Timestamp: 30th of Fall, 516 AV
Nya met up again with Randal later in the month to work some more on her training. He’d saved certain things for this day, knowing she was nervous about them. The biggest thing was fire. Her natural feline instincts tended to make her wary of fire. But Randal had promised to teach her all about it once they both had some free time. She indeed was free now, so she waited quietly on the beach by his home until he could join her.
Randal greeted her as he walked up. He had a pack with him and was dressed for travel in the jungle similar to the way Nya was now dressed. He smiled as he greeted her and nodded in approval at both the belted kukri and the machete and hand axe she had sheathed at her side. Nya had never worn a belt before, but at this point, she needed one just to hold up her weapons. Learning leatherworking had come in handy, teaching her how to make the belt and the sheaths to hang on it for the weapons she had gathered.
“Are you ready to learn about fire?” Nya nodded to Randal’s question. She made a face at the same time but she knew it was important.
“Thanks for taking the time to come work with me again.” Nya answered, watching as Randal settled on a piece of driftwood he’d obviously used as a chair before. She settled into one opposite of him, a makeshift fire pit between them.
“What do you know about fire, Nya?” Randal asked, looking thoughtfully at the Forest Cat.
Nya smiled. “It’s hot. It burns. It’s hard to start if its wet outside and if its hot weather its hard to put out and can cause a lot of damage to forests.” She said, not sure what else he wanted to know. “People can make weapons with fire and things of metal. Fire is the only thing strong enough to change metal. It can kill. It has its own God.. Ivak.” The Kelvic answered as well.
Randal nodded. “There’s a lot more to it than that. But we are here to talk about fire in survival situations. I’m going to teach you about fire, how to select a site to build a fire, how to prep a site, what to build a fire out of, how to build one, and how to actually light one. There’s a lot more involved than you might think, Nya.” Randal said, ticking off some points on his fingers as he seemed to go through a mental checklist.
“Alright. There always is more to it than what we know. At least in my case.” Nya added, her mind wandering. Fire wasn’t her favorite topic. She liked spending time with Randal, but he was far more interesting when they were moving around doing things than he was sitting and talking.
“What does fire give you?” Randal asked, knowing it was important that Nya realized how fire affected people.
The Forest Cat took a long time to answer. When she did, it seemed she’d thought it over quite a bit. In fact, memories poured through her, recently of her and Shai around a fire, further back of her family and their kitchen hearth. Other memories had flooded her senses too. There was the fire of a forge and her hands working the bellows. Her hands but not her hands… the Forest Cat was shaken for a moment.
“It can give you warmth and comfort. You can cook around a fire and also preserve food. It can signal thing. It can also provide safety from animals. It can reassure you. You can make things from it.” She added, looking thoughtful.
Randal nodded. “You can also use it to purify water you cannot otherwise drink. It can sterilize bandages and comfort your mind, Nya, so you remain calm.” He replied, adding to her own mental list.
She had others then and felt free to add them in. “It isn’t always good. Fire can give you away if say the enemy can see your smoke. Like I said before, fire can start forests ablaze. It can burn you, destroy equipment, and other bad things.” She said, gesturing at the fire pit in distaste.
Randal chuckled. “All true. But in survival situations there’s another bad thing it can do. When you build a fire to close to you in a shelter such as a protected area or a cave that doesn’t vent well it can burn all the air you need to breathe or toxify it so you can’t breathe. You then die quietly, suffocating. Sometimes if you are asleep you just simply don’t wake up.” Randal said, looking serious. “For those reasons and more that’s why we need to learn about fire… all about it.” He added and Nya nodded, agreeing with him completely.
Her teacher reached down and picked up a long stick that was resting against his driftwood seat. He used his foot to smooth out the sand where she could see it beside the makeshift firepit. Then she watched him draw a large triangle in the sand. “Do you know what this is?” He asked carefully.
Nya nodded. “Is it a triangle?” She asked, carefully looking at his drawing then up at his face.
“It’s the fire triangle. Each side represents a component of fire… what it needs to exist.” He said, moving to one side and writing the name ‘heat’ on one side. On the next side he wrote ‘air’. On the final side, he wrote ‘fuel’.
Nya studied the drawing carefully. She reached down and touched each word, committing the letters to memory. ‘Can you explain more?” The cat needed a reference, not just a list. She needed things set firmly in her mind.
Randal laughed. By now he was used to how the kelvics mind worked and was more at ease with her natural tendencies including how she rarely spoke. “Yes. I can explain.” He said, shifting to get comfortable on his seat before he continued.