We had solar panels left over, so I spent the next morning setting those up in an open field where they would get plenty of sun. Now was the time for urban planning, but I didn’t really have a clue what I was doing. I made sure there was space cleared for two perpendicular roads, and that was about it. After all, I didn’t know that my little spot was going to grow, I just wanted to be ready for it, if it did.

Also, before it got named Abbyburg, or something alliterative, I christened the whole thing Breezehaven. I’m not claiming I was good with names, but at least it was a nice, pleasant name I could live with.

“You should have named it Blowhaven,” Jill said. She had stayed at the crypt, mostly, but she was getting the computers set up in the new house while I worked on the interior walls.

“Huh?”

“As in what Kendala and I are going to do to you tonight!”

I groaned at the play on words, not at the idea. “Giving Talos and Kathy some space, hmm?”

“Yeah. Also, I thought a couple of the L’shan people are cute.”

I groaned again. “Jill, I know losing Earth is tough on all of us, but maybe the answer is to process the breakup a little before –”

“Oh, shush,” she told me. “I was just joking. I do think it’s smart to get to know all of them better, so I’ll be doing that, but I’m not planning on creating any diplomatic incidents. I’m here because I want to spend time with you, dummy. You’ve been off fighting wars and tilting at windmills and such, and in case you forgot, you’re the reason I’m here.”

“Aw,” I said. I kissed her.

“Well, part of the reason.”

“Hmm?”

“Well, if I ‘d stayed behind, I’d always wonder what I was missing. And here, I know what I’m missing – being an unimportant cog in a big machine.”

“Who wants to be a cog?” I agreed. That was why I always worked for myself.

“It was the unimportant part that bothered me. Here, I can make a difference.” She sighed. “I do wish I’d brought my teddy bear, though.”

“You left Snuggles behind?” Jill had Snuggles since she was five. She had learned how to sew at some point in her teenage years because Snuggles’ arm came off. Its eyes no longer matched, either, with one replaced by a button that was just a bit off.

“Snuggles,” Jill said. “Is in your bedroom back on Earth, wondering where I am.”

I wondered for a moment what had happened Earthside when the gates exploded or whatever the word for what happened to them was. It was entirely possible that Snuggles, and the whole house, had gone up in flames. Of course, magic was involved. Hopefully Snuggles wasn’t stalking the streets right now, suddenly sentient and missing his lifetime friend.

“You have a very weird look on your face, Abby. I know it’s silly to be attached to a bear, and I know he doesn’t actually miss me.”

I shook my head. “No, it’s cool. My mind just went off on a strange tangent, that’s all.”

“Also, we have no pistachios,” Jill said.

I nodded. “A lot of earth plants exist on Amaranth. We brought some seeds and stuff, but I don’t think pistachios were one of them. Maybe they exist somewhere. Or maybe there’s something similar.”

“I know we can’t make it a priority right now. And it’s weird. I left people behind. Lovers. That I can deal with straight on, because I made my choice thinking about all that. But it’s little things like pistachios that get me. It’s like going on a trip, and halfway there you realize you left something you meant to take, except we’ll never see them again.” She took a breath. “Which is exactly why I need to finish breaking up before I start seducing random guys. With Earth, I mean.”

I chuckled. “Right. Order matters.”

“I think one of the things I like building here is a polynormative society,” Jill said. “The orcs and trolls seem down with it, each in their own way of course. I’m not saying people shouldn’t be able to be mono in Abbyland, if that’s their jam, but –”

I grinned, and kept plastering as I listened. What I missed? Dry wall. It had been too much bulk to bring across very much, and just hadn’t been a priority. I’d had enough to do three-quarters of the house. But plaster required installing lath and was a pain in the ass. The lath was basically one inch thick strips of wood, used as a support for the plaster, and wood would be in short supply for a while. Still, it was what we were working with for the foreseeable future. Two trolls and an orc were watching me and learning how to do the lath and plaster work.

But Jill raised a point I hadn’t been thinking much about. We weren’t just building houses, which I knew how to do, or windmills, which was at least an adjacent skillset. We were building a society. That didn’t mean the orcs didn’t have their own culture and the trolls theirs, or that I was out to create wholesale changes. But here in Breezehaven, at least, we were making something new.

Plaster was easier to think about.

“And we have a LAN,” Jill announced with satisfaction. “Not that half the software isn’t bitching because it has no internet access. But I have a couple of old machines I picked up that come from the time before everything was on the cloud. And without the internet, Windows will never decide to update ever again!”

“Woohoo!” I said. “You’re amazing.”

“And the thing about that,” Jill said. “Is that it still works if you add ‘in bed.’”

I laughed. “Yep.”

“I like Blowhaven,” Jill said. “It signifies a place that is a haven for sexuality.”

I saw where this was going. “Uh, no,” I said. “And doesn’t it suggest approval for a particular sexual act, rather than sexual acts in general? One could, er, argue that it’s not a very feminist name.”

“Oh, bosh,” Jill said. “It’s fine. Besides, we’re in charge here.”

It took me a moment to realize that the “we” she meant was women, and that she was including me. Well. I looked down at my chest, reminding myself of my passports to inclusion. I still didn’t miss being a guy, even if now I could never go back.

The plastering took me the rest of the day, but I was able to let my students take over, with supervision, and eventually that actually made things go faster. Jill had the computer set up the way she wanted, apparently, because she left for a bit, maybe to chat up the guard.

