Chapter Three - Blue Pumpkins

- Summer -

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The ash-clay rings that Belbet had made the night before had hardened, so she formed another set using the ashes from the fire last night. Layering it atop the ones she'd made, she smoothed them into each other to create the beginnings of a rim for her ash-clay pot. Then, she'd taken her net-bag and swung it through the river, managing to catch a few more crawdads, sticking them on some sticks over the newly rebuilt fire to cook. Some protein for breakfast would do the babies well.

Her little ones were still sleeping in the lean-to, curled up against each other. Mohniit's leg was thrown over his sister's legs, and his back pressed against his sister's chest by her little arms. She was clearly using him as a human heater, and Belbet had to giggle just a little at the sight. They were so cute.

Taking three of the sweet potatoes, she set them near the embers. While she waited for the crawfish and yams to finish cooking, she continued stripping branches off the three trees she'd managed to fell yesterday. When the sweet potatoes were finished, she cut them up into steaming bits while adding some of the onions too. She set the food on three little rocks, waiting for her kids to wake up.

She ran through a mental list of all the things she needed to do today. She needed to find a way to store boiled water, so that the kids weren't drinking from the river. That would lead to illness, she was sure. That and being able to store water was just good sense. She needed to get the guide-posts and ceiling up for the house too. She'd also need to gather more food, as well as tilling some earth to make a little field. Plus, she wanted to look for some eggs, so that she could try to hatch and raise some chickens. ...Ah, or maybe that should wait, she would need to build a fence for the chickens to stay in...

As she worked these problems over, her hands working to tear branches away from the poles, she found herself humming, and then singing a song from Victoria's world. A lovely song about devotion to one's children. She was so into it that she actually didn't notice the babies getting up until they were sitting in front of their little food-plates, picking up chunks of onion and sweet potato and chewing them. She wondered if there was something she could do about the charring on the outside of the sweet potatoes. The children made faces at the taste. ...Maybe she could wrap some mud around them? That might help.

The streams of sunlight through the treetops told her it was mid-morning now, and she smiled as she finished the first of the poles. it was taller than she was, which was good, but not overly tall, which might cause problems with her reach. She looked at Dahnei, who was watching her with bright eyes. "...Do you think you can strip the other two poles of branches, make them just like this one?" She asked.

The girl nodded, gulping down her berries and crawdad so that she could stand up. Belbet chuckled, leaving her daughter to it and handing over the hand axe, "Keep an eye on your brother while you do, okay? Don't let him wander off."

She took a moment to wolf down her own now-cooled food, feeling quite accomplished as she sucked the crawdad from its shell.

With that taken care of, she headed to the fourth pole that wasn't quite all the way cut down. She pushed against it, and it cracked, which was promising, but she'd need the hand-axe to take it down, so she focused instead on gathering up grass to carry back with her. When she had a full arm load, and a few new patches to look for food in, she headed back to camp.

Only to find two new people standing near the fire. She dropped the grass, storming forward to protect her babies... but it didn't seem like they were fighting. In fact, she came up short, upon discovering it was her sister, Deenat, and some young boy with her.

"Bel!" Deenat cried, standing up, and wiping her hands nervously on the furs covering her hips. "Ah... You... said I could come back, if I trust you. And... I decided I do. So I came back, with Eefim."

Belbet's memories told her Eefim was her sister's only surviving child. Knowing this, Belbet smiled, "You and my nephew are welcome, sister. We need help, especially if we're to get the house done soon."

The word house seemed to throw Deenat and Eefim for a loop, so Dahnei called up to the taller people, "It's a bigger lean-to!"

Belbet laughed, nodding, "She's right. It's a big lean to, which will keep all the rain and weather out. We'll even be able to have fire in it. Eefim, do you know how to hunt?" Belbet's memories said that young men were trained to hunt from as young as eight, but weren't considered a hunter until they completed a hunt with the current hunters. Since this kid was young, only 11, he hadn't done that yet.

He nodded, though, taking out of his netbag a woven string with a pouch at the end of it made of animal-hide. A sling! Belbet's eyes widened and she grinned, "Great! See if you can find us something for dinner. Rabbit or weasel or squirrel, or anything, really."

The boy took the instruction easily and ran off. Then, Belbet turned to Deenat, who blinked, surprised. "Bel, you said we didn't need meat..."

