That Sea is just a Gambler at Heart

Dómari set the mountain goat hide down in the grass and paused to lick the blood off his maw. He turned to see how the foxes were doing. "How's the fire?" Áskell, little pyromaniac that he was, quickly piped up. "Never seen a prettier site, Dommy boy."

They were starting to get the hang of building fires and setting up stone rings around the fire pit that Dómari could use to dry meat. Eventually he wanted to try making something that would go across the fire but at the moment it was just too far outside of his capabilities. Oh well, dirt added flavor right? Dómari padded over and moved a few of the stones. He was still working out how close to the fire he wanted the strips of meat to be. He wanted them to be close enough to speed up the drying but not so close they'd cook.

Dómari picked up the deer scapula he typically used and carried it back over to the mountain goat hide. Bending his head while holding the hide flat with his paws he began to scrap off the extra bits of meat and gunk. He planned to keep the hide for himself as a nice winter bed.

Nolan felt like he had hit the ground running after he and his mother arrived in Valhalla and for that he was proud. Training for a raid, helping with a hunt, making friends, learning how to make bracers, going on a scavenger hunt for odds and ends to craft with... All in such a short amount of time! The young man trotted though the plains that were his new home with a light hop to his step. It was a lovely, quiet day and now he was just on the look out for a way to spend it. Baine seemed to be feeling better today, but still insisted that he go out and enjoy the day. He had left her resting outside near the meeting area and had set out on his own. At the very least he wanted to have a story to tell her when he came back. She seemed to love hearing about the new wolves he had met and the new experiences he was having.

His pink-hued gaze spotted a small pillar of smoke in the distance and he started heading toward it curiously. It didn't seem to be spreading at all and the smoke was fairly concentrated so it had to be a fire that was made on purpose, but it was still unusual enough for him to want to go investigate. When he arrived he found Domari near by, the older wolf now familiar to him from the hunt they had done together. His inquisitive glance looked around at the fire pit that Nolan assumed he had built as well as a pair of foxes that seemed to be tending to the fire. Nolan knew from what Cairo had said that some wolves here had companions that stayed with them, but it was still surprising to see the foxes hanging out with Domari and seemingly helping him with whatever project currently held his attention.

The partially albino male trotted around the group till he came to face Domari with a smile, his tail wagging gently behind him. "Hi, Domari!" he said cheerfully, looking again at the hide that the gray wolf was working on. "What are you working on?" Ever since he made his bracers with Cairo he was incredibly curious about how they all crafted and made things and his love of learning certainly helped to push him to learn more.

That Sea is just a Gambler at Heart

Dómari started with some strips off the back of the goat which he then laid out on the rocks. He made sure to space them out so that they wouldn't sap too much heat from each other. He also set a few strips closer to the fire and a few further away to try and gauge a good place to set them. They'd likely need to be rotated just to be sure but he could do that after he finished tanning the hide or maybe part way through. He'd just plan it by ear.

Dómari moved over to the head of the carcass and lay down with the head between his front paws as he began to gnaw and chew on the skull until he at last had the brain exposed. He stretched out his jaw before reaching his paws in to start scraping the brain out of the skull. At one point he had to cut that pesky spinal cord but with some care and perseverance he managed to flip the brain out of the skull and onto the hide. At that moment Nolan appeared.

He smiled at the younger wolf. "Hey Nolan, how are you? I'm just working on tanning this goat hide and also I'm going to try drying some of the meat. I'm hoping that will make it easier to preserve through the winter."

Nolan's gaze widened with a mix of awe and sock when he saw that Domari had pulled the goat's brain out of it's skull. It wasn't something he had seen before and it made him look at it with a weird fascination that was twinged with a bit of... grossness? He looked back up at Domari when he explained what he was planning on doing with the goat he was currently working on dismantling. He nodded in understanding, looking toward the meat that was already laid out around the fire in various places. He kept encountering things that he had never seen done before or even heard of and it was just keeping him hungry to know more every single time. "That's a good idea!" he agreed as he took a couple steps closer to the fire to examine it closer and to see what he had done for laying out the meat on stones around it. His tail wagged gently behind him and he eventually turned his attention back to Domari and the work he was doing.

"Is there anything I can do to help?" he offered, padding back over to where the other wolf was currently breaking down his kill. He didn't know what tanning a hide exactly entailed, but he was very curious to see how the hides got to the point to where they could use them for things like the bracers he and Cairo had made.

That Sea is just a Gambler at Heart

Dómari brought one of his paws down on the goats brain, smashing it. He then began to work with both his paws to start smearing the brain into the hide. He wasn't overly fond of the smell of brain but it did its job well enough when it came to tanning hides and he'd just never really seen a reason to try another method. "Actually, yes. Do you want to help me get strips of meat off the carcass and laid out on those rocks? I'm just going to finish rubbing this in then I'll need to let it set." He worked swiftly until all of the brain had been mashed into the hide.

