True enough, when the second week of spring came, there was her brother and his friend. Both wanted to join her little settlement and only came with clothes. No technology, no extra food, no water bottles, only them. She cried for almost an hour when she saw them and hugged both of them for longer.
"Astro, can you make sure that the storage area plans aren't damaged?" The girl asks, pointing to the four sticks still in the rectangle she'd put them in the previous fall. Her brother nods, going over to the four sticks. "Solar, start looking for trees close enough to build the storage in. I would prefer to keep it in trees to keep the flood from affecting it. I'll work on getting food."
"Got it." Solar responds, starting to look at the trees around the shelter. The girl runs off, navigating the forest she's been inhabiting for over four months. No animals have returned to the area, but she can still find leaves from the previous fall to eat. She still had some berries and meat from the previous winter, but she's also someone who prepares for something months in advance. Having a surplus of food in case of flood or drought or any other situation where food would be a struggle to obtain would be best. Plus, with three people to feed, she'll need to gather much more.
After roughly an hour, at sundown, the three reconvene to determine the sleeping situation. Astro can sleep in any position he wants, even if that position is in another dimension, Solar doesn't care about where he sleeps as long as it's dry, and she has been sleeping on animal pelts on sticks for four months. The basement of her shelter is pretty dry, and she won't be needing to light a fire down there as spring is warm enough to rely only on blankets for warmth in the night. She decided that Astro and Solar could sleep in the basement of her shelter on some animal pelts with a pelt as a blanket. When they were settled, she went to sleep by herself.
After a few weeks, Astro and Solar have their own shelter and are starting to get used to the lifestyle she had long ago adopted. They woke up early to help with the construction of other, necessary buildings such as the storage hut and a hut to cook and store food in, so they aren't living on dried meat. They've also started making a hut where they will store animal pelts that they will later turn into clothes or pillows once they have gathered the materials to start sewing. She had Solar focus on making trenches around the buildings while Astro made bridges to connect the various areas. She planned the fences and gathered food, as she has the most experience in the area and is better at building than the boys. The boys will get there, but it will take a couple more weeks.
Astro and Solar's skills slowly progressed as time went on. By the rainy season, they could weave leaves just as well as she could when they arrived, and the buildings they made had less issues with structure. Even their trench digging skills had improved. Now, the trench that had once surrounded only her house snaked between at least ten buildings, deeper than over twice her height in most places. They can navigate the surrounding forest almost as well as she can, and they can climb even the tallest trees. They've even learned how to use their abilities to help them determine good trees to build in.
Their forest village takes ten minutes to navigate the bridges that span over the trenches from one side to the other. The bridges were all made by her, while the trenches were dug mostly by the boys. The buildings are the result of teamwork.
One of the buildings they've made is a basic forge. Solar and Astro worked hard to gather enough firewood to keep it going when they needed it, and it is one of few buildings not built into a tree. Mud bricks make the walls; woven leaves make the ceiling and door, and special vents to allow smoke out make the main parts of the structure. The forge itself is built within, with mud bricks created to trap heat on all sides. It's built in a way that keeps it dry, which is the main purpose of the building around it. They use it to dry mud bricks so they can build better buildings. Of course, the whole exterior is layered and covered with woven leaves to prevent water damage.
They have a central little island where their main fire is constructed. They did this to have an area where they could hold meetings and cook their food, as dried meat isn't too flavorful. They all do their own thing, such as Astro making mud bricks to dry and Solar weaving leaves for future projects. Since their jobs rarely have them communicating, they meet during breakfast and dinner to discuss either what they will do or have done, such as their tasks, chores, and plans. As she is often gathering food and materials at noon, she doesn't eat lunch in the village on most days, unless she can't carry any more, and managed to return before noon.
She finds it fortunate that they have managed to remain in the forest, untouched by disease or major injury. She had once sprained her wrist when she was living alone during the winter time. Luckily, she could ice her wrist with snow and not much snow accumulated during her recovery time. As she has an ability, her healing speed is faster than humans without an ability. This is because the ability often is too much for the body it's designed for, which would kill the user, and natural selection led to increased healing being common in those with abilities to counteract the effects of having an ability too strong for one's body to handle. While her ability isn't particularly straining, her family is known to have better healing than even others with abilities, so her healing factor is stronger than her ability calls for.
Disease is less common in those with abilities, for the same reason that they heal faster, but some variants of even common diseases can kill if not treated properly. If a disease took root in one of them, they all were in danger. They don't want to return to civilization, where their abilities are often taken advantage of or used in mass lies, unless they have a good, dire reason. Even then, she'd be hesitant to go. Civilization had ruined her. She feels better living in the forest than she had living with others. She feels free.
After the rainy season, the three made plans to dig out a large area for the mud bricks to dry. They will be building a large shelter that will hold the three of them pretty soon, and having the materials to build it will speed up the process. She had gathered plenty of the vines and leaves for making the frame and roof of the large building, and while she was doing that Astro and Solar had been gathering mud and transporting the fully dry bricks to the storage shed. The rainy season stunted that process, but they spent that time weaving leaves together while she remained unaffected by the rain.
The land they'll be building this structure upon isn't even in their dimension. They'll be making their large shelter in a dimension where they are unknown. Astro's ability to travel between dimensions can apply to them, and she can make sure no one approaches their shelter while they are there. They had created a system to alert each other if people were coming, as they didn't want to be seen by people native to the dimension. The boys taught themselves to whistle at a frequency higher than that they could hear, while she learned to make sounds of birds native to their dimension.
The dimension they will be making their large shelter is sparsely populated. The technology is just barely beyond their technology. As in, they have stone tools, and the new dimension is filled with metal tools and weapons, but no further. There's even magic, in the new dimension, from what her enhanced vision can detect. No one would suspect Solar's cold manipulation. They might question her senses or Astro's ability, but they will be able to trade in this new world.
Trade will open up metal tools for them, which would reduce the energy their various activities take. Gathering mud wouldn't be paused by needing a new tool; they'd have access to better baskets, and they wouldn't be reliant on her to get food. Plus they would have access to food that is not dried meat, cooked meat, berries, or leaves. Despite her decision to live away from civilization, she misses the taste of bread and pumpkin pie.
