Thirty days after the full moon, the valley had begun its slow turn toward autumn. The mornings carried a sharper edge. Mist clung longer to the river. The high grass had started to yellow at the tips.

Arthit could walk.

Not well. Not without the ash staff. But he could move from the hut to the small cleared space in front of it without stopping, and once there he could stand for the better part of half an hour before the deep ache forced him to sit. The exercises Kongpob insisted upon-slow lifts of the heel while seated, careful bending and straightening while the leg was supported, the endless repetitions of pressing the foot against Kongpob's resisting hands-had become as much a part of the morning as the fire.

Arthit still hated how slow the progress felt. But he no longer argued about the work itself.

He also no longer let Kongpob leave alone at dawn.

The first time Kongpob had risen in the dark to gather the early herbs that lost their potency once the sun climbed, Arthit had woken to the soft sound of the hide door and felt something cold and immediate move through his chest. He had been on his feet-staff in hand-before he fully understood why. After that, it simply became their pattern. Kongpob would pack the satchel. Arthit would take the staff and the small knife he now kept always at his belt. They would walk the narrow path toward the damp hollows and shaded banks where the useful plants grew, Arthit setting a measured pace that Kongpob matched without comment.

While Kongpob worked, Arthit found a higher patch of ground-a flat rock, a fallen log, a low rise-and settled there with the staff across his knees. He watched. Not because he distrusted Kongpob's skill, but because the idea of his omega moving alone through undergrowth that could hide teeth or sudden drops no longer sat quietly inside him.

On the morning of the thirty-first day, the watching saved more than pride.

Kongpob was crouched among a stand of feverfew and young willow, carefully cutting stems with his small sickle. Arthit sat on a moss-covered boulder ten paces upslope, the early light just strong enough to show the shape of things. He saw the movement before Kongpob did-a dull, patterned coil shifting beneath last year's leaves near Kongpob's left knee.

The snake was not large, but it was close, and it was already drawing itself into the tight curve that meant a strike.

Arthit's hand moved without thought.

The small throwing knife left his fingers in a single clean motion. It struck the snake just behind the head and pinned it to the soft earth with a soft, final sound. The body lashed once and went still. No hiss had even left it.

Kongpob froze. Then he turned his head very slowly.

Arthit was already on his feet, staff forgotten, pain ignored for the handful of steps it took to reach him. He pulled the knife free, checked that the snake was truly dead, and only then looked at Kongpob.

Kongpob's face had gone pale beneath its usual quiet color. His eyes were wide.

"You..." He swallowed. "I did not even see it."

"I did," Arthit said.

That was all. But something settled in his chest as he said it-an old, familiar weight finding its place again. He could still protect. The leg had taken his speed and his long hunts, but it had not taken everything.

Kongpob exhaled a shaky breath and then, surprisingly, reached down and lifted the snake by the knife still lodged in it.

"The skin is clean," he said, almost to himself. "No tears. It will make good binding once it's properly worked. Or... something."

Arthit watched him turn the small body in the light, careful and practical even in the aftermath of near-harm. A slow warmth spread under Arthit's ribs. He felt the corner of his mouth lift before he could stop it.

Kongpob glanced up, caught the expression, and looked briefly startled. Then, tentatively, he smiled back.

They kept the skin.

───

That evening Arthit worked the snakeskin himself while Kongpob prepared the night's herbs for drying. He scraped, stretched, and softened it with the last of the brain mixture he had left from larger hides. By the following afternoon he had cut and stitched two close-fitting coverings for Kongpob's hands-short gloves that protected the palms and the backs of the fingers while leaving enough movement for fine work with the sickle and the small digging stick.

When he held them out, Kongpob turned them over in silence for a long moment.

"For the herb grounds," Arthit said. "In case another one is hiding."

Kongpob put them on. He flexed his fingers, tested the grip, and then looked at Arthit with an expression that was difficult to name.

"They fit," he said quietly. "Thank you."

He wore them every gathering morning after that.

───

The walks back from the herb grounds began to change as well.