"No, I said we could survive without it. But isn't it nice to have meat?" Belbet responded and nodded when Deenat nodded too. Then, she took her sister to the half-downed tree. "See this?" She pointed, and then began to explain in detail how she used fire to fell such a big tree. She explained how careful they had to be not to let the fire catch, so it burnt the tree how they wanted. Then, she told her sister to do that for four more trees. They'd need the roof after all.

She returned to the camp, and began mixing up some mud. She showed Dahnei, who was close by and still cutting off branches, how she added dry grass to the mud, and a little sand from the beach too, to make a sort of cement. Then, with Dahnei's help, she manoeuvred one of the poles to the cliff, and shoved it into one of the holes she'd made yesterday, layering the hole with the cement. She piled up the cement a good four inches around it, pressing it to the cliffside, so that the cliff could act as one of their walls.

Putting Dahnei back to work peeling off the branches (she was almost done with the second pole, which was good). Belbet checked on Mohniit, who was showing signs of hunger, sucking on his fingers and grumbling unhappily. She pulled Dahnei aside too, and gave them each a cut up sweet potato to gnaw through. Then, taking her digging stick and one of the branches Dahnei had cut off, she began shaping a small dome against the wall of the cliff, shaping a hole in the top and a hole in the front. Using the cement to keep the sticks in place, she built up a little stove, and taking her digging stick, dug a chimney into the wall, so that the smoke would come out above the ceiling, so that they wouldn't be smoked out of the house. This she sealed with more of the rough cement.

It had to dry however, before she could reinforce it. She lit a small fire inside to cook the cement solid, patching any holes in the chimney while coughing. When it was mostly done, she let the fire inside the stove burn itself out while she put up the second pole Dahnei had finished, across from the first one. Pressing this one against the cliffside too, she marked out a line between them in the stone, that way she could put a pole there too, for stability.

By this time, Eefim had come back, two rabbits and a squirrel caught and tied to his leg, blood dripping down his skin. He was so proud of his kill that Belbet couldn't help but clap her hands.

"Good job! Eefim, you did so well! Can you skin and clean them in the river, please? And yourself. make sure to rub that blood off with sand, okay?" She asked, and as he ran off to do so, she stopped him again, "And see if you can find any rocks that would be good to make into knives, okay?"

They didn't have the ability to make any metal knives right now, so she'd have to make due with stone-knapped knives. She added 'carve bowls' to her mental to-do list, and looked up just in time to see her sister drag three poles into the clearing, setting them in front of Dahnei, who looked about ready to cry from frustration at having to peel sticks off so many trees.

"Dahnei, sweetheart, can you go out and forage some fruit and veggies for dinner?" She asked, knowing that if Dahnei didn't get a chance to do something else, she was probably going to break down in tears. The girl jumped up and happily did so. Belbet went over and picked up Mohniit, who had taken an interest in pushing around the sticks, and carried him over to the bare bones of the house. "Come here, Deenat."

Her sister, ashy hands wiping on her furs, did, and Belbet took a few minutes rest, explaining the plan for the cabin to her. She explained the stove, and pointed out the chimney, so that Deenat would know what it was. Then she explained how they were going to form the walls and the ceiling. Deenat seemed confused but in awe at the idea of it. "We'll need more rope." She declared.

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"That we will. I was thinking of asking you and Eefim to handle rope and basket-weaving when we have time away from other things. Do you think you can handle it?"

"Mn, yeah. We should." Deenat responded, nodding. She was confident in her own weaving skills, they just... needed to get some grass.

"Perfect. We also need to clear a spot and till the earth." When this got confusion from Deenat, Belbet explained, "Turning the earth and removing rocks and weeds, so that things grow easier in the dirt. We'll be planting our own field of food here."

"MAMA!!!" A shriek rended the air, sending panic like a shot through Belbet's heart. She immediately took off, holding Mohniit against her as she followed the voice into the forest. She jumped over bushes and detritus that Victoria would have tripped over, and it was amazing to her how quickly she was moving. Deenat was following, she could hear her crashing through the underbrush.

Eventually, they came upon the girl where she was sitting amid a field of truly, truly humongous gourds. Or at least, that's what they looked like. Instead of the bright orange of pumpkins that Victoria was used to, or even the green of other gourds she'd heard of, these were a light, light blue, almost pastel. They were also the size of a car wheel. Belbet kept looking for the source of the threat, but... there wasn't anything around.

