stillplaying | 3rd Game

Entry tags:

luceti

3rd Game

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Maybe they had caught on, these animals whose whispers she ignored when in the woods. She might not be the only hunter here, but she knows she's one of the more frequent. After all, she's out here every day. Sometimes she wanders further from the western lake but most of the time, she remains close to her treehouse home. Checking traps, gathering plants, losing herself in almost a ritualistic manner. It's the best way to keep memories at bay.

But on days like today, when game is scarce, it's harder. And she remembers. She lists the dead in her head, all the faces that haunt her in her dreams. The way they still all come together some nights to bury her alive. It's a recurring dream, always the same. Except, since coming here, she no longer sees Rue's face within the crows. It's the smallest of reassurances.

She's quietly whispering that list to herself, that list of all those people she's killed. All the deaths she's been responsible for. She has no right to be alive. She should be as dead as the rest of them. She deserves to be. And maybe that's what this is. Being back in a game again. Punishment.

But aside from that one awful shift, that horrible hijacking, it hasn't been so bad. And having Rue back... she doesn't deserve that.]

Cato. [The list continues as she continues to walk quietly in the forest, bow in hand.] Marvel. Glimm-

[The breaking of a twig stops her. She falls silent and looks around until her eyes fall on a young buck a few yards down, not even mature. The antlers are in velvet, barely little more than nubs sticking from the head. He looks as startled to see her as she is to see him. But a year or two older than any yearling. Perfect game. An arrow is drawn before she realizes what she's even doing.

There's only one moment of hesitation. When she remembers the last deer she brought down, with Gale's help, back in the woods of District Twelve. She's never attempted to kill one on her own. And a deer this size, it'll be too big for her to take back on her own. The amount of meat will be too much for two small girls.

But... she can think of people she's met here, potential allies, she'd happily share her meat with. Her arrow goes flying, piercing a lung. The buck bolts and her second shot isn't as true, hitting it in the midsection. And then she's running after it. It's not a long run. The animal stumbles over a log in its desperate flee and falls. She gets in one final shot, right in the heart.

There's a sense of grim satisfaction as she watches the deer exhale his final breath. Then she's on her knees, carefully removing and wiping her arrows. She places her bow on the ground and pushes the animal onto its back. She takes out her knife to make a small incision by the genitals. It's followed by a longer cut up towards the chest. Field dressing first. Then she'll request aid.

Voice;

So by the time she opens the journal, there are a couple of blood smears on her face. She looks uncharacteristically happy, though. Proud. She's never taken down her own deer before. It makes her forget any uncomfortableness that accompanies asking for help. She wipes some stray strand of hair from her face, leaving a small blood trail on her forehead.]

Is there a butcher in town? [An important question. Although she can probably butcher her deer on her own if worse comes to worse, she's never done it before. The first had been nearly attacked in the Hob, the other few taken to Rooba.] I caught a deer. There's so much meat. Too much for me and Rue alone. I'm willing to share. But I'll need help getting it to town, too.

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[He nods, leaving it at that, before tossing down the bag of tools to better take a look at that deer.]

Time for a different kind of practice. Hope you have time, because this is gonna take an hour or so.

I do.

[And even if she didn't, she'd make time. This is important. A skill she could use if she ever catches another deer.]

Good.

[He gauges the size of the deer quickly before turning back to her.]

Name's Shikamaru, by the way.

[ooc: I'm assuming the deer hasn't been field dressed?]

Katniss Everdeen.

[ooc: I had her do that much already! Just removal of the organs though, no skinning.]

[ooc: got it! 8|b]

Good to meet you. [He turns to pick out the nearest tree with a lower hanging branch.] We'll need to skin him first before we can do anything with the meat. Seems like you got the hard part out of the way - what'd you do with the organs?

[As he talks, he bends down to root a rope out of his bag. He's used to hanging the deer to work with them like this.]

[She pulls a plastic bag from her hunting bag and holds it up for him to see. People sometimes had use for the innards in the Hob. It's possible that it'd be like that here, too. It would have been a waste to leave them in the forest. And then there's Buttercup.]

I have a cat who likes the liver.

Worst places it can go.

