Chapter Twenty-Eight: Cat Toy (Patreon)

The next morning, I wake to the sound of a chest-rumbling growl. Ah, my alarm clock. Ten out of ten for waking me up – the adrenaline rush of hearing a large predator growling menacingly gets rid of the grogginess straight away.

Are you ready now, Markus Wolfe? She asks, a note of impatience in her ‘voice’.

“Just give me a moment,” I groan, rubbing the sleep out of my eyes. I changed last night, but only into new clothes, so I don’t need to do anything there. There was something though...water! “I’ll just get some water and then I’ll be all yours,” I tell her, quickly making my way out of the cave and down to the river at the foot of the hill.

As soon as I get back, Kalanthia pauses to lick her cub’s head, then lopes off. Lathani watches her go with a plaintive wail, but doesn’t try to follow. She soon shakes off the melancholy and starts romping around the clearing at the top of the hill. Of course, I very quickly become pulled into her games and have to defend myself semi-seriously against the clawed and toothed bundle of fur which leaps out at me unexpectedly from behind bushes or after a period of much more obvious stalking. In between, she gets distracted by insects and small animals.

Acting on yesterday’s resolve to start boiling my water, I manage to find some time to make a small fire out in the open where I can still see the cub. She’s curious about what I’m doing, so I have to distract her with a few sticks while the fire gets going and then again once I’ve got my wok on to heat up with the water inside. Once the liquid’s bubbling, I quickly tuck the hot pan into my alcove and pull the fire apart, keeping Lathani away until the sticks are cool.

She seems to have a bit of a knack for finding trouble: I also have a moment of panic when she dives after a small animal near the edge of the hill and falls off. Rushing over, I see she’s rolled down about halfway, so I call for her with a slightly frantic note to my voice. She looks up at me, then down at the forest curiously. I call again and she looks back at me, hesitating for a moment longer. Then, perhaps deciding that the forest can wait for another day, she bounds back up and leaps at me, knocking me down.

In the end, baby-sitting a leopard cub turns out to be a lot less relaxing than I thought it would be. She’s a bundle of energy and doesn’t sit still for a moment...until she conks out all of a sudden, barely making it back into the cave before she’s making cute baby-snores. By this point, I could do with a nap myself, but decide that it might not be the best of ideas as I’m still ‘on guard’. Instead, I settle at the mouth of the cave, enjoying the sun while still fully aware of anything moving nearby.

I pull out one of my books and read for a little, enjoying the time to relax. When Lathani wakes up she starts romping around and I put my novel away with a bit of regret. Fiddling with a stalk of plant rather similar to the grass of my homeworld, I’m amused when the bouncing flower stalk attracts the cub’s attention.

She bats at it for a while and I oblige her need to play, making the heavy flower dance and twist in the air, then on the ground. She looks just like an overgrown house-cat, the way she pounces and slaps at it. When she finally manages to get a good grip with her claws, she pulls it in close, rolling on her back and biting at it. I have an idea.

Grabbing some long, thin grass leaves, I braid them in a plait. It’s a little awkward – my head knows exactly what to do, but my fingers are terribly clumsy. The braid isn’t nearly as neat as my ‘memories’ say it should be, but it’s not like I’m expecting this to last very long. Making a couple more braids, each one better than the previous, I pick up a few leaves and bits of grass.

Binding them together into a little bundle with one braid, I tie the others to it and to each other. Finally, I grab one of the white bones that Kalanthia and Lathani have already gnawed clean. Tying the loose end of my braid to the bone, I brandish my creation gleefully. Success! I’ve made...a cat toy!

Lathani looks at me with her head cocked on one side, perhaps wondering what’s made this strange looking creature so excited, but she soon learns how fun a dedicated cat toy can be. I use the bone to make the lure dart over the ground, bounce in the air, and evade Lathani’s pounces at the very last moment. It’s surprisingly fun – for both of us. We play until we’re both tired – and the improvised cat toy has been torn to shreds – then slump at the cave mouth. Lathani lies next to me, one paw touching my leg. It’s very cute.

Kalanthia arrives back when the sun is on its downward trend, but has only got about halfway to the horizon, her chops still stained with red. Lathani’s livened up again by then, and goes to greet her with happy chirps. The nunda mama ducks her head to nuzzle her cub and breathes in her scent for a few moments. At least, that’s what I assume she’s doing when she pauses, her head near Lathani.

“Good hunt?” I ask as she moves towards the cave and, by default, me.

Good enough to last me a few days, she replies lightly. I thank you for watching over Lathani.

“Sure,” I shrug. “She was no trouble.” Kalanthia pauses next to me for a moment, then rubs her head against me gently. Well, gently for her. It almost knocks me flying. Then continuing on into the cave, she curls up on the bedding and Lathani starts playing with the twitching tip of her tail.

Good, she finally says, responding to the comment I’d almost forgotten I’d made, so distracted with her headbutt, or head-rub or whatever. I shall not need to hunt again for another three days.

“OK, great,” I comment, not sure how else to reply. When she says nothing more, I turn my thoughts onto what to do now. There’s not much time left in the day; certainly not enough to go hunting. That said, I could do with dealing with my bounty from the last few fights. Although I took the hearts from the killer-chickens and my prey yesterday, I didn’t do much else, and I haven’t done anything with the other carcasses in my Inventory. Probably better do that as I’m running out of space.

