The raining season had started in earnest, not a day went by where it did not rain for at least an hour or two. Even when it wasn’t raining the sky was covered with a blanket of dark clouds that covered the world in gloom. At first, I was worried that the creek by my house would swell up and flood the camp. We had built up around it but luckily that wasn’t the case and we were not flooded out of our home. The water drained away quickly and there was only a little swelling caused by the excessive amounts of water that was falling from the sky.

      Even when there was not a heavy downpour, there was almost always a light drizzle which was even more annoying than the heavy rain. It might be considered lucky when it only lightly drizzled since you could still go out and do some work outside, but it was still annoying when you slowly got soaked with no way to dry out until you went inside. When there was a heavy rain however we generally tended to inside tasks such as mending clothes, churning butter, making repairs to the yurt and preserving the meat we got from hunting or slaughtering a goat or sheep. Luckily today there was only a light drizzle so immediately after eating breakfast which consisted of some dried fish generously coated in some fresh butter, paired with a glass of goats milk, all five of us headed outside to do the tasks that desperately needed doing while the rain was at bay.

      It was still early spring, so the pregnant animals would be having their babies soon if they hadn’t had them already, so the first thing we did was to check for any new additions to our herd, help in birthing if it was needed and sex any of the new additions if there were any. Sadly, none of the animals had given birth so we just checked on their health, making sure they were all accounted for, eating properly and not injured in some way. After that which took a decent amount of time by itself since the herd is so spread out and grazing all around our camp, we all kind of split off to do our own tasks. Ulgar tended to everyone’s equipment such as my sword our knives and our sheers generally anything metal. While Erhi and Kulan went and tended to the fresh pelts we had collected over the past week, checking their condition and deciding how they wanted to use them in the future. I decided to pass this task off on them since I really did not want to deal with it. Erdin still being young pretended to be taking care of a “sick” horse but instead was just playing around with it. I knew what he was doing but pretended not to since I did not feel like getting on to him today, deciding that he was still a kid and needed some freedom to play and have fun while he could and that it wouldn’t hurt every once in a while. While they were all doing what ever it was they were doing I went down to the creek carrying two fairly large buckets to draw water so that I could fill up the large collecting bin that is beside the yurt.

     You might wonder why I was drawing water when it is raining so much, and the bin should naturally fill up, but we have been going through a lot of water lately especially the animals, and I just wanted to be sure that we had plenty in case of an emergency. Alton had always told me ‘always prepare for the worst and you will never be caught off guard,’ this was one of his many lessons that I will begin to practice religiously especially after the attack on my animal pens by my own kin, which did in fact catch me off guard, I never want to repeat that mistake. I walked down to the creek took one of the buckets into both my hands setting the other by my side and placed the one in my hands into the water, the opening out against the current so that it naturally filled the bucket. Once that one was full I did the same with the other. After that I hefted both full buckets over to the collection bin by the yurt and emptied there contents inside the bin. I did this for three trips before the bin was filled to the rim with fresh water. Satisfied with my work I moved on to the next task on my list which was checking my traps that I had set, up and down the creek. I set the snares a decent way away from the yurt as to not accidentally snag one of my own animals mainly a goat since they are so stupid and the only animal I can just about guarantee would get itself stuck in one of my traps.

