Solo Burrow Hunting

[Azira]

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3rd Summer 514AV

The heat that the end of Spring had promised for the future season had come. It was nowhere near as hot as it had been during that atrocious heat wave, although it was warm enough to wish that she'd left her katinu at home. It had been cool when she'd left the city, Syna only beginning to make her presence known but now the warmth of the day was making its appearance. Her skin grew hot and sticky under the weight of the garment as air failed to circulate beneath the material. The temperatures did little for her mood and being in bad humour always meant that a hunt would go sour in her experience so she wasn't exactly optimistic even before she found any game.

The teen had been uncertain about where she should go to catch something, not even sure about what sort of animals she could aim to catch. Rabbits were a good creature to aim for, easy for her to collect in large numbers if she could find enough of them. They didn't add much to her meat weight quota in a season but it was sometimes better to catch something small rather than to catch nothing at all. They were her best bet, even if she was sick of the sight of them. Food was food after all. There were areas that she'd been to on previous hunts where she'd found the little mammals on many occasions. This was a good time of the year for them as well, the animals sure to have exploded in population. Although there were predators about, they apparently weren't in large numbers. Fewer predators meant more prey, or so Azira hoped.

The pace of the huntress was slower than usual, the young woman feeling burdened as she took each step. The teen couldn't struggle on wearing that heavy katinu but at the same time the huntress had nowhere to put it. It was too bulky to fit in her backpack, too awkward to carry by hand but yet the teen couldn't keep wearing it. A distance that would normally take her a bell to cover took twice that with the huntress needing to stop and take breaks, hiding beneath the shade of the trees to sip from her water skin. The heat left her clumsy, making her succeed in frightening away rabbits when she did come across them.

She'd arrived at a clearing that she'd found rabbits in before but her stealth hadn't worked out well. She'd tried to keep her steps light, her treads as slow and quiet as possible but the temperature had made her stagger at just the wrong moment and she'd gotten a glimpse of the leaping forms of the small creatures as they made their escape. That was the last straw, the loss of a possible kill due to incompetence. Dropping her pack and bow along with her quiver of arrows, the teen pulled the katinu from her sticky form. The air was cold on her suddenly exposed damp skin and she shivered, glad of the relief that it brought. She allowed the overgarment to drop to the ground while she replaced the rest of her gear on her person. Considering where to put the katinu, she settled for stringing it through the right strap of her backpack where it could hang at her side.

Once that was settled, although a little uncomfortable, she was able to continue without feeling like she was going to be baked alive. This time she would do better. This time there wouldn't be a chance for the rabbits to run away. There would be no mistakes.

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[Azira]

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The teen continued her trek until she reached another place where she'd found rabbits before. It was a small clearing with plenty of cover for the little creatures to hide their burrow entrances. It was actually a place that Azira had once marked so that she'd know to come back and work out where entrances were but had never gotten around to doing it. At least she thought that it was the same place. It looked different in the day and so she couldn't be sure as she approached it. She had carved a crude rabbit drawing into the bark of one of the trees so it should still be there if it was the right place. The top priority was to ill anything there first before she set off searching for any markers.

As she grew nearer the huntress allowed her steps to slow, creeping forward by placing her foot down from heel to toe. She watched the ground, making sure that she wouldn't stand on anything that would make a loud sound. Her steps were kept as light as possible as she approached, her slow pace allowing her to nock an arrow before she was in hearing distance of any prey. Rabbits had excellent hearing though so it was entirely possible that they'd heard something but hopefully they wouldn't identify the sound with that of a threat. As the trees began to thin and allow her to see onwards, she paused to prepare herself mentally for what she was to do. It occupied her for only a chime and then she was on the move again, moving to the edge of the clearing but not leaving the cover that the trees provided. It was not effective at hiding her completely, the huntress able to see clearly so she could take a shot and so she was no doubt visible to a watchful animal.