Going down to the river, I pull the corpses one by one out and deal with them. It’s only in doing this task that I realise just how many creatures I’ve killed since being here. Good thing there’s no RSPCA here, I muse wryly to myself. I’d probably have been in court for being a mass-murderer of animals, or something.

They’re pretty varied too, and I collect some resources which I think will be quite useful. Scales from the pangolin-kin which might be able to be turned into armour of some sort; barbed hooks from the snilepede; a water-tight shell from the sneleon, as well as a surprisingly long back sinew from the same; venom glands from the badger-boar thing, though I only manage to get about half of them intact; a rather ragged rabbit skin; a slightly less-ragged snake skin. Bones and meat of all types, of course, and fangs of different shapes and sizes.

I end up with six slots full of different meat: the killer-chicken meat stacks with the other bird meat, for some reason, and the snake and the snilepede also stack together. The sneleon meat, however, is kept separate as is the pangolin-lizard thing. My hoarder tendencies are coming out again – when I know how useful so many of these things can be, I don’t want to leave any of them behind. But ultimately, I can’t keep everything in my Inventory – I don’t have space – and I have no real way of preserving things outside of it.

So, anything likely to rot soon apart from meat has to go. I keep some of the bones for boiling plus anything like fangs, barbs, and feathers which aren’t likely to go off. They’re in my Inventory for now, filling all the slots. I'll pull them out later to keep in my alcove. Sinew, of course, gets kept and I start planning on how to dry it: however I look at things, I’m going to need a lot of cord and sinew is probably the best place to start. That or bark, but I haven’t yet spotted anything particularly suitable.

After I’ve finished processing the carcasses, I’m in a bit of a state. I decide that washing off the blood and guts and other icky substances is most definitely necessary. About to strip off and jump right into the stream, I hesitate. Perhaps getting naked and vulnerable right next to where blood has soaked into the earth of the bank is not the best idea.

Heading upstream a bit, I get out of immediate proximity to the mess. In the end, I find the perfect spot for a bath. It’s a naturally-carved basin, obviously created by the water swirling around for some reason, but it’s ideal for taking a bath without worrying about being swept away. Not that the stream is really strong enough to do that for me, but Lathani would probably have to be careful. Something to consider if she decides to take the forest exploration a bit further next time.

Stripping off my clothes, I leave my shoes and trousers on the bank but bring my shirt with me into the pool. The water is cool, but not overly cold. Enough to make a frisson of chill go up my spine, but not much more than that. Keeping my head on a swivel, I shift deeper into the pool and start rinsing my shirt.

Blood got all over the sleeves and a few sprays hit me on my chest – and face – so the shirt is pretty ruined, really. At least, if I’d been intending on going to a meeting that would be the case. Here, I don’t think that the animals will care if I have bloodstains on me, and at least these clothes are still mostly intact, unlike the others I’ve been wearing so far since being here. Still, I’d rather I don’t stink of blood all the time – not only is it not particularly pleasant for me, but it’s likely to attract creatures I don’t want, and scare away creatures I do.

Unfortunately, cold water isn’t the best for getting rid of bloodstains, but it suffices to wash away the worst of the liquid, at least. The water is much more effective in cleaning my body, but even there I struggle at times, especially my hands which dealt with the fatty bits of meat as well as plain blood. It doesn’t do anything for my hair, though, which by this point is starting to itch and feel greasy.

Still, it’s the first time in this world that I’ve had the chance to submerge myself in water, and it’s good to feel the accumulated grime of days wash off me. By the time I’ve finished ‘cleaning’, I look a whole lot better, but my skin doesn’t really feel that ‘clean’. And I smell better, but not great. I suppose I’ve been spoiled by deodorants, shower gels and shampoos. Ah, sandalwood…

Funny, really, I reflect as I sit back in the pool and stare up at the sky above. A bit dangerous as a position, I know, but hopefully a few minutes won’t kill me. Literally. Anyway, it’s funny to think that my girlfriend used to complain when I didn’t have a shower in a couple of days, but I never noticed my own smell; now, I really can smell myself – and I wish I couldn’t. Maybe I can create some soap at some point. Probably should – who knows how many different types of bacteria are proliferating on my skin in this very moment?

For now, though, I take a few moments just to watch the sway of the branches above, listen to the babbling of the brook, and feel the current of water flow past me.

By the time I decide that I’ve had enough of a soak, night is already closing in. I squeeze as much water out of my shirt as I can, deciding not to bother putting it back on afterwards. Pulling my trousers on is a bit difficult as I have no towel to dry off, but I succeed. Rinsing my knife, I put it away too. I take advantage of the opportunity to grab some more water in my canteen. Then, heading back up the hill, I use the last of the light to quickly start a fire outside to boil my water. While it's heating up, I arrange the non-Inventory items before munching some cooked bird-meat. Once the water has started bubbling, I put out the fire, not wanting it to cause a problem while I'm asleep. Finally, I drink some tea-without-tea-leaves and fall into bed, completely exhausted as always.