with one life alone
‷ herald: bow +1
A festival of this scale requires food to match, and the town of Baile has ordered an unbelievable amount of preserved meat to stock its food stores. Winter isnât exactly the season for big hunts though, so finding game will be harder than normal. On top of that, the more you kill for Baileâs, the less youâll have when spring arrives. The monastery has made it clear that offending this client could have dire consequences, so what do you do? Maybe if you fudge the numbers, you wonât get caught⊠[Grants Bow +1]
The tip of his arrow lowering silently, Andrei watches the doe cross the clearing, a clean path of hoofprints through the damp, frigid earth.
A doe that survives winter could mean two young fawns in spring. The amount of game available in any given year could make the difference between abundance and famine, contentment and revolt. It is the kind of lesson that imprints itself, like second nature, within his mind, even when Garreg Mach is not his territory and neither its future nor its inhabitants his responsibility.
(Even so far removed from his own land, obligation leaves its mark, still.)
It would be more ideal, then, to seek out prey that is larger, older, its value for the future decreased in proportion to the meat it can supply now.
A rustle in the undergrowth draws his attention, and narrowed eyes train onto his new target, drawing back his weaponâ
"!!"
âonly for the bow to swing downwards with his sharp inhale, eyes wide in shock at the figure that emerges from the trees.
(He wouldn't have made the mistake. He wouldn't have. And yet. His hands shake, the shadow of a turned back, the tip of his raised arrow, floating into mind.)
Andrei's own steps crunch the fallen leaves underfoot as he emerges from his hiding spot, careful, nonthreatening posture in stark contrast with the haunted look that he is unable to wipe from his expression quite in time.
"âŠMargrave Gautier?"
@cielenruine
Scarcity and it's consequences reach much farther than a bruised ego. In spite of the far more pertinent issues - food storages being thinner and food that could be preserved to coast people along throughout the harsher months spoiling before even the worst of blizzards runs through - the appeasement of the noble ego is the priority.
There are ways to manage this. Stretching thin a smaller number of caught bucks or improvising spice wise to make up for missing meat.
His thoughts make him incautious. To begin with, there are prey they shouldn't be killed and work far better as guides to more fruitful targets. Should whatever hunter he happens upon be upset then-
Instinctively he flinches and dips to a lower stance, eyes are on him and though they aren't hostile, they certainly stay and stare in a way he would be utterly ignorant to ignore.
He hears his name and finds a familiar face calling it. "Andrei." Contact has been amicable. Short and sweet - letters can only do so much to tell the stories of what happens in the world.
"A welcome surprise to be paired on the same mission." His expression gives little away, only the slightly tilt upwards on his lips. "You've been well, have you not?"




















