Raising Steam (Solo)

[Talya]

Timestamp: Summer 10, 515 AV

The day was just too darned hot. The sun was high in the sky, although it was tilting toward the western edge now. It would set, perhaps, in five hours or so. But even so, its slanted rays bled through the treeline, and seemed to be absorbed by the earth, as much as its heat was reflected back out by it. The soil was sizzling, and the air itself was sticky. Heavy with a mixture of sweat and general humidity. The horses were groaning, as were the other draft animals, a few oxen and things that the other members of the caravan had brought along. They were swishing their tails, and stomping their hooves against the ground, refusing to go any further. Eventually, the leaders of the group relented, and a halt for the day was ordered. Everyone was to help set up camp as though it were the middle of the night, and they had just traveled a great distance, as opposed to what felt only a little. (And most certainly was only a little). With a sigh, Talya did as she was ordered. She was in no mood to argue, she was just as hot as the animals, and as such, took a drink of water from her waterskin, to help herself stay hydrated, before she sealed it up and put it away. Wiped the sweat from her brow with the back of her hand.

By then, one of the caravan men was beginning to make his way around the group, from person to person, assigning the tasks as per usual. Today, she was assigned water and fire duty, as they had passed a stream not long ago, and it was supposed it would be an easy enough task to complete. She explained however, that she had nothing to gather water or boil it in than her waterskin, (she had learned her lesson a few days before), and with a sigh, a pot was produced for her. She would have to give it back when she was done though, to this, she agreed, and Talya set out from the settling group, with her pack still strapped to her shoulders. She kept her eyes trained on the ground as she wove her way in and out of the trees, doing her best to listen to the sounds of the forest in order to find the little stream they had passed again, as she was not sure of what else to do in order to find it. At first, she heard nothing more than the occasional bird, a few squirrels scratching at trees, but after awhile, she began to discern the sound of running water, and a faint scent of a dampened musk, (which might have been entirely from something that had gotten trapped in the trees). She wasn't sure where it was coming from, however, and stopped to take a look around, and to listen, in the hopes that if only she were patient, she would find something that would give her a clue and allow her to make a more informed decision, as opposed to guessing a direction in which to head at random.

Talya strained to listen a little harder. She could still just begin to make out the sound of running water, but no matter how hard she strained, she could not figure out what direction it was coming from. So, she bent down and looked around for clues. Was the ground wetter in one direction? Had footprints oft he animals sunk all the more into the soil because it was damper? Did the trees and plants in one area seem as though they had been watered better? Were they wilting less, were their leaves greener? Or anything of that nature? For awhile, Talya couldn't be sure, everything looked the same to her untrained eye, but as she began to venture farther and farther out from her starting position, she began to realize that the land to the east was a little damper than the others, and that the further she continued down that way, the more the plants sprang to life. Seemed all the more vibrant. With this in mind, she shrugged, and decided to continue on in that location, her pack filled with her things and the borrowed pot bouncing against her back as she moved. Each step taking the uneven terrain in stride.

[Talya]

As she moved through the area, pushing a low-lying tree branch out of the way so that it wouldn't hit her as she went past, Talya began to realize that the sound of the water was getting stronger. Slowly, gradually, she was making her way closer and closer, as she guided her body past what looked to be oaks, maples, and maybe a sumac or two. Her ears prickled against the sound as she listened to a few jays call to one another from the tops of the trees; their song both soft and melodic. Sweet. She liked it, and couldn't help but smile as she glanced down at the ground now and again- in part, to make sure that she stepped over tree roots, and didn't get snagged within them, in part to make sure the ground still looked wet up ahead, and she hadn't accidentally veered from her path, and in part to see that the vegetation in the area looked healthy, (from whatever water made its way to these distant places through some underground paths or whatever. The notion that it was just runoff from the hills after a good strong rain never so much as crossed the woman's mind). She didn't notice any change, no matter how often she looked, and at times, she'd notice a few prints, which she thought was a good sign. That she was headed in the right direction, so she kept on going and going.

