Alarming, was a good description of what I currently felt about the trees surrounding our camp.

Which was odd. They’ve generally evoked the exact opposite sentiments from me until now. Being our source of firewood and all.

And maybe that was all it was. Just an alarming little fact that meant nothing of value at the end of the day.

Maybe I'm wrong. That's a thought. A really feasible one too, if I looked at the it right way.

I mean, what do ecologists know anyway?

Sure, they have data backed by decades of research and experimentation. But nature is unpredictable.

Unpredictable.

Meaning it can't be studied or predicted. Nor should we ever assume to understand the extent of its mysteries.

And I'm in another world. With cat people. And magic. And witches. And gods? And mutants, and so many other mystical occurrences that seemed impossible in my previous lifetimes.

Maybe the laws of nature worked differently.

Or the trees required less moisture to grow?

We might even get lucky and it’ll snow less.

We're usually not, but who knows? Fortune might smile at us. We've been unusually well-behaved this year with only two major groups offended. That's already very good compared to our usual track record. Maybe we'll get really, really lucky and this was all just a false alarm.

....

Right.

So, I’ve been thinking of how to announce our probable death by snow and reached the conclusion not to.

I’m not saying I’ll hide it, no.

That would be a massive breach of trust.

And plain stupid since they’ll probably figure it out when we get snowed in but. But.

I’m thinking of delaying the news.

For a week.

Or two.

Or five, but I have a good reason. I really do.

And it’s not because of guilty since I chose the camping site.

No.

It’s because we’re finally starting to settle down and I would hate to be the bearer of bad news.

....Which I guess is essentially the same thing but I occupy multiple positions in the tribe, and bearing bad news directly clashes against a good portion of them.

Who wants the awful truth when an embellished version is readily available?

I'm their spiritual leader. I'm supposed to uplift them spiritually, not desecrate their faith. Life does that enough without needing my help.

We usually spent a few months at a particular location before unexpected circumstances would force us to relocate. This includes conflict with our neighbors, conflict over water resources, conflict with sentient prey over territory, and Just a lot of conflict in general.

Calling us vagabonds would be false.

But we were startlingly close to becoming ones from the amount of time we spent on the road looking homeless and disheveled. This clearing was found after we chased down a herd with a bit too much speed on their hooves.

At that time desperation was beginning to set in since we were quickly running out of water.

Even if our provisions from the previous settlement bottomed out, grass and plant roots were delicacies under certain conditions. We could go on for months just feeding on our wild forages and hunts. Survival would be rough, but not entirely impossible. And I know that from personal experience.

However, without water, we would only last three days. And that was if the sun decided to suddenly hide behind the clouds. Dehydration is no joke.

So in more ways than one, this location was the light in the tunnel for us. The rainbow after a storm, our l'espoir de l'avenir, even.

And while the blizzard would kill us…so would a plague. And a hostile neighbor. Or even drinking contaminated water. Many things in the grasslands were deadly yet we’ve survived until now.

We were very resilient.

A blizzard was at least a passive threat. We had some time to make preparations. Maybe we’ll find a cave to tide through the winter.

Maybe.

I sincerely doubt we’ll make it far even if we tried to escape. Not that I want to, by any means. Where could we go?

Finding a clearing in the grasslands is an easy task. Everywhere qualifies as a clearing since the land was essentially made of boundless open space. However, finding an unoccupied space in an area with weaker prey, out of proximity to other tribes, and within walking distance of a flowing water source is difficult.

Very, very difficult.

Our current location is perfect.

It’s close to a water source, it’s close to a water source, and it’s close to a water source. Important things must be said three times. We’ve traveled two months to get here after almost dying of thirst and I'm not even sure what part of the continent we’re in, just that it’s a bit isolated.

Which, I guess now made sense. Since the tribes inhabiting this area might’ve all died out from the snow.

So…blessings in disguise! In a way.

I jumped down from a tree some distance from our clearing, opting to walk the remaining distance home since the branches of the trees closer would probably break on impact. I am not light.

Steam arose from the water being boiled over the firepit and the quiet tranquility from last night was nonexistent with everyone awake and milling about getting ready for the day.

Two cats pass by with a pile of logs from the forest and I nod to them in greeting, earning one back in response. Wood was a supply that was almost never sufficient in the tribe. On an average day, our firepit was never extinguished and we had several small fires lit underneath our meats and seafood drying racks to prevent the gathering of flies.

Timothy, a member with some prestige in our tribe, passes his broom to Luna before jogging up to me to take the basket of dead fish. I gladly offload it to him, and he grins.

