"If you want to tire out your jaw, then you could eat the boar today. All people who want to enjoy that meal, need to wait and let the meat ripen."
"I don't think so, but I don't do tanning." Gertrud replies with a shrug.
Jewel watches as Gertrud hooks and hoists the carcass to age. While she could handle the cutting and skinning, and with practice possibly do it as fast as she did, she'd have to reach adult size and strength to hook it up and hang it like she did.
She hears Tarjun's words and grins. "It's like eggs Tarjun. The fresh ones are better for cracking and frying, but if you boil them it's near to impossible to peel the shell without wasting some of the white. But if you let the eggs sit a couple of days they're not as good for frying but boil and peel easier."
"How about the hide now? I know tanning takes time too. Does it have to hang too?"
"Ask Jewel. There is a divine spell to create food and water. But I guess it was an invention of a puritanical priest. It keeps you nourished, but it is nothing you'd create to invite friends over for a party."
"But if you really are your god's favored, you could conjure a heroes' feast. Until then, you have to wait three days to have an old school barbecue. Which has it's perks. You can tell everyone who is invited, and they can prepare for it. All that bread, potato salad, green salads and sauces are not making themselves."
Jewel considers a spell for creating food. "I'm not sure that Erastil would want his magic creating a barbecued animal. It just seems.... well, I don't know. He's fine with the hunt. I mean, that's one of his aspects."
She turns to Tarjun and Clara glancing outside for the fire pit. "So you've started setting up the fire pit and everything? That's good. It'll be ready in three days. Let's spread the word that we can have an old school barbecue. Who should we invite?" She glances over to Gertrud, embarrassment clearly on her face. "Oh! Sorry. Who all should be invited? Just people of course. I won't ask any of the local animals! Some of them might wonder if I was asking them to be part of the feast...." She gives a wide grin at the last part and can't quite keep a chuckle from starting.
"Funny question. You think you can make a barbecue and not invite everyone?"
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"A hero's feast?" Tarjun's eyes suddenly shine with hope. He's only mildly deterred by the fact that he isn't currently worshipping a god, and doesn't really intend to consider how early Jewel has to get up in the morning to do that.
"Even if we don't invite folks, they're gonna come over because of the smell! So let's invite everyone!... 'Cept maybe Jack. Also Timmy and Len. 'Cause they ain't nice."
"Erastil will smite you for not inviting everyone." Clara teases.
Jewel looks a little down at Gertrud's comment, but Tarjun picks up on it immediately. She mumbles "not Jack...." but cuts it off when Tarjun adds the other names. "Okay You're right. Even JERKS like Jack should be able to enjoy a good meal. And while Erastil wouldn't smite us for not inviting everyone, he would be disappointed for not sharing the benefits of the hunt with our whole community."
"You don't always have to remind me about Erastil's tenets! I know them and try to follow them!"
"I agree about Timmy. But Len is nice sometimes, when he's not around Timmy. I think he's just a little scared of magic. Silly, but I guess if you can't do any it could be a little scary."
Clara gets that smug look on her face that she always gets when she does the my god is better than your god arguments.
It's the childish 'my dad is stronger than your dad' thing, just for deities. Which is also a moot point now that Jewel can actually call on Erastil for real intervention, while Clara can not.
"Maybe try inviting Jack extra nice. As you can't smite him, you might as well try to win him over."
"Nice to Jack!?! I'll see if I can find Bruihu and ask him to come along while I 'nicely' invite Jack. Just see if he's still stupid enough to consider attacking him! You're right of course and we can't exclude anyone. But that doesn't mean that we have to be nice to him."
She thinks for a moment and turns to Clara. "Can your hex, the levitate one, be used on other people? Maybe you could tell Jack that you can make him fly? Then float him up to the clouds?"
"When mum says to be nice, you'd better be nice. Because if killing it would be an option, the head would be at our wall already." Clara explains.
"That's the short version of it. You have to live with Jack. So you could give it a try. You had a bad start in a very special situation. Maybe you can make it work. If you don't try, you always have someone who might stab you in the back. And Jack is to stupid to try to make up with you."
"And with being nice, I don't mean to suck up to him. Just meet him with the professional politeness you should be capable of as the Guardians of Erastil."
Jewel frowns and nods along with Tarjun. But.... finally nods to Gertrud's mention of professional politeness. "Okay. So we just keep it professional. That makes perfect sense. Tomorrow morning when we go to mark the trees and check on the saplings we can invite all of the lumberjacks. And help me to remember to ask Dwayne if any of the men aren't working, sick or whatever. That way we should get them all."
"We should go and tell Mom and Dad. Mom might be worried that someone might have gotten hurt hunting if we'd run across anything really dangerous."
"How about you go invite people and I tell your parents that we're ok, and that they need to bake for the barbecue?"
