"So pretty..." sighs Cecilia, walking over to a tree and gently touching its trunk.

Wei Lin is actively crying but she's doing so with her eyes open, standing guard at the entrance of the C, ready for the inevitable incoming lost that will be attracted by the sudden disturbance.

She kind of figured that Xander would be suspicious. That's all right.

The bark of the tree is solid and rough, and to all perceptions this is a real living tree that really did just spring up right here.

Also?? It's so sad that Wei Lin can't just enjoy the nice thing that's causing her to cry??? Tisvet wants to scoop her up and keep her safe in her domain until living things aren't such a wonder. She will not do that, because she knows what consent is and honestly respects and admires when mortals put aside taking care of themselves for the sake of a greater goal, but, but. Still. The poor dear!!!!!

"I can extend the moat and wall entirely around you and protect you if you'd like, but that is an awful lot of trust to have in me, so. Only if you'd like." Because Rune Common (at the very least) is a reasonable language, it's clear that she means the plural 'you,' not the singular.

Xander turns to stare at the moat with even more suspicion.

"L-let's not do anything that m-might make today a w-worse day for Xander," Yoo Taehee says, breath hitching only a little bit as she slowly walks the perimeter of the C and casts various warding spells on the outside of it, starting with the open part.

The moat: it is staying right where he sees it. Well, the part that's on the outside of the far side of the C is actually still extending further (shooing off lost with gusts of wind as it goes), but where he can see it! It is staying still.

"Of course," Tisvetaia agrees. "I will be able to set something up back at the city as well, soon enough."

Speaking of: that pool of lava in the middle of the street? It's mostly cooled, its lava darkening and crumbling to black loam, from which grows pretty green foliage of its own. This is not, perhaps, the best location for putting a garden, but she suspects that people are not going to complain.

(They are so intensely not going to complain. There might be some more crying.)

Unfortunately the lost dead do seem to want to come ruin their day, so it's good that they're ready.

Unfortunately they're not entirely ready: some of the lost dead can float, and do so over lava.

Ahuh. Fortunately, the lava is free to explode upwards, and comes complete with additional gusts of wind to make them shoo. She's not very practiced in the arts of smiting those who would defy her, but she does know the basics, and can make up the rest with a natural proclivity to being made out of molten rock.

...is she also keeping out the harmless floating dead, like the handful of possessed children's toys and wisps and the like?

... for now, yes. Though it pains her. Sorry little lost ones, there are once-mortals to protect.

The onslaught eventually abates—the foes they kill will take a while to reform, and any dead that were too far to see the lightshow through the eternal fog of Niflheim will not by default want to come—and the party can mostly relax, relying on Yoo Taehee's warding spells to give them time to jump to battle again in case any more lost do show up.

Tisvet doesn't disturb them. The little oasis, nestled within walls and a (still growing, still not near the entrance) moat of flaming lava, is safe(ish) and comfortable. It even comes with drink refills if they actually try the brightly colored drinks.

The first one who will try that is Cecilia—the first thing she lost was her instincts to mistrust and fear, which she had never been big on—and she makes a delighted noise at the taste.

Roger's been sitting on the hammock, trying to get his own breathing under control, but when he hears that he goes to investigate and... it's the taste that makes him break down crying and he has to turn away because it quickly turns into ugly sobbing. While having a fruity drink.

The fruity drink is admittedly pretty good. There are several mortals in her main domain that specialize in brewing these en masse; it's sort of an ongoing spirited competition. If the drinks are then given to her as offerings, she can shuffle the liquids around as she likes. While giving refills is usually considered beneath a god's notice (at least in her part of the world), she finds that it pays well in attention from the mortals. Which is the sort of thing a god like her lives on, so. Who cares if she earns her proverbial bread by occasionally stooping to serve mortals?

By half an hour later Xander is the only one who hasn't broken down crying even once, and the others are mostly quietly chatting to each other while occasionally having to stop to touch the grass and make sure they're not dreaming. Some of them have been around for over a hundred years—Xander himself stopped counting at four—and to the extent they haven't dwindled their capacity for joy away they're experiencing things they haven't had for just that long.

Tisvet is perfectly happy to let them stay as long as they like. She's glad she could offer them comfort and peace, and is really not going to be judgemental about the crying.

Back at the city, the garden in the middle of the street cleans itself up. She spreads out more into the street, mostly just to have her tiny oasis domain properly centered, and lovingly crafts a very pretty garden, with fruit trees and berry bushes and brightly colored flowers. With some benches, so people can sit down.

Tainel has gotten himself his very own chair (and convinced her to make him a more comfortable one) to poke people from, and watches the reactions of the dead with a faint smile on his face.

"Sooooo... about that translation..." he weedles.

"You're incorrigible," sighs his pebble. "Yes, fine."

And that is why Tainel goes and finds another pebble, of the suitable size, to shove into his ear.

"Hello!" he says brightly, to Allan. The voice from his mouth is coming out in the same foreign language he'd been speaking, but he's got another rock hanging around his neck, and that one is echoing his voice, but in Rune Common. "Tisvet's got translation up."

"—oh! Oh, hello, that would be super useful, can she give this to other people? Whenever we get someone here from the back end of beyond who never learned Rune Common we always gotta go looking for someone who speaks their language. ...well, anyone who's been here over a hundred years speaks most of the more widely-known languages so it's not too much of an issue, but still."

Allan bravely did not break down crying when he saw the grass, but he did take dibs to sit on it and has not moved since.

“It’s less like a gift she can give out and more like she, personally, is directly relaying both sides of the conversation. Which doesn’t mean she won’t, especially if it’s important, just. It’s a lot. Also very tedious.”

"Oh. Yeah. A lot less useful." Shrug. "Not that big a problem I guess. Does this mean she got, uh, wherever it was she wanted to get and did what she wanted to do there?"