My tamarans pile up until they eventually overflow from my basket and I have a bunch of them rolling around on the ground. Thirty six by my count. I have no idea what I'm going to do with them or how I'll take them back with me. My basket can probably hold twenty at most, if I stack them all up on top. I sit in a tree over the pile of fruit, taking a quick break while I consider the issue. I can probably just give the ones I can't carry to Jack as thanks for bringing me here, right?

A rustling sound draws me from my thoughts. Directly below, I see a small furry thing move out of the brush. It's a light brown color, with darker brown stripes and splotches all over its body, making it kind of hard to see, even from directly above. Nothing like any of the animals Emily described. It scampers on four legs, over to the pile of tamarans. It keeps looking in all directions on the ground around it. Strangely, it never looks up. I'm right above it, so it would definitely see me if it did look up.

It feels like it'll flee if I make a sound, so I stay quiet and watch as it picks up a tamaran. It sits up on its back legs, holding the fruit with its front legs. It's hard to see, but it seems to have little clawed hands that it holds the fruit with.

Suddenly, it dashes away into the brush with the fruit. Hey, that was mine! I think it, but don't say anything since the small animal is already gone and I'm still trying to stay quiet. Then that makes me feel kind of silly, it already ran off. However, it returns soon after. Or maybe it's another of the same animal, I can't tell them apart. This one doesn't have the stolen tamaran though, so it should be a different one. It picks up another tamaran the same way. I don't want them to take my fruit, and I want to ask Jack about them. But they'll probably run away if I call out to Jack now, so I push off of my spot in the tree, dropping down on the small animal from above.

As I land, I pin it down with my hands. It starts struggling in my grip, but it's really small and can't break free at all. Its overall length is only about as long as my forearm, even I can wrap my small hands around its entire body. I guess this is what the others felt like when sparring... "Hey Jack, I found some animal!" I call. I wrap my hands around its front and back legs so it can't get away, and pick it up. I start running over to where Jack is up in the trees.

The animal twists in my grip, then bites down on my hand. "Ow!" I yelp from the sudden pain. But I want to ask Jack about it, so I run while it keeps biting me.

"What kind of animal?" Jack calls as I come around under him.

"Look, it's this little furry thing!" I hold it up for him to see. It sinks its tiny fangs into my hand repeatedly, which is surprisingly painful.

"What are you doing?!" Jack shouts when he sees it. Why does he look scared? It's not a dangerous animal, is it? "Kill it!" I'm supposed to kill it? I don't understand why, but I'll do it if he says so. But how do I actually do that? If it was a human or rail unit, it would be simple, but how do you kill an animal like this?

"How do I kill it?" I ask.

"Cut- uh, break its neck!" he yells while scrambling down out of the tree. I'm not really sure how to go about breaking its neck. There are lots of different ways. I don't really want to kill it either, but I guess I'm supposed to, so I release its back legs to grab onto its head. The back legs immediately kick up, scratching at my arm, and I wince. Holding onto its head tightly, I pull.

I feel a pop and it stops moving. The feeling makes me shudder involuntarily, suddenly feeling sick to my stomach. I don't really understand why, but it passes after a moment.

Looking at the animal in my hands, I frown. I don't really like killing things like this, it's really unpleasant. I'm sure Jack will explain why, but it still feels bad to take its life. After all, I don't want to die, it probably didn't want to either.

"Are you stupid? What were you doing with that thing?!" Jack demands as he reaches the ground.

"I wanted to ask you about it."

"Why didn't you kill it first? Look, you're bleeding everywhere!" I glance down at my hand. Blood is pooling out of dozens of tiny puncture wounds. There are also long claw marks down my right forearm, slowly dripping blood as well. I examine the wounds briefly. Not deep, not that painful. The blood loss isn't anything concerning either. These wounds don't matter, so I move on.

"Huh, I am. Anyway, could you tell me about this animal? Why did I have to kill it?"

