Chapter 9 — Hunting and Trapping

Ria stirred awake to the sound of birds greeting the morning and a tingling pain in her face different than her sunburn.

She groggily pushed away the magic staff that she had been hugging and raised herself up.

Oww! Her arms were crazy sore. There was no doubt that she pushed herself too hard yesterday and was going to pay the price for it today.

Sitting up and pushing off her bed covers, she wiped the drool-

Oh, no!

A quick panicked glance at the beginner tome confirmed that she had drooled all over it while she slept.

Ria hopped up and moved the book to her desk by the window. The ink hadn’t run, so she gingerly peeled up and separated the few pages that were wet. Just to be safe, she placed some dried flowers from the jar by her window between the pages to keep them from touching while they dried.

Berating herself for her carelessness, she silently apologized to Jeni for drooling on the book.

This wasn’t the first time Ria had fallen asleep on a book. Though usually it happened in the afternoon when she was supposed to be doing her studies.

To be a veteran at drying out drool-soaked books… Ria wondered what that said about her.

“Ria? If you’re up. We should probably get started,” Jarrel’s voice called up the stairs.

Ria yelled back that she would be right down. How many times had she done the same exchange with her mother?

The play clothes had dried overnight, so she changed back into them, strapped on her dagger, and hurried back downstairs.

“What… happened to your face?” Jarrel asked incredulously upon looking up from the kitchen table where he was working on something.

So embarrassing.

“…I fell asleep …while reading the book,” Ria mumbled to the side, not meeting his gaze.

There was silence for a moment then a chuckle. “So, any luck?”

Ria shrugged. “I don’t know. I think I just need to practice.”

“You’re not doing anything dangerous, are you?” Jarrel asked, raising an eyebrow.

She shook her head. “No. Just practicing basic meditation and training my ability to sense magical energy.”

“Well, hurry up and eat your breakfast. I’ll be done with this shortly.”

While serving herself, Ria snuck peaks at what Jarrel was doing. For some reason, he was using a bone needle and leather strips to stitch a belt onto another belt. She didn’t understand. He already had several belts on over the black armor, holding his swords and stuff, so why would he need another?

She watched him work while eating her porridge and drank a cup of apple cider. By the time she was done, he seemed satisfied with his work.

“What’s that for?” Ria couldn’t help asking.

Jarrel gave her a grin. “It’s to hold your crossbow and tools.”

Huh? She gave him an incredulous look. “Wait. What tools?”

His grin growing more wolfish, he reached down and hefted a good-size belt pouch onto the table.

Tentatively, Ria slid the pouch closer and opened it up. Inside, she found a spool of steel wire, wire cutters, two lengths of cord, a skinning knife, flint, and a weapon cleaning cloth. Did he gather these items at the general store yesterday? Or did he go out this morning while she was sleeping? Not that it mattered.

“Haha, feel free to thank me.”

“Um, thanks?” Ria had a suspicion that this gift would mean a lot more sore muscles in her future.

Jarrel had a suspicious crinkling around his eyes as he happily accepted her thanks. “Sure, sure. Glad you like it. By the way, that cloak you were wearing yesterday, does it do anything for you?”

“It’s enchanted to keep me from getting hurt.” She omitted the limitations, but that was probably a close enough explanation.

Jarrel’s eyebrows rose. “Oh? That’s great. Bring the pouch. Let’s get you ready and get going then.”

“Going?” Ria queried as she followed him to the front door.

“Yup. Now that you can handle that crossbow, I’m taking you with me to check the traps, and I’m going to teach you a bit about hunting. Go ahead and get your cloak and boots on, then I’ll adjust the harness for you.”

She did as told. Putting a harness on over her cloak just felt wrong, but she couldn’t really think of any other way to do it. She would have the same problem if she wore a backpack with the cloak. And she really did need a shoulder harness for the crossbow as her legs were too short to hang it from her belt.

The harness’ hefty belt had been modified with extra holes for her small waist and wrapped around almost twice. The shoulder strap was loose at first, but Jarrel worked a second buckle, adjusting it snug. The process was repeated with one of the quivers, belting it cross-body in the opposite direction. Finally, the crossbow and belt pouch were strapped on.

“How is it?” Jarrel asked, suppressing a smile as he looked down at her.

Ria turned around in place and tested her range of movement. Having the crossbow on her back and the pouch at her hip was messing with her balance. “Heavy and hot,” she grunted out. She was already sweating.

“Can’t be helped. Ah, but that reminds me. I filled this up for you earlier,” Jarrel said mischievously and handed over a waterskin.

She could only groan in dismay and strapped it across her body, which set Jarrel to chuckling.

