He had one goal today get water boiling then stored as well as getting the fur tanned and if he did all that he could get some more work done on the cabin… Ok so maybe more than one goal.
Ian crawled out of the lean-to and stood in the clearing, the pole already warming in his grip before he'd fully processed reaching for it.
The pots sat inside the cabin walls where he'd left them, their dark surfaces catching the early morning light. Five vessels that represented clean water, safe storage, one less thing trying to kill him. He grabbed the largest three and headed for the river.
The water was cold enough to make his breath catch when he waded in. His bare foot found purchase on the smooth river stones while the other sank slightly deeper into the silt. He filled the first pot, the weight increasing as water poured over the rim. Heavy. Awkward. But manageable with the pole's assistance when he needed to lever it back to shore.
Three trips. Three pots filled and carried back to the clearing, water sloshing against the sides. Ian set them near the fire pit and began gathering wood. The flames needed to be hot, sustained, capable of bringing two gallons of water to a rolling boil and holding it there.
The fire built quickly under his hands. The bow drill produced its ember within seconds, the tinder caught, and soon flames were consuming the dry wood he'd stacked in the pit. He positioned flat stones around the edges to support the pots, adjusting them until they sat level and stable.
The first pot went over the flames. The water inside remained still for long minutes, the surface reflecting firelight, showing no sign of the transformation happening beneath. Then small bubbles appeared along the bottom. Then more. The bubbles rose and broke the surface, and finally the water began its rolling boil—violent and churning, steam rising in thick clouds.
The knowledge said several minutes. Ian counted to three hundred, watching the water churn, before carefully removing the pot and setting it aside to cool. The second pot went over the flames. Then the third. The process ate through his morning, the sun climbing higher while he tended the fire and watched water boil.
When all three pots had been treated, he carried them one at a time into the cabin and set them along the back wall. The largest still steamed slightly, heat radiating from the clay. He'd need lids eventually—something to keep debris and insects out—but for now he could cover them with flat pieces of bark. Good enough.
The two smaller pots remained empty, waiting for whatever need arose. Ian left them sitting near the others and turned his attention to the deer hide.
It lay where he'd left it, flesh-side up, the surface starting to dry into something stiff and unusable. The edges had curled slightly, pulling away from the ground. Another day and it would be ruined—all that meat wasted, and the hide along with it.
Ian knelt beside it and focused on the need. The pole warmed in his grip, and the green light erupted up the shaft. The knowledge flooded in—more detailed than anything so far, layers of information about flesh removal, membrane scraping, the tanning process itself. His head filled with techniques humans had used for thousands of years, transforming raw hide into supple leather.
The light faded. His hands knew what to do.
The pole became a scraping tool—a broad blade set at a precise angle, dull enough not to cut through the hide but sharp enough to remove the tissue clinging to it. Ian positioned the hide over a smooth log he dragged from the forest edge, draping it so the flesh-side faced up and the curve of the log provided support.
He started scraping. The blade moved across the surface in long, firm strokes, peeling away the thin layer of fat and membrane that still clung to the skin. The material came away in translucent strips, revealing the pale leather underneath. The work was repetitive, methodical, requiring consistent pressure and angle to avoid damaging the hide itself.
His shoulders burned despite the pole doing most of the work. The scraping motion was awkward, forcing him to lean forward at an angle that made his lower back protest. Sweat soaked through his shirt even in the cool morning air. But the hide was transforming under his hands, the surface becoming cleaner, more uniform, the stiffness gradually working out as he manipulated the material.
The sun climbed toward its peak. Ian worked steadily, his focus narrowed to the next stroke, the next section that needed cleaning. The pile of scraped tissue grew beside him, pale and glistening. His stomach cramped periodically, reminding him he hadn't eaten, but stopping meant losing momentum. The hide needed to be finished while it was still pliable enough to work.
When the flesh-side was finally clean—no visible fat or membrane remaining, just pale leather showing the grain of the original skin—Ian flipped it over and examined the fur side. Dirt and dried blood matted the hair in places, but the pelt itself was intact. No bald patches, no damage from his hasty skinning job.
