12 Vhalar 721
OOC Note
First in a series dealing with this settlement challenge/plotline
People had come this way often enough by now, checking on the fish traps in the river, that there was a dirt path worn in the grass. It meant he could move faster and more easily at the moment, though as the weather got wetter and colder, it would probably turn into a muddy mess. Still, it kept him from getting lost. Whether it would do the same for Faith was another matter, if what he had been told about how easily she got lost were true.
He reached the riverbank and brushed through the handful of panicky settlers to see what the problem was. Looking down into the water it became obvious. A raft of floating dead creatures had come to rest against the fish traps. Was that all? Glancing up and down stream, it seemed to be. Dan rolled his eyes and grumbled, "Well, fish them out then." Surely even these people knew better than to leave dead things in their drinking water? Leaving them in there to rot was a sure fire way to taint the water and make yourself sick when you drank it.
He suited action to words, dropping flat on the bank, pushing up the sleeves of his patched shirt, and reaching down to scoop whatever he could reach out of the water, tossing it up onto the bank beside him. The skins and feathers would probably be usable, even if the rest was too far gone to be saved. The noise level dropped as he worked, for which he was grateful. It meant he could focus better on what he was doing and seeing.
They were all small creatures - a pigeon (he hoped it wasn't one of the ones he had brought), several mice, some sparrows, a couple of rats, and a squirrel - easy enough to grab one handed, even though they were sodden, heavy with water, and slippery in the grasp. As far as Dan was concerned, it wasn't that much more difficult or unpleasant than hunting for, and dealing with, his dinner in the rain, and he had done that plenty of times. If he had ever been squeamish, gutting and butchering his catch every trial for arcs and arcs (on pain of going hungry if he didn't) had cured him of it. They were only dead, after all. They couldn't bite him any more, or batter him with their wings, or warn every living creature around that he was there and hunting, so that his dinner fled or hid. They weren't even far enough gone to smell bad. What was to be scared of?
He scooped out the last of them and then, since his arms were already wet to the elbow and above, moved on to hauling fish traps, setting them down on his other side, away from the dead creatures. There was no point in wasting a perfectly good chance at dinner, after all. He set the last one down on the bank, and only then sat back on his heels and looked up.
Everyone was staring at him.
He froze. Only his gaze moved, darting from face to face, trying to pick up clues as to what he'd done wrong this time. Clearly "what was to be scared of" was, as usual, other people's reaction to his actions. Which was why he had always been happier and more comfortable alone in the wild than he ever had in towns and the like. He spotted Emily at the back of the group, looking almost awed, and managed to collect himself together enough to wave the group towards the fish traps.
They hesitated and then moved towards the traps. Emily looked over at him, and signed discreetly, "Faith will want to know."
Dan nodded, and pushed himself to his feet. "They're small," he managed. "I'll tie them together." He trotted off down the bank, heading upstream towards the cattail patch, and trying (and failing) not to look like he was running away from all of their stares. A short distance beyond it, the bank shelved, making a small muddy beach that sloped gently into the water rather than the steeper drop by the traps. Dan made a mental note to check it later, it might be where the creatures had gone into the water. For now, he reached out into the cattail patch, plucked a few of the long thin leaves, and began to twist them into a rough cord.
As far as he was concerned, cattails were all but a basic survival kit in themselves. If you had cattails, you also had water, because they grew in it. Then you had the roots and the flowers for food, the leaves for string to make a firebow or tie your food out of animal reach or if you made it long enough, the spine of a shelter. The old woody stems could be used as a fire drill. Not a very good one, he had to admit to himself, but perfectly functional in a pinch, and the fluffy seeds served as both insulation (if you stuffed them inside your clothes) or as tinder. Food, water, fire and shelter, all in one spot.
Movement in the corner of his eye brought his head round, and he saw Emily copying him. She quipped, "So this is where you keep your string, rather than your pockets."
Dan shrugged awkwardly. "Depends on the string - and on the pocket. Didn't have any today, but this is right here, so..." He shrugged again, and started back at a slower pace, coiling his cord as he went. Beside him, Emily did the same. At least, he thought, gratefully, she didn't try to talk with her hands full.
Back at the fish trap site, things were quieter but smellier, with several people gutting the catch and using it to bait the traps once more. Dan eased himself to one knee next to the pile of creatures and turned them over, reaching for the leg of the pigeon. It was the heaviest of the creatures he had fished out of the water, so it would be a good test of the strength of the cord. If it held up to the pigeon's weight, it would probably hold up to the weight of the other creatures too. He knotted the cord firmly around the pigeon's ankle, where it was unlikely to slip off, and there were the fewest feathers to get in his way. He lifted it up. The cord held, and he nodded to himself in satisfaction, and began to tie in the other creatures. He focused on ankles, mostly, since the bulk of the foot would stop the leg sliding out of the knot. It was one way he sometimes carried his catch home, if the snares had been more productive than he could easily carry in his hands or his gathering bag. He wasn't used to doing it to creatures as small as mice and sparrows though, which made it harder. It was slow, steady work, like this, and he looked for obvious death wounds as he did so, and found none.
When he was finally done with it, he knotted holding loops into the ends and held it out to Emily like a particularly macabre string of bunting and asked, "Could you take this to Faith and let her know what's happened here? I'll catch up in a bit, but I should check for tracks and see if I can find where they came from."
Emily took it reluctantly and gingerly, touching only the loops. "I'll tell her, but she'll want the details from you too. You're the one who dealt with it."
Dan acknowledged that with a grimace and a reluctant acceptance of his own, and they split up, Emily down the dirt track towards the settlement, and Dan up the river bank towards the little beach he had seen earlier.
Continued here
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