One step at a time

For the first time in a long while, I actually enjoy what I’m doing. Not just tolerate it—enjoy it. My old job? Spreadsheet after spreadsheet, a never-ending cycle of numbers shifting between cells, each one more meaningless than the last. I was good at it, but it never felt like it mattered. It was survival, not fulfillment.

Now, somehow, I have a career—if I can call it that. It’s a strange mix of assistant, accountant, apprentice, and glorified errand boy. The job itself isn’t glamorous, but it’s real. Every sack of grain counted, every deal struck, every errand run—it means something to these people.

Like this fence I’m trying to fix.

Yes, that’s right. I got another promotion. Nate the handyman.

Which is deeply troubling, because I am not that handy.

I brace my foot against the ground and try to lift the wooden post into place. It barely budges. Gritting my teeth, I push harder. My arms shake, my back screams, and after a solid ten seconds of effort, I manage to move it all of two inches.

Great. Fantastic. The village is truly blessed to have me.

A passing farmer stops, watching my struggle. I look up, expecting help. He nods once. "Try using your legs."

"Right. Legs. Good tip."

He walks off.

I take a deep breath and reposition my stance. This is fine. Totally fine.

###

Not that my daily tasks have changed all that much. I still get sent all over the village, running messages, checking inventory, making sure nothing is misplaced or unaccounted for. Coordinating an entire village’s survival is way more complicated than I ever imagined. There are supplies to track, tools to maintain, fields to tend, and trade deals to secure—all of which involve a lot of back-and-forth with very skeptical locals.

Like the blacksmith, for example.

I think he doesn’t like me for two reasons. First, I’m Nate the outsider. Understandable. But the second reason baffles me—I think he really doesn’t like Io. And I have no idea why.

When I step into his workshop to check on some tools, he barely glances up. “Be sure to tell that lady I don’t appreciate being told how to do my own job.”

“Yes, sir. I will pass on the message.” I keep my voice neutral. Probably best not to start a fight with the guy holding a hammer.

He mutters something under his breath, then adds, "Damn kids. Her father, now he was a man worth respecting—a true warrior. She just gets on everyone’s nerves."

I pause, letting that sink in.

Her father?

I walk out without responding, but the words sit heavy in my mind.

###

The merchants, in particular, continue to be a headache. When I first heard about them, I imagined dealing with shadowy figures in back alleys, smuggling contraband under the cover of darkness. The reality? A bunch of grumpy old men arguing over the price of dried meat.

"Five crates of grain, three sacks of dried meat," one merchant lists, tapping his fingers on the cart's edge. "And I’ll throw in a bundle of salt if you cut the price on the wool."

Io doesn’t even blink. "Three crates, two sacks, and we keep the wool price as is."

The merchant snorts. "I wasn’t born yesterday, girl. Four crates. You know what’s happening in the cities—grain prices are climbing."

Io tilts her head, like she’s considering. Then she smiles. "Oh, we know. Which is why we don’t need to sell so quickly."

The merchant hesitates. Io presses on. "We can wait. Can you?"

I almost feel bad for the guy. Almost.

I wonder if she’ll ever let me handle a deal on my own. If she does, it definitely won’t be soon. Not after my whole potato incident.

###

In the evenings, Io spared me the humiliation of sitting in the village’s makeshift schoolhouse alongside children by agreeing to teach me herself. Sometimes we also practice after lunch. I’m slowly getting the hang of their writing system—slowly being the key word. It doesn’t help that she makes me practice by reading from the village ledger, a book so full of trade jargon and shorthand that I can barely keep up.

And the kids? Oh, they love this.

"Try again," Io says, sliding the ledger toward me.

I squint at the letters. I know these symbols. I just learned them. But strung together like this, they’re a mess. My brain stalls.

A snicker from behind me.

I glance over my shoulder. One of the village kids, maybe seven years old, peeks over, grinning. Oh no.

"That’s a four, not a nine," he says, giggling.

Io smirks. "You’re being corrected by a child."

"I’m aware."

The kid grins wider. "Do you need me to read it for you?"

I sigh, pressing my forehead to the table. "Not again."

###

True to our deal, I also get to teach Io.

She doesn’t want structured lessons. No formal curriculum, no textbooks, no clear progression. Just conversation. At any given moment, she’ll point at something and demand, “Explain that.”

Sometimes it’s an object. Sometimes it’s a concept. Sometimes it’s just a word that sounds strange to her ears.

It’s fun.
It’s also terrifying.

Because, as it turns out, I don’t actually know as much as I thought I did.