The next step crystallized in his mind. Brain tanning. The knowledge was specific about it—every animal had enough brain tissue to tan its own hide. Some chemical property in the tissue that broke down the proteins, made the leather supple instead of stiff. He needed to find the deer's skull, extract the brain, mix it with water into a paste, work it into the hide until it penetrated completely.
His stomach twisted slightly at the thought. The brain was back with the carcass he'd dragged into the forest yesterday. Or what remained of it after scavengers had their turn. The skull might still be there, might be picked clean by now, might be scattered across half an acre by whatever had fed on the remains.
Ian stood, his legs protesting the movement. The hide could rest while he searched. The scraping was done—that was the critical part. The tanning could wait an hour.
He grabbed the pole and headed into the forest, following the path his travois had carved yesterday when he'd dragged the deer back to camp. The trail was obvious enough—broken ferns, disturbed leaf litter, the occasional gouge where the poles had caught on roots.
The smell hit him before he saw the carcass. That thick, sweet reek of decay growing thicker with each step. His nostrils flared in protest, and his empty stomach clenched as if trying to retreat from his own body.
The carcass came into view through the trees. What remained of it, anyway. The ribcage had been torn open, the bones scattered across a wider area than he'd left them. Scavengers had been busy—the skeleton was picked cleaner than he'd expected, white bone showing through in places where yesterday there'd still been scraps of meat.
But something was there now. Something big.
The bird perched on the deer's ribcage, its talons gripping bone, its head buried in what remained of the chest cavity. Massive didn't begin to cover it. The thing had to be three feet tall at least, maybe more, with a wingspan that would dwarf him if it spread its wings fully. The plumage was striking even in the filtered forest light—slate gray across the back and wings, lighter underneath, with a distinctive crest of black feathers rising from its head.
The beak was what held Ian's attention. Curved and wicked, designed for tearing, currently working at something inside the carcass with methodical efficiency. Each pull of its head brought up strips of tissue that it swallowed with a sharp backward jerk.
Ian's breath went shallow. He'd seen eagles in documentaries, but those had been on screens, safely contained behind glass and distance. This thing was real, close enough that he could hear the wet sounds of it feeding, see the individual feathers shift as it moved. The talons gripping the ribcage looked like they could punch through his chest as easily as they held bone.
His stomach sank as he watched it feed. The brain. If this thing had gotten into the skull, if it had already eaten what he needed—
The bird shifted position, and Ian caught a glimpse of the deer's skull. Still intact. Still whole. The eagle was focused on the easier meat, the tissue that didn't require breaking through bone to access. Relief flooded through him sharp enough to make his knees feel weak.
But that relief brought another thought right behind it. Meat. Fresh meat. And feathers—those slate-gray feathers would be useful for... something. Fletching, maybe? The knowledge stirred, suggesting arrows, projectiles, uses he hadn't considered yet. And the bird itself would be pounds of protein, fat, sustenance that would keep him fed for days.
Ian slowed his approach, the pole shifting in his grip without conscious thought. The metal flowed into something between a spear and a staff—long enough for reach, weighted for striking if needed. His bare foot found purchase carefully on the forest floor, avoiding twigs that would snap and announce his presence.
The pole was already a spear. The bird was distracted, focused on its meal. His hands knew how to throw, how to aim, where to strike for a clean kill. One thrust and—
His foot came down on a branch he hadn't seen.
The crack was impossibly loud in the quiet forest. The eagle's head snapped up, those predator eyes locking onto him instantly. Yellow irises, sharp and alien, assessing him in the span of a heartbeat. The crest feathers rose, making the bird look even larger, more threatening.
For a frozen moment they stared at each other. Ian's hands tightened on the spear, his body tensing for either attack or defense, his mind racing through options that all felt inadequate against talons that size.