“Good morning?” He asks good-naturedly.

About 5’11, green-eyed, and ginger-haired; Timothy was a distant cousin from Second Mom's dad and they shared a striking facial resemblance and marks. He was also approaching his twentieth winter this year and was among the first three cats in our group to reach adulthood two years ago, making him one of the oldest.

“Great morning,” I reply brightly. "I caught three more fish than usual."

Walking to our unfiltered water storage, I deposit the water I fetched up upstream and leave the empty gourd next to it. Someone might need it later.

“Any progress with the fence so far?” I asked, noticing the new pile of wood at the edge of the clearing in what I hoped was preparation for finally fencing our settlement.

We had dug the holes two days ago but hadn’t begun yet, a lack of time and all.

“We started the foundation,” Timothy replies.

“We did that two days ago,”

Cloud, another cat in our tribe, holds a bowl of water over my hands as I lather my fingers with the powdered root of soapweed yucca, hoping to wash away the smell of seafood left from fishing.

It never seems quite gone, no matter how hard I try.

“Well, we dug it even deeper. More solid and sturdy, you know.”

Timothy borrows a knife from Second Mom over at the chopping station and takes the basket to a large stump on the outskirts of the clearing for cleanup.

"...Okay."

“Small progress, that’s good.” I sigh.

The water rinses off the meager foam left from the soap and I feel a pang of satisfaction at the smell of freshly cleaned hands.

Soapweed yucca doesn’t lather as much, but it does clean dirt and grease. I think that’s impressive considering our current stage of technological progression. We don't even have leather.

I enter my tent of residence, shared with the older toddlers.

Ideally, I would have liked my own private space.

But ideals are hardly ever realistic, are they?

This is the closest I could currently get to my own room so....at least they're potty trained.

Hanging on the branch of a log being used for structural support was a large hide skin bag containing some important items of mine

I take out the scroll of daily accounts.

As felines, our sense of hearing was sharp and sensitive, about three times better than an average human. This has made it possible for us to have conversations at long distances from each other without needing to raise our voices. It has also made it nearly impossible to have privacy, but I like looking at the positives, not the negatives.

“We don’t have enough wood to complete more than a small section and Medow took a team to get more, but we’ll need everyone's help if we’re hoping to finish early,” Timmy informs me as he guts and particularly large rainbow trout.

My quill pauses on the parchment and I raise my head.

“Did anyone find a trail yesterday? Any prey you’re preparing to ambush. Or a secret hideout?”

“None that I can think of.” Carol intones from her position at our makeshift grinding station.

“We spent the whole day chasing those emus, they’re much faster than they look.” She says.

“Leah got kicked in the face.” Leo laughs mean-spiritedly. “She tried to sneak up on them and—bam! She got kicked. It looked painful.”

"That's 'cause it was." Leah clicks her tongue, throwing an acorn at his head. he dodges.

”We did see some deer tracks two days ago but they’re a bit old. Our plan for today was to wait by the lake for anything that wanders to drink. Most animals are beginning to hibernate for winter.” Carol informs me.

Leo adds more dried nuts to the grinder and Carol grinds it to powder with practiced ease. Next to her Leah pounded some dried jerky into bits while Grass did the same for some wild grains.

I had exchanged three granite grinders in preparation for processing the grain we had planned to sow in spring this year. They had taken a large chunk of our finances since granite wasn't a very common mineral in the grasslands, but I had considered it one of our necessary investments. Like a hoe, or an ax.

It didn’t work out.

“Then we’ll take a break from hunting and focus on gathering wood. That might speed up the progress a bit. I'm sure you could all use the break." I tell them.

Our labor force was painfully small. To complete large projects we often had to compromise and pause others. It was truly very inconvenient.

“Do we have enough food to afford to take breaks? the weather has been getting much much colder lately, it might snow soon,” Mom says worriedly.

"Tulio woke up sneezing last night from the cold, I had to bundle him in thicker furs." Second Mom adds.

After discovering the sad demise of two emus earlier, I had the carcass handed to them for processing. Mom slices their cleaned flesh into thin strips before passing it to Second Mom who seasons it with aromatic herbs and hangs it on a wooden drying rack.

If we divide the food in our inventory by our daily rate of consumption, then…

“We have enough for three months.” Or Eighty-three days, to be exact.

According to the Gregorian calendar, it’s currently mid-October.

83 days' worth of food would place us just at the brink of January, a truly horrible time to be experiencing food shortages. It's cold and dry, and you can hardly find anything edible. The snow might also take a while to melt so if I add that as a factor, we definitely don’t have enough food to last till spring, not even close.

