Cute And Fluffy

[Ixzo]

77thof Winter, 515AV

"Only three?" The question met Ixzo before she could look up to see who. Zethar grinned at her and she rolled her eyes, letting the rabbits fall on the table.

"I bring you eland before, you complain?" She asked in jest. Zethar was one of the few who took her broken Pavi in stride.

Bad haul. He signed and she sighed.

"It rain at night." No chance. She shrugged, not very happy with her haul either. Thankfully, Zethar seemed hardly bothered, already turning her kills over to examine them.

"We can use this one for pelt… what did you use a trap?" Ixzo beamed an nodded. It had taken her nearly the whole season, but she managed to snag the small hare in her home-made trap. She'd since decided it may be better to buy a trap, but the accomplishment still felt nice. "Aaaand, you've completely obliterated the other two. Where is this one's foot?"

"Arrow." She shrugged, giving the poor explanation. To show him, she pulled the arrow head out of her pocket, all that she bothered to scrap from the thing. "Broke." She sighed. Zethar chuckled, but slid the rabbit in front of her. He took the last one, grimacing as he looked at the wound. She had managed to stick the arrow straight through the thing's shoulders, although taking the arrow back out had caused some considerable damage. He shrugged and slid that one in front of him, leaving the one with the good pelt to the side.

[Ixzo]

"Care to help me skin?" He asked.

"Pay me?" She teased, already picking up her rabbit. Zethar snorted and she grinned at him. She didn't expect it, but she always asked just in case.

"Nah, but you might want to know. In case you ever get good at hunting these things." She scowled at him and he laughed, turning the rabbit over in his hands so he was holding it's hind-legs.

"Knife?" She asked, pulling her game knife from her waist and offering it to him. Crunching his lower lip, but not looking at her, he waved it away.

"Don't need it, watch." He said and she did. Picking up the rear of the thing, he spread the legs, pinching at the rabbits knees. She watched him slightly grab at the rabbits legs a few times, seemingly trying to get a good hold. Then with two hands he pushed the leg into the knee. With a sharp snap, the skin split with astounding ease.

Ixzo's mouth fell open and she tried to mask the grimace. She could kill, but the Kelvic wasn't used to the barbarism of taking the thing apart. Yet, it intrigued her, she actually did want to know.

He gave a short laugh at her face, pinching the meat inside of the leg with one hand and holding open the skin around it to show her. She shivered comically and then looked down at her own rabbit.

[Ixzo]

Trying to copy his moves exactly she began pressing the leg into the skin of the knee to no avail. She dropped the thing when she heard something crack but saw no skin break.

"Here, stretch it so that the bones break it." Zethar reached over, snapping the skin for her with ease.

"You make look easy." Too easy.

"It is." He encouraged, picking his rabbit back up. This time he simply, without seeming to put much effort into it, ripped the pelt from the rest of the leg. Ixzo didn't grimace this time, but thought it looked funny when the meat of the leg was showing while the foot still had fur. She moved to copy his step on her own open leg, and found the skin gave way much easier than she had hoped.

"Now the other one," He continued. She looked up to see him break the skin of the other hind leg, except this time she noticed how he gripped the skin, pulling it taut so the meat could slice through.

Doing the same with her own, she put too much force into it, and with a snap and a crack the leg was through, except now both of the rabbits legs were broken. She frowned, fingering the limp connection, watching the leg wiggle beneath her finger. Zethar laughed again and she glared at him, he seemed to find her amusing today.

"It happens, you'll learn." Learning mistakes. He wrote her mistakes off and continued to rip the skin from his rabbit's other leg. She did the same, working a little slower now. She assumed he wouldn't want to save the pelt, but it gave so easily under her strong fingers she felt she needed to be gentle. It didn't really matter thought, the rabbit was dead.

[Ixzo]

She laughed when he held the rabbit up again. The skin that he had peeled from its thighs pooled by its hips there was a stretch of slipper pink until the feet, which had fur remaining on them. But she laughed because he was wiggling the feet around like an upside down dance. He grinned, but then continued

She was less surprised to see him grab the punched up belt at the rabbit's groin, and with both hands and a simply flex, the skin ripped again. Still wary that he was making it look easier than it was, she copied his movements, tugging the skin apart slightly. It didn't budge so she treated it like fabric, tearing at one end. This time the skin broke all the way through with an ease that made her smile. She didn't mess that part up.

"Bunny strippin' time." Zethar chuckled, wiggling his finger between the skin and the meat just above the tail to separate it. She copied him, accidently digging her nails into the meat a little bit. It took her a moment to understand him, and when she didn't, tossing him a confused look for explanation, he just waved it off.

"Leave the tail on." He said, sliding his fingers between the skin and meat he had made. Gripping the tail with the other hand, he pulled and it released. Ixzo nodded, turning to her own rabbit and doing the same, she did so with a little less reserve and the skin ripped down the back, completely separating.

"Uh-oh," Her worried expression brought his attention to her, and he waved it off again.

