- Caroline -

It's the first time I see him smile. It's not a wide grin, just a mild stretching of his mouth. But I'll take it.

I give him a smile of my own. “Thank you.”

He gets up and walks back the way we came while the floor creaks under his feet. The house is circular, and the middle is taken up by the thick tree trunk, so I lose sight of him immediately.

Once more I lean in to study that huge picture of Bune. It's completely insane. It's painted on a dinosaur skin that's been cut into a large rectangle that stretches the height of the house and is at least six feet wide. It's gigantic. And it's been made by thousands of little dots of color, like pixels on a high-resolution computer screen. I don't know if anyone on Earth can do something like this, but my hunch is that probably not. It would take too long. Nobody would have the patience to even try.

Still, it's not perfect. There's something about it that just looks wrong. I can't put my finger on it, and of course it's not finished yet. But still, something about it strikes me as a little off.

Well, I was never an art critic, and I'm not going to become one now. The artist is generously allowing me to stay the night here, and I'm grateful.

I stare out at the jungle, which is now so dark that I can't even see Bune in the distance. This is the first moment I've had to myself today when I'm not in mortal danger out there.

Just how grateful am I? So he caught me in a trap. After I spied on him for weeks. It's hard to tell who's morally right in this situation. Especially since that trap saved my life, and he didn't force me to come with him. You could argue that all he's done is save my life and give me food and keep me alive. I'm sure that if I were to tell him to help me get down from here and let me get home to the cave, he'd just shrug and do it.

Somehow, that makes me not want to leave. Because how fucking cool is this tree house? And he's an artist! And he's as hot as that torch he lit.

I turn and follow him. I'm feeling a certain need, and I don't want to just squat and put my butt out over the edge. It might not be according to caveman protocol.

I walk back to the hole in the platform. There's no sign of the caveman. He must have gone back down.

Fine, that makes things easier. I tiptoe back to the other side of the platform so nothing will hit someone on the way down that rope and squat over the edge, holding on to a bannister that's so conveniently placed it might just be for this very purpose.

I release the stream and sigh with relief.

Then I squeal as there's a bang, the whole platform trembles, and then Xark'on is standing in front of me looking at me with a shocked frown on his face.

Well, I can't get up. And he probably doesn't know what exactly it is that I'm doing. “Turn around please? It's just... water,” I say, so he doesn't get the wrong idea. I'm embarrassed enough as it is. My face feels red hot.

He finally turns around and replaces the wooden hatch in the ceiling where he came from, then calmly walks around the platform, out of sight. But I'm sure I can hear muffled laughter.

I finish up and too late realize that I'll need a leaf or two about now. I rummage around the pockets in my dress and find mostly fluff but also a leathery rag that sometimes comes in handy. Well, this will be its last service for me.

I get up, pull my dress down, and make my way around to the fireplace where Xark'on has lit a fire and is busy with something that looks a lot like not-sheep meat.

“There's a place for that,” he says with his back turned. “On the other side of the entrance ropes. Just for emergencies, normally. Or perhaps you prefer your way?”

“No,” I say and feel my face heat up again. “I just... I didn't know.”

“I should have told you,” he says generously, and my opinion of him improves greatly. “You were not to know.”

“It's okay. As long as I didn't offend you.”

He places a flat rock over the fire and pours a little oil on it. “Would you like some water?”

“I would.”

He hands over a leather pouch of the kind that cavemen use, and I put the opening to my lips and drink without checking what it is. If he wants to somehow hurt me, then poisoning is the least likely way.

The water is clean and feels good in my throat. I gulp down a good amount of it then suddenly have a thought.

“How do you get water up here?”

“The ropes.” He doesn't look up.

“You have to hoist water up here?”

“Yes.”

I put the stopper back in the water pouch and hand it back. “Then I won't drink so much.”

“There's enough water.”

I sit down a suitable distance from him with my back against the trunk of the giant tree. I'm his self-invited guest. Or does he see me as an intruder? He's not unfriendly. But I get the feeling I've disturbed him in his work. Which is true. If I hadn't spied on him, that raptor wouldn't have attacked me, and he would have been able to keep digging.

He puts the meat slices on the slate and it starts sizzling.

A breeze picks up and the tree sways just a little. It's barely perceptible, but the tree house construction isn't that tight, so it creaks from everywhere like a ship in a storm. Except in a ship I'd be curled up in terror. Here, everything is so serene, I'm starting to feel sleepy.

Xark'on isn't much of a talker. That's cool. Too many people talk too much. Still, he doesn't seem miffed. Or angry. Just peaceful as he calmly prepares the food and steals the occasional glance at me. I'm fine with that.

“Why you trapped me?”

He turns the slices over, and the sizzling intensifies. “Why were you spying on me?”

Fair enough. I see no reason to keep secrets from him. “I saw you. Some weeks ago. I didn't understand what you were building. So I came back. I liked to look at you.”

Only the rustle of the breeze in the leaves above us and the creaking of the house can be heard while he thinks. I lean my head against the tree, just letting the drowsiness run wild.

“I see,” he finally says. “I set the trap in case you would try to ruin my work or attack. I didn't know who you were. I thought you were a boy from another tribe, and I didn’t want him to interfere. It can be dangerous to spy on other tribes. They might be doing secret things.”

“Like you,” I take a stab in the dark.

