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Scotts POV
I caught movement out of the corner of my eye as I fixed Chris and Kellen's sad attempt to put together Amelia's cauldron holder.
Turning to see I watched Amelia say something to Ava as she walked up to her tree hut. Ava gave a small nod before turning to head back our way. I turned back around and popped the support beam into place on the pot holder.
"Wait why didn't you guys tell us the beam went in diagonal that would have caused us so much less trouble"
Kellen wined from the side as I picked up the large pot and placed it over the still warm coals from this morning
"Well to be honest you should know that considering how many times you've seen this thing"
I took our fire stick and stirred up the coals under the pot.
"He has a point"
Chris chimed in. He was sitting and munching on a cinnamon roll. Silver cream glinting off his nose.
I stopped poking at the coals and grabbed a few of the logs that I had stacked under the table this morning and threw them onto the coals.
"You've got frosting on your nose, how'd you manage that?"
Chris went cross eyed as he wiped his nose with a finger and quickly licked the extra cream off. Kellen raised an eyebrow.
"How did you manage that?"
Chris just shrugged and shoved the rest of his cinnamon rolls in his mouth.
"Come on, we gotta get the water for amelia"
Kellen stood and yanked Chris out of the firepit. Dragging him tword the freshwater lake that sat at the back of the crater. All well Chris mumbled protests around his cinnamon roll.
Turning back to the fire i poked at the coals rolling the logs into a rough circle under the large pot and raked the coals up into piles around them. There was smoke rolling off the logs. We just need one to light. Knowing what to do I reached down to my log stack under the table and pulled the bark off of one of the logs. All of the bark came off in one big chunk and I was able to crush up the under layers into kindling that would definitely go up in a blaze. I chucked the now bark less log into the center of the fire and threw the bark in. It landed face up so my kindling was kind of useless. I used the fire stick to flip it, sending the kindling into the coals. A small fire bloomed immediately and started licking at the other logs.
I turned at the sound of avas footsteps.
"Alrighty are we done eating?"
Ava stepped down into the fireplace glancing around at the rescues. Who in turn glanced around at each other. Their plates were mostly empty but a few were still munching on the last of their cinnamon roll.
"Okay im gonna talk well you finish up. Now I need a raise of hands who got a burn or raw skin from the holsters we had you wear on the way here."
All of the rescues raised their hands and I stifled a chuckle as I continued to poke at the fire.
"Good, well not good but good for my point. Now this"
Ava brandished her left upper arm holster.
"This is obviously a holster just like the ones you wore, the difference? Mine doesn't do that to me. You need to find your favorite holster and prevent it from rubbing your skin raw because you need a knife"
She reached up, pulling the knife out of her holster and presenting it to the rescues.
"Now you may wonder why you need a knife. First self-defense, I hate to scare you but I need to, this place is hostile."
Ava continued to explain the importance of everyone having a knife. Talking about the simple things like cutting fruits and veggies down, or cutting your way out of a thorn bush.
The rescues nodded along, setting their plates in a stack on the table.
The fire was now roaring under the large pot licking at the sides and the pot was hot to the touch. Time for the stew ingredients.
Glancing behind me kellen and Chris were nowhere to be seen. Ill just head up to amelia's hut. She probably went up there to prep the food anyway.
Turning i walked up the stairs in the fire pit and made my way over to Amelia's tree. Climbing the stairs to her tree I glanced over toward the freshwater lake in the distance. I could see Kellen and Chris walking over, Chris carrying a large jar of water for the stew.
Continuing up the stairs I rounded the tree twice more before stepping into the tree hollow Amelia's hut was in.
I walked down the trail and up to the door passing under the glow flower trellis that hung over the door.
"Hey Amelia, you need help?"
I pushed the door open, Amelia popped up from behind the island in her kitchen. Plopping down a large wooden bowl.
"Oh uh yeah actually, i Just chopped the carrots, caranth, and potatoes. They are on the counter over there. If you could take those outside, I'm gonna finish chopping the cluckles and then move on to the iru and naepa meat."
Quickley stepping into the room I followed where Amelia had nodded. She went back to rifling through the bowls under her island table. Probably looking for a bowl that wasn't big enough to be a sink.
I walked to the left of the room passing by the island and ending up at a counter where three bowls of chopped roots sat nicely.The potatoes were cut into mid sized cubes, but the caranth and carrots were simply cut into standard slices leaving cute orange and rainbow circles. I carefully stacked the caranth and the potatoes, scooping up the dual stack of bowls and grabbin the carrots with my free hand; and marching back to the door.
