Three days in that cave. Three days of tea, sex and nothing, with thunder and rain as an ear breaking soundtrack. We barely talked. By the end of it I was so very sick of tea. Percy, as usual, didn’t seem to give a fuck. Manner of speaking, of course. She smiled a lot, though. She had a gorgeous smile, the kind that dared the gods to do their worst. They were taking that challenge seriously.

They finally relented, a bit. We grabbed our stuff and made our slow way North. Days blended. We jumped on anything that looked edible. Small animals, berries, fruits, mushrooms. The mushrooms were a bad idea.

It took us hours to stop seeing fairies, although the dragon gave us a nice boost. We covered more ground that day than we’d ever hoped for. No caves though. We were getting close to the big ass forest I didn’t want to get into. Of course we had to go through it. Fucking gods, fucking universe. I hoped there wouldn’t be anything scarier than Percy in there.

The mushrooms had taught us caution, but we still needed food. I got better and better with the sling. Tried to build a bow, but that didn’t end well. Unless I found one, the sling would have to do.

“Love, remember to not kill carnivores, okay? They aren’t that good.”

Percy didn’t mind gutting and stripping animals, but she refused to kill them. Weird girl, twisted moral code, but I couldn’t complain. She had the dirty work after all. And she always managed to find vegetables or fruits. Stuff to put in a stew or roast over the fire. Still don’t know how.

One night we feasted on a wild boar I had been lucky enough to down. A small one, tender and smelling of milk. So much better than rabbit. Before all this I would have cried at the idea of eating a babe. Now, I licked my fingers.

We tried smoking some, and hung some in branches, for a try. There was more than we could eat in two days and it would go to waste if we didn’t do anything. We had to camp for a couple of nights, but it seemed to kind of work. At least we weren’t sick. We could keep going for a bit, and be okay even if I didn’t find any meat.

We’d been in the forest for five days when we met them. Three of them: man, woman, and child. That kid looked more than half starved. His parents weren’t much better.

We all froze for a few seconds, and they started crying. 

“Oh thank God! We haven’t met anyone in weeks, we were starting to believe there were no one left”, the mother said, half choking on her tears. Percy and I exchanged a worried glance. God? 

We made camp early, and our new companions with us. We hoped for informations. They just wanted food. Once the camp was made and wood gathered, I left to hunt. We’d need more than usual but I was confident I could manage, and we still had some smoked boar left. The kid came with me unasked.

“How old are you?” I asked him. 

“Twelve, I think.” Poor kid. His voice was changing, his eyes were hollow, his dark hair so tangled you would’ve lost a brush in it. And not even sure of his own age. I had no idea how to answer that, and kept my mouth shut.

It didn’t take long to find prey. I motioned for him to be quiet: I’d seen a squirrel, a fat one. The animal stopped moving when it spotted us. I knew the stillness wouldn’t last more than a half second. I grabbed the sling at my waist and a pebble. Careful, but quick. I aimed. Let fly. The squirrel dropped. Another two and we’d have a meal.

The kid was looking at me wide eyed while I went to retrieve it. “How did you do that?” he asked. I smiled. “I’ll teach you.” I gave up on the pebble this time, too much vegetation. And we were short on time.

I explained the basics of hunting with a sling as we moved on, towards a clearing not too far away. I spotted another squirrel just before we emerged from the trees. The animal hadn’t seen us. Perfect. Again, I motioned for the kid to be quiet and pointed. Sling, pebble, fly, drop.

“See? The trick is in the wrist movement”, I said. “It takes practice, mostly. I’ll make you a sling if you want. Hope you like gore, though. The messy part comes after you’ve killed it. You’ll see.”

With the two squirrels in one hand and the sling still in the other, I turned back to camp. It would be dark soon and making food over a campfire took time. I hoped Percy had found stuff to make a stew or something. No matter how fat, two squirrels wouldn’t feed all of us, but walking around in a forest at night was asking for trouble.