Two Is A Pack

Hunters & Collectors

Third-Person Perspective
Forest, Wilderness, Northern Kingdom
Sunday, 15/09/1032

Deep in the Northern Kingdom's wilderness, Aiden and Lily were jumping through the trees along one of the many rivers, looking for something to have as dinner before it got too dark. 

Lily leapt from tree to tree with grace and prowess, showing little to no signs of mistake or slip-up at all. She was Aiden's mentor in hunting, and for good reason too - her impressive parkour skills were a part of maneuvering around prey to capture it. 

Aiden, however, lagged back a little bit, a handful of minor slip-ups and mistakes between his jumps and judgement of branches causing the gap between the student and mentor.

"Keep up, and don't lose your footing, we wouldn't want a repeat of last week," Lily called back to Aiden, looking over her shoulder at him for a second as she jumped to another branch.

Aiden groaned and jumped across the gap in the trees, doing his best to close the gap between himself and Lily. "Do you really have to keep mentioning that?" He asked, letting out a grunt as he swung off a branch and landed haphazardly on the next, but continued to move. "It wasn't even my fault, the branch broke under me."

Lily kept moving between the trees, not stopping for conversation nor ignoring her pupil. "Have you ever seen one break beneath me?" She asked rhetorically, looking ahead in the trees. "Watch your step, you should know what's safe 3 trees before you even get there." Lily then leapt to a slightly far tree and held her hand out to catch Aiden in case he couldn't make it.

"Well you're way lighter than I am-" Aiden commented, grabbing a branch above his head and swinging off it, perfectly positioning his swing so that he could grab Lily's hand and use it to swing off to the next tree. "It's confusing to me 'cause I'm the flat one, but whatever."

"I'm not that much lighter than you, and besi-" Lily stopped, putting her arm out to tell Aiden to go any further. "See the deer over there?" She whispers, pointing to the small animal chewing on some of the plants emerging from the melting snow. "Now's your chance, show me what you learned in your training."

Without another word for comment, Aiden reached behind him and pulled his polearm from its holster on his back. He took a whiff of the air and then a deep breath before drawing back his arm, eyes locked on the deer. The wind rustled the leaves of the tree they were in, gently blowing through the forest. Using the sound as cover, he threw the weapon at the deer and hit the target perfectly. Without a single sound to alert other wildlife in the area, it collapsed, the thin layer of snow beneath it slowly turning red.

"Perfect shot." He whispered, preparing to drop down from the tree to collect what would be tonight's dinner.

Lily puts a hand on his shoulder, congratulating him for his successful efforts. "Good job, we'll eat well tonight." She says, dropping down from the tree after Aiden with her hunting knife in hand. "Your kill, you do the honours. And don't throw up this time, I'll make fun of you if you do." Lily holds out her knife by the blade for Aiden to take.

"Don't kid yourself, you'd make fun of me even if I didn't." He joked, taking the knife and crouching down to the deer. He pulled his Halberd out of the deer's neck and re-holstered it on his back before beginning work on cutting the meat out of the animal, focusing on the task so he didn't cut his hand open and risk infection again.

"You've made me proud today" Lily pats Aiden's head and begins walking away, trusting him to follow behind her. "Back to the den then? I'll have you make a fire, and I'll prep the meat. Sucks being half-human, because of it, we have to cook our meat." Lily does a small twirl in the falling leaves, laughing. "Today's a good day~!" She sings sweetly.