Her Beasts

Making a House a Home

As it took most of the day to carve out the cave and create all the rooms, it was now nearly dark.

"We will need some tinder such as small dry twigs, dry grass, or dry leaves. Then we will need some sticks one inch thick for kindling. Finally, we will need some larger pieces of firewood to keep the fire going. An inch is about this much."

Iris held her fingers an inch apart to demonstrate. She also had Caspian carve out some of the leftover stone from creating the room into a stone wood oven and place it in the kitchen. It had a lower area for the fire to be built and an upper area that was semi-enclosed. It would be perfect for baking and roasting.

She then had Caspian also build a second cooking area. This one had a stone stove, but, instead of being enclosed, it was flat on top with a hole in the middle. In the middle was placed a stone carved pot. While not as good as modern stoves, it could work well enough for soups and pan frying.

Once the cooking area was built, Caspian brought Iris to the witch doctor's home to stay while he went out to hunt.

"Hi, Oliver! Do you have time to show me your herbs now?"

Oliver's cave consisted of three rooms and had animal skin draped over not only the entrance but also between rooms. The first room appeared to be for visitors. The room Oliver led Iris to was a storage room for herbs and medicine, so Iris could only assume the third room was a bedroom.

Iris waited patiently in the middle of the small storage room as Oliver pulled various herbs out. There were many animal hide bags full of herbs in the room as well as a few rocks that were likely used for crushing the herbs into powder.

Once Oliver finished collecting a bit of everything, he set them down on a piece of animal hide on the floor for Iris to look at. Many of the plants did not look or even smell familiar. Some even looked particularly strange and were likely plants unique to this beast world.

Still, there were quite a few useful herbs among the bunch. There were peppercorns, ginger, garlic, mustard, chili, rosemary, thyme, basil, chamomile, mint, lavender, and dandelions! All of these were useful things to Iris as she could season food or make herbal teas with them.

"I'd like to buy as much as you can spare of these herbs, Oliver."

Looking at all the herbs Iris had picked out; Oliver was unsure what to make of it all. Some things were used for inducing sleep, others to warm up one's insides and ease coughs. He had to wonder what use the little female had for the herbs but, as they were all relatively harmless herbs, he was willing to sell them to her.

"Alright, when Caspian comes back from hunting, I'll discuss payment with him. Until then I'll go ahead and get these wrapped up in a beast hide bag for you."

Iris was grateful for Oliver's willingness to part with the herbs. As most were already dried, they'd likely last through the cold season and, after that, she'd be able to gather some for herself.

As it took a few hours for Caspian to hunt, Iris was left with little to do. Thus, she decided to ask Oliver many questions about the tribe and beast world.

"Are there many females in this tribe? I heard females are rare. Are there only Arctic wolf females here?"

Oliver looked at Iris strangely but answered her questions all the same.

"There are about three sets of ten tens of males but only ten and five females, counting you. Females make decisions for their family and their mates usually just follow them wherever they go. So, while we have a few females of other types here, it is mostly Arctic wolves as they see this as their home."