Through Smoke and Ashes

Eighteen||First Snow

As promised, I showed Naxan what I meant by a porcupine. He and I had flown down from the mountains and into the forest below, in search of the prickly creature. I tried showing him an image from my memories, but he did not believe what I was showing him. He thought I was making it up. However, once he laid eyes on one, his curiosity got the better of him and he got too close to the tiny critter, which resulted in Naxan getting a face full of quills.

So here I was, pulling quills out of an angry dragon. I felt that his pride was more wounded than anything. But there was something funny about seeing him squirm whenever I pulled a quill from his hide.

"Should have let Naxan eat the pork pine." He glowered as he looked at the eight quills accumulated by his feet.

"Then I would be pulling these out of your tongue." I pulled the last quill from his nose and threw it onto the ground. His nose crinkled and he let out a loud sneeze that rustled the leaves around us. "Bless you." I laughed.

"Will hunt pork pine down and kill it." Naxan seethed, glaring into the forest around us.

I grabbed my pack from the ground and secured it on my shoulders. "The porcupine was only defending itself, Nax." I patted my dragon's head while walking further into the trees. "Come on, we'll find something else to eat."

I had hunted down a rabbit while Naxan went off to hunt for himself. He grew impatient of my methods of hunting and flew off to find something bigger for himself to eat. He said something about me being too slow and loud and that my stick wouldn't be able to take something larger to the ground. I knew he was right, but a bow and arrow are all I had for hunting, I wasn't as fortunate as him with the claws and teeth his body supported.

As I was roasting the rabbit's meat on a spit, Naxan came back with a large boar in his claws.

"Nice catch," I said over to him as he placed a protective clawed paw over the creature.

"Want?" Naxan tore off a strip of the hide and threw it over to me. It landed in my lap, blood and all.

I groaned. "Thanks, Nax." I got to work on cleaning the meat and cooking it along with my rabbit. The rabbit's meat was close to being finished. My stomach grumbled in anticipation.

Naxan was ripping apart the boar beside me, making a noisy ruckus as his teeth pierced through flesh and bone. His tongue forked out occasionally to test the air of any unwanted visitors around us.

I ate the rabbit meat, watching him devour his meal. He ate the entire thing and picked through the stomach for any other treats he found inside. It was mainly plant matter and berries, although boars are known to eat meat as well. Wild boars are the same as pigs, and they're not picky eaters. My family had two pigs that we fattened up to later butcher and eat. We fed them what we called slop. Among other things, they ate leftovers or food that was slightly too old for us to eat ourselves. They weren't hard to manage, but we had to be cautious if they caught the scent of blood. Then that's when they became dangerous.

The feeling of homesickness ran through me. The number of times that occurs in a day was hard to count and keep up with. But it was hard to not think of my family and the memories I shared with them. I wondered how they were doing, especially mom and dad. They had their eldest children taken away from them in one day, they must feel lonely in such a quiet house without us there.

Chay, Keaton, and I would always cause a ruckus in the peaceful village. We would verbally and physically start fights, sibling feuds I should say. Our parents would always scold me the most because a lady was not supposed to speak and act in such manners. I would constantly remind them that even though I was born a female, I was not a lady.