Closed [Unforgiving] The Early Hunt (Part 2)

[Marrin]

2nd Day of Autumn, 513 AV Wind blew quietly through the trees, rustling leaves as they began to shift their colors from green to yellows, oranges and reds. Autumn was just beginning in northern Kalea, and the sweet scent of vegetable decay was fresh on the wind. It was this distinct smell, and the gentle rising of Syna, that woke the sleeping blonde from his deep slumber. No matter what time he went to bed, he always managed to awaken at sunrise when he was out on a hunt. It was a habit and a tradition, one his master had beaten into him throughout the varying seasons in his care. Bleary eyed and poorly rested, Marrin rose slowly from his bedroll, his eyelids refusing to fully open despite his insistent commands. Yawning, he stretched his arms and back, arcing backwards and twisting. He could feel and hear his bones creaking, cracking under the pressure as he twisted his spine one way and the other, testing his flexibility. He was sore, his muscles achy and weak from the previous day of dragging the moose through the lowlands. He groaned, grumbling to himself. ”I won’t be able to do much hunting today…maybe I’ll focus on trapping. My traps need far more work than I’ve been putting into them.” His legs were even worse than his arms, Marrin realized as he tried to stand. They threatened to collapse beneath him, trembling as he rose from his bedroll and pulled on his boots. He’d have to do some serious stretching if he was going to make this soreness move along any more quickly. He rose slowly, gaining stable ground before doing a few squats, bending his knees and hips to stretch. He was stretching cold, his muscles complaining at the sudden activity without warm-up. Marrin didn’t know any better, however, and continued to stretch, doing lunges and lying on the ground, pulling his knees to his chest one at a time. Next was his shoulders, pulling his arms across his chest, and upper back by pulling them over his head and down. He could feel the stretch in his limbs, but the feeling they left behind was less sore but sting mildly, as if there was a healing wound with pressure on it everywhere he stretched. It was unsatisfying, and Marrin gave up after about 15 chimes of stretching. He felt his stomach rumble, the growl audible in the small camp. He’d left the second antler intact and attached to the skull of the moose, now stripped of skin and usable meat. Without a second thought Marrin took the skull to the chopping block and set it in the ideal position for cutting, scooping up his axe and readying it. He’d done this just the other day, so his muscles were beginning to find the memory despite their soreness and agitated behavior. So when the axe came down this time, the cut was clean and singular, without the shattering that he’d caused the previous time as well. The axe seemed to have sustained less damage this time as well, only a few minor aesthetic scrapes, making it look rugged and world worn. Marrin smiled, picking up the broken antler and searching for something appropriate to plug the hole with. A ruined piece of the thin rope he’d used the previous day to lash together his makeshift moose raft, once quickly dusted off, fit the hole nicely and plugged it. Marrin couldn’t help but smile in memory of the exploding pinecone he’d previously used as a cork, and hoped that rope wasn’t nearly as volatile. He doubted it was, and set the plugged antler to the side as he went to cut firewood. There was still a small pile of thick branches from yesterday, but Marrin needed some new, dry wood to start the fire more quickly. Though he could get a fire started with the wet, green branches, it would take a long time and Marrin didn’t feel patient today. He wanted to get things done, to get past the aches in his limbs and become fully functional as a hunter again. He grabbed his splitting axe, quickly getting completely dressed before heading out into the wilds.

[Marrin]

The quiet and consistent crunch of leaves and twigs beneath Marrin’s feet, he trudged along the mountainside in a direct line, neither going up or down the mountain but maintaining altitude. Most of the trees stayed along the medium altitudes, most of the valleys filled with meadows and rivers while the highlands were far too rocky for much more than the occasional shrub. Traversing the mountainside would yield the most fallen wood, dry or not. The winds had started to pick up, and some of the weaker branches were beginning to break off with the beginning of fall. Marrin soon came across a fallen tree, enormous roots creating dirt wall that extended out of the ground, enormous knots at the base wrapping and weaving between the others to create a tight network to draw in water. It was long obsolete, however, as the tree had tumbled all the same, and by the look of the number of termites that had made their home there it had been quite a long time since the tree had fallen. Perfect Marrin thought to himself. Old wood was dry wood, as there hadn’t been a good rain in the past moon cycle, and the tree had fallen in such a way as to catch Syna’s light throughout the majority of the day. Slinging his axe over his shoulder, Marrin moved to the upper branches of the fallen tree, looking for large and rounded ones without many smaller branches splitting off from the central node. Over the next few chimes he found good branches, hacking at them until they gave way from the tree. His axe was dulled and needed sharpening, making the work more arduous than it had to be, but still possible. I am buying a whetstone when I return and I’m learning how to use it he vowed as he cut the final limb he needed from the tree, gathering the other sticks in a bundle and beginning the trek back to camp once more. By the time he returned it had been nearly half a bell, and he had to shoo off a curious squirrel that wanted to investigate his antler meal. It scurried away, chittering and chattering as he set to work splitting and trimming wood for the fire. Within the bell the fire was gaining heat and the antler was set atop it, roasting silently in the morning air. Marrin’s attention was drawn to the place he’d hung his meat the earlier night. Returning to the tree, he noticed that the strips he’d hung looked smaller and slightly darker in color, though didn’t look putrid. Confused, he went about climbing the tree, hand over fist and foot on branch. It was still difficult for him, being an unskilled climber, but he’d climbed this tree many times before, making trips up and down it to hang the strips of meat the evening before. When he finally got to the height of the meat, he noticed they were slightly shriveled. They’d been cut into thin enough strips and hung, allowing them to be cool and unattractive to bugs during the night. Once daybreak came, however, they absorbed the heat of the sun, quickly drying from the heat. Marrin smiled, having accidentally discovered a means of meat preservation while attempting simply to keep his camp free of bears and other curious carnivores.