Chapter 4: Animals
A few quick hops were all he needed to confirm it; he was healed up and ready to help! He had felt well enough to get some lazy laps around the immediate area the last two days, but being able to move around freely was a function he had taken for granted. It felt damn good to run without pain building up.
During his stay he had noticed that Mama was staying out longer and longer during her excursions from the cave to gather food and firewood. It made sense to him; they were stationary and were relying on freely available resources that required minimum extraction times due to her two dependants being mostly either immobile or requiring supervision. They were bound to exhaust the local supplies and needed to expand their search radius. He had tried miming that he would help but she waved him off and pointed at his leg, Something he had finally overcome.
Violet had been getting slightly distressed by how long her mother had been out each day and Joseph only had so many stories committed to memory to mollify the anxiousness of his companion. Mama seemed pretty okay with it when he suggested that he take her daughter to help forage or scout out potential food sources, though only once he promised to stay within a reasonable distance of the cave and never left her unsupervised. A discussion that proceeded much smoother after he had confirmed they at least understood a large chunk of what he was saying, though he was still heavily reliant on his own personal anthropomorphism of their reactions.
Honestly Mama could have tacked on a requirement that he be the emergency food source should shit hit every collective fan in the vicinity and he would have agreed, never the wiser. They were closer to actual communication, but it was still largely guesswork. Kind of like talking to a foreigner who only studied your native tongue in their free time. Without a translator. And they were mute... At least she agreed. Small victories.
Which leads them to this lovely collection of trees he would turn into his personal bathroom. Now that he could walk, he didn’t have to worry about hobbling a few feet from the cave and using a chipped stone to dig out his makeshift lavatory in the bushes, nor any premature heart attacks while pulling his pants up as Violet had apparently grown worried in light of his prolonged absence and her usual keyboard clicks on stone were replaced with pure silence on soil. It took quite a while to clean his pants after he fell in the hole he had just finished using. She still chittered a laugh every now and again when she thought he wasn’t looking.
No, what lay before him was nature itself throwing him a bone. The trees grew slanted for the first two or so feet, before doubling back for a more traditional upwards growth. Either they were this planet’s attempt at a squatty-potty or it alluded to a different solar cycle on the planet long before it was discovered, as each plant grew at a more drastic angle to better indulge in the sun. Whichever was the case, he had a surprising addition to his creature comforts and he was not about to turn the offer down.
Violet, to her credit, did not complain nor wander off while he quickly dug out the base of several of these trees to allow himself some more expedient relief during the frequent rainy weather. it sucked having to shit in the rain, it sucked more to slip on the mud into it while trying to cover it. That accident alone tacked a day or two onto his healing. No, she had her attention focused on some of the smaller animals that darted from tree to tree whenever he paused long enough. That brings us to our next update: Animals.
Unlike what he was originally scouting for upon his arrival, these creatures all seemed to specialize in stealth. The rock-worms were one thing, but most variants of his usual expectations of forest-dwellers seemed to lean pretty heavily into whatever skill tree the stick bug did because most were so well integrated into their environment you could use them to scratch your ass before noticing that your scratching stick had teeth and did not like being used to soothe yourself. Again, Violet was around to witness it, unannounced to him, and he could have sworn the chittering was laughter and it was very much at his expense. A laughter that he joined in on because of the absurdity of it all. The scratching stick did not laugh.
Come to think of it, the adolescent Mantis had spent most of the days with him, escorting him wherever he went. That was fair he supposed, he was the only other creature she knew and Mama was gone too far off for her to accompany her. Even when Mama was back, a whole day walking and carrying back supplies deserved some relaxation time. Violet, for her part, never faltered to follow him out on his walks. She barely let him get more than a few feet from the cave before scurrying after him. Happy that he was at least entertaining for the kid, they wrapped up their outward journey of the day with a pile of leaves longer than he was tall and a few straight branches in tow. If there was something their current residence needed, it was a door.
The importance of making their camp more suitable was something that had been a bit of a suppressed issue for him during his stay. He lacked the needed mobility to help coordinate any real renovation effort and was still mapping out the area to get his bearings should they move up shop to his pod. He found the water he fell into pretty easily; it was only about ten minutes out from the cave. The issue was that it was very much not a random body of water, instead being a very slow moving and massive river. It ebbed and flowed with the weather; being as shallow as about chest height to deeper than he was comfortable thinking about. The rapidity of the change during the wetter days left him feeling as if he should avoid standing within its borders even on the clearest day. Were it not for the food issue he would have followed it to hopefully find the cliff he fell from, a land mark he could use to navigate to the pod. For now, that could wait.