Eventually however, the sound of the water grew more distant. It began to fade. Her brow furrowed, her eyebrows twisting. That couldn't be right, she must have done something wrong. So she back tracked a little bit until the sound of the stream grew louder, and she was convinced she could just begin to make out the sound of it bubbling. As soon as she had, she stopped dead in her tracks, and checked the ground again, looking for the same set of signs as before. At first, much as she had the first time she had bothered to look, she had trouble discerning the subtle differences in the terrain- the varying level of saturation, and plant life. But after a little while, she thought she had figure it out, and determined where the stream was most likely to be, so she veered a little to the left and continued onward in that direction. Again, the sound of the stream began to get louder and louder. Ever so slowly, ever so gradually, until she could most certainly hear it bubbling now and again. Smiling to herself, she began to pick up the pace, until she was jogging, and then coming unnaturally close to a dead run. But that made her to hot and sweaty, so she slowed down again, and slowly approached the stream by following her ears to the source of the sound.

When she arrived back at the stream, she realized that she hadn't located the same exact place as she had before. The stream was more closely covered by the trees here, and it was far more narrower. Even shallower, which she supposed might have had something to do with the greater number of rocks it flowed over in this place. With a deep breath in through her nose and out through her mouth, to help steady the rapid beating of her heart, Talya wiped the sweat that had gathered on her brow away with the back of her hand. She then flicked it off onto the ground and approached the stream, happy that she had finally found it, as it had been more than half an hour since she had left the caravan behind and begun her search. When she reached the side of the stream, she bent down and knelt beside it. She splashed some water on her face to help her cool down. It was cold enough, although not frightfully so, which she supposed had a lot to do with the current clime, and the strength of the sun. But no matter, it would do, she knew, as she rolled her bag off her shoulder and rummaged around for her things. First, she reached for her waterskin, and drained whatever was left, before refilling it by dipping it into the stream, and allowing the water to flow into it. But she did not drink a thing; not now, not yet. She had learned her lesson. This water could be extra- stuff to replace whatever spilled on her way back to camp with the pot, and whatever evaporated when they boiled it back at the camp to make it safe for drinking.

[Talya]

Once Talya had filled her waterskin, she closed up the lid and dried the skin off on her dress. There was always a drop or two that escaped. When she was done, she set the waterskin back in her bag, and retrieved the metal pot she was given. It was a deep black. She supposed it was some sort of iron, but to her it just looked burnt. In any case, she set the pot on her lap for a moment, before she closed her pack up and brought the pot closer to the stream's edge. At first, she dipped its side into the water and let the stream flow into it. But soon enough, the pot had lapped up all it could, and even more water was beginning to slip back out. So Talya straightened the pot out, and set it against the side of the bank that she was on, to her right side. She then cupped her hands together, ensuring that she folded her right pinky under the left, so that everything was more secure, before dipping her hands into the water, allowing the stream to collect within her hold. When her hands had been completely saturated, she lifted them up out of the river, and poured whatever she could into the pot and its gathering pool of water. She repeated this process several times over until the pot was full, and beginning to overflow, at which point, she wiped the excess water on her neck to help herself cool off and eased herself onto her feet.

Talya groaned, her muscles ache. She felt a little sore, but now was not the time to rest, she had a task to complete, and complete it she would. So with a sigh, after having stretched out her neck, Talya placed her bag back on her shoulders where it belonged, and picked the pot up off the ground. One hand on each of its two handles. The moment she lifted it, some water sloshed over the side, this was to be expected she exposed. But she grimaced all the same, she felt it such a waste. In any case, at least it had watered the soil, she thought, as she began to move away, following the path she had once taken to get to the stream, back to the camp and all of the other people she had left behind. People who were waiting for her and counting on her not only for something fresh to drink, but for a warm fire to sit by. Not because they needed the heat so much right now, it was hot enough out, but because they needed to cook lunch and dinner with it, and perhaps tonight, they would need its warmth. As she walked, she thought about how thankful she was that she didn't have to cook. She sucked at it, it was embarrassing. As she thought about all of her kitchen nightmare type stories, she passed the time, and arrived back at camp before she knew it.