[He peers briefly at the bag before working on pulling the deer over to the tree.]

The stomach makes a handy sacks, for water and things. Might use it later.

Do you use that bow often?

It's yours.

[Aside from the liver, maybe the kidneys, she doubts Buttercup will touch the rest of the organs. But that'll still make the cat agreeable for a couple of days, at least. And it doesn't bother her as much as it used to, spoiling Buttercup. Prim would've wanted that.

She follows him to the tree and hooks the plastic bag, her hunting bag and bow on a low branch to keep them away from the deer. At his question, she nods.] It's how I learned to hunt.

Hm. [Shikamaru ties the rope around the deers legs, and works on hanging it upside down.] You'll have better use of the tendons than I would, then. You can make decent bow strings out of them.

[Her father had done that once. With some of the earliest bows she can remember him making. It had been better like that, he had claimed. They used the whole animal that way. And it limited the chances of the Peacekeepers learning about the bows. But he had died before having a chance to teach her.] Do you know how to do that, too?

Edited 2012-05-23 01:22 (UTC)

I can figure it out.

[The tricky deer preparations usually went to the non-shinobi clansmen. He'd watch when he was younger, but he himself only learned the basics. But he remembers.]

We'll need to remove the tendons before we work on the meat [and he grunts, holding the deer's weight while he secures another knot] but we still have to skin it first.

[She steps in to take some of the deer's weight for herself. Her strength has come back since arriving in Luceti, though she still looks skinny.]

I have a skinning knife. But I've never tried skinning something this big before.

[A man getting help from a girl, sob. Good thing this doesn't bother him like it used to. Yup. Good thing.]

I brought some tools for it. But if you plan on doing this for future kills, you'll want to get a sharpening stone.

[There, the deer is good and secure for them to begin.]

[A nod.]

I have one. I just don't carry it with me.

[No need, really. Most of her game is small. Animals she's caught a million times before and can gut and skin in her sleep. Knives are sharpened before she leaves. Every time.]

[He nods. That's good.

After bringing back over the sack of tools, he's going to work off skinning the deer much like in this guide, sawing through the pelvis and all. When it comes time to saw off the hind legs:]

Ever hear of hockskins?

[She watches him intently, paying attention to every movement and every detail. Nothing repulses her. She's spent too much of her life in the forest to really be disgusted by this process. Not when she's much more eager to learn how to do this for herself.

At his question, she shakes her head.]No.

[Shikamaru saws through, before lifting the leg.]

That's the skin down here. Most hunters throw it away, because it's thin, but it's very strong. Wrap them around the hilt of a weapon, or that bow, and it'll make a good grip.

[She holds a hand out to take the leg, wanting a better look.]

Is there a special way to get it off?

[He hands it over.]

That it's thin makes it troublesome, but you just skin it like anything else. It's a creative process, but if you want to get started on that you can.

[She's skinned enough animals in her life to feel confident enough to multitask. And if she finds herself paying more attention to her task than Nara, she'll just have to pause. So she takes out her knife and settles on a rock to very carefully remove the hockskin.

Every now and then, though, she does glance upward to study the progress being made on the rest of the deer.]

[He dictates what he's doing as he works, so that should help too. Soon he's pulling the skin around the bucks head before reaching for the saw again.]

Not sure if you'd want to make leather, but if you get another kill, every deer has a large enough brain to tan its own hide.

[She shakes her head, looking up from her own work at the statement. Up until now, she really never realized just how much she had been dependent on those in the Hob for things such as leather making. Butchering. Utilizing any part of the animal she didn't need to bring home -- basically, everything but the meat.

It makes her feel uncomfortable. Dumb. But she tries her best to just pay attention and not give in to her own growing frustration with herself.]

I'll remember that.

[Once the skin is off, and the antlers with them, he checks the latter with a light touch.]

Still soft.

[She stands to put the carefully removed hockskins on a lower branch. Then she walks closer to Nara.]

Can you remove the velvet without damaging the antlers?

Oh yeah. When it's soft like this [he holds it out, so she can see for herself] it just peels away. Won't even have to scrape.

[With his other hand, Shikamaru pulls out a small container from his vest, about three inches in diameter, to collect it in.]

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