Twa Milhoms

The air was thick with dew as the first light cut through the bamboo. Ben stood at the edge of the clearing, a sharpened stick in hand, carving into the damp earth. Lines connected circles, squares, paths, and markers—his vision for what this place could become. No longer just shelter. A settlement. A future.

Behind him, the camp stirred.

"Druel. Boji. Mala. Jano. Kael. Sema. Jaron." His voice carried clearly over the quiet morning. They gathered quickly, their movements familiar and precise now, not from fear—but purpose.

"We're not surviving anymore," Ben said. "We're building."

He turned the stick and pointed at the earth diagram. "Raised homes. Stone thresholds to keep out mud. Fish pens on the south bank. Crops to the east. A watch post here. Animal enclosures here. Everyone has a role."

Boji leaned forward, his eyes following the shapes. "You've been planning."

Ben nodded. "Long before Twa Milhom said no more help, I knew this had to come from us."

There was no objection. No hesitation.

Just movement.

Mala chose a tall tree on the east ridge and stripped it of low branches. With the help of two others, she lashed thick bamboo poles between forked trees, then sharpened longer stalks into spikes around the base. "We'll sleep easier with someone watching while we rest," she said simply, never breaking rhythm.

Ben passed by, paused, then gave a single nod of approval. "Make it tall."

She smirked. "Always."

Down near the center of camp, Druel and Boji had already begun raising the first house using thick bamboo poles as stilts. Flat stones, scavenged from the streambed, were laid in neat rows at the entrance.

"No more muddy feet in the sleeping mats," Boji said.

Druel, sweating but smiling, added, "If we build them this way, we can store food underneath too—shade, air flow."

Ben admired the craft. "Model all new homes after this one."

At the fish pens, Jano was already waist-deep in the water, guiding a stream of new fish into a separate section of the pen.

"I'm separating them by size," he explained. "Too many big ones, and they eat the young."

Boji arrived behind him, crossing his arms with pride. "He's thinking ahead."

Ben grinned. "He's not just watching fish—he's managing them."

That night, Jano would find a new mark above his eyebrow: the rope ring, pulsing with faint light and now stamped with a single I.

A one-ring warrior—though his spear was patience and fish.

In the dense canopy, Kael and Jaron studied claw marks on a tree, comparing depth and spacing.

"Territorial," Kael muttered. "No point in killing it outright."

Jaron placed a bundle of raw meat near a raised cage trap. "We train it young. Raise it. Maybe even ride it."

The two returned just before dusk, reporting to Ben in quick, efficient words.

Ben approved and assigned them to lead the beast-domestication team. "Capture, not kill. That's the future."

That evening, Sema returned from foraging with bundles of root herbs and strange red fruit. She dropped them near the cooking pit, wiped her brow, and turned to find Ben standing behind her.

"You always carry more than anyone else," he said.

She smiled faintly. "If they eat, they live. I like life."

Suddenly, the ground beneath her feet pulsed with faint heat. The rope-ring mark shimmered into being above her brow—and within its center, the Roman numeral I.

A gasp from nearby.

"Sema?" Mala stepped forward, eyes wide.

"I didn't ask for it," Sema whispered, touching the mark. "I just…did what needed to be done."

Ben stepped forward, placed his hand on her shoulder. "That's what a warrior is."

That night, Ben sat alone by the fire, map still laid out before him. The camp was quieter now. Efficient. Focused.

Twa Milhom did not appear, but Ben didn't expect him to.

Instead, he stared at the dirt outline again, then etched a symbol into the center of the future village: a single ring, wrapping around a jagged line—a mountain, their home.

He whispered, "One day, we won't need marks to be seen. We'll just be…us."

From far away, near the glow of blue flowers, he thought he heard a low, approving chuckle—but it may have only been the wind.

As the fire dwindled to embers, Ben remained still, tracing circles in the dirt with a stick. The weight of the day settled over his shoulders—not as exhaustion, but awareness. Every word spoken today, every order given, had carried weight. And they followed, not because a god commanded them… but because he did.

Behind him, soft footsteps approached—bare feet brushing over the stone threshold Druel had laid. Sema knelt beside him, silent for a moment.

"Why don't you rest?" Ben asked.

"I will," she said. "But I wanted to say something first."

He looked at her, the faint glow of her ring mark catching the firelight.

"I didn't become a warrior for power. I just wanted to be useful."

Ben offered her a faint smile. "Then you already understand more than most."

She stood, hesitated, and added, "It's not the god who gives meaning to the mark. It's who you become while bearing it."

Ben watched her go, the quiet crunch of her footsteps fading into the darkness. When he turned back to the fire, Twa Milhom was sitting there across from him—no warning, no sound.

The god stared into the flames, as though they whispered something only he could hear. "You're learning."

Ben said nothing.

Twa Milhom's eyes never moved. "Good. I will not make your choices. But I will watch them."

Ben nodded. "You always do."

The god tilted his head. "Do you resent me, boy?"

Ben looked down at the map in the dirt, now scuffed by wind and footsteps, but still visible. "No. But I understand now. You're not here to lead. You're here to see what kind of man I become without being led."

Twa Milhom's lips pulled into the faintest grin. "Exactly."

The fire flared for a moment—no wind, no spark—and from the shadows behind the god, three long, low growls echoed and faded. The caged beasts near the grove had awakened.

Ben dared a question. "Why do you keep them?"

Twa Milhom stood, brushing imaginary dust from his shoulder. "Understanding begins where fear ends. Watch long enough… and you'll see."

He turned and vanished between the stalks of towering bamboo. No footstep. No sound.

Ben looked back at the fire. It burned lower now, but within its glow, he saw something—just for a moment. A single burning ring etched in ash, with a II at its heart.

He blinked, and it was gone.

But the message lingered: growth is earned, not granted.