I am less angry with Husband today than I was yesterday. Time and sleep and thinking help. They also help me understand myself, and why I was angry. I do not know the word for it. I think there must be a word for it if it is something people do. Googling "word for getting me to do things without telling me why" did not give me what I was looking for. But typing it helped me think about it.

We were camping in a tent yesterday near where we planned to gather crafting materials. The sleeping bag helped in the tent, as well as Husband's warmth, but I still awoke more stiff than I have felt before in this world. Husband says people often sleep in tents, so there must be something we need to do better.

I was able to use the latrine without falling in. Husband says there are "chemical toilets" that can be carried with us, but that they smell and need to be emptied and cleaned and cost money. Husband knows it is silly to think of making inventory space smell, but he thinks about it anyway. I can understand. A latrine is a hole we can simply walk away from.

Husband showed me last night how he makes a fire with "matches", little sticks that make a small fire when rubbed on something hard. It seemed slow, but perhaps it is how people here get heat without fire shards. I have never needed to make a fire before, so I tried to make one of my own using a shard, but the wood did not burn easily. Husband told me to use smaller pieces of wood first to make the bigger ones burn. That did work. I will try using thaumaturgy next time to save shards.

We found enough iron yesterday to make an alembic, so we used it as a kettle to make tea on my fire. Then we swept the new area for botany and mining sources. I started with botany and Husband started with mining, then we switched. We had better luck finding grasses such as rye and wheat than anything from mining, though Husband did find clay.

When we stopped later to eat I saw an animal coming out of the woods. It had four legs and a long neck and head, like a horse or an antelope. "Husband. Is that an antelope?"

"Hm? No, it's a deer. Same family, I think."

"So it might work with antelope recipes?"

"Worth a try, sure."

I switched to my bow and shot the deer. It fell with my first shot. "It is that weak?"

"You're a level 80 Bard, my love. There's probably a lot of things on Earth you can kill with one shot."

I got deer meat from the kill. We did not have the other ingredients for antelope steak, so we saved it for later. We have enough aldgoat steak and sauteed spinach for a while.

Later I saw the deer respawn and stood to shoot it. Husband said, "What's up?"

"The deer respawned. We can resupply."

He looked at the deer. "You sure that's the same deer?"

"No, it is not. It is a respawn. What other deer would it be?"

"Deer wander around looking for food. It could be some other deer."

"But...does it not get crowded if they wander into other deers' respawning area?"

"They..."

He sat there and stared at the deer. He looked like he was trying to say something, and like he was in pain. It worried me. "Husband...?"

He took a deep breath. "You're right. We should stock up. Go ahead."

I shot, and again the deer went down. "Deer hide this time. We can try to use it for antelope hide."

"Sure."

He kept looking at where the deer had been after the body faded. I asked, "What are you doing?"

"Waiting for the respawn."

"To see how long it takes?"

"Sure."

We sat and waited. It was a few minutes before the deer respawned. Husband kept staring at it. I waited for him to speak. He seemed confused.

Finally he said, "I have never seen an animal respawn on Earth before."

"You have never been hunting here?"

"Well...no, I haven't, but that's not it. I...didn't know it could happen."

"Where do deer come from, then?"

"Same as people. They mate, they breed, baby deer grow up. Lather, rinse, repeat."

"Lather...?"

"Not important."

"What happens if something kills all the deer?"

"Then there are no more deer."

"But this one respawned."

"Yes."

"Because I shot it?"

"Maybe."

"Then you should try."

"Yeah." He stood, switched to his bow and aimed at the deer. "Yeah."

He did not shoot.

"You have never hunted in this world?"

"No."

"Have you ever killed anything in this world?"

"Not to speak of, no."

"You eat meat."

"From stores. Which comes from farms. Where other people raise animals and kill them."

"You killed a lot of things in Eorzea."

"I didn't...think of them as real."

"I am from Eorzea. Am I real?"

He lowered his bow and looked down at me. "You're as real as I am."

That did not answer my question. I know he has been thinking about these things since we came here. I wondered how much he thought about them in Eorzea.

We kept looking at each other. I decided I needed to ask. "Husband. Is there something you have not been telling me?"

He got smaller somehow, like he lost strength or energy. He sat down and looked at the ground a while before speaking. "Lots of people in this world talk about scientific law. They think things work in a certain way, and that stuff's impossible because it'd violate scientific law...

"But a guy named C. S. Lewis who wrote a lot about religion said that scientific law is just a body of observations...that all scientific law is like, 'I pointed my telescope in this direction on this date, and this is what I saw.' People observe patterns, test to see if they can predict things based on the patterns, and write equations. Which means scientific law is only as good as the observations. The first time someone sees something that doesn't fit, scientific law has to change."

He looked up at me. "I grew up in this world. I grew up with ideas of what is and isn't possible. There's stuff we did in Eorzea, that we're doing here, that I might've said wasn't possible before I met you. So I'm a little afraid of saying 'We can't do that here' or 'That doesn't happen here', because if I do it might mean we won't be able to do those things. Maybe because we never try to do them, or maybe because we think they won't work. Make sense?"

It did. It explained some things I had noticed, like how he let me do something first and followed after. "But you know you cannot do a thing, and yet you do that thing."

"After I've seen you do it. You don't know it's impossible, so you do it, and then I see you do it and know it's possible. It's...weird, sure, but it works in my head."

"I am your tool again."

"No, my love, this is science. You're my test subject."

I was unhappy and I did not know why. "Your test subject is going to try returning home now. You can observe."

I used Return. It took me to the spot in the woods outside of Wyatt. I walked back to town. I went to the Hartman house and showered and cleaned, then I went to the diner and ate and cleaned. The Hartmans did not ask why I was early for work or why I was alone.

I thought about what he said. It made sense. It made more sense as I thought about it more. I was still unhappy about it and still did not know why. Because he did not tell me what he was doing? I could see that that could affect things, make me doubt. I will probably doubt now.

I wanted things to have happened differently. I do not know how else they could have happened. I wanted to understand Husband and work with him. I wanted to slap him.

The Hartmans did not speak to me as I worked. I think I looked like I was trying to kill the floor with the mop.

Husband came to the diner after sunset. He had fifteen pieces of deer meat and ten deer hides. He said he looked for different deer to see if they respawned too. They did. He observed the pattern.

We did not talk after that. But we did go to sleep together.