I’ll start explaining something—physics, history, some scientific principle I barely scraped through in university—only to realize halfway through that I have no idea what I’m talking about. I’ll be confidently describing how lightning works, and then suddenly—wait, is it the rapid expansion of heated air that makes thunder, or something else?

Io, of course, notices.

“You just stopped talking,” she says, watching me closely.

“Uh—yeah. Just making sure I explain this properly.”

She smirks. “You forgot, didn’t you?”

“No.”

She raises an eyebrow.

“…Maybe.”

She leans back, grinning. “Hah! The great thinker doesn’t know something.”

“Hey, I never claimed to be great,” I grumble.

She taps her fingers on the table, amused. “So? What do you do now? Make something up?”

“No. I just… double-check before I say anything dumb.”

“Too late for that.”

Despite that, I do have a few ideas on where to start.

My biggest project? Germ theory.

Io once mentioned humors as the reason people get sick. That means they’re still working with ancient medical ideas. It’s not their fault—it’s just the knowledge that’s been passed down. But if I can get her to understand how disease actually works, maybe that knowledge could help people here.

The problem is… how the hell do I prove it?

I can’t just say, “Trust me on this, tiny creatures make you sick.” She’d probably laugh me out of the room. No, she’ll need evidence.

Which brings me to… experiments.

I start pacing in my room, running through my options.

Could I grow some bacterial cultures? Maybe. With what, though? Some kind of beef stock? That would work. But it’d just look like mold, and they already know what mold is. Not exactly groundbreaking.

Maybe that old experiment with sealed jars? How did it go again? One open, one sealed, one covered in cloth? That could work. If I can show that meat rots differently when exposed to air, it might at least get her asking the right questions.

I groan, rubbing my temples. If only I had a microscope.

That’s definitely out of my reach. Even if I knew exactly how to make one, getting the materials would be impossible.

Wait—what about alcohol?

I stop pacing.

They do know how to distill spirits. That’s a good sign. Maybe I can use it to disinfect things. If I can show that cleaning wounds with alcohol reduces infections, that would be huge.

…I wonder how they’ll react when they see me spilling the good booze in the name of science.

Yeah. That might be a problem.

###

My status in the village has… improved.

I’m still not one of them, but at least I’m not just that outsider anymore. The wary stares haven’t disappeared entirely, but they’ve softened. People acknowledge me now, if only with brief nods or quick words when passing by. It’s a far cry from the cold, silent treatment I got when I first arrived.

At meals, the difference is even clearer. Before, it felt like people were strategically sitting as far from me as possible, like I carried some invisible plague. Now, the space between me and the others has shrunk—not completely, but enough. Someone might pass me a dish without hesitation, a few people will let me in on the small talk. I even catch snippets of conversation not meant for me, like I’m blending into the background instead of being a constant presence to be observed.

Progress.

The adults are warming up to me at a cautious, glacial pace. The kids? They never cared in the first place.

They follow me around, equal parts fascinated and entertained by whatever I’m doing. If I’m working, I have an audience. If I’m reading, they peek over my shoulder. And if I butcher a word while practicing their language, they let me know.

Brutally.

“That’s wrong.”

“You said it weird.”

“Are you trying to sound like an idiot?”

The first time it happened, I was stunned. I expected them to be shy, maybe even wary, but no—they just decided immediately that I was fair game for ridicule.

And the worst part? They’re right.

I’m slow. I misread words. I stumble over phrases. One of them even corrected me the other day, a kid no older than seven pointing out a mistake in the ledger while I was struggling through it. He wasn’t even smug about it—just genuinely trying to help.

It should be frustrating. It should be humiliating.

But, honestly?

It’s kind of nice.

They don’t treat me like an outsider. They don’t care where I came from or whether I belong. They just treat me like a person. Maybe the adults will get there eventually, but for now, at least I have my personal band of tiny critics keeping me grounded.

###

Summer is creeping in, and with it, the first harvest of the potatoes.

I kneel beside one of the farmers, watching as he digs his hands into the dirt and pulls up the first set. They’re smaller than I expected, caked in soil, but… they look right. I think. I hope.

I wipe my forehead, glancing around at the others. A few more farmers are hunched over, yanking plants from the ground, shaking off the excess dirt, examining the strange, knobby things that are supposed to be our salvation. There’s skepticism written on every face.

I can’t blame them.

One of the farmers, a broad-shouldered man with sun-roughened skin, turns a potato over in his hands, frowning at it like he expects it to bite him. “And you’re sure we can eat these?”

“Completely sure,” I say, trying to sound more confident than I feel. “Just—uh—don’t eat them raw.”

He looks up at me. “Why not?”

