Neglected Tasks

by **Lian Windrunner** on February 19th, 2014, 6:19 pm

Timestamp: 75th Day of Winter, 513 AV

Lian woke slowly. Despite having gone to bed early the night before, he felt groggy, and out of sorts. His mind was foggy, and thoughts came slowly. His entire body ached, and his throat tickled annoyingly. His head was so stuffed up that it felt three times bigger than it actually was. And he was freezing cold, far colder than one would expect even this far into winter. Lian groaned inwardly. All he wanted to do was bury his head under his blanket, and go back to sleep. But there was work to be done, and for that, Lian had to get up.

I felt fine yesterday... Lian grumbled to himself as he stumbled out of his bedroll.

It was only a slight exaggeration. While he hadn't felt any of the symptoms he did now, he had had very little energy the day before. Hence his decision to go to bed far earlier than he might have otherwise.

Lian dragged himself through his morning routine, then made himself as comfortable as possible. He wrapped himself up in both his blanket and his bedroll in a futile attempt to ward off the chill he felt. Then he closed his eyes, slowed his breathing, and tried to enter a light trance. Tried to being the key words. Every time he started drifting into a trance, something would distract him. Sometimes it was his aching body. Other times, it was the annoying tickle in his throat every time he breathed. Finally, he gave up on attempting to enter a trance at all, and simply slipped into the Web directly.

Entering the Web while sick is not a good idea... Lian thought ruefully as he looked around.

If it had felt as though his head was trapped in a thick fog, this was no different. Everywhere he looked, the glowing strands of the Web were muffled, muted. None of the familiar landmarks were visible. Everything was obscurred by thick clouds of roiling, luminiscent fog. Glowing wisps rose from the fog enshrouded Web, as if stirred by an unfelt breeze. And there was a distinct, unwelcoming chill in the "air."

Lian felt a deep unease that he had never felt before while in the Web. The welcoming song he was used to had changed as well. Instead of soothing, and beautiful, it was harsh, and discordant. It added to the uneasy feeling of wrongness that plagued him.

Only knowing that his people needed those who were skilled at taming and breeding animals to come forth and work with the bison that had been captured kept Lian from shrinking back out of the Web in dismay. But there was a need, and while Lian knew there were plenty of others who would get the word out, he wanted to be a part of the effort. So he pushed back his feelings of being sick as far as he could, and focused on the task at hand. As he did so, the fog thinned. Nothing he could do would make it fade entirely, but Lian found that after a while, he could see the glowing strands of the Web clearly enough that he could travel among them.

As Lian quickly learned, travelling through the Web took far more effort when he was sick than it did while he was healthy. It also used up far more energy, tiring him quickly. By the time Lian reached the people he planned to relay his message to, he felt drained, and stretched thin. The others sensed this, and ushered him on his way back quickly once they'd learned what he had to "say." One, a close friend of many years scolded him for entering the Web in his condition.

Lian made his was back along the fog enshrouded strands of the Web as fast as he could. With every moment that passed, he could feel more of his energy slipping away. By the time he finally reached his body, Lian had very little energy left. He quickly allowed himself to slip back into his body, and opened his eyes. He regretted it immediately. His head throbbed in agony in time with his pulse, and he felt as tired as he would be had he stayed up for three days straight. Knowing that he would be of little use to anyone until he got some rest, he did just that. With any luck, he'd feel better after a brief nap.

by **Lian Windrunner** on February 26th, 2014, 3:36 am

Luckily Lian did feel better once he'd woken up from his nap. Although far from feeling fine, he was back to feeling the way he had when he first woke up rather than the way he had after he'd overextended himself in the Web. He was hungry, so he ate a few handfuls of berries, and a piece of dried rabbit. Then it was time to get to work.

Lian was very careful of his arrows when he went hunting. Whenever he could, he retrieved any arrows that missed their targets. And when possible, he carefully cut out the ones that did find their mark out of the animals they killed, cleaned them, and reused them. By doing this, he stretched his meager resources even further, as it meant that he didn't have to replace his arrows as frequently, or buy new supplies for his fletching kit. But even so, he did lose arrows every now and then. And eventually his arrows were damaged beyond repair.

Lian glanced at his dwindling supply of arrows, and realized it was time to make some more. Actually, it was past time to replenish his supply as a good third of the arrows he owned were either lost, or unusable. But he'd put the task off for longer than he should because he'd wanted to take advantage of the last of the decent hunting weather while he could. Now, though, was the perfect time to make some more arrows to replace the ones he could no longer use.

