Anna held the knife in both of her hands as she stared down at the dead corpse of the leopard.

Okay Anna, you can do this. Just… get in there and… slice up this thing.

While she had never done this before. She had seen this preformed before. She rolled the animal onto its side. Then, with the knife pressed against its belly, she took a deep breath.

Three.. two, one!

As she made a deep incision down from its ribs towards its hind-legs.

Eww, eww, eww, eww! Gross gross GROSS!

As she finished the cut. The animals intestines with a few other organs started to spill out.

Now what am I suppose to do with these? She didn’t say anything about saving or using them, did she?

Not sure where to start next. Anna took the candle from next to her, to look inside one of the pathways in the outer walls of the central cave.

I thought I had seen… AH HA! I did!

She found two large bowls.

Guess this will do… I will just… leave things in them and let her decide what to do with them.

After collecting two large bowls and a large plate. She walked back to the corpse lying on the floor of the cave.

Great… just need to gut it. Erk!-

The thought made her queasy.

For the next twenty minutes. She spent digging out organs and such from inside the beast.

“Uhuhaaaaa! Gross!” She shuddered. “Defiantly going to need a bath after this.” She comments to herself.

She lets out a sigh as she stares at the mostly empty carcass of the leopard.

Now to skin it, which should be the easy part. should be…

She moved down to the back legs of the beast, then thought of something crucial.

“Oh man!” She whispered aloud. “The video I saw had this thing, err… the deer hanging upside down!”

She looked around the room.

Are there any hooks here?

Seeing out a one, or any place to hang the animal. Anna looks back down at the things with a look of contempt.

Great! My first time skinning and I have to do it cave man style. Fitting, since I’m in a cave right now… Who the hell lives in a cave now a days?!

She takes the knife to start carving around the legs of the animal’s skin.

Now? It should be just as simple as pulling… right?

She gave a firm tug on the skin as, which gave way, pulling the rest away from the flesh.

“H-Hey! I am doing it!… Not something I ever thought I would need to do. But I am glad I saw that video on how it was done!” She sang triumphantly to herself.

After pulling the skin from one hind-leg as far as it would go, she realized what her next step was.

“Okay… time to flip’em.”

It was surprisingly easier than she was expecting it to be.

Guess removing a bunch of the animal’s organs helped.

With the animal now flipped over, she got to work on the other leg, repeating the process she had preformed earlier. That was until she got to the tail.

Okay… now what? It seems stuck? Do I just cut it off?

Not sure on what exactly to do. She followed what she remembered from the video. And just cut and pull around parts that were stuck. Which she did to go around the tail, just leaving it attached to the body.

She tugged and pulled until she reached the head.

Am I supposed to carve its face too?! Anna thought paniked. No way, not even for my keep. She then looked down at where the skin was still attached to its neck. I am just going to carve it off here. Head be damned.

After cutting the skin she had carved free. She took it, stretching it out upside down, to expose the wet fleshy skin to the outside to dry.

Oh my god! I am already exhausted! And that was only one part of what she asked me? Fuck…

She looked down at the mostly skinned animal.

Now to carve it up, I guess. Where to start? Guess from the back to front like I did before.

And she did just that. Unfortunately for Anna, she hadn’t see videos on carving an animal.

Not that I would have seen a video to help me learn how to carve up… whatever the hell this is.

So she just lifted a back leg. Then started to try and cut through the joints of the animal with her knife.

Gosh! This is so hard! Isn’t there an easier- wait!

She got up, moving to the cubby that had the tools and the woman’s weapon. She reached inside of it. Freeing a small hatchet, before returning to the carcass.

“Okay… chop chop.”

After a good part of an hour later, and after many, many hazardous chops through bone, tissue and flesh. She had managed to carve away most of the flesh from its bones.

She sat there, with mutilated carved pieces of flesh, bones, organs, and most of this things skin intact, laying on the table next to her.

I did it! She thought as she huffed through her exhaustion. I can’t believe I did it.

But after everything was done. The head still remained intact, with its tail, along with its spine. Everything else, she had either mutilated to be almost unrecognizable, or had gotten practiced enough with her first failed attempt to do half way decently on her second and third.

 Not bad, If I don’t say so myself. Now then… how, and more to the point, where? do I cook a meal?

I have no idea what tallow was, so I am not even about to attempt to cook whatever the hell that.

She could only think of one place to cook and make a meal.

Surely not… isn’t she sleeping in there?

She looked around the room. Unable to spy anything that resembled a furnace or oven. The only thing that came close was that pot belly stove in the other room.

Wow! So this is how I was supposed to wake her to let her know I was done? Just barge in and start dinner?… Actually? What time was it? Is it dinner? Or lunch! Ugh! I don’t know, and I don’t care.