The eagle mantled—wings spreading wide enough to block out the light, the span easily six or seven feet. The display was pure aggression, pure warning. Then it launched itself from the carcass with a power that sent bone fragments scattering. The wings beat twice, three times, catching air and lifting the massive body with impossible grace.
It was gone in seconds, disappearing into the canopy, leaving only the sound of wings cutting through leaves and the scattered remains of the deer.
Ian's heart hammered against his ribs. His hands were shaking slightly around the spear shaft, adrenaline flooding his system with nowhere to go. The bird could have attacked. Could have decided he was a threat worth eliminating. Those talons could have opened him from chest to groin before he'd gotten the spear up to defend himself.
But it had chosen to leave instead. Taken the easier option of finding a meal somewhere else rather than fighting over this one. He'd been saved by nothing more than his vertical advantage—a scarecrow of a man, all height and no substance, but apparently threatening enough to make the predator reconsider its meal.
He forced his breathing to slow and approached the carcass. The skull sat slightly apart from the main skeleton, still connected by dried tissue at the neck. The bone was intact, no cracks or breaks that would indicate the eagle had tried to access the brain. The eye sockets were empty—those had probably gone first, easiest access to soft tissue—but the cranium itself was whole.
The pole shifted back to its original form, then became a thin blade. Ian knelt beside the skull and began cutting away the remaining tissue connecting it to the spine. The bone separated cleanly, and he lifted it free. Heavier than he expected, solid, the surface showing tooth marks from smaller scavengers but no serious damage.
He positioned the blade at the base of the skull, where spine met brain case, and began cutting through the bone. The work was delicate—he needed to open the skull without destroying what was inside. The blade sawed through with steady pressure, the sound making his teeth ache.
The skull split. Inside, the brain tissue sat gray-pink and intact, protected by the bone from the scavengers that had picked the rest of the carcass clean. The smell was immediate and nauseating—that distinctive reek of organ meat beginning to turn. But the tissue was still usable.
Ian scooped the brain tissue out with his fingers, the texture slippery and dense against his palm. The smell intensified—decay mixed with something metallic that made his empty stomach clench. He worked quickly, scraping the inside of the skull cavity to get every bit of usable material. The gray-pink mass filled both his cupped hands, maybe a pound of tissue total.
The pole shifted into a makeshift container—a shallow bowl formed from the metal itself, the edges rising to contain liquid. Ian placed the brain tissue inside and headed back toward the clearing, his bare foot finding the path automatically now. The weight was negligible despite what should have been awkward to carry.
When he reached the clearing, he set the pole-bowl near the fire pit and grabbed one of the smaller unfilled pots. The river water was cold against his hands as he filled it partway, then carried it back and set it beside the brain tissue.
The knowledge guided his hands. He began working the brain tissue with his fingers, breaking it down in the water, mixing and mashing until it formed a paste. The texture was revolting—smooth and granular simultaneously, the water turning milky-white as the tissue dissolved. His stomach protested but he kept working, kneading the mixture until it reached the right consistency. Thick enough to coat the hide, thin enough to penetrate the leather fibers.
The hide still lay draped over the log where he'd left it. Ian grabbed the pot of brain mixture and approached, already feeling the exhaustion creeping into his shoulders at the thought of more physical labor. The pole had shifted back to its original form, resting against the cabin wall.
He began applying the mixture to the flesh side of the hide, using his hands to work it into the leather. The paste was cold, slippery, smelling of decay and river water. His fingers rubbed it in with firm pressure, following the knowledge that insisted he needed to saturate the hide completely. Every inch of surface needed coverage or the leather would cure unevenly, would be stiff in patches and supple in others.
The work was meditative in a way that surprised him. The repetitive motion of spreading the paste, working it deeper into the grain of the leather, feeling the hide begin to soften under his hands. His mind drifted while his body performed the labor, thoughts skipping between the eagle's yellow eyes and the cabin walls waiting to be raised higher and the fish trap probably filling again while he stood here elbow-deep in brain tissue.
