Completed Fruits of the Wilds III

[Trevor Hightly]

Timestamp: 16th of Summer, 517 A.V., Early Morning

Having buried the fire that he'd used to boil the quassia bark with the beach's sand, Trevor rose to his feet and made his way to his tent, before falling back to his knees. The young man used his hands to part open the flaps of the shelter, before reaching inside it to grab the backpack that sat just beside its opening.

Trevor pulled his backpack out of the tent and opened the bag. The would-be-doctor allowed his eyes to scan the contents of his backpack; rope, a journal, two torches that just barely managed to fit within the bag and what Trevor was looking for, a small jar.

Trevor squeezed his hand and arm into his crowded backpack and grasped the cold, glass edges of the jar. Upon withdrawing the glass container, Trevor shuffled it into his free hand and sat it down. The man then utilized both of his now free hands to close the flap of his backpack and place it back into his tent, right where he'd had it since the night before.

Trevor pulled his body out of his tent, after placing his backpack back within it, and scooped the jar he'd retrieved up into his grasp. With it in hand, he made his way back to his buried cooking fire and the pot of tea-colored water and boiled quassia bark that waited beside it.

Now that he had everything he needed, Trevor went down to his knees one last time, this time so that he was standing on them right beside the previously mentioned pot of the concoction he'd boiled. Being where he needed to be, Trevor sat down the glass jar, removed its wooden lid, and grabbed the aforementioned pot.

Remembering Uta's instructions to dilute the boiled quassia juice, Trevor lined up the edge of the pot and the opening of the jar as best he could. Carefully, Trevor lifted and tilted the pot; a small trickle of light-brown liquid began to escape from the edge of the cooking pot and cascaded down into the jar that Trevor had opened.

As he poured, at first only liquid came out of the pot, but as more and more of it was drained, and Trevor had to tilt the pot more and more just to keep its contents flowing, the bark chips within the pot also began to slide towards its edge, threatening to fall into the jar that Trevor was straining the pot's liquid into.

Seasonal Wordcount: 6,446 + 411 = 6,857

[Trevor Hightly]

Timestamp: 16th of Summer, 517 A.V., Early Morning

It took a bit of finessing of the pot, but Trevor managed to tilt the container and shift it enough to keep the bark chips from spilling into the jar below, while still managing to keep a stream of juice falling from the pot and into it.

The jar filled slowly, but--seeing as it wasn't a particularly large jar--it didn't take long before the tea-colored quassia juice built up atop itself until about an eighth of the jar was filled.

"You'll have a juice that can kill head lice, or keep bugs off of your garden plants--but just make sure you dilute it with a lot of water, about ten times more than whatever amount of juice that you've made, because it's pretty potent stuff," Uta's words echoed in Trevor's mind.

Remembering the botanist's warning that the quassia juice could be a little overly powerful if too much was used without diluting it, Trevor let up on his pouring, until no more juice was spilling into the jar that sat just below the pot that he held.

Trevor looked into what remained of his boiled quassia. He saw that the cooking pot had been mostly drained of its contents; now only a thin layer of brown juice and soggy, rubbery-looking wood chips remained within the cooking vessel.

Trevor glanced down to the semi-filled jar of brown plant juice and then sat his cooking pot down beside it.

The man slipped from his knees to sit on the sand. Trevor propped himself up on his hands and glanced at the sky. The sun was beginning to rise somewhat high into the morning sky--Trevor knew that it was almost time for him to go to his apprenticeship at the Panacea.

Surmising that he'd have to finish brewing his philter later in the day, Trevor reached for the wooden lid of his juice-filled jar and popped said lid back onto its respective container; having to wait until the afternoon to finish his work on the bug repellant didn't bother the man--he'd already accomplished most of the work required to create the bug-repellant, and he hadn't told Uta he'd be around until the afternoon anyway.

Still, Trevor was excited to see if he'd actually followed Uta's instructions correctly; hopefully, he didn't just have a jar of burnt, useless, and brown plant juice.

Seasonal Wordcount: 388 + 6,857 = 7,245

[Trevor Hightly]

Date: 16th of Summer, 517 A.V
Time: Mid-Afternoon

Trevor's feet carried him over the smooth, stone and clay pathway that traced a majority of Syka's shoreline. In his hand, the man held the jar of boiled quassia juice, sealed and closed off to prevent the hassle of the liquid possibly spilling.

The jungle was calm; the mid-day heat was beginning to wear off, and most of the day-walking creatures of Falyndar were calming down, whereas the nocturnal hunters and insects of the jungle had yet to rise from their dens.

With a calm environment all around himself, Trevor simply gazed on at the environment, until a rustle in the jungle prompted him to freeze in his steps. From directly beside the section of the Cobbled Pathway that the man stood upon, a single bush shook and bounced as if something moved inside it.

Trevor's blue eyes locked with the bush, scanning it for whatever might be inside; at this point the man was merely curious, rather than frightened, but depending on what came from the bush he could very well become cautious--he was not used to the jungles of Falyndar, and was not fool enough to think that he was safe within the wilds without having some such familiarity.

As the man watched, slowly but surely, a creature did indeed prove to be lurking within the nearby shrubbery. The oblong and pointed face of the animal slowly but surely nudged out of the flora; it did not appear as if the animal had noticed Trevor yet.

Trevor smiled a bit and shifted his foot unknowingly against the stone path, as his body relaxed. The brown eyes of the deer that had come from out of the bush widened and instantly froze on the man.

Trevor took a step forward and the deer bolted, as he expected it would. The man had nothing against hunting, fishing, or anything of the like; however, as he was not currently partaking in any such things, the deer had only been a welcome part of the environment for him and not potential prey--the creature had also been obviously skittish, so Trevor was glad he had frightened it out of its frozen state so that it could flee and its fear could pass somewhat more quickly as it fled to safety.

