Chapter 17: The First Day at Home

Seraya stood before the mouth of her new cave, casting a pleased eye across the flowered clearing, the small grove, and the pond glinting among the rocks.

After everything she had endured the day before, this corner of the valley felt like a reward for surviving some twisted experiment.

If she could sing without spooking the local wildlife, she probably would have hummed a tune about a home of her own and the quiet life in nature.

"How do you like it, warrior?" Morra asked, studying her face with warm interest.

Seraya nodded, not even trying to hide a broad grin.

"Very decent. Now let's just make sure there isn't another damn tiger living inside."

Morra glanced at her with mild surprise, then stepped back from the entrance and gestured toward the cleared interior. Seraya stepped in first, treading carefully over the uneven floor, and once her eyes adjusted to the gloom, she looked around with mounting satisfaction.

The cave was roughly ten feet wide and twenty deep - no place to cram four families, but a cozy shelter for one person. Piles of pelts and dry bedding lay stacked against the wall, while loose rocks and stray branches had been cleared from the walkway.

The only real drawback was the light.

There was no cleft in the ceiling like in Niva's cave, leaving the rear drowned in shadow even now, with the sun riding high outside.

Seraya looked at the dark corner, then back at the bright opening, and shrugged, her chest shifting under the loose shirt.

"A bit gloomy, but I'll live. At least nobody will be snoring in my ear."

A studio of her own, a water view, and a shaman for a neighbor. Now she just had to teach that neighbor to knock before swinging a staff, and she was all set.

Morra apparently took Seraya's grin as proof enough of her satisfaction, announcing after a brief look around that she had to return to Vaelira.

"If it suits you, I will leave you here. The shaman may still need me."

"Sure. Thanks, Morra. You really hit the mark with this place."

The elder accepted the thanks with a nod, then walked out with her escorts, leaving Seraya alone with the quiet, a pile of pelts, and the prospect of her first peaceful hours since arriving in this world.

She waited until the footsteps faded among the rocks, then practically dashed out onto the clearing.

There was one thing she had craved since the horned python dragged her through that foul swamp.

A bath.

She walked to the sheltered edge of the pond, looked around to be safe, and stripped off her clothes, laying them on a dry rock. Washing off the mud, dried sweat, and the rest of yesterday's ordeal felt far more urgent right now than dwelling on her new title.

The first touch of water, however, pulled a sharp gasp from her lungs.

"Holy shit... An icebox, not a pond!"

She gritted her teeth and waded deeper, staying in the shallows near the bank. The cold locked around her legs, and scooping water onto her shoulders sent a sharp shiver rippling across her skin.

Stop whining. You wanted a shower, you got the wilderness edition. Hot water apparently wasn't part of the package.

After a few minutes, she stopped cursing at every splash and got down to scrubbing away the grime. She cleaned her scraped knees and forearms, washed her hair, and rubbed her face, her fingers pausing at her right temple.

The crimson mark hadn't gone anywhere, of course.

Seraya looked at her rippling reflection, sighed, and tucked the wet strands behind her ears.

She knew the face, her shoulders, and her frame, but the two new additions to her body remained a stark reminder that yesterday had been no dream she could simply wake from.

She had no desire to spiral into another panic over it, though.

Instead, she leaned back against the bank, letting the water lap around her, and watched the leaves rustle above the clearing for a quiet spell.

What was she supposed to do now?

She had shelter, Vaelira's protection, and the promise of food, but beyond that, she knew almost nothing about this world. Even her new title sounded more like an invitation to future trouble than a guarantee of an easy life.

All right, for now it's enough that nothing is trying to eat me. Grand plans can wait until every bone in my body stops aching.

When the chill turned biting rather than refreshing, Seraya climbed out, rinsed the dirtiest parts of her clothes, and laid them across the sun-warmed rocks. She fetched one of the pelts from the cave, draped it awkwardly around herself, and sat by the entrance, wondering where to begin fixing up her new home.

The answer came quickly when she shifted her sore hip and remembered the hard stone beneath that thin layer of grass.

She didn't need a canopy, silk pillows, or a mattress she could sink into up to her neck, but another night directly on the rocks held zero appeal.

Besides, snakes, bugs, and other critters she'd rather never meet lurked in the area. A raised bed wouldn't keep everything off, but at least it would lift her from the cold dirt and make her sleeping space feel a little more civilized.

"Right, I'm building a bed," she announced to the empty clearing, then looked down at her hands. "With what, though?"

A saw, an axe, and a proper knife would solve most of her problems, but she might as well wish for a flatbed truck of ready-made furniture. In Emberfrost, even a plain wooden spear was rationed one per family; running to Morra with a tool list longer than her new title wasn't going to fly.

That left rocks.

Once her clothes dried enough to pull on without chattering teeth, Seraya dressed and set off along the nearby bluffs, scouting for sharp flakes.

She initially figured she'd find plenty, given that the entire valley looked like a place where stones bred overnight. After searching for a while, she learned the hard difference between "rocks everywhere" and "useful blades everywhere."

Most pieces were too brittle or awkward to hold, and the few promising ones tended to shatter on the first strike.

By the time the sun had climbed high over the valley, Seraya trudged back to the pond with four or five fragments and the look of someone coming home with an empty bag after hours of shopping.

"Naturally..." she muttered, turning the find over in her hand. "Did you think you were the only one who could spot a sharp rock?"

The women of Emberfrost had scoured the area for tool-worthy stone for generations, so the accessible spots were picked clean. Seraya sat on the bank and stared down at her pitiful haul, suddenly pining for her backpack.

She had a folding knife in there.