      I decided to start with the snares that I had placed up stream since there was less and since I hadn’t really explored that side as much as I had the land downstream from my camp. My trek would take around fifteen minutes at a fast pace and I was in no real hurry today, so it would probably take a bit longer. I grabbed an empty sack, my hunting knife that was now sharpened thanks to Ulgar, some dried meet and a filled canteen, just in case. I started walking and got about fifty feet away from the camp before stopping and turning back to look. All my siblings were doing their own things and my animals were scattered all over the hillside grazing around, but generally not straying too far away. The animals knew who took care of their needs, so they tended to stick around even without having fences locking them up. With the exception of a few goats, but that is neither here nor there. I smiled and turned back upstream continuing my trek, I had grown proud of my home and caught myself staring at it with a goofy smile on my face from time to time. The mud and slick rocks made for hard trekking at times, but I steadily made my way to my first snare about twenty minutes in to my trek. sadly, it was empty and there were no new animal tracks in the mud around the snare but I left the snare where it was just in case, we still had plenty of food at camp so I wasn’t to desperate and if I needed to I could always back track and come pick it up after I finished checking all the others. The next snare I checked was about a hundred yards up stream from the last and I had placed it near a burrow I found overlooking the water. This snare had succeeded in catching a rabbit. I walked up to the small creature easily sliding my blade into its neck bleeding it and ensuring it was dead which it apparently already was when I stuck my knife in, but the rabbit hadn’t gone stiff, so I assume it died recently. I held up the dead rabbit by its hind legs for a few minutes making sure I at least got the majority of the blood out of its tiny body but since its heart had already stopped pumping before I drained it, sadly I would be unable to drain all the blood. After I was satisfied with the amount of blood that I got to drain I threw the carcass into my sack and then cleaned my knife with the water in the creek. After my knife was cleaned then dried to prevent rust I put it away in its scabbard in my leather belt then went back to reset the snare hoping to catch something else by the next time I came check it. Afterwards I started walking back up stream to check my next and last snare up this way. Much like the first snare, this one was also empty, but instead of leaving it I gathered it up and continued my trek up stream. This was about as far as I had come since settling here so I decided to explore a little more of the land I was living in and to see if I found a better place to set my snare. After about five more minutes of walking I came to a decent size hill that seemed to be a tad larger than the rest, so I decided to climb it and get a better lay of the land around here.

      I climbed to the top, stopping to take in my surroundings once I got there. There was no breathtaking view once I looked out over the hill,  and that left me somewhat disappointed, but the lack of beauty might be due to the dreary gray sky that just gave the entire world a dull dark tint when looking at it. Hills rose and fell wherever I looked some were larger than others while some smaller. The further I looked to the right the larger the hills got while the further left I looked the smaller they got until they would eventually give way to open plains. The creek continued on far into the distance, and from here I could not see its origin so any plan to go and find the origin was out of the window. I needed to head back down stream and check those snares as well as set up the snare I had dismantled and placed in my sack with the rabbit. I looked around for a place to set the snare while I still had the high ground. Off to the west I saw some small shrubs all around the peak of a smaller hill. I noticed this shrub was one that red berries tend to grow on towards the middle/end of spring and those berries would attract animals in varying sizes to come and eat them, and even when it wasn’t bearing fruit the shrubs themselves were good cover for smaller animals. I decided that was as good a place as any to set up my last snare, so I descended from one hill and went up the smaller one to get to the top and set up my snare. Once I was up close to the shrubs I noticed the tracks of many animals such as rabbits, dulfar, foxes and what even looked like a wolf’s tracks. I honestly hope a pack of wolves haven’t claimed this as their territory, I thought looking around nervously. Despite my nerves and the possibility that this could be a wolf’s territory, I set the snare because at this point I had already trespassed and if they really wanted to they could hunt me down from the scent I leave behind. I decided not to really worry about wolves at the moment but to just be conscious of the fact that they could be out here, and that I would need to come up with a plan to deal with them.

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      I made it back to the yurt and everything was the same as it had been when I had left an hour earlier. Ulgar was still maintaining the equipment, Erdin was playing around with the horses and Erhi and Kulan were both doing the various household chores. I need to reward Erhi and Kulan in some way, I thought passing by, I could not survive out here without those two. I am not saying that Erdin and Ulgar aren’t useful since they very much are but Kulan and Erhi have gone above and beyond my expectations. I walked over to Kulan and took the dead rabbit out of my sack, “here you go,” I said handing her the now stiff rabbit. Kulan looked up from her work and smiled. Her smile was bright and cheerful, a clear contrast to the dreary world around her. That smile was infectious and lightened my mood that had gone sour from the weather and even worsened after finding the wolf tracks earlier. I smiled back to Kulan nudging the carcass towards her, “Mind handling this while I check the rest of the traps downstream?” She set her work down off to the side and took the rabbit off my hands. “of course, I can master,” she said bowing her head to me as she took it. My smile grew to span from one ear to the other after she called me master. She had started calling me master all on her own recently and I cannot say that it does not please me. No in fact it gets me going every time I hear it (At least my sadistic side likes it) and I was starting to think she knew that and that was why she kept doing it. You might think that is weird since she is my sister, but incest wasn’t necessarily forbidden among our people, instead marriages were always decided upon based on power and creating more warriors for the tribe through breeding. So technically there wouldn’t be anything wrong with taking Kulan as a wife even if she is my sister, but there would not be many benefits involved since she is a member of my house and I couldn’t really give myself a gift for the marriage. That is one of the main reasons that incest is generally not practiced, another being that incest is actually pretty damn gross. I was getting sidetracked again and I had a lot to do, so I nodded to Kulan and slung my sack back over my shoulder. “Thanks for your hard work Kulan, I’ll make it up to you guys later.” Kulan smiled, “I’ll be sure to hold you to it,” grabbing her knife from her belt and turning to go skin and butcher the rabbit. That is what I always liked about Kulan, even when she teased she never took it to far and always prioritized her work over her fun.