"I already went and marked trees today, before we went hunting. I'll pass the word tomorrow morning when we go there again. I think I'm going to look in on the grove again though before we go home."
"Mom pretends that she's not worried, but she is as much as Dad. They both know we have magic and figure that it makes us.... reckless maybe. But there are some dangerous things out there. That pack of wolves out by where we were getting saplings? If the alpha decided to have the whole pack attack? I don't know that we could win that fight! I tried to talk to the alpha, but Bruihu interrupted to protect me. I was upset with him at first, but realized that the wolves probably didn't want me there. They might've attacked without giving me a chance to talk to them."
"I'm sure they know what to do without me telling them."
"Is there something in Erastil's writings that we can use to make them bake cake?"
Even though she is young Clara has recognized, that the writings of lawful deities can be used to nudge their followers. While the teachings of Desna are a big stretched out middle finger to all who try such shenanigans on her followers. And she is set on making the most of this advantage.
Jewel almost laughs when Clara suggests something in Erastil's writings might be used to get a cake for the barbecue. She knows that Clara had never read any of the writings, and had never paid any attention to any prayers or service to the Deity. Desna really was a much better fit for their friend. "Sorry, but I've never seen any recipe or anything like a blessing for a cake from Erastil, or even from his wife Jaidi. Hard work for the betterment of the community. I bet if they had a recipe for Erastil cake it would be something like a journey cake! Good enough if you have some honey to top it!"
"Hrmph. Communities with cake are happy communities. You teach that the wrong way if you think journey cake is good enough. I'll come along and talk to your parents!" Clara states and readies herself to leave.
"Are you coming?"
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"Wait, Erastil is married?! I thought all he did was hunting and stuff," Tarjun follows bewilderingly. "Where does he find all that time?! [i]We've[i] been out hunting, and it's already time for lunch, and lunch ain't gonna be barbecue 'cause it's taking like a week to complete!"[b]
It's troubling him enough that he gets home with a thundering: [b]"Mom! Dad! We need you to bake stuff for the barbecue Mrs. Johnson's going to organize in a few days!... Also, how did you find time to get married and have kids? Trying to answer a theog-theologis- religious question over here."
Jewel leaves with the others, following along and laughing at Tarjun's comment. "It was in the book! Tarjun, You need to remember that Erastil's a God. He's been around for.... more years than I can remember. I think it said he was one of the first Gods, before most of the other Gods were here. I don't think he was the first God though. Dad would know more."
As they get home and Tarjun calls out about needing baked goods Jewel follows. "We got a boar from our hunt. I helped Mrs. Johnson clean it. I don't know if I could do it all by myself yet, but I'm learning. Anyway, it needs to hang for three days so we're going to have a community barbecue then. We'll spread the word tomorrow with Dwayne and the lumberjacks, and let everyone know that we'll have a big meal for everyone."
"And we need cake for that! Because a community with cake is a happy community!" Clara adds.
"Oh." Shelly calls out in surprise. "I knew some day these kind of questions would come, but I didn't expect it to be that soon already."
"To marry and have kids is not really a matter of time, but of opportunity. This situation here is very limiting for you, as besides us and the Johnsons no one here has kids your age. But once you grow up to be old enough to actually consider marrying, maybe one of the wood choppers will catch your eye, and her to like you back. From there it's a day to celebrate the wedding, and a night to start a small family. It's really not that complicated."
"We didn't live here in the woods when we married..."
Jewel is a little.... upset? annoyed? with her mother's idea of marrying one of the wood choppers! When I grow up I'm going to leave here! None of those wood choppers will 'catch my eye'! They're gross!!!"
She runs out of the house as fast as she can, out to the little grove and sits down in the middle of it. "Those wood choppers are all stupid! I'll leave here and go find a smart guy! Maybe a druid or something...." She sits quiet for a while, catching her breath with her eyes closed. Once she has relaxed she composes her mind and quietly adds a little prayer.... "Erastil? Thank you for this little grove the Bruihu set up for us. It feels very calming. Please help me to find the right guy when I grow up. Maybe a smart druid? Definitely not like any of those stupid wood choppers! They cut trees down to earn coin! Anyway, thanks for your guidance!"
"You mean there is only Tarjun for me to marry?" Clara inquires with a very skeptical look at the boy.
"You're becoming a druid then?" Clara inquires.
"You could start a monastery." Will jokes.
"Obviously you're all too young to think about this topic. Go back to work. Get a sack of wheat, and a sack of rye and mill it to flour." Shelly orders.
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"Ha-ha," Tarjun retorts at his dad's joke. "I don't wanna be no druid, I just have more fun on my own! Remember all the times you told me you wished I'd have kids like me someday? Well I ain't taking no risks! No, sir! I'd rather go and make flour," he heads outside, beckoning Clara to follow.
