The Necessity of Travel

Oxana scowled at Johnsan when he returned with the buck before slapping him hard across the back of the head.

"What kind of numbskull wanders off at the end of the day in a creepy abandoned village and says to themselves, You know what? I'm going to go deer hunting? Why didn't you tell us?"

Oxana huffs, "It's a nice deer by the way you big dumb dumb."

"I thought I mentioned it on my way out. Either way, let's eat up. Some of this can be dried, some can be salted, and we should eat it fresh while we can. Hopefully this will make our rations go a bit further."

Johnsan has a look about him as though something else happened out there, but he offers no further detail at the moment.

She shakes her head, "I think I have some salt and we can smoke a good amount of this thing. After that, I think we should go. We already pushed our luck with this cursed town."

She's more than ready to push on and start heading south.

Oxana frowned, she didn't like this, didn't like anything about this. It felt like a trap, like the tax collector's iron shackles closing about her wrists as they dragged her to the square to be made an example of.

Maybe the old gods has finally taken pity upon them, heard their prayers and were delivering them some kind of salvation. The hangman's whip cracked in her ears and she felt the sting of his weapon on her flesh.

"Lets do what we can and be gone from this place long before the sun sets." Oxana said, "I do not like this accursed place and I do not wish to spend another night here."

"Let's see if we can't find a cart so we can do be moving as soon as possible." She took her knife, rolled up her sleeves and set to work skinning and butchering the animal with Johnsan as quickly as possible leaving the preservation work to the others.

"It feels strange that in a place with no food for months you find this magnificent stag." Oxana mutters handing some of the meat off to Tatiana, "Perhaps it is a gift from the gods, perhaps it is a trap set by the fae, who can truly say?"

Brother Irwin hovers around the hunter's prize, not exactly squeamish, but uncertain of how he could help either. He settles for packaging the readied chunks of venison handed to him. "God provides to those in need," he recites to Oxana's question, though he suspects she isn't really asking.

Johnson helps butcher the deer and is mostly silent as he does this. When he thinks no one is looking, he sneaks a few bites of raw deer meat into his mouth and tries to hide his enjoyment.

He also helps with the preservation and the cooking of the deer. He asks Tatiana if they can make a large fire for smoking, and he stresses that the fire much be very large and burn hot for many hours. "It's important for the meal." As he says this, his mouth moves in weird ways, as if it is out of sync. He ignores this and continues prepping the fire and the meat, occasionally sneaking a few more bites when he walks by.

She helps Johnsan agreeing with the big fire plan or, more accurately, lots of smoke plan so that the deer is well preserved, and the smoky flavor gets into the jerked meat. This one deer might actually make a few days meals and yet it's nothing on what the village will really need if everyone is to survive this winter.

Oxana is silent as she butchers the deer watching Johnsan and his increasingly odd behaviour. When she's done she wipes her hands clean in some fairly fresh hay and heads off to clean up properly.

As she walks to the stream she passes the smoke house and nods for Tatianna to follow her. "Brother Irwin," she says, "you can watch the smoke house for a moment or two please? Do not let Johnsan add any more wood." Oxana adds undoing the ties on her blood splattered smiths apron.

Her arms are stained in blood to her elbows and she has some small splats on her skirts and sleeves.

"How did you come by this deer, Johnsan?" Brother Irwin asks after a while passes in silence. The scribe's stomach flips as he sees the other man place a gobbet of bloody meat into his mouth. Did he simply imagine it? He did stay up the night before without much sleep. "If there is a good spot for hunting around here, those back home would be glad to hear of it."

Tatianna is not willing to stay in the empty village that long. She will smoke what she can and then depart mid day. The rest can be eaten the next evening by the group with some of that being cured or smoked over night. What is left after may spoil but, she’d rather it spoil than spend even one more night in the accursed village.