Neve watched the warrior walk the girls away and felt nothing in particular about it.
He turned back to Gideon.
The man on the ground stirred. Slowly at first, then all at once, his eyes opening and his body trying to sit up before it was fully ready.
"Easy," Gideon said.
The beastman sat up with Gideon’s hand at his back and looked around the clearing with the expression of someone putting together pieces.
"What happened?" he asked.
"You were given something you shouldn’t have eaten," Gideon said. "How do you feel?"
"Sick." He pressed a hand to his stomach. "Like something is pushing from the inside."
"That’ll pass." Gideon held the crushed leaves toward him. "Chew these."
The man looked at the leaves. Then at Gideon. Then at Neve crouching beside him. He chewed without arguing, which suggested he trusted Gideon enough not to question it.
Within ten minutes he was on his feet.
He wasn’t fully steady but upright, colour improving, the sick look leaving his face as the plant did what it was supposed to do.
He looked at Neve. "You fixed it."
"Gideon fixed it," Neve said. "I just knew which plant."
The man blinked. Then nodded slowly, like he was filing something away.
Around the clearing people had started watching Neve differently again. The uncertainty from before was gone. Replaced by something he hadn’t seen fully directed at him since he arrived here.
Genuine respect.
It wasn’t anything like the flushed-face reaction to his appearance or the awe of someone who had just seen fire for the first time. Something quieter and more solid.
He had been accused and proved it wrong and then fixed the problem anyway. That was a different kind of thing entirely.
Neve stood and brushed his hands off and tried not to show that he noticed.
.
Gideon grabbed his arm before he could move away.
"Where did you learn that?" he asked. His eyes were sharp in the way of someone whose professional interest had just been activated.
"I just know things," Neve said.
"Things about medicine."
"Uh... Sometimes."
"That plant combination you identified — I’ve been using those leaves for stomach complaints for two years. I never connected it to salt poisoning." Gideon tilted his head. "What else do you know?"
"A lot," Neve said honestly.
"Can we—"
Cael appeared between them.
He didn’t say anything. He just moved into the space between Neve and Gideon with the efficiency of someone who had been watching from nearby and had decided the conversation had gone on long enough.
Gideon looked at his brother. Then at Neve. Then back to his brother.
"I didn’t know you could get jealous," Gideon said.
Cael said nothing.
"She may be my type of female but I’m not stealing her," Gideon said.
"I’m not a female," Neve said.
"Then, I’m not stealing him either way," Gideon said pleasantly. "I just want to talk to him about medicine."
Cael didn’t move.
Gideon sighed. "Cael. I need him for something actually important." He paused. "It’s about our brother."
Cael went still.
Neve looked between them. "What about him?"
"He’s getting worse," Gideon said. The easy tone dropped out of his voice entirely. "Faster than before. I’ve tried everything I know and nothing is slowing it." He looked at Neve. "But you just identified a treatment in thirty seconds that I missed for two years." He folded his arms. "Will you come and see him? I don’t know if you can help. But I didn’t know about the leaves either and here we are."
Neve looked at him.
His brain was already moving. It was already running through what he knew, what conditions presented the way Gideon had described, what the symptoms might be, and what the forest around him contained that could address them.
He needed to see the man first. There was no way he could treat what he hadn’t assessed.
{System Notification: New Mission — Cure the First Son within 4 days.}
{Reward: Special Reward.}
Neve read it twice.
’Special reward? What the hell does that even mean?’
The system had never said that before. Every reward had been specific — medicine memory, sewing kit, map access someday. Special reward meant something the system considered significant enough not to name yet.
Four days for something the tribe’s own physician hadn’t been able to treat. That alone told him something about the difficulty of it.
He looked at the notification and felt a very specific feeling that he had last felt standing in front of the bamboo with the spike in his hand about to hunt for the first time.
’I can do this. I must do it. Not because of the special reward, but caring for animals... I mean, beastmen is my job.’
He looked at Cael. "Your older brother. I’ll treat him."
Cael looked at him for a moment. Something moved behind his eyes as he stepped closer and held Neve’s hand.
"You’re sure?" he said. "You don’t have to hurt yourself or stress about it."
"Have faith in me," Neve said.
Cael was quiet for exactly one second.
"I always do," he said. "I always have faith in you, Neve."
He slowly took the hand and planted his lips on it. Neve’s cheeks and ear warmed immediately. They were in public and Cael didn’t even mind. He wished he could bury his face in that fire to hide his embarrassment.
Gideon made a sound of impatience beside them.
"That was very sweet and I genuinely don’t care right now about what’s going on between you two, but can we go?"
He was already walking, trying not to get jealous of their little... action.
Neve followed. Cael fell into step beside him, close enough that their arms brushed with each step, and the three of them moved through the village toward wherever the eldest brother was waiting.
The special reward sat in the back of Neve’s mind the whole way there. He just couldn’t stop thinking of what it could be.
’Whatever it is,’ he thought, ’I’m going to earn it.’