When the flesh side was thoroughly coated—the pale leather now hidden under a layer of white paste—he flipped the hide and started on the fur side. This was trickier. The hair needed to stay intact while the paste penetrated to the skin beneath. His fingers worked more carefully here, parting the fur to access the leather, massaging the mixture in without matting the hair too badly.
The paste worked into the roots of the fur, his fingers finding the skin beneath and massaging until he felt the mixture penetrate. His hands were coated completely now, white up to the wrists, the smell so thick he could taste it at the back of his throat. The hide was softening noticeably—he could feel the difference as he worked, the leather becoming more pliable, more willing to bend and stretch under his manipulation.
The sun had passed its peak by the time both sides were thoroughly saturated. Ian stepped back and examined his work. The hide lay draped over the log, both surfaces coated in brain paste, the fur matted in places but intact. The knowledge said it needed to sit like this for several hours—let the enzymes work on the proteins, break down the fibers that made leather stiff and unusable.
He wiped his hands on the grass, though it barely helped. The paste clung stubbornly, drying sticky between his fingers. The river beckoned but he ignored it. Later. Right now he needed to keep the hide workable, needed to check it periodically and add more paste if it started drying too quickly.
The cabin walls waited across the clearing. Six logs high. Solid but incomplete. Winter was coming—he could feel it in the morning chill that lingered longer each day, in the way the afternoon warmth felt less substantial. The walls needed to go higher. The roof needed to happen. But his body was already protesting, muscles trembling with fatigue despite the fish he'd eaten at dawn.
Ian grabbed a handful of berries from the bush near the cabin and chewed them mechanically. The tartness barely registered. His stomach accepted them without enthusiasm, wanting protein instead but making do with what it got. The fish trap would have more by evening. That was something.
He approached the hide again and tested it with his fingers. Still damp. Still pliable. The paste was doing its job, working into the leather grain, transforming raw skin into something usable. He added more mixture to a few spots that looked like they were drying too quickly, working it in with firm pressure.
The afternoon stretched ahead. Too much time to waste sitting around watching a hide cure. But too exhausted to tackle the cabin walls with the focus they required. His back ached from the scraping work, his shoulders burned from the repetitive motion of applying paste, and his hands felt raw despite the pole's assistance making everything easier.
The hide needed periodic attention. Every hour or so, the knowledge insisted, he should check it, work it with his hands, keep it supple while the tanning process continued. Between those checks, he could manage small tasks. Gather more wood for tonight's fire. Check the fish trap. Maybe add one more log to the cabin walls if his body cooperated.
Ian forced himself to move. The wood pile near the fire pit had shrunk to almost nothing during the pot-firing yesterday. He grabbed the pole and headed into the forest, his bare foot finding the familiar paths automatically now. The axe blade bit through dead branches with minimal effort.
He paused mid-swing, the blade suspended above a half-cut branch, and his mind wandered back to the hide draped over that log. The brain paste was working—he could feel that certainty in his bones the same way he knew which berries were safe—but the process wasn't finished. Not even close.
The knowledge stirred, unprompted, laying out the remaining steps with clinical precision. After the paste had soaked in completely, after the enzymes had done their work breaking down proteins, he'd need to rinse the hide. Thoroughly. Every trace of brain tissue had to come out or it would rot, would turn the leather rank and unusable. That meant trips to the river, scrubbing the surface clean while keeping the leather pliable.
Then came the real work. Stretching. His hands would need to work the hide continuously as it dried, pulling and manipulating the leather to keep the fibers from binding back together. If he let it dry unstretched, all the tanning work would be wasted—the hide would cure stiff as bark, useless for anything except maybe a wall decoration.
The stretching would take hours. Maybe a full day of constant attention, working the leather with his hands until his fingers cramped and his forearms burned. The knowledge was specific about that—no shortcuts, no breaks longer than a few minutes, or the fibers would lock up in whatever position they'd settled into.
And if he managed that without screwing it up, if the hide dried supple and workable, then came softening. More manipulation, this time working some kind of oil into the leather. Animal fat, probably—he had plenty of that if he could render it properly. The oil would replace the natural oils lost during tanning, would keep the leather from going brittle over time.
