Her Beasts

Rainy Days Part Two

When Holly went into the banquet room, she could see Iris was already hard at work. Still, Holly was eager to greet Iris as she excitedly ran over.

"Hello, Iris! Good news, my mates managed to find slightly larger eggs this time and I brought them over for you!"

Iris smiled at Holly, still adoring how cute she was. Luckily, Iris's urges to pet her soft tail had died down. Of course, it helped that Basil was always clinging to her as he brushed his soft black fox tail against her.

Iris gratefully accepted the eggs from one of Holly's mates and looked them over. They were, in fact, larger than the quail egg sized ones from the last time. Still, these eggs would have to be labeled as small if they were sold commercially in the modern world.

There were twelve of the eggs and they were neatly set in a nest of grass in the stone container. Iris set them aside for now as she responded

"Thank you, Holly! I'll definitely make up something extra delicious with them next week. Oh! I should introduce you to my new mates. This here is Basil, he is a skilled witch doctor and quite good in the kitchen. I'm guessing you met Ember outside, I hope he wasn't rude?"

Holly shook her head as she happily responded

"Nope! It was a bit awkward, but I didn't notice any issues. It's good you got a mate who can cook, you shouldn't have to do all the work all the time."

Caspian felt guilty as he heard this. He had tried his best to improve his cooking, but Iris was still far more skilled and she loved to cook. Iris wasn't worried, though as she continued the conversation.

"I actually made some shortbread cookies with a lovely bite of sour jujui berry jam. So we'll have some nice dessert tonight. Ember caught a bear so we will be having some roasts with cattail roots alongside a rabbit stew."

Holly wagged her tail excitedly as she drooled. She loved it when she got to eat Iris's cooking! It was a real shame that Iris hadn't been able to hold a feast last week due to the beauty pageant. Holly's mates just couldn't quite get the knack for cooking as well as Iris did.

After some more polite chit chat, the conversation began to steer to the topic of the weather. They had just come out of the cold season and now they were still stuck indoors thanks to the rainy weather.  Holly couldn't help but complain

"It's so boring with all this rain! I don't even go into heat until the hot season so I'll have to wait quite a while before I can try again for cubs. I wish I could do something fun like when we went to collect plants last harvest season."

Iris listened thoughtfully to Holly chatter while helping prepare food with Basil. Deciding she could leave the rest to Basil since everything was seasoned, Iris washed her hands in some soapy bath water. Iris walked over to Caspian and requested

"Hey, Caspian? Can you go fetch a medium sized chunk of stone as well as some extra. I'd like you to help me out with a project."

Caspian promptly did as instructed. Iris was hoping to have Caspian carve the larger pieces of stone into a rectangular shape with twelve round divets in two rows with an oval divet on either end. Then she would have him prepare 60 small stones to use.

When Caspian came back, Iris directed him on what to do as he carefully carved out everything. Caspian was unsure what such strange things were for, but he was quite eager to make Iris happy. When the game board was finished, Iris called Holly over.

"Come, Holly. I've had Caspian prepare a game for us. In order to set up the game you put five stones in each of these twelve divets. From there, one person is in charge of this left side of the board while the other person has the right side. We will take turns moving our pieces and placing one stone in each of these divets including these end divets until we run out of stones.

Each person has an assigned 'bank' on the end where you want to get as many pieces as possible by the end. If the final stone ends up in the 'bank' then you get a second turn. If your stones end up on the other person's side, they'll be in the other person's control."

Iris slowly explained the game to Holly. When she finished, Holly looked confused yet excited. Iris sighed as she offered

"Let's just take it slow. A few playthroughs and you'll catch on."

Iris then started to play the game with Holly. As Iris was familiar with the game, she immediately earned herself a bonus turn by starting with the second row in and placing the stones one at a time until she hit the 'bank'. Iris then took her next turn, moving the pieces closer to the 'bank' around and closing off Holly's opportunity to do the same.

Iris felt a little guilty playing so seriously with a beginner, but felt it was best for Holly to get a proper feel for how the game worked. Besides, there was nothing on the line should one lose and it was just a good way to pass the time.

Holly played the first game making a few mistakes, that Iris pointed out, before finally getting the hang of it. By the end of the game, a crowd had begun to form around them. Fawn and her mates as well as another female had shown up and they were all watching alongside Iris's mates.

Caspian felt he may need to make more game boards and went off to get enough stone to make another nine sets. Caspian knew everyone else would likely want to join in just like he did. Besides, the boards were easy enough to make and Caspian was happy to see Iris having so much fun.

When the food finished cooking, Basil took pity on Ember, who was guarding outside their home, and brought him food. Only five females including Holly and Fawn ended up showing up with their males this time. This meant that everyone was able to fit within the banquet room.

Holly still only had four males so Iris and her three mates could easily share the ten seat table. Iris felt this atmosphere was quite good as each table shared two copies each of the game and everyone enjoyed the delicious food.

After finishing yet another round of the game with Iris, Holly inquired

"What do you call this? This game we are playing right now?"

Holly looked at Iris expectantly. Iris always had such interesting names for everything that no one had ever heard of before, she couldn't help but have high expectations. Iris smiled guiltily about taking credit for something she didn't invent as she replied

"It's called Manacala. I know of some other fun games too, perhaps I'll slowly have my mates make more pieces for them so we can continue to have fun like this. I think it's a good addition to our weekly meals."

Holly nodded enthusiastically in agreement as she happily gnawed on a cookie. This would certainly set a new precedent for fun among the tribesmen and attendance would pick back up the next week as word spread of the fun new activities.

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