Solo Fall Harvest

[Seirei Dawnwhisper]

A delicate bloom

Timestamp: 47th Day of Fall, 514 AV



Seirei stared at the fabric tent, watching the darkness gradually lighten as night gave way to day. She had long since given up trying to get back to sleep since it was impossible to find a position she could get comfortable in. A full night's sleep was getting harder and harder to come by as her belly continued to swell. Seirei couldn't help but wonder if sleep would become all but impossible before the child she carried was finally born. Then again, it was possible that exhaustion would eventually override discomfort, and allow her to find at least a little rest. It was something to hope for, anyway.

When it had grown light enough for Seirei to be certain the sun was fully up, Seirei rose from Lian's bedroll, and made her way outside. He would no doubt be up soon, and Seirei wanted to be out of his way when he woke. Even given the early bell, she wasn't the only one up and about. People moved past the tent as they went about their business. Some spoke of going out into the Sea of Grass, and searching for herbs and edible plants that could be dried and stored for the long winter months to come.

As Seirei watched them, she wondered how long it would take for them to find enough food and herbs to sustain them through the winter. What would happen if they didn't find enough to get them by through the whole season? Did other families share what dwindling supplies they had, or did the unlucky people who couldn't find enough food starve before spring came again? Seirei knew nothing about farming. But she had visited the Mythryn Outpost a few times when her caravan had traveled to Syliras. She had seen the vast fields, and the people working in them. Both she and Jared had preferred the outpost to the vast crush of people that dwelt within the castle city. To Seirei's inexperienced mind, it seemed as though farming fields was a far more reliable way to get food than going out into the wilds, and hoping you found what you needed. Then again, the Drykas were a migratory people. How would they be able to farm when they moved to a new place each season?

"Seirei!"

Seirei looked up, startled out of her musings by the sound of her name. Two girls hurried towards Lian's tent. They looked vaguely familiar, and Seirei frowned, trying to remember where she had seen them before. After a few ticks, she remembered; they were the girls who had taken Seirei out to the river earlier in the season so she could gather willow branches for her experiment in spoon making. Seirei smiled hesitantly as they approached.

"It is Seirei, right?"

Seirei nodded. They hadn't introduced themselves on that trip. Looking back now, it was strange, but it just hadn't come up at the time. Even so, it didn't surprise Seirei that they would know her name. She'd mentioned Lian by name, after all. Lian made no attempt to hide the fact that he had a captive, or what her name was, so it probably wouldn't take much asking around to figure out who she was if one knew where to look.

"That's right. And you are...?" Seirei asked politely in heavily accented pavi.

The two girls stared at Seirei for a few ticks, then exchanged speaking glances with each other.

"We're idiots for not introducing ourselves when we met, and then expecting you to know who we are now." the older girl said with an apologetic glance at Seirei.

"I'm Teisaia Sunweaver of the Ruby Clan. And this is my cousin Rytira Sunweaver." the younger of the two added a few ticks later.

Seirei offered the two girls a warm smile.

"I would introduce myself too, but you already know who I am." she said with a slight teasing tone.

The two cousins chuckled at that.

"Do you want to go foraging with us? You're a wood carver, right? We could focus our efforts along the river if you'd like, so you can gather some more willow wood if you need some." Teisaia offered.

Rytira held up a cautionary hand.

"But only if Lian would let you go. I don't want to get you, or ourselves in trouble over this." she warned.

Seirei considered the offer for a few chimes, before nodding.

"I'd love to go. Lian didn't mind me going when we went to get willow branches earlier in the season. So as long as I'm back before dark, it should be fine."

Teisaia beamed, and Rytira looked relieved.

"Then let's get going!" Teisaia said excitedly.

"Foraging is always more fun when groups of friends go together."

[Seirei Dawnwhisper]

A delicate bloom

Seirei smiled.

"Let me just get my things, okay?"

