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 Posted: Fri Feb 28, 2020 7:25 pm
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Saira was up to HERE with Hatil and her little horde of incels right now. Just squacking and squacking and squacking. And look, they were grown now, why couldn't they leave. Just shoo, shoo. Go. Go away. Shoo. Please. Please go already.
And then there was the kid that was still insistent on the fact that Saira was her mother. Uh... no. Not at all. Saira had never laid an egg, and they were clearly different shades of blue. That said, she had at least had the courtesy to give the kid a real name - Rosamin. Very cute, in fact. That said, Rosamin should make like a real bird and fly the coop already. Shoo!
Needless to say, there wasn't an ounce of maternal instinct.
And right now, rather than doing anything productive, Saira was just perched on the top of the harpy hut, huffing and puffing while she fixed a portion of the roof that "Mossy" (Saira called her Kalina cause that was a real name) had managed to mess up during her flight lessons yesterday. Stupid bird. Stupid Hatil. Fix the damn roof your damn spawn broke.
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Posted: Fri Feb 28, 2020 8:02 pm
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She was sick and tired of making baskets. Who stole BASKETS!? Ok, maybe the first few she would have understood, but this many!? Who stole SO. MANY. BASKETS!? At least steal something that she could use her powers to make in a jiffy. That would have been less annoying than weaving these suckers.
She was stomping through the forest after the little thieves. She'd gotten so fed up she'd taken the time to watch them as they came and went. Who knew they lived just on the other side of the forest line? Well, Cocoa did now. It wouldn't have been that big of a deal if they would just stop stealing their stuff! Yes, more than just baskets were missing, but they were the most annoying to make.
So, here she was, stomping through the forest without grace. She popped out the other end ready for a fight, but had to take a minuet to catch her breath. Now, now, these things were stronger than her, she'd have to be careful how she went about this- ah! There was one!
"Hey!" she called up to the harpy on the roof of her home. She started to shake the basket in her hand at her, "Why do you keep taking our stuff!?"
Smooth.
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Posted: Sat Feb 29, 2020 8:25 pm
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Cocoa's mouth fell open. Wait, did she really just say that? She snapped her jaw closed and clasped the basket against her, "No way! It took me all day yesterday to get this sucker made. I'm not just going to give it to you. Did you not hear me!?" Wow, this interaction was not going the way she had imagined.
She stomped her foot a bit, trying to do some deep breathing Foxglove had taught her. Perhaps sending her calm and collected brother would have been better than herself. She was trying so hard to keep from escalating the situation, especially with a harpy, she didn't need the scars, "Again, why do you keep taking our stuff!?" Guess fixing roofs was one answer.
"Instead of stealing, I'm sure we could figure something else out..."
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Posted: Sat Feb 29, 2020 8:33 pm
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A look of annoyance immediately crossed over Saira's face. You know what? ******** it. She was tired of this. It's not like she was directly having Rosamin steal this s**t anyways. This was going to be too much of a damn pain, and Saira did not want to deal with it at all.
"Oi, Hatil. You got someone out here lookin' for ya."
At that, Saira shot a bit of a glare over to Cocoa before flaring her wings and leaving.
Hatil was actually in the smoking hut, checking on some things, when she heard her name called out. What? Who would be looking for Hatil? The chicks were out 'collecting materials' and Valko was out practicing flying; Hatil could practically feel how tired he was getting. Who would need her.
With a flurry of sneezes, she exited and ruffled out her feathers to try and get the dust that'd settled on them off, which caused her to sneeze once more. With a sniffle and some stinking eyes, she blinked a few times before noticing Cocoa.
Who was this, and why did she need Hatil?
Hatil waved lightly before sneezing once more.
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Posted: Sat Mar 21, 2020 6:50 pm
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Cocoa perked up in curiosity. Fire room? Listening to the other speak she tried to keep her expression neutral, but it became super evident that there was some misunderstanding between the two. Not just verbal, this was something fundamental. All her frustration sunk away as she tried to process the information. The two little places functioned absolutely different!
"Ah, I see. Then that is my fault, I completely misunderstood. See, we have things on the ground that isn't, ah, garbage." she said as she looked around making note of how they lived. Well, no wonder. "We have a lot of Pae that are ground bound, so if we kept everything up that wouldn't leave much for them. So, I think what we took as 'ours' you all may have seen as 'garbage'."
