A Squire Searching

[ScoutTheWitch 393]

A Squire Searching

 

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A young squire returning to her camp inside the cave after a day hunting.

 

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          The whipping wind crashed snow against the mouth of the cave, in which sat a young girl hunched over a small fire. A pair of heavy boots crushed the snow by the entrance, an older man approaching her, letting the warm orange glow illuminate the angles of his face. She glanced up to him, letting out a deep sigh of relief at his face, easing her hand back from the spear resting on the stone wall.

          Osric Tsecsar gazed down to the arctic hare meat roasting above the fire and to the girl, “I see you’ve got a steady shelter.”

          Emelya Eloise Kortrevich nodded, “Ea found this place, decently well ventilated for the smoke, but it keeps the heat in.”

          “I’m surprised a bear hasn’t made it their home.”

          The squire sighed and nodded again, removing a piece of the hare’s breast meat with a dense skewer, ripping a bite from it with her teeth, “Da, but if one tried, they’d have to get through eam.” She chuckled.

          He chuckled as well, shaking his head before standing back upright, “It seems you’re doing well after a month, I’ll leave you to it.” He turned around, his cloak billowing back towards Emelya before he took a few steps out back into the snow, “Good luck, little knight. Goodbye for now.”

          “Dravi Firr Tsecsar.” She responded, returning to her food.

* * *

          After a couple months, Osric would return to the young squire’s encampment deep in the Rimeveld as he had done every week, peering through the cave entrance towards Emelya, this time scraping the edge of a pointed rock against the head of her spear, “Kept yourself busy?”

          “Ai.” She said as she procured some fibers and began to fit the pointed rock with a straightened stick, tying it in a cross pattern after inserting the tip into a divot opposite to the tip, “Yam working on increasing mea arsenal and, given mea skill with a bow, ea thought this would be the most dobry idea.” She gestured to a dense stick which seemed to have been carved with the speartip into an unstrung bow.

          “Good, good. You ought to be working on getting that pelt. You cannot just hunt rabbits forever.” He took a seat across from her at the crackling fire.

          “Ea just want to be prepared. If ea lose mea spear in the conflict, ea do niet want to be unarmed.” She slipped a carved dowel through the tip perpendicular to the shaft of the arrow, tying the fibers around before cutting the end on the speartip and finishing off the knot.

          “So you chose the spear as a tool?”

          She nodded, “Tools are the most important to survival. If vy want to make something, a sharp object comes in handy.”

          “That it does.” He nodded in return, “When I return I hope to see you donning a new pelt.” He chuckled, standing up again, “Good luck.”

          Emelya set down her arrow next to a small pile of others, “Dravi Firr Tsecsar.”

* * *

          Six months have passed since Emelya Eloise Kortrevich trekked out into the Rimeveld alone. Now, sitting on a log by the fire, the squire struck a very different, more built, hardened, and intimidating visage than that of the young girl who journeyed into this wasteland.

          Ducking down to enter the cave, Osric Tsecsar realized the difference as he gazed up, grinning slightly. He glanced to her shoulders, looking at the fur cloak draped over her shoulders, “What is it?”

          “Polar bear.” She reached back and ran a hand through the white fur, “Ea lured it into a pit by constructing a facade of sticks and snow. When ea got it to charge at eam, it crashed down into the rocks. Ea just had to use the spear to finish it off. Then ea just had to drag it back, that was the hardest part. At least the tallow treated the leather well.”

          He chuckled, “Good of you to know your limits and think tactically.”

          Emelya nodded, “Da, ea do niet think any one person could take a bear on in fair single combat.” She chuckled.

          Osric glanced over to the wall where scratches had been made, tallys numbering up to twenty five, “You’re keeping track? Eager to return to civilization.”

          At that, she was silent for a moment before responding, “Niet really… ea… ea need to prepare, to train further. Ea want to know that nie trial could stand before eam… ea will return in… a year or so, ea think.” She sighed, “Once ea can be sure mea determination to be a knight is more than just words. Dravi Firr Tsecsar.”

          Osric stood, nodding to her as he moved towards the exit, glancing back, “Hmm, do you wish for me to continue checking up on you?”

          She shrugged, “If vy wish to visit eam, so be it. Ea will just be out here.” She smiled to him softly, giving him a wave.

* * *

          Emerging from the mouth of the cave was a far more built woman, stepping out through the snow, cloaked in the hide of a polar bear. She sighed, eyeing through the haze of the snow in the distance, in the direction she knew Karosgrad to be.

          She sighed, contemplating what would be different when she would return. Emelya shook her head, knowing that she has delayed for far too long.

          The polar bear cloak billowed in the snowy wind taking one step in snow after the other as she finally, after nearly a year and a half, returned to her family, her country, and her duties.