- Xark’on -

I cut the meat into filets with more care than I would ever use when I was alone. But now Caroline is here beside me, and I want her to only have the best cuts.

Her presence still makes my head spin. Before, the tribe was the center of my existence. Everything was anchored to the village and the tribesmen. Now, I haven’t thought about them for hours. When I dig in the hole, I think of Caroline and her touch and smell, losing myself in pleasant fantasies about her and me living here in the tree together for all eternity, fucking and eating and painting and talking. It seems to me a most wonderful idea.

But I must remind myself that it can’t happen. The more I think about the trap, the more obvious it becomes that it needs bait. Only a few days ago, I would be happy to offer myself up for that so that the tribe may prosper beyond the wildest fantasy of any tribesman and so that I would become a much-honored Ancestor.

But I would not be happy to use Caroline for it.

And now, I would not be happy to use myself either. My life is suddenly much better than I had ever dreamed. A whole new world has opened up, one in which there is a woman by my side. Until just a few weeks ago, I wouldn’t have offered that a single thought. Now, the mere thought of living without Caroline is as dark as death itself.

I will enjoy it as long as I can. Until the trap is finished. Then, I will have to make my decision, unless the Ancestors show me what to do. Caroline would be better bait, no doubt about it. But too valuable, too priceless!

And yet, the prize, the Treasure... It’s not worth her life. But I fear it’s easily worth mine.

“Where do you get all your rope?” Caroline chirps while cutting some plants into slices. “I mean, the one you use to get up here. And the ones on the wall. They’re so long and strong. I saw you making one the first day.”

“There are many gork trees near the village. They produce long fibers that get strong when treated the right way. Many fibers together make a good rope.”

“How are they treated?”

I tell her about ropemaking while we prepare the food. It’s remarkably pleasant to sit here together and talk about unimportant things. Caroline listens and asks good questions, and before I know it we’re eating, and her hand is casually resting on my knee in a way that I find most charming.

“So this house was made to kill irox,” Caroline says. “A man in my tribe knows how to ride them. He’s tamed one and flies around on it. I think I told you? His wife too. From Earth.”

Nothing about Caroline surprises me anymore. “I see.”

“Yeah. And they can ride other Bigs too. It scares me to death. And another woman, Sophia, has given birth. Do you know what that is?”

“The shaman only told us about the mating,” I say carefully. This topic is pretty outlandish to me. “Not about the birth. But we have Lifegivers in the village.”

“A birth is a little more messy than that, I think. But yeah, it’s similar to the Lifegivers. Does your tribe take good care of theirs?”

“They are the whole basis for a continued tribe,” I state. “Of course we take good care of them.”

She stands up and looks out into the darkness. “Can you see your village from here?”

I take her hand, which seems the most natural thing in the world to do. We walk halfway around the tree house and I point. “There. You should be able to see... Yes, there are two fires. Only a part of the village is visible from here. There are a hundred men in the tribe.”

The two little yellow pinpricks of light don’t make me wish I was there. It’s a good village, but I'm having a much better time here with Caroline.

“It's pretty far away,” she observes. “It must take a long time to walk there.”

“It does. But I wanted to trap Troga far away, and here there's an old forge for making the spikes and this tree house to give shelter.”

She squeezes my hand. “And it gives you a calm place to paint.”

Of course she understood that that's one of my favorite things about this place. “It does.”

“Can I see you do it?”

She sits down on the floor cross-legged. I go halfway around the house to get her a skin to sit on and the sack of fiery krunik that she calls 'boos'. Then, I take my tools and the colors and continue on the painting of Bune. Some of the trees still remain to be done. I itch to keep working on the other painting I started recently, but it isn't ready for anyone else's eyes yet, least of all Caroline's.

After a while, she takes my hand and looks up at me with those huge eyes that sparkle in the light from the torch. “You're great, do you know that?”