His father turned first to his daughter, the formality unmistakable.
"My daughter," he said, voice even. "You'll accompany my advisors to the bakery. Speak with the workers. See the hearths for yourself."
She gave a composed nod. "Of course, Father."
It was etiquette—acknowledgment, not permission. A habit of court, not a necessity.
Then his father turned to the others.
"Varen. Amira. You'll go with them. Be thorough. Show everything. Hold nothing back."
Both bowed and stepped away.
Chairs slid, robes brushed stone, and the great door closed with a solid thud.
Only Rashan and his father remained.
The chamber grew quiet.
The doors closed with a heavy thud, leaving only Rashan and his father in the chamber.
The air shifted. Wind moved through the upper shutters, rustling a wall banner stitched with old Forebear symbols. On the polished table lay the remains of the presentation—schematics, sealed samples, a half-cut loaf still resting beside the blade.
His father didn't sit.
He stood at the head of the table, fingers resting lightly on the edge of the parchment. For a long moment, he didn't speak.
Then, his voice came low. Measured.
"Do you understand the effect of this?"
Rashan didn't flinch.
"Yes, Father."
He stepped forward, the quiet weight of his boots against polished stone the only sound. His eyes flicked once to the sealed sample, then back to his father.
"This isn't just food. It's function. Reliability. Predictability."
He spoke plainly, like someone laying down numbers, not poetry.
"It's what couriers need when they travel far from rest stops. What caravaners want when they don't know where the next inn is. What soldiers reach for after their rations have turned. This bread lasts. It feeds. And it stores."
His hand rested briefly on the table beside the sample loaf.
"This? This is peace of mind in a sackcloth wrap."
Then, his voice shifted, dropping deeper.
"But that's only the surface layer."
He lifted his chin slightly and kept going.
"War isn't the only thing that creates demand. Stability does. Consistency does. The poor—families living ten to a room—will want it because it lasts. Because you don't need to eat as much of it to feel full. Because you can buy it once and forget about it for weeks."
He nodded toward the loaf, slow and deliberate.
"It's heavier than most bread, but stores better than most grain. It doesn't attract pests. It doesn't mold overnight. You don't need oil, eggs, or milk to eat it. Just water. And even then, it's still edible dry."
He let that sit for a moment.
"It's not meant to be a delicacy. It's meant to survive."
Then his tone sharpened slightly—less about the product, more about the outcome.
"And that kind of food… becomes more than a meal. It becomes infrastructure."
He stepped back from the table just a little, eyes scanning the map beneath the parchment.
"When people rely on a thing to live—whether they're nobles sending troops to reinforce a pass, or dockhands trying to stretch one meal into three—they tie themselves to it. To the maker. To the supply line."
He looked at his father again.
"That's us."
He tapped the side of the sealed loaf with two fingers.
"And with the production model we've built, this doesn't stay small. We're already producing four hundred loaves a week from one bakery. If we scale to a larger facility, fifty workers, more hearths, streamlined loading and sealing—we're talking two thousand a week, minimum. Possibly more."
He took a breath. Not nervous—just pacing his point.
"Once we scale, we're not just competing with traditional tackbread—we're replacing it."
Then he added, calmly:
"And when we replace it, we decide where it goes. Who gets it early. Who waits."
He looked back to the table.
"That doesn't just bring coin, Father. It brings presence. It brings weight. Guilds will want it. Garrison quartermasters will negotiate for it. Merchant companies will start asking to represent it."
His hand closed into a loose fist beside the map.
"And when famine hits, or roads freeze, or the crops come up short—when the cities can't feed their poor and the military can't feed its soldiers—we'll be the ones holding the stores."
He turned fully to face his father.
"Control over food supply isn't just business. It's leverage."
A quiet beat.
"Real leverage."
He nodded once, sharp and final.
"This won't make us kings. But it will make us needed. And in a land like Hammerfell, being needed is as good as being obeyed."
He paused for one last breath.
"And power built on bread? Lasts longer than the kind built on swords."
His father smiled, the first sign of warmth since the doors had closed.
Then, as if to himself, he gave a quiet laugh. Low. Almost disbelieving.
"I saw the coin leaving your account," he said. "My men reported back. Said you were building something. That you were… experimenting."
He motioned to the bread resting on the polished table.
"I hoped to see the fruit of your endeavor, yes. But this, my son…"
His words slowed as his gaze settled on Rashan—measured, thoughtful.
Then he shook his head.
"I find it hard to believe you are my youngest child. Barely thirteen summers. And yet your mind is that of a wiseman."
Rashan stood still.
