“All right,” said Cybele when she arrived on her asteroid. “So this takes time. I’ll give you my time.”

She hadn’t technically fixed anything before, when she’d come up here with Encke, but she felt quite a bit better about the whole situation.

The forest still seemed a bit all-encompassing, from this angle, but it was less overwhelming than it had been the first time she’d come up. She knew where the paths were, now. She knew where the camp was.

She knew that there was something here that her soul was connected to in some way, something that was capable of revealing memories to her. Even with all the trauma, her starseed was able to connect with that. Encke had given her some pointers. She felt more comfortable here now.

She hadn’t actually brought much with her, save for a trowel, a small foldable saw, a knife, and a packed dinner. After she’d seen the campsites and the tents that were far too rotted out to stand any chance of repair, she’d spent hours online, looking for potential replacements. The modern nylon tents that she’d grown used to using on Earth seemed like they’d look stark and artificial among the untouched forest here. There were some medieval ones that she’d seen on Etsy, and on historical reenactment supply sites, that had wood posts and beautiful cloth fabrics, but for as expensive as they were, they were still not quite right.

If she was going to have something a bit wonky and modernized as a replacement for all these carefully made tents and lodges, it might as well be something she made with her own hands. Apparently the more time she spent here, the more likely she was to transcend, anyway.

She might as well have something to spend those hours on.

On the walk to the camp, she stopped to saw a thick, low hanging branch from one of the trees. She examined it, because she wasn’t sure just how long the tree had been dead for, or how that would affect things. Cybele was a lot of things, but she was not a woodworker.

Not yet.

From what she could see, this wood was a bit dry, but not rotted. It was good enough for now. She could always look for more materials later.

When she reached the edge of the fire ring she’d uncovered, she flipped her knife open and began to work on prying the bark from the inner wood. It seemed more attached, she thought, then dead bark would have been. She didn’t think much of that at the present moment. She just kept wiggling her knife under the bark and pulling it away. This was a different world. These were different trees, with bark that was silver and, perhaps, stronger.

When the branch laid bare, Cybele took a break.

She fished an apple from her bag and ate it. She leaned back against the stones of the fire pit and let herself look upwards, to admire the beauty of the purple sky crisscrossed with purple branches without trying to make herself think that it would have to be anything more.

It was beautiful, and it was hers, and maybe that was enough. Maybe she didn’t have to literally hear some voice whispering in her ear to know that she was welcomed here.

She got back up, after, and cleaned another branch and then a third. The third had a bud on the end. That seemed new, but Cybele did not question that, either.

She cut the tops off so that they were flat enough on the top to have fabric stretched over them, maybe, if she could find some that she liked.

She hadn’t brought any. She was trying not to rush things. Apparently, it would go faster if the asteroid did not think she was forcing it.

The Transcendence, that was. The thought of possible protection was still the main reason she was up here.

After three branches, two hours, and a lot of thinking, Cybele was done. She looked at her work and looked at the sky.

Then, she vanished back to Earth.