Smoking was the final step. Hanging the hide over a smoldering fire, letting the smoke penetrate the fibers completely. That would waterproof it, would give it that distinctive smell of leather, would ensure it stayed supple even if it got wet. The knowledge suggested a day of smoking, maybe longer, rotating the hide periodically to ensure even coverage.
Ian's grip tightened on the axe handle. Days. The whole process would eat days of work, days of constant attention, all for one deer hide. And he'd need more than one if he wanted actual clothing instead of just a crude wrap. Multiple hides meant multiple rounds of this entire exhausting process.
His stomach twisted with something that wasn't quite resentment but sat uncomfortably close. The pole made the work possible, sure, but it didn't eliminate the time investment. Didn't create extra hours in the day or additional hands to split the labor. He was still just one person trying to do everything—build shelter, gather food, process materials, stay alive long enough to see tomorrow.
The axe blade bit through the branch and it fell with a dull thump into the leaf litter. Ian stood there, staring at the cut end, his mind churning through the mathematics of survival.
One hide. Days of work. And he'd need multiple hides for actual clothing—pants, a shirt, maybe a coat when winter really hit. Three hides minimum, probably more if he wanted blankets or backup clothes. Which meant more deer, more rounds of hunting and butchering and this entire exhausting tanning process and they needed to be kill around the same time to tan them all at once.
But each deer meant... what? Two hundred pounds of meat per animal? More? His stomach clenched at the thought. He couldn't eat all those hundred pounds of meat before it spoiled. Not even close. The jerky had proven that—he'd barely processed one deer before scavengers had helped themselves to his work. Scaling up would just mean more waste, more meat rotting in the clearing while he desperately tried to preserve it.
Time. That was the problem. Time was the only thing the pole couldn't give him more of. It could transform into any tool he needed, could teach him skills he'd never learned, could make the physical labor effortless. But it couldn't create a twenty-fifth hour in the day or an eighth day in the week.
Ian's jaw clenched hard enough to make his teeth ache. He needed the hides. Winter was coming and his clothes were dissolving more each day. But hunting multiple deer just to let the meat rot felt wrong in a way that went deeper than practicality. Wasteful. Disrespectful to the animals he'd be killing just to strip their skin and leave the rest for scavengers.
And the meat itself would be a problem beyond the waste. That much dead animal in one place would draw attention. The eagle had found yesterday's carcass. What would show up if he had that much deer remains sitting in the forest? Or worse, what if he tried to keep it all near camp for easier processing? The smell alone would advertise his location to every predator within miles.
His grip shifted on the axe handle, the wood grain digging into his palm. There had to be a solution. Some way to preserve meat longer than jerky allowed, some method of storage that would let him hunt when he needed hides without wasting everything else. The pots could hold some—he'd boiled water successfully, so theoretically he could cook meat and store it. But cooked meat still spoiled, just slower. And the pots weren't large enough for the volume he was talking about.
The problems didn't have solutions. Not yet. Maybe not ever. But standing in the forest staring at a half-cut branch wouldn't change that.
Ian forced himself back into motion. The axe blade bit through more branches, each one falling to join the growing pile at his feet. His mind kept churning through the problem even as his hands worked—meat preservation, hide processing, the relentless march of seasons he couldn't control. But thinking in circles wouldn't help. Action would. Or at least action would keep him too busy to spiral.
He didn't know how to solve the meat problem. Didn't know how to create more hours in the day or split himself into multiple people who could tackle different tasks simultaneously. But he did know that time was his enemy now, more than the cold or hunger or whatever prowled the forest at night. The days were going to get shorter.
Winter wasn't going to wait for him to figure things out.
Which meant he needed to work harder. Longer. Stretch each day as far as it would go before the early darkness forced him to stop. No more standing around contemplating problems he couldn't solve. No more breaks that lasted longer than absolutely necessary.