Once there, Talya found a space that had been left unoccupied, and gingerly set the pot on the ground with a groan. Her back ached, as did her hands, which had grown white and sore. As she massaged them, color rushed back into them slowly, until they felt a lot warmer, and a lot less numb. When she could feel them well enough again, Talya looked around the camp and the settling people- a lot of spaces had been taken. There weren't many places left for her that would be large enough to allow for a decent sized fire, any more than they would provide her with an ample space to eventually build her tent, or boil the water she had gathered for at least a portion of the caravan's population. Even so, her eyes eventually spotted something, and with a sigh, she plucked the pot off the ground and ambled over to the small, cleared space. To its left and northern sides were trees, and the ground itself was just dirt, no grass or vegetation. It was perfect she thought, as she set the pot down on the ground, and dry washed her hands before looking into the pot's dark depths. It looked to be about three quarters full, she thought, which was good, as that meant she hadn't dropped too too much on the way back over. But now, she knew her task was far from over, as she had to boil it, and then dole the water out, and return the pot before getting on to her other chores.

[Talya]

Talya set her bag down in the cradle of a few roots by a nearby oak tree. With her back no longer having to support its weight, she felt a lot lighter, and more capable of doing the tasks that still needed to be completed more than she had mere moments before. This was a nice feeling for her, seeing as she now had to build a fire, which could be a pain in the butt, not because it was particularly difficult, but because it could take a fair amount of time until you got to be pretty good at it. Knowing this, she decided there was no use in standing around complaining to herself, she was simply wasting time, so she moved away from camp and back into the forest thicket, as she knew she didn't have the supplies she would need in order to build a fire. She had the implements to start a fire- flint and steel- but not the food of a fire, which was namely, sticks, twigs, leaves, and other such kindling. These she would have to gather, which she supposed, would be an easy enough task given the portion of the Wildlands she now found herself in- given the fact that she was entirely lost and enveloped within a forest, and the trees themselves seemed to litter such things.

Talya was right. The moment you left a clearing, (or even found yourself in one again), you found yourself to be surrounded by the tree's droppings. There were leaves, and twigs, and sticks of a greater size and length a plenty. And of course, if you didn't find enough in the exact size you were looking for, you could always snap them off a nearby tree, (as long as it wasn't pine. Pine wasn't desirable, it didn't burn right, or so she had heard. She hadn't seen any pine wood around lately to test this theory out). Anyway, Talya found that she didn't have to wrench any live branches off the trees, all she had to do was gather the fallen. She did this until her arms were full, and then returned to camp with them. She dropped them off on her plot, and then returned to the forest depths to gather more and more, making trip after trip, until she felt as though she had a sizable amount of both firewood and kindling. She then returned to her portion for the camp for the last time, and set everything down in one, great big pile. When she had finished, she dry washed her hands and and set her hands on her hips. She would have to organize everything she realized, so that she would know what she was dealing with. What she had a lot of, what she had a little of, maybe even not enough of. With that in mind, she set back to work.

Talya knelt beside her pile of wood and leaves, and began to break them into smaller piles. One for twigs, and smaller branches, one for larger, and one for leaves. At times, she would stop to pull leaves off branches and twigs and set them in their respective pile, as she didn't want them to be intermixed with the others, seeing as how they burnt differently than wood, and sometimes, not very well at all. When she was done, she dry washed her hands again before surveying her piles. She felt as though they were large enough to get the job done, and happy with this, she went on to divide her piles further. Or rather, just the one with the sticks. She pulled them all apart, and lay them side to side, before picking out the ones that were straighter, and most similar in height. She then put these in their own little pairs of two, until she had only one extra left, that wasn't very close in size to any of the others. She set this aside before dry washing her hands again, and thinking over which she would want to use. But then she realized she was getting ahead of herself. She couldn't build a teepee as she normally did, as she had to boil the kettle of water, and didn't have a stake or some other contraption to lift it off the fire so that she could use it. She wasn't sure anyone else did either, and didn't want to spend time finding out, as it meant less time for herself. So that meant she had to find another way- use another method. The only one she knew was to make a box frame out of logs, so that she could set the pot in the middle and then pull it out when the water was ready. So then, that was what she would do.

[Talya]

Talya decided then that much like she would with a teepee structure to house her fire, she would choose logs of a similar size to build the box so that it would be all the more stable when she was finished. Talya began by picking the largest of the sticks, as she supposed their height mattered less than the others that would be on top, seeing as they had to be a supportive base, as opposed to something that didn't need to roll away while something was alight. Talya picked up the first two sticks that seemed closest in size, she placed them on the ground in front of her so that they formed a ninety degree angle. Then she pulled another two larger sticks, and added them to the base, so that they made a square. When she was done, she reached for another two logs and placed them atop the base, so that their lines ran cleanly over what rested beneath them. She added another two after that, and then another two, forming a raised square now. She then added another stick, but it rolled off. So she picked it up and put it back. This time it stayed so she smiled and kept on working. She added more and more to the structure, until she was nearly out of logs. At this point, she had formed a box with five levels of logs in every which direction- north, south, east, and west.

