Emery

Emery leaned on the balcony railing outside her bedroom, idly taking in the Basin as it lay before her. In the couple of months since the whole enemy attack on Flowing Dragon City, things had done what they always do - change while staying much the same.

The Basin was in the process of something like a remodel. After Leon's infiltration and the, admittedly minor, damage he caused, Emery and Avuri had decided it was time for a small makeover for the whole living space.

As it was, the layout of the Basin hadn't really been altered since Emery had first decided to lay down her roots there. She had prepared their home for a large number of people, and it had lasted them something like sixteen years with minimal changes required.

They had finally run up against a wall with it, though.

Emery and her father had built the main family's house, plus six smaller ones to account for plenty of potential children. As it was, their family was split between the main house and five of the smaller ones, with the sixth house left generally empty to serve as a guest house for visitors. Over the years, that usually meant Vale or Emery's siblings on the occasional visit.

In the last year or so, there were enough people regularly staying with them that Emery felt like it was time to expand a little - the six additional houses just weren't enough to house everyone comfortably. Especially with the addition of Avuri's cousins who were looking to stay, and Talya and her husband looking to stay at least until their baby was born.

So, just a few days after the family had thrown the BBQ to try to improve everyone's moods, Emery got the family together and put them to work.

The main house was situated almost as centrally as they could manage. The massive Elder Wisteria tree took up the actual center of the Basin, but they had put the main house right next to it, with the rear corner of the house practically brushing up against the trunk.

The path that led away from the main house's front door split into a left or right path. Going right would lead straight to the massive dirt patch that the family basically used as a playground. It was just an empty section of the land that was used however the kids saw fit. Whether that was for fighting practice, exercise, or games could change at any given moment. It was also the area that had functioned as the gathering place for events like the recent party.

Paths broke off from the playground that led through the trees and plants that were everywhere in the Basin. Most of the paths were similar to game trails that the kids had worn into the ground over time, and many led to various sections of the mountain wall that functioned as a natural barrier for their living space.

However, one path from the playground led out and around the large section of land that was set aside for farming. A little more than a quarter of the Basin's actual land was set aside for farming. The area was broken up into a regular field and a rice field, with just a bit of land and fence separating the two.

Every few years, Emery and Avuri would get a few of the older kids to help them swap the locations of the fields to try to keep everything in a loose rotation. It wasn't something that either imagined was incredibly important, but it was easy enough to prep the land for crops - both rice and non-aquatic crops - thanks to their Cultivation.

Unfortunately, Emery was pretty sure that despite their best efforts, the amount of land they had to devote toward crops simply wasn't enough to support their family any longer. At least not comfortably. While the higher Realm Cultivators could survive for long stretches of time with minimal food, sitting down together for family meals was a tradition that Emery didn't want to let go of. It had been a few years now since they had started regularly taking trips into the city to buy food supplies to cover the sheer amount of food they needed.

When they had started to look at remodeling the Basin this time, there had been a long talk about whether they should even bother keeping the crop fields. They took up a lot of space, and ultimately didn't provide enough food. While they focused the first few days of work on adding homes, the discussion had bounced back and forth. Eventually settled on keeping the crop fields - mostly because they had no better idea of what to replace them with.

Emery was reluctant to remove them, if she were honest with herself. She liked the occasional day of labor required to take care of the fields, and they made for good chores for the kids to take in shifts too. And teaching them all how to properly farm was a lesson she wanted them all to learn.

In the end, though, she had agreed that if they found a more pressing need for the extra space that the crop fields would be the first things to go.

If Emery instead walked out of their house and went to the left, the path would take her to their small little village of buildings.

From the balcony she stood on, she could see the two open pagodas that were the family's communal spaces. The smaller of the two was designed to fit the whole family during meals, with long tables and even a large open-air kitchen.