Trevor watched the deer jump and frolic through the knee high undergrowth of the jungle-heavy side of the path that the man was on. He couldn't help but admire the grace at which the animal avoided and cleared all the obstacles and weeds in its path, without tripping its leg up on so much as a single weed or flower.

Seasonal Wordcount: 436 + 7,914 = 8,350

[Trevor Hightly]

Date: 16th of Summer, 517 A.V
Time: Mid-Afternoon

Trevor continued along the Cobbled Pathway until he reached a certain very familiar stream, one which he had visited only a day prior to the current moment. Upon seeing said waterway, the man dared to step off of the paved pathway that he stood upon and into the wild mixing of fallen sticks and various bushes, shrubs, and flowers that surrounded the trail.

The green, brown, red, and yellow plants tickled and prodded Trevor's pants leg, reminding the man that he had officially left the beaten path. Mostly unbothered by this fact, despite still being unused to open wilderness, the man continued to wade through the undergrowth. As he walked, the soil under his feet grew damper and damper; this was due to the fact that he was approaching the stream that had prompted him to step into the woods in the first place.

After another moment or two of traversing the forest floor, Trevor stepped onto the warm and wet, relatively low bank of the stream that had wet the surrounding soil. The man bent his knee and lowered himself to kneel before the water's edge. Playfully, Trevor reached out and ran his exposed hand through the water's subtle and graceful current; the stream seemed to sense Trevor's light and playful intentions and refreshingly embraced him, returning his touch and gently running over and cooling his skin.

The man smirked at the wet, silky contact of the stream's flow against his hand, before passing the jar that he held to the hand that he'd lowered into the river. Trevor then removed the jar's wooden lid and placed said topper off to the side and onto the wet ground beside himself.

Gently and carefully, Trevor lowered the jar into the stream that flowed serenely before him. Using one hand to hold a portion of the jar underwater and another to stabilize and ensure his grip on the translucent vessel, Trevor allowed the stream's water to flow into and dilute the concoction within it.

Seasonal Wordcount: 333 + 8,350 = 8,683

[Trevor Hightly]

Date: 16th of Summer, 517 A.V
Time: Mid-Afternoon

The water of the stream slipped gently into the jar; thanks to the relatively low strength of the water's current, Trevor didn't have to worry too much about how much water was entering the jar that he held into the waterway.

As Trevor filled the jar, he did not hear the rustling of the undergrowth behind his person. A certain blond naturalist and plant expert had stumbled upon the young man, a woman that Trevor was actually somewhat acquainted with.

Uta, Syka's resident botanist and plant expert came up beside Trevor. The woman kneeled down on one knee beside the man.

"You boiled the quassia after all," Uta said in a somewhat amused voice.

Trevor, meanwhile, had still been totally oblivious to the botanist's presence, right up until the moment that the woman had chosen to speak. Understandably then, the young man jumped a bit at her words, causing him to lose his tentative grip on his jar. The waters of the stream grabbed a hold of the now unanchored vessel within it, threatening to ruin all of Trevor's work if said jar spilled.

Uta reached out and quickly scooped up the jar from the river, saving the insecticide. Still, thanks to Trevor's slip, the jar of quassia was now absolutely full of a light-brown blend of water and plant juice.

Uta held the jar towards Trevor.

"Well," the woman chuckled lightly, "it's full now."

Trevor placed a hand on his face, subconsciously trying to hide the blush on his cheek, and laughed.

"You startled me," he said in a voice that was obviously making jest at himself.

"I noticed," Uta said and offered Trevor his jar back.

Trevor removed his hand from his face, but did not take the container from the botanist, but instead gestured towards the jar.

"What do you think? Did I get it right, or?" Trevor inquired about the jar of would-be-bug-repellant that he had done his best to brew.

At Trevor's request, Uta drew the jar of diluted quassia back to herself.

"Let's see," Uta said.

The naturalist brought the jar up to her nose and sniffed the liquid within it. She then lifted the jar up to the light and inspect how the sun's rays interacted with the liquid within it.

Uta handed the jar back to Trevor, who took the vessel this time.

"You did it, you did just what I told you to," the woman offered Trevor a bit of calm praise.

Trevor's face showed his appreciation for the woman's words and tutelage.

"Thank you," he said. "Being able to make this, I'm sure it will come in handy eventually. I'm new to medicine, but I assume you'll never know when you need to to get a particularly nasty bug off of someone."

Trevor looked around the thick jungle all around.

"Especially in this place," he added.

"You know, you can have someone drink that too," Uta said, as she retrieved the lid of Trevor's jar off of the ground and offered it to the man.

"Really?" Trevor asked and took the lid, before pushing it firmly back into the jar of bug-repellant.

Uta stood up and Trevor followed her, mimicking the action.

"It helps with fevers, even really bad one's," Uta explained.

Trevor's eyes widened.

"Well, I think that's going to be even more useful than it getting rid of the bugs," the man said.

Uta nodded and smirked.

"You seem excited by that?" the woman stated in a questioning tone.

Trevor paused and contemplated the woman's statement.

"I don't know, well, being able to help someone--I think that might be something I'd like. And it's just amazing, all the knowledge and secrets that are out there--even in the bark of trees," Trevor said. "It does excite me, I guess; it's the learning, the knowing that I can't help but be happy about."

"I have a bit of time. Would you like to know where you can find the plant that you made that out of, then?" Uta inquired of Trevor in an approving mood.

"If you do have the time, then I'd love that," Trevor replied.

Seasonal Wordcount: 697 + 8,683 = 9,380