After hearing the news from the chief, Neve made a decision.
He was not going to think about the dragon.
He was not going to think about the king of beasts, or the name Vaelthorn, or the warm mark sitting around his neck that apparently belonged to someone who could smell mates from a distance and decided to mark them without saying a proper hello first.
Not thinking about it. Done. Moving on.
He picked up the bamboo from the floor where Cael had dropped it and turned it over in his hands. Dry enough. Good. The split piece was exactly what he needed. He set both pieces on the mat and looked at the rabbit.
"Can you skin that?" he asked Cael.
Cael looked at the rabbit and looked at the bamboo. He then looked at his father, still sitting on the mat, processing whatever he was thinking.
"Yes," Cael said, and picked up the rabbit.
The chief watched Neve settle on the floor with the bamboo pieces and said nothing for a moment. Then — "What are you doing?"
"Making fire," Neve said.
The chief stood up immediately.
"Cael—"
"He knows what he’s doing," Cael said, not looking up from the rabbit.
"Fire will burn the cave—"
"It won’t," Neve said. He positioned the split piece flat on the floor and held the second piece ready. "I’m going to use friction. The fire will be small and controlled. It won’t spread." He looked up at the chief briefly. "I need you to trust me for about ten minutes."
The chief looked at his son.
Cael was focused on the rabbit.
The chief sat back down with the expression of someone who had decided to blame Cael entirely if anything went wrong.
Neve started working.
Bamboo fire saw — split piece flat on the ground, notch cut into the edge, second piece moving back and forth across it in fast steady strokes. His arms burned after the first minute. His wrists ached after the second. He kept going. Back and forth, back and forth, applying downward pressure, watching the notch for the dark dust that meant heat was building.
The cave was very quiet except for the scraping sound.
Then a tiny curl of smoke appeared.
Neve blew on it gently. Coaxed it. Kept his hands steady.
A small ember glowed in the notch.
He transferred it carefully to the small bundle of dry grass he had prepared, held it cupped in both hands and blew again, soft and slow.
A small flame appeared.
Neve set it down carefully on the flat stone he had pulled from the cave wall earlier and fed it with the small sticks first. Then the pieces of wood from the corner of the cave. The flame grew with each addition, controlled, going exactly where the fuel was and nowhere else.
He sat back and looked at it.
The chief had not moved.
He was staring at the fire with an expression Neve had not seen on him before. Not anger anymore. Something else. Something closer to the feeling of watching something impossible become possible right in front of you.
"It’s not spreading," the chief said quietly.
"No," Neve said. "It won’t, as long as we manage it properly."
"How did you—"
"Friction," Neve said. "Two pieces of bamboo and patience." He looked at Cael. "Is the rabbit ready?"
Cael held up the skinned rabbit without a word.
Neve grabbed one of the long sharp spikes from the corner — one of the ones Cael had been carving that first night — and started cutting the rabbit into pieces. Not perfect cuts. He was working with a spike and his hands, not a kitchen knife. But serviceable pieces, roughly even.
He skewered the first piece and held it over the flame.
The smell hit the cave immediately.
Meat over fire. He hadn’t salted it yet, that would come later. Just the clean smell of rabbit cooking, fat dripping onto the stone beneath and catching slightly, adding a richness to the air that had nothing in common with the raw meat they had been eating.
Cael’s nostrils moved.
The chief leaned forward slightly without seeming to notice he was doing it.
Neve rotated the skewer.
"This is why I wanted fire," Neve said, watching the meat. "Cooked meat lasts longer than raw. We can smoke and dry it over fire to store it for winter. More food, stored better, less hunting needed during the cold months." He glanced at the chief. "Your people won’t have to go out in the worst weather to feed themselves."
The chief was quiet.
"You’ve thought about this," he said finally.
"Well, since I got here," Neve said. He couldn’t tell them it was normal in his old life, but when you have a fridge.
He added salt when the meat was nearly done. Just a small amount, pressed onto the surface, melting slightly into the heat. He had done ten pieces total, rotating them carefully, keeping the fire fed with steady small additions of wood.
The smell had been doing something outside the cave for the last several minutes.
