riki looked up at Melia. "Only kingpins of secret house project left here. Melly can speak truth now."

Melia shook her head. "There were no untruths just because the general public was present. I would not lie about my relief or gratitude simply to make the effort seem valid. There is nothing left for me to say."

"Hahahah! Riki thought Melly might say this, he just wanted to hear it. Well, all well that end well. Night-night, new homeowner Melly!"

He scrambled off towards the transporter and vanished.

Shulk took a deep breath. He didn't like parties, so being alone again was nice. "So, when do you want us back to finish the basement? Should only take a week or two."

Melia thought about it for a moment. "I would appreciate some days without ongoing construction to begin my stay here."

"That's what I thought. Let me or Riki know, and we'll gather the guys to get it done. Just don't leave it too long."

"I shall."

"Oh yeah, one last thing."

Shulk dipped his hand back into his pocket and pulled out a second key. It was the same shape as the one he'd handed Melia, though a blue-purple colour instead of gold. "This is the spare key. I assume you're fine with me having it."

"Of course. I trust you will keep it safe." She also trusted that he wouldn't misuse it to get into the house without her permission, which would be difficult anyway, as she intended to take full advantage of the ability to disable the transporter and lock the cave.

"All right. I'll..." He paused to think about it for a moment. "Well I guess I might not actually see you tomorrow, you might be too busy getting used to the new house. So, enjoy it I guess."

"I should hope so."

Shulk nodded, turned, and left.

Melia walked over to the cave entrance and tested the buttons on the control panel that had been installed, prompting a large metal shutter to slide in and seal the entryway, only unlockable from the inside. It could still be opened on either side by the emergency release, but doing so would sound an alarm and so was probably secure enough. She then went to the gazebo and disabled the transporter, with felt much more definitive in terms of preventing access.

It was quiet. Almost too quiet, had there not been a slight breeze in the trees, and a bird tweeting in the distance.

The feeling of isolation suddenly kicked in. She wasn't just alone, she was entirely alone. She was not only at least an hour's walk from the nearest settlement, but even someone who took that walk wouldn't be able to get in without doing some advanced mountaineering. And even if they did that, they would be stopped at the front door without the key that Shulk was protecting. She was more alone than she'd ever been. She could do anything and get away with it with practically zero risk of discovery. It was...both freeing and worrying, in a sense.

She spontaneously decided to sit at the foot at the nearest tree. The breeze was nice and cool, and she had a good view of the new house - her new house.

...Now what am I going to do with those plans? She was thinking about the three-storey mansion the New Alcamoth design committee had set aside for her. She had balked at the idea of having all that valuable space taken up by just herself, but they insisted that their ruler deserved it, and refused to let her strike it. Maybe now that she had been provided a house elsewhere, they would relent.

On that note, would she actually continue to live here after the city's completion? It was a good question. For now it was certainly better than occupying Dunban's house, but there was a strong case to be made that she ought to live with her people once the opportunity arose. It wouldn't actually be any more practical, given she could simply transport there every day, and it certainly wouldn't be as isolated and safe as this lonely location. Then again, it wouldn't be nearly as obscure or inaccessible the moment it became normal to see ships in the sky once more.

If that becomes a problem, I see no reason we couldn't install aerial defences around this circular meadow. Nothing too obvious, just an invisible forcefield to start with...

Melia's mind started to wander, thinking about this new house, the mansion the others had planned for her, and New Alcamoth in general. She lost track of time, and it felt like it was suddenly very dark out. About half the sky was cloudy, so only some stars were visible.

She got up and went back into the house, taking her luggage with her. It felt too late to do much with it, so after bringing it upstairs, she extracted only the nightgown and prepared for bed. Everything felt a bit strange, as it normally did when readying to sleep in an unfamiliar place, but at the same time she could feel the peace of having no one to bother her for kilometres around.

My word, the bed is so soft. How long has it been since I've last slept in my palace chambers? Multiple months at this point. I wonder if this is of equal softness, or it simply seems so from how long I've gone without anything similar.

I still have a hard time believing it. I must have shown my discomfort and distress with my living situation enough for others to notice...or perhaps Riki simply decided that I needed a house more than his other friends. Normally I would sulk and rebuke myself for not sufficiently hiding my emotions, but I suppose it has worked in my favour this time.

Though I suppose there is one bad thing to come out of this...

How am I to ever repay Shulk for this?