Talya dry washed her hands. She was happy with her progress, but she knew still that she was far from finished with her work. Now, she needed to give the fire a place from which to draw energy. She needed to give it fuel, something to give it life and keep it going. For this purpose, she was going to have to add some kindling to the frame she had created. So, she reached for the pile of twigs she had erected earlier in the day, and picked a bunch off the top of the pile. This she dropped rather unceremoniously into the center of the square she had made. She then looked inside the structure- the twigs scarcely carpeted the forest floor. They weren't enough to keep a fire going she knew, so she reached for another handful and dropped them in. It still didn't look like it was enough, so she added another handful, and then another few until the bottom of the structure was covered in nothing more than twigs and a few leaves. But the blanket was uneven, so she reached in, and carefully pushed everything around until it looked a little more even. With this done, she realized that everything was in place but one thing- she had to draw what she called a safety ring around the fire. A circle in the dirt which would mark how far the fire would have to go before it got out of hand, and which might also, keep it from spreading as fast if it were to escape the structure. So Talya drew a circle all around with a spare branch, dry washed her hands, and decided it was time to light the fire.

The first thing then, that she needed to do, was fetch the items she would need in order to build a fire- her flint and steel, which was tucked away safely in her bag. Talya moved over to it, opened it up, rummaged around for a bit, and then pulled out her flint and steel. She held each in her right hand as she moved over to the side of the wooden box frame. When she reached its side, she knelt down beside it, while being careful not to smudge the line of the circle she had made. She leaned in a little, so that her chest hovered over the structure a little better. She then transferred her steel into her left hand, while keeping the flint firmly held in the right. She then pushed her right hand a little closer to the kindling, and angled it downward, along with the flint, so that it ran towards the kindling. She then raised her left hand a little higher, and then brought it down on the flint. They smacked together, forming a soft click and then a scrape as she drew the steel along the flint to the edge, and a little past as she couldn't stop the momentum. But nothing happened. So she did it again and again until a several minutes later, the flint and steel began to form sparks. But none of it caught. So she kept on repeating the process for several more minutes until a spark took, and embers began to smolder at the bottom of the kindling. She pulled her hand away and smiled as a thin tendril of smoke swirled into the air.

[Talya]

With both of her hands now returned to her side, Talya was free to put aside that which she didn't need, so she placed the flint and steel to her left side, so that it would be out of the way. From there, Talya leaned forward again, and watched as the embers matured into a small flame, that crackled as it licked the kindling. Darkening its body as it burnt them, tickling its flesh until it furled, or fell away to make a pit of ash at the bottom of the pile. The fire wasn't very strong though, and she knew it wouldn't get much larger unless she fanned it. A most precarious task, as if she blew too fiercely upon it, she would extinguish it, to lightly, it would to nothing, but if she got it just right, it would be to her benefit, as well to those of the caravan. She kept this in mind as she bent a little closer, so light and shadow cast by the flickering flame played across her face; danced over the length of her nose, its reflection shining brightly in her dark eyes. Then she parted her lips and she blew lightly, fanning the flame. She watched it waver at first, and then grow larger and larger, spreading farther, so that it made its way across the entirety of its confines, while at the same time, moving upward. Spitting more smoke and sparks, until it edged higher than the structure she had made.

Talya was happy. She was a safe distance away, and could now boil the water. She added what she had stored in her waterskin to the stuff she had gathered in the pot, and guided it over the fire with the help of two large sticks. She set it down lightly, and waited. It took about ten minutes, but soon the water was boiling. She could see it bubbling, just as she could see a steady supply of steam rising from the surface, intermingling with the smoke of the fire. She knew it was ready now, she just had to take it off the fire so that everyone could get at it. So very gingerly, she took two extra sticks, (the same she had used to put the pot on the fire in the first place), and placed them on either end of the pot. She pushed them inward, squeezing the pot. She then slowly lifted if off the fire, so she wouldn't ruin it in the process, and set it beside the burning structure, before pulling the sticks away, and dousing the embers in the dirt. With that done, all that there was left to do was wait, and then she could dole it out to whomever she was supposed to; whomever needed it most. This didn't take long, and soon she was waving people over. They took until the pot was empty, at which point, she went to find the owner and returned it, before heading back to her things.

