The Beast World's Gift : Rewritten

Chapter 9: soap prep and teaching

Adia POV:

When I woke up Curtis and Winston were not at my side, I got up and looked downstairs. Curtis was downstairs cutting the fat off of 3 deer carcasses and Winston wasn't there.

"Where's Winston at?" I asked.

"He's outside making lye water, I haven't started making tallow yet, but you should change your cotton before trying to help me.

I went to one of the storage rooms and added more cotton to my underwear wrapped the dirty cotton in a leaf and placed it in a garbage pile Curtis had going with the hooves and insides of the deer.

"Alright, ready to make tallow?" I asked. Curtis nodded. Instructing him to put the stone pot he had filled with the deer fat into the fire and let it sit there for a few hours. "We should be making shea butter too, since that one takes even longer," I added.

We first roasted them over a separate fire until we could smell them, smell exactly what peanut butter and chocolate would smell like melted together; almost like a candy shop or bakery. We immediately got to work crushing the seeds, using stone bowls and smooth rocks like they were mortar and pestles.

That alone took 2 hours of combined work. I let Curtis stir it while I changed my cotton again since it's nowhere near absorbent and modern feminine products.

Once I came out and changed my cotton, I came and took Curtis's place stirring. "How did you learn to make all of this Adia?" Curtis asked.

"From my siblings and father, we live in an area where there was a ton of forest and not a lot of people, so I learned how to make things in the wilderness and survive," I explained to him. Stirring this all took forever.

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We finally got the tallow into 3 separate jars with lids,

And got the shea butter melted into its final form, to be used for our soap tomorrow.

Winston came in with a large stone pot with the bottom filled with lye water. We placed it in the corner by the stairs with a fur on top of it.

"Thank you for helping me make soap," I said to both of them.

"There's no need to thank us, Adia, this is what our pride is, to take care of you," Winston reminded me as he kissed my cheek and sat on the floor next to me

"What are the next steps for making soap?" Curtis asked.

"Tomorrow we'll mix the shea butter, tallow, and lye water and pour it into this mold, though I underestimated how much we made of each ingredient, so Winston could you make 2 or 3 more molds?" I asked him. He nodded at me and got up from his sitting position to go and make them.

"Hey Curtis, where did you store the Herbs I got yesterday?" I asked.

"They are in the storage room to the left," he said. I went to get up to get them but his tail stopped me as he got up to bring them to me.

"Here, you go, what do you plan to use them for?" He asked me.

"I plan to use it to make the soap smell good, THJS one is rosemary, that is lavender, and this one is juniper," I said to him.

"They do smell pretty good," Curtis added.

Winston came in with 3 soap molds in tow. "Thank you!" I exclaimed and pecked him on the cheek.

He blushed and set them with the other mold. "What should we have for dinner? I'm thinking fish?" I said.

"That sounds good, I'll get it for you," Curtis said as he left the house in his half-transformation. I decided not to fight him about it because this cotton was hard to move in.

He came back a few minutes with a large fish thrown over his shoulders, kind of looked like an aripima and a tuna had a secret love child. I cleaned the scales and the bones off of it for Curtis to cook.

We all ate grilled fish with cayenne powder, except Curtis, who was eating it plain. After we ate, we decided to take note of everything in storage.

We had wood for about a month, 12 decent hides, some fruits sent by the mysterious Shuu, who haven't come by recently, and some herbs that we have been using for seasonings.

As much as I like this way of living, I need to have a least a few common amenities, I think I'll ask Winston to make cabinets for starve efficiency and maybe utensils, I could make a table and some sitting pillows as it's more comfortable in my opinion than a traditional dining table and chairs.

Since we were sort of bored, I taught them a bit about my world, I was talking about slang.

"Why do you use slang?" Winston asked curiously.

"To shorten messages sent to each other, we have a written language as well as spoken, it's to make messages shorter and more convenient," I explained.

"Could you teach us your written language?" Curtis asked "I'm a fast learner and we could write each other messages if we're out hunting and foraging without having to worry about each other," He reasoned.

"Sure, I can teach you how to write!" I said. I grabbed a stick and wrote out each uppercase and lowercase letter, making sure they were neat and proportionate.

" This is the alphabet, every word is made up of a combination of these letters," I started. They listen with intent.

I taught them how to spell their names along with mine along with some keywords like water, food, meat, hunt, and home. before we knew it,  I could barely see what was in front of me, let alone what I was writing, and I had to stop teaching them for the night.

I took a bath and changed my cotton once again before going to bed with them, preparing for another long day of soap making.

Date posted: February 4th, 2024
Word count: 1017

Hey everyone, I think this be my last post for a bit, I'm taking a break for a few reasons, I've decided I want to make a new story based on one I've read (it's been abandoned). And I've not been in the beauty and the beasts fandom for a bit, I think I'll plan to post again under this title around April-May. I also plan to post this on AO3! Goodbye and Farewell!