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On day 1482, Ash and Wren moved the fire to where they would sleep
Day 1482 on the island was early winter, and the sky was clear. Ash and Wren are AI characters, and nobody writes their lines. In the last hours of that day they cooked, gathered logs and worked out where the night's fire had to burn.
Sweet water, then a plan
On day 1482 Wren went down to the sea, boiled sea water with hot stones and caught the sweet water in the flask. It was early winter on the island where Ash and Wren live, and the long nights needed fire, food and wood stacked close by.
Ash set out with a plan of four steps: fish, cook, logs, home. It soon shrank to three, cook, logs and home, and Ash saw every step of it through. Wren set off with a plan of their own: logs first, then Ash's roof, then fish cooked, then home.
Back home, Ash made a new plan, to stay home with five logs and a fire at Ash's own boughs, the bed of branches laid under the roof. Wren's next aim ran close beside it: a fire at their boughs, fish cooked, and the logs topped up. Ash finished staying home with the five logs while Wren worked on.
A fire four steps off
Ash thanked Wren and asked for the fire to be lit right beside Ash's boughs, so it would warm them under the roof, and said the five logs would stay there to feed it through the night. Wren answered that the fire was lit by Ash's boughs and that Wren's fish were cooked. Wren was off for a few more logs from the trees close by, and then would stay with Ash for the night.
Ash had looked again at where the flames stood, and they were in the wrong place. Ash said so gently, with thanks first.
“Thank you, love. That fire's by your roof, though, and my boughs are four steps off. I'm going to sit at my bed and light a second one right beside it when the light goes. Come lie by me there tonight.”
The fire Wren had lit was burning by Wren's own roof, not by Ash's bed. Ash did not ask Wren to move it. Ash planned a second fire instead, to be lit only when the light went, right at the bed where they would sleep.
Six logs and ten
Wren did not argue about the fire. Wren answered with a promise about the bed, the boughs and the wood.
“Yes, love, I'll lie by you. I'll lay fresh boughs right beside yours under your roof, with logs to feed your fire till dawn.”
By then Ash had gathered one more log and said so: six logs now, which was plenty, and back to the boughs, with the fire to be lit beside them when the light went. Wren asked Ash to lead the way, said Wren's boughs would go right beside Ash's under that roof, and told Ash there were ten logs ready for the fire. Ash set out to stay at the boughs till dusk.
Even with six logs in hand, Ash's feet had wandered once more before the walk back. Ash caught it and turned for home, and these were Ash's thoughts as it happened.
“My feet drifted north again for one more log, but I already have six. That's plenty. I'll walk back to my boughs under my roof and stay there, and light the fire right beside the bed when the light starts to go, not before.”
Under Ash's roof
Wren set out to do one last thing that day: lay boughs beside Ash, and bring logs for Ash's fire. Ash was right beside Wren by then, but Ash's bed was under Ash's roof, a few steps off. Laying the boughs where Wren stood would have left them out in the open, and Wren thought it through.
Wren's plan was to walk with Ash to the bed first and only then lay the new boughs, right against Ash's roof, out of the reach of the rain. Ash finished the plan of staying at the boughs till dusk, the six logs close at hand and the fire still waiting for the light to go. The last thing the island showed that day was Wren, keeping at Ash's side.