The other girls nodded, and Seirei slipped back inside Lian's tent. Lian was still asleep, much to Seirei's relief. Moving slowly so she wouldn't wake him, Seirei gathered up her axe, and several of Lian's yvas bags. Then she hesitated. How many could she borrow safely without asking him? It seemed likely that she would need several while out foraging. But how many would Lian need when he went hunting? Would he mind if she borrowed his things if she was careful to leave enough for him?

Seirei knew that she should probably buy her own set...but how could she? The last time she tried, the merchant flat refused to sell her any. He said that since she wasn't a Drykas, she didn't have a strider. Since she didn't, she wouldn't have a yvas, or need the bags to go along with it. From the suspicious looks the man had given her, Seirei suspected that he thought she had been planning to escape. Fearing that he would bring his suspicions to Lian, she made her excuses, and left. She hadn't tried to buy any yvas bags since then.

Seirei hesitated for a few ticks more, then grabbed all but two of the yvas bags. She would need them more than he did. Then she slipped back out to rejoin the other girls. It didn't take them long to reach the edge of the city. As early as it was, the crowds were still thin enough to maneuver through easily. Once they walked past the last few tents, Teisaia and Rytira stopped. Curious, Seirei stopped as well.

"Did you see the sun rise this morning?" Rytira asked.

Seirei shook her head. She had been awake, but she'd been in Lian's tent, so all she'd seen was the slowly brightening light outside the tent.

"Well, we did. It rose in that direction." the older girl said, pointing off to her right.

"Do you remember what we told you about navigating in the Sea of Grass the last time?"

Seirei tried to remember what she'd been told. After a few chimes, it came to her.

"You said that at night, you would use the stars to get your bearings. But at dawn or dusk, you would use the sun. The sun rises in the east, so if the sun rose from that direction, then that's east." Seirei said, gesturing in the same direction Rytira had.

Seirei's caravan had used both maps and guides to find their way along their route. Once in a while, Seirei had gotten a glimpse of the maps as the leaders had planned their course. It wasn't enough for her to have learned how to read a map, but she did remember a symbol that had stuck in her mind because it had looked strange to her when she was a child. Seirei squatted down, and drew it in the dirt.

"So if that's east, then west has to be the opposite direction than east. North would be up, and south would be down, right?" she mused out loud as she wrote letters in the dirt at the end of each line.

"At least I think that's the way the symbol on the map looked..."
"You've got it right." Teisaia said approvingly.

"We're going to be going to the Zeis river to forage today. That's where we went last time. The Zeis river is east of the city, so..."

"It's that way." Seirei said confidently, pointing to the east.

"Exactly."

Rytira squatted down, and drew an arrow pointing east beside the image Seirei had drawn.

"Why did you do that?" Seirei questioned curiously.

"To mark which way we went. If something were to happen to us, members of the Watch would be sent out to look for us. They would have dogs with them that were trained to follow scents. Markings like this would help them, because they'll know what direction we traveled in once we left the city. If we were going to change direction, we'd make a new marking each time we did. That won't be necessary for this trip, though."

"The Watch?"

"The Watch is a group of people who protect the Drykas, Seirei. They protect us from well...everything. They patrol the Sea of Grass around the city, and deal with bandits and unwanted outsiders. But they also deal with dangerous predators that come too close to the city, like wolves, glassbeaks, and zith. And if one of the pavilions who chooses not to live in the city gets attacked, they ride to their aid."

"But it's more than just that. If someone commits a crime, then the Watch steps in, and deals with that, too." Teisaia added when Rytira seemed to be finished.

Seirei nodded thoughtfully. It seemed as though the Watch was crucial to the safety of the Drykas people.

"We should get going now. Foraging takes time if you want to bring back a decent amount of food."

With that, Rytira took the lead, and the three girls set off in the direction of the Zeis river.

[Seirei Dawnwhisper]

A delicate bloom

"If you don't mind my asking, what did you do with the willow branches you gathered last time?" Teisaia asked after they had been walking for a while.

Seirei smiled. She wouldn't mind talking about wood carving with her new friends at all. In fact, discussing her greatest passion with just about anyone who showed interest in it was something she would enjoy greatly.

"I wouldn't mind at all." she said softly.