He then moved over to the goat. "I find it works well to do a thin strip, sort of like…" He reached down and carefully worked off a piece of meat from the chest about six inches long and a few inches wide and around a quarter of an inch thick. "This." He said with gritted teeth as he carried the strip over and laid it over the rocks. He licked the blood off for a moment before going back for another strip. "It needs to be thin to dry well before spoiling so unfortunately it will take ages to dismantle the whole kill and we don't have that many rocks, but I think if we just get these rocks here good and covered that will be plenty. Then w'ell need to guard it against other predators."

Nolan's nose wrinkled at the smell of the brains that Domari was working into the hide, taking a couple steps back from the older man's project. It was definitely one of those things that had a nice result, but wasn't exactly a pleasant process to get there. When he was given a task to do, the pink-eyed boy grinned happily and went over to the meat in question. He waited for Domari to show him how big of a strip he should be pulling off of the goat so that they could be laid out to dry. "Got it!" he replied with a nod of understanding before setting to work. He was very careful with the first few strips that he pulled apart from the larger piece of meat, but once he began to get the feel of it he was able to work a bit faster. Domari was right, it was slow work, but Nolan didn't mind.

"What does the brain do for the hide anyway?" he asked curiously between cutting the strips of meat, curiously eyeing the skin that Domari was tanning. It was the first time he had seen a process like this one and it had been very interested in learning more about it. Keeping in mind what Domari said about watching out for other predators, Nolan made sure to keep an ear out for anything that might be trying to sneak up on them and tried to not distract either of them too much with his overly curious questions. A shuffle in the grasses behind him made him lift his head to look, squinting for a moment before deciding it was nothing and going back to his work.

That Sea is just a Gambler at Heart

Dómari moved away from his work, pleased with what he'd done so far. "I'm not sure on the entire process but there's something in the brain juice that helps bind the the fibers in the hide together so they aren't degraded like they would be if you just left the hide out to nature." He hoped he was explaining it alright. He didn't really know the exact mechanisms, only that it seemed to work. He turned his attention back to the kill, deciding to extract a few other items from the kill. First he moved to the shoulder and started tearing into the flesh, removing big sections of muscle. He didn't need another hide scrapper but he was curious if the goats shoulder blade would work better than the deers. "These should make some good strips if you want to tear them into smaller chunks."

While he was thinking about it, maybe he ought to clean out some of the guts to. He moved to the belly and slit it open, allowing the guts to spill out. He stuck his head in and carefully worked them free of the abdominal lining, trying not to pop any. In particular he started chewing the bottom of the esophagus free and realized he could maybe make an interesting pot out of it. Dómari stepped back and away from Nolan before shaking the blood and guts off his coat. "Bleck! That's always the worst part."

He paid enough attention to his task to make sure he didn't mess it up while he continued to pull apart strips of the meat so they could be dried and preserved for later, but he still kept an eye on Domari as the older man continued to work on dismantling the goat. He had always been pretty good at learning from watching others so that was certainly going to come in handy here. He nodded thoughtfully when Domari explained how something in the brains he was using would help the hide hold together better over time. He didn't necessarily need to know exactly what made it work or how it worked, he just liked to know the whys behind it so he knew why it was worth it to get brain juices all over his paws. He continued his work when Domari gave him the shoulder meet to work on as well, seeing that the rocks they had to dry the meat on was quickly filling up at this steady pace. Nolan's nose scrunched up when Domari backed away from the carcass after going in to remove some of the guts, chuckling as he watched the older man shaking the remnants off of himself. "Yeah, that seems really gross, but I think the brain squishing might be worse to me!" He grinned and focused back on the meat in front of him, adding a few more strips to the rock before finally deciding he had filled them up about as much as he could. "I think I'm all done here!" he called to Domari, taking a step back to look over his handy work. He wasn't sure how long it would take a pack to get though this amount of dried meats, but it seemed like a pretty substantial amount to him! Of course winters were long so they'd need every bit of it. "Speech"

That Sea is just a Gambler at Heart

Satisfied with his work Dómari settled down for a moment and grinned. "Yea, it feels really strange between your toes the first time you do it but with practice it gets less weird." There was also the smell to get used to. He wondered who was the first creature to decide that smearing a creatures brains on its hide might actually do something. Was it pure accident? "It looks good. Thanks for your help Nolan!" Many paws made light work. He turned to his companions who were focused on their duties guarding the drying meat and he found himself yawning. It had been a busy day making the kill, dragging it back and then partially processing the animal. "I think I'm gonna take a quick nap if that's alright." He trusted his companions to alert him if there was any danger but it seemed unlikely in the middle of pack territory.

-exit via sleep?-