Hunt on Horseback

[Colt]

The huntress angled towards a narrow alley, and Shahar and Akaidras followed. Soon enough she had halted and dismounted, causing Shahar to look about in bewilderment––had they arrived? But no, she seemed to be doing so to alter her pace, to walk at the speed Shahar and Akaidras walked.

Tilting his head curiously but saying nothing, Shahar continued to follow as she continued to lead.

"The haunch,” she finally replied. “Would that be a decent amount?"

Haunch. Almost immediately, Shahar’s mind went to the physical actions that would consist of separating the haunch from the rest of the carcass, and what cuts might be needed; the largest throat-belly slit would come first, of course, and then the skin on the inside of the hind leg would be next. Once the skin was pulled away, then the meat itself could be separated. Perhaps his axe would find some use in that regard?

Shahar was so caught up in his planning that he almost forgot to reply to the huntress. Shaking himself, he nodded and signed agreement, to be done once arrived.

Along that line of thought, Shahar began to wonder just how much farther her camp was; if she was living along, then it surely wouldn’t be in the thick of the city. Would it?

[Merevaika]

At her request of the haunch the man fell deep in thought. As she waited for a response, Merevaika could only wonder about what he was thinking of. Was her proposal too large, and was he wondering why she needed such a large piece? Or was it the opposite, so small that asking for that little seemed unbelievable to him? Perhaps it was neither, and he was considering the hunt, or thinking of his pavillion. Perhaps he was thinking about her, and her pavillion.

Merevaika smiled at the thought of family but knew she would not get it. It was silly to dream, and besides, the minute she got one she would hate the lack of freedom and the responsibility she would have to other members. Her family consisted of her, her horse and her dog, and it would stay that way.

As if realising that Merevaika was waiting for an answer, he gave a short one, before returning to thought. He wanted to arrive at her camp soon, it seemed, and luck was with him. Moments after he had replied, Merevaika stopped suddenly in front of a small worn tent. "Here we are," she said softly, pulling the yvas off her horse. Eryunt snorted at the movement, before pressing his head against her hand. He was hungry, and tired, and it was as if asking permission to leave her. Merevaika signed Go, watching him strut behind the tent and lower his head to graze. Denviel stayed beside her feet.

"We are here? Shall we divide the meat now? I do not know how, so I can not help."

[Colt]

His question seemed to have come at an opportune time; her home was only moments away from where he had done the asking.

It was a modest home, one obviously home to a single Drykas and her companions; the tent was worn but sturdy, not meant for many people at all. His attention immediately roamed to the open space around it; there seemed enough for them to process at least part of the oryx, although there was no frame to suspend the animal from. That was alright, though; they could wrestle it on the ground.

The woman dismounted when they halted, unbuckling the yvas from her strider’s back. Shahar, in the meantime, set about to relieving Akaidras’ burden the oryx was pulled to the ground, earning a great sigh of relief from the black bay stallion, although Shahar did not remove the yvas; this was the woman’s home, but Shahar still had more traveling ahead of him. Akaidras could rest for now, but the leather pad would stay on until he had brought the remainder of the oryx home.

The woman sent her strider off just as Shahar began to tend to the carcass, rolling it onto its back to expose the belly. Their prey had horns, thankfully, which would make opening the skin easier, especially with two people.

"We are here?” the woman asked. “Shall we divide the meat now? I do not know how, so I can not help."

Shahar nodded in acknowledgement and unsheathed his knife––a long, sturdy piece of metal meant to be a tool rather than a weapon––and placed it at the oryx’s throat. No, on second thought, they were not going to skin it completely right here; they had only come here to give her what she wanted, and so all they needed to skin was the portion she wanted. They had agreed to a haunch, and so Shahar moved his knife to the swell of the belly. Hindquarters had more meat that forequarters.

He slit the oryx lengthwise over the belly, exposing the pink flesh beneath. There was no bruising, and so there was no blood other than what remained on his hands from the initial kill; when the southern portion of the animal was cut, he made one more cut on the inside of a hind leg. Gesturing for attention, Shahar pointed towards the silver head, and specifically to the horns sprouting from it.

Hold there, he said. I will pull here, you must grasp there.

[Merevaika]

Her companion wrestled the oryx of his horse's back, throwing it to the ground with a big cloud of dust. His horse relaxed, the heavy weight of his back gone. The strider's head dropped, and his tail loosened. At least he was happy now. Shahar shifted the animal around, rolling it onto its belly. Merevaika didn't really understand what he was doing - she had never properly butchered an animal before. She had either sold them whole or just chopped them up randomly, with plenty offcuts. Perhaps if she watched, she would improve.