"Baby, why'd you scream?" She asked, panic fading from her voice. Dahnei looked up and patted one of the big gourds, which made a *pam pam* sound. It sounded mostly hollow.

"I found these! I've never seen them before!" She cried, and Dahnei's enthusiasm was catching.

"I've never seen them either," Belbet admitted, turning to look at Deenat, who shrugged because she hadn't seen it either. So, Belbet turned to her babies. "Alright, we need to determine if they're poisonous! How do we do that?"

"Cut it open!" Dahnei cried. Belbet sighed, agreeing.

They cut open the hard shell of the blue gourd, and Belbet frowned when she was met with little smell. She handed Mohniit to Deenat, who held the child on her hip, and then pressed a finger into the opening, covering it in the inner juices of the gourd. Then, she slathered those juices on her forearm. "Now we wait. If it makes my skin red and blistery it's probably poisonous and will need to be cooked before we try to eat it."

Of course, waiting was hard, and either way, Belbet wanted to keep the gourd shells. They'd be perfect for a cistern to keep water in, so she coordinated with her family to roll four of the big things into their camp. Once back in camp, Belbet went to the river and wet her hand, pressing the cold skin against her shoulder, which had been aching all day. The dislocation from a few days ago was still paining her, and the cold helped.

A part of Victoria remembered something about willow-bark and it helping with inflammation, but for now she'd have to deal with cooling it in the water. A little hand tugged on her hair, and she looked over to see her little shadow. Mohniit had followed her to the river, and was staring up at her with dark, soft eyes. "Mama wet."

"Yes, mama's wet. Mama's using the cold water to cool down her hurt shoulder." Belbet explained calmly, carefully.

"Mama hurt?" The baby's face contorted into worry, thunderclouds over a beautiful starry sky.

"No, baby, mama *was* hurt, and now she's getting better. Remember when your sister fell on Mama?" The baby scrunched up his face and thought about it before nodding, "When your sister fell, she hit mama's arm real hard. It moved something in here," She poked her shoulder, "That wasn't supposed to move. Mama put it back where it was supposed to go, but it still hurts a little bit, and will for a while."

The little rabbit-eared boy reached out and patted the swollen skin. "Ouchie bye."

Belbet laughed, and reached down to kiss the boy's cheek. "Yes, it's all gone now. Mohniit made it better." The baby seemed satisfied with that, giving his mother a brilliant grin and tugging her back to camp. On the way up the riverbank, she checked her arm where the gourd-juice was slathered, and sure enough there was no redness or swelling.

"Just two more tests." She declared, dipping her fingers into the blue-pumpkin juice, and rubbing it along her lip. She didn't feel any immediate tingling, but that didn't mean anything. While she waited the necessary time for a reaction, she worked with Deenat to put in the final two guide-poles of their house. Then, she instructed Deenat on how to tie the rafters to the structure, giving it a square shape. Then, she made a triangular shape of logs for the roof, intending to have the water slope off the sides.

It was difficult, getting one end of the triangle shape into the cliffside, and the two over the edges of the house scaffolding. After that, it was easy enough for her, Deenat, Dahnei and Eefim to plant thin branches in the ground and weave other branches in between them to make a lattice wall on each side of the hut. When Deenat and Dahnei had a pretty good idea of what they were doing there, Belbet recruited Eefim to help her mix up the mud-and-grass cement, and plaster it to the walls.

Eventually, hunger won over work, and Deenat and Belbet dished out some of the sweet potato pile, along with the last of the berries and onions. "We'll need to have the little ones do some foraging tomorrow while you and I till the field, Deenat." Belbet said. Once they were all finished eating, the kids got back to adding mud to the sides of the hut, giggling and shrieking as mud flew. A perfect activity for children, Belbet considered, since they were prone to playing in mud anyway.

Meanwhile, Belbet went to the pumpkin one last time, cut a big lid out of the top, and then peeled some of the flesh from inside the pumpkin. Chewing it revealed no tingling, and no bitterness, although it didn't taste sweet either. It mostly was just... chewy. She picked up the lid and put it back on the pumpkin, declaring that tomorrow they'd try to cook it.

