𝒑𝒆𝒕𝒓𝒊𝒄𝒉𝒐𝒓 ᖭི༏ᖫྀ 𝚎𝚕𝚕𝚒𝚎 𝚠𝚒𝚕𝚕𝚒𝚊𝚖𝚜

chapter five : the hunt

[V]

THE ART of hunting, I would say, was a lot easier than the act of riding a horse. You don't have to trust in anyone but yourself. And I was very good at it.

Ellie, however, was decidedly not. She was lucky she had brought so many tins of beans because, pertaining upon her demonstration, she was absolutely unfit to hunt anything.

"No, you loop it under then over the hook," I moaned.

"I can barely see the fucking hook, this is bullshit." She had very broad fingers which, granted, made the process a little more difficult for her than me. But she effortlessly bungled up the snare so many times, it was getting a little ridiculous.

"Are you chronically dumb? I've gone through this for over two hours now, even a snail could pick it up faster than you."

"Well, it's not my fault you find it so easy setting traps for innocent little animals. You should try... I don't know, crotchet or something..."

As she rambled on about how my nimble fingers were the source of evil, I thought about what she had said, and a pang of sympathy came out of nowhere.

Ellie wasn't a slow learner. It didn't make sense for her to be struggling so much with this one task, she was good at almost everything else I had seen her do in the past day.

The night before

"Alright, we can stop here," she said, as the day started to wane into darkness. She smoothly hopped off Shimmer, watching me in amusement as I decidedly less gracefully wormed my way off the horse, back onto the ground.

"Make up a fire. I assume dinner's on me?"

I gestured to my lack of any supplies, be it food or otherwise. She nodded and started unpacking her bag. As I collected sticks, I wondered who this person really was. She had inadvertently become my travel companion, but all I knew about her was her first name. I started arranging the sticks, but as Ellie watched me, she put down the pot and can and started fixing it up herself.
"If you weave the sticks together like this, the fire is more likely to catch. Also you need a combination of smaller and larger sticks, the latter for the base and the former for the centre, if you want the fire to burn long and strong enough to cook anything." I glared at her. "I can't believe you're judging my fire making skills right now. Seriously is there nothing you don't think you can one-up me in?"

"Well," she started. "You were following Acrebay path which is fine, I guess. But there are about three faster routes to Seattle and at least two of them are decidedly safer. Also your shirt is on backwards."

I looked down at my shirt which was, in fact, on backwards.

"Fuck you."

We were silent for a little while after that, preparing food and settling Shimmer, until it was finally time to eat.

"You sure do like beans," Ellie mumbled, eyeing me as I gobbled down the remainder of the pot I had snatched from over the fire. I replied earnestly,
"I haven't had anything but meat and the occasional berry in the past month. This is a godsend."

She laughed. "Funny. I haven't eaten anything but beans this whole time, I'd kill for some meat right about now."

I wiped my lips as an idea came to mind. "Well," I said between mouthfuls, "we could always do some hunting tomorrow. Unless you're going to start telling me how do do that too?"

She suddenly looked uncomfortable, and I saw it as an opportunity to wind her up.

"Don't tell me you're bad at hunting, Ellie? You're saying I can finally beat you at something?"