Smolder

Chapter 4:

Russell threw a Yeir on the ground, motionless, it's neck twisted in an odd angle.

A while earlier, a thrashing noise had come from the direction of the trap. Russell took Arron and went to check. Vivi hadn't expected the trap to work so fast, much less catch something as big as a Yeir.

It was just the evening but inside the forest, under the Sal trees, it was midnight. The fire burned at the center of the clearing. Vivi sat close to it. Her feet extended towards the fire, the pants pulled to protect from any wayward sparks. She leaned back on her hands.

The princess was at left of her. She had her dress pulled up from her feet too, but unlike Vivi, she was sitting upright.

"What?" Vivi said, seeing Russell looking at her intently .

He pointed at the Yeir, "you do it."

"Oh, so I skin a rabbit while you laze around?" Vivi huffed.

"Don't say that while laying near a cozy campfire," Russell looked about, "And I won't be lazing around."

Having nothing else to say, Vivi stood up. She picked up the Yeir, took a torch from the campfire and went a bit farther from the site. Although she didn't quite hate doing things like this, she wouldn't do it anywhere near where she'd sleep. Especially when there are things out here sniffing for blood.

When she was done and the rabbit looked like a big turkey(she left the head), she came back the campsite and saw what Russell meant by not lazing around. Two tripods stood on two sides of the fire, exactly high enough that the fire cannot fully reach it but can sometimes lick it. Russell was standing nearby with a sharp stick. He looked like a loan collector.

Vivi handed the meat over to Russell. He stuck it on the stick and hung it on the tripod, over the fire. Elli volunteered to roll it.

"Where's the skin?" Russell asked.

Vivi pointed back towards the bush. Russell went back to get it.

Who knows what he's planning?

Vivi relieved Elli of her duty and took the roll. The Yeir was still, somehow, unchanged in the heat of the fire. Not even a ting of brown showed.

When things burn unexpectedly, they turn into charcoal almost immediately. When they are being cooked, they take forever. Why is that?

"Hey, um... Vivi....it was Vivi, right?"

Vivi turned around to see Arron standing behind her.

"About before, sorry for kicking you," Arron tried to make eye contact with her. Failed and looked down, "and pointing a sword at you."

"Oh it's okay," Vivi said looking away from him, "If it were me I'd have done something way worse; like, gouge your eyes out or something." Vivi really could do that. She really could. It went so easily in her head Everytime she imagined it, "And about the sword, you couldn't have done anything with that anyway."

Arron was speechless for a moment, his face frozen midscowl. He was confused, the poor soul. Vivi thought his face acrobatics was praise-worthy.

Then he regained his vocal control, "I had my sword three inches from your eye. I could've stabbed you easily."

It wasn't Vivi to let such a claim go unscathed, "I would've kicked your sword away the second you started moving!"

"I would've picked it from the air and slash at you!" Arron kept at it.

"I would've dodged it and gouged your eyes!" Vivi came back.

"I would've drove my sword through your heart!" Arron mimed... a thing.