Arthit's hands had not forgotten the bow. The draw was shorter now, and he shot from a braced stance rather than the old fluid motion, but small game did not require the power of a full war bow. Birds flushed from the brush fell to his arrows. A brace of river fowl. Once, a young hare that had frozen a moment too long under a thorn bush. He used the small knives for the rest-quick, efficient, the same clean precision that had ended the snake.

He carried what he took. Kongpob carried the satchel of herbs. Between them they brought back enough that the hanging rack inside the hut began to look properly stocked again.

They spoke more on those walks. Not much. Arthit had never been a man of many words. But the silences between them had lost their sharp edges. Once, when a particularly fat bird dropped neatly into the grass, Kongpob made a soft, impressed sound and Arthit felt that same quiet pride rise again. Another time Kongpob nearly slipped on a wet root and Arthit's free hand closed around his elbow without thought, steadying him. Neither of them commented. Neither of them pulled away at once.

Smiles came easier.

Arthit had taken over the cooking entirely. He had always been competent at the fire-hunters learned early how to make tough meat edible-but now he approached it with the same focus he once gave to tracking. He experimented with the dried herbs Kongpob brought back. He learned which roots softened best when buried in the coals. The meals were simple, but they were ready when Kongpob returned from the healer's shelter, and they were better than either of them had eaten in the first strained days.

The heavy work remained a problem.

Water still had to be hauled from the river. Firewood still needed cutting and splitting. The large hides still required stretching. Kongpob did most of it without complaint, the same way he had from the beginning. Arthit's hunter friends-two of the men who had run with him in the seasons before the break-came by when they could. They filled the water skins. They dropped loads of wood near the door. They never stayed long, and they never made a show of the help, but it eased the worst of the burden.

Still, Arthit watched Kongpob's shoulders at the end of some days and felt the old restlessness stir.

The idea came on a still afternoon when they were returning by a different path.

A hard-shelled river nut-large, round, the kind the children sometimes tried to crack for the oily meat inside-had fallen from a leaning tree and struck the sharp edge of a broken rock. It had split cleanly in two, the halves lying open as if cut by a blade. Arthit stopped and looked at it for a long time. Kongpob waited, patient, used by now to these sudden stillnesses.

That night, after Kongpob had fallen asleep on his side of the platform (they had stopped pretending the floor was necessary sometime in the third week), Arthit sat awake and turned the image over in his mind.

By the next afternoon he had begun to build.

He used a sturdy side branch of the old pine that leaned over the cleared space in front of the hut. With Kongpob's help for the parts that required two hands and higher reach, he rigged a length of strong braided hide rope over the branch, weighted one end with a smooth heavy stone, and fixed a sharp, hand-ground stone blade to the other. The blade hung at chest height. When the weighted end was lifted and then released, the blade came down with controlled, repeatable force-enough to split kindling, to crack the hard river nuts, to cut through the tougher joints of meat without requiring the full swing of a standing axe.

It was not elegant. The first versions failed. The rope stretched. The blade twisted. Arthit adjusted, re-tied, re-weighted, his injured leg stretched out on a low seat he had dragged into place so he could work without standing too long.

On the evening he finally got the motion right-the blade dropping true and clean through a thick piece of ash wood-he sat back and simply looked at it.

Kongpob came out of the hut wiping his hands, stopped, and watched a second demonstration in silence.

"You made an axe that swings itself," he said at last.

Arthit gave a small grunt that might have been agreement.

Kongpob stepped closer, examined the rope, the binding, the way the branch took the stress. Then he looked at Arthit, and the expression on his face was warmer than any of the careful smiles they had traded in the past weeks.

"It's good," he said simply. "It's really good."

Arthit felt the words settle somewhere under his sternum, quiet and steadying. He reached for the staff, pushed himself upright, and together they tested the suspended blade on another piece of wood. The cut was clean. The effort required of the user was small.

That night the meal tasted better than usual. They spoke a little about which other tasks might be made lighter with rope and weight and careful angles. Kongpob's shoulder brushed Arthit's once as they sat side by side near the fire, and neither of them moved away.

Outside, the new device hung still in the dark, waiting for morning.

Inside, for the first time since the bone had broken, Arthit fell asleep without the dull weight of uselessness pressing quite so hard against his ribs.