Sleepy head and Goodbye.
Nestled down in her bed she knew she should try to sleep but just couldn’t manage it. She had spent a whole day working on the harvests with the others in the settlement so she supposed she really should be able to sleep, but it was so exciting. She peeked over to her bags that were all packed and laying by the door entrance. Tomorrow she was leaving Isd for the first time! Granted she wasn’t going anywhere really dangerous.. just Yera. But it was far enough in Tale that this was sure to be and adventure! BarAmal had left ages ago it seemed. He had stopped in but before she could even say hello he was gone again. Sighing she wondered what he was up to. She really doubted she would run across him again at least for a long while. After all he had headed to fight the obans in the south. She was headed further north. She was fairly temped to head south herself, but really what could she do? She could harvest plants and cook. That was the whole extent of her skills. It was pretty sad really. Still she liked to make others happy and by traveling she might learn a few new things to make. That made her smile wondering what fruits and nuts could be in Yera. Yes it was still in Tale, but it was to the more jungle like part of Tale in comparison to Isd. There had to be a lot of changes thanks to that. Rolling onto her stomach she pushed herself up and left her room and her home. It took a bit of work to get to make sure that she didn’t cut her feet on any shards of crystal grass. There was really not enough moon light to be doing this but she went ahead with her path anyway certain she would be fine since she was so used to this route. Eventually she saw the tell tale embers still alight in her make shift cooker of sorts. It was a series of flat crystal grass blades that had been all placed carefully to make a base. Burnable manure or whatever Sawleah could find to use functioned as a good fuel for it. It was surrounded by a mix of rock and more crystal grass so she could see what was going on inside of the cooker as well as move it apart to clean if the buildup was getting bad. There was a space that was clear in the center where she could put a nice pot or whatever she was cooking actually inside surrounded by the heat, while the top was covered by more Crystal grass that she could cook on top of. In truth it was one of the prettiest things she could ever think of, but sadly it wasn’t really something she could just take down and bring with her. She ran her hand gently in the air over top of the cooker. It was still warm. There was cured meat she had soaking in water on the inside right now. She would have a nice warm breakfast to snack on for her trip. Kneeling down she used a stick and shifted a few embers about. Hopefully the scorra meat would stay tender with that little bit of water in the pot with it. She considered adding a nut glaze to it, but she was feeling a bit lazy tonight so instead she just moved to her little jars she kept hidden behind the cooker. They were made of stone and set into the ground with nice heavy lids. Lifting one she pulled a handful of nuts out so she could nibble on them while watching the embers burn. She wasn’t scared of being cold with the heat and faint light of the cooker around her. Move over the others were so used to her oddness making good results that if anyone was on night watch for predators she might get a visit by a hopeful looking for some food. It had almost become a game over the years. There were a few times that food ‘mysteriously’ disappeared from her cooker, but after threatening to never cook again she found that such thievery stopped. If she was near the cooker though it was fair game to come and ask her for food.
Sitting silhouetted by the light soon enough there was a guard who came up to ask for food. Having made sure to put some extra in she agreed and used a sharp stick to jab for a bit of meat after wrangling the pot out with another stick. Being thanked by the guard she watched as the woman strode off. Sighing Mella shoved the pot back and stayed there a while longer making sure the coals wouldn’t burn her travel food. Once that was all done she headed back to her bed finding herself quite tired. Collapsing on the bed she curled up finally able to get some sleep.
The next morning she was greeted by some intoxicating smells. Opening her eyes it seemed her parents let her sleep in and even brought her food from the cooker right to her room. It was on a plate on a small stool from the other room. Smiling to herself she grabbed her pack and the still warm meat from the plate. It was a bit cooler than she would have liked but that was what happened when people took things out of perfectly warm pots and just had them sitting on cool plates open and left to the air for any amount to time. Still the fact they were even still warm told her that she hadn’t missed her parents by too much. Wanting to get a move on she started to eat while she walked out the door and down to the harvest fields. Yes it would make her late, but it was worth it to wave goodbye to her parents. A new trip was starting and she was going to start it off right. That and she was late anyway from sleeping in what harm could it do?
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