Nah... probably never happen. Though they certainly were a match.
When he arrived back to the camp proper, Antar ladled another bowl of stew from the dying fire for himself, wolfing it down with hunger before turning back to the problems of his camp. There was still much to do. He started by taking the pot off the fire to cool the soup in a snow drift before beginning to build up the half collapsed teepee fire which Cara had built. Slowly, with a set of longer branches and sticks he began to build it into a lean-to fire in order to best conserve wood and prevent the coals from burning out from the icy crosswinds.
Turning his attention back to pile of six foot wooden sticks Antar began carving each end into a fine point with his kukri, collecting the scraps of dry leavings for later tinder bundles. Like any job, the best way to complete it quickly was to know you were using the right tool for the work involved and the proper tool for this job was his kukri blade. With four inches of grip and twelve inches of sharpened steel designed to hack and chop like a machete; the work went by rather quickly and soon enough he had several useful rough spears to place about the camp’s perimeter. It took some effort to sink the shafts deep enough through the snow and into the hard packed earth. But soon a viable passive defense was being formed, forming a semicircular course about the back of his tent and stretching forwards in an ovoid shape forwards to stretch the boundary completely all the way around the stone encircled fire.
It was a basic defense he could think of here in order to discourage some predator coming up in the middle of the night to see if he’d be a good meal. With that idea coming to the forefront of his mind he checked the stew pot to see the entire thing had congealed in the snow and had become iced over. That was a good thing, as iced stock meant less smell for which to attract animals. Just to be even safer, Noth decided to place it up in the low crook of a pine between the lowest biers before turning his attention to the caribou problem. Running again how he tracked it from being injured in a fight in a wild herd, he could not fathom any way for it to have struggled to run a half days west of the city. That combined with every other aberration in Cara’s story and mannerisms almost completely confirmed it wasn’t a frostfawn pet. But… since he had a shred of wanting to keep the vantha in good graces he’d go and check anyways. For now though, he wrapped the carcass in a tarp and tied it up into a makeshift satchel with a long rope before hauling it about hundred feet from camp. Slinging the other end of the rope high over a convenient branch, Antar slowly raised it up. With the animal carcass high out of reach of a bear or any ground predator, and ensconced safely in the tarp it would discourage opportunistic predators out for an easy meal. He tied it off with two half –hitches to a lower branch.
Almost ready to turn in he turned back towards camp to plod through the deep snows. All the way back, Antar kept his eyes on the ground and the fire in the distance, and his vision was drawn to a small set of tracks leading up to a tree. He couldn’t be sure what it was but any animal that made its home in a tree would be a good climber. He’d have to rig a stick trap with several small loops later for snagging them. But for now all he wanted to do was bank the fire, and curl up to sleep.
So that’s what he did, letting the fire burn down to coals as he settled safely into his tent. Closing his eyes to sleep, Antar dreamed of a world where the vantha were actually helpful and not full of prattling nonsensical mischief and rage, or filled with angry women with piercing red eyes which did not have a shred of compassion in them… for some reason, in his dreams those eyes would haunt him for a while as he imagined them crying tears they never would have shed in front of others. Even in his dreams he viewed such an inkling feeling with skepticism. But still the feeling lingered, long after the moon had traversed across the night sky and morning came.
A note to Cheshie : )Thank you for reading this thread. I do appreciate it
Cara's Requests :
Antar :