"In the pot or wait?"
I glanced back over my shoulder seeing Amelia wiping her hands on a cloth as she reached to open the door for me.
"Wait, I want the meat first. The iru is kinda frozen in some parts still."
Amelia pulled open the door and I stepped outside.
"Okay meet first got it, Its cold enough to freeze already?"
Amelia nodded.
"Yeah, not fully yet so we can't start storing but we should be able to soon. That will also give the rescues a lot more practice. We don't have to worry about eating everything they hunt when we can just freeze it."
I nodded and Amelia let the door swing closed. Turning i headed back up the path and out of the tree hollow.
By the time I made it back to the fire pit Chris and kellin had long made it back to the firepit. A large gourd shaped clay pot sat on one of the chairs next to the two boys who were whittling at something with their knives.
"What are the two of you making"
Kellen and Chris paused and looked up as i stepped down into the fireplace. I set the three bowls down, unstacking the two, and plopping down off to chris's left.
"Everin was finally able to show us how to make those tree tappers for sap. They use Nerinx bones due to the density but because you aren't allowed to kill them you have to either find one that passed or wait until one does."
Chris turned to me and opened his hand showing the tapper.
It wasn't large, it spanned the length between his wrist and the tip of his middle finger. The whole thing was carved into a mostly smooth tube with a small lip near one end about a half inch before the tube ended. That same edge was where the top of the cylinder opened and you could see the center of the tapper was open. The bottom of the cylinder tapered to direct the sap into your collecting reciprocal.
"How do you carve the center?"
I grabbed the tapper and looked through the center. There was no way you were gonna fit a knife inside of that.
"Oh yeah you use this"
I looked up as kellen pulled a hoof knife out of his pocket, the small hook at the tip of the blade hooking to his pant leg causing a small struggle.
"Oh yeah that makes sense"
"I told you not to pocket that, even if its got a cover."
Kellen waved Chris off and demonstrated how the center of the tapper was carved.
"What bone is this? It seems quite short but really wide."
"Oh it's the rib"
Chris answered my question looking away from kellen to take the tapper back from my hand.
"Tappers are quite hard to come by because of the long nerix lifespan so Everin was only able to give us enough for two tappers. Thankfully we didn't have any cracking so these should work just fine"
"Interesting, so these are just small sections of one big rib?"
"Yea, they were only gonna give us one but Everen was able to get them to give us two. That dudes awesome."
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I reached forward from my place on the bench grabbing the fire stick and poking an unlit log further into the fire which was now in full bloom. It had been a while since Ide grabbed the bowls of chopped roots and amelia was nowhere to be seen.
"Were you supposed to go back up there?"
"I'm not sure, Why?"
I glanced up at kellen but both him and Chris were looking off into the distance. Following their eyeline I was just in time to watch Amelia step off the last steps of her tree hut. On one arm she balanced two large bowls. They took up the whole length of her forearm together and had three other bowls stacked on top. One of the bowls was about half the size of the large bowls and the other two were only about a quarter. In the other hand she had another bowl of the smallest size. It fit perfectly in her hand. Somehow she also had extra fingers which she held a long wooden rod. Probably to stir the stew with. Lastly I could see a ladle, a covered cooking knife, and a small cutting board tucked securely into her belt.
"We should go help"
"Yeah definitely"
I quickly stood up and marched across the grass to Amelia. Kellen and Scott followed close behind.
"I've got it"
Amelia hollered at us as we ran over to help her. Quickly I removed the three smallest bowls. One had two heads of garlic and a thicar, the next was the stew spices, and the last was erae butter. A spoon stuck out of the butter, must've been the tool she used to move the butter to this bowl.
Kellen grabbed the mid sized bowl and the stirring rod. The mid sized bowl looked to be full of the cluckles Amelia had mentioned. The round root starches were simply sliced in half. The small brown and pink plumb sized roots still had the skin on.
Chris finished off by grabbing the two large bowls. They were full of meat, one is Iru and the other was Naepa. Quite frankly I don't know the difference visabley but Amelia prefers to cut Iru into cubes and Naepa into strips. She swears up and down there is a difference though.
"I had it guys"
"Nope you should have called us."
Amelia huffed and crossed her arms as we all walked back over to the fireplace.