Once back, he set to work using a stone to mark out cuts along the cave walls for when Mama returned. One particularly involved game of hand-soccer had led her to embedding her blade into the stone, leaving a clean gouge. She removed the blade with no apparent effort and returned to their match, leaving him pondering the possibilities. He planned to ask her to start excavating parts of the walls to clean up some of the otherwise wasted space as well as to start creating some shelves to store their meagre possessions somewhere that didn’t get rained on.
He started by marking directly on the wall a rectangle in the size he figured the dimensions should be, then a line on the floor to represent how deep the cutout should be. A simple blueprint system he had worked out with them while trying to explain how to shape a loading bay on the ship Mama was sculpting at the time.
He marked out one box for wood storage that was fairly wide, about as tall as his forearm, and settled for a foot or so deep. Next was food storage. An outline much the same as wood storage but was slightly compartmentalized to accommodate their hopeful variety of options. As nice as tilting the cuts would have been to encourage moisture runoff, he hadn’t yet figured out a way to communicate angles to them. A smaller cutout for their medical supplies, currently consisting of the glowing healroot and some crushed and powered purple crystalline structure that seemed to be a pretty effective pain killer.
Observing his work, he added a bit of a trophy shelf at the back of the cave where he slept to place the now seven sculptures that Violet deemed worthy of display and one of his own that was made with a sharp rock that still looked like shit but Mama refused to throw it out. It was supposed to be a rock-worm due to their simplistic shape but Joseph had managed to just make a blob. It was nice to learn new hobbies.
Planning done, he begun the arduous task of creating a door. He bounced around the idea of hinges and latches or maybe a sliding door but opted for a more simplistic free hanging design once he remembered his friends on this planet didn’t have thumbs to operate the designs he had in mind. The long branch he had almost dropped several times was a little longer than the mouth of the cave, but would be cut to accommodate the divots he had marked on the wall. He would use some rubber tree fibres to secure the long leaves to the cross bar and at the bottom he would secure two branches to half of the leaves each so as to weigh them down. Assuming all goes well, it’ll be weighted enough to not blow so much in the wind while still being easy for the mother-daughter pair to push their way past in the middle. Small improvements go a long way.
He had just finished securing the leaves to the top bar just outside of the cave when Mama came out from the tree line, carrying an upgraded saddlebag with rock-worms on one side and wood on the other. The upgrade was greatly helpful to reduce the number of excursions now that they took upwards of four hours, this trip leaning closer to eight for a round trip. The previous incarnation of the bag being more of an over the shoulder sling and a singular pocket was now a more proper dual pocket arrangement that sat across her spider-like base. Only three revisions were required for this current upgrade, the first two either wore out the pockets or snapped due to shoddy construction.
The smile on his face as he rose to greet her quickly faded as she closed the distance. Hoisted between her arms was a new animal they haven’t come across near the cave, maybe five feet in length and six legs adorned its canine like body. Two forward legs in the expected placement and four bunched up near the rear. It had a stout head with wide ears covering almost half of it and a mostly yellow pelt that shifted to a subdued golden moss at the shoulders and back, blending in easily with the foliage. The mortal wound seemed to be a single piercing blow that entered its chest cavity but didn’t quite make it all the way through, likely destroying its heart.
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Her silhouette told that she had more trouble subduing this new foodstuff than she had with the rock-worms. Large gashes marred across her upright torso and base. One leg was absent from her gait, instead maintaining a raised position. Teeth marks were evident as the beast had seemingly tried to chomp into her at several points. His blood ran cold. Of course smaller animals had something eating them. He had grown complacent after his time here, not being hunted and protected by insects that could fell and clean tress faster than he could start a chainsaw.
He helped usher her into the cave, putting off the renovations he hoped to have completed, and lowered her to her sleeping spot. Violet nervously chittering with her mother, whom seemed to be still somewhat unperturbed about the injuries. He relieved her of her cargo, handing off the saddle bags to Violet. Assessing the damage closely, nothing had punctured her carapace or scales. It was all surface damage, sans the leg which had a dark green ichor staining her deep blue exterior. Not free flowing but not to be ignored either. He mixed some of the purple powder with some water in a small, admittedly terrible, silver wooden bowl of his creation. Not exactly how he wanted to introduce tableware to the daily rituals but it was useful for administering some medicine when needed. The mixture shifted hue to a light red signalling that it was as dissolved as it was going to be. He lifted the cup to Mama’s mandibles, letting her drink it at her own pace while he asked Violet to prepare the healroot.
