Because the coop still needs building and the chickens still need housing and the world doesn't stop for dead men.
My hands won't stop shaking. They'll stop when they're holding a hammer.
Rhen is there. He's finished the crossbars on his own. Neat and solid.
"You didn't have to."
"You say that a lot."
"Because people keep doing things they don't have to."
"Maybe they want to." He hands me the hammer. "Maybe stop arguing about it."
Walls up, nesting boxes outlined, chicken wire stretched and nailed. My shoulders are screaming and my knees hate me and it's real work, tangible work, something growing under my hands while my brain chews on the pastemath—one and a half jars used today, three and a half remaining, another half jar tomorrow for Liara's second dose, three if there's no new attack—
"Settlements are gathering." Rhen.
"That's what it sounded like."
"If they find out you're here—"
"I know."
"They'll call you a traitor. Worse."
"Probably."
He's watching me.
"Why are you still here, Melori?"
I look at him. The boy in the ditch was barely alive when I found him. This man is solid and quiet and spent his morning building me a chicken coop.
"Because people need help."
We finish by early afternoon. Rhen, Halek, Fenwick, and me. Solid walls, clean gate, deep posts. Nesting boxes rough but functional. I'll line them with straw later.
I move the chickens in. Nugget first—she waddles through the gate. Head high. Unbothered. The hens follow. Keer Jr. goes last, screaming the whole way, but once he's inside he goes quiet.
For two seconds.
Then he screams again. Proprietary this time. His territory.
"You're welcome."
More screaming.
The sun's lower than I thought. My shadow stretches past the gate.
The hunters brought back a deer—large, heavy with autumn fat—and by evening I'm at the fire pit with Kestria, helping prep it.
She found me an hour ago. Didn't say anything about the clearing. Just started working beside me. Didn't ask if I was okay. Didn't bring it up. Just—knife, meat, hands moving.
My knife slides through the deer in clean strokes.
Footsteps behind us.
Kestria's knife pauses for half a second. Resumes.
