The blaze danced to the crack of the burnt bone , thrusting sparks on to the top of the cave. Gazing upon those shimmering dots with a bit of imagination would make a good resemblance of the starry night just a few steps away from the lightened cave. These scenes were not appreciated by the hunter though, as these are common elements of his daily, or rather, nightly life. The night was nevertheless peculiar. Calmly beside the bonfire, wrapped with a dull blanket was an intellectual companion. The weird feeling wasn't due to the fact that the hunter has not spoken to anyone in the last month, but he has never had someone that can communicate for the evening.
Most of the nights he stayed in caves like this or leaning by a tree, he had small creatures to talk to , but none that could talk back. On some occasions where he stayed in villages or towns, he never really initiated a conversation without necessity, nor have the coin or interest to visit the brothel. It is easy for others to misinterpret his silence as indifference and solitude, in fact, his delicate mind constantly takes in what the surrounding is presenting, constantly forming opinions and ideas on topics of interest, but he never actively expressed such thought to the average random person.
Why? you may ask. The answer can be complicated, since we can never fully understand the mechanics of other minds, nor ourselves. Fear could take part, the fear of rejection. Pride could take part, the pride of superiority. But these are not reasons that the hunter himself recognizes. His internal explanation is simple: because no one asked. What would justify the labor of converting the thoughts of one's mind into words when there is no demand? Perhaps spontaneous passion of expression, which the hunter does not have. And perhaps the crave for praise and admiration, but why would one require others to define the value of one's thought?
At the beginning of his journey he was more talkative and hospitable to whoever engaged with him, but over the years he learnt that most people that he encountered have no genuine interest in him, but rather minding their own businesses, or only need something from him. There is nothing wrong with that, and is the norm of the world he is in.
"Buu..BLah! Sigh...no, n..."
The Hunter suddenly made a loud noise, a phrase without meaning.
When one have spent a long time alone, its quite easy to be lost in his own mind, wandering to different topics and depths, unconsciously tampering with cringe memories and emotions. This random exclamation is a strategy that he uses to drag himself back to reality, just like children covering their ears and saying words out loud to overcome something they heard that they didn't like. Though what he was just thinking was a mystery.
He leaned forward towards the fire, resting both elbows on knees, and his cheeks on his palms, staring through the flickering tongues and landed on the face of the boy he dug up earlier today. Another sigh, again a mystery.
Another crack in the fire, but this time its soot didn't go up to the ceiling. A slight blow of wind dispersed it all over the place, and a few of them landed on boy's dry lip. His eyebrow twitched, reacting to the dint of pain and breathed in slightly with his mouth. A mass fragrant of protein particles rushed into his pharynx, bathing the entry of his digestive system with a mouth watering smell. Any hint of food would trigger some natural instincts after such an horrendous event, not to mention the irresistible smell of abundant oil and meat.
The boy slowly opened his eyes, then squeezed out to shut the glare of the flames. As he was able focus his gaze on the tips of the dancing fire, a face appeared. Dark bushes of untrimmed short beard and long hair contrasted by the bright orange skin and golden eyes, his gaze was steady, and the deep shades and vibrant palate made him look like a statue. The boy almost immediately acknowledged that this is the man that saved him, earlier than anything about the situation he is in now.
The boy wanted to spoke but in turn let out a few coughs, and in a smeared voice:
" Thankyou... for saving … me.."
The boy's throat is as dry as a desert, not that he have seem one before, but from the books and stories he knew that it is the land of sand, cracked grounds, and no rain. He growled for a bit trying to bring some phlegm from the bottom of his airway to lubricate, but they are too muddy to be beaten up the throat.
The hunter did a slight grin and responded:
" Maybe I didn't"
The boy look up with confusion
"Maybe I just need more..."
A bone was thrown in front of him
"Food."
These words didn't reach the Boy's mind immediately, then slowly, a stream of coldness creeped from the depth of the heart. He instinctively moved his limbs, but the right hand, he couldn't feel it. He looked down immediately, just to find out his body being wrapped in a blanket and his hand cannot be seen. he struggled and yelled, fell down on to the ground then pulled out his left hand to untangle the blanket.
The blanket was slightly long, but simply rolled around the boy. However his burning mind couldn't function calmly and rather violently pulling whichever layer his left hand could grab, while not having the strength to tear it apart. It took much longer than it should, and the hunter sat there, staring at this drama in front of him.
Eventually the blanket is removed, revealing the brownish white bandage that wrapped around his upper arm, across his torso, tied on the shoulder, which seemed to support something, something that the upper arm connects to.
The boy stared at it, then touched it, there is something beneath, then squeezed it lightly, there was a fuzzy sense of pain. He is again, confused, with a pumping heart, burning head, and short of breath. He turned to the Hunter, who is munching on another bone.
"its better to sit back up so less blood goes to the injury." and had a gulp from the bottle.
The boy was still panting, but his head calmed down. He dragged himself back to the wall and sat up, and took a deep breath, realizing his throat isn't so dry anymore.
The Hunter threw the water bottle or rather a pouch made from animal organs to him:
"You cant blame me for misunderstanding what I said mate, by food I meant the wolf that bit you." He kept on munching with an indifferent tone, looking at his bite on to the cooked canine leg.
The bottle laid there for a while until the boy picked it up and drank. Then choked on it, spilling some water on to the fire which sizzled away. He was mad towards the bad joke, but from the hunter's reactions he doesn't seem to be explicitly enjoying it, nor explicitly planned it to entertain himself. If it was not intentional, but only happened due to the boy's insecure imagination, then who is it to blame? The way the hunter spoke those words, or himself being inevitably afraid after what has happened?
The boy, has not gone through the above thought process. All he knows is that he is mad, and there must be someone to blame, either himself who is suffering or someone else. It was an easy choice.
"I ah....."
The hunter spoke
"used the wood that you collected to make the fire, hope you wont mind."
After the hunter dug out the boy and checking for other wolfs, he spotted a racket of branches nearby. He figured that the boy put it down and walked around a bit before the snow from the trees landed on him.
The boy was still catching his breath from choking, but it wasn't the reason he did not respond.
"but thanks to the fire I made this,"
From the leg he was holding , he tore a handful of meat off the bone, meat juice leaked out from the opening, covering his hand with a broth of grease. He lent it across to the boy.
This patch of irregular shaped meat grasped in greasy hands would ordinarily deem as the grossest possible way of serving. But this primitive intuitive act, void of any cultural notion of dining has presented this protein in it most original form and relation to life, invoking natural instincts through the gloomy flicker of the fire reflected by the hanging golden drop.
The boy unwillingly took the meat and sunk his teeth into the fat and tissue. He is not mad anymore.
Once finished, the hunter tore another piece of meat and lent it to the boy, and again when that is finished too. Every time the meat passed from hand to hand, oil fell to the charcoal below, igniting embers and cracks, that was the only thing that could be heard, other than them gnawing busily.
The 30 kilogram wolf was more than enough to feed an adult and juvenile human. Its skin was carefully cut off and preserved in exchange for money, the unfinished meat was kept away from the cave hung up on the tree to avoid other scavenging animals.
The cave is warm, and dry. The hunter and the boy's clothes were hung on a rope across the ceiling. After the hunter came back from dealing with things outside, he sat down in the same place opposing the boy, starting to disperse the fire so it would burn slowly. It wasn't intuitive to him that they have to talk.