Neve could hear it. The change in the ambient noise of the village. Conversations slowing. Footsteps moving toward the cave entrance instead of away.
He looked at the entrance.
Faces.
A lot of them. Crowded just outside the cave entrance, pressed together, noses working, looking at the fire inside with a mix of fear and desperate curiosity. Children at the front who hadn’t yet learned to be afraid of what their parents were afraid of. Warriors at the back pretending they had just happened to be walking past.
"Is that — is that a flame?"
"Inside the young chief’s cave?"
"What is that smell—"
"It smells like—"
"I want some."
"It’s going to burn everything—"
"But the smell—"
Neve rotated the last skewer and looked at the meat.
Ready.
He took the first piece off and held it out to Cael. "Try it."
Cael took it. He looked at it and without wasting time, he bit into it.
He chewed once. Then stopped. Then chewed again more slowly with a completely different expression.
Neve held out the second piece to the chief.
The chief looked at it for a moment. He seemed mildly surprised to be offered anything. He took it and bit into it with the caution of someone who had been surprised before and didn’t intend to be again.
He chewed.
His eyes changed.
"This is rabbit," the chief said.
"Yes," Neve said.
"This is the same rabbit from the forest."
"The same kind, yes."
"It doesn’t taste like it."
"That’s because of the fire. And salt."
The chief looked at the remaining pieces. Then, the crowd pressed into the entrance of his son’s cave. He ate the rest of the piece in one more bite and straightened up with the expression of a man who had just recalculated something important.
"Can they have some?" Neve asked, nodding toward the entrance.
The chief looked at the crowd. Looked at Neve. Nodded once.
Neve kept one piece back for tomorrow and divided the rest. Seven pieces between however many people were standing at the cave entrance and crowding in closer now that the chief had visibly eaten and not died.
Small bites. Not enough for anyone to be full. Just enough to taste.
The village tried cooked meat for the first time.
The reaction was not quiet.
"What IS that—"
"Is this poison? Why does it taste like this?"
"It’s not poison, look, the chief ate it—"
"Can I have more?"
"How did you do that?"
"Teach me—"
"Teach US—"
Hands everywhere. People pressing forward, touching Neve’s arms, his hands, his wrists, asking questions all at once in overlapping voices. Someone grabbed his hand with both of theirs. Someone else was already asking about the bamboo by its real name without knowing it, pointing at the pieces on the floor.
Neve opened his mouth to answer.
Cael growled.
Everyone stepped back immediately. The hands disappeared. The crowd rearranged itself to a respectful distance with impressive speed.
Neve looked at Cael.
Cael looked back at him with an expression that said he found nothing about this funny.
Neve turned back to the crowd. "I’ll teach everyone tomorrow. Gather bamboo from the forest... the tall hollow grass near the east stream and some dried wood. As much as you can carry. I’ll show you how to do it yourselves."
"What’s bamboo?"
"Loud grass," Neve said.
"Oh!" Multiple people said it at the same time.
"Bring a lot of it," Neve said. "We have winter to prepare for."
They left. Still talking, louder than before, voices carrying back through the village long after the faces had gone from the entrance. He could hear the words ’fire’ and ’meat’ and ’loud grass’ repeated over and over as it spread outward. Even the chief followed them behind.
Cael put the fire out while Neve watched.
The cave went dark and started cooling.
Neve wrapped the saved piece of meat and put it at the back of the mat away from the cold draft.
He lay down.
{System Notification: Mission Two complete — Villagers’ Trust Achieved!}
{Reward: Medicine Memory — uploading overnight.}
{Upload will complete by morning. Host will wake with full medical knowledge.}
Neve read it twice.
He exhaled slowly and stared at the ceiling.
Medicine memory. Everything about treatment and plants and healing. Gideon’s brother, who was sick in his cave would finally be treated. Maybe if it’s treatable. The things Neve had wanted to do since he got here that he hadn’t had the knowledge for.
Tomorrow.
He could start tomorrow.
Cael settled on the mat beside him, facing the wall the way he always did.
The cave was quiet and cold and dark.
’Tomorrow is going to be a good day, right?’ Neve thought.
His eyes closed before he finished the thought.