They also started learning how to work together in ways that went beyond just survival. Kaya was the strategist, always thinking three steps ahead. Lyra was the risk-taker, willing to make the bold move when caution would have gotten them killed. Sani was the anchor, calm and steady even when everything was falling apart. And Cole was the one who held it all together, even when he didn't feel like he was doing anything at all.
They fought, of course. Arguments over tactics, over money, over whose turn it was to cook dinner. But the fights didn't break them anymore. They'd learned how to argue without destroying what they'd built. How to disagree and still trust each other when it mattered.
And slowly, imperceptibly, the thing they'd started in Stillwater Crossing began to feel real. One year after signing that document in the magistrate's office, they had enough money to buy land. Not much. Just 40 acres in the valley Cole had pointed to on the map, with a creek running through it and soil that looked like it might actually grow something. The previous owner had given up after a bad drought, and they got it cheap.
Standing on that land for the first time, looking out at the empty expanse that was now theirs, Cole felt something shift inside him. It wasn't joy, exactly. More like relief. Like he'd been holding his breath for ten years and could finally exhale. "Well?" Kaya asked, standing beside him.
"What do you think?" "I think we're insane." "That's not new." "I think this might actually work." Kaya smiled.
"That is new." They built the house themselves, working from dawn until dusk, learning as they went. The first attempt collapsed in a rainstorm. The second leaked so badly they might as well have been sleeping outside. The third held.
And they called it good enough. It wasn't much. Just four walls, a roof, and a stone fireplace that smoked if the wind blew wrong. But it was theirs. Built with their hands, paid for with their work, standing on land that belonged to them and nobody else.
Lyra carved their names into the doorframe the day they moved in. Cole Mercer. Kaya. Lyra. Sani.
Four names side by side, like they'd always belonged there. "Now what?" Sani asked. "Now we live," Cole said. And they did. It wasn't easy.
The land fought them every step of the way. Droughts, floods, animals that ate their crops before they could harvest. But they learned. They adapted. They survived.
Cole taught Lyra how to shoot better, how to track game when the hunting was scarce. Kaya and Sani started a garden that actually produced vegetables instead of just weeds. They bought chickens, then a cow, then a few horses they could breed and sell. The bounty work didn't stop entirely. They still took jobs when money got tight or when boredom set in.