      I headed back down stream pulling some jerky from my pouch, tearing a piece off in my mouth, and chewing on it slowly as I walked and thought about various things I needed to do if wolves ever came around. I was pretty distracted by my thoughts and walked much slower than usual. This time it took me close to half an hour to reach my first snare. I was in luck, I had caught a small white fox by its hind leg. From afar I noticed that it was lying there completely still but as I approached, it began to struggle trying to get away from me. once it began to struggle I picked up my pace to a slight jog not wanting to go to fast for fear of losing my footing on the slick ground but also wanting to get to my prey quickly, so it couldn’t escape. When I reached the small creature, it began to struggle even more and even started to cry out in alarm. In the past when animals did this I would shy away and cringe but by now I had seen it so many times I was now deaf to the animals panicked squeals and was just zoned in on how to kill it swiftly. I knelt down beside the struggling fox, placing my left hand behind its head forcing its face into the dirt, muffling it’s cries, while my right grabbed my blade from my belt, I swiftly removed my knife and quickly inserted the blade behind its armpit piercing its racing heart and quickly extinguishing its life. The muffled squeals ceased, and I knew that it was now dead. I raised the fox up with my left hand and inspected my kill. It was a decent size and my blade only made a small hole, so the pelt was in relatively good condition and could be traded to the Mansurians for a good price seeing how white fox fur was prized among their wealthier women. Once I was finished inspecting my kill I placed the fox in my sack and replaced the snare that it had been caught in. I checked my last four snares and I had caught two more rabbits in them. I bled both rabbits stuck them in my sack and replaced the snares before deciding to call it a day and headed back to the camp.        

      By the time I made it back two hours had already passed since I went to check my snares that were downstream from camp. I handed the two new rabbits off to Erhi and not Kulan again since she was inside the yurt doing something, and I took the white fox over to the side to personally skin and smoke it so that it would be done right, and look as pristine as possible when I traded it. It took me close to two hours to finish skinning it and a lot of frustration but once it was done it looked good and I made minimal mistakes so I was pleased. I began the smoking process, I scraped all the fat and blood off the inside of the pelt that I could with my knife then took the pelt down to the creek and began to soak it, making sure it was clean and free of any residual fat. Once I was finished with that I went up beside the yurt and dug out a small hole in the ground about a foot deep. I started a fire at the bottom of the hole and while I was waiting for the fire to get going well I used the fox brains to brain the inside of the pelt. Once the fire was going nicely I got some green wood that we had in our wood pile and I threw it onto the fire getting it to smoke up nicely. I then placed some wood over the fire in the shape of a teepee then placed some already smoked hides on the sticks making them the walls of my teepee and forcing the smoke up, once this was done I took the raw fox fur that was now brained and placed it over the teepee so that the smoke was funneled through the fox fur and smoked it out well. I let it sit for about two and a half hours before removing it from the smoke. Once removed I inspected my work and was pleased with the result. It wasn’t perfect but was decent enough and could be traded for something nice when I went to a Mansurian village to trade. I took the pelt inside and set it over on the side with the other cured pelts before going back out and checking on the animals. This was pretty much my daily routine aside from some days I went out hunting and others I just stayed around the camp doing maintenance.

     It wasn’t a grand life, but it was mine and I found it to be enjoyable in its own ways. The only thing missing at this point was a wife, and I was starting to regret taking finding one lightly before I left the village.