Winter Forays (Open)

[Aurordan]

45th of Winter, 510

Aurordan hurried, huddled against the cold, to the trail of tracks and blood disappeared over a hill crest. The latest storm to sweep through the mountains had left the snow frozen and packed, and, if he trod lightly enough, he could walk quickly across the surface. As he reached the top of the slope the deer had fled down, he rubbed his hands together and blew on them, attempting to return enough dexterity to shoot a bow.

From the summit, his quarry was clearly visible, limping off to the east toward a stand of trees, about fifty meters downhill. With a final puff on his hands, the hunter pulled the longbow from his back and lined up a shot. Fighting to steady himself in the cold, he drew in a long breath and held it just long enough to loose the arrow. This time, his shot was on target, striking just behind the animal's shoulder and dropping it into the snow. With a relieved sigh, he unstrung the bow against his boot and followed the arrow down.

Reaching the dying animal, Aurordan drew the bone-hilted knife from his belt and killed it with a quick cut across the throat. Then he retrieved both arrows, the first shot, which had missed a vital area and hit a back leg, and the felling shot. Aurordan noted with annoyance that one of the arrows had lost its head in the deer. He was starting to run out, and would probably have to make more soon.

One the other hand, the deer plus the two rabbits he had shot earlier where more than enough to make this trip worthwhile, which, most importantly of all, meant it was time to get back to wind reach and out of the infernal cold. Most hunting and gathering in the settlement stopped during the winter months, but boredom and restlessness usually drove him out of the city at least once a week. Of course, an hour out here was more than enough to remind him why everyone tended to stay in, but Wind Reach need all the food it could get, especially during winter. Every year since Aurordan could remember, the city's inhabitants had spent at least the last week of winter eating fungus grown in the lower tunnels. Every second that was staved off was well worth the cold.

The downside to leaving Wind Reach in the winter was that you had to do it by air, which meant finding an Endal willing to take him in and out. Mostly, this meant Vord.

Vord was waiting at the appointed place, in a clearing with a large standing rock in the center. Kalivaka perched on the rock above, shifting from foot to foot.

“Ho Aur!” He yelled jovially, “You're late. I had just about given up on you.”

“Hunting is harder if you have to walk after everything, brother.” Replied Aurordan evenly. “And I'm not blind. I saw you land just a couple minutes ago while I was on my way over here.”

“I was not gifted with patience. So let's be on our way.”
At that, Kalivaka flapped of his perch and clasped the carcass Aurordan had just put down in one massive talon. Vord leapt into the leather saddle strapped to the eagle's back, Aurordan followed with considerably less enthusiasm.

The ride back to Wind Reach was predictably harrowing, and even colder than the ground, but in short order they were back in the Aeries and Aurordan could get back on solid ground. After quickly thanking Vord and Kalivaka, he hurried down to the kitchens with the profits of his excursion.

[Twik]

Twik sat in kitchen tuning her Mandolin, her habitual smile present on her face. Before her was a rather small helping of salted fish and some sort of preserved vegetables that had lost all clearly distinctive shape in the canning jar, but Twik had mostly forgotten about it. Through a series of clever maneuvers she had arranged to have the night off from practicing, and now that she had done so she found that she wanted nothing more than to play and sing. It’s different though, she thought, because it’s not an assignment. The logic was sound enough for her teenage mind.

She ran her fingers quickly over the strings, testing a few with the pick as if they were unfamiliar to her. She had become quite a competent performer of late, but recently she had noted with dismay that she had become more of a technician than artist, and the subtle passion of her masters playing left her far behind. There was always something new to work at, a fact that seemed bothersome at first, but then again she supposed that if she ran out of things to do at age 14 she would immediately run crazy.

The cooks were ignoring her, and so she began to play gently and then sing a bawdy tavern song full of innuendo. The cooks turned to look askance at her but she played with an innocent look on her face, apparently unaware of the double entendres. “What?” her wide eyed innocent face seemed to say. The women turned back to their work, casting doubtful glances over their shoulders in Twik’s direction from time to time.

As she sang, a hunter came in, carrying his game with him.

“Whoosh!” Twik exclaimed suddenly, stopping her song. “You did alright for yourself on a fearsomely cold day!” She rose to help him with his burden, taking the rabbits so that he could use both hands with the deer. "Sit down and tell me all about your heroic deeds."

[Aurordan]

"Ha!" Aurordan laughed, "You would be bored to tears. The most memorable thing today has been how fantastically grateful I am to be back indoors. Although I will sit down for a while, if you don't mind." As he spoke he sat down in the nearest chair and began to carve down some of the sticks he had found into shafts to replace his lost arrows. "Don't let me interrupt your playing, I was quite enjoying it."