"Because it was attacking you, idiot!" I killed it because it was attacking me? Sure, it attacking me hurt, but that was nothing compared to the rail units. Finding out about the animal was more important than avoiding a little pain. I feel like I'm missing something...

Well, I guess he could be saying that if I'd killed it earlier, I could have avoided the pain, and still had him tell me about it. That makes the most sense.

"Oh, I get it, I'm sorry I didn't think of that sooner." I lower my head apologetically.

However, he just holds his head in his hands and mutters, "Do you have any sense of danger? You have no idea what kind of animal that is, how do you know it's not poisonous?" I hadn't even thought of that at all. A tiny thing like this doesn't seem dangerous at all. That's how I was thinking of it. However, if it was actually poisonous, just the bites and scratches it gave me could possibly be very deadly, at least based on Emily's descriptions of poisonous plants.

"That's a good point, it would be really bad if it was, wouldn't it?" I shudder just thinking about it. "I'll make sure not to let unknown animals attack me in the future."

"Don't let any animals attack you," he sounds exasperated. I guess that's a good idea, it hurts when they do after all.

"Ok," I agree seriously, before returning to the last topic. "Now, could you tell me about this animal?"

"Fine," he sighs. Then he goes through their information fast, like he knows all about them. "That's a hobin. Lots of them in the forest, but they're hard to spot and catch. Their meat is alright, but there's not much of it. The pelts are the most important part. Pretty pricy since they have good fur. There's not much of it though, so usually you need a few of them to make anything useable. The claws are small, but can generally be made into decent tools too."

"Wow, so the different parts of them can be used for all sorts of things... That's why we kill them?"

"Yeah, pretty much. Kill them and use everything you can." Even when he says it like that, I'm still not entirely sure. Isn't that more like we're killing them for convenience than because we really need to? We already find plenty of food in the forest, do we need to kill the animals to eat them too? Maybe it's the other things that we need, like the fur and claws. There might not be any other ways of getting them for all I know. I'll keep thinking about it, but for now I'll believe him and follow what he told me.

"Now go on, get back to the orphanage."

I tilt my head. "Why? It's not getting dark yet."

"You're injured." He says it like that's a good reason.

I blink a couple times. "Uhh... so?" I'm injured. What does that have to do with going back?

"You can't keep gathering while injured like that," he looks annoyed.

"Sure I can." I don't understand what he's trying to say. My hand hurts a little, but it's not like that matters. The muscles and ligaments aren't even damaged. I can move it fine.

"You don't have to keep acting tough you know." He suddenly goes from looking annoyed to smiling. No part of what he's saying or doing makes sense. Again, it seems there is something here I'm just not understanding yet, but I can't figure out what.

"What is acting tough?" I ask. Maybe if I clarify this tough thing he keeps mentioning, it'll help.

This makes him stop momentarily. "I mean you don't have to keep putting on a brave face and pretending it doesn't hurt," he sighs. "You can just cry and run home or whatever when you get hurt badly," he says. Even I know that much. I did nothing but get hurt before. Though I didn't cry back then. Well, I wasn't really capable of crying at the time...

"Umm, ok. I'll do that then," I nod. I'll make sure to keep that in mind.

He stands, looking at me for a bit. "So... are you going now?"

"No, you told me to go if I get hurt badly."

"What do you consider a serious injury?!" he yells, gesturing at my hand.

"Hmm..." I consider the question briefly. I guess the main ones would be anything serious enough that it would get the handlers to step in? "I'd say... stuff like broken bones, head trauma, internal organ damage... stuff like that. There was also the time I burned my hands badly. I couldn't use them for two weeks, so I would consider that a serious injury too." As I speak, I can see the blood drain from his face. I... definitely said something bad, didn't I? Do people have completely different ideas about injuries?

Trying to somehow fix my mistake, I wave my hands frantically. "I'm sorry, I said something weird, didn't I? I had a really bad life before, so there are lots of things I don't understand. I'm really sorry about that!"