“Um, can I bring my staff?” Ria asked. She wanted to try the Outwardly Focused Meditation exercise while they were out, and having a walking staff might help with the extra weight.

“Sure. That’s not a bad idea. Does it do anything special, like the cloak?”

Ria shrugged. “Not really. The letter said it is a focus item and that I should keep it with me when training.”

“Hmm… well at the least it will be good at keeping snakes at a distance. Go on then, hurry up.” Jarrel motioned with his hand for her to get going.

Ugh. Snakes.

After scrambling up the stairs and back down while wearing her gear, Ria was already feeling the effort in her legs. She could tell it was going to be a long day.

When she arrived back at the front door, Jarrel was waiting there with a smile. “You should go get a bowl of soup to bring along. We’ll need to feed Ranger, since we won’t be back until late.”

Ria threw her hands up in exasperation. Yup, it was going to be a long day.

By the time they were traipsing in the woods, Ria was already exhausted and leaning heavily on her staff. Calling out to Jarrel, she signaled that she needed to rest.

“Alright. Take a few minutes. Let me know when you are ready,” Jarrel agreed and then started wandering around the area looking under bushes and low plants.

Eventually, Ria’s curiosity got the better of her. “What’re you doing?”

“Ah, found some.” He waved her over. “Watch your step.”

Sighing, she made her way over only to be taught about animal dropping, finding tracks, and following animal trails.

Jarrel took her down one of the animal trails and showed her one of the traps he had setup. He had placed a log across the path and a wire noose to catch the animal when it climbed over the log.

She was then taught how to make her own noose trap, and when she saw how it worked, she could only think that traps were really cruel. Jarrel agreed but pointed out that traps were the only practical way to catch smaller animals and did less damage to the pelts than arrows.

As they continued making the rounds, Jarrel taught her how to choose her path and place her feet so she could walk quieter in the woods. She must’ve still been too noisy because they didn’t come across any large animals and had to settle for snake for lunch. Sigh.

Her staff did prove itself useful after all. Apparently, pinning the snake to the ground with the end of the staff was an effective and recommended strategy. Her magic dagger made finishing the snake off surprisingly easy. Though the way the body continued to move around after she cut off the head was seriously gross, and creepy.

She also received a lesson in fire making. Starting a fire in the woods and getting it hot enough to cook food was surprisingly more difficult than when she did it at home.

While moving deeper into the forest after lunch, Ria spotted a large flat-topped rock on a hill that reached out above the trees and called out to Jarrel.

“What's that?” She asked and motioned toward the hill.

“Oh. Just a rock on a hill. It’s got a nice view. Want to go take a look?” Jarrel suggested.

Ria nodded enthusiastically. “I think it will be a good place to practice my meditation exercises.”

Jarrel smiled at her. “Alright. But be careful not to become too oblivious to your surroundings, like yesterday. I’ll stay down here and practice my sword skills. Been a while.”

For some reason, Ria was really excited to see the view from the top of the rock and bounded off to find a path up the hill. She soon found a flower-speckled slope curving its way around the back, but halfway up, she guessed why Jarrel had stayed below. Climbing a grassy hill was exhausting!

Sure, her brothers were more physically fit than she was, but she always thought that was because they were older and scraped the stretched rawhide every day. She had no idea that she was so weak! For just walking around with an extra bit of weight to be so hard!

After resting long enough to catch her breath and for her legs to stop trembling, Ria screwed up her determination and marched her way to the top one painful step at a time.

Pulling herself up onto the rock was torture. Every muscle in her body sore and weak from fatigue, she just lay there on the sun-warmed surface too spent to move.

Ugh. The heat was a bit harsh, but a constant breeze made it bearable. The hot stone surface would probably feel rather pleasant in the spring and autumn.

Her muscle weakness did recede after a while, and she pushed herself to a sitting position. The view that greeted her made her smile. The hill she was on rose high enough above the surrounding trees that she could see rolling forest-covered hills in every direction and scenic mountains rising up in the distance behind her.

The view of the village was blocked by the rise of a more modest hill, but some of the farming fields could be seen peeking out. She was surprised that the village wasn’t particularly far from this spot. In fact… Ria laughed as she found the hidden swimming spot. She wondered if any of the boys knew about this rock, not that peeking would really matter from this distance, but it was still amusing.

All around her, the forest was alive. Birds could be seen flitting about above the canopy. The sounds of animals and insects rang out and echoed off the trees and the mostly bare hill that she had climbed.

Well, calling the hill ‘bare’ did an injustice as there were a few scraggly trees and much of it was covered with grass. Looking down, Ria saw just how high she had climbed and felt extremely proud of herself for not giving up.