"Now,Jewie, we've gotta make - Jewie?" Baffled, he looks left and right. "Jewie?! Now where did she go," he mumbles to himself. How can he look after his little sister if she keeps running away to Erastil knows where?! "Guess we're gonna have to do this the hard way, then."
The sacks and the task at hand already forgotten, it takes him a while to think of checking the grove, and even longer to reach it, but finally he spots Jewel sulking in the middle of it.
"There you are! We gotta make flour right now! What are you doing?""
Jewel hears Tarjun approaching but just sits quietly. She's calm again after her quiet prayer to Erastil. She's glad that praying helps her that way.
Rolling to her feet she smiles. "Praying and thinking. We've got years before I'll need to leave. But Mom's just silly thinking I might be interested in a wood chopper. All the work we're doing to fix the damage that they've done...." She just shakes her head at that thought. "But.... Flour? Sure. Let's get the wheel barrow for the sacks. They're too heavy to carry to the mill without it. Well, you're strong enough to carry them. But Clara and me? Nah. Speaking of Clara?" As she starts toward the house she glaces around for their friend.
"I'm here."
"Are we getting the Ox, or is Tarjun going to operate the mill?"
The Mill is just a millstone with two wooden beams to turn it in the corner of the barn. The corner is made as a large gate so there is room for some working animal. And there is a large sieve that fits the flour sacks.
"Tarjun is not an ox! There's two bags to mill so yes, let's take the ox there." Looking at the sacks of grain she remembers that they'd need something to put the flour in. "I'll grab sacks to put the flour in once it's milled. Two so we can keep it separate."
She runs into the house for flour bags and back out to toss them into the wheelbarrow. "I can roll this to the mill if you and Tarjun can get the Ox." She adjusts the seed sacks toward the front of the wheelbarrow so she'd have better leverage, then lifts the handles and starts toward the mill. Once there she starts setting things up, getting the flour sacks under the sieve and the seed sacks in position to feed the millstone once the ox gets hooked up.
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"Yeah, I'd rather not do its work for it," Tarjun grimaces. "Like, I'm strong. But I'm not THAT strong."
"Here there, oxie oxie... Good boy!" the child effortlessly leads the ox out of its enclosure again. Perhaps he's that gifted. Perhaps the ox really loves fresh hay that much. "Off to the mill we go!"
After Jewel had the sacks in place and had to wait for the ox she sits down to rest and rub her shoulders. She hoped that work like this would be easier once she reached adult size and strength. The wheel barrow just wasn't made for a child....
When Tarjun arrived with the ox Jewel uses her hex to speak with it, and helps Tarjun get it in harness for the mill stone. "Wait for us to get the seeds in place... OK, now just walk. We'll keep pouring the seeds to grind. OK. Stop now. We have to change bags. Go again. That's good. We'll have feed and water for you once this one is done.... Good. OK. Stop again. That's good, and we're done. Stand still and we'll disconnect this."
"Thanks Tarjun. I'll finish loading the wheel barrow and take it back home. Remember to give the ox feed and water."
She finishes loading the flour sacks and the empty wheat and rye sacks on the wheel barrow and heads back home with them. "Mom? We're done. I've got the flour sacks, wheat and rye, for the pantry. And I need to push the wheel barrow back to the barn. Have you checked the chickens for eggs? Or should I take a basket with me to do that on my way back in?"
"Thank you, just put them here. I need to fix the dough right away."
"The chickens are already done my dear."
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"Sure," Tarjun shrugs. "It got a ton of hay already though. Like, this ox's eating so much, it might be Clara's long lost brother."
He feeds the animal with more hay, though, as well as a couple of veggies. He stops on his way back to the enclosure to let it drink in a small river, then safely locks the ox in again.
" We'll have to give you a name eventually... How 'bout... Georgie? I don't know. I have no idea, frankly. You got an idea?" He look at the ox expectantly. It looks back. "Yeah, I didn't think so."
" Heyo! Missed me? " he says as he steps into the Branstons's kitchen. " What do we do now? "
Clara 'accidentally' got lost through all this back and forth with work and plucks daisies for a flower chain.
Jewel walks the wheelbarrow back to the barn, pushing it to the place where it belongs. She glances around looking to see if there is anything else that needs to be done. Nope. There dad is organized as usual, especially for a worshiper or Erastil. Mom was going to start on the dough right away? Jewel thinks about running back to help, but.... Her small hands wouldn't be much help. And she'd done plenty of work already today.
She leaves the barn and looks around, spotting Clara way off in the field. She looks like she's randomly wandering and occasionally leaning down for something. Jewel glances at the house, then jogs after Clara. "Hey Clara. Whatcha doing?"