That finally gets him to chuckle. "I guess the rumors were true then. You don't act tough, you are tough. Sounds like you went through some serious shit though. Well, don't worry about it," he waves dismissively. "I'm telling you that's a serious injury, so you should head back for today."

"Ok, I'll do that," I immediately agree. I don't want to make any more trouble for him at this point. I had no idea he thought just this much was a serious injury. "Thank you for helping me today," I bow deeply while thanking him. Jack nods, but then points at the dead hobin in my hands.

"But first, let's deal with that." He draws his knife and I hand him the hobin. "If you don't dress it, it'll go bad."

"Dress?" I'm not familiar with the word.

"I suppose you haven't learned about this yet. Here's how you dress a kill. You have to drain the blood quickly after you kill it, or it'll start to rot." He uses his knife to cut down its front, then pulls the skin apart, red blood immediately pouring out. "Next you scoop out the organs so they don't taint the meat, especially the stomach. He scrapes his knife down the insides, pulling out various parts of its insides. "If you had a bucket or something, you could collect the blood since it can be used too," he comments as he works.

Something about it makes me queasy, but I can't look away. I watch every bit of it closely as he removes the organs, digs a small hole with his knife, and buries them. "You have to bury the organs or they'll attract larger animals," he explains. I nod slowly, eyes still locked on the gruesome sight of the fluffy animal now split almost in half, deep red blood slowly continuing to drip from the carcass to the ground. So that's 'dressing' an animal. He gives it back. I take it with slightly trembling hands. He gestures for me to go.

I start to turn, but remember my issue from earlier. "Oh yeah, what should I do with my extra tamarans? I can't carry them all back."

He raises an eyebrow, so I lead him over to my basket. The first thing I notice is my pile of tamarans in the basket has spilled out onto the ground with the others, and there are fewer than before. I guess more hobins ran off with the fruit. By a quick estimation, it looks like they took about eight or so, taking my initial count from thirty six down to about twenty eight.

"Wow, that's an impressive amount for your first time," he says.

"Do you want the ones I can't carry? I wanted to thank you for helping me."

"Sure, if you can't carry them anyway," he shrugs. After I pile up the tamarans I can carry back into my basket, he scoops the seven left over on the ground into his own basket. I guess there were only twenty seven left. I'll need to think of a way to protect them from hobins in the future.

"You know how to get back?" he asks.

I turn in place. Based on the whistle earlier... "The east gate should be right there," I point where it should be compared to where the whistle sounded. "No wait, we went south today, didn't we?" and shift my aim a little further north.

"Pretty much. Now get going." I nod, then start walking. I can't move very fast with my arms full, and the basket is actually pretty heavy with twenty tamarans piled on top of it. I also have the sliced open hobin over my right shoulder. Even if most of the blood drained when Jack was cutting it open, it seems that there was still enough to drench that entire side of my robe. Now I really need to wash it.

I'm have to walk carefully on the uneven ground, to avoid tripping and spilling all of my stuff, so it's slow going getting back out of the woods. Eventually I make it to the road again. A short walk further, and I reach the West Gate. As I pass, a guard calls out to me. "You alright, little one?" he asks.

Following his eyes, he seems to be looking at the blood drenching my robe, not my hand, so I answer, "Yeah, I killed a hobin," and turn a little so he can get a good look at my shoulder.

"Ahh, very impressive," he nods a few times for some reason.

"Umm, what time is it?" I ask.

"Not long until the ninth bell," he says simply.

"Thank you." He gives me a small wave as I continue past. If it's not long until the ninth bell, I need to hurry back if I want to make it to the orphanage by the tenth bell. That should give me enough time to get washed up before dinner, since I have to wait for my clothing to dry before I can go inside. With this in mind, I pick up my pace, jogging on my way back.

Traveling back is way harder than on my way out this morning, I'm carrying so much more weight now. I barely manage to make it to the orphanage by the tenth bell, panting and exhausted. I quickly run inside to grab a bucket before going to the nearest well plaza. Thankfully, a nice lady there takes one look at me and draws a bucket of water for me.