I worked until I was exhausted, ate the food Inka had cooked and sent over, and then slept with Kendala and Jill. I did, indeed, get a two-girl blowjob. Three girls, counting me. I wasn’t so done in that I couldn’t return the favor and lick them both to orgasms. Jill loved it. Kendala kept saying that it was wrong, that she should be serving me, etc. right until she came.

In the morning, I woke up first and decided to take a little walk in the cool, morning air. Hornung, Brownwyn, and one of Hornung’s soldiers were already up, and I waved. Brownwyn waved back, and Hornung at least nodded.

I walked on. The horizon was a pretty orange-ish red, and the dew glistened on the tall prairie grass. I probably should mow that. No, I should probably show someone else how to use a lawnmower, that would only take a few minutes. Heck, once it was turned on, a zombie could do it. The lawnmower was back at the crypt, though. I radioed Kathy.

“Huh?” she said.

“Oh, did I wake you?”

“My god, Abby, what the fuck time is it?”

“Uh, I don’t know, I quit wearing a watch. Anyway, it’s morning. Are you inside the crypt? Without windows, it always seems like it’s night in there.”

“It’s six-twenty-five,” Kathy said.

“Well, if you knew, why did you ask?”

“I just looked at my phone now!” she half-screamed.

“Okay. Well, sorry. But now that you’re up… could you tell your local wight to send a couple of zombies with the lawnmower?”

“You called at six-twenty-five to get a lawnmower?”

“Um, yeah. The grass is really long. I think a four inch cut would help make the place look good. I don’t intend to ever cut it shorter than that, I’m not trying to recreate suburbia or anything, but don’t you think—”

“Abby. Queen Abby.”

“Yes?”

“Go back to bed. Pick a bed. Any bed. Wake someone else up, for some reason they’ll like better than a lawnmower. I’ll do it when I wake up, your majesty, and it will get there when it gets there. Over, out, and done.”

I frowned. Were things not going well over there with her and Talos? Why was she so cranky? But maybe she just needed some coffee. I thought of telling her that it was a beautiful morning and she should get out in it, but decided maybe that wouldn’t be well taken.

I got on my bike, and started riding toward the crypt. I could get the lawnmower myself, or at least order the zombies to take it, and get whatever else I saw that I needed and put it in the bag, and it would be a chance to see Xyla, too.

I didn’t get far before I saw a little wooden sign. I recognized the square piece of wood as something that had been left over from construction, and the post of the sign was a similarly left over piece of one by four. Not ideal, a square piece would have been better. I had to ride past it, thought, before I could see what it said on the other side.

“Welcome to Blowhaven,” it said, in Sharpie. “Established Year Zero.”

Jill’s handwriting. The sharpie wouldn’t last, and the makeshift sign probably would last more than a few months, either. She’d used a single nail to attach it to the post. As much as she knew about screwing and nailing, she knew nothing about carpentry.

I reached into the bag and got out my own Sharpie. I crossed out the word Blow, and put in the word Breeze. And chuckled.

Year Zero, huh?

I didn’t get very far into the forest before Xyla popped out in front of me and I had to slam on the brakes. The moment I came to a stop she tackle-hugged me and we ended up on the ground in a tangle of bodies and spokes.

“Whoa!” I said. “I’m happy to see you, too.”

She reached for my crotch. “Not as happy as you should be.”

“Well, it takes a few minutes. Also, it would probably help if I didn’t have a bike on top of me. Nice maple leaves, by the way.”

“I picked them out hoping you’d be dropping by sometime. I missed you.”

“I missed you, too.”

Together, we got the bike out of the way, and kissed and canoodled for a bit. She lifted the halter top I was wearing, without a bit of a concern that someone might be walking by. Which, on a forest path just after dawn was probably a reasonable assumption, but I also suspected she didn’t care if she did. Her leaves, and my shorts and panties, were removed next, and by that time I was hard enough for her to mount.

“I love mornings,” she said.

“Me too,” I said. “But I guess they aren’t for everyone.”

“Nothing like morning woods, is there?”

I wasn’t sure whether she was referring to the forest, or a particular tree, as it were, but I was pretty sure she liked both. I set out to make sure, and from the look on her face, I managed to satisfy.

“So, would brings you to my lady garden today?” she asked, when we were leaning up against a tree and cuddling after.

Again with the double meaning. “I was getting a lawnmower.”

“Oh, for Blowhaven?”

“Yes. Um, what?”

“Jill told Gren what you’d decided to call it, and Gren told me,” Xyla said. “I think it’s a wonderful name. Abby, why are you hitting your head against the tree? Doesn’t that hurt?”

“No, not at all,” I said. “It actually relieves some of the symptoms.”

“Symptoms? Are you sick? You should go see Valeria. Isn’t she back in Blowhaven? I’m sure she’d be glad to suck whatever it is right out of you.”

If I was sick, all she’d have to do was put a hand on my shoulder. “I’m not sick. It’s, um, a mental health thing.”

“Well, don’t. It’s self harm. Here, you can bump your head right here, where it’s nice and soft.” She straddled me and guided my face to her boobs.

I had been thinking that instead of banging my head I’d take some nice calming breaths, and now she was trying to asphyxiate me. Fortunately, Xyla’s chest wasn’t as big as some, and I managed to get some air.

“Better?” she asked.

“Absolutely” was my muffled reply. What else was I going to say? I reached in my bag, and got out a chocolate bar, which got her to let me breathe again as she grabbed for it.

“We’re going to run out, aren’t we?”

“Eventually,” I conceded. “But I brought a lot.”