[Ixzo]

"Don't worry about it, we are going to take it off anyway." He said, and then began yanking the skin off the torso of the rabbit. The gentle snapping of pelt separating from skin and the squishing of the slimy meat in his hands was enough, and she continued doing the same on her own. Gripping the legs in one hand and the skin in the other, she began to yank as well. It took her quite a bit longer, and the meat beneath got more damaged than she intended, but eventually her rabbit mirrored his. They both looked like people in the middle of taking their shirts off.

But then be began really pulling, the skin in one hand and the legs in the other. She half expected the rabbit to snap in half, but all it did was expose the meat of the rabbits elbows, separating them from the skin. Ixzo copied him hesitantly, not wanting to pull her nicked and bruised meat as much as he did.

"Yank it as hard as you can, it doesn't matter. You have to get the elbows out so you can take the arms out." He said, pinching the meat of the elbows as he did so. She sighed, and took a bigger breath to yank the skin away from the meat. Something else cracked, much to her disappointment, but finally the elbows on her rabbit poked out as well.

"Now just slide them out." He said, pinching the elbows and pulling them from the inside-out skin. She did the same, trying hard not to snap the little arms as she did so. He waited patiently while she finished, and then grinned at her.

"All done, that was easy wasn't it?" Good job.

Ixzo nodded, her eyebrows raising as she made the comparison. "Peel like a banana." She spoke the work in Myrian, not knowing the Pavi equivalent for the fruit. Zethar gave her a quizzical look as if he didn't know what the fruit even was, but didn't say anything.

[Ixzo]

"Just take the head off now." He said, pulling out his own game knife. With two quick swipes, he pulled the head, with the skin connected to it, from the now skinned rabbit. Ixzo was surprised that it was so quick, but did the same with her own knife, sawing at the neck a little longer than he did.

"Aaaand, lets gut them real quick. We'll probably have to chop yours up for stew anyway." He spoke, but more to himself now. Seeming to utterly forget that she was trying to follow along, his movements speed up. With daft fingers he flipped the naked meat over, she watched as he held the rabbit with his palm at the tail once more, spreading its legs to expose its abdomen. With soft-brush like slices, so gentle she forgot it was a sharp blade he was using, Zethar opened a gash at the base of the bunny's abdomen. He changed positions and opened the slice wider before setting the knife down.

Ixzo was lost, but she tried to copy the motion anyway. Instead of holding her rabbit, she spread it out on the table, pinning its legs down so she could carve the line down its abdomen. When her blade, which had no issue going through the un-muscled skin, reached resistance she stopped. Ixzo glanced up, knife in hand, intending to ask Zethar, but he was already pinching guts out of the rabbit, tossing them in a bucket under the table. After watching for a few ticks, she realized he hadn't cut all the way down the abdomen either, which was probably why she had stopped at the bone as well.

Still copying him, Ixzo began to callously remove the organs as well. She had to yank a bid near the anus, but the other organs spilled out of the cavity with relative ease. Of course before she even began scraping them out of the upper chest, where they were protected by the ribs, Zethar was done. He had stretched the meat out on the end of the table and was already set to work slicing into the pelt of the other rabbit, the cleanest one. He didn't skin in the same way, and she didn't even bother to try and learn the fancy way her cut at the pelt instead of ripped. Most of her kills were for the meat rather than the pelt, and she could barely skin the thing as it was.

Once all the organs were out, she went to lay her own meat next to his.

[Ixzo]

"Thank you, doll." Zethar said, distracted. With a sharp snag the pelt slipped off the rabbit, still whole, even with the head. She grinned at him, bending down to flick the blood and guts from her fingers into the tallow bucket. Never having been the cleanest of people, she wiped her fingers off on her trousers instead of finding some water to rinse it with. When she was done, she turned to Zethar, waiting patiently for her days pay.

After he had finished the second rabbit, stripping it of its pelt in only a few chimes, he moved to grab another hunter's kill to skin.

"Zethar?" She interrupted when he dropped the coyote on the table before him. "You know… " She started carefully. Zethar was one of the few who seemed utterly comfortable around her, yet the Kelvic felt odd demanding something, even if she deserved it. "You owe me gold." Pay, hesitant. She signed carefully, hoping he would understand what she meant. Her question was meant with a laugh and Zethar wiped his hand on a rag before sticking it in his pocket. He counted out her days' pay and pressed it in her palm.

"You bring me something better next time, alright? Can't keep paying you this for only a few rabbits." He seemed to joke, winking at her as he began cutting into the coyote as well. Even though his tone was light, she knew he was serious, and nodded to him. But her mind was more on the thought of getting her and Iollu a warm meal for the chilly nights rather than what she would be hunting the coming days.

[Jasmine Stormblood]

Let me know if I missed anything

 

Ixzo

XP

• Skinning: 5 XP
• Socialization: 5 XP
• Negotiation: 1 XP

Lores

• Ixzo: new to skinning barehanded
• Ixzo: skins for meat not pelt
• Zethar: a funny man
• Pavi: broken
• Skinning: doesn't need too much force
• Skinning: doesn't always require a knife
• Rabbit bone is easy to break
• Banana is not well known in Endrykas

Miscellaneous

• 1 rabbit pelt
• 1 lb of rabbit meat