Carrying the basket full of fruit, the hobin, and the full bucket of water, I barely manage to stagger over into the alley near the orphanage. I place the basket on the ground out of the way, with the hobin next to it. Then I pull off my robe. I use my scrap of cloth to quickly wipe myself down. I hardly use more than a few swipes with the cloth, my robe is the important part today.

I use the rag to pull water out of the bucket and pour it on the robe to get it wet, then I wring it out. The water runs a dark, brownish red. I repeat the process over and over, dumping some more water, and wringing it out. Slowly, the water runs less red as the blood begins to come out of my clothes. The brownish dirt color doesn't get much better though. After I finally have it running mostly clear of blood, I pour the remaining water over it and wring it back and forth in my hands to get as much extra blood and filth out of it as I can. Once I can't get any more water to come out of it, I put it back on and lie down in the sun to dry. There's only a little sun left since it's already starting to dip below the buildings, but I use what time is left to dry my clothes as much as I can.

The sky turns orange, the sun eventually slipping all the way below the nearby buildings and casting the street in shadow. My robe is still kind of damp, but I'm not dripping at least. So I go inside, balancing my basket carefully in one hand while holding the hobin in the other. It isn't really dripping blood much anymore, but I'm not sure what to do with it. For now, I just drop ten of my twenty tamarans on the table where we leave half of our things, and head upstairs.

It is a real fight, trying to clamber up the stairs on my elbows with both of my hands full, but I eventually manage it. I knock on Mister Fredricson's door with my elbow and he calls me in. I manage to balance the hobin on my wrist to turn the handle to his door and go inside. "Hi Mister Fredricson. I caught a hobin today, but I'm not sure what to do with it." I hold it up for him to see.

"You can just cut it in half and leave half of it on the table. Since the meat won't keep long in the summer heat, we'll use it for dinner today."

"Ok. Where can I get a knife to cut it with?"

"That's right, you don't have a knife do you? On second though, come on. I don't trust you with a knife anyway." He stands from his desk and immediately starts walking toward the door. I scramble to turn and try to open the door, but both of my hands are full. Ignoring me, he just opens the door himself and pushes me out the door in front of him with his knee. I stumble into the hall, where he walks past, starting down the stairs.

I follow quickly, attempting to descend the stairs quickly without falling, with both hands still full. I end up scrambling, kind of sliding down while using my elbows for support, but still only make it down three steps by the time he reaches the bottom. Mister Fredricson turns back to see me struggling down, and easily walks back up. He grabs the back of my robe with one hand and lifts me off the ground. My robe is pretty big on me, so I almost fall out of it before it catches me under my armpits. Mister Fredricson drops me back on the ground at the bottom of the stairs, and we proceed to the kitchen.

He reaches to one of the high shelves and pulls down a knife. Then he takes the hobin from me and drops it on the countertop. I stand on my toes so I can just barely see the top of the counter. He easily cuts it in half with one swing. Then he starts using the knife to pull the meat away from the skin and fur. "Oh, Mister Fredricson, you said the meat won't keep long in summer, what does that mean?" I ask while he works.

"It'll rot and become unusable," he says simply.

"Meat rots?" I ask. I've seen the markets throw out fruits and vegetables when they go bad before, so meat does the same thing?

"How stupid are you?" He glares at me, but then his brows furrow. He grabs my hand and yanks, nearly lifting me off my feet as he looks at it more closely. "What did you do to your hand?" It's been a couple bells, so it's started healing. So it's not bleeding anymore, and the tiny bite wounds have begun to close. But it's still clearly all bitten up.

"The hobin attacked me before I killed it," I explain.

"A hobin did this to you?!" he shouts. "Did you just stand there and let it bite you or something?" Actually yes, that's exactly what happened, I realize. But he'll definitely get more angry if I say that, so I try to explain.

"W-well, I didn't know what it was, so I asked the big kid with me about it first. He told me I was supposed to kill it, so I did." That explanation doesn't make it sound better at all. I'm already starting to cower away from Mister Fredricson before he responds.

