Putting the Sticks Together (Solo)

[Talya]

Timestamp: Summer 8, 515 AV

The later hours were being drawn. Talya wasn't sure how far advanced the day had gotten, she didn't have a way to tell time that was any more in depth than reading the sun, which was now conveniently, setting. She thought that perhaps, she had an hour of its light left; its golden blood seeping through the spaces between tree branches and leaves, which rustled softly in the evening breeze. The sky bathed in warmer tones- vibrant hues of pink and purple, with a remnants of the day's soft blue; a kiss of white clouds which had been dyed with the change in colors; a heated bath, which accentuated their contours as much as it seemed to pull their once fluffy bodies apart, making them wispy and indistinct in several areas. The moon had not risen yet, any more than had the stars, and this she found comforting, as she thought they would seem rather out of place in a sky such as this. So, she turned to the others who were settling, and then looked into herself, and realized that for the first time in awhile, she had not been given a task, which would help the caravan as a whole, instead, she need only tend to herself for the night. It was thus that she began to move a short distance away from the others, until she found herself a small open space nestled beneath a few old oaks, where she could set up her own portion of the camp for the night.

Talya set her things down. They appeared to rest comfortably in the cradle of a few raised, twisting roots. The Ethaefal smiled, she couldn't help herself as she turned away from her belongings, having decided that it made the most sense to construct a fire first, as by its light, added to that gifted to her by the moon, she would, or at least should, be able to construct her tent, and then settle in properly for the night. Perhaps even rest a little. She didn't have all the supplies she would need for her tent however, and would have to find them before the sun's light failed, or it would become all the more difficult to navigate. Thus, she set out immediately into the depths of the forest to find the kindling and the wood she would need in order to build her fire. Which of course, proved an easy enough task, as she was surrounded by trees, which produced such things. As all she had to do was look down at her feet now and again, and she would find a plethora of needles, leaves, twigs, sticks, and larger branches. All she had to do was pick up the ones she thought would be the most useful to her, and bring them back to camp so that she could use them. And so she did.

Talya picked up several twigs. Some that looked like uncompleted loops, others that looked like bent, beckoning fingers. Some that appeared as though they were waves, or half circles without a base. Others, fairly straight, although they bore knobs like a human knee, and the wood appeared somewhat chipped or gnarled. She picked up a few leaves as well, but not many, as she didn't feel as though they burned as well as the wood, and they tended to break up into smaller pieces, and make the fire crack and sputter. She picked up some larger sticks as well, and lay them over her arms, before returning to the camp site she had set out for herself with what she had gathered when her arms began to grow heavy, and it was beginning to feel as though it were to much to carry. She set the supplies she had gathered down beside her bag, and then stepped back into the depths of the forests to gather more. She made a few more trips before she felt as though she had enough to create a decent fire, at which point, she let all of her things down in the pile, and dry washed her hands before settling in to work. For now, the real challenge in building a place to rest for the night, truly began.

[Talya]

Talya glared at her pile of kindling, and firewood. It was a mess, it simply would not do. So, she knelt down beside them and pondered to herself a moment, what would be the best way to organize them until an idea came to mind, and she set herself down to work. She began by pulling the items on the top off the pile. It was just some kindling. She set those in one pile to her left side. Then she reached for the next few things- some more kindling, with a few pointed needle-y stick type things, which she broke off as she wasn't sure exactly what they were or how they would effect the fire. With that done, she sat them down on the pile she had started making. She then moved onto the next thing in the pile, some sticks with a few leaves attached. She ripped these off, and set them in their own pile behind her, deciding that only if she really needed them, would she use them. She then continued to make her way through the pile, sorting between all the kindling, (sticks and twigs), kindling that were leaves, and then the larger sticks to be used as more general fire wood until nothing remained in her original pile. It had taken her about a quarter of an hour, which wasn't bad she supposed, as she dry washed her hands, a thin smile spreading across her lips.

Onto the next order of business, the next phase of things- setting up the site of her future fire. Talya began this endeavor by making a circle in the dirt. It was about two and a half feet high at its widest point, by another two and a half feet wide. This would be a sort of barrier for her- she was not to put anything outside of it, any more than she would allow for the fire to make its way outside of it. She may have ringed it with stone, to help make it more stable, should she have had the time or seen any around, but alas, she did not. So, she simply kept on moving along her little fire-making checklist. The next step was for her to finish laying out the fire pit/fire area. She had to do this by constructing some sort of structure for her fire to grow inside. She did this by organizing the pile of sticks she had gathered even further, by setting them in piles based off their size. Those close in size made it into the same pile. She had three of these in total by the end, at which point, she dry washed her hands again, before plucking two sticks at random from the pile of those whose size fell somewhere in the middle of the other two piles. She then moved a little closer to the circle she had drawn in the dirt, and knelt beside it.