Teisaia and Rytira exchanged glances. Then they grinned, and turned back to Seirei. They sensed a story coming.

"I used the wood for a lot of things, but I needed it especially for an experiment of sorts."

"How can carving something be an experiment? Unless you were trying to make something you had never made before?" Rytira asked.

"It's not what I made that became the experiment. It was the method I used." Seirei said mysteriously.

She chuckled at the expressions the other girls gave her.

"It started when I remembered a conversation I had with my mother once. She was describing the way wood carvers used to make wooden bowls and spoons in the past. See, now carvers use a tool called an adze. The adze is a tool that is similar to an axe, but it has a curved blade that is attached to a handle at a right angle. We use it to shape wood. In the example of making a bowl or a spoon, it is used to hollow the bowl or spoon out. But our ancestors did not have such a tool. They used fire to hollow out the inside of the bowls and spoons they made." Seirei explained.

The two girls nodded. Although they knew little about carving, Seirei's explanation was easy enough to understand.

"My mother told me that there was something to be said for the old ways. At the time, I disagreed, convinced that using the adze was the best way...mostly because that was the way that she herself had taught me. I remembered that conversation at a time that I really needed a distraction from...things."

Seirei's voice trailed off, unwilling to discuss what those "things" were. But Teisaia and Rytira seemed to understand without having to be told. They knew she was a captive, after all. It didn't need to be said that her pregnancy had been forced on her against her will, or that she might have bad memories of her captor haunting her. So they simply gave her sympathetic looks, and waited for her to continue when she was ready.

"The experiment was meant to be a distraction more than anything else. I decided that I would make a spoon using each of the methods, and decide for myself which one was better. Willow branches are good for making spoons because they are a good thickness for it."

"And which method was better?" Teisaia asked, sounding truly interested in the answer.

"Using fire to hollow out the inside of a spoon is definitely effective. And my mother was right. There is something to be said for the old ways. But I like using the adze better."

"Why?"

"Using fire takes longer, for one thing. I couldn't even imagine how long it would take to hollow out a bowl that way. Especially a big one used for mixing ingredients rather than eating out of. And I found it to be more difficult, but that was mostly because it wasn't the way I had been taught. I suspect that if I had initially been taught the method using fire, and was more comfortable with that method, I'd prefer that one instead. Both methods have merits, and neither produces a better quality spoon than the other."

"That makes sense." Rytira said after a while.

"I know a little about carving. But I don't know how to make spoons yet. Do you think you could teach me how using both methods some day?"

Seirei smiled, and nodded.

"Sure. I'd like that."

[Seirei Dawnwhisper]

A delicate bloom

By the time Seirei had finished telling the others about her experiment, they had reached the river. Seirei was glad to see a stand of willow trees. It meant that she wouldn't have to go searching up and down stream for them. She wanted to gather as many as she could while she had access to them since she didn't know if any would grow within walking distance of the city's winter camp. They would have to have a water source nearby, of course, but that didn't mean it was a source that willows would grow around.

To Seirei's surprise, she also saw another type of tree that was unfamiliar to her. They varied in height, with the smallest being around six feet tall. At first glance, Seirei could tell that the tree wasn't one that would have much use to a wood carver. The trunks and thickest branches of the trees were thick enough that you could make spoons out of them, but that was about it. And it seemed like a huge waste to cut down an entire fruit bearing tree just to make a few spoons.

The bark was a greyish color. Their leaves were a dark green color, but when a breeze blew through the leaves, Seirei noticed that they had a lighter underside. The leaves themselves were broad, flat, and oval shaped. The berries were small, and round. They grew loosely clustered together, and varied in color from bright red to black.

"Oooh, chokecherries! We should definitely get some of those while we're here!"

Teisaia's excited voice distracted Seirei from her study of the unfamiliar trees. Seirei turned to her new friend.

"Chokecherries?"

"You've never seen them before?"

Seirei shook her head.

"Chokecherries are great! You have to be careful to take only the black ones. Those ones are ripe, and they taste much better than the red ones do. Red chokecherries taste very sour and bitter. But the black ones are pretty good."