I hesitate. How do I explain solanine poisoning in a way that doesn’t sound ridiculous? “Uh. They might make you sick.”

His frown deepens. “Might?”

“…They will make you sick.”

The farmer grunts, clearly unimpressed, and tosses the potato into a basket. “And what do we even do with them?”

“Boil them, mash them, maybe fry them—” I stop, mid-thought. “Wait. Do you have oil?”

The farmer gives me a blank stare.

Io sighs, crossing her arms. “I think it’s best if Nate sticks to farming advice.”

I still don’t fully understand farming, so I’ve been relying on the locals to handle the actual work. I just give advice where I can—which, let’s be honest, isn’t much.

The only thing I’ve been absolutely firm on is: Don’t eat them raw, and only eat the bulbs. Everything else? We’ll figure it out.

But there’s something oddly satisfying about this moment—watching people pull food from the ground, food that wasn’t here before, food that I helped introduce. It’s not much, but it’s something.

I kneel down, brushing my fingers over the dirt-covered potatoes in the basket. They don’t look like much now, but if we get this right, if the village accepts them, this could be the start of something big.

I look up at the gathered farmers. They’re still wary, still skeptical, but they haven’t dismissed the idea outright. That’s a start.

“I have a feeling I’ll be more useful when it comes to cooking these,” I admit, standing up and dusting off my hands. “I doubt anyone here has even considered frying or mashing them.”

One of the younger workers, leaning on a hoe nearby, tilts his head. “Mashing?”

I grin. “Yeah. Trust me, it’s good.”

Io rolls her eyes. “I’d be more convinced if you weren’t the same person who once called salted porridge ‘an acquired taste.’”

“That was a bad batch!” I protest.

She just shakes her head.

Still, the idea is planted. I wonder if the village cooks would be willing to experiment a little. If I really manage to sell them on frying, I might just go down in history.

Now that would be an accomplishment.

###

The village is changing.

I can feel it in the way people talk, in how they move about their tasks. It’s not fear anymore, not entirely—caution, maybe, but not the sharp-edged suspicion that hung in the air when Nate first arrived. He’s an oddity, a strange man with stranger ideas, but he works, and that means something.

I’ve been keeping him busy—running errands, making notes, getting him into places where people can get used to him. He’s tolerated, which is the best I could hope for in this short time. The guards don’t track his every step anymore. The farmers don’t mutter when he passes by. Even the children, the most honest in their reactions, have stopped gawking at him like he’s some forest spirit in disguise.

And me? I’ve been learning.

Every time I point at something and say, “Explain that,” he does. No hesitation, no secrecy, just a flood of information. The world beyond what I know is unfolding, piece by piece, in the oddest of places—over morning trade ledgers, while moving sacks of wheat, in the pauses between tasks.

There’s something exhilarating about it.

Not just the knowledge itself, but the idea of knowing. Of grasping concepts no one in the village has ever considered. Of looking at the night sky and thinking of planets, not just stars. Of knowing that sickness isn’t a curse, that trade isn’t just a matter of negotiation but of patterns and leverage.

I always wanted to learn. Now, I am.

But that doesn’t mean I’ve forgotten what matters most.

The famine is coming.

I’ve traded more than I should have, pulled in favors, and leaned on every merchant willing to speak with me. The wheat prices are still climbing. The transports keep moving south. The towns are feeling it now, not just the villages.

I asked Falko—our insufferable but useful connection—what the nobles are saying about it. He laughed in that self-satisfied way of his and said, "They’re saying nothing. And that should worry you."

It does.

We have enough wheat stored to last the winter, but next year? If the fields don’t yield enough, if the prices don’t drop, if we can’t sell or buy at fair rates… then we’ll starve like the rest of them.

Which brings me back to his stupid potatoes.

I didn’t believe him at first. I still don’t, not entirely. But the truth is, we don’t have the luxury of doubt. If they grow—if they truly yield the way he claims—then we’ll have something no one else does.

The farmers have done their part, planting them in controlled patches. The soil isn’t perfect, but if the roots take, we’ll know soon enough. The first harvest is weeks away. Until then, we wait.

And if they don’t work?

We’ll have to find another way to survive.

I close my ledger, my notes a mix of trade numbers, field reports, and—scattered in the margins—things I never thought I’d be writing down. Formulas. Measurements. Even a crude attempt at one of his strange number diagrams.

I smile.

For the first time in my life, I’m learning things no one else here knows. And I don’t intend to stop.

###

The chief’s house isn’t imposing, not in the way you’d expect from someone who holds so much authority. It’s sturdy, functional, like everything else in the village. A home that has seen generations pass through it, a place for decisions that shape the lives of everyone here.