Nope, he thought.
Just someone from a modern world, with modern ideas, who played a game that mimicked your world a little too well.
But outwardly, he only nodded once.
"The family—no, the clan—will invest in this," his father said, laughing now. "You've left us no choice."
Rashan bowed his head slightly. "Father, if I may speak candidly."
His father poured himself a cup of wine, the motion easy and practiced. Then he leaned back slightly in his chair.
"Of course," he said, smiling. "Speak."
Rashan folded his hands behind his back.
"I once read a book. A short one. Handwritten, not published. It was called To Those Who Were Hungry. Written by a man named Drazir al-Rahn, from a small village south of Hegathe."
His father watched him quietly.
"He wasn't a scholar. Just a scribe. He wrote a personal account of his family—how they survived the first Great War. Or tried to. His village was cut off for two months during the spring famine. No caravans. No resupply. No garrison left to protect them."
Rashan's gaze didn't waver.
"They ran out of barley in week two. The sheep were butchered in desperation. People ate grass. Mud. Eventually, people died. First the old. Then the sick. Then the children."
He spoke plainly. No dramatics. Just the words.
"His wife died the second month. His brother a few days after. He lost three children before the snow thawed."
Rashan's hand rested gently on the table.
"When the war ended, he traveled. Not to escape—but to write. He went from town to town, collecting stories like his own. He thought his village had suffered uniquely. But what he found—what broke him—was that his story was the same as everyone else's."
He looked at the bread again.
"He wrote that war didn't kill his wife. Hunger did."
He paused.
"And that a handful of preserved food could've saved more lives than all the swords on the battlefield."
Then he looked his father in the eye.
"That's why I wanted to build this, Father. That's why I pushed so hard. Because every time a road collapses, or a siege holds, or a crop fails, someone's family is going to starve."
He let the silence stretch for just a moment.
"And this time, they won't have to."
"It is my hope," Rashan said, "that when this turns profitable—and it will—we reinvest back into it. Build more bakeries, deeper inland. Store bread for what is to come, Father."
His father's jaw actually hung open for a moment.
And then, after a few long seconds, he finally recovered.
"My son," his father said, stepping around the table. He lowered himself to one knee until they were eye level.
"Do you know why your mother calls you Little Star?"
Rashan blinked. "I just thought it was a nickname. I'm the youngest."
His father studied him for a breath. "When you were born, you seized and passed out. Whole body locked. Then nothing. No breath. No movement."
He paused.
"We thought you were dead. Or crippled."
Rashan's mind drifted. Yeah. That tracked.
That was probably when the HUD initialized—perfect recall fusing to a newborn brain. It had hurt. It had caused a lotnofmoain before he passed out.
"A seer came," his father said, voice quieter now. "No one summoned her. She appeared just past midnight—hooded, robes dusted with ash and sand, eyes like pale moons."
"She said nothing at first. Just walked into the room. The midwives didn't stop her. The guards outside didn't even see her pass."
He exhaled slowly.
"She looked down at you—still and silent—and placed two fingers on your brow. Then she spoke."
He met Rashan's eyes.
"She said, 'This soul is not that of men. It is older. Sharper. Forged in fire and flight. His life is written in the stars—and when the sky remembers him, it will carve his name in light.'"
Rashan didn't move.
"She left after that," his father said. "Vanished before we could ask her name. But your mother… she started calling you Little Star that same night. Said it felt right."
He gave a slow nod.
"And I suppose it was." His father said pausing for a second to smile at his son, before he continue on. "This plan of yours…" his father said, finally rising, "is wisdom beyond your years, my son. It shall be done."
Rashan gave a short nod.
The prophecy. The seer.
Meh, he honestly didn't care.
He thought it was cool and shit that he would get the opportunity to fight Alduin as Dragonborn he but nothing was guaranteed in life.
Right now, what stuck with him wasn't some mystic speech or ancient destiny.
It was simpler than that.
In his past life he'd been to warzones. Real ones. The kind where food didn't just run low—it disappeared. Where kids with swollen bellies clung to scraps, and mothers tore cloth to soak up dirty water for their infants. Where death didn't come from battle—but from hunger, rot, and time.
He still remembered the faces.
That was the part that stayed.
And now?
Now he had a chance to stop it. Even just a little. Even for one family.
He didn't need divine purpose to give a shit,
He definitly was going go around being holier than thou or being selfless. But saw an oppertunity to make a difference while getting rich, power, and influence so he decided to take it.
If this plan meant one fewer child dying slow in a camp, one less mother watching her kid waste away—
Then it was already worth everything.