He brought out a large knife, sturdy and sharp, bringing it to the neck. With a heartbeat's thought, he stopped, guiding his hand down to the belly. The Drykas woman didn't understand what he was doing. What difference did it make? Perhaps he started from their to get her section over and done with? What even was her section?

With one movement, he slit the belly, the cut smooth and straight. Merevaika was surprised at the lack of blood. Then again, how was she to know if there was supposed to be blood or not? This could be a bad thing or a usual thing. She didn't know.

A few more cuts later, and her companion signed for attention, gesturing that she must hold the horns while he pulled at the leg. Was that the haunch? Merevaika didn't ask, not wanting to embarrass herself. Instead, she grasped firmly on the oryx's horns, knuckles turning white and nails digging into her palm. If this was the usual method of butchering an animal, Merevaika decided she wouldn't be doing it. For the first thing, she only had herself, and no one to hold one part while she tore off the other.

[Colt]

The woman took hold of the horns, giving Shahar enough opposite force to dig his fingers under the skin and haul. He dug his heels into the dirt and threw all of his weight into his back, and slowly the hide began to give. He had a basic understanding of the process, at least enough to know that he wanted the thin layer of muscle that clung to the underside of the hide; it covered the entire body, and while it provided little in the way of food, it assure the hide would come away clean and even, and it would even seal the flesh underneath so flies had less of a chance to lay their meat-spoiling eggs. The skin-muscle could then be pulled off later, with more care and attention to preserve the smoothness of the skin.

If the woman remained stable in her own efforts at the head, the skin would be parted from the flesh in slow, laborious moments, exposing the slick pink muscles underneath. Shahar paused, slit the leg-skin a little farther and did it again, peeling away the layer until he reached the hock. There, he made one more slit all the way around the joint and then set about to the fine fingerwork of completely separating the skin from the joint. When the exposed area circled the entire hock, he put a knee on the animal’s ankle and began to peel upwards, loosening the skin from the entirety of the haunch. It was slow, methodical work, but patience and resilience yielded results; eventually, Shahar had skinned the entire hind leg.

Rolling the skin into a rough pile and setting it on the oryx’s belly, Shahar stood and returned to a relaxing Akaidras to retrieve his axe. The fine work was done; all that remained was to actually separate the haunch from the rest of the corpse.

Almost done, he said when he returned to their project. Taking hold of the exposed haunch, the hunter knelt on the ground, braced the leg against his shoulder and began to chop.

[Merevaika]

At last she realized what the hunter was doing. Peeling at the skin, with a few knife cuts to help the process, Shahar was skinning the haunch, something Merevaika had forgotten had to be done. Another sign of an inexperienced hunter, she realized, and kept her realization to herself, watching as he worked. Eventually, he had managed to prise it all off, and put the skin on the belly of the creature. Her fingers itched to take it, but she resisted the temptation, knowing that since he was the one skinning and butchering the animal, he should be allowed to keep this part.


Besides, she had finally come to understand what a haunch actually was, and it seemed like a large section, maybe the largest she could take without being seen as greedy. Then again, she didn't know what others would perceive as greedy. The hunter had now changed to hacking at the leg with his axe, working to remove it from the rest of the body. As he worked, Merevaika's gaze shifted from him and the oryx to his horse, a dark bay Strider with several curious scars, similar to the ones Shahar had on his own arms.

"What's your strider's name?" she asked, curious. He was a large horse, fairly muscular too. The stallion reminded Merevaika of her own strider, a horse she had only ever perceived as brave, strong and mighty. She only hoped that the hunter treated his strider in the same way she treated hers. Of course he would. He was drykas, and the horse was a strider.

[Colt]

Through the muscle he hacked, which was easy enough, and then through the bone, which was harder. By the time he felt the telltale crack of something decidedly not soft against the axe, Shahar lay the weapon down and reached instead for his hunting knife. He could have gone through the bone if he really wanted to go through it, but he didn’t particularly care for the effort it would take. Bones were condensed and hard, especially on animals as large as this one; it would take much less effort to simply find the joint and separate it.

To that end, Shahar moved the skin back to get at the flesh of the hip, where the leg joined with the pelvic bone. The butchery to follow would not be at all clean or neat, but it would bear some semblance of completeness; the woman would be receiving the entirety of the leg, thigh included.

He could feel the joint when he felt around for it, although actually reaching it was a different matter; he cut roughly through the meat, slicing away fist-sized chunks to expose what he wanted and laying them on the oryx’s side.

Yours too, he gestured at the chunks.

