Kai got busy making her brooms. She outlined in her mind witches’ brooms most of all and their construction, then thought of different materials and different forms of brooms that she may make.

She decided to make two styles of brooms, the twig style broom and the grass-straw style broom. She needed to start crude and recall the styles that floated in her mind. She knew where to start and needed to just go about it trial and error style to attain the right one. There was no right or wrong in this venture, just feasibility and utility with what she had on hand.

Kai saw that the water was boiling so she left to grab the MRE linguine, some twine, some metal wire, and her other utility tool that had the scissors attachment.

When she got to the cave, she saw the side bag with her foraged veggies and decided to rifle through it to selectively grab a handful that she would eat tonight. She created a bouquet of edible plants that she wound together using a small section of twine, roping it together. What she had in her hand that was tied up was some stems of chinese broccoli, thai basil, a fresh sprig of dill, ginseng flowers, watercress, a couple fiddleheads, wild enoki mushrooms, a few slices of bamboo shoots, and a few leaves of bok choi.

She noticed some edible chrysanthemum growing not too far and made a mental note to harvest that and cook it tonight. As she was short on time, she decided to do a bundle-boil to minimize the amount of attention required while cooking. She picked two shiitake mushrooms and headed back to the fire with her collection of materials and food.

Kai immediately placed the tools by her seat near the fire, tossed the two mushrooms into the boiling pot, and placed the MRE packet on the ground with her edible bouquet on top of it. She spotted the growing wild edible chrysanthemum and walked over to pluck a fair bunch to eat for that night, leaving the rest to grow and to pick later on when necessary. Back at the fire a few feet away, she tied that bundle up together and put the two bundles together into the boiling water along with the MRE ration.

All three started to cook and she seemed pleased, already smelling the scents of deliciousness wafting in the air within the first few minutes. She had to take it off the fire as it was boiling too hard and used a stick across the rounded handles to lift it off the stove and onto the ground. She decided to time herself with her watch, keeping tabs on how long the vegetables and MRE were cooking with the residual heat.

While she waited, she began to collect the long twigs for her broom. She found the straight ones and pushed a bunch into the empty middle section of the bamboo pole she chose. Then she wrapped the rest around the end and used the wire she had to tie the rest up firmly. It did not look too shabby and was quite crude but did the job like a rake. She knew that with using it, it would only get better as the friction on the ground would even out the odd lengths of the twigs off-branches.

The process of making this broom was quick and she immediately went to fish the food out of the pot, using her chopsticks and fingers to start with the MRE ration, then the vegetables. She had the bowl from earlier, washed out and clean, waiting to be used. The MRE was too hot to handle but the veggie bunches plopped into the bowl and the twine was cut, revealing a beautiful medley of cooked vegetation. Using her knife, she sliced the rest of the top off of the ration and poured it on the side, adding to the vibrant green in the bowl. It was all steaming hard so Kai decided to let it sit for a bit while she worked on her other broom in the meantime.

Her second broom would be made with a trial and error version of the standard grass broom. She was looking at the variety of materials and wanted to go for the obvious thin grass husk-top type of materials. She did not have a lot and instead, had a variety of green bamboo leaves attached to the branch. These were straight and she decided to work with that material instead. She weaved the ends of the bunches together and tied them off with twine. She made a few bunches with the leaves pointing down and tied the rest to a new bamboo pole. It was wonky but it seemed to work. It looked like it wouldn’t last with the leaves staying on however she wanted to try this fanned out fresh bamboo broom to get rid of the sandy debris in the cave.

Alas, her food seemed to cool down enough and she sat down, ready to enjoy her meal. She fished out the two hot mushrooms that were floating around in the water, plopping the steaming juicy fungus into her bowl. She then used her chop sticks to stir the green mixture together, creating a delicate aromatic veggie pasta.

“MMmmmmmm” Kai moaned as she slurped up the cooked green produce. The noodles mixed well, creating a type of springy texture while the greens provided a crunchy mouthfeel, flavors dancing on her tongue. The herbs helped meld the variety of flavors and she knew she would have to try this low-effort type of dish again. It did not kill her taste buds as she originally thought that the MRE would have been completely bland. The vitality in the veggies and possibly the water had helped in embellishing the creative dish to become a better version of itself, as the linguine alone would have completely killed the enthusiasm of the mealtime.

She quickly gulped up the meal, realizing she was hungrier then she let on, and decided to give the two brooms a trial run. Kai made a mental note of collecting a variety of grass stalks or corn tops to make a heightened version of her brooms later, possibly as a potential gift for the tribe.

She knew how to weave as she learned growing up in the past, bacon-weaving aside. Her mum got her to make simple newspaper baskets as a child and this was engraved on her as her mum ended up forgoing the craft session halfway, leaving Kai to finish it all herself. She chuckled at the thought as she moved everything from inside the cave, to outside and out of the way, prepping for the cleanup.

Kai got busy. The light was fading fast and she needed to procure fresh foliage to act as her temporary bed after doing a clean sweep. Mao was hungry and poked her just as she started to work.

“Miaoo Kai-iii-iioo, this mighty one is hungry…” he protested, pawing his belly.

“Wait a sec, Mao, let me finish this and I’ll let you have a half can.” She promised, buisily sweeping away the sandy debris out of the entrance.

She ended up making a slight dust cloud, using the twig broom effectively to haul out larger sized debris. Piles upon piles of sand and debris found its way out of the cave to the left, causing the entrance to become more of a proper-looking rammed earth pathway. The sand and debris kept on being pushed out of the cave with the combination of both brooms. She kept this up constantly for a while, trying to get every speck of dirt out of the cave, revealing a beautiful stone floor. It had ripples on it as if she was standing on the stone like deep dark water, ripples stuck as if she took a step and it froze in a moment in time. It had a soft deep hue to it, and she wondered what type of material it was.

As kai finished, sweat poured down her face and mixed with the dust, causing her to have dirty streaks on her face. She did not like this feeling and thought about taking a dip in the pool of water in a calm area. She figured she’d take a dip after collecting her bedding. Just as she was going to head out, she remembered about Mao and went about bringing back the belongings into the cave. She picked a nice spot for him and opened a full can, placing it down for him to chow on. He seemed to have a huge grin on his face as she nodded for him to take the whole thing. She knew he would be distracted long enough for her to bathe in peace.

Kai headed out once more to find broad foliage in the forest and came across a few palm trees, picking the juiciest leaves, and bringing them back to the cave. She then stripped down to her underwear and shoes, bringing along a small towel from her pack and a small mesh bag in case she came across anything edible in her water venture.

She walked along the short path and got to the waters edge, following it a few minutes until she came to a beach type area. She placed her towel and shoes on the rock and slipped into the water, letting the coldness brush past her overheated body, cooling her and cleansing her to the core.

She sighed in relief and slowly walked forwards, keeping her eyes peeled for anything worth scavenging or anything that would threaten her life. She still had her utility knife on her, clipped into the middle of her bra and hanging off her cleavage.

A few minutes after walking into the water, she felt something squish between her toes and her eyes grew wide…