The Higher Plain Ch 12: The Power To Fix Things!

(Krelzor)

Sitting down on the ground, I wiped the sweat from my forehead and took in the state of my farm. The destruction stretched out around me like a bad dream. My house? Barely standing. The fields? Mangled, with deep grooves in the earth where her massive feet had sunk into the soil.

And yet, the crops... most of them were still intact. The corn stalks swayed gently in the breeze, and the potatoes had somehow survived the Xylarion apocalypse. Small miracles, I guess. Maybe this year wouldn't be a total loss. Next year, though? That was looking grim. With the soil this churned up, I'd be lucky to grow weeds, let alone food.

I let out a deep sigh, my hands gripping the dirt beneath me as I tried to keep from screaming. It wasn't just the physical damage. It was the sheer scale of it all—something so far out of my control that it made me feel small and useless.

Just then, I heard footsteps behind me—small, human-sized ones this time. I turned my head to see Faylina walking toward me, her face the picture of sadness. Her eyes were downcast, her lips pressed into a thin line, and her shoulders drooped like she was carrying the weight of the world—or maybe just the guilt of leveling my farm.

"Krelzor," she said softly, stopping a few feet away. "I'm so sorry. This is all my fault."

I looked at her for a moment, my chest tightening. Part of me wanted to yell. I wanted to shout something like, "Sorry doesn't fix my house!" or "You call yourself amazing, but you're a walking disaster!"

But then I saw her eyes—golden and shimmering with guilt. They were huge and expressive, and there was something so genuine about the sadness in them that it snuffed out my anger like a candle in a storm.

Faylina sat down beside me, her knees drawn up to her chest. "I never should've come here," she said, her voice trembling. "There's no telling how much damage I've already caused. I... I don't belong in this world."

I stayed quiet for a moment, staring at the dirt in front of me. "Look," I finally said, turning to her, "I'm not gonna sugarcoat it. Yeah, you caused a mess—a big one. But sitting here feeling bad about it isn't gonna un-wreck my house or fill in those craters."

She glanced at me, her brows furrowing.

"What I'm saying is," I continued, "stop beating yourself up. You've got the power to fix things, right? So instead of worrying about what's already happened, focus on what you can do now."

Faylina blinked at me, her golden eyes wide, and then she nodded slowly. "You're... you're right." She stood up, brushing dirt off her dress. "I can't change what I've done, but I can try to make it better."

I smiled, relieved that she wasn't going to spiral into a guilt-ridden breakdown. But that relief quickly turned into confusion when she started walking toward my ruined house.

"Uh, what are you doing?" I asked, getting to my feet.

"Helping," she said, turning back to flash me a determined smile.

And then it happened.

Her body began to glow with that strange, otherworldly light, and the air around her seemed to hum with energy. The ground trembled faintly beneath my boots as Faylina began to grow.

"Oh no," I muttered, backing up instinctively. "No, no, no. Faylina, wait—"

Too late.

She expanded upward and outward, her body towering higher and higher with each passing second. The wind whipped around me as her massive form cast an enormous shadow over the farm.

"Stop growing!" I shouted, cupping my hands around my mouth.

She finally stopped when she was just a few feet taller than my house, which, to be fair, was a vast improvement over her earlier size. I exhaled a breath I hadn't realized I was holding, only to choke on it when she bent down.

Her gigantic rear hovered perilously close to me as she crouched, and I quickly averted my eyes, my face heating up.

She reached out with both hands and carefully lifted what remained of my house as if it weighed no more than a loaf of bread. She held it up, examining the broken beams and crumbled walls. Then she glanced back at me with a sly smile.

"Shall we start fixing this mess?" she asked, her voice cheerful.

I just stood there, dumbfounded. "I... you... what?"

"You said I should focus on what I can do now," she said, turning back to the house. "Well, I can help rebuild."

"You're literally holding my house like it's a toy," I said, still trying to wrap my head around the situation.

She laughed, the sound deep and rumbling in her current form. "Don't worry, Krelzor. I'll be careful. Now, where do you keep your tools?"

I opened my mouth to respond, but no words came out. This was going to be a long day.

Still, as I watched her set the house down with painstaking care and begin to assess the damage, I couldn't help but feel a glimmer of hope. Maybe, just maybe, things would turn out okay.

Or, you know, at least not worse.