Talya took a deep breath in through her nose and out through her mouth before leaning forward a little, so that her shadow and her body hovered over the circle she had drawn. She then placed the points of the two sticks together, and then set them down in the dirt, with their other ends resting just inside the perimeter of the circle. This way, the two sticks formed a triangle with the aid of the ground. She smiled; she pulled her hands away. They remained upright, so she turned to pick another two sticks off the same pile. She repeated the process with these two, before setting them against the first set of sticks that she had placed, so that together, they would point in all four of the cardinal directions, and begin to form a teepee. These sticks stayed as well, as did the next two, and the next two. When she turned to add the final stick to finish her teepee, her hand twitched, and she knocked one of the sticks out of alignment, which in turn, knocked all the other sticks over. It was a domino effect. With a unhappy, exasperated sigh, Talya bent and picked up all the sticks and set them beside her, before starting the process all over again.

[Talya]

In the same way as had occurred with her previous attempt, the teepee collapsed before Talya had time to finish with it. Again, she sighed, before making another attempt, and this time, getting the teepee to stand erect. A small opening left open, facing her. She smiled as she dry washed her hands and surveyed her work. She realized after a moment, that although the teepee itself appeared stable although it was slightly lopsided, with the way the sticks weren't exactly the same size, and how some of them had knobs, or eye-lits or were just ever so slightly bent, it seemed stable enough to last through the night. The circle she had drawn on the other hand, was smudged, so she reached for another stick and amended that rather quickly, before deciding that the site of the future fire was ready for the next stage of its development. As such, Talya reached for the twigs she had gathered. Those that were near loops she broke in half before pushing them through the tiny opening she had left in the wooden structure, (just enough to fit her hand if she turned it sideways), and setting them delicately on the forest floor. Those that were straight she simply forced into it, but those that looked like beckoning fingers she broke too before setting them inside, until every inch of the teepee's inner sectors had been blanketed in kindling.

But her work was not finished. The blanket was uneven, so once again, Talya amended her work, by pushing the twigs around delicately so as not to jostle the sticks and knock them over making her have to start all over again, until everything seemed as though it were a bit more even. With this done, Talya dry washed her hands again. She then turned to her pack, and pulled it closer to her. She undid the latch, and reached inside, rummaging around for a little as she nibbled her lower lip. Eventually, her skin fell against what she knew she wanted, and she let her fingers close around the items. She extracted her flint and steel from her bag with ease, and then shuffled back over to the fire pit she had created. She knelt down beside it again, and held one of each of her fire making implements in each of her hands- the steel in the right hand, the flint in her left. She leaned a little closer to the site, guiding her left hand over to the opening in the teepee. She then angled her hand downward, so that the flint sloped into the opening. The right she simply held. She took a deep breath in through her nose and out through her mouth, preparing herself before she began. She raised her right hand a little higher, and then brought it down toward the left, allowing the steel to crash into the flint with a brief click, before she drew it down the length of the flint toward the opening in the teepee.

Nothing happened, as was to be expected, so as she nibbled on her lower lip some more, Talya pulled her right hand away, and raised it over the flint, before bringing it back down. Letting it follow the length of the flint again, before raising her hand, and repeating the process, over and over again for about five minutes, until sparks began to form around her hands. Little bursts of orange light that danced around the teepee, threatening to lick the wood. But they never took, and Talya was forced to continue for another few minutes, until finally, more sparks formed, finally one that took to the kindling. A thin, wavering line of smoke escaping the pile as she pulled her hands away, and set the flint and steel beside her, as she watched the kindling glow a faint orange in tone. The first of the twigs twisting against the embers, as their bodies blackened. The light reflected against both Talya's body and her eyes; that of the sun nearly faded now. It would last but a few more minutes, she knew, before Leth's moon took to the sky, until morning claimed it from him once more. But she couldn't let that distract her- she had to finish the fire, had to make sure that it matured, as opposed to went out.

[Talya]

So, Talya pressed her knees firmly against the ground and leaned forward. She placed her hands in front of her, one toward either side of the teepee. Then she lowered her head, and pushed her stomach toward the ground, so she looked like some peculiar feline crouching in front of it. From there, Talya parted her lips, and let out a short breath. It didn't seem to have any sort of effect on the fire, which didn't so much as flicker, so she tried again, this time blowing a bit harder than she had before. This time, the embers did flicker, curling around the kindling as its flame grew, licking their undersides. Talya smiled as she blew again, and then waited as the flame flickered before growing stronger as she fanned it, so that its tips, at times, began to lick the undersides of the sticks too, blackening them. At this sight, Talya blew again, as the fire's light flickered across her face, and it began to feel all the more warm as more and more heat radiated off the surface of her creation. The fire didn't grow much this time, but it did a little bit, and then a little more with each of her two following breaths. After which time she pulled away. The fire felt so hot it may singe her brows.