With that, Anna set about going back to the pantry with the candle, looking for something to cook with.

I see a one of those old fashion black iron skillets… but nothing else… ugh! Guess I will just make do.

*SIGH*… this was the least I could do, I guess for her rescuing me me and all. After this, I will ask her if she will take me to town, or to at least point me in the right direction.

She takes the pan and looks around the other cubby spaces. For any other ingredients.

Nothing…

All she could find we some dried fruits and some sort of weird dried mushrooms.

None of which looked appetizing.

So she opted to just take some of the meat that she had butchered, along with a large piece of fat, she found some fresh water in a jug by a wall earlier, so she gathered a bowl of it.

Okay… now. This will be a pretty boring meal unless I find something else to add to it.

She took one last look around the small pots and jars in the room one last time. And as luck would have it. She did discover something useful.

Is that dried wild basil! Anything else?! There has got to be something more! 

She also found some wild rosemary, along with what looked like dried carrots.

I mean… they look like carrots? But they’re brown… maybe?

She decided to chance it and took a some basil, rosemary, and a carrot like root. Then she took these things, along with the knife she had towards the other door.

She was once again, faced with struggling with pulling the door open. After getting enough room for her to slip in. She started to move her ingredients into the room.

As she finished, she look towards the woman, who was now lying with a fur covering her, along with a pillow made out of some sort of tan hinds. She was sleeping on the slab, with a few layers of furs covering it.

Ah! I bet that is comfy. Anna thought to herself.

The woman had her back to her. Her long dark black hair spilled down from a ponytail that reached the floor from where she was laying.

Pretty.

But Anna shook herself from her musings.

No need to get yourself hooked on some crazy cave woman now Anna. You already came from one crazy bitch, no need to hop into bed with another.

She moved her pan with some fat inside of it towards the stove.

She realized that the stove’s fire was slowly dying. Being just down to embers.

Shit! I have to feed it! Is there any,- AH HA!

She found a small bundle of dry wood near the stove. She then reached down to open the stove by the handle.

“FUCK!” She screamed. “Ow! Ow! Ow! Hot hot hot!”

God that was real stupid Anna! Why to show you’re a city slicker: burning your hand on something with fire on the inside of it. Stupid!

She looked back at the residence of the home she was staying with. But she still had her back turned to Anna, still sound asleep.

Thank God for small miracles.

After berating herself for her lack of foresight and her silent prayer, she went back to the other room to grab a small fur that was lying on one of the selves inside the small doorway that held furs.

These things are essentially closets. Maybe I should start thinking of them as that.

After retrieving a small fur from the closet. She moved back into the room. She successfully opened the stove, which housed a large load if hot burning embers.

She carefully and gingerly threw piece after piece of wood into the furnace. After she was to scared to try and fit anymore inside, she closed the door.

Done! Mission success!

Now for the food.

She looked up towards the back to see the bottom had a load of rendered grease from the fat she had left inside of it.

Good, not for the carrot… thing.

She removed the fat and threw it into the fire, then started slicing in pieces of root into the pan.

As she listened to them sizzle, she then took the piece of flank, then started shaving the meat down into thin slices. She then placed it into the pan, along with the carrot.

Mmm… smells good so far. She complimented herself.

She then added in the rosemary leafs, then tore and picked at the basil until it was all incorporated.

There! Now just to add the water.

After having browned the meat sufficiently, she added the water to the pan.

There! Now just to wait for it to cook down.

She turned around to see the woman was sitting up staring at her.

“EEP!”

She jumped in place at the unexpected audience behind her.

“Gosh! Don’t- you scared me!”

“You startle to easily gack’tug.”

Anna frowned at the name she was being called.

“My name is-“

in an instant, the woman was up and in Anna’s face.

“YOUR NAME! Is irrelevant! You are a gack’tug! An uninvited guest! A mouth I must feed! What your name was before! I don’t care! Nor do I wish to know! To me! You are a gack’tug! AND NOTHING MORE!” The woman shouted at her.

Anna’s eyes burned from a mixture of anger, hatred, frustration, sadness and self worthlessness.

The woman backed off a bit, taking a couple steps back.

“I will not address you by your name. Even if you tell it to me. You are not welcome here. I am only tolerating you.”

Anna wiped her eyes in frustration at the tears this woman so easily caused her to shed.

“If I am such a burden to you? Why are you helping me? Why did you save me?”

“Save you? If you are talking about from the gawanta, then I did not save you: I was hunting that beast. You distracted it, long enough for me to secure my kill.”

“……….” Anna was floored by what she had heard. “So?… you saved me? By accident?” She asked the woman.

