Chade was fairly confident of already knowing good locations for food but with the change in weather, some of his food had migrated.  Still, he found a herd of female elk that seemed fond of a forested region nestled in between a curve in the Fenrir's maw.  He didn’t choose them for his prey though, preferring something with horns for his assignment.

In the end, he had found a loan aged reindeer.  His older age was obvious with the graying muzzle and its coat looked thinner in patches.  When it moved it had a stiffness in it which offered an easier hunt for such a large animal.  Chade killed the elderly stag, now having a large animal with antlers to work with for finding uses for it.  Once dead he opened its belly, letting the blood drain out.  Once finished he put it on a small sled to pull it back to the pack land.  The meat alone would be a nice haul but he already had plans on so much more to be done with it.  

Manea wanted a demonstration but there were enough things to demonstrate that Chade decided some of the most basic parts could be done ahead of time to keep her from getting bored.  He went ahead and cut off the hide from the deer and cleaned it up.  The blue wolf went ahead and soaked the hide to for cleaning it up.  These were things that some time and yet were easy enough to describe if she even wanted to hear what he imagined were pretty basic.  A small grin crossed his features remembering being a small pup experimenting with trying to tan a hide to act as a small tent.  It had been usable but hardly worth showing off.  He’d gotten better.

With the hide cleaned up he took it still wet up higher onto the rocks near the dens.  It would both be close enough to Manea’s den that she didn’t need to go far and on a rocky surface so no concerns in setting up a fire to use for smoking the meat.  Chade grabbed some limbs for various purposes.  A stack was put where he planned to start a fire, four others were used to stretch out and somewhat nail the hide against the side of the mountain, in cracks already on the rock wall.  He had better plans for it but that would do for setup.  Finally, Chade pulled out some of the meat chunks, using a bone knife to slice in them into strips.

The preparation was good enough.  The rest of it he could show by doing.  Chade let out a howl calling for Manea to come to see his setup.


"Chade"

Manea was playing with Fia and Alastor when she heard Chade's call and she very nearly sent Irilyth or one of her ravens to tell the blue-hued young man that she wouldn't be able to come, but she remembered the task she had given him to prove himself as their master of hunting. She cared about the boys she had taken in so long ago very much and as she considered it for a moment she certainly didn't want to let him down. With a soft sigh she promised Fia that she would be right back, gave Alastor a parting kiss, and then went out to join the ambitious young man to see what he had prepared for her.

When she arrived it looked like he had already begun quite a bit of prep with the still wet hide waiting to be prepared, the makings of a fire going, and some strips of meat at the ready. "Well well, it looks like you've been busy," she said appreciatively, giving him a smile. She settled down across from him with the makings of what would become a fire between them. "Reindeer?" she questioned as she examined the tawny pelt and the antlers that came with it. "Nice choice. What all do you have planned for it?" she asked, opening the floor for him to show her what he had set up and to let him do his work.

"Manea Mendacium"

A small grin formed on the dark blue wolf as Manea acknowledged his setup.  A nod is given as she easily guessed what it was he had killed.  “This one was alone.” As he spoke Chade went about starting the fire.  It wasn’t a herd to go back to but that was fine, “I did find a herd of female elk though that are surrounded on three side’s by the mountain, a small forest of trees in there.  With the protection, the mountain gives them from the weather I expect they’ll stay there even if we hunt them from time to time.”  Technically she had just asked about what he’d make of the reindeer but Chade didn’t want to forget the full assignment of also finding reliable food to hunt in winter.  

With the fire crackling near the skin, Chade took one of the reindeer's giant antlers, and placed part of it on the mountain surface, using some smaller rocks to pin it in place with the ends of the antler sticking out a good ways above the fire.  Chade placed the meat strips dangling between the tines of the antlers so that the smoke could wrap about the meat.

“Really, the antlers can be used for a ton of things.  Support objects of decent weight, handles for knives,” his own knife was simply made of bone but he was thinking of changing that, “shelves and in this case, used to hang meat up over a fire. The smoke will make the meat last longer to save whatever we don’t eat right away.”  Chade had only more recently learned about how to make meat last longer and greatly wished he’d known that as a kid but hey, that was why kids weren’t meant to be alone.

“I learned recently, well, very recently that this part of the meat,” going back to the corpse and pointing at the thin cords of tendons along the backbone, taking his knife in his mouth and cutting just a small notch between bone and tendon to specify which one he’s talking about, before dropping the knife, “if dried out is really useful.  It can be used as a rope, a good solid rope.  You could use it to make traps or stitch things together, well,” Chade shrugged again, “any manner of things.”

Was he forgetting anything? Oh.  Chade pointed at the knife he dropped, “bones can be used to make knives,” then Chade glanced over to where he’d stuck the hide in the rock, “It can also be used as stake pegs,” he said with a grin, though he hadn’t torn the deer all apart to do that prior.   “Oh, and I bet the deer eyes would be a great toy for a child?” It sounded like something he’d have loved to chew on as a kid, really anything would have worked back then.

Chade looked about at the various things he had laid out.  He was ready to go into detail if she wanted and tear the corpse up more now, ripping out the bones, cleaning them, or extracting the tendon to show how to turn it into a rope but all those things could make time to go by fast and she might be satisfied just by an overview.

“Last thing, just putting some of these together I had a fun idea I was going to try for Me and Ry that I thought you and Alastor might also like?” Chade pointed out to the tanning hide, “I thought I’d get four logs, notch holes into each one, and attach them at the corners of the hide using the string to keep them in place.  It’d be like a bed off the ground so when the rock gets overly cold in the winter you won’t be pressed up against it.  It sounds nice in my head at least.” Just like his first tanned hide, this last part of his creativeness was experimental.


"Chade"