With Mama’s mouth currently occupied, he allowed himself the use of her blades to cut the plant into even and wide strips before handing them to the daughter for further processing, taking the result and tightly wrapping it around the injured appendage. Even with its healing properties, it would be best to take a few days off to let it rest. The gashes were patched as well as a precautionary measure. He wasn’t sure how much it would take to recover from those, assuming they would at all.
As he completed the triage and first aid, he decided that it was his responsibility to care for the two. They had helped him and it was time to return the favour. First order of business was to prepare some tools to hunt with and to use Mama’s old bag to carry any rock-worms he came across. Lost in thought over the new required course of action, he tripped over the moss-camouflaged wolf creature. That should probably come first.
Joseph had never needed to gut and clean an animal before, and luckily it seems he wouldn’t have to start now. Violet had come up to him while in his stupor and looked to be brimming with determination to help. She pointed to the wolf, to him, and a tree sat some feet away. Put the wolf in the tree. Why would you put a wolf in a... oh right to bleed it out. He gathered his sticks for the door and asked Violet to shave them down, taking the resulting fibres and making a rope. Both Mantis watched curiously, likely lacking the required dexterity to copy the motions as he use his palms to twist the bundles together.
Completing this step, he climbed the tree to its lowest branch maybe seven feet from the ground, and secured one end of the rope. Following that, he got Violet to hold the wolf up a bit and tied its back legs, allowing it to swing a few inches from the ground. Violet raised her right blade methodically, pausing as her limb was in line vertically with the carcass. Joseph noticed during his single attempt to startle her previously that she had opted naturally for a vertical strike, to which she luckily noticed it was him and not an actual threat before she swung at him in a motion that left her completely vulnerable to anything horizontal. The gashes on Mama’s torso seemed to cement that observation, looks like he might have something to teach them once everyone is back in form.
Gently manoeuvring her arm to the side, she didn’t resist as he led her blade through the required motions for the lateral slash. She repeated it a few times, growing comfortable with the motion, then lined back up with the wolf-like and cleanly severed its head. The blood flowed an almost neon lime colour, staining the ground below it. They left gravity to do its work as they started processing the wood Mama had brought back. He would set them up on the ground outside and Violet would deliver a powerful chop, cleaving the wood in two then four. Like mother, like daughter.
Feeding the fire the results of their labour, and in light of the sun that had slowly started to set, Violet set out to dismantle the wolf. She returned shortly after, pointing to the bowl, their water, then her mouth. He filled it with the requested liquid then handed it to her, balancing it between her to blades, not thinking much of someone asking for a drink. He only questioned it after two more of the same requests, seeing as how they usually bowed to drink from the natural basin or used leaves, when he followed her out of curiosity. Violet had been using the water to help clean the body as she carried out her dismantling.
Satisfied, and holding a new respect for the child, he returned to wind up some more tree fibres. Although Mama brought back enough food for several days, they would still need a more reliable and safer option than sending one of their own far from camp and potential medical assistance. Recalling a lesson from history class, he decided trapping would probably be the best option. Aside from not needing them to be there actively while it did its thing, snaring allowed them to catch creatures that otherwise would never have been noticed seeing as they tended to freeze in proximity to predators.
Mama had taken it upon herself to set some rock-worms by the fire, feeding the dependants turned motivated workers, while softly clicking and chittering to herself. A soft sway portraying how pleased she was that both Joseph and her daughter seemed to remain in high spirits as they worked. The injuries would heal soon enough.
Violet had started returning to the cave with cuts of meat, meticulously prepared then stored on a small platter of leaves so as to not rest on the ground. The new pile of food bore the same lime green colouring as the blood, though more muted in vibrancy. Slightly disturbing but he was sure that he would change his mind when he ate it. He counted out the snares he had prepared, eight in total, and decided to re-purpose the leaves he had gathered earlier.
Shredding half of the waxy plants, then wrapping it in full leaves, forming a pillow of sorts. Testing its comfort, he figured it was passable. He prepared as many as he could from the previous project and ended up with ten in total, finishing the last one as soon as their meal was finished. Allotting one to himself, four to Violet, and five to Mama, finally upgrading their sleeping arrangements. He knew firsthand how much plain ground sucked when you couldn’t do much about it yourself, and it was about time he fixed that.