The possibilities for a kill were limited to a single rabbit. That made little difference to her, the teen only able to manage to shoot at one target while leaving ample time for any others to get away. She would only have one shot without risking spooking the creature. If it would speak it would thump the ground, alerting its fellows below ground that they were safer in their burrows than below ground. It would mean that she would either have to move on in search of other game or else try to find a way to flush some more out. The teen focused upon her target, lining up a shot in her mind. She focused on the plump side of the rabbit, a large target and envisioned the arrow piercing through it. A shot lower to the ground would have been better, more likely to go through the lower organs rather than catching in its rib cage but she wasn't sure that her aim was quite that good.

Her bow arm raised, held out straight in front of her while the other hand pulled back the bow string. The slight sound as the arrow released must have alerted the animal, rising up on its hind legs at the wrong moment so that the arrow sailed by harmlessly where it would have hit it a tick before. She fumbled for another arrow but it was already too late. The foot had thumped a beat that told the other rabbits to remain hidden below and it was bounding away as the huntress made a wild shot that was nowhere near the target, flying off into the trees on the other side of the clearing. The teen cursed emphatically, coming close to flinging her bow down in temper but caught herself just in time. That wouldn't have helped her and if she'd broken it then she'd have been out of pocket as well as without prey.

Striding out she collected the first arrow, inspecting it for damage which thankfully it lacked but after a few chimes searching for the second she gave it up as a lost cause. Now that she was free to scout the area with no prey likely to make an appearance, she'd be able to see if that mark was here. A quick search moving from tree to tree turned up the crude etching of a rabbit, not as sharp as it had been as the bark had begun to grow back around it. That meant that it was the same place and that she could start looking for burrow entrances. There might even be a way to get at the rabbits below if she was extremely lucky. She would see.

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[Azira]

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The teen set about searching for burrow entrances. Rabbits liked to hide, liked to be able to leave by a way that predators wouldn't see. They ate close to their burrows meaning that they were always close to their safe haven. So there would be entrances in the vicinity. Seeing as the rabbit had thumped the ground where it had, the burrow was probably under the clearing. The huntress set about looking under bushes first. She moved round one, searching for any place that the rabbit had come out. She crawled round it on hands and knees, bow and the rest of her equipment dropped in the centre of the clearing where it would be out of her way. Being close to the ground helped. It meant that she found the dig marks.

The teen examined them with interest, measuring their depth with her fingers. There were a number of groves that could be picked out where the rabbits feet had dug, making a small gap beneath the bush. The foliage around the little hole was also missing, showing where the rabbits had pushed through repeatedly. It wasn't big enough for her to see into the shadowy interior but she was confident that there was indeed a hole beneath it.

Taking her knife, the huntress set about widening the hole by cutting through the foliage. The blade was jagged and so it acted as a saw on the thin branch like structures of the bush. It still wasn't easy going, the flesh beneath the woody outer stem still green with life and willing to hang onto it. She worked away at it all the same, holding it just beside where she sawed pulling the blade back and forth in a short, quick motion. It took about twenty chimes to cut a sizeable hole of about a foot in height and half a foot in width. It was large enough for her to see into it and to reach around inside. She could see the burrow entrance that the rabbits had made, could reach in towards it.

Now that she'd found one the Avora wasn't sure what to do about it. Sure she could put a net over it but what then. She only had one net--at least for the moment--so there was no way of covering the other burrow holes. She had no idea how many holes there might be and even if she did and covered them all there'd be no other option but to wait for a rabbit to emerge by itself. There was no way to flush any of them out except by using a kyper but the teen didn't have one and had only heard about their usage, not actually used one herself.

The teen felt disheartened. How was the point of finding as many burrow entrances as possible when she couldn't cover them all? She couldn't flush them out unless... She considered her surroundings quickly. They'd had plenty of hot weather, many plants dried out by the heat. Flammable. Animals didn't react well to fires, or to smoke. If she lit a fire at one entrance and then blocked some of the others then they'd only have a few escape routes. Why not make sure that she caught some of them? She had a net so she could cover one of the entrances and maybe catch something.

Retrieving her pack she wedged it in the burrow entrance that she'd found, making certain that nothing could come out that way in the meantime. She might build her fire in that one though she was unsure if it would be easier to set it in the hole itself or just outside it. She'd cross that bridge when she came to it. For now she'd focus on finding other entrances and covering them.

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