The problem came when it was time to settle down. The lean-to had been small even for Belbet and her babies. Now, with another full grown woman and an 11 year old boy joining them.... "Ah, we really need to finish the hut tomorrow." Belbet sighed, rubbing at her forehead.

"It's okay. We can leave the lean-to to the children, and you and I can have the furs by the fire." Deenat decided, and despite the Victoria part of her hating the idea of sleeping out in the open like that, she had to agree.

The two women watched the children curl up under the hastily cobbled lean to, and once they were settled, Belbet began a new story, the retelling of a movie she'd seen as Victoria, about two bears and a journey across the mountains. The children fell asleep listening intensely.

"Where did you hear that story?" Deenat asked, once the little snores were long enough that they were definitely asleep. The stars sparkled overhead as Belbet gently laid herself down on her uninjured side. Exhaustion was creeping over her, her bones heavy and her head resting on the hard ground.

"I made it up." She said, watching the fire. "I thought about what my babies would need to know, later in life... and made up a story that could teach it to them."

"Huh." Deenat murmured, shifting to lay down too. She closed her eyes, "That's nice. A good way for the kids to learn."

"A good way for adults to learn too. Human beings need stories to become better people. To learn new things, and to grow." Belbet said, "More than anything, stories separate humans from beasts."

Deenat's response was a gentle snore. Belbet gave up and let herself fall asleep, the heat of the fire the only thing keeping her warm. It became apparent that she wasn't going to sleep well, as the fire died down and cold awoke her. Even in early summer, the nights were chilly. She deeply missed the warm weights of her children against her.

Morning came, and Belbet felt as if she hadn't slept at all. She rose and restarted the fire, going to check on the mud hut while it grew into a fire they could cook on. Deenat woke up next, and gathered some water from the river in a fur. Belbet watched in confusion as she took some stones from the fire (she must have added them the night before), and set them in the skin, so that the water began to boil.

"We need to carve some bowls from wood, and make some pots." Belbet commented, feeling a little more sane, now that she had someone to share her thoughts with, rather than keeping a running to-do list in her head. "I'm trying to make an ash-clay pot," she explained, gesturing over to the rings, "But it's going slowly. We could grind out a stone pot, but I don't want that to be what we use forever."

"You wanted to till the soil today, too?" Deenat reminded, the unfamiliar words a question on her tongue. "What should we do first?"

"You and I need to work on the plot of land. The kids need to gather food, or we'll all go hungry today. But we need to finish the hut today too." She sighed a little, rubbing at the back of her neck with her healthy arm. Belbet clicked her tongue, and rolled the hurt shoulder, feeling the ache in it, but not as much as she assumed there should be. The animal-spirited humans here seemed to heal faster than Victoria's people.

She split up another cooked sweet potato, glad that her idea to wrap them in mud and cook them that way worked, setting aside three rocks worth now, each child with their own. Then she rolled one to her sister, counting out how many sweet potatoes they had left. "....If we chop these into smaller pieces, we have enough to plant sixteen plants worth of sweet potatoes..." She frowned, "We're going to need to do something to bump up yield. We’ll need to start grinding up the bones from our meals and mixing it with the dirt. That way they fertilize it."

"We also need to start saving food scraps, specifically plant scraps, leaves and stuff, and piling them up. Next year, that pile will make really good fertilizer. And we need to collect other types of plants that will grow well..." Belbet ignored Deenat’s confused look at the new words she kept spouting.

Little arms wrapped around her waist, and Belbet looked down into Mohniit's eyes once again. "Good morning, little man. Did you sleep well?"

"Missed Mama."

"Oh? Well, we'll have to finish the house today so that we can all sleep inside together again. You ready to help?"

The little boy bobbed his head in a yes so enthusiastically that his lop-ears flopped around his shoulders. She smiled, and rubbed the hair between his ears and chuckled. Looking up, she saw her family chewing their breakfasts sleepily, and couldn't help but think that they were doing pretty well.

So of course, the universe had to prove her wrong. Sending the children out to gather food was a good idea. Sending Mohniit with them was not a good idea. Halfway through finishing the mud on the east side wall, while Deenat was weaving sticks through the ceiling to give them a base to put on the straw ceiling, two loud voices calling them carried through the forest.

The children were in trouble.

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