The Lesson

She shook her head gently, brushing the thoughts away like smoke from her eyes.

The silence had stretched just long enough.

The morning was already leaning toward midday, and the heat was building.

This wasn't the place to daydream — not in the wild, not with nothing left in their packs.

She looked over at Talo, who was now chewing on a piece of dried root like it owed him money.

"So…" she said, standing slowly and brushing off the sand, "how do I find food?"

He glanced up, one brow lifted.

"Before I met your camp," she continued, "I was seven days gone with no food, and barely any water. I can feel the flame moving inside me, but it doesn't cook roots or pull fruit out of trees."

She exhaled, planting her hands on her hips.

"Can you teach me how to survive?"

Talo wiped his hands on his trousers, then stood with a quiet nod.

"Yeah. I can teach you."

He looked her up and down, half-smirking.

"You've got fire in your blood, but if we're gonna keep walking this world, you'll need more than that."

He slung his pack over his shoulder and pointed toward a ridge in the distance.

"First lesson — walk east in the morning.

The sun's behind you, you can see better. And the heat won't kill you before you find shade."

Rasha gave a short laugh, falling into step behind him.

Talo glanced over his shoulder, grinning.

Rasha, brushing her hair back as the desert wind swept a bit of sand across the trail said, "I don't think either of us has to worry about the heat anymore."

Talo smirked.

"Fair point. You're basically a walking furnace now."

She shrugged playfully.

"Guess that makes you my personal heat-resistant guide."

"Or your flint assistant," he muttered with mock offense.

She laughed again, and the sound danced in the air like a spark finding dry grass — light, brief, but catching.

They walked side by side, the sun climbing higher, heat rising off the sand.

But Rasha didn't sweat.

Her body regulated itself now, warmth adjusting like breath.

And next to her, Talo moved with the ease of someone who had grown up in places like this — all instinct and calm.

It was the beginning of something steady.

The Eternal Flame and the boy who carried no magic… except the one she had left behind.

By midday, the sun hung high and hard above them.

The sand had gone from warm to biting, and the little shade cast by the rocks was already shrinking.

They hadn't seen a single fruit-bearing plant.

Not even a dried stalk worth chewing.

Talo stopped, crouching low and brushing his fingers across a patch of disturbed sand.

"Something was here," he muttered.

Rasha peered over his shoulder.

"Something edible?"

"If we're lucky," he said. "Could be a sand hare. Maybe a bone-feather lizard."

He reached into his pack and pulled out a length of thin wire — a trap coil.

"Teach me," she said.

Talo looked up at her, then handed her the coil.

"Alright. You find where something's moved — broken patterns, loose sand, anything that curves instead of flows. You set the trap where it will come back. Not where it was."

Rasha nodded, her eyes narrowing, studying the desert like it was a fire that had to be read instead of feared.

She traced a soft half-moon pattern in the sand — almost too subtle to notice — and planted the trap nearby, carefully anchoring it with a small stone.

They stepped back and waited.

Minutes stretched.

The heat buzzed.

Then — a flicker of movement.

The sand quivered, barely, and a shape darted forward — small, sleek, low to the ground.

The trap snapped.

Talo lunged forward, lifting the coil carefully, and revealed a desert hare thrashing inside.

"Quick," he said, "don't let it suffer."

Rasha stepped forward.

Her hand hovered over the creature — and for the first time, she felt something new.

The fire within her didn't burn.

It pulsed — warm and steady.

She whispered,

"Thank you," and placed her hand gently over the hare's chest.

A short, soft heat flared through her fingers, and the life beneath them stilled — not ripped away, but soothed into stillness.

Talo stared at her, silent.

"That was… respectful."

"It was alive," she said simply. "And it gave something so we could keep going."Talo nodded slowly.

"Yeah. I can work with that."