She straightened herself out and eyed the fire. It wasn't by any means large now, nor was it raging, but it seemed to have reached a stable, median height. The flames were a vibrant orange, its core appearing a vibrant red. It crackled and roared. But mainly crackled as it caused the kindling to twist and turn as they absorbed more and more heat. The bark upon them flaking away as at first, it blackened, and then turned to a grey ash which fell to the base of the pile. The flame itself, meanwhile, climbing higher and higher so that not only did it caress the underside of the teepee, but it slit between the narrow spaces within the wood, and stretched beyond as it spat not only sparks, but smoke. A pillar of grey which seemed to widen as second after second passed, until it reached a maximum of about a foot in diameter, which shot upward, directly over the fire, and a little to the left side, although not by much. Talya smiled at this as she inched a little farther from the fire; she could really feel its heat now, but feared in this early stage that it would go out if it did not have enough of a food supply, it would go out. Thus, she reached for her pile of kindling, and pulled some of the extra from the top, before delicately tossing them into the fire and watching them go up in flame.

Talya nodded. Yes, she thought to herself as she dry washed her hands. This will do. But she was not done yet. Although she had a fire, her camp was not yet complete. She needed a place to rest, a place to lie her head. A place to sleep, and seek shelter from whatever the world through at her, (or the weather really). Which could be rain, or sleet, or hail or snow. (But this time of year, likely only rain). It didn't seem now as though it would rain, for there weren't many clouds in the sky, but you could never be quite sure unless you really knew things, and she felt it best to be prepared.

So she thought, as she shifted from her mortal seeming to her celestial form as the sun fully set, and a sliver of the moon just began to peek out upon the now darkened sky.

[Talya]

What Talya needed was to build a tent. Luckily for her, she owned one of those. All she had to do was retrieve it from her pack, and set it up. So, she turned around, pulled her pack closer, and pulled out everything she would need before setting it on the ground, and putting her pack back in the cradle of tree roots where it truly belonged for the time being. She then surveyed her camp site, and realized the eastern face, to the right of the fire, had the most room for her to build the tent, and pulled her supplies over in that direction. When she had gotten it all settled into the dirt, Talya began to unpack everything and set them down neatly on the forest floor- there were small strips of rope, a few wooden beams, a canvas, and some wooden pegs she had made herself and saved from previous occasions. Now, all she had to do was put them all together to make her tent. She began by taking out the wooden beams, and laying them out in their own pile. From there, she picked up the first two, and attached them via the small, carved out hollow on either end, so that they made a bigger stick. She repeated the process with the other two, and then attached them via the hole that had been carved through the center of the one on the right, specifically for this purpose. When she was done, she had created a wooden structure that looked like a pyramid with a lot of cut outs.

Talya bound the top of the structure into place by weaving a small piece of rope around every direction, and then tying it off. She then got up, and set the tent into place- the spot she would want it to stay for the night. Then she retrieved the canvas, and wove it over the body of the tent. It took her a few tries, as the first few she had made it to tight for it to stretch over the four corners, and then another time, she had pulled things too loosely and it just plain slipped off. But after awhile, she got it right, and she got it to stay, and set it down in the spot she wanted. With that done, she retrieved the first of her four wooden pegs, and set it into the ground a few inches away from the northwest corner of the tent. She then took a little piece of rope, looped it around the peg, bound it, and tied the other end to the small wooden cutout at the bottom of the northwestern support beam for her tent. She then repeated this process, until she had pegged down each of the four corners of her one person shelter. When she was done, she dry washed her hands, and stepped away to survey her work. She found that the tent was a little lopsided, a curvy sort of dome, but it would do, even if it leaned a bit on the eastern side.

Now all she had to do was clean up, and her work was done. So Talya picked up the disparate bits of her belongings, set them all into her bag, and then dry washed her hands again before looking up at the sky. The sky was clear, but by the light of the fire, she found, it was harder to pick out the moon and its stars. But it was no matter, she felt, for she had seen them often enough of late, and her body she knew, although she didn't exactly feel tired, was likely weary after having spent an entire day traveling. So, with a final wistful look up at the sky, she turned away, and pushed aside the flap of her tent before heading in for the night, to try and get some much deserved rest.