She tilted her nose and sniffed the air a moment, suddenly distracted. That smelt amazing! "Is that coming from your 'cooking house'?" she asked thoroughly interested now. "It smells amazing, what is it?"
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Posted: Sat Mar 21, 2020 7:46 pm
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Hatil tilted her head the other way and blinked once more at Cocoa's declaration. So... the stuff on the ground wasn't garbage? Her brows furrowed and a frown formed on her face as she tried to piece together what the implication of that was. Sure, it had seemed like they were throwing away a lot of gently-used stuff, but she hadn't questioned it. Should she have? Had they done something bad? But Hatil wasn't a bad bird...
Thankfully, there wasn't too much time to let the otherwise chipper bird be drawn into such confusing things. At first she wasn't sure what 'that' could mean, but evidently it was the smell. With a bright smile, she nodded. "Yes! We're smoking rabbit right now! Very tasty, very tasty!" Oh she was positively giddy - no strangers had ever asked her about the fire room before - actually, the only non-harpy that lived here was Valko, so perhaps that would make a lot of sense.
Still though, Hatil was super, super excited. "Want to see it? The smoke hurts my eyes and this place," she pointed to her chest, evidently meaning 'lungs,' "But is makes the meat taste even better than raw!" There were practically sparkles hanging around the harpy with how excited she'd become.
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Posted: Sat Mar 21, 2020 9:38 pm
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"MHM!" Hatil nodded enthusiastically with Cocoa's shared interest in the yummy, smoked meat, her feathers ruffling in a pleased manner before she practically skipped over. True to her previous statement, once she stood outside, her nose scrunched up and she sneezed - the smoke really did not do this bird good.
A combination of hardwood framing and a dried soil-clay mixture made the outside walls of the abode; its frame had clearly been widened as necessary to stretch further and accommodate more space. Compared to the main structure a little ways off that served to house those living here, there appeared to be a significantly thicker layering of soil. It was a necessary adjustment they'd made once they were the primary ones smoking, given Hatil and her chicks sensitivity to the wood smoke. Additionally, whereas the trees of the forest served as the foundation stakes in the main structure, this one was free-standing (a step taken to reduce the likelihood of a fire catching and spreading). Deer and other animal skins made the roof and appeared to be slowly being added to cover the outside, and unlike the main structure, were likewise firmly attached to minimize smoke seepage. A chimney in the back appeared to be the dominant source of airflow. Some sort of reed appeared to have been woven together to form both a doorway.
Entering the 'cooking house' one would reveal that it was dug into the ground and went a decent distance into the cool soil below, where food was both stored in the short-term and allowed to ferment. The ground level held a facility for wood-fire cooking and, as it was being used presently, for smoking game.
"Mom taught us everything!" Hatil beamed as she opened the hut's door and gestured for Cocoa to enter. "Or well, she used to do it when she lived here. We kinda had to figure out how she did it after she left. She left when my little sisters were born... I dunno what happened to her after that - she never came back home." Pout. "Oh! Maybe you've seen her somewhere?! She is... uh..." she was struggling to find the right words. "...Her fur is the color of the sleepy flowers in the Venus soap (lavender). And she has ears and a tail like a cat! And yellow eyes - three of them. And, and... And freckles! And hair like me!" Both in texture and color. "Have you seen her? Or my sisters? They looked like the sky at night! ... achoo!"
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Posted: Sun Mar 22, 2020 9:52 am
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Cocoa followed the other trying to hold back a chuckle. She'd had little interaction with her type, but she definitely stood out amongst them. She was grateful though, she wasn't sure she would have survived had the encounter continued with the one before her-
Her thoughts were cut off as they came upon the structure. She touched the outside hesitantly, but finding it safe she felt its texture a moment. "Whoa..." the word escaped her mouth without her realizing it. She knew her mom had played with many food cooking ways, but she certainly hadn't seen a structure like this back home. Did they have a different process? If anything, this seemed incredibly practical.
"Bless you." Cocoa replied, feeling a bit guilty. It was because she wanted to see this place that the other was subjected to the smoke again. "We don't have to go inside, it seems you got enough of that smoke in your lungs for one day." instead she stuck her head in for a moment in order to see what was going on inside. She was just marveling in it, with a bit of a cough herself. How in the world did they do it? She imaged seasons and season of trial and error... Sounded familiar.