Shadows were passing over the ground, and Ria looked up to discover birds circling above the stone. At first she was scared, but the large birds didn’t seem to be paying her any mind. She put her hood up in case of bird droppings, but the birds didn’t seem to be passing directly over the rock, and the general lack of bird poo on the stone was also reassuring.

This was a great spot.

Ria pulled her staff onto her lap, took a deep breath, and assumed the pose for the Outwardly Focused Meditation exercise, which was basically the same pose as the Inwardly Focused Meditation exercise but with her hands resting on her knees palm upward.

Closing her eyes, she slowed her breathing and cleared her mind. Instead of listening to her heart, Ria spread her senses outward, listening to the sounds echoing in the surrounding forest, feeling the wind blow against her skin and the warmth radiating up from the sunbaked rock, smelling the scents carried in the air, a mix of both fetid and fresh.

As the sound of her beating heart became fainter in her awareness, the sound of the wind rustling through the feathers of the birds circling above became audible. Near the base of the hill, she could hear a whistling and thunking that was likely Jarrel practicing with the swords borrowed from Jeni’s house.

Meditating on the rock was enjoyable to the extent that Ria almost forgot that she was supposed to be sensing for magical energy. As usual, even though she could picture the sources of what she heard, felt, and smelled, was she really sensing anything? Or was she just good at imagining?

After what might’ve been hours, alternating between trying to sense anything special about the rock she was sitting on and the suspicious bit of sky above her that the birds were circling around, a piercing bird cry brought Ria’s awareness back enough to realize that she was soaked with sweat, she couldn’t really feel her legs, and her throat was really, really dry.

She stretched to rouse her sluggish body and sharp needle like pains shot up from her legs.

When her cry of pain turned into a rasp, Ria gave up moving and prioritized drinking from her waterskin. The parched feeling receded readily enough, which was a relief, but she wasn’t looking forward to the kind of pain she was going to have to endure when the feeling came back to her legs.

Procrastinating, she checked the position of the sun and confirmed that she had indeed been sitting there for hours. Ugh. Nothing to do but bear it. She brought this on herself after all.

Regretting not bringing a cushion, Ria whimpered as she pushed her legs uncrossed and flopped over on her side. Almost immediately, her butt and legs became a sea of fire and needles. Gasping like a fish, she hugged her staff tight and did her best not to writhe around.

The downsides to the two meditation techniques were starkly apparent: Loss of awareness of the outside or loss of awareness of the inside. That, or maybe she was excessively talented at meditation.

After an interminable period of time, the pain receded, and Ria was able to gingerly move her legs again.

Jarrel’s concerned voice echoed up from below, probably asking if she was okay.

Groaning, Ria scooted over to the edge of the rock and waved down at Jarrel. He really was there and was motioning with his arms. Maybe something about the sun going down?

Ria cupped her hands around her mouth and projected her voice as best she could to tell him she was coming down now.

Jarrel nodded and pointed toward the base of the grassy area she had used to climb the hill. Seemed like he was going to meet her there.

Slipping down off the rock was a lot easier than climbing up, and her legs were working fine now.

Descending the hill was harder than expected. Her body was constantly trying to accelerate, and unless she wanted to end up running pell-mell down the hill, she had to constantly watch her footing and slow herself down.

When she got close to the bottom she gave up and started running down the hill, just because it was fun. She liked this spot and was in a good mood from successfully being able to perform the Outwardly Focused Meditation exercise.

“Wheeee! Hahaha!”

Ria let out a whoop of delight as she ran, but when she tried to slow down in front of Jarrel, her foot slipped out from under her, and she sprawled face-first into the dirt and leaves with a surprised yelp, skidding to a halt right at his feet.

Jarrel burst out laughing at the ridiculousness of it. “How do you make it all the way down a hill like that, only to fall down at the end?!”

“Haha, oops?” Ria laughed sheepishly, using the staff to help get back to her feet.

When she put weight on the foot that slipped, Ria sharply sucked in a breath, and Jarrel let out a groan. “You hurt yourself, didn’t you?”

At Ria’s nod, he removed her boot and checked the joint, gripping it and feeling around her sore ankle.

“Oww.”

“Well, it doesn’t seem broken. It’ll likely be fine in a few days as long as you don’t aggravate it.”

“Ugh. It’s all my fault, because I was acting stupid,” Ria muttered.

“That it was,” Jarrel agreed. “But don’t worry about it. You were going to need a few days rest anyway, and it’ll be good training for me to carry you back.”

And so, the training outing ended early with Ria clinging to Jarrel’s back all the way home while hoping that her arms weren’t going to fall off.

Ria spent the rest of the evening reading the beginner tome and let Jarrel handle dinner.