The words made her feel both embarrassed and guilty. Her mates had never stopped her from eating as much as she wanted, but she still felt like she should be careful.

After all, this was a dying world. Food was already hard to find and as time passed, it would probably become even scarcer.

Unless... they could find a way to make sure their food supply never ran out. When Cerus handed her another piece of meat, Maeve suddenly asked, "Do you know any beasts that don’t eat meat and also taste good?"

Cerus nodded immediately. "Yeah, I know a few. But even though they don’t eat meat, some of them are still pretty aggressive."

Maeve’s eyes instantly brightened. "Can they survive on just leaves?"

This time, Axan answered her question. "Yes. The Clouds only eat green things, like leaves and grass." He paused for a moment before adding, "But their fur can sting us."

Maeve blinked several times. "What? Like electricity?"

"What’s electricity?" Axan asked back.

Maeve pressed her lips into a thin line and decided to use simpler words. "I mean... like lightning?"

"Ah! Yes!" Cerus quickly said. "Those Clouds can strike us just like lightning!"

He pointed at himself dramatically. "And they’re really mean! They keep chasing people whenever they see them. I got struck by them all the time when I was a kid."

Axan immediately corrected him. "No. They only chase people who bother them." He glanced at Cerus. "Especially people who throw rocks at them."

"What?!" Cerus cried out in protest. "I never threw rocks at them! It was a stick!"

Axan rolled his eyes. He wanted to point out that there wasn’t much difference between a rock and a stick in that situation, but he was too tired to argue. In the end, he simply stayed quiet.

"Why are you suddenly asking about that?" Ikarus asked.

Maeve took another bite of meat and swallowed before answering. "I’m just thinking..." she said slowly. "Instead of spending all our time hunting for food, maybe we could raise them instead. We could build a farm."

"A farm?" Ikarus repeated, looking completely confused. "What’s that?"

Oh.

To be honest, she hadn’t expected them to be unfamiliar with the idea of farming livestock. But the more she thought about it, the more it made sense.

The Azuryn Tribe had always lived in forests rich with resources. Whenever they needed food, they simply gathered fruits or hunted animals because food had always been there for them.

That was why, they had never needed to keep animals or grow their own food.

But now that their food sources were becoming scarcer with each passing day, they could no longer rely on hunting alone.

"A farm is..." Maeve began, already trying to think of the easiest way to explain it. "A place where we keep animals instead of hunting them in the wild." She looked at the three of them. "We feed them, take care of them, and let them have babies. That way, we’ll always have food without needing to search for it every day."

The moment those words left her mouth, all three men stared at her.

For a few seconds, nobody said anything, then Cerus scratched his head. "So... instead of chasing food, we make the food stay with us?"

Maeve pointed at him. "Exactly!"

Cerus’s eyes widened. "That sounds amazing!"’’

"It sounds difficult," Axan corrected.

Maeve nodded. "It is. We would need to build fences, make sure the animals have enough food, and protect them from predators. It wouldn’t be easy."

"Then why would anyone do it?" Cerus asked.

"Because it’s worth it in the long run," Maeve explained. "Think about it. Every time you hunt, there’s a chance you’ll come back empty-handed. Sometimes you spend hours searching for prey and sometimes you get injured."

"But if you have a farm," Maeve continued, "your food is already there. You know where it is. You know how many animals you have and if they keep having babies, your food supply can continue growing."

"But the problem is..." Maeve said, "we also have to make sure we always have enough food for them."

She fell silent for a moment, thinking carefully, and then an idea suddenly came to her. "If growing a tree requires Aether Energy, what if we focus our Aether Energy on one area and grow grass instead?"

A tree was probably asking for too much, but grass might be different. It was smaller, simpler, and grew much faster.

"It... might actually work," Ikarus said after giving it some thought. "There are people whose job is to keep trying to restore the trees, but they often fail because our Aether Energy is so limited."

"But grass might be different," Axan said, picking up where Ikarus left off. "It should require much less Aether Energy than a tree."

He paused for a moment before nodding to himself. "Yes. I think it could work."

Maeve’s eyes lit up even more. For the first time since she had brought up the idea, it felt like they weren’t simply humoring her, but they were actually considering it, which meant her idea wasn’t as ridiculous as she had feared.

"Then..." she said, unable to hide the excitement in her voice, "do you want to build a farm?"

The three men looked at one another, and then Cerus was the first to answer. "Sure!"

His response came so quickly that Maeve almost laughed. "You didn’t even think about it."

"I did!" Cerus protested. "For at least three seconds."

"That explains a lot," Axan muttered. 𝓯𝙧𝙚𝒆𝙬𝙚𝒃𝙣𝙤𝒗𝓮𝓵.𝙘𝙤𝙢

Ignoring him, Cerus grinned at Maeve. "If it means we can have food waiting for us instead of chasing it all day, then why wouldn’t I want one?"

Maeve couldn’t argue with that logic, meanwhile Ikarus looked much more thoughtful. "A farm would take time," he said. "We would need to find suitable animals, build fences, and make sure they don’t escape."

"We’d also need people willing to take care of them every day," Axan added.

Maeve nodded eagerly. "I know. It won’t happen overnight."

"But it could help our people," Ikarus finished. For a moment, silence settled around the campfire, and then he smiled. "In that case, I think it’s worth trying."