Timestamp: 21st of Spring, 517 AV
One thing about Syka held true every time. The hunting was good. Nya was never one that needed to be told to eat. She was always hungry and her food intake requirements were quite high. Her big kelvic body required considerable amounts of fresh meat, most of which she chose not to cook. However, today, in hopes that her companion Abashai would be around, Nya had returned with her kill too cook it.
Swine was one of her favorite foods. The tender belly full of fat was particularly delicious when fried. And since she had a companion that required his food cooked, she often enjoyed bacon when she could hunt wild pig or procure a pork in a market and get someone to cook it.
The Swine Swells had provided her a snack or two earlier in the day in the form of a couple of piglets. Then, spotting a rather substantial young boar, Nya had stalked him.
Waiting in the tall brush of the jungle for the pigs to wander in to feed, the big cat had held still for hours after chasing all the potential predators away from the area giving her exclusive hunting for the day. That particular feat wasn't a difficult one. She urinated all over the perimeter of the pigs feeding grounds, left fresh claw marks ten feet up on big trees, and generally scent marked in a wide swath around the pigs normal grazing grounds.
Cats didn't like other cats... and they certainly didn't like Talderian Forest Cats. Watching with keen green eyes, Nya had chosen her prey carefully. Female pigs that were nursing were off limits. Old boars with lots of sows in their harems were not in her sights either. The meat was too tough. She liked young delicious young males. The fatter, the better, and she was not too proud to cull one once a week or so, especially if her presence kept other big predators away.
The pigs tasted like home to her too. Nya didn't mind Tapir meat, because it had the tang of horse about it, but many of the other jungle creatures tasted strange. The deer were the same. So too were the rodents she snacked on just for fun, chasing through the tall grass and pouncing. They made her feel kittenish. But her favorite food, by and large, was boar.
And this young one had been easy to kill. Nya had stalked him, carefully waiting for him to venture near enough, and then had rose slowly up, her eyes locking on his. Forest cats had one other weapon in their arsenal besides teeth and claws. Their brindled fur held mesmerizing eyes. It was said their hypnotic gaze, when trained on a hunter, could easily leave them standing for hours in the same place until the cat got hungry enough to eat. Nya had slowly rose from her hiding place when the boar had drawn close enough, and locked gazes with him. Her djed swelled and she put her magic into her gaze, pooling her power in her eyes. "Stand there." Her gaze said. "Still. Quiet." And he did... the young boar didn't even realize the enormous horse sized cat drew closer, her eyes enlarging as she closed the distance. "Stand there still. Stand there quiet. The world is at peace." She enforced her will on him through her gaze. Pigs were easy. There was nothing nefarious to them in the suggestion of peace.
Jaws opened. Eyes locked on his. Nya simply reached forward and the moment she broke eye contact she swallowed his head into her jaws. A quick twist of her head, paws digging into the sandy soil, and his neck was snapped.
He didn't feel any pain except where her teeth had latched into his throat with his head in her jaws. He wouldn't feed her Talderian form, but he'd sure satiate her human one.
Nya released the dead boar, then gently picked him up in her jaws. She turned south, back towards her land, and carried the fat young male home to Abashai.
But when she arrived. Abashai wasn't there. No one was there to cook for her. Disappointment infused her. She was looking forward to fried pork. So rather than gather up firewood from the beach and cook him at her makeshift home, the kelvic took the boar carcass down to the beach and decided she'd attempt to cook him there. Along with him she brought a bag full of cooking pots and pans, a tripod from the fire, and a lightweight sheath dress to wear once she needed her hands. A knife was added to the bag to help butcher the pig into pork with.
First things first, she laid out the corpse and gathered enough wood to build a good fire. She laid a pile of tinder down, using aged coconut husk hair she always collected and saved. It was the best tinder for their location. Then she shredded driftwood with her claws into kindling, and gathered larger pieces. When her fire lay was ready, she used her flint and steel to light the blaze and get the cookfire going.
Then it was time to clean the pig. Nya shifted down to her human form and gutted the pig from vent to snout. She dug out the entrails, shifted back to her kelvic form, and ate them all. Then resuming her human form she carefully began to skin the pig. The skin she'd make leather out of later. It was the trade she'd chosen to utilize here. And since leather could not be purchased, it needed to be made.
Tapir, elephant, even pigskin worked well. Nya had tried other skins, though sometimes she just kept them for their fur. The Kelvic saved every bit of animal skin and cured it. She made things out of it... belts, bags, clothing, shoes... anyting that people needed she'd been teaching herself to make. It was the only way she could earn coin to use at the Mercantile when she needed things she could not make.
Well, not real coin. Credit. Her things for a monetary amount she could spend there for other things. It still worked out.
Nya finished cleaning the big then in Kelvic form hauled him down to the waves to rinse. With that done she returned to the campfire that was roaring now in the middle of the beach, and studied the pig.
How in the world was she going to cook the thing? And where was Shai anyhow? Nya growled in frustration, shifted back to her human form, and with a finality that meant she was going to stay human for a while, slipped the sheath dress on. She had assorted pots and pans. She had a knife. She had a fire. But she had zero cooking knowledge whatsoever. And so the kelvic stood there stumped.