Io and I walk up the worn stone path, the air thick with the lingering warmth of the day. I adjust the ledger under my arm, my thoughts racing ahead of me.

I have to explain myself properly this time. No jumping to conclusions. No grand predictions without solid proof.

Io glances at me. “You look like you're about to walk into an interrogation.”

I sigh. “That’s how it feels.”

She smirks. “Welcome to my world.”

The door creaks open, and the chief is already seated by the fire, waiting.

I swallow. Time to see if I’ve made a fool of myself.

The three of us sit around the chief’s table, the fire in the hearth crackling softly. The air inside is heavy, not just with the scent of burning wood but with unspoken thoughts. The chief has the same unreadable expression he always does, arms crossed, eyes steady as he listens. Io is beside me, leaning slightly forward, one hand on the table, her ledger closed in front of her.

I glance at my own notes, scanning through the numbers. Weeks of work condensed into scribbled figures. Enough food for winter, maybe longer. Potatoes—growing, hopefully. The village wouldn’t starve.

But was I wrong?

I clear my throat. "So, about the famine."

The chief lifts an eyebrow. Io shifts slightly.

I sigh. "I might’ve... overreacted."

The chief exhales slowly, like he's been expecting this. "Go on."

"When I first started piecing things together, the signs made sense. The wheat transports, the price hikes, the dry season—all of it pointed to a famine on the horizon. But we haven't seen any real shortages yet. And maybe the nobles buying up grain weren’t just preparing to hoard food. Maybe they had another reason."

"Such as?" Io asks, her voice even.

"Something political." I drum my fingers on the table. "I assumed they were just stockpiling to keep their people fed. But what if they’re not? What if the grain isn’t meant for their subjects at all?"

Io frowns, considering. The chief remains silent, waiting.

"We don’t know where all that grain is going," I continue. "Maybe it's just precautionary, maybe not. But if there's no real famine and they’re still buying out the grain markets, then it’s not just about food—it’s about control."

"A war," the chief says, flatly.

The word lingers in the air.

I swallow. "Or something close to it. It would explain why they’re tightening their grip on supplies. If they expect conflict, they’ll want to control food, trade, everything. They could be preparing for sieges, or just making sure rival factions don't get their hands on the reserves."

"That’s a dangerous assumption," Io says, her voice lower. "If we prepare for famine and none comes, we still have food. If we ignore it and war reaches us, we’ll be defenseless."

The chief nods. "So we continue stockpiling. Quietly."

"Right," I say. "I just—I don’t want to jump at shadows. But we might need to start looking at the bigger picture."

The chief exhales through his nose. "We already are."

I glance at Io. She looks at me, eyes unreadable. Then, she shifts, straightening in her chair.

"There’s something else," she says.

The chief tilts his head slightly. "Go on."

She nods at me. "Tell him."

I hesitate. "On our way back from the last trade deal, we saw someone. Not a merchant, not a soldier—someone official."

The chief's expression hardens. "Describe him."

"Not dressed for travel, but not wearing anything expensive either. Looked like a clerk or an administrator. The kind of guy who keeps records but never actually does anything himself."

"A tax collector?" Io suggests.

"Maybe," I say. "But why here? This village doesn’t exactly pay taxes in coin, does it?"

The chief shakes his head. "No. We’ve always been beneath notice, unimportant enough to be ignored." He exhales. "Until now."

We fall into silence.

I grip the edge of the table. "So. Famine, war, or something else entirely. What’s our next move?"

The chief rubs his chin, his expression dark. "We stay quiet. Keep our heads down. And watch. If officials are taking an interest in the forest, then something is coming."

Io closes her ledger with a soft thud. "Then we better be ready."

I nod, but there’s an uneasy feeling in my gut.

We aren’t ready. Not for whatever this is.

Not yet.

###

“We have a plan, but why did you have me do most of the talking?”

“I need the chief to warm up to you,” I say, stepping carefully over an uneven patch of stone in the path. “He needs to see you as someone useful.”

Nate glances at me, raising an eyebrow. “And?”

I let him wait for a moment before giving a small shrug. “Decent.”

“Decent?” He huffs, shifting the ledger under his arm. “I think I did better than decent.”

I smirk. “You didn’t embarrass me, so that’s a win.”

“So what now? We just continue as we were?”

“Probably. You’d be surprised—nothing really happens here. It’s boring. At least now I have you to keep me entertained.”

I mean it half as a joke, but the truth lingers in the air between us. It’s been a long time since I had someone to actually talk to like this. Someone who doesn’t treat every conversation like a negotiation or a carefully measured exchange of obligations.

