Solo Palm up

[Ashka]

64 Fall 517

Ashka leaned her head back and stared up at the palm leaves above her. Getting to them couldn't be that much harder than climbing the ship's mast, could it? There were plenty of ridges for her hands and feet at least. And just standing here wasn't going to get her house thatched with palm leaves. She pulled off her boots, dried her sweaty hands on her trousers and reached up to clasp the trunk of the palm tree as high as she could. She took a deep breath, gritted her teeth, and then jumped, clamping her calves and insteps against the trunk of the palm to support herself.

Once her feet were gripping as best they could, she took another breath and edged her hands higher up the trunk until she was stretched out again. Then she jumped her feet higher and started again. The rough bark dug into her bare feet, and her leg muscles ached under the strain, unaware that more experienced climbers would have used a loop of rope for extra grip and support. As she got closer to the top, and the palm branches she needed for her roof, her feet slipped. She thudded hard against the trunk, held from falling only by her arms hugging it, and gasped as she clamped her legs back around it. For a moment, she clung there, forehead pressed to the bark. Then, carefully, with her mouth a tight, grim line, she started up again.

When she finally got within reach of the branches, she realised that she hadn't thought about what it was going to take to get them. Her knife was a small familiar weight against the small of her back, but to use it she would have to take at least one hand off the tree and trust to her feet to keep her from fallling.

Common, Pavi, Fratava

[Ashka]

Ashka wound one arm as far around the trunk as it would go, hugging herself against it, and with the other she reached very cautiously to draw the knife tucked into the back of her sash. She clamped her feet and legs as tightly to the tree as she could and reached up equally cautiously to the nearest palm branch. She decided to saw with the edge of her knife rather than risk swinging her arm to hack at it, and found that the knife at least bit into it easily enough. One branch dropped, and she reached dry-mouthed for another, and then another.

The pile of branches at the foot of the palm tree grew until she had cut all the branches she could safely reach. She dropped her knife to land point down in the pile rather than attempt to tuck it back in her sash, wrapped both arms back around with a gasp of relief, and let her feet slide down. Getting down the tree was the reverse move to getting up, only shaky with relief and with aching muscles.

When her feet hit the ground, she landed more in a seated heap than standing, and had to roll sideways so that she didn't land on her knife. She sat there for a moment, letting the shakes subside from her muscles, then reached out, picked up the dropped knife and sheathed it once more. She rolled onto hands and knees, then shook her head over her error, sat down again, and pulled on her abandoned boots. The boots gave some support to her hard-worked calves and feet, and she managed to climb slowly upright and gather the hard-won palm branches in her arms. They itched, and blocked her vision and caught on trees as she moved, but she hung on to them and dragged the branches and herself back onto the beach stretch of her claim.


Common, Pavi, Fratava

[Ashka]

Once she was home, she piled the palm branches close to her house and stretched her aching muscles. She shook out her hands, then drew her knife once more and picked up the top branch. She made a cut in the end and pushed the knife on in to split it into two fronds, each one half of the full branch. To her delight, it required very little pressure to split it. Once the first cut was made, she could almost pull it into the two halves with her bare hands.

She stacked the two fronds off to the side, and sat herself down on the ground to work through the rest of the branches. She made a cut, and then mostly set down her knife and peeled the halves apart. It wasn't as easy as it had seemed at first. The split kept wanting to veer off and stop part way down the branch, so some of her fronds were uneven. That didn't matter too much, because it was all of them layered together that would keep her house dry, not the individual fronds.

Gradually the pile of branches grew smaller while the pile of fronds grew higher until at last she had split everything. Ashka cleaned and sheathed her knife, before she clambered back to her feet. She caught hold of the frame of her half-built house and pulled herself up to stand on the floor made from strips of bamboo. From there, she could just about reach to untie the tarp covering the roof poles and pull it down. She folded it neatly, hopped down to the ground again, and stowed the tarp in her canoe.

Then she began to gather up armfuls of fronds and carry them up into her house. She stacked them in rows below the edges of the roof frame, working up one side and down the other and then took a deep breath and braced herself for the next stage.

Common, Pavi, Fratava

[Ashka]

First, she climbed down and fetched a skein of strong, sturdy cord from her tent. Remembering the last time that she had needed to tie something off, she measured lengths of cord off against the poles and palm fronds, and cut a few tie lengths before she started. She knotted one end of each of the ties to one of the poles that would support the finished roof and let the rest drop for the moment.

Then she picked up a pair of palm fronds from the first pile and threaded them between the support poles so that they sat on the outside while she stood on the floor inside. She clutched them against the pole that would be the top of the wall eventually with one hand, and fumbled for the first of the ties with the other. Once she grasped it, she looped a brief knot around the fronds and the pole, then moved along to do do the same to the other end of the fronds. She let go of that pair when it was firmly tied, but that only took her part of the way along the roof, so she picked up another pair of fronds, eased them out between the poles, and set them beside and slightly overlapping the first pair. She tied it down in the same way and continued down the line until the first row of palm thatch trembled in the breeze.

She looked it over, nodded to herself, and paced back to the beginning of the line. There she picked up another pair of palm fronds, threaded them out through the poles, and lashed it into place about a hand width higher up the poles that the first row. The long leaves overlapped the row below almost all the way, but that was all right, they were supposed to.


Common, Pavi, Fratava

[Ashka]

Ashka continued to add layers of palm until she was about half way up the slope of that side of the roof. Then she paused for a break and a drink of warmish water from her waterskin. Even warm, the water tasted good in Syka's heat. Once she'd rested, she made a start on the other side of the roof in the same way, and added layers to it until it matched the first side.

The loose ends of the ties dangled from the half thatched roof like a series of cobweb strands, brushing against Ashka's face and shoulders as she closed in to add a new layer to the first half of the roof. Their touch tickled against her bare skin and she blew at them to get them off once more because her hands were full of palm frond.

She worked up one side and down the other now, having to stretch higher and higher as she continued to thatch. Her arms began to ache from holding them above her head so much, and she got a crick in her neck from constantly arching back and looking up. She grimaced, and looked round for something that would give her a boost so that she could reach more easily, and her gaze fell on an empty metal bucket.

She fetched it, brought it in and set it upside down on the floor. She stepped onto it cautiously, but it held under her gangly weight and gae her the boost she needed, even if she did have to nudge it along every time she fetched a new pair of fronds from the pile. When she reached the ridge pole she realised that she had made a mistake by splitting all the palm into fronds. "If I'd left some whole, I could have just flapped them over the top. Now I'm going to have to tie them together as well as down onto the frame. Oh well." She grimaced at her last remaining fronds, then cut new ties and started on the final stretch.

Common, Pavi, Fratava

[Ashka]

Your Grades!

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Name: Ashka
XP Award:

• Acrobatics 1
• Climbing 2
• Bodybuilding 2
• Endurance 2
• Carpentry 1
• Construction 2
• Observation 1

Lore:

• Climbing: hug palm trees
• Construction: palm frond thatch
• Carpentry: splitting branches evenly
• Thatch: overlap layers
• Construction: leave some fronds whole

Notes: These are comments.