Chapter 29 – The simple forest life Part 2 of 3
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With the campsite secured, concealed, and made comfortable, Rhonda sought out berries, veggies, and mushrooms instead of grub on the morning of her first active hunting day. She continued to practice tracking evasion so it would be harder for would-be predators to seek out her site.

On that morning, she was adorned in the bastardized versions of her clothing she had worn when she left the manor.

She had torn her wool trousers into shorts that freed her legs. She cut the sleeves off her gambeson and made it into a vest. She still wore her belt, locket, cestus gloves, and satchel, of course, as well as her knife that was now strapped to her thigh.

She felt quite energetic and free this way, especially with her legs and arms being mostly bare. She supposed she looked like a wild woman, which was very unlady-like. But she was comfortable while the important bits remained covered.

If there was one matter that annoyed her the most, it was the upkeep of her hair. She had cut away the tangles before leaving the manor, but now the short curls were becoming unruly. She knew they needed to be cared for with various sweet-scented oils and juices.

Long ago, some servants delighted themselves with caring for their young mistress’s hair. Back then, Rhonda adored their attention to her beauty regiment.

But they were long gone.

“Oh darn,” Rhonda said, her eyes brimming with fresh tears. She staggered to a stop while on her way to hunt. “I miss them. I miss them all so much.”

The terrible sadness only worsened when she thought of a certain draugr she had crushed underfoot back in the manor. It had been the petite female draugr. Rhonda now recognized that draugr as one of her beloved servants. A small human girl who managed Rhonda’s beauty regiment with militant dedication above all others.

Rhonda remembered the feel of the servant’s little hands strumming through her hair, guiding the curls to their rightful place with the flair of a wizard weaving threads of magic into spellcraft. The giantess’s hair upkeep was important to her, and her servant treated it as her utmost duty. She constantly made Rhonda feel very beautiful.

Years removed from that time, Rhonda gave herself an hour to recover from the raw sadness of losing such a servant… such a friend.

It was hard for her to move forward after the episode. She wanted to go back to the campsite and return to sleeping. The inclination to give up on the day was powerful, but Rhonda found the inner fortitude to take another step forward.

Then another after that.

Then she was striding through the forest with great care. In the end, when she did find prey, it was another boar. She brought it down with her knife in the same brutal fashion that brought down the last boar.

Strangely, Rhonda found this dissatisfying. She knew there had to be an easier way to hunt prey and not get all bloody. Yes, the thrill of the kill was exhilarating, but it required more work than she wanted to put into it.

What if she missed and the boar ran off? She would not like to waste the effort if she could avoid it. While she ate the boar at the place that she killed it, Rhonda thought about her hunting options.

Then she came to a radical conclusion. Why not use traps?

It took another active day for her to agree on a rudimentary design that she could use in multiple areas. First, she sharpened sticks with her knife, tied them to a strong, flexible branch using a rope made out of plant-fibers, pulled the deadly impaling branch back, and designed the release mechanism using trip-wire covered by foliage.

The next time she checked it, she saw a fallen branch had triggered the mechanism.

She decided she would continue to use it, but she wouldn’t rely on it.

The next trap she tried was simpler. It was a snare attached to an elevated boulder triggered by another trip-wire that requires more pressure.

The next time she checked the snare, she was in high hopes that it would produce something fruitful… or meaty.

Nothing triggered it at that time, so Rhonda moved on.

It honestly took her more time to design the traps than it would to simply hunt down a boar and [Boost Thrust] it to death. She still had to hunt after the trap setups, too, which drained her of time and energy.

Discouraged by the lack of success with her two traps, Rhonda tried another tactic. She figured it would be easier to hunt prey if she observed them closely.

So, she spent some time studying the habits of various species. She followed their trails by seeking out the tracks they leave behind. She noted how they disturbed the flora around them. When she happened to find boars, rabbits, birds, lizards, and all sorts of delicious-looking critters, she held back her cravings and focused on observing them from a respectable distance. She wrote down her findings during the nighttime:

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Oh, Parchment,

I have much to say about the people who once served me, but I will not spread ink upon this page with only my past feelings. I must maintain a modicum of focus to at least detail what I’ve discovered so far. I will keep this brief because my heart seeks a release.

I’ve found Armored Lizards who are as long as I am tall. They are not overly aggressive, but I can tell that they would require an increase in offensive power to bring down. Perhaps I would have to fashion myself a stone ax or create a trap that drops an ax onto them.

I’ve found boars that range in different sizes. The biggest of them was in the mid-thirties level and had strong desires to trample me. I managed to climb up a large tree to get out of reach. Eventually, it decided to go its own way, and I went my own.

Rabbits, birds, foxes, snakes all come in different sizes and temperaments. Some of them are no larger than my foot. Others are large enough for their shoulders to reach my hip. I spied on a snake that was big enough to swallow me whole.

It made me think of the fabled world serpent that had swallowed and carried my people, the character’s people,  from their former world to this world five millenniums ago as the mythical story goes, of course.

No matter the size of the prey, I have the urge to eat them all. After observing them for long stretches of time, forgoing my hunger cravings, I may have ideas on securing them.

The foxes are opportunistic predators and search for easy meals. Rabbits enjoy an abundance of wildflowers, especially the ones that are as tall as my knee. The birds, especially the big ones, are hard to reach, but I suppose I’ll be able to surprise them if I create a sling of sorts. Or maybe other predators can nab the birds for me. The snake is the biggest challenge, and it’s in the high 30s. It will be safer to respect it and let it be just like the bear.

Some meals aren’t worth it unless I find a way to overcome the danger.

Now that I’ve shared some of my observations, I am more predisposed to relinquish the feelings I’ve been harboring regarding my memories.

There’s more to it than just my parents and the baker’s boy. There’s the tailor’s daughter. There’s my hair caretaker. There are the cook and the many hunters tasked with finding food for me. Now that I’m my own provider of sustenance, I’ve come to the horrid realization that I’ve been a very terrible child in my former years. I would cry when I ran out of food, making demands of my father to send the hunters for more.

How many hours did they work trying to satisfy a girl whose stomach is a bottomless pit? Were they paid well enough? Was it enough to cover the ordeal? They weren’t the only victims of my savage hunger and my rotten moods. I ate a merchant’s horse once. I was given quite the beating for it, but it was not the first time, Parchment.

I once slipped into the woods and found a family of halflings with a horse. I did a terrible thing to them by lording my size so I can take their animal and eat it. I paid them coin to hush up about it, but the experience had been quite traumatic for them, from what I can tell now. Back then, I didn’t care. I was in the mood for fresh food, and when I was in that mood, I would stop at nothing.

I was a girl that was given plenty and found it lacking. Now that I am here, forced to labor for every little thing, forced to search for ingredients to care for my own hair, I am sorely sorry for how I acted like a child. I wish I can apologize to Mother for stomping my feet and hating her so vehemently when she was doing her best to raise me. I wish I can apologize to Father for taking advantage of him to the point that it nearly ripped him and Mother apart.

I am tiring, Parchment, but there is so much that needs to be written. This experience is humbling for me. It is enjoyable in its own ways, but it is reminding me of my follies. I can’t promise that I’ll be perfect, but I will be more mindful of how I treat others in the future. I know, in the end, there will be conflict for being The Dark Candidate. I will most likely do unsavory things to survive and thrive, but I will do better as a woman of nobility.

If I ever retake charge of others, I will try to work to earn their respect. I will give them as much as I can. I am a noble lady of high desires, which demands much of my servants. There’s no avoiding that. So, it is only fair that I return the favor to them equally.

 

With love and adoration,

Rhonda

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