2 Fall 511 AV
The night air was crisp, tinged ever-so-slightly by the threat of oncoming winter. Already, most of Xiani's wing-mates had left for their pilgrimage this year - having been born in the spring - so much of the colony had come out to see her off, patting her back roughly and shrieking their encouragement. Even her father, a stoic, hunt-minded male had come out and touched the beads in her hair gently, eyes hopeful. 'You will return to us,' he said quietly, resting a hand upon her shoulder. As one of the top Dark-fliers, he had many younglings, his favorite of this brood had set out early in the spring, so the fact that he had shown up at all was encouraging. Just as she was beginning the approach towards the edge of the shared cave, the sound of soft, human feet slapping the cold stone touched her ears. She turned and was forced to tilt her head at the spectacle a young slave girl was causing.
In the maiden's hands were two items, a small, curved dagger sheathed within a dark leather encasement and a worn waterskin. Averting her eyes, the girl held them out to her, clearing her throat before speaking in a respectful voice, "My mother wishes you to have these... For they are far beyond our use." Xiani was taken aback, finally recognizing the girl as the child of her slave-mentor. It was nearly unheard of for a slave to offer a master one of their few possessions. Smiling gently, Xiani took the items and nodded her head at the girl, the most respect or thanks a master could give to one of the slaves.
Finally, the moon crested the edge of the cave, signaling the end of her time. With one final glance at her colony, Xiani touched her beads once and held the items close, leaping out into the night.
~
Originally, she flew toward the nearby spring, to stop and fill the waterskin. Once there, she was faced with a conundrum: she could either abandon the items and make better time, or have to carry them in her hands and be burdened for the duration of her entire trip. She spent several minutes pondering the situation, unable to decide which option would be better for her in the long run, when finally the answer presented itself in the form of a young doe, our for a late night graze.
A smile touched her lips as she realized that the creature had not yet scented or heard her. Fast and silent, Xiani pounced upon the defenseless creature, shattering its spine with a heel from above - the crunching of bone and final rush of breath confirmed a clean kill. Smiling gleefully at her solution, Xiani dragged the creature to a bare patch of earth and set to work.
First she gutted the doe and tossed the head aside, not finding enough benefit in the time it would take to extract the skull. She then built a fire using dry sticks - the rubbing method - and made a rack over the fire using strings of grass and upright sticks. As the fire grew, she quickly skinned the deer, removing one of the haunches as well, but disregarding the rest of the carcass several yards away. With a sharp, flat stone, she removed any flesh and connections from the pelt then stretched it widely over the rack in order to dry it more quickly. With nothing better to do, she toasted the outer part of the haunch to a crisp and consumed the entire thing, filling her belly to the point of being unable to fly until the next night.
Dawn came all too fast, causing Xiani to seek nearby shade and sleep most of the day away, occasionally waking to add more fuel to the fire or stir it higher. By the next night, the skin had dried to the point of being hard and stiff - completely the opposite of what she had wanted. At first, Xiani considers throwing the thing into the flame and being done with it. But after several minutes of pacing and annoyed chattering she remembers something that, at the time, she had considered useless.
Years earlier, she had been in one of the many nightly classes the adults used to keep the younglings occupied. Their slave-mentor - Aaria, she heard the name only once - was teaching them how to weave strips of dried skin to make a more durable and flexible item. Sitting at the back with one of her friends, they were absentmindedly squashing ants that trailed by, or tormenting a beetle that had the ill-sense to land beside on of them; they considered the lesson to be foolish, slave-work. Needless to say, she had not absorbed much more than the concept.
With ill-taught, fumbling fingers, she sliced the hide into messy strips, laying them out on a nearby stone. Once the entirety of the hide had been sliced, she began weaving together six strips. The first half was utterly messy, but as she progressed, it became more of a work one could deem fit to be worn in normal society - then again, since when did most Zith care for appearance? Smiling proudly at her crude work, she tested the fit then made a knot at one end, so that it could be pulled through a hole in the other and held in place. Finally, near the end of the second night, she tied the knife's sheath to the belt and made a loop-catch to hold the waterskin in place.
Utterly gleeful at her accomplishment, Xiani fastens the belt and leaps into the air, hoping to cover as much ground tonight as possible on the long road that she knows still lies ahead.
Overall a good read!