"Ah." she looked back at the other's description, running it through her head. The cat tail and eyes certainly sounded like the Rak that lived around their place, but the color description was off. "Honestly, we get so many Pae in and out visiting our Village I couldn't say... I'm sorry." She felt a slight pain for the other, she knew what it was like to lose your mom... A sudden flicker of anger rose up at the memory and she shoved it down. Now wasn't the time to deal with it. "If you'd ever like to come by and look you're more than welcome."
"How much are you able to make in a couple moon's time?" she asked curiously, trying to find the best way to ask since she wasn't sure how the other marked time. Could the Village help them make another one of these if it wasn't enough? Could they up production? Her mind was in a blur of thought and excitement.
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Posted: Sun Mar 22, 2020 8:25 pm
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Hatil blinked innocently enough as she questioned back, "What's a lung?" Anatomy had never been a point her mother'd taught them - mostly survival skills. That said, if Cocoa didnt wanna go further in the cooking house, Hatil wasn't going to force her - less hurting her eyes that way too!
At the negative response regarding a 'mother-sighting,' the harpy quite literally appeared to deflate and dawn a dejected expression. Sure, she probably shouldn't have gotten too excited, but it was still sad to hear it all the same. One day mom would come home... she hoped. And when she did, they'd show her the new family and that they'd properly learned how to do everything they'd been shown! She nodded at Cocoa's proposal with a, "Okay..." before blinking at the sudden change of topic.
How much...?
"Well, we can fit a lot in there - we usually try to catch a lot of deer after foaling season - mom always said storing a lot then will keep the herds happy and healthy. The other stuff we catch as we need it. Mom said don't catch more than you need to eat and have saved just in case." It was obvious the reason, then, they smoked the meat had been predominantly for preservation rather than flavor. They'd largely learned how to flavor it after Valko moved in and would comment on taste - a valuable opinion for the only non-harpy around - and the time necessary to keep the texture and meatiness right. "For a rabbit, it takes... about half the time the sun is overhead." They didn't smoke smaller game at night.
"For a deer, we clean it and then separate it out into smaller pieces that mom called 'cuts.' Then we put it in buckets of ocean water for about seven to ten moon's time, depending on how big it is. Mom said this would cure it, but I'm not sure what it needs to be cured from - maybe its in case the deer was sick? The inside stuff we usually put aside to eat sooner. Then we get another bucket of water from the rain holder and wash it off in the morning and pat it dry. And then we smoke it for... a bit longer than the rabbit? We usually finish when the sun is starting to fall in the sky."
"We can fit a lot in the cooking house though... so I don't know." She seemed genuinely confused about trying to do this sort of mental math. "Everything else is by the seasons, so I don't know how many moons that is... Sorry..."
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Posted: Thu May 13, 2021 1:24 pm
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Cocoa kept from slapping herself. This is why her brother was better at this stuff then her. She just knew she didn’t have the patience for it. Well, what would Foxglove do? She filtered through some ways to explain it before giving up- yeah no she’s not Foxglove. “Don’t worry about it. Your meat is way more important.” Yeah, real smooth going, Cocoa.
Though she did feel a twinge of pain watching as her words basically destroyed the small bird. Shoot, Foxglove was always chastising her about not being tactful enough with her words. How did she fix this now!? “Ah, just because I haven’t seen her doesn’t mean anything! My brother knows a whole lot more Pae than I do. Maybe you can come talk to him some time and he might be able to help?” she rambled it off quickly hoping it wouldn’t come to tears-
Oh, guess not. She seemed excited to explain the process. Phew, did she feel a sense of relief. She nodded along, taking mental note of everything the other was saying and not interrupting her thought process. “No, no, don’t apologize. I don’t know the process, so I wasn’t sure how to ask about how it all worked.” She paused a second, trying to piece everything together. “So, uh, have you all ever thought about sharing?” she decided being upfront was the only way she could do this. “I mean, not without getting something in return. Like, if you guys gave us a ‘cut’ we could give you a bucket? Or if there are other things you need?” she had no idea what a good trade off was, but she was hoping that if she could pique their interest maybe Foxglove could figure out the rest.
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