Firefly forest, Tuvroya
March 17, 1002
-~•~-
I felt a hand roughly shake my shoulder, and I yawned and stretched inside of my bed.
It wasn't the comfiest bed, but it sure as heck wasn't the worst bed in the world. I could get some pretty good sleep on it.
I'd say the covers were the only part about my bed that I absolutely hated. During Winter, the covers didn't hide me from the cold. When it was Summer, the covers couldn't stop me from heating up. The only seasons I truly liked were Spring and Fall for the reasons of my covers not being compatible with Summer and Winter. Lucky me, it was currently Spring.
"Hey, little bear cub, wake up," my father said lightly, shaking my shoulder.
I groaned and asked, "do I have to? I don't wanna get up..."
I felt the hand on my shoulder pull away, and my dad's voice softly replied, "then I guess I'll go hunting on my own today..."
That got me to open my eyes and dash out of bed. "Hunting? Yes! Hunting!" I yelled, running towards my closet and pushing my hands through all my clothes, trying to find an appropriate outfit for the day.
I showed my dad out of my room as I tried to get changed, and then I dragged myself out of my room. Once I was done, I took my bow and a quiver full of exactly fifteen arrows. I walked out of my room with a brown shirt that went a little below my waist and a belt tied around my waistline. I had dark brown pants, and I also had black boots. It matched perfectly with my chocolate brown skin.
I was smiling and walked out of my room to check on my dad in the living room to see my dad wearing casual hunting clothes, which were almost exactly like mine, but he had a coat over his shirt and belt. He had a large bow in his hand, and his quiver of arrows was already on his back.
"You ready, little bear cub?" He asked.
"Ready as I'll ever be," I answered.
He nodded and replied with a goofy smile, "nice to know you're ready for breakfast first."
"Wha- I meant I was ready for..." I started, trailing off as I realized how disappointed I was.
He laughed, which made me smile. Oh well, I guess hunting could wait for breakfast.
I walked over to the table, where my mom seemed to be preparing a hedgehog for all of us. I was disappointed yet again. "Only a hedgehog? What about the leftovers of the peacock from last night?" I asked.
They had eaten a peacock last night. Oh, it looked so good as my mother managed to pluck out the feathers and roast it in the furnace! My mouth had been drooling last night, I wanted to eat that peacock. Peacock was actually my second favorite food. Fun fact; bear was the best type of food there was when my dad went out to find one on his own for Mother. But once the peacock was finished cooking, it had been placed on the table in front of me, and I had lunged for it with my wooden fork, forcing the delicious meat into my mouth.
You couldn't confuse peacocks with chickens. Chicken meat was dull while peacocks were flavorful and more tender. It was more juicy, and the texture was a bit more rough. It had a certain sweetness to it that just made the peacock all more enjoyable, and a slight smell coming from it that I just couldn't have placed. No, it wasn't a smell, it was an aroma.
In the end, there were a ton of leftovers because I couldn't have eaten anymore, I was way too full. The peacock was very filling, and I felt like I would never have to eat again.
But of course, never having to eat again was just an exaggeration. Of course, today I was feeling hungry yet again. Now, instead of having leftovers of the extravagant peacock from last night, we had a small hedgehog in front of us. I thought she meant that everyone would get to eat their own hedgehog, but no, there was one, little, tiny slice of meat just sitting in front of all of us on the table as my mother sat down again.
"We can't all share this for breakfast," I remarked as I started to poke the meat with my fork, finding it hard to actually stick the fork in it.
"We can, and we must," my father replied back simply. He dragged a large fork and a large knife and started to slice through the hedgehog meat. Once he was finished cutting, I got the smallest slice and my father got the largest.
We all ate this dull-tasting meat of a dumb animal for breakfast. Normally we would have pomegranates and peaches and plums, but my mother said we were all in need of a quote-on-quote "treat".
While my parents finished up, I started to talk my mouth off, asking so many questions about hunting. "Mom, what meat do you want?" I questioned.
"Anything would be fine with me, dear," my mom replied before taking another beat into the horrid, stupid hedgehog.
"So you'd be fine if I hunted you a beetle, or a spider?" My mother put her hedgehog down as I continued to relentlessly annoy her, and I could almost already see the annoyance fuming from her eyes.
"Well, no, hun... Listen, there are some animals that you just don't hunt unless you are not a human, and beetles and spiders are some of them."
"That makes no sense... All I understood from that was that you do want specific meats and not just dumb plain 'anything'?"