He gives me a violet flash that just looks like a luminous black in the light from the fire. Black light? Is there such a thing? Shit, this sleepiness is really coming over me hard. With the darkness outside and the swaying of the tree and the breeze and gentle rustling of leaves, I’m relaxing more than I probably should in the company of an alien who’s a total stranger. But his calmness is rubbing off on me. And no dinos can come up here. Dactyls can, of course. Xark’on doesn’t seem to worry about them though.

The food sizzles on the slate and fills the hut with a mouthwatering smell, the tree sways pleasantly, and the caveman seems frozen in time with the warm light from the fire making his face look mysterious and thoughtful.

- - -

“I’m awake!”

Xark’on takes his hand off my shoulder as I survey my surroundings.

He has a little smile on his face as he holds a green leaf out to me. “The meat is ready.”

I rub my eyes. How long was I asleep? “Great.”

I accept the leaf and just hold it in my hand while I blink to wake up.

“Caroline is tired,” Xark’on observes.

“Just a little. It’s been a long day.”

“It has,” he agrees. “Many things have happened.”

The fire crackles, and I take a bite of the meat.

“Or rather,” Xark’on says. “Just one thing has happened. But it is a very strange thing.”

“Not that strange,” I say as I chew the turkeypig filet. “You just met one of your neighbors.”

He takes his time replying again. “A neighbor who is a woman.”

“I know you don’t have women in the tribes,” I say with my mouth full. “So you’re all waiting for The Woman to bring them back. I’m not her. I just got abducted from my world by the Plood. Along with my friends. They dropped us on Bune. But we were attacked by irox all the time, so we had to move to a cave. And now we’re a tribe. As good as any other. Better.”

It’s probably a pretty provocative thing to say to a caveman. But he’s so damn unshakeable. I would like some reaction from him.

And this is one, I guess. He freezes with his slice of meat halfway to his mouth. “Bune? When was this?”

“Three seasons ago. One of us got pregnant right after, and she gave birth just two days ago. Yeah, that probably tells you nothing. A pregnancy lasts about three seasons.”

He resumes eating and the hut is silent.

“Bune is forbidden for you, right?” I ask.

“It is.”

Which is no guarantee for anything. Some of these guys are too independent for their own good and go to forbidden places like other people go to the mall. “Have you ever been there? It’s okay, I won’t tell anyone.”

He tosses a rind of fat out a glassless window. “No.”

We eat in silence, and the sleepiness is creeping up on me again.

Xark’on hands me another water pouch, and I take a good swig of it.

Then my mouth is on fire and I cough and splutter so bad Xark’on gets up to assist me.

“What the death is that?” I cough while tears runs from my eyes. “I thought water!”

He takes a little swig himself. “This we call krunik. It flows like water, but it tastes like flames. The tribe makes it to sustain warriors on long hunts and in battle.”

“Booze,” I conclude as the worst of the fire sensation subsides and the alcoholic notes come to the forefront. I didn’t swallow much, but it feels like a little goes a long way with that stuff. “We have that on my planet as well. Except we call it rum.”

I know all about that. My hiking fanatic dad would bring a little flask of Bacardi with him on treks and drain a bottlecap of it whenever we would finally get to the top of the peak we were going to. And one summer I asked for one too. He laughed in surprise but did pour a little bit for me, even though I can only have been about fourteen. After that, I always got one when he did. Not because I liked it that much, but because it was part of the experience and that togetherness. I don’t know. Norwegians are weird, I suppose.

Xark’on hands me the water pouch, and I wash the rum-like flavor down. It’s not rum, of course. We’ve never seen anything like sugarcane here on Xren. I’m not sure I would know the difference between whisky and rum and tequila if I was just given one of them. It’s a spirit of some kind, that’s for sure. The other tribes also make booze, but not this strong, as far as I know. This krunik has definitely been distilled. The cavemen can be ingenious when the rewards are worth it.

I wipe my mouth with my bare forearm. “What is it that you are building? I mean, where I was... observing you?”

He turns the cooking slate upside down on the fire, and the fire flares up from the sudden stream of fats. “It’s a secret.”

Huh. Well, I’m not going to press him on that in his own house, three hundred feet in the air. It’s a long fall, and it's well established in university circles that nosy, bony-ass linguistics students don’t bounce too well.

I hide a long yawn behind my hand, and Xark’on gets up and places many rocks on the open fireplace. I think I know why. It’s a wooden house, and a fire here could be pretty disastrous.

“Make a box for the fire,” I suggest on an impulse, now knowing the word for it in cavemanese. We had an ancient wood-burning stove in the old, primitive cabin in the mountains. It was the only source of heat, and it was really effective, even on super cold days. “From iron. Six sides and a door with holes in it. Place on little legs on plates of slate. Very safe. Keep fire inside. You can let it burn out by itself overnight, and you'll have embers to light new fire from in the morning.”

Xark’on glances at me. “Alien ideas.”

“Alien ideas can be good. It works. Other tribes use it.”

He walks back to his painting spot where the torch is still burning. He takes a roll of dinosaur skin and stretches it out between the outer wall and a post that he erects and places into a hole in the floor.

“Ah,” I say when I see it. “A hammock.”

“A bed,” Xark’on corrects. “A bed that hangs in the air.”

“We call that a hammock, because it’s different from beds on the ground.”

“Can sleep in both kinds of bed,” he points out. “Caroline now sleep here.” He goes to his huge painting of Bune and takes up his stick and a hollowed-out stone with paint.

I consider the hammock he’s stretched out. It’s much longer than I’d need it to be. Yeah, that’s his own bed he’s just given me.

I’m filled with a warm feeling for this man who places himself between me and a fire-spewing dragon. “Let me see your back.”