Seirei nodded, trying to commit that fact to memory; only eat black chokecherries.

"They're very useful, too. You can eat them as is, or you can dry them and eat them all winter. You can also put them in a pot with a little water and let them simmer for a few hours to make them release their juice. It takes about a gallon of chokecherries to make a quart of juice. That juice can be drunk, or made into jelly or syrup. Oh, and my mother says that the bark of chokecherry root can be made into a concoction that can ward of colds if given to someone quickly enough. It can also be used to treat colds, fevers, and stomach maladies."

"But they're poisonous to horses, goats, and zibri, so you have to be careful never to set up camp near them, or the animals might eat them." Rytira cautioned.

Seirei nodded even though she knew that she wasn't the one who would be deciding where she camped. The three girls split up, and began picking the chokecherries. They were harder than Seirei suspected they would be, which was good. That meant that they would be less likely to bruise and stain Lian's yvas bags.

"Seirei, did you do a lot of foraging when you were younger?"

"Not really, why?"

"One thing you should know about foraging is that you can't take everything that you find. If you do, there will be nothing left for the animals that rely on the same plants for food that we do. In this case, a lot of birds eat chokecherries. Also, if you take everything, you might damage the plant so badly that it doesn't produce fruit next year. Or if you're gathering wild carrots, or something else, there won't be anything left in the future if you take everything all at once. Plants produce seeds that get spread around, and eventually grow into new plants. But if you take all the food you can find, there won't be any plants left to produce seeds."

Seirei nodded. She'd remember that in the future. It made a lot of sense when she thought about it. She did the same thing when gathering wood to use for her projects. If she took too much from any one tree, it would kill the tree, and it wouldn't be there the next time she needed more wood. Killing trees would also be bad for the birds who nested in them...and the people who ate those birds.

The girls talked as they worked. The cousins wanted to get to know Seirei better, and the feeling was mutual for Seirei. It felt good to simply talk, and get to know Teisaia and Rytira. Other than Waisana, Seirei hadn't had a friend for a long time. And as a healer, Waisana was busy most of the time. They didn't get much time to simply enjoy each others' company. Perhaps it would be different with Teisaia and Rytira. Already, Seirei found herself liking the two girls.

After a few bells, they decided they had enough chokecherries. Teisaia and Rytira found some wild onions they wanted to take. Seirei still couldn't stomach the strong smell of the onions, so she decided to use the time to cut some more willow branches. She started by looking for branches that had been torn off during a storm. There were a few, and she used her axe to cut them into more manageable pieces before gathering them up into a pile.

When she was done with that, she looked to see how much wood she had. Wood was heavy, so she couldn't bring too much back at once. Especially with the food that they would be bringing back as well. Still, Serei wanted to make sure she had enough for future projects while she had the chance. So she cut a few branches as well, making sure that she only took one from each tree she chose so she wouldn't damage them too badly.

By the time Seirei had finished cutting these new branches into more manageable pieces for the trip home, it was late afternoon. She had to be back before dark, or risk Lian's anger, and Seirei really didn't want to do that. So the three girls gathered up the food they had foraged, packed the branches onto a travois one of the girls had brought, and they began the journey back to the city.

[Tribal]

G R A D E S

Seirei

Experience

• Logic: 2
• Observation: 3
• Socialisation: 3
• Stealth: 1
• Land Navigation: 1
• Rhetoric: 2
• Storytelling: 1
• Foraging: 1
• Wilderness Survival, Plains: 1
• Botany: 1

Lore

• Seirei: A long hard pregnancy
• Drykas: Migratory people
• Foraging: Is a lot more fun when you have other people to work with
• Land Navigation: Using maps and setting markers
• The Watch: Endrykas' best line of defence
• Seirei: Passionate about wood carving
• Chokecherries: Take only the black ones
• Foraging: Taking only what you need

Notes

Hi, Seirei; great thread. I like that we got to see a bit more of the PCs personality in this one and line of thought! Enjoy the rewards.