"No, I want-"
"One beetle and spider stew coming up then!"
"Fine, I'll have bear meat. Just remember though that I'm also fine with-"
"Don't you dare say 'anything' again."
"My goodness. Just get me food and be done with it."
"I'll kill a bear for you, I swear," I told her, my eyes sparkling with mischief and yet at the same time, a small bit of happiness.
"Great, thanks my sweet," my mother calmly replied, picking up her hedgehog meat again. But when I looked into her eyes I could see just how annoyed she was.
My mother has good taste in meat, I guess I never knew that, I thought to myself, slowly nodding my head before turning to annoy my father. "Father, when are we-"
My father gave me the stink eye, a glare of death, and said, "don't you dare even try to annoy me, little bear cub."
My mother then finished her hedgehog meat and stared at me confusedly. "So, when are you going to marry, Abigale?"
My father put his nearly finished slice of hedgehog meat down quickly, turning towards me. Darn it, I forgot I hadn't come out to my mother yet. I wonder why I hadn't yet. Of course my mother would understand, what was I waiting for? Then I realized it was because of just me and my stupid fears.
"Soon," was all that I replied with.
Once we were finished, I ran outside as fast as a lightning bolt. I was actually going to go hunting! I was actually going to do what I had been working for my entire life! I was ecstatic, and my father had to continuously try to calm me down. He did calm me down somewhat, but I still wore a goofy smile on my face no matter how many times he tried to calm me.
"Lets go catch this bear!" I yelled, and he just laughed, which caused me to laugh too at his highly contagious giggles.
I walked slowly into the forest, the smile still plastered as strong as steel on my face. I wondered what my mother was doing at home right now. Maybe she was cleaning the house for the second time already in one day? Maybe she was cooking up the peacock leftovers for herself. Maybe she was secretly reading one of dad's journals, where he wrote a fictional story that I wasn't allowed to read. My head filled up with so many 'maybes' that I didn't see my dad stop until a hand went right out in front of me.
I let out a little gasp and at him I yelled, "hey!"
"Bear!" He whispered back, eyes not coming off of whatever was in front of us.
"Yeah?" I replied, thinking he was talking about me, and making my nickname of 'little bear cub' even shorter into just 'bear'.
"Bear!" He repeated himself, this time turning towards me. I could see excitement glittering in his eyes.
"Yeah, what do you need me for?" I asked, starting to get annoyed.
"No, not you, silly!" My father half-whispered, half-laughed, "look in front of you! It's the largest bear I've ever seen in the entire world!"
I finally turned around and saw what my father was looking at. Indeed, it was a great brown bear. Either it was so large because it was so fat, or all of that large body was made of muscle, flesh, blood, and bone.
I gasped, and then lowered the volume of my voice to say, "that has got to be the king bear."
I just saw my father look at me, and he looked like he was hungry, hungry for blood. He wanted to kill the king bear.
We nodded at each other, and I started to shuffle my way through the bushes, away from where my dad started to crouch and slowly advance to the great beast. I watched calmly as he then aimed an arrow, and as it shot directly into the bear's chest. I heard a low but weak growl come from the bear, and then another arrow was suddenly shot into the bear's eye, and blood went flying. As the bear fell over onto the ground in pain and misery, my dad then walked out of his hiding spot, aiming another arrow at the king bear. "That's how you kill, little bear cub. Welcome to the forest," my father said as I walked out of the bushes too, turning to me. Then he shot his arrow into the bear, and the beast's rising chest rose once more, and then fell. The king bear has entered his long and great slumber, I thought.
"So, what's next?" I asked, longing to be just like my father, and kill something as great as the king bear.
"I thought I saw a squirrel over there, it would be a perfect first kill for someone like you, little Abigale," he explained to me, pointing to where he had seen this supposed squirrel.
"Great!" I exclaimed, not taking my gaze off the bushes, stalking my prey like a great wolf on top of the greatest mountain.
I shot an arrow into the brush, and watched as a small orange figure started to dash across the small field a little bit beyond where I usually did archery practice with my dad.
I shot another arrow, and watched as it sank into the flesh of the squirrel, and both my dad and I started to either carry or drag the animal corpses back to the home (of course, I had to help my father carry the king bear's carcass back, which we had chopped into two bits so that we would have to make two runs back and forth so that we could actually carry it).
We walked in silence for the first few minutes back to the house. We didn't start stalking any prey on our way back, as our hands were full.
Plus, this time, it wasn't us that was aiming their strike to kill...
(1990 words)