The genuine version of this novel can be found on another site. Support the author by reading it there.

They must have come to the same realization from the way their expressions turn solemn.

I make some adjustments to the equation, “If eat start skipping mid-day lunch or water down our usual meals, we should have enough for half a year. ” Or five months and thirteen days. Which essentially rounds up to half a year with a little more stretching.

At my suggestion, Berry frowns. “We saw some mushrooms when foraging last week. Should we bring some home? We could test them on the emus to see if they’re poisonous.” She offers instead.

“We could set more traps in winter,” Leo says after exchanging looks with Carol. "Winter is usually a great time for hunting. We might even catch more prey than usual." He says.

“Wonderful.” I smiled, pleased to hear their suggestions. “And when the lake freezes, we could poke holes in the ice and spear the fishes that swim up for oxygen. It'll be fun.”

I finish recording yesterday’s harvested resources and subtract the day's consumption from our inventory, then I roll up my scroll with finality and return it to its storage location.

“Wait, freeze over?” Someone asks behind me.

The toddlers are still fast asleep. This would be concerning if sleeping through the whole day hadn't been a common habit of ours during cold winters.

“Txiv? why would the lake freeze over?”

Something about the low temperature really made us very drowsy.

This affliction was not as nice as it sounded, weaker cats often died off quietly in their sleep.

It was rather tragic, actually.

“Txiv?”

This winter though, I have a plan. A good plan coincidentally formed when I learned of the upcoming blizzard.

“Txiv?!”

Our sleepiness was only a result of our unsatisfactory environment, so using that logic if we lived in a warmer residence, our average productivity in wintertime should rapidly increase; as would our survival.

It was foolproof, right?

======

Right.

So.

Mud huts.

Made of mud.

In the shape of a hut.

Mud huts. Mud huts. Mud huts.

“How do we make mud huts?” I wonder aloud, nailing a log into a hole.

After recording yesterday's account I decided to help out with the fence to speed up the process. We really did need all the help we could get, the entire clearing would probably take a whole week to complete.

“That owl tribe we passed last year had a lot of them. Did anyone happen to see what type of dirt they used?”

“No.” Timothy weaves a long, slender branch in between the upright stakes to form a wattle pattern. The branches were cut down from some trees we found possessing striking flexibility and malleability.

“It’s hard to notice little details when your life is in danger.” He says wryly, earning sounds of agreement from the other cats nearby.

I nail another stake to the ground and he follows. Behind him Leo weaves another branch over his, making the wattle pattern taller, and behind him, Elsu and Leaf do the same.

After some contemplation, we decided to make a wattle fence since everything else required more time or advanced technology we currently lacked in our possession.

A log fence required a lot of logs, a brick fence required bricks, and a metal fence was just--impossible. Pure fantasy.

“It's a mud hut. A house made of dirt, clay, and water. Maybe some straw. I doubt it'll be all that complicated. We already know how to make wooden foundations, so it shouldn't take that long to fill in the space with mud. Yes?”

“I guess,” Elsu replies absentmindedly.

"Timothy?"

"Sure." Timothy looks up at me, confused. "I thought the tents were fine but, why not?" He shrugs,

"Great!" I place the hammer on a stump and leave to wash my hands.

The circumference goal I had set to have fenced today wasn’t very wide, but it was five feet tall so after about two hours of work we've been able to complete fencing a small northern section of the clearing.

I would offer more help but it's time for breakfast and we’ll have to wake and wash our younger population ver soon.

The progress of the cage was thankfully much faster since they were almost done and had only the door and roof left to complete.

Carol was the first in command of the foraging group. While Berry, her second in command, took some younger members in search of the mushrooms mentioned earlier, she worked with the others to make the cage.

Calling it a cage was rather generous as it was merely four sturdy logs staked to form a sizable square, and the walls were a less intricate version of the wattle fence. But it was sturdy and seemed like it would work. I had also instructed that they be made at least seven feet high just in case the emus were good jumpers, better safe than sorry, as they say.

I bring out our cauldron, a smaller metal pot, and a wooden box containing some dried spices from our storage tent.

The circumference of our storage tent was about 30 meters in width, making it the largest at camp.

Most times I set out portions of our provision and have Mom and Second Mom cook.

But after processing the emus they had taken our baskets of dirty laundry downstream for washing. And even with a washboard that wasn't an easy task so I'm doing it myself.

I move the large cauldron of warm water on the firepit to the side and place the new cauldron over it, adding the bones from the emus in addition to some water and spices for taste.

