Tea with Cinnamon

Corbie dropped the travois poles off her shoulder straps and stretched with a sigh of pleasure. The items carefully packed onto the hide stretched across the travois poles were trade goods she was bringing to one of the nomadic tribes that still scattered over the lands, not quite packs or official bands but more like loose conglomerates of loners. Mostly woven wool products and mead - they weren't shepherds, and as she knew from experience mead wasn't an easy thing to brew while living a nomadic lifestyle, so Avalon's goods had always been in demand with these particular nomads. She had high hopes of being able to make some good trades with them if they were still in the camp she'd last heard from them.

For now though, she'd come a long ways from home and she was quick to set the travois up against a hefty tree to keep it dry while she gathered wood for a fire. Using the iron blade set into her bracers, she cut feather-like strips out of the bigger pieces until she had a good amount of secondary tinder to go with the fluffy, dried moss out of her tinder kit, then used a dulled part of the blade to scrape against the flint, held pinned with her paw poised over the moss, until a spark caught and began to smolder, then flame up. She carefully nursed the little flame, adding the feather sticks and then twigs, then successively larger sticks until she could add logs.

With the fire crackling merrily now, she began rummaging through the "camp" part of her pack as she waited for it to burn down enough for a coal base for the tea kettle that Ayer was even now setting up. Ren wasn't back from scouting yet, but Corbie wasn't worried. The dog would be able to follow the scent and sight of the fire to where they'd set up camp.