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No thunderclap marks her return, nor does any portal groan as it shuts behind her. Instead, Eileen's shoes simply find themselves cool with morning memory, facing away from the stones of the old well that has now found a home behind her. Breathing in, she finds her nostrils filled with a touch of mint, linen, and the faint sweetness of turned soil, the wind neither sharp nor still, but stirring instead with the thoughtful rhythm of something trying to remember an old song.

Above her, the sky is pale with morning. The light spreading slowly across the yard, not rushing to claim anything, only warming what's ready. Eileen adjusting her shawl, the shawl adjusting her back in turn, the way familiar fabric does when its taken out of the closet after a long time. Focusing for a moment she feels the rhythm of the earth beneath her feet again: the steady hush of wind against the trees, and somewhere close by, the soft creak of a rocking chair that knows how to let others wait with it.

Eyes opening, she sees the cottage in front of her or... whatever is left of the modest structure Henry had paid to have built.

Where once there was a modest roofline and a single chimney, there now stands a second story, quiet and certain. Its windows smaller, but more numerous and the curtains behind them shift gently, though the glass is closed. To the right, joined to the house, a greenhouse stretches out like a limb finally remembered. The glass panels glow with soft condensation, hiding dozens of balls of light that float behind the panes.

Studying the house for a long moment, she does not yet find her smile, nor is she all that startled either by the changes. Until a smile breaks out anyway as the well behind her hums to life low and steady. The hum not from magic, exactly but more like the memory of it. A residual kindness still echoing through stone and so she finds her hands lingering near the rim even as she leaves the well behind to walk toward the porch, each step softened by grass that parts slightly.

Squinting, she notices William then, already waiting for her to return. His long goblin ears curl a little with the breeze, and the rocking chair beneath him sways in slow agreement with the candor of the moment. Nursing a glass of iced tea, William wears a knitted vest that wasn't his last week, and at his foot lies a wooden carving he's been working on. He doesn't rise when she approaches only leans forward and lifts his chin in greeting.

"Place bloomed a bit while you were gone. We all had a little something to do with it, got a bit carried..."

Eileen lifts her hand not to disagree, but to soften his words before they gather too much shape. She offers a small flutter of her fingers, like dusting flour from a palm. Her eyes follow his, off to her right, where the greenhouse glows in the light, then upward to the new roofline that tilts toward the sky like it's been there for decades.

"You shouldn't have worried for even a moment dear," she says, kind but certain. "This cottage was never a home. But perhaps it still can be, now that it has life in it."

William rocks forward slightly in his chair, one boot tapping the floor as if to test the weight of her words. "Well the whole place has certainly been trying to be, more and more each hour," he murmurs. "Bit by bit, believe me we didn't push it all that much, it just grew all this overnight, all on its own."

He gestures vaguely toward the house behind him. "First it was the cellar, added the whole thing during our dinner. Audry didn't even mention it to me until I found her in the dead of the night reorganizing the space and the very next morning I found them the both in the greenhouse. Then the cupboard started reorganizing itself after each meal depending what dish we were making. And last night the front window in the living room moved, just a little, all so the light would fall across your tea chair better."

Eileen smiles at that, warm and pleased. William chuckles then, soft and low. "I think it's just following your example. How was the dungeon? Did you manage to find the Dawkith Lorth?"

A breeze drifts in from the west, brushing past the eaves and carrying with it the scent of sun-warmed clay, rosemary, and something sweetly green that reminds Eileen of a garden still learning its own name. Smiling sadly, she lingers on William's question for a moment, her gaze drifting listlessly to the side.

"I found him," she says, her voice even. "He was deeper in than I expected, older too, heavy with all the things he never stopped believing in."

She doesn't frown, not exactly, but the corners of her mouth press just slightly inward like someone trying to decide whether to offer truth to what my be listening in or just something kind enough to pass. "He's resting now," she decides at last. "Resting in a place where no one else can be broken by him for a while. And that will do the little ones good."

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William nods slowly but doesn't press. He knows the shape of diplomacy when it's wrapped in a grandmother's voice. Instead, he lets the porch boards creak under his heel as he rises from the rocking chair.

"Come," William says, stepping off the porch with a lightness that surprises his old boots. "We've got something to show you both. Ollan is so very proud of himself, and I figured it's only polite to let him brag."

The greenhouse is larger than it has any right to be. Its roof arches high above the garden beds, every pane of glass fitted with quiet exactness. A warmth blooms from within, not the sharp heat of a forge or flame, but the drowsy, listening warmth of a well-tended kitchen just before dinner is served. Overhead, hundreds of motes of light congregate, bumping up and down, and in the moment Eileen waves at them, to the great surprise of William, who smiles back for clearly the dungeon has imprinted upon her.