Our salt reserves were sadly finished so I add three pounds of salted nuts and hope for the best.

Next to the bonfire I make a smaller fire and place the smaller pot onto it. This pot would contain the sleeping draught so it was never usually used for cooking anything else to prevent accidentally ingesting trace amounts of the concoction.

I take ten cups from our bag of wild oats before doing the same for chopped dried fruits, barley, corn, millet, and processed wild wheat, some of our most abundant materials after pemmican, jerky, and dehydrated fish.

For a human settlement of forty, our provisions would ideally last at least a year. However, most species in the grasslands had a larger appetite than most humans, so our provisions were still insufficient

In consideration of how lunch might be skipped, I add a sizable sum of jerky and lard as an extra source of protein for a truly balanced diet. I really do care about our nutrition, a stronger body yields a longer life and all that jazz.

After the contents of both cauldrons began to bubble, I add the powdered grains in a gradual process and close the lid until it boils into a thick paste-like consistency. Most of the toddlers were still at their teething stage so much of our usual diet was paste-like or soupy to ensure easy digestion.

A while later I taste the porridge, and it's...good!

Huh.

I guess these memories are good for something, after all.

It's not gourmet level or anything, but it's nice. Savory. That's more than can be said of my usual cooking. I try, but my food always tastes like it’s missing something, and that something wasn't salt.

But no matter how bad it might taste no one complains or wastes it because they are genuinely grateful they’re being fed.

Am I sad that my tribesmen have very basic living requirements yet still struggle to meet them? Yes, very.

But I believe in a brighter future so I keep my mind optimistic; hoping for a day when we can truly afford to be picky with our diets.

And in my visions, I know that day wasn't far away.

================

Sometime later the foraging team returns with five large baskets of white-capped mushrooms as I finish my breakfast.

I wash my utensils and rise on my feet to inspect the mushrooms.

After many death in our old tribe, mushrooms had become part of the food groups we were generally advised never to forage by the healer. This rule was further solidified after more people died from eating some innocuous-looking mushrooms during our exile. Their death was rather memorable due to their…gruesome nature.

A less vulgar way of saying organ failure and explosive diarrhea.

But these looked edible!

Very edible, even. No murky brown glow to signify poison or anything. I raise a cap up to take a sniff and it smells…earthy. Like normal plants tend to do. I would taste it, but I would hate to puke out my guts before my breakfast was fully digested. I would also hate to experience vision deficiencies at the moment, so divination was temporarily placed as a last option.

“Did anyone try it?” I asked, tearing the cap to look closer at its red interior.

Weird color.

I try to remember what type of mushroom has this color but nothing comes to mind.

It's not in my collection either, so it’s not part of the list of those that have been confirmed toxic. That’s good, at least.

“We saw some squirrels eating them earlier. Do they count?” Berry replies and I shrug.

My intuition was generally accurate in detecting inedible plants. These mushrooms seem fine, but I’ll feed them to an emu first just to be sure. Then, I'll do the divination.

"Probably."

I instruct the group to clean them up and leave them to dry.

Hopefully, they're edible. I've seen them populating the grassland in bulk and they could make a valuable contribution to our usual diet.

I’m not sure what they’ll taste like, nor do I have any particularly high expectations since anything tastes better than hunger. And if they’re delicious, great!

We can eat them during the winter months raw, no need to waste precious fuel and start a fire. Organic mushroom chips, mmh. Yummy.

Following that, Mom and Second Mom return from the lake with the baskets of freshly laundered clothes and pass them to a few cats to dry on the ropes tied between two poles erected at the western outskirts of our camp.

I reduce the flames of the second pot to add a measured amount of herbs into the water, watching as it slowly turns red.

Moderation is important at this stage. Too much of a certain herb could lead to an overdose while too little would make it ineffective. Then I add five cups of finely diced fruits for sweetness and close the lid, leaving it to simmer gently over the weak flames.

Nearby, a few cats take the drowsy toddlers downstream for a morning wash while others gathered around the cauldron to eat breakfast.

"It's good." Second mom compliments.

"I'm glad you like it,"

Her left brow raises. "And different. A good kind of different. What did you do?"

“Nothing, really," I replied modestly.

"Blood from a virgin, urine from an angel, legs from a baby, and essence from the moon. The usual."

"Ah!" She snaps in realization. "I knew I tasted urine."

I struggle to hide my grin.

Then I get an empty basket and my harpoon from the storage, intending to take a trip to the stream

We'll need a lot of clay, after all.