[Wild Roses] Trickwood Unification
Title: wet feet
'Verse/characters: Trickwood Unification; Hernén, Belladonna, etc
Prompt: 21F "get up"
Word Count: 1557
Notes: dormouse_in_tea: "the one wherein there is an unexpected visitor whom nobody, but nobody, likes."
After Hernén's first winter solstice among wolves, before Ulysse tracks him down.
I am still seriously rusty, argh.
---------
They'd set up camp in the rain. Not a torrential downpour, like the one they'd left a week ago after Belladonna nearly put out the fire he was using in an effort to get dry. Not mist, either, just enough water falling that one could call it rain without needing to curse about it.
Not that that kept anyone from cursing about it, after the winter they'd had. There'd been a good month where he'd never been able to say with certainty what was wet snow and what was freezing rain, and they'd somehow nearly doubled their numbers in the same period.
His had been one of the first of the tents, less because he was in charge and more because he was the closest thing to an active mage he'd found in the wood, and being able to let the delicately painted lines on poles and the stitched edges of the treated fabric keep the weather off him at night made a massive difference during the day.
The tent could have slept three if they were friendly, and others of the same make did, though it was more commonly two and their gear. His mostly slept him, his mapping tools, guns and ammunition, and Belladonna on a rug by the door. She hadn't asked, and he'd nearly stepped on her the second night when he got up to take his shift on watch, but they'd gotten used to it. He always laid out a rug when he was unpacking, and she refrained from sleeping across the threshold.
He sometimes woke up at night and found a different wolf sleeping there, but hadn't asked yet. There were other things to worry about, not least that with the latest flush in numbers, they'd run out of not only tents but tarps, too. The horses could be largely covered if they camped near trees, which was almost inevitable. The last time he'd seen a proper horizon had been before the winter set in. Cargo and sail-spells were easy to repurpose, and easier still to add as a step in settling the horses--two ropes tangled into the branches overhead or nearby and the horses were, if not perfectly dry, very nearly so.
The people were much harder. One of the hunters had tried to claim that the wolves would be fine in the open, which would let every human sleep under cover. Hernén had responded by brute-forcing his mapping stakes into repelling water within a staked area, and adding another shift rotation to the rhythm of the camp. Who was on look-out for which shifts, who cared for the horses as compared to feeding everyone else, and now, who slept under tarps and who under the lesser protection of the stakes.
The only excuses--shift trading was perfectly acceptable, even preferable considering some peoples' cooking skills--involved recent injuries or the ability to accidentally panic the horses by standing upwind.
He still had wolves among the horses. They needed to grow accustomed to one another, and during the torrential downpour one of the younger wolves had figured out a horse was sick by the way the paddock's smell had changed. The occasional rearing and sharp-noted alarms--as long as nobody died--were worth it.
He'd thought juggling logistics on a ship was difficult. Now here he was delegating supply lines where he could and asking questions about needs and desires and local borders at every opportunity, around making his own maps and scraping his mental hull for cantraps and tricks to make everyone's life easier.
He fell asleep while he was trying to figure out a way to get portable power out of the fast-moving streams they invariably camped near, and woke in a full-body twitch when a deep voice said "Time to go" right next to his head.
Heart racing, he found that he was alone in his tent, that there was pale light filtering through the treated fabric, and a dark wolf-shaped silhouette was laid across his bedding.
"What?" he asked, and the silhouette curled up onto two feet to reach up and shake the peak of the tent.
"Time to go, human, if we want to leave at all. Too late for the way we came already."
He might not be as fast as Ulysse, or as neatly-arranged as Arianhrod, but Hernén knew how to get a travelling-space packed up quickly, and by the time he'd finished dressing all that remained was to strip the fabric off the tent poles and get everything onto the travois.
"Oh, winter," he swore when he got outside, on the breath he'd meant to use asking what was going on. The stream they'd camped uphill from had burst its banks, and was already more than halfway up to him.
The wolf snorted--he was big, but a nondescript brunet on two feet--and shook the peak of the tent again. Hernén reached up, pulled the first of the knots loose, didn't bother talking for the five minutes it took them to break down his tent.
They'd come uphill to camp, had forded the now-river, which meant the wolf was absolutely right. They couldn't leave the way they'd come.
"What's uphill?" Hernén asked as he picked up the ends of the travois.
"Not sure," the wolf replied, blinking once as Hernén got moving uphill, joining the straggling other late risers. "We got scouts out as soon as we knew it was rising that fast."
Hernén could only guess someone had gone for water and gotten an unpleasant surprise. He only hoped "--We lost anyone?"
"Not yet," the wolf said as he dropped down, trotting ahead of Hernén. He was still a nondescript brown, and it was hard to tell if his dark feet were because of the groundwater squelching under Hernén's boots and bogging down the ends of the travois.
"Let's keep it that way," Hernén muttered, not quite under his breath. The wolf's tail lifted in brief amusement, then his head came up, too, nose stretched out long and thoughtful. "Go on ahead," Hernén told him as the wolf glanced over his shoulder, "send someone back to tell us where to head."