"Do you have no sense of danger?!" Jack said that too.

"It was really small so I didn't think it was dangerous."

"Even when it started biting you? What if it was poisonous?!" he shouts, lifting me off the ground by the arm he's still holding.

"I didn't think of it at the time. I won't let unknown animals attack me again," I quickly stammer in midair.

"Don't let any animals attack you!" Haven't I had this conversation before?

"He said that too!" I cry out it without really thinking. I shrink away as he shakes me up and down.

"Well you should start learning!"

"I am learning, as much as I can as fast as I can!" Suddenly, he drops me back on the ground.

"What am I going to do with you..." he mutters while getting back to work on the hobin.

"A-anyway, Mister Fredricson." I know I'm really pressing my luck when he's already so mad, but I should ask anyway. "I don't have anything to do with my half of the hobin. If the meat will go bad anyway, can you just take that for dinner too?" If it goes into our dinner, it won't go to waste and I'll even get to eat some of it.

"Sure, why not," he just shrugs in response. He doesn't even sound angry, it's more like he doesn't care at all. He quickly pulls the meat off of the fur for the other half, then wipes down the knife with a cloth and puts it back on the shelf. "I'll be charging you for annoying me," he says while holding up the half of the hobin's fur that should have been mine. The claws are probably still attached too. He walks away with it, without further comment.

I'm not sure what I would have done with that anyway, so it's probably not much of a loss. Actually, catching a hobin isn't really hard anyway. I could just catch one the same way I did today if I wanted to get more. I shrug and kneel down. My tamarans are scattered all over the floor from when he was shaking me around earlier. Once I've returned them to my basket, I climb back upstairs, and dump them into my pile of stuff.

I sit in front of the pile, looking at it intently. It's all just randomly piled up under my bed, so I separate it. On one side I put all the little sticks and branches in their own spot. Then there's the little pile of tamarans. After that is... just a mixture of all sorts of bits of food and such. "Sholly, mint, rosemary, frenin, lacet..." I seperate the herbs out. "Then there's the nuts." I push the pine nuts, trell nuts, walnuts, and acorns into their own little pile. "I wonder if the vegetables are still good?" From what I've seen, they don't last as long as other types of foods before going bad. I have a carrot, a few kell leaves, some stalks of fran... "they all seem fine."

I pick up the ringens to check. They're white vegetables that grow underground, I had to pull them up by the tall green parts that stick up above the ground. One is starting to turn pink, so it won't last much longer. The other is pink and already turning soft. "This is no good already."

I probably picked these about a week ago, it looks like that's how long they last before going bad. I put the ringens in my basket. "The straw mushrooms, villvi mushrooms, and star mushrooms seem fine too. These morels are starting to get soft though." I lightly squeeze the creepy looking mushrooms and find they won't last long either. The way they have a bunch of indents and holes in their caps make them look weird and off-putting, but they taste surprisingly similar to nuts for some reason. A really mysterious mushroom... I add it to my basket.

After sorting out a couple other bits of food, I'm done. I still don't know what to do with all of this stuff though. It seems like if I keep leaving it here, I'll wind up just adding it to the pile that goes to the orphanage so it doesn't go to waste anyway. Jack mentioned selling things, so I should ask about that. If I can get money, I should be able to buy some tools, like my own basket, cloth, and a stick to tie up my hair. And I need clothes. I try to ignore the looks, but my robe stands out way too much around the orphanage. Even dirty, it looks nothing like anyone else's clothes in this section of the city and I'm constantly attracting strange looks...

While I consider my options moving forward, I go back downstairs. I dump most of the contents of my basket onto the table so the orphanage can use them. I take the couple of vegetables that are no good, like the ringen, and throw them outside with the waste.

With that all finished, I get my usual drink of water, then give the basket back to Mister Fredricson before heading up for bed. The eleventh bell rang not long ago, so I'll only get a bit of sleep before dinner. I also did a lot more work than usual today, so I'm pretty tired. When I lie down, I fall asleep immediately.