I heard it in the whispers above the pit. Said with fear, sometimes with anger, sometimes with awe. I didn’t know the full meaning, but the tone said enough: I was not just foreign—I was unnatural.

For the first few days, no one spoke to me directly. Food came in silence—thrown down in rough bowls: hard bread, salted meat, and bitter roots. I ate it all. My engineered gut processed it efficiently, though I could feel the strain. This planet’s biology was similar to Earth’s but subtly wrong—trace minerals off by a few isotopes, proteins shaped just differently enough to irritate the lining of my throat. But I adapted.

That’s what I was built to do. Adapt.

So I listened.

And learned.

---

The language came slowly, through repetition. Words repeated in different contexts. Accents shifting between older villagers and children. I mimicked the phonemes under my breath, piecing together grammar from tone and position.

“So-ra” — land.

“An” — this.

“Vel-ka” — the ones outside.

“Kalen” — me. They tried to say my name, but it twisted in their tongue.

I responded every time they said it. It helped reinforce the association.

Then one day, the old man came.

---

He hobbled down the steps to my cell, supported by a staff. White beard, eyes like cold glass. Not a warrior. A scholar, maybe. Or a priest. He wore robes stitched with faded silver thread and symbols I didn’t recognize—circles, thorns, stars.

He stood before me, silent. Watching.

Then he spoke, carefully, deliberately. “Va'tar… Kalen.”

I nodded. “Kalen.”

He pointed at me. “Kalen.”

Then at himself. “Turo.”

Turo.

He sat down across from me and began speaking slowly, pointing at things. “Torch.” “Wall.” “Stone.” “Fire.”

I repeated everything. My tongue was too fast at first—years of speaking quantum-accelerated languages left me too precise for their rough syllables. But I learned.

He visited every day after that.

---

A week passed. Then ten days.

And then, I was let out.

Two guards—nervous—escorted me to the surface. I squinted at the sunlight. The village looked different now. People paused to watch me. Children stared. Some ran. The adults only watched, tense, gripping tools like weapons.

Turo led me to the village center, where a circle of elders sat. Men and women. Worn faces. Leather tunics. Calloused hands. They stared at me like I was a riddle written in blood.

Turo spoke for a while. I caught bits. “From sky.” “Not Velkar.” “Different.” “Strong.” “Can help.”

Then they asked me something directly.

I didn’t understand the whole question, but one word stood out: “Fire.”

I reached down and took two stones from the ground.

They flinched.

I knelt, scraped them together. It took three strikes, but sparks jumped. Dry moss. Smoke. Fire.

Gasps.

They had fire. Of course they did. But not like this. They used flint and tinder, or slow-burning embers carried in clay jars. What I showed them was control—efficiency.

I saw it then—in their eyes. Not full trust. But a fracture in the wall between us.

Turo looked at me, surprised.

I looked at the fire I had made.

And I knew the first step had been taken.

---

That night, they gave me a small hut at the village edge. No lock. No guard. Just space. I studied the tools they used—wooden plows, rusted iron knives, ceramic pots. I memorized the grain of their timber, the scent of their clay. I needed to understand their limits.

Then I drew in the dirt.

Designs. Crude schematics. A bellows. A crucible. A furnace design, shaped from memory and adapted to their resources. I needed heat. I needed metal. If I could refine even basic alloys, I could build.

Not computers. Not energy weapons.

Not yet.

But nails. Hinges. Springs.

Pressure. Movement. Fire.

---

One evening, a boy came to my hut. The same child who once threw a rock at me.

He peeked through the open doorway, curious.

I didn’t speak. Just motioned him in.

He stepped cautiously inside and looked at the objects I’d gathered: stones, animal bones, scraped bark, thin metal fragments scavenged from discarded tools. All laid out in patterns.

He pointed at a spiral shape I had drawn and asked, “Tirak?”

I shook my head. “Spring.”

“Sss...pring.”

He tried to say it. Over and over. Then laughed.

I smiled. First smile I’d made since I landed.

---

In a world at the edge of conquest, I had found the one thing that could not be taken by soldiers or empires: knowledge.

And with it, I would build.

Not just for myself.

But for this village.

For Soruan.

Because the Velkar were coming.

And when they did—

They would not find prey.

They would find fire.