Reaching for his fletching kit, Lian pulled out several wooden shafts. Each had clearly been well made. Though there was some bend in the ends, none were too bendy to be useable. Even better was the fact that the grain of the wood ran the length of each shaft. While a shaft would still be useable if the grain ran off at a sharp angle, the arrow would be likely to break at the point where the grain ran off if it were to hit something hard. Such as getting embedded in the bone of an animal rather than flesh if Lian's aim wasn't perfectly true while hunting.

When Lian was satisfied that the shafts he had to work with were good quality ones, he looked at his short bow, using it as a guide. He used his knife to carefully cut one of the shafts to what he believed was the proper draw length. Then he picked up his bow, and tested it. It was a bit too long, so he trimmed it a little, and tested it again. Still too long, he trimmed it a bit more, and tried it a third time. Finally, the shaft was the right length. Lian began working on the other shafts one by one. Sometimes, he was lucky enough to get it right on the first try. Other times, he had to trim the shaft a bit more before it was the right length. But he didn't actually ruin any of them by cutting them too short. It was easier after the first shaft was cut to the proper length, because he used that as a guide rather than his bow.

Once Lian had trimmed all of the shafts he planned to use to the proper draw length, he selected one of the shafts and sandwiched one end into a V shaped notch that had been cut into a small piece of wood. Then he wrapped cord around it, and tightened it up by inserting a stick and twisting the whole thing tight. When he was certain that it wouldn't come loose, Lian used his knife to cut a nock into the other end of the shaft. As he cut, he was careful to cut across the grain on the end of the shaft so the bow string wouldn't split the shaft when he went to use the arrow. He cut slowly, trying to make the cut as vertical as possible. He also didn't want to make the nock too deep or too shallow as that would ruin the arrow as well. When he was finally done, he examined his work. Satisfied, he unwrapped the cord, and set the shaft aside. Then he repeated the process with each of the other shafts.

Next, it was time to seal the shafts. Lian used some fat that had been rendered from one of his kills a while back. It had been a lucky kill, a three year old stag. Lian carefully rubbed one of the shafts with fat, until it was completely covered with it. Then he held it over a camp fire, heating the shaft until the fat was absorbed completely. He knew that in doing so, the wooden shafts would not absorb moisture and warp over time. Lian sealed each of the twenty shafts he was working on, working slowly and carefully so that he wouldn't miss any spots out of carelessness.

It was time to prepare the feathers. Primary feathers were the best ones to use since they are the stiffest, have the highest oil line, and are the easiest to strip from the quill. Lian pulled the feathers out of his fletching kit, and set them aside. Then he picked one up, and studied it for a few minutes. When he was ready, he used his knife to split the feather in half along the quill. Lian trimmed it a bit, then rubbed the end vigorously against an abrasive rock to smooth it down. Finally, it was time to cut the fletches out of the feather. The feathers were big enough that Lian could get three fletches out of each one. As he cut the feather, Lian made certain that his fletches were long enough, and allowed for the space front and back where they will be bound onto the shaft. When Lian was finished with his first feather, he repeated the process with the other feathers.

Lian had deer sinew to bind the fletches to the shafts. He had taken it from the stag he had killed, and prepared it several days ago, making sure that it had enough time to dry properly. Lian took three fletches, and measured them against each other. Then he held the shortest of the three up to the shaft to see where it needed to be positioned. This was the part that Lian was the least certain about. He carefully used the sinew to bind the fletches to the shaft. Both the front and the end of each fletch was bound by the sinew. When Lian was finished, he eyed the arrow critically. Something appeared to be off somehow, but Lian wasn't certain what it was. He set it aside, and began work on the next one. This one looked better, but something was still off. Through trial and error, and several attempts, Lian finally ended up with an arrow that looked right. Out of the twenty arrows he was making, a little less than half looked perfect to him. The others were still useable, but Lian wasn't certain how well they would fly, especially if the wind acted up at all.

Still, Lian now had twenty new arrows, and there was still enough time left of the day for him to spend some time with Talise before the sun set. Lian set the new arrows aside where the sinew binding the fletches in place could dry properly, then left his tent to go for a quick ride with his Strider.

by **Fantasy** on April 5th, 2014, 8:18 pm

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