Some people would say that rural life is boring and filled with backbreaking work, and they wouldn't be wrong! but damn, it is satisfying seeing something come to life after pouring hours of blood, sweat, and tears into its development!
Ren thought to himself, smiling as he broke branches of large dark purple grapes off the vine that spread across the long rows of fencing around him. Slowly placing them into his basket one at a time, taking care not to weigh down and crush the ones below it. Once the basket was full of branches, Ren placed the basket next to many others on a large worn-down wooden cart that was packed to the brim.
Ren smiled to himself, looking over his work as he wiped the sweat from his forehead walking in front of the cart, and lifted the front off the ground pulling it down the dirt path through the field of freshly picked grape vines toward a large cobblestone hut with lush green moss stuffed between the rocks making up the front of the building, with the rest built and carved into the side of a hill.
The hut overlooked the several acres of farmland that his family has taken care of for generations in Briarwood, which is a forested small harbor town currently boasting 20,000 residents belong to a small territory called the wildlands that is used as a buffer state between the Federation of Trazac and the Nation of Reine.
Ren dropped the front of the cart by the steps of the doorway and opened the front door leaning inside the doorway, calling for his two little brothers. "hey, Jasper and Asher! Can yall come out front and help me unload the baskets into the root cellar?". Soon after Ren left the doorway, two twin 15-year-old boys exited the home, one clad in black and the other in a light gold furred pelt around their shoulders like a cloak with hazel eyes and long braided brown hair. Minus the difference in pelt colors, they were the spitting image of each other.
They had all quickly gone to work transporting the goods into the house, going past a loud generator by the front door that was powering the house's light fixtures and appliances. When Ren walked past the living room towards the stairway to the cellar, he looked over to his father who was sleeping in front of the fireplace on a small cot covered in stitched-together pelts as a makeshift blanket, with only his sickly face and wooden leg sticking out to make sure he was unbothered.
Ren opened the doorway to the cellar with one hand and set two baskets down in the corner of the room, across from some sealed wine barrels. Ren turned and looked at Asher as he entered the room and did the same. "How has father been today, has he gotten any better?" Ren lifted his head up softly as he spoke. "Not sure myself, just got back from the hunt not long before you returned, jasper said he looked more pale when he fed him earlier. You might need to go into town when we are down and buy some medicine from one of the merchants at the harbor, I hear Tibalt has got some decent antibiotics this time around, but that stingy old man will charge a lot like usual."
Asher scoffed at the last part and pointed at some butchered meat that was strung up on the wall with yarn. "You can trade the pork bundle in, i butchered it yesterday so it'll fetch a decent sum. I caught a decent amount today so we will be fine on food for a bit." Ren smiled to himself;f his brothers were good kids who worked just as hard as he did to keep things running with one sick parent and another deceased. They had lost their mother a few years back to a bad case of pneumonia during the winter.
After about thirty or so minutes they had finished unloading the cargo and organized the lot, turning on a small air conditioning unit as they closed the door to the cellar behind them with Ren carrying about 10 pounds of meat secured in a net made up of twine slung over his shoulder, grabbing a small pouch of coin off a counter. "Do you two need anything from town? Arrows or any tool replacements?" Ren tilted his head towards his two brothers as he walked to the door.
Asher and Jasper both nodded their head no in unison, and went to settle down next to their father at the hearth. "I will have some rabbit stew cooked up by the time you get back, I will leave it on the stove to keep warm, keep watch for the wolves on your way!" Jasper said as he took his boots off and stretched on the ground next to the cot.
"I will! I heard the pack has migrated from the area in the last few days from the tracker in town. I should be back by sunset." Ren waved goodbye as he exited the house and began walking the 2 miles into town alongside a gravel road.