The larger of the two was likewise an open pagoda, but was used for training and meditation. There were massive sliding wooden frame doors all the way around the pavilion that all moved on separate tracks. It allowed them to keep the sides mostly open by stacking the doors, or to fully enclose the space if they ever felt the need. The doors were even reinforced with Arrays, making the space safe if there was ever any danger.

Both buildings were currently beset with scaffolding and other materials laying around, as they were both being expanded. While they could still fit everyone inside the two pavilions, the sizes were getting concerningly close to ending up with people spilling out during family time. With all of the other construction, it seemed like a solid idea to build additions to them as well.

Situated a little behind the main house and to the left side was the bath house. Although Emery couldn't see it from her spot on the balcony, she could picture the moss-covered wood and stone building as clearly as if it was before her. It, also, had required a size update as the family grew. She and Vale had made it rather large when she first arrived, but the size was no longer able to comfortably accommodate everyone at once.

Admittedly, it had been a few years since the family had all bathed at once because there simply wasn't space. But with the new additions, Emery was excited to get everyone into the hot bath together again. Sure, the kids weren't all that little any more, but she still thought the time spent together was well worth it.

And as an added bonus, the new bath itself was better crafted and freshly made. Hopefully they wouldn't need to refill the water so often without the huge crack in the bath's foundation that her and Avuri had incidentally caused. The massive fissure had regularly let the water leak into the ground, no matter how many times they patched it.

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Just beyond the entrance to the bathhouse was the circle of new houses. There were twelve in total, each already fully furnished and being lived in. Together, the entire Wisteria Family had demolished and rebuilt the houses in a matter of days. Each of the smaller family units had their own house, and each was bigger than before.

Each house had been made into a simple two floor layout, with eight total bedrooms, a kitchen, communal living space, and four bathrooms. Emery was more than satisfied with how they all turned out, and the kids all loved them.

There were four bedrooms, two bathrooms, and a communal living area on each floor, with the ground floor holding the kitchen, an additional area to eat, and a slightly larger main room. Most of the kids were excited to have their own rooms all to themselves. However, each of the rooms were in a pair with another that could be opened to share if they had wanted to, which let some of the siblings continue to share if they had wanted to.

That same design was used for each of the now seven total guest houses. Avuri's cousins had claimed one house for themselves, which was perfect for them. Each claimed a suite of two rooms with their own bathroom, and couldn't have been happier.

Another of the seven went to Talya and Gray, who were more than happy to have a house to themselves, after living in the main house for the last couple months. Especially Talya, who was pretty sure she was approaching the ninth month mark on her pregnancy. Emery was excited, as she was likely to have a niece or nephew within just a couple weeks.

A third went to Ieji, who was still around for now. They had decided to stay for the meantime to help Talya when it came time for her to give birth. Ieji wasn't exactly a trained midwife, but they had been around enough births in their travels that they were confident they could at least offer some help.

If nothing else, just having more hands around could help if things came down to it.

The remaining houses were left empty in the meantime, though Emery secretly hoped they would remain empty for a while. Afterall, it seemed like their family only ever grew when there was danger around.

And finally, beyond the small neighborhood of homes was the farm. It wasn't huge, and they didn't keep much more than chickens, pigs, and a few other small animals, but they still set aside a fair portion of land for it.

The chicken coop was their main focus for it, and they had amassed a rather large number of chickens over the years. Cierra and Stena had gotten so enamored with chicken and eggs as food, that they really didn't have much choice but to start a pretty large coop. And it really just exploded from there, even to the point where their coop's production was more or less able to keep up with the number of mouths they had to feed.

In fact, Emery and Avuri had considered expanding the coop and field for even more chickens. They had the space around the fenced area to make it larger easily enough, and having even more chickens might eventually turn into enough food that they could butcher some for meat on occasion, instead of only ever buying meat in the city. It had been years since they had used any of their own chickens for meat, given how many eggs they used in cooking.

