Her reaction was extreme, fueled by the pride she clung to so desperately, even though whole tribe sees them as outcasts. To handle the waste of others was the lowest of the low in tribal hierarchy.
"It is humiliating!" Veyra spat, pointing a trembling finger at him. "We are poor, Sol, but we are not beggars! I won’t do it."
"It is not garbage," Sol said coolly, his voice hard and unyielding. "It is flavor. And we won’t be beggars. We will be merchants."
Even though they didn’t know what the merchant was, but that wasn’t the point right now.
As, he also stood up, towering Veyra’s height.
"You think it’s humiliating?"He asked, stepping closer to her. "What’s humiliating is starving in the winter. What’s humiliating is hiding in the back of the line during distribution because we have nothing to offer. What’s humiliating is eating boiled dirt while those guys eats meat."
He pointed to the fire, his eyes burning with conviction.
"I can turn those bones into a feast. I can turn those guts into something better than what the Chief eats. But I need you to trust me."
"Trust you?" Veyra laughed, a harsh, brittle sound that bounced off the mud walls. She stepped back from his intensity, her arms crossed defensively over her chest—not out of fear, but out of sheer incredulity.
"On a whim?" she spat, her gray eyes flashing. "On a dream you had while you were drooling on the floor in a coma? You want us to bet our winter survival on a hallucination? You think because you woke up with a new attitude, the world suddenly works differently? It doesn’t, Sol. Mud is mud. Trash is trash. And we are still outcasts."
She pointed a trembling finger at the door.
"If we stand in that square boiling bones, they won’t trade with us. They will throw stones at us. And I won’t be there to catch them."
"It was not a hallucination."
The voice was quiet, calm, and utterly immovable. It cut through Veyra’s tirade like an obsidian blade through tall grass.
Veyra stopped, her mouth still open. She turned slowly to look at her mother.
Lyra hadn’t raised her voice. She hadn’t moved from her spot beside Sol. She simply stood there, radiating a strange, heavy calmness that felt alien on the usually anxious woman. She was looking at Sol, her eyes soft, dilated, and filled with that unwavering, terrifying devotion he had planted there with his seed and his will.
"He made delicious food we hadn’t eaten before," Lyra said, her voice steady. "He took the same bitter roots, the same tough meat we have eaten for years, and he turned it into something that made us weep with joy. Was that a hallucination, Veyra? Did your tongue lie to you?"
Veyra faltered, her gaze dropping for a second. "That... that was just cooking. Cooking isn’t magic."
"And today," Lyra continued, ignoring the interruption, "he healed me."
She lifted her arm... the left one, the one that usually clicked and ached when it rained, the one she rubbed constantly after a day of weaving. She rotated her shoulder in a wide, fluid circle. There was no wince. No stiffness. Just smooth, oiled movement.
"Look at me," Lyra commanded softly. "The pain..." Lyra murmured, her hand drifting up to touch her shoulder, her fingers brushing the spot where he had ejaculated on her. A shiver seemed to run through her. "It is gone. I have carried a knot in this shoulder for many seasons. It was a stone I carried every day. Tonight... Sol touched it, and it vanished."
She looked at Sol, her eyes softening into that hazy, devoted look that made Veyra’s skin crawl with confusion.
"It is gone. Completely.: She murmured again "He has a gift, Veyra. The ancestors speak through him. I felt their... power."
She stepped closer to Veyra, placing a hand on the girl’s shoulder.
"We have lived in fear for too long," Lyra said. "Fear of others. Fear of hunger. Fear of the winter. Now Sol is offering us a way out. We will not spit on it because of pride."
"And if Sol says the bones are wealth," Lyra stated, looking at her daughters with a firmness that brooked no argument, "then they are wealth."
Veyra’s mouth fell open. She looked from her mother to Sol, shock written all over her face.
"Mother..." Arelia started, concerned. "Are you sure?"
"I am sure," Lyra said, her eyes locked on Sol’s. "Tomorrow, we follow Sol."
The shift in the room was clearly discernable. The matriarch of the house had bowed. The hierarchy had broken and reformed around the young man standing by the fire, with Sol at the peak and Lyra as his shield.
Sol kept his expression neutral and full of ambition to change their situation, but inside, he was howling with triumph.
"Good," Sol said, clapping his hands together. "Then we should sleep. We have a big day tomorrow."
Veyra glared at him, her chest heaving, but seeing her mother’s absolute stance, she didn’t argue further.
He moved to his sleeping spot by the window. As he lay down, he watched the women of the house settle in.
Arelia was banking the fire, her movements graceful. Liora curled up next to Veyra, who was staring at the ceiling with a frown, clearly trying to figure out how the world had turned upside down in twenty-four hours. And Lyra... Lyra slept deeply, a smile on her face, her hand resting on her shoulder where he had marked her.
Sol closed his eyes. He checked the cavity in his chest. The energy was trickling back, slow but steady.
Tomorrow, he would introduce the tribe to the concept of umami and heat. Tomorrow, he would hook them.
And once the village was addicted to his soup... well, a man who controls the food, controls the tribe.
"Sleep well, ladies," Sol thought, drifting off. "The free use era is just beginning."