The wolf took off in a contained spray of drowned grasses.
Ten minutes later Belladonna and one of the youngest of the hunters came back down the slope. He'd only expected a wolf, resigned to hauling the travois up to where the horses were gathered--he'd already passed the area they'd cordoned off for a paddock, and knew he'd have to re-do the spelled ropes by the glimpses he caught of them still tangled in the branches--but the hunter was leading four horses saddled for pack-hauling.
The horses were none too thrilled about the mud, or the wolf, but the hunter wasn't betraying any worry, so they followed. It took Hernén a moment to realise that he'd been the one to introduce the kid to horses in the first place, and breathed a "Well done" as they passed.
"We're lucky," Belladonna told him as he struggled up the slope to her, not bothering to shrug up onto two feet as she turned to join him, claws sinking deep into the mud so she kept her grip. "There's a deer-trail over the ridge, and sunlight if we keep on down the other side."
"That is lucky," he agreed, then paused as the hunter and the last of the packhorses joined them. "Do we know where the water's coming from?" he asked them both, pitching his voice to carry.
The hunter tried to take the travois from him, staggered, nearly fell before Hernén reclaimed it, motioned for the kid to open the harnesses instead. "No sir," he said, in a voice nearly as deep as the brown wolf's, and would have added something if Belladonna didn't talk right over them both to grumble "When do we ever?"
Travois finally attached to the harnesses, Hernén reached up, scratched companionably at the base of the mare's mane, and wished he had any of Ulysse's talent for water. Even Geoffrey's would have helped, would have given them better warning, but all Hernén had was an eye for charts and air. He sighed, stepping forward to hook his fingers through the mare's chinstrap, got the three of them moving again.
"How likely are we to get jumped?" he breathed down towards Belladonna, quietly enough and aimed enough that the human with them wouldn't hear.
She shrugged without glancing up at him, narrow shoulders moving under her fur. "No scat, yet, no trails that follow the deer. They may join us later." She glanced up at him, glanced back at the hunter trailing him, the stragglers below them on the slope. "No way of knowing without knowing the rivers and the territories around here, and--"
"--and we don't, I know," he sighed. "All right. You've got lookouts posted?"
She sneezed a laugh. "That's your job, human," she said, loud enough to carry, "but Ettore's got our watch, and there was a human who smells of steel and wheat with him when I left."
Hernén glanced over his shoulder, met eyes with the hunter, who dipped his head, a little amused under his bedraggled hair. "Usoa was the one who sent the horses back?" he offered, and after a moment's thought Hernén nodded.
'Verse/characters: Trickwood Unification; Hernén, Belladonna, etc
Prompt: 21F "get up"
Word Count: 1557
Notes: dormouse_in_tea: "the one wherein there is an unexpected visitor whom nobody, but nobody, likes."
After Hernén's first winter solstice among wolves, before Ulysse tracks him down.
I am still seriously rusty, argh.
---------
They'd set up camp in the rain. Not a torrential downpour, like the one they'd left a week ago after Belladonna nearly put out the fire he was using in an effort to get dry. Not mist, either, just enough water falling that one could call it rain without needing to curse about it.
Not that that kept anyone from cursing about it, after the winter they'd had. There'd been a good month where he'd never been able to say with certainty what was wet snow and what was freezing rain, and they'd somehow nearly doubled their numbers in the same period.
His had been one of the first of the tents, less because he was in charge and more because he was the closest thing to an active mage he'd found in the wood, and being able to let the delicately painted lines on poles and the stitched edges of the treated fabric keep the weather off him at night made a massive difference during the day.
The tent could have slept three if they were friendly, and others of the same make did, though it was more commonly two and their gear. His mostly slept him, his mapping tools, guns and ammunition, and Belladonna on a rug by the door. She hadn't asked, and he'd nearly stepped on her the second night when he got up to take his shift on watch, but they'd gotten used to it. He always laid out a rug when he was unpacking, and she refrained from sleeping across the threshold.
He sometimes woke up at night and found a different wolf sleeping there, but hadn't asked yet. There were other things to worry about, not least that with the latest flush in numbers, they'd run out of not only tents but tarps, too. The horses could be largely covered if they camped near trees, which was almost inevitable. The last time he'd seen a proper horizon had been before the winter set in. Cargo and sail-spells were easy to repurpose, and easier still to add as a step in settling the horses--two ropes tangled into the branches overhead or nearby and the horses were, if not perfectly dry, very nearly so.
The people were much harder. One of the hunters had tried to claim that the wolves would be fine in the open, which would let every human sleep under cover. Hernén had responded by brute-forcing his mapping stakes into repelling water within a staked area, and adding another shift rotation to the rhythm of the camp. Who was on look-out for which shifts, who cared for the horses as compared to feeding everyone else, and now, who slept under tarps and who under the lesser protection of the stakes.
The only excuses--shift trading was perfectly acceptable, even preferable considering some peoples' cooking skills--involved recent injuries or the ability to accidentally panic the horses by standing upwind.