Ian gathered the fallen branches into an armload and headed back to the clearing. His bare foot found the path automatically, his body moving while his mind catalogued everything that still needed doing. The wood pile needed replenishing—that was constant, never-ending. The fish trap would be full again by now. The hide needed checking, needed more paste worked into spots that were drying too quickly. The cabin walls were still only six logs high, and every log he didn't add today was one more he'd have to place when the weather turned worse.
He dumped the wood near the fire pit and immediately headed for the river without pausing. The trap sat between the boulders exactly where he'd left it, and through the woven willows he could see movement. Four fish this time. His stomach responded before his conscious mind registered the sight—that immediate clench of anticipation, saliva flooding his mouth.
The water was cold enough to make his legs ache as he waded in and lifted the trap clear. The fish thrashed against each other in the confined space, their panic meaningless and absolute. He carried them to shore and dispatched them with mechanical efficiency—the pole becoming that needle-point blade, each kill clean and quick. The twist in his gut was barely there anymore, pushed so far down he only noticed it in the moment before the blade struck.
Eight fillets. He cleaned them quickly, the knife work precise, the skeleton coming away nearly bare. Back at the clearing he built up the fire—just enough flame to heat the stones, nothing wasted. The fillets cooked fast, the smell hitting him before they were even fully done. He ate them standing up, barely letting them cool, the protein and fat hitting his system in a way that felt necessary rather than satisfying.
Ian wiped the fish grease on his jeans and returned to the hide. The brain paste had soaked in deeper now, the leather darkening where the mixture penetrated. He worked it with his hands, kneading the surface, feeling for spots that had gone stiff. A few patches along the edges needed more attention. He grabbed the pot with the remaining paste and massaged it into those areas, his fingers working the mixture deep into the grain.
The sun was descending toward the tree line, painting the clearing in that familiar amber light that meant he was running out of productive hours. His shoulders ached. His back felt like someone had been using it as a punching bag. But the hide was responding—softening under his manipulation, the leather becoming pliable in a way that suggested the tanning might actually work.
He left it draped over the log and turned to the cabin. Six logs high wasn't enough. Would never be enough. One more. He could manage one more before the light failed completely.
The pole became an axe and he headed for the tree line, selecting a pine he'd marked mentally days ago. The blade bit through the trunk with that same unsettling ease, each swing cutting deeper until the tree groaned and tilted. It fell exactly where he'd intended, the impact sending up a cloud of forest debris.
Delimbing went fast. The branches came away clean, leaving the trunk bare and ready. He stripped the bark in long pulls, the pale wood underneath still wet with sap that made his hands sticky. The pole shifted into that staff configuration and he leveraged the log back to the cabin, his muscles screaming protest despite the assistance.
The notching took concentration he barely had left. The pole became a saw, then a chisel, his hands moving through the familiar pattern—cut the grooves, clean them out, test the fit. The log was heavy enough that lifting it into place required multiple attempts, his arms shaking with the effort. But finally it settled into the notches below it with that satisfying sound of wood locking against wood.
Seven logs high. The walls came up to his chest now when he stood inside. Still no roof, still exposed to weather, but closer. Incrementally, exhaustingly closer.
The light was fading fast, that brief twilight before full darkness. Ian checked the hide one last time—still damp, still pliable, the paste doing its work. He'd need to check it again in a few hours, keep it from drying out overnight. The thought made his entire body protest. He'd been moving since dawn with only brief pauses to eat. His legs felt like they might give out if he stopped paying attention to them.
The lean-to waited at the clearing's edge. He grabbed the pole and crawled inside, pulling himself against the oak's trunk. The shelter smelled of crushed leaves and sweat and that faint pine scent that had worked its way into his clothes from handling lumber all day.
His body settled into the cramped space with a familiarity that would have been depressing if he'd had energy left. Man he missed being back home where he didn't have to make everything by hand.
But exhaustion soon dragged him down into unconsciousness, his body instinctively coiling against itself as the night air turned bitter with chill.