The other animals that lived there were more or less extras. They didn't really contribute much in the way of living, but were either pets or wild animals that ended up just hanging around. There were two snakes that lived in and around the hay bales that had somehow managed to learn not to both the other animals. Emery suspected that some of her kids had managed to train them.

Four cattle lived in the barn; an older pair of mates and two of their children. While they had originally been bought for fieldwork and the like, Emery and Avuri reaching the Sky Realm had stopped the reason for their work.

Then there were the pigs. They had started originally with four of them, and that number had ballooned over the years. While they did occasionally butcher a few pigs of pork, it was mostly a matter of population control to keep the number of pigs reasonable within their pen - which was already big. For the most part, though, the pigs were more like pets than barnyard animals. Though Emery thought they made for fantastic waste disposal, too.

There were also a few small critters that lived in the area. Squirrels, ferrets, chipmunks, and the like all came and went, especially during the winter months, when it was warmer in the Basin's Array. They were, admittedly, not normal critters, but ones of a heartier variety that lived in the Peaks. They were still small though, despite their physical resilience.

And finally, there was the newest addition to the family's roster - Pie. He was a medium sized mutt of some kind that a few of the older kids had brought back from Flowing Dragon City, after rescuing him from an angry old farmer who was beating the poor animal in the streets. Or so the kids said - the dog didn't appear to be harmed in any way, nor scared of people.

However, Pie was a brilliantly trained farm dog. Apparently. He had been let loose amongst the chickens and their pasture, and had immediately fallen into work mode, keeping the chickens penned in and away from the fence. They usually wandered around and got out frequently, but it was only ever a small nuisance, and not one that Emery had ever felt the need to deal with.

Pie removed the entire issue in the course of two days, with the chickens quickly learning to respect their new guard. And more than that, Emery had no hope of ever getting rid of the dog after seeing how quickly the younger kids immediately took to the pup. Instead, Pie was built a special little dog house next to the coop shortly after he arrived.

Emery was also pretty sure that the dog could not possibly be happier. What started as a fairly normal dog house with a nice couple of blankets had blossomed very quickly into a rather luxurious small house, with more cushion and comfort than a dog could ever hope for. It had gotten to the point that if it continued, Emery was pretty sure she would need to talk to the kids about how they were using their bedding.

While Emery had looped back around to thinking about how much more work they had to do, Avuri had stopped up behind her, and slipped her arms around Emery's waist. Avuri rested her chin on Emery's shoulder, nuzzling into her neck, then looked out over the balcony, too.

"What're you doing out here, hm? Just enjoying the view?"

"Thinking. I guess." Emery said.

"And just what has been bouncing around in that head of yours today?" Avuri asked, as if she couldn't feel the gist of how Emery was feeling.

Emery had to actually stop for a moment, and consider that the feelings of melancholy and nostalgia that were surely emanating from her could very well be why Avuri checked on her in the first place.

"Just thinking about how much this place has changed since we first settled here." Emery sighed, and leaned her head against her wife's. "So much has changed, but also stayed the same, you know?"

Avuri chuckled. "I know. It's been fifteen years. We're older, our girls have grown up, we've ended up with so many more kids, the whole situation around us is different. And yet…"

"And yet?" Emery prompted Avuri to continue.

"And yet," Avuri squeezed Emery tightly, "we're still one big family, living in one place together, with the same general goal as always."

Emery twisted around in Avuri's grasp so they were facing one another and Emery could put her own arms around Avuri's waist, holding her close. "Too true. And I'd not change a thing."

"Truly, nothing?" Avuri said, narrowing her eyes.

"Well. Nothing important, at least." Emery said, looking up. "Maybe I'd choose not to deal with the whole dragon situation."

Avuri laughed, the wonderful sound putting a calm smile on Emery's face. "What, not looking forward to the Dragon-Kin training?"

"Honestly, it's not the training I have an issue with." Emery said, telling the truth. She wasn't averse to the hard work of martial training. In fact, she was looking forward to that.

"I'm mostly worried that I'm going to grow a tail."

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