'No,' Aurordan thought as he basked in the heat from the ovens, 'I can't think of a compelling reason ever to leave.'

[Twik]

Twik made a wry face. “The secret to telling enthralling heroic tales is every time the excitement starts to flag to insert a horrid slavering monster, pretty maiden with strategically placed rents in her clothing, or perhaps an episode of dangling over the edge of a cliff by your fingertips while starving wolves pace back and forth on the ledge above. Still, I shan’t press you since you’ve brought in so much meat, and what with the current state of the Windreach larder that’s heroism enough.”

She watched Aurodan work with his sticks for a moment, taking a few unenthusiastic bites of food. Twik had never been a good eater, which went a long way towards explaining her build.

“I will play more if you like. Let me see, what goes along with Fletchering?”
She strummed her mandolin thoughtfully.

After a moment she began to sing again, a rather lively tune about a summer festival in which people danced in brightly colored clothing. As she sang, her feet began to dance back and forth under the table, swishing gently in the fabric of her pants. The tune was simple but catchy, and her voice sweet and somewhat childish. She finished with a flourish and a brief laugh.

“I’m Twik, by the way. Sort of an aspiring bard.”

[Aurordan]

"I'm Aurordan, but I'll answer to any reasonable derivation thereof. And I must say, even your description of how to make an epic was better to any I could have told. I'm going to use the 'dangling by my fingertips with wolves overhead', by the way, if I ever do find myself spinning a tale."

Aurordan scooped up the pile of wood shavings that had been accumulating and tossed them in the nearest fire.

After a moment, he spoke again, "Are the larders that bad? I'm fervently hoping we can at least make it longer on real food than last winter." Aurordan mentally shuddered at the memory of almost three weeks of nothing but slime.

[Twik]

Twik gave a merry laugh. “You’d be well advised to not give me such free reign with your name, or you’re likely to wind up with a startling array of nicknames. But I will call you by your proper name for now. I’m hardly an expert on the state of the larder, but I’ve heard grim talk. Or rather I’ve heard people hushing up instead of talking when they see me coming, which is probably the grimmest of options. Your deer will be appreciated, that is certain.”

Twik rose from the table and got a mug of water. She gestured with it towards Aurordan, doing a thing with her eyebrows meant to indicate that she would bring him one too if he was thirsty.

“So tell me all about yourself.” She said. “How did you choose to be a hunter? How many brothers and sisters? What is the biggest thing you’ve ever killed?”

[Aurordan]

Aurordan grimaced at the news and waved away the offer of a drink. "No thank you, I'm fine."

Pausing a moment, he decided how best to answer the barrage of questions. "Well", he began "I'm a hunter because I'm not good at anything else, and I learned a lot about it from my mother. I have one brother, who has been indecently proud of himself ever since he bonded a couple of years ago. Still nice enough though."

"The largest thing, I ever killed... a large ram? Not very exciting. But the most interesting things were a couple of these really big spiders a while back. Not the most threatening thing you can find in the wilds around here, but unnerving enough."

[Twik]

Twik carried her mug of water over to the table and plunked herself down with enough violence that it seemed that the water should have spilled, and yet somehow it remained in the glass.

“Oh, I’m sure your good at a great many things, you only have to try! Still, being a good hunter is quite a bit and you should be glad of that.”
She shuddered at the mention of spiders. “I hope you gave them what-for, I could never stand the brutes. How big were they? Were they hairy and slavering poison?” Twik made a face of horrified fascination. She was not actually squeamish about insects but she considered it ladylike to pretend to be.

“I take it you do all your hunting up in the woods. What would you say to the chance of hunting a whale? If the food supply continues to dwindle I believe that I shall see if I can go down to Thunder Bay and call one forth with a song. It is said that whales are great singers, perhaps one will come. Of course, I would have no idea how to slay such an enormous beastie. I think you’d need a very big arrow, or perhaps a spear. Do you ever throw a spear?”

[Aurordan]

"How big? I'd say slightly larger than the average dinner plate. I've heard the stories about ones the size of wolves really deep in the Unforgiving, but these seemed giant enough to me. I happen to know they were venomous, but I didn't stick around to find out how venomous."

"And a whale?" Aurordan had to pause to think. "I've heard they hunt them up north with spears, but it seems like if you failed to kill it outright it would swim off and you'd never find it again, so I can't see how that could be a successful venture. I've never thrown a spear myself, and I can't think that I've ever seen anyone in Wind Reach throw one now that I think about it."