Hanno gave a warm smile, finally being able to see with his own eyes that she was fine. And even though the Faerin was kind of weak, the first comment of Kepler made his cheeks fill with an embarrassed heat as his weak pale skin turned into a bright tone of red. "A-Ah?!" 'Really that this is the first thing she need to tell me after everything we went through?' The Faerin sighed internally, accepting the tinker girl's recommendation. He was so tired and so weak, that it made him feel a little useless... But he knew he wasn't, after all... He was able to protect Kepler. He looked at the girl suggesting him to listen their achievement, and at first he didn't know what she meant by that. But after closing his eyes to pay attention, he heard a sound of a river... This made him smile brightly, that meant their plan worked completely. 'Kepler is incredible... The plan actually worked.' He took a deep breath. Then the tinker girl broke the long silence talking about the name of the river. Normally the Faerin would instantly contest, saying it was her creation. But he knew that he had to take some credit to himself, that wouldn't have been possible without him... Besides, it was something they created together, and that was very special. Hanno opened his eyes. "Keptaba River... I like the name- Wait, what you mean three years?!" Hanno almost had an heart attack when he realized what the girl just said, his mind went through deep vain thoughts. 'Wait, I've been trapped in this game for three years? Wait wait wait- This is bad! This is very bad!' He stared at the serious expression of the girl, making his worry grow even more until she finally broke the joke and laughed. The Faerin frowned and sighed in relief, it was just a joke. 'Thirty minutes huh..?' 'How I feel?' Hanno looked away thinking. "I'm pretty good, now that I see that you are alright. Aside from that I'm just a little tired..." The Faerin frowned at what he would want though, drinking or eating seemed pretty much out of question and he had just wake up, so sleeping wasn't a good idea either... After a few seconds of thought, he raised his eyebrows. "Hmm." Hanno looked at Kepler's eyes, with a serious and tired expression. "Well, the dream Kepler didn't do it's job... So I guess you could get me a kiss." He said calmly.
"Rejected!" Kepler laughed. "But it's good to see that your sense of humor didn't die in the blast~ Surely that would've been a tragedy~!" Rising, Kepler dusted herself off. The girl really was in great spirits as she stood on her tiptoes and rolled her shoulders, stretched her arms, rolled her neck, and finally flexed all the muscles in her back. In spite of everything, her eyes couldn't help but keep returning to Keptaba River. Struggle as she might to hide it, Kepler's eyes were brimming with pride. It was an awesome achievement only... Kepler took a deep breath... "At last~~~~~~!" Kepler dramatically placed her hands on her hips and spun around to face Hanno. Her face was all smiles. "We're~~~~Officiaaaaaaallyyyyyyy~~~~~~~ Halfway FINISHED~!" Raising a pointer finger, Kepler gave a wink so overdone it might have shot out a little star ~~☆ "So Hanno~~~~ You're looking pretty ready for part two, am I right~? Let's build an Aqueduct! An Aqueduct~! As long as we follow my schematics----exactly---I'm sure it'll be a cinch this time, okay~?" Charm thrusters set to maximum, Kepler beamed the warmest of smiles as her laughter carried outward on the wind.
The Faerin chuckled weakly at the instant answer of the girl, though he wished she had an as embarrassing reaction as he had. 'I guess I'm the only weak on heart here, it seems.' He gave a small smile with the thought, before looking at his shield... And it was staring him intently, with a very jealous expression. 'Wait what?' Hanno frowned and looked away letting out a sigh. 'What's is it's problem?!' The Faerin Suddenly the girl stared at Hanno with a bright smile, that made him smile back. 'Well, it was worth to go through all that to see this face again.' He took a deep breath, preparing to give his war yell himself. "YEEES WE AAA-" The yell was suddenly interrupted with a cough surge, that didn't take long to stop. "Aah.. I guess I can't do this yet." He stared at the girl that was already talking about building the Aqueduct, even though they just barely finished buidling the Keptaba River. 'This girl don't give me a break...' He gave a nervous smile, though he liked her way to be, all energetic and giving him a lot of stuff to do. It made this quite lively, but he really needed a rest right now. "Uh, sure." With some effort, he was able to raise his torso to sit down, giving a small stretch. "Just give me a little rest... And actually, since you won't grant my first request, at least give me some Dr Kepler." He grinned. "And before we go." Hanno looked at the Shield. "Can you give him a name? I'm very bad at those, and he seems to like you... And before you say I should name it, trust me. It already rejected my ideas." He chuckled reminding himself of his Mind Down, at the same time as he tried to recover his senses completely. For some reason he was already feeling much better, apparently it was just a burst of tiredness that had affected him right after waking up.
"Right...Right of course~ ahaha~ my bad~I mean, I should totally know better~ I went through something similar not that long ago too, right~?" Kepler nodded as she saw Hanno flinch a little at the pain and motioned for him to sit still. "Maybe we should take it a little easy today~ how's that sound~? It's not like we're facing any do or die time crunches at the moment after all~right~?" Speaking over her shoulder as she often did, Kepler began to rifle through her snack bag in order to answer Hanno's request. Oyo~? I'm one bottle short. Devious~ Devious~ Oh well~ That just means he likes it right~? ...Well... Unless I've been sleep snacking again... That's....actually.... like totally possible isn't it...? ....And so the mystery endures... Shaking the drink a little, Kepler popped the top of the bottle while holding it away from herself. This one was orange flavored on account of the orange peels floating in it. Kepler handed it to Hanno with a smile. "One Dr. Kepler~ as requested, partner. On that note, do you feel up to eating anything? Maybe some soup? It wouldn't be good to force yourself, but on the other hand, if you can stomach something I think it might do a whole heck of a lot of good." Waiting for the boy's response, Kepler's eye fell upon the shield. "Ghast." Kepler tilted her heard with a finger to her chin. She was deep in thought... "---Hmm~But I think Ghanny sounds cuter though~? I'd probably end up calling it Ghanny for short." Seeing the shield's reaction, Kepler began to laugh. Her nickname wasn't shorter at all... *** EPILOGUE... All in all, The Keptaba River Project had worked perfectly and thanks to that----Vintergard's new Aqueduct construction finished without a hitch roughly two weeks later. The building of the infrastructure had been at times boring, at other times tedious, and nearly all of the time off screen, but in the end Kepler and Hanno managed everything without very much trouble at all. This was in large part thanks to Kepler's mass production magic, Hanno's elbow grease, and a great deal of pre-planning involving Vintergard's already existing cave and tunnel system below the city. Those were cleverly put to service funneling the new Keptaba River underground beneath the city which is apparently---according to Wikipedia---How a Roman Aqueduct worked. Really, the largest challenge was educating the people, and for that, Kepler forwarded numerous requests to The New Astorean Government requesting the dissemination of seminars involving how everything worked. There were new public bathhouses, new public restrooms, and personal pressurized water plumbing was well on the way as well. And so, as with any new system, there would of course have to be some new rules... When everything was done Kepler submitted her patent. And in that patent, perhaps the first one the ever-burgeoning nation had ever received, Kepler detailed her schematics for any future engineers or exploratory excavators. In those notes was also a mention of some ancient ruins way way down, of which, Kepler noted she had been extremely careful to avoid. And that, dear reader, was the story of how we came to settle the question of where Astoreans poop. They go to the bathroom in much the same we do, because they now have toilets in which to take care of their business. And likely soon, the rest of the world would adopt the use of Kep-lets as well. The fancy kind. The ones that clean your rear with a stream of water. Kepler and Kepler's would make sure of that. Fin (Ending E: End of Civilization's Childhood)