He still had wolves among the horses. They needed to grow accustomed to one another, and during the torrential downpour one of the younger wolves had figured out a horse was sick by the way the paddock's smell had changed. The occasional rearing and sharp-noted alarms--as long as nobody died--were worth it.
He'd thought juggling logistics on a ship was difficult. Now here he was delegating supply lines where he could and asking questions about needs and desires and local borders at every opportunity, around making his own maps and scraping his mental hull for cantraps and tricks to make everyone's life easier.
He fell asleep while he was trying to figure out a way to get portable power out of the fast-moving streams they invariably camped near, and woke in a full-body twitch when a deep voice said "Time to go" right next to his head.
Heart racing, he found that he was alone in his tent, that there was pale light filtering through the treated fabric, and a dark wolf-shaped silhouette was laid across his bedding.
"What?" he asked, and the silhouette curled up onto two feet to reach up and shake the peak of the tent.
"Time to go, human, if we want to leave at all. Too late for the way we came already."
He might not be as fast as Ulysse, or as neatly-arranged as Arianhrod, but Hernén knew how to get a travelling-space packed up quickly, and by the time he'd finished dressing all that remained was to strip the fabric off the tent poles and get everything onto the travois.
"Oh, winter," he swore when he got outside, on the breath he'd meant to use asking what was going on. The stream they'd camped uphill from had burst its banks, and was already more than halfway up to him.
The wolf snorted--he was big, but a nondescript brunet on two feet--and shook the peak of the tent again. Hernén reached up, pulled the first of the knots loose, didn't bother talking for the five minutes it took them to break down his tent.
They'd come uphill to camp, had forded the now-river, which meant the wolf was absolutely right. They couldn't leave the way they'd come.
"What's uphill?" Hernén asked as he picked up the ends of the travois.
"Not sure," the wolf replied, blinking once as Hernén got moving uphill, joining the straggling other late risers. "We got scouts out as soon as we knew it was rising that fast."
Hernén could only guess someone had gone for water and gotten an unpleasant surprise. He only hoped "--We lost anyone?"
"Not yet," the wolf said as he dropped down, trotting ahead of Hernén. He was still a nondescript brown, and it was hard to tell if his dark feet were because of the groundwater squelching under Hernén's boots and bogging down the ends of the travois.
"Let's keep it that way," Hernén muttered, not quite under his breath. The wolf's tail lifted in brief amusement, then his head came up, too, nose stretched out long and thoughtful. "Go on ahead," Hernén told him as the wolf glanced over his shoulder, "send someone back to tell us where to head."
The wolf took off in a contained spray of drowned grasses.
Ten minutes later Belladonna and one of the youngest of the hunters came back down the slope. He'd only expected a wolf, resigned to hauling the travois up to where the horses were gathered--he'd already passed the area they'd cordoned off for a paddock, and knew he'd have to re-do the spelled ropes by the glimpses he caught of them still tangled in the branches--but the hunter was leading four horses saddled for pack-hauling.
The horses were none too thrilled about the mud, or the wolf, but the hunter wasn't betraying any worry, so they followed. It took Hernén a moment to realise that he'd been the one to introduce the kid to horses in the first place, and breathed a "Well done" as they passed.
"We're lucky," Belladonna told him as he struggled up the slope to her, not bothering to shrug up onto two feet as she turned to join him, claws sinking deep into the mud so she kept her grip. "There's a deer-trail over the ridge, and sunlight if we keep on down the other side."
"That is lucky," he agreed, then paused as the hunter and the last of the packhorses joined them. "Do we know where the water's coming from?" he asked them both, pitching his voice to carry.
The hunter tried to take the travois from him, staggered, nearly fell before Hernén reclaimed it, motioned for the kid to open the harnesses instead. "No sir," he said, in a voice nearly as deep as the brown wolf's, and would have added something if Belladonna didn't talk right over them both to grumble "When do we ever?"
Travois finally attached to the harnesses, Hernén reached up, scratched companionably at the base of the mare's mane, and wished he had any of Ulysse's talent for water. Even Geoffrey's would have helped, would have given them better warning, but all Hernén had was an eye for charts and air. He sighed, stepping forward to hook his fingers through the mare's chinstrap, got the three of them moving again.
"How likely are we to get jumped?" he breathed down towards Belladonna, quietly enough and aimed enough that the human with them wouldn't hear.
She shrugged without glancing up at him, narrow shoulders moving under her fur. "No scat, yet, no trails that follow the deer. They may join us later." She glanced up at him, glanced back at the hunter trailing him, the stragglers below them on the slope. "No way of knowing without knowing the rivers and the territories around here, and--"
"--and we don't, I know," he sighed. "All right. You've got lookouts posted?"
She sneezed a laugh. "That's your job, human," she said, loud enough to carry, "but Ettore's got our watch, and there was a human who smells of steel and wheat with him when I left."
Hernén glanced over his shoulder, met eyes with the hunter, who dipped his head, a little amused under his bedraggled hair. "Usoa was the one who sent the horses back?" he offered, and after a moment's thought Hernén nodded.