“Just as you said. It was not my intentions to save your life. But since I did, it is by custom that a life I save, is a life I am responsible for.” The woman explained.

Anna looked to the floor as her eye pooled with tears.

Great! Just great! Rather than a big butch that comes and rescues the lesbian princess. I am more of a pedestrian that lucked out on getting squished as an extra in a movie.

*SNIFF*

Anna couldn’t help but let out a little cry at her situation.

She then felt a hand grasp her face, cupping her jaw while pinching at her cheeks with her fingers and thumb.

“Do not cry! Your tears of helplessness frustrate me!” The woman shouted at her with a firm shake of Anna’s head.

The woman then roughly draw her hand back.

Anna’s jaw hurt from the rough treatment of being forcefully held open. She felt herself on the verge of more tears again. But she bit the inside of her cheek.

Its okay Anna… it’s going to be okay…

She hadn’t practiced this mantra of her’s since she was last seeing Sheila.

After that the woman moved around Anna to Peer at the pan.

“And what is this you have made for lunch?” The woman asked rather softly for her abrasive attitude earlier.

Anna was still rubbing her jaw when she was asked this.

“I… It’s a simple stew. I hope you don’t mind. But I found a carrot root, along with some basil and rosemary: so I cooked some grease out of some fat, then added some shavings from a flank of meat to it. Then added the carrot, basil and rosemary.”

The woman sniffed at the scent of the cooking food.

“Mmm…” She moaned with a pleased expression on her face.

This made Anna happy that she was able to do something that pleased the woman.

“Very good. But I am confused? What is this basil and rosemary you speak of?

“Ah! The dried herbs you had in pots.”

The woman’s eyes had gone wide at hearing this.

“You added medicinal herbs to a meal?!”

Anna realized that she may have messed up now.

“I umm… yes… I did. I am sorry, I didn’t mean-“

But the woman held up her hand, stopping Anna from speaking further. She then reached over to grab a wooden spoon off of the wall, before dipping it into the boiling stew.

She pulled the spoon up to blow on it before consuming it.

“Ummm… not bad, it needs salt though.” The woman said pleased.

Anna let out a relieved breath she didn’t know she was holding. A smile creeping onto her face.

“How was the rest of the tasks? Have you completed all of them?”

Anna stiffed at her question.

“No…” She told her honestly. “I wasn’t sure what tallow was, so I did not know what to do.”

“Ah! This is unfortunate, but I expected worse.” The woman told her bluntly.

Anna flinched at the soft rebuke.

“But it matters little. I can show you how to process tallow: you will learn.” The woman assured.

“Umm…”

“Hmm? Yes gack’tug? What is it?”

Anna felt herself stiffen at the name, but let it go.

“You… no offense. Err… What I meant to say is: I mean no offense, but it seems as if you do not wish for me to be in your home… And I know this is probably a lot to ask, but could you take me to a town? Or a city where I can call for help there or something?” Anna asked hopefully.

The woman turned to her fully, her arms crossed as she leaned a shoulder against the wall.

“No.”

“No? But why? I thought I was unwelcome-“

“You are. And I want nothing more than you gone.”

“Then why-“

“Because we can’t.”

“Huh?”

“It is the beginning of the winter season. I do not know how you have come here, but as of right now. The only safe pass down the mountain is blocked off by ice and snow, all of which can bury a person into it if not careful.”

“Then… what does that mean for me?!” Anna asked panicked.

“It means, that you gack’tug, are trapped up in my home until the snow clears.”

Anna gapped at her.

“You’re telling me I have to wait up in this mountain with you for  three months until winter ends?!” Anna screamed in disbelief.

But the woman calmly shook her head.

“No.”

“No?”

“I am afraid it is worse than that. We are high in the mountains… the snow will be treacherous for at least five, and up to seven.”

The strength in Anna’s leg left her. She collapsed to the hard carved stone floor in despair.

“No way…” Anna whispered her disbelief.

“Yes. There is no other way.” The woman commented on what Anna had just said aloud. She then got to her knees and lifted her chin up by a finger and a thumb. Forcing Anna to look into her eyes. “This is the reality we face gack’tug. We are stuck together on this mountain for half a years time.” The woman removed her hand before standing.

“So you best prepare yourself gack’tug. Because I have prepared myself just enough for me to survive winter… now there are two of us.” She informed Anna.

Anna’s eye had gone wide.

“You mean-“

“Yes… I was not just being harsh for no reason. I wanted to see if you were even worth keeping alive. It seems that you can earn your keep. So you had better steel yourself gack’tug, for the harsh seasons ahead.” With that warning, the woman moved to the other door.

“I will prepare our bowls of food you have made.”

The woman then slammed the door behind her.