Inside, she finds the light filters soft and slow, dappled through ivy and moss, trailing lines of scent. Rosemary, tomato vine, something wet and green like fresh-picked peas. In the corners of the room, the motes drift lazily, each one the size of a berry seed, pulsing faintly with color not bright, but sure of themselves. They float above the beds like bees too polite to bump into anything.

"Grandma, look here!" Ollan's voice carries from the far side, his ears twitching with excitement. His hands proudly gesturing toward a trellis wrapped in vines, each finger pointing at a different cluster of tomatoes that gleam in many distinct shades some deep red, others golden orange, and some a strange plum purple like a sky about to rain.

"Grafted them myself," he announces loudly to the whole greenhouse. "Red ones were growing quick, but the yellows had better flavor. So I made them share a stem." His grin is wide, not just for the trick of it but for the quiet knowledge that something once divided is now living together. "Woke up yesterday and the whole thing had moved in here. Roots and all. It'll be safe from the cold come winter."

Grinning Eileen rushes over to the bed where she picks Ollan up in one arm before crouching beside the trellis, running a hand beneath the lowest branch. The soil is ricd, still damp but warm with life and the tomatoes at her touch seem to lean in as if to offer its bounty to her.

The air around the plant shimmering just slightly. Not magic exactly, more intent. As though the greenhouse itself has taken notice of pride and turned the temperature half a degree to celebrate it.

Ollan rocks back in the crux of her arm, "I think the grafted ones like it better in here, the light's steadier too. And sometimes it smells like cinnamon when I water all the plants in the morning."

Xozo arrives then, trailing behind them both, observing. She keeps closer to the walls of the greenhouse so she can touch the edge of the glass with one fingertip as she glances upward where the sunlight bends slightly, not to dazzle but to rest. "It's watching," she murmurs somewhat to herself, "Just noticing how its occupants use the space and adjusting the magic to match."

Turning her head, Eileen beams a smile to Ollan. "This is incredible, Ollan. Where did you even learn to graft?"

Ollan shifts his weight in her arms. "It has a name?" he asks, but not in a way that sounds sarcastic or shameful.

"It does dear, its quite the advanced technique."

"Oh! I was out in the woods with Fenn. We were watching the mushrooms grow and when they would get too close they just fold into each other as if they are long lost friends. And when they do they stop competing and make something new."

He glances then toward a separate bed this one thick with soil, where the beginnings of a spore blossom rise from a patch of moss. "I figured maybe tomatoes could try the same thing, if I helped them a little. Helped them share the same space, they could learn not to compete all the time."

Rising, Eileen gives Ollan a great big hug. She then leans them both down so they can study the vine together, and Ollan whispers into her ear, his words soft like a secret. "They want to be friends even if they aren't able to say it."

His words give Eileen a chuckle and she kisses him lightly on the forehead. She cannot believe how Ollan has managed five different tomato kinds on a single stem, so she whispers the words she wants to stay instead. "It seems like you got them all to agree and its quite the accomplishment believe me."

William's voice comes from the side, his hand resting on the trellised frame like he is not quite finished being surprised by how the wood keeps strengthening itself to accommodate the plant's size ever multiplying size. "The whole place accommodates us," he says. "Not in words, just in gestures. We moved the watering buckets that were near the doors and shelves shifted to fill the space for the soil nutrients."

Xozo too finds herself crouching beside a small clay pot, cradling something with bright blue veins and leaves like folded pages. "Ollan, can you graft any plant?" she asks, her voice careful, like she is not sure if the question itself might bruise the stem.

Ollan tilts his head, eyes narrowing as he thinks. "Not every plant wants to share," he says after a moment. "Some roots fight no matter what you try. Mint is a good example, mint won't take to each other, no matter what you do." He scratches behind one ear. "But some plants that might not agree to it become lonely when they see others getting along or sometimes curious for what it will be like. Those are the ones that become possible to join and what you have there might be interested in that."

The plant in her hands leans in then, almost imperceptibly, toward her breath. But before Xozo can set it down, as if afraid it might wilt from too much hope, Ollan interrupts her thoughts. "I would take it inside, the bathroom would be best for it. Needs as much steam as it can get and the warmth will fill its heart."

William clears his throat softly. "Eileen, I need your help with a bit of a side project we've still got going on outside. The fluffy tumblers returned last night and broke the pipe system while trying to bathe in it. They've been trying to fix the pump all morning, and I think…"

Eileen raises a brow as she sets Ollan down, she then walks through the greenhouse door that William leads her through, pausing only to place her hand on the wooden frame. It feels warmer now than when she entered, like it remembers her shape and is glad to finally meet her and she holds it tightly in return.

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