Hot Chocolate and An Umbrella

Salad without dressing was edible, but questionably palatable; meaning, he was sure that someone out there on the blue-green planet known as Earth enjoyed eating leaves and fruits that way, but he wasn't one of them. Still, washed down with the only freshwater source on the island, a pond, it filled a hole. The lidless canister came in handy and the seagull reassured him that there were no miscellaneous cretins in the water that could cause him to regret his choices for the night, following day or just in general.

As mentioned, the first task was to make a base camp, which in itself proved to be a problem as Russell had no experience in construction. Hell, he'd never even nailed a picture to a wall before. His old lady used to do all the D.I.Y in their house and when it came to anything more technical, they called in the professionals. Of course his dad liked to hint that he could 'build his own table or stool or shed' should he put his mind to it. Only, what he put his mind to instead was a football match on the television and a can of beer.

Fortunately, the initial 'base camp' mission came with some instructions and a design of sorts. He needed to find and cut down branches of a certain length and thickness, nothing that bent erratically, preferably straight or with only a slight curve. And he needed eight of these. The branches needed to be stripped of extraneous twigs and thin offshoots, though the longer ones of these could be useful. He needed a mix of seeds from vines and bushes, several large palm leaves and some strong vines. He wasn't sure what the seeds were for, but he headed into the corpse of trees to harvest diligently.

Only, the axe…

After slicing into the branch for the third time, the head once more got stuck and separated from the handle. He sighed heavily and decided to call it a day.

"Your Majesty, why are you stopping now? You've not collected any of the materials yet!" Despite requesting several times to stop addressing him so, there'd been no change so far.

Russell tossed the headless handle at the seagull, causing it to squawk as it leapt backwards with the aid of its wings. "Find me a tool that works and I'll cut branches. Otherwise, forget it."

The System hopped over to the handle, picked it up with its beak before beating its wings to leap up to the branch, still suffering from being attacked by an axe. It placed the handle next to the sharp, flint stone and its eyes became distant. A hint of green seemed to be reflected in the black eyes for a moment, even seemed to be shaped like the number one and digit zero. It lasted for half a heartbeat, but as it opened its beak, the handle did not fall.

"Try it now," The seagull suggested and the man reached for the axe. Although the twine wrapped around both handle and axe, it no longer was frayed and broken. In addition, it seemed as if it was just decoration, that the stone of the axe head was actually fused impossibly to the wooden handle.

Russell's eyes narrowed. "If you can do that, why couldn't you have just created the camp yourself? Or at least fixed all of the tools?!"

"I can't intervene!" The seagull replied, panicked. "Even doing this much is a bit… we can't bring attention to ourselves or He might notice everything."

The man sighed. Didn't they say that God was all forgiving and benevolent? Why did this seagull have such an… opposing point of view? Forget it, too much effort to think about. He continued to chop at the branch, eventually the weight could no longer be sustained by the thin, unsevered wood and it snapped and fell down.

Russell looked around for another branch of similar description. After four branches, he stopped and headed to the tree bordering the sandy beach.

"Why have you stopped this time, Your Majesty?!" The seagull flew after him.

"Tired, going to take a nap."

"Your Majesty!?"

*****

Had time been set in motion, it would have taken the man half a day just to harvest eight branches. The muscles in his arms ached horribly, reminding him just why he never partook in much physical activity before he transmigrated. Still, it was warm on the beach, comfortable. He felt that there was no rush to complete this first task, no matter what the bird-brain kept repeating.

He was woken from his nap abruptly, there was no other manner to describe exiting the land of dreams due to a torrent downpour. Wind rushed through the trees as the sky, which was for the first time coated in grey, rained down upon the island. The rain was cold.

Pressing against the dubious shelter of the tree, he yelled out to the seagull, who was presently unfazed, bobbing up and down on the increasingly ferocious waves crashing over the wet sands. "What the hell is going on? Why did it rain? I thought time had stopped?"

The seagull squawked, opening its wings to steady itself, but it didn't choose to leave the waves, instead riding the turbulent waters happily. A chiming sound echoed in the closed chest beside him and after wiping the excess water from his face, he kneeled down to investigate. The sound was coming from the heavy smartwatch. He'd received a message;

"Wee! This is fun!"

"Stupid bird," he muttered, tapping at the phone to see if he had the option to return a message. It apparently was possible, hinting that the seagull carried its own communication device. He didn't want to think where exactly it wore that on its feathered body. He tapped out his earlier query, cursing out the auto-correct as he did so;

"What the hall is going on? Why is it raining? I thought time had stepped?"

The bird flapped its wings open once more, shaking off the water on its body, before continuing to play, as if it hadn't been disturbed by anything. Still, Russell did receive a message in response;

"Huh? Oh, I only had enough ability to pause time for a short while. It restarted a few hours after I fixed the axe. Can't affect the universe too much or we'll be noticed after all."

"You could have said something! I'm f*cking soaked through!"

"I did urge Your Majesty more than once about the urgency of the missions." Russell imagined it voicing these words in its usual tone of reason. He became irritated by his own imagination.

He tossed the smart watch back into the chest and slammed the chest shut before it could fill with any more water. The tree swayed in the wind, its leaves dropping the burden of water upon his head and the rain seemed to swerve into his face. He really needed a less dubious shelter. With this in mind, he pushed against the wind with his feeble frame to where he had left the eight fallen branches and hurried to strip them of their dying leaves and extraneous twigs. The axe slid across the wet bark making it more difficult, but he persevered, straining himself to complete the task. He sneezed more than once, his body becoming increasingly cold as he worked beneath the unforgiving rainfall. Just as he stripped the last branch, the tips of his fingers turned blue, the rain stopped, the clouds parted and the azure sky appeared with it's bright occupant.

Soaked through, cold and rather depressed, the washed out man stood beneath the ray of sunshine that peered through and sniffled a bit. He suddenly missed his small, dark bedroom with its lack of available space, the frequent invasion of privacy and dubious growths within coffee cups he'd been too lazy to remove from the windowsill.

"Your Majesty, are you alright?"

Russell looked at the seagull and muttered; "I'll be fine, probably. Might catch a cold, but these things can't be helped can they…"

"Is there anything I can do?"

"...there is one thing."

"What is it? Please tell me, Your Majesty!"

"Buy me a mug of hot chocolate and an umbrella… we can settle the points issue later. Thank you."

"....."