Within a few moments he could see the whiteness of bone and the grayness of tendon, and that was what he needed to cut. He stabbed at the tendons holding the bones together, and was about halfway through when the woman spoke again.

“What’s your strider’s name?”

Shahar looked up, confused as to why she would be interested. “Akaidras.” Why?

[Merevaika]

Merevaika's first thoughts of him being an expert at butchery quickly vanished when she saw him start to cut away chunks of meat, moving them to the side to reveal the joint where the bone of the leg met the bone of the hip. They were hers too, so she gathered them, wrapping them in spare cloth to keep them together and not exposed to the sun and flies. These she would most likely eat that night, as they were ready cut up for her use. The rest of the leg would be another story. She would have to decide when she received it.

He answered to her question simply, giving the name and asking why she asked. Merevaika shrugged, not having a real reason. It seemed polite to ask, and she was curious. On that note, had she asked the man for his name? She didn't know, but felt rude to ask, if it was the case that she had simply forgotten.

"Akaidras..." she tried it out, listening to how it rolled across her tongue, "It's a very noble name. I think it suits you." She spoke to the horse, rather than the man. After all, the man didn't have that name, so why should he be complimented for it? "You are, after all, a very noble horse." She approached gently, watching his body language for signs that he felt uncomfortable with her, or threatened. Finally, it seemed, she could communicate with her kind.

But not species. She lacked everything that made a horse a horse. Instead, she was an infiltrated, living in a place where she belonged but didn't. Horses were her life, but she was still separate. Don't fear, friend, no harm, she signed, bringing out her hand for him to sniff. No signs yet that he didn't want her. A good sign for sure.

[Colt]

She answered his question with a shrug, and so Shahar returned to his task. There! He had gotten––no, wait, he hadn’t. There was still more attaching the bones to each other. Shahar sighed and drove his knife in between them again.

He listened with half an ear as the woman rolled Akaidras’ name around experimentally, then began talking to Akaidras directly. At that, Shahar cast a glance over his shoulder to make sure that his strider didn’t bite.

He needn’t have worried, it seemed; the woman approached Akaidras with respect and courtesy, not to mention a fair bout of compliments. Although not particularly eager for company, the strider didn’t shy away; Akaidras certainly wasn’t threatened by the woman, especially not with the way she calculated her approach. She even signed a few placating gestures to lay the groundwork of comfort, which worked; Akaidras was entirely tolerant of her presence, even leaning towards her to sniff curiously and see if she would pet him. If she didn’t, he would go back to his resting.

Confident that his horse would not start any altercations, Shahar returned to the oryx. He picked up the leg and set it on his shoulder, forcing it to twist and show him exactly what tendons still needed severing; many of them were gone, but there were still many that were not. He made another cut and twisted it another way, making more space between the two bones. Another cut. He pulled the leg, stretching and rotating it before letting it fall back to the ground. The two bones hung away from each other, kept together only by the small remaining tendons. Shahar severed them, and the haunch fell away.

Triumph, victory. Shahar hefted the haunch. There was some dirt on it, but that was easily wiped or rinsed away, and would not actually spoil any of the meat.

“Here," he grunted. Finished.

[Merevaika]

Akaidras didn't flinch at her approach, instead leaning forward to sniff her hand slightly, ears forward in a curious, friendly way. She smiled gently at him, ignoring his rider who seemed to be struggling with the meat behind them, pulling at it and twisting it, showing more signs of not being as experienced as she had first believed he was.

Her hand moved up to scratch the strider's neck, acting as she would with Eryunt. Akaidras didn't react negatively to the petting, even enjoying it a little, so she continued, slowly moving up to scratch his forehead, avoiding more delicate areas around his eyes or nose.

A grunt from Shahar interrupted the time with the horse, and Merevaika spun round, confusing the horse a little as to the sudden lack of attention. The hunter held the haunch separately from the oryx, signing for finished. She moved forward to take it, disappearing quickly into her tent, heaving the chunk of meat behind her.

Once she emerged, she signed Gratitude, thanks. "Hunting with you was beneficial, and enjoyable. Thank you for the help," she smiled sweetly, almost wincing at her words. When had she ever been so sweet and polite to others? Then again, when had she last hunted with others. "Thank you once more." Goodbye. With a sharp nod of her head, she turned to join her horse, and give him the attention needed. Perhaps hunting with others wasn't so bad after all.

oocI thought I'd finish off here, to get this thread done with and after a warning from Tribal that perhaps this thread got a bit too long. Feel free to do the finishing post if you want, and just PM me if there was something else you wanted! =)