NOVEL WEB Chapter 20: 20. Treading lightly
Luckily, the snake was not large. Even better, first pieces they roasted got so badly burned they were deemed inedible. As each of them chewed one piece of roasted snake meat alloted, they felt thankful that it was a small piece. It tasted horrible, tough and tasteless.
Was it the meat itself? Was it that herb smeared on it? Or was the roasting method? Opinions varied, but they all stored this new piece of worldly knowledge for future reference. Next time, they will have a point of reference.
So far, they learned to make a tent, fell a tree, construct a patio. Not bad for less than a week. Floreo and Jone felt optimistic about learning to roast meat as well. They had to, as soon they will ran out of prepacked rations.
Eating his normal prepacked meal to cleanse his palate, Cid felt more and more that whole mission was hogwash. Whoever planned that Station Relocation Protocol had no friggin idea about what was to be expected the world to be like in future. It was as if expectations were that once they arrive to location, they will have readymade board and meals service provided.
Imagine that, taking 10 000 natural people who were born and raised indoors to walk 500 km through forests. Let them sleep in tents, and eat only food they can carry on themselves. With just 8 of them, it was manageable. But if they had all those people with them, with zero experience, no waterproof clothing, walking? No way it would ever worked.
And once they arrived, what? Take time to make a proper settlement to live in, then foraging for food supply, would they even have time to clear out the site with only hand tools available. Gods were either insane, or did not care at all, or both. Cid would get upset, but it was all just too ridiculous.
By the time they finished eating, it was dark already so Yax dismissed them to go rest. Cid set up perimeter sensors and left the first watch to Blaze tonight, then went to his tent.
Usually, by the time he went to sleep, Mani would be out already. Hugging his pillow and wrapped in his additional blankets, he slept without making a sound. But tonight, even though he was hugging his pillow, he was sitting on his sleeping bag. Wrapped in a blanket, with only his face visible a bit, he startled Cid.
As he settled on his own sleeping bag, Cid looked at Mani and wondered what got into him tonight. He laid on his side and watched for a while, but since there was no change, he decided to ask, in the name of their partnership.
"Want to talk about it?" He said it casually, but Mani visibly twitched and looked at him "You know about it?"
Cid just spent a while pondering about absurdity of their mission so at first he assumed that Mani was also upset by it. But then, he remembered their first encounter and whole partnership misunderstanding, so decided to ask first "Not if you don't tell me, but if you want to talk, I can listen."
Mani tilted his head and pondered a bit. "Well, I was just wondering about Yak." He looked away, feeling his cheeks heat up a bit.
"Oh, him. You can ask me anything, I used to be his personal guard." Still am, just temporarily assigned to take care of you as well. Cid still thought his double duty was a bit unfair.
There was a bit of silence then Mani whispered "He is a Royal Prince, right?"
Oh, roles question. Cid turned on his back and relaxed "It was just a role that was given to him, to provide justification for him taking people out. He was always supposed to be a team leader for this mission." And likely expected to fail during all that. He frowned as his train of thoughts went back to that pit.
"But he considers King to be his father, right?" Mani said next, and Cid chuckled.
"Xul is like a grandpa to us all really. He is 50 cycles old, and made to be leader and guardian. His instincts just got stronger with time, so he treats us all as elder." Cid smiled in the dark.
"There is a need to connect in all of us, life is long and it gets lonely if there is no one to get close to." He looked to his side and saw that Mani laid down "Is that all you wanted to ask. I know a lot more about him." He offered unfiltered gossip straight from source.
Mani nodded then shook his head, uncertain. "He is not married, right?" That made Cid wonder what kind of misunderstanding was happening this time.
"No, he is not." Mani heard that and nodded to himself, but then heard Cid continue "There was that episode with him pursuing Ivory. He even proposed, but got rejected." Cid yawned "Well, it was not fated between them anyway, Ivory considers him a brother."
After that, came no more questions and Cid soon fell asleep.
Beside him, Mani got tangled in his own insecurities. It was not a first time he got approached, but usually it was not so.. polite. Yak actually told him to think about it, before he snatched wood out of his hands and dragged whole haul back to camp.
It was like Yak really gave him a choice and seemed like he would respect his decision, whatever it was. He wasn't snide nor threatening, just plainly confessed his feelings and stated his intentions. Mani felt his face heat up again.
He thought himself as being unfeeling and uninterested in relationships and romance. And yet, after just a week, he thought of Blaise as a brother, and Cindy as a friend. Perhaps. Let's be clear about it, just a tiny little bit perhaps, he could consider this as well. Being boyfriends. Suddenly he felt too hot in his bag and blanket.
*
Morning came, and Mani realised that he completely forgot to watch stars last night. He then remembered why. He turned, noticed that Cid left already. Overslept. He tried to open his eyes but felt totally out of energy.
As he finished his breakfast, porridge with berries this time, Blaze decided to make coffee himself. He learned to do that while sharing break room with Mani. He made a cup for himself, then Cid and Yax took some as well. They already started to form a habit.
When they went to start cutting trees for a raft, Blaze made one more cup and scooped leftover porridge and delivered it to Mani. "Room service!" He said while entering tent, "What happened to your internal clock?"
Mani smelled coffee and resurrected "Could not sleep for half a night." He took the cup first and breathed vapours in deeply "Perfect. Thank you, my brother Blaise."
Blaze chuckled at his extended nickname "Eat first. We're going to cut trees now, when we finish that, come help with putting it together."
Mani nodded and took the porridge "What's this in it?"
"Echo added those berries we found. Taste good." Blaze frowned remembering the snake meat. "Laters" he greeted and left Mani to his coffee.
Cutting trees was not hard, and they even perfected making it fall the way they wanted. Yax glanced at Blaze feeling a bit jealous. He wanted to deliver breakfast to bed for Mani. But, he felt he should be considerate while Mani thought about his question. No pressure.
Ivory found instructions on how to make a raft in his database. They needed trees about 30 cm thick, and they found six poplar trees that size near the river, then two more that were 15 cm in diameter, to use as connection. Their experience with making patios was quite useful now. They felled needed timber, and Mani arrived just in time to help clear branches off. Then they dragged them all to the beach and placed them together.
There, they first made notches on logs to fit floaters and connectors better together, then used ropes to secure each log in its place. Then they took a break, and just stood there, marvelling their creation. A long, narrow raft was done.
"Should we add one more connector beam in the middle to make it more stable?" Asked Mani while pondering weight bearing capacity of this makeshift raft.
"And some planks to sit on them" suggested Jone "we are supposed to float downstream for a while, no?"
"Yes, and consider weight distribution. We should balance our weight with backpacks." Cid added from behind him.
"Right, and something to help stear it." Blaze stared at their first transportation vehicle on this trip. Stone age level achieved. To think they were born in orbit, then shuttled down on exquisite marvel of technology, to be left stranded with machetes and lasers. When did they accepted it as normal?
Yax clapped his hands together "Right, by the time we do all that it will be mid afternoon. We could spend one more night here, then go down the river first thing in the morning."
Ivory nodded "After we finish it, wood should be left to dry for a bit as well."
Echo stood by the water and quietly added "Could try to catch some fish as well. We will soon run out of packed food, and boiled fish should not be too bad."
"Grilled fish!" Floreo suggested, but to his disappointment, got completely ignored by everyone.