A proper metal knife, which now seemed worth more than the entire contents of her new cave. There were books too, including an herbal compendium that might have actually been useful here, even if some of the flora differed from what she knew.

Great, just great. Everything I actually need is probably getting pawed through by some Obsidian Maw cannibal right now.

Still, marching over to an enemy tribe to demand her personal belongings back wasn't an option, so she shelved the regrets and worked with what she actually had.

Using a larger stone, she carefully knapped a few edges, then smoothed the parts that would press into her palm. One flake snapped immediately, another lost too large a chunk, but after some effort she was left with tools that could at least score wood and strip bark.

They didn't look like much.

Yet Seraya admired them like a craftsman beholding a masterpiece, then turned her eyes to the saplings on the left side of the clearing.

"All right, ladies. Which of you gets to be furniture?"

She quickly learned that even a sapling trunk as thick as an arm was far more of a chore for a makeshift blade than it looked from the pond's edge. After a few botched attempts, she stuck to thinner shoots and straight, sturdy limbs - scoring the wood, snapping the weakened sections, and cursing every time stone skittered across bark.

The work warmed her up fast.

Her shirt clung to her back again, and with every hard tug her chest shifted beneath the fabric, reminding her that an outfit picked for a leisurely bike ride was never meant for a day of wrestling timber.

Seraya hitched up the neckline, which had slipped annoyingly low on another bend, glaring down at it.

"Don't you start fighting me too. Like I haven't got enough on my plate."

Gripe as she might, she kept at it; with every branch she prepped, the frame of her future bed grew clearer in her mind. Four corner posts, a frame, a few cross poles, and stout lashings ought to make something better than a pile of grass on cold stone.

By late afternoon, she had exhausted almost all her stone flakes, and all she had to show for it was a modest pile of unevenly hacked poles.

Seraya crouched before the stack with her elbows resting on her knees, staring in silence as she debated whether to feel proud or just sit down and cry.

Back home I'd assemble flat-pack furniture in an hour and complain the instructions were stupid. Here, I've spent half a day making a handful of sticks.

She still needed sturdy vines or cordage to lash it all together. Remembering the rattan that had bound her like hunted game earlier, she noted with grim humor that at least she'd tested its tensile strength firsthand.

She could try stripping plant fibers to make twine, but that took material, time, and energy - all of which were running dry.

Her stomach chose that moment to growl.

Seraya straightened slowly, pressing a palm to her stomach, only now noticing how low the sun had dipped.

"Wait... They were supposed to bring me food, right?" she muttered, looking down the path. "Or does 'First Warrior' just mean first in line to starve?"

She hadn't eaten a bite since waking up; busy bathing, searching for tools, and chopping branches, she had managed to forget her appetite for a few hours. Now that she'd stopped, the hunger clawed at her with a vengeance.

She was just debating whether to go look for Morra when calls rang out from the mouth of the valley, answered by more voices echoing off the cliffs.

The hunters had returned.

Soon enough, the burly elder appeared on the path, stopping at the edge of the clearing to eye the scattered timber with mild curiosity.

"Warrior, we are gathering to divide the food. Come, you will receive your share."

Seraya breathed a sigh of relief.

"Just give me a second to stash my... future furniture."

Morra didn't ask what furniture was, and Seraya didn't have the energy to explain. She carried the poles into the cave, set down her stone flakes, and fell in behind the elder, every step reminding her how much a day of manual labor had taxed her aching back.

When they reached the gathering spot, Seraya noticed the returning women first - muddy legs, worn faces, and armfuls of forage - before her gaze settled on the haul laid out on the ground.

A few wild hares.

A couple small rodents.

Fruit, roots, and other gathered plants took up far more room than all the meat combined.

She swept her eyes over the crowd of more than a hundred people gathered around.

That's supposed to feed over a hundred people?

For a second she wanted to ask if the rest of the catch was still on the way, but the calm demeanor of the women around her squashed that hope fast. No one looked surprised, no one blamed the hunters for coming up short, and no one scanned the trail for another procession of meat.

Apparently, this was just an ordinary day in Emberfrost.

So yesterday's cat was a feast, not a standard dinner. Splendid... I walked in on a holiday banquet and thought it was the daily menu.

She looked at the tall, muscled warriors, then at their sharpened sticks and bone clubs. Raw strength didn't make game stroll up to a spear tip, and after her bout with the python, Seraya knew all too well what crossing paths with a larger beast could cost.

One of the elders stepped forward and began the division, handing out the meager cuts of meat according to custom, while the vast majority walked away with only fruit and roots.

Seraya received fruit as well.

She looked down at them, turned one over in her palm, and sighed, but made no fuss with people standing around who had spent all day hunting and foraging for food.

A promise of food didn't mean Morra could conjure an extra hare out of thin air.

"Thanks," she muttered, taking her share.

Not everyone watched the rationing with the same resignation, however.

Niva stood among her kin clutching her own modest bundle, her white ears drooping when she saw the fruit in Seraya's hands. Remembering the fire, the first bite of roasted meat, and the promise of protection from the night before, she tightened her fingers around her portion.

If she could bring down game, she'd earn the hunter's choice cut.

And then she could give it to Seraya.

The thought took root so deeply that the chatter around her faded away.

Tomorrow I will try harder. I have to bring something back.

A few paces off, Raska watched the very same scene, but a smirk surfaced on her face for the first time in hours instead of concern.

She had stewed all day over the thought of Seraya lounging in her cave while the rest trudged into the woods, but seeing common fruit in the celebrated warrior's hands brought a petty, much-needed thrill of satisfaction.

First Warrior, the shaman's pet, the grand savior... And so what? You're chewing on the exact same scraps as me.