The village paths are familiar beneath my feet, but walking them with Nate beside me changes something. The quiet night wraps around us, the air crisp, carrying the distant murmur of the last few villagers still awake. It’s strange how quickly I’ve adjusted to his presence—how, in a short time, he’s carved a space here, even in my own routines.

I glance at him. There’s always something turning in his head, and I like watching the way he picks things apart, his explanations filling the gaps in what I know. There’s still so much I don’t understand, and tonight, I find myself wanting to dig deeper.

“Nate,” I say, breaking the comfortable silence.

“Yeah?” He glances at me, adjusting the basket slung over his shoulder.

“Remember when I told you about what causes illness?”

“Yeah, the humors.” He gives me a look like he already knows where this is going.

I smirk. “Did you have the same idea where you’re from?”

He exhales, like he’s bracing for a long conversation. “Why are you asking?”

I shrug. “We’ve been talking about famine, war… it makes sense to want to keep everyone healthy if those things are coming.”

“That’s fair.”

“So?”

“We did believe something like that. Once.”

“Is it true?”

He hesitates, and I know that means no.

“Well… not exactly,” he admits. “The idea that an imbalance in the body can make you sick isn’t wrong, but it’s not the full picture. Like, yeah, if you don’t eat the right foods, you can get weak or ill. But that’s not the only reason people get sick.”

I frown. “Then what is?”

He thinks for a moment. “Okay. What happens if a farmer brings a pest into a field?”

“The plants will be harmed,” I answer immediately.

“Right. So illness is caused by pests,” he says, his voice teasing like he’s leading me somewhere.

I roll my eyes. “I feel like this is a trick.”

“Not a trick—just a simplified comparison.” He gestures with his hands. “Now, imagine something really, really small. A tiny speck, so small you can’t even see it. And it moves. It grows. It spreads.”

I narrow my eyes. “And?”

“If that tiny thing gets inside your body, it can cause fever, coughing, pain… all kinds of illnesses.”

I stop walking. “Wait. You’re saying there are creatures that make people sick?”

“Yes.”

I stare at him, waiting for a laugh, for some sign that he’s messing with me. “And these… tiny pests… they just exist inside us?”

“They don’t just exist,” he says, turning to face me. “They spread. One sick person can pass them to another. Some people have them without even knowing it, and they carry them to others.”

I cross my arms. “And how do you know they’re real?”

He exhales, running a hand through his hair. “Because we eventually built things that let us see them.”

I frown, turning over his words. It makes sense—too much sense. I’ve seen how sickness moves through the village. Someone falls ill, and days later, their family does too. If it’s these invisible pests, then that means sickness isn’t random.

It can be stopped.

I think of the birthing rituals, the careful cleansing before a newborn enters the world. Did we always know, on some instinctive level, that filth carried something dangerous? That the difference between life and death wasn’t fate, but something as simple as washing your hands?

“How long did it take your people to prove this?” I ask.

Nate sighs, rubbing the back of his neck. “Longer than it should have. The idea that tiny creatures could make people sick sounded insane at first. People laughed at it. Some fought against it, even when the proof was right in front of them.”

That, at least, I understand. No one wants to admit they’ve been wrong their whole life. I glance down at my hands, thinking about all the times I stood beside a sickbed, helpless, thinking that sickness was something we had to endure. Could it have been prevented? Could we have saved people?

The idea is overwhelming. I push it aside for now.

“You must have ways to fight them,” I say, forcing my voice to stay level. “If your people have known this for so long.”

“We do,” he says. “Clean water, heat, certain herbs. Later, we made medicines—things that kill germs without harming the body.”

I blink. “You can do that?”

“Yeah. We call them antibiotics.”

Antibiotics. The word means nothing to me, but the idea behind it sends a thrill down my spine. If something like that exists, could we make it here? Could I?

I shake my head. That’s a problem for another time. “Then I suppose you’ll have to teach me more about it.”

He smirks. “That’s the plan.”

The conversation lingers in my mind as we reach home. Nate’s world is strange—so full of contradictions. A place advanced enough to fight sickness with invisible knowledge, yet foolish enough to take centuries to see the obvious.

I glance at him as he stretches his arms, yawning. He’s strange too. Too eager to explain, too quick to trust, yet sharp in ways I wouldn’t have expected. He sees things differently, and that makes him useful.

And yet, for all his talk of science, he still doesn’t know how he got here. That makes him just as lost as we are.

I push the thought aside as I step into my house. There’s work to do tomorrow. Plans to make. And maybe, if I push him enough, more questions to ask.

For now, though, sleep.