The Beast World's Gift : Rewritten

Chapter 8: .'s and soap

Adia POV

It's been a few weeks since the colossal incident. Fruit, medicine, or spices have been popping up every few days at our doorstep, Winston says it's one of the Royal wolves. He suspects it's a young male named Shuu.

I told Winston that if he shows up again bring him inside to discuss his intent with his gifts. His gifts were very useful as we didn't have to look for spices anymore.

Since the smoker was done, we've been starting to smoke meat and preserving it for salt trading and trading in general. We've gotten a few furs for trading meat and I've been spicing some of it and trading it for more expensive things, tools, clothes, and better furs and hides.

Curtis told me that many people are talking about how delicious my meat tastes, and it's the best they've ever tasted. We've had some delegates of the Leopard royal family buy some of the seasoned meat even. They paid with a small sapphire.

"Adia, what are you thinking about?" Winston asked me.

"I'm thinking about trying to make soap," I replied truthfully. I've put it on the back burner as it is a long process of making lye, rendering tallow, and putting in herbs for a scent.

"What's soap?" Both Curtis and Winston asked in unison.

"It's a liquid or a bar that you clean yourself with the smell good or to clean dirt more efficiently," I explained to them.

"If you tell us how to make it, we can make it for you," Winston told me while holding me close.

"It's a long process first we need ashes and water to make lye, one of the ingredients of soap, and tallow, which is animal fat," I started "To make lye, you add 10-12 handfuls of ashes and add water to the pot and boil it for half an hour, the. Let it sit and let the lye settle to the bottom and use a small jar to take any remaining water off the top then boil it again until a short bird egg can float on top of it,".

Winston and Curtis nodded. "But I need to warn you, Lye can and will burn you, you need to be extremely careful while handling and making it, and we should do this outside, so we don't breathe in the fumes, it is very dangerous to do so," I instructed.

They nodded and took me seriously. "Now tallow, tallow is animal fat. the most common fat used for soap tallow is bison/cows and deer, I feel like deer will be easiest, cutting off the fat and melting it on a fire for a long period of time, using cloth to strain large pieces of it, and then letting it sit in individual jars until hardened," I explained.

"That seems simple enough, we should do it tomorrow as we don't have enough time to do both of those tasks today," Curtis explained.

We decided to make some more smoked meat for salt trading to help with the tallow tomorrow, as salt is sometimes added to tallow. That's when I felt it.

"Adia, are you hurt?" Curtis asked me worriedly and flicked his tongue a few times.

"No, I just started my period..." I said a bit embarrassed as there was blood trailing down my leg.

Winston brought me to the house and handed me some cotton, a basin of water, a rag, and some clothes for me to clean up. "Thank you, Winston," I said. He kissed my forehead and went back out to give me some privacy.

I cleaned myself up and changed into the clothes, it was a tiger pelt dress much like the snake-skins one, but it wasn't a v-neck it was a tube dress that went to my mid-thigh that had a slit on each side of my leg for better movement. I placed the cotton in my underwear.

I wondered if Curtis or Winston wanted children. Karuun did tell me to do whatever I wanted here, and a family would be amazing here, should I ask Curtis or Winston first? How long do snake eggs need the incubate for? I'll ask when they come back inside.

I didn't have to wait for very long and Curtis came inside. "Curtis I have something I want to ask you," I started.

"What is it? Are you alright? You did say that heat or periods you call them can be painful," he fretted.

"No, I wanted to ask you how long Snake pregnancies are and how long snake eggs need to incubate," I chuckled over his confusion.

He gave me a blank stare like I was insane. "Hello? Earth to Curtis? Or Beastworld to Curtis?" I said.

"I think you broke him, Adia," Winston walked in with the smoke meat and chuckled at Curtis's blank stare.

"Y-You really want to have children with me?" Curtis asked unsure.

"Yes I do, now answer my questions," I asked with mock meanness.

"It depends on how much you eat and sleep for the eggs to grow, with your habits it would take a month and a half and incubation would need to be done over hibernation for proper hatching," Curtis explained.

"All alright so when will winter be? It'd be around 2 months yes?" I asked them.

"Yes, winter will happen in 2 months," Winston said.

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We packaged and traded the meat we had just smoked for salt and some 'medicine' I was going to use in the soap. I had asked Curtis when he went out to hunt to find shea seeds since this continent seemed to have literally on it.

When he came back, lo and behold he brought a few hide bags filled with the things. I immediately decided to process the shea nuts, by smashing them and placing them out in the storage room with the wood in it to be used tomorrow.

"Adia, why don't you let us do the work, it has to be uncomfortable to move due to your period," Winston told me.

"I still have more things to do, like preparing more things for soap," I said.

"Tell me and I'll do it," Winston said again.

"I need a long, rectangular wooden box that can be assembled and taken apart easily to let the soap settle in for cutting later on," I explained to him.

Curtis then helped me prepare ash for soap making later in by collecting some from the smoker, kitchen fire pile, and some in a discard pile that Curtis made a while ago.

In total, we collected about 5 jars the size of Mason Jars used for canning.

And Curtis brought back short birds from hunting, along with an entire nest!

Winston came back and taught me how to use the soap mold. He used vines to tie it together and Hold its shape, all you have to do is pull on them and it'll fall apart.

"Perfect! This will contain the soap for it to harden!" I exclaimed.

That night we made plans to start preparing tallow and lye water for soap making tomorrow as soap making is a VERY long process. Not to mention making shea butter, the process takes the entire day! Roasting them, grinding them, mixing them, adding water, melting them, and then letting them set.

Suddenly I'm glad I loved watching those informal videos on how our common amenities were made in the stone or iron age. Not to mention my brothers and father teaching me different things about the wilderness.

We ate our dinner with gusto, preparing for the taxing day Tomorrow.

Date posted: February 4th, 2024
Word count: 1274

Hey! This is a double chapter post! I have a really long Note for you on the next chapter