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At the start, Scott’s house felt just a bit bigger than it should be.
Only just built and empty on the inside, it felt like a vast cavern. Scott knew he wouldn’t stay there forever; this building would become a town hall, or a dedicated storage facility. It was too large to be a house, and too small to be a castle. He definitely didn’t need a castle yet, so it just felt big and empty.
Slowly, the house filled up. The split-level storage area filled up with chests, all labeled and organized, and neat stacks of shulker boxes in the awkward corners. The back area filled up, and Scott installed his workbench and furnaces under the stairs, right where they were tucked out of sight but still convenient. He put down tile in the lower level, since working with hot metal would be dangerous for the wood floors. But then it felt too cold, so he hung up more lanterns and put rugs on each end of the room where they were far enough away from the forge so as not to intrude.
While Rivendell took shape outside, with the enchanting tower and then the village, Scott occasionally came back to his temporary home. For the longest time his loft bedroom was barren, just a bed tucked into the corner of a too-large loft, and a chest serving as a dresser. Then things began to accumulate; as citizens arrived to the newly-built village, Scott received gifts, small things like flowers and earrings and old books. They seemed too precious to dump in his storage system, and so they ended up stacked on top of his dresser, which quickly became a problem as he had to move everything to the floor to access his clothes.
So he built a bigger bed, with built-in shelves and bedside tables, perfect for displaying all his gifts. It grew colder, and Scott found that it was easier to get out of bed if he went for a flight in the early morning, so he built a platform by the window so he could leave undisturbed and return just as easily. As a proper king, he found himself delighted by the work of Rivendell’s tailors, and swiftly accumulated more clothing than could fit in his dresser. He built a new wardrobe, with space to hang suits and ball gowns and scores of winter cloaks.
He had an office, technically; it was in the enchanting tower, which also functioned as Rivendell’s main library. But he rarely used it, as he tended to leave paperwork for the end of the day, and was usually too tired to fly all the way up the hill. So, home he went, and piles of paper took over his carefully crafted bedside tables. He built a desk, and a filing cabinet, and a series of bookshelves lining the loft railing.
Quite abruptly, he realized that the once-barren bedroom loft no longer felt quite so empty.
Scott was not a good cook. He generally survived off of mutton tossed in a furnace until it was seared on the outside and barely cooked on the inside. Along with a bit of bread, though it usually came out burnt and lumpy. Once the citizens moved in, he generally bought food at Rivendell’s tavern.
It was after traveling to Katherine’s for a meetup that Scott remembered there was more to the world than Rivendell, and he might someday have another emperor over as a guest.
He went to the tavern owners to learn to cook, but cooking generally requires a kitchen, as they pointed out to him upon hearing about his usual methods. So, he built a kitchen, with strict guidelines from his teachers. He couldn’t help but decorate a bit; the whole downstairs still felt so empty, but with a rug on the floor and a long table in the kitchen and more storage under the stairs, it started to feel like home.
After many months and altercations with a demon, Scott heard that the other empire rulers were all building castles, or something equivalent. He flew around the server to observe, and found Lizzie’s Prisma Palace, Joel’s massive castle, Katherine’s multiple castles… he felt a bit left behind. So he began planning his own castle. There was no room for such a large structure in the mountains, so he made his own terrain, carefully supported from below to cover an entire valley between the peaks. He drew up designs in his spare time, but nothing ever felt complete, no matter how many things he filled it with. His sketches looked beautiful from the outside, but he could never find enough things to fill up the inner rooms. It wouldn’t be a home.
He finished terraforming above the valley, but then things kept distracting him from starting on the castle. He had a date with Jimmy, a deal with destiny, a new crown to designate the emperor of the server, out-of-control ice powers… though perhaps that was just an excuse. He happily continued working in Rivendell, building new houses for the residents and decorating for each holiday as they came along. He built embassies in other empires, and put the finishing touches on old projects. His sketches for the castle sat in the back of the filing cabinet, unfinished.
He visited Jimmy to build his embassy, and he was reminded of how simply the Codfather lived. The largest building in his empire was nowhere close to Scott’s house, and his starter house, now mostly empty, was positively tiny. In fact, after some investigating he found that Jimmy was mainly living in his storage facility, which made a certain amount of logical sense, but it still seemed strange that he lived so happily with so little. Then again, this was Jimmy.
But maybe he could learn a thing or two from him.
Scott returned home, and officially set aside the plans for the castle. He didn’t need a grand palace to live in. Not when he already had everything he needed. Not when he already had a home.