Seeing as she wasn't hungry, and her fire was roaring and sputtering happily, Talya decided that she wouldn't join any of the others and get herself some food, instead, she would set up her tent and rest awhile, before perhaps some time, joining the rest of the caravan later in the day to break her fast and have dinner amongst them. So, she began by moving her things farther away from the fire, so she was sure that they were a safe distance, and wouldn't be set alight when she least expected, or rather, hopefully, at all. With that done, she picked out the area that had the most space for her to work with, and decided that she would erect her tent there. Satisfied with her decision, she pulled her rolled up tent and other tent supplies from her pack and set them down on the forest floor, in the space she had maintained within her mind's eye for the occasion. She began to unroll everything and reveal what she had to work with- some small pieces of rope to bind things, some wooden pegs she had crafted earlier in the season and saved for future occasions, the canvas, and a few long sticks with strategic cuts, grooves and openings, which would make it easier for anyone to construct a tent.

[Talya]

The first thing she had to do, she realized, in order to build her tent, was construct its frame. That meant that she needed to use the longer, carved sticks that were part of the package, and put them together. So, she pulled all of the sticks out of the pile, there were four in total. She then lay them out in front of her. From there, she picked up two at random, and attached them by fitting the hollowed out groove at the end of one, into the base of the other. Thus, they were able to make a larger stick, about twice the size. When Talya was finished with this process, she repeated it with the two sticks that remained. Now all that was left to do was attach them, to finish making the base of the frame. Talya accomplished this by lacing one stick through the hole that had been carved through the center of the other, which had been crafted specifically for this purpose. When she was done, she had created a the beginnings of a wooden dome, which had a lot of empty space all around. It wasn't by any means stable however, so she bound it, by weaving a rope around the top crossed section, and then tying it into place, (which only made it marginally better).

With the frame complete, it was time for Talya to finish the tent itself by adding the canvas. So she retrieved the canvas from the place she had left it on the ground, and lay it over the tent; securing it into place by putting the holes at the ends into the sides of the wooden frame. It took her several attempts to get it right, as the first time she put the canvas on backwards, and then the second, she put it on too tightly, and the canvas shriveled up, the third time she got it on at a weird angle, and couldn't stretch the canvas far enough to get it into the proper position. But after awhile, Talya managed to amend her previous issues with the canvas, and got it to stay in place, in a proper position. With this all done, she realized that the tent had moved around a bit, and pushed it back into its proper place. Having done that, Talya decided to move onto the next phase of the tent's development- and retrieved each of the four wooden pegs. She then walked around the perimeter of the tent, and pushed one peg into the ground a few inches from each of the four corners that made up the tent as a whole. She came to a stop at the southeast corner of the tent, and realized that she had no binding material. She pulled some more rope off the ground, and moved back over to the southeast corner of the tent. She then took one of the old, small pieces of rope, and circled it around the peg, before binding it into place with a tight knot, and then tying the other end to the small wooden cutout at the bottom of the southeastern support beam of her tent. Talya then proceeded to make her way clockwise around the perimeter of the tent, so that she visited each of the pegs, and bound them into place so that they would support the tent and keep it upright, much as she had with the first one. When she was done, she breathed deeply in through the nose and out through the mouth, and smiled. She was now done with the construction of her tent. She was pleased with it too, it was far better than any of the other times she had but it together, (which wasn't saying much), but it still leaned forward a bit.

But Talya shrugged all the same, it would do. Talya turned to look at the fire she had made, so she could check up on it. It seemed a little weaker now, she realized, and the few people that had gathered around it to cook their lunch hadn't bothered to feed it. She smiled pleasantly at them, and did their work for them- she gathered some of the extra kindling she had found, moved over to the side of the fire, and tossed it delicately beneath the little pan they had set up over it to fry something that looked like little burnt sausages. The folks smiled at her, and she waved, before announcing she was off to a nap, and heading off to her tent to make sure that she had the time to take one before dinner.