Food storage had become a bit of an issue with the new influx of meats that didn’t move centimetres at a time at best. Cooling, salting, smoking, or otherwise preserving would be best for the now dismantled moss-wolf creature. Once trapping and proper hunting picked up, it would be needed for those as well. Another reason to go to the pod when they can. Given the lack of resources they had to work with, smoking would be the way to go. Pemmican would be a possibility for whenever they decided to go to the pod as he didn’t know how far he had been washed out and that stuff lasted a long time. Gathering Violet’s attention, he motioned for her to follow him. Light was going to be scarce soon and he needed to get the prep work done before the meat went bad.
Directing her to a nearby tree with branches he figured would be a good enough size, he relayed his instructions. “Violet, I need you to cut this branch, here.” He mimed grabbing a cylindrical object, then passing his hand between two knuckles “cutting” the object. He had issues with some words recently, so they settled on mixing hand gestures into the communications where applicable. Violet tilted her head slightly until the hand gestures finished, conveying what he was asking. She reached up, trimming the branch close to the trunk. He held his hand up, palm forward, with four digits splayed out and the thumb tucked in. “Can I get you to do that to a few others like this?”
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Hauling the last of the five branches into the cave, he got Violet to peel the last of the door-prepared logs into strips. While she worked on that, Joseph set to install his new smoking rack. It would be inefficient and as bare bones as possible, given the lack of a dedicated smoking enclosure. It would be great if they could preserve even a quarter of the meat Violet had skinned earlier, but some waste was better than all waste. He walked up to Mama, whom been watching with the most curiosity he had seen from her as he approached, with the branch in hand. Motioning to her blades, he held the object forward, motioning a whittling gesture with his free hand. Mama, thankfully, correctly assumed he wasn’t handing her the branch to see how precise she could craft scale spaceships. She offered her blade to which he gently handled, carving notches in a branch before retrieving another to create opposing ones. It was mostly free-hand but it would work.
Violet completed her task of making the thin strips of wood, finishing up just as he had carved the last socket out. Motioning her to go sit down with her mother, he went to work preparing a very basic four-legged base with a longer horizontal bar, small slits all the way through at several locations. Using the tree strips to secure all the joints that had been slotted together, he reached for thin branches that had been trimmed off and cut to size earlier by Violet. An interesting property of the rubber trees was that heat solidified them in whatever shape they were in during exposure. Joseph vaguely remembered something similar being brought up when his brother used to talk about his workplace, though between a general disinterest in metallurgy and a lack experience in his work, it never stuck. He bent them bit by bit over an ember in the fire, shaping them as needed.
Slipping the six new hooks into position, he had himself a serviceable smoking rack! Now if only it wasn’t reminiscent of a preschooler drawing of a swing set... He shook his head clear of the comparison. It was functional and he was pressed for time. It’s as good as it’s going to be. Grabbing a few cuts of wolf meat, he skewered them onto the hooks and dragged the primitive food preparation device over the fire, throwing a few more logs onto it for good measure. Ideally this would be done in a controlled environment over the course of potentially days but, also ideally, they wouldn’t be living in a cave, so this will have to do.
Joseph stoked the fire some more, assuring that it maintained a long burn while adding some boughs to produce more smoke. His stomach growled slightly to remind him he had gotten too involved with his work to eat again, so he grabbed the previously forgotten rock-worm and started biting into it. Finding it tougher than expected, he frowned. Guess these weren't the miracle food he had hoped. Overcooking them was indeed still possible.
He started planning out which upgrades should take place now and which ones would be better to just go to his pod. The whole door and storage problem could be sorted out in a day or so, food was a more ongoing issue. A proper bathroom would be nice but wasn’t as pressing of an issue after his discovery today. Proper sleeping arrangements were in order but that had been mitigated somewhat by the shoddy pillows. Longer term issues like finding out how to get off this planet would need to be taken step by step, maybe start by finding one of the research posts? Then again, there were only so many and he had no way of knowing how far away the nearest one was. It wouldn’t matter if they starved or Mama got critically injured gathering. So, we’re back at food again. He had eight snares prepared and no personal experience snaring. What if he picked up spear hunting? Maybe archery? Fishing? Are there even fish? How the hell do you snare things?
Soft purrs sounded behind him, breaking his concentration. Turning around, he was greeted to the familial unit asleep just in front of his sculpture collection. Tough rock-worm and they took his bed. He laughed as he ate, watching the sparks of the fire filter out of the cave. Figuring more out can wait until tomorrow.