Chapter Thirty-Three - Poison Thoughts

  -Summer-

  Mohniit had escalated from whimpering confusion into full on, open-throated sobbing, loud and frightening. Belbet bit back her own tears, wiping them off of her face and then picking up her young son, cradling him close as he clutched her with small fingers. She concentrated on the overwhelming sticky heat of him, instead of the fear clawing at her heart. She was having trouble breathing, having trouble thinking.

  Her daughter’s life was hanging on a thread, and it was all because she’d taken her out foraging. She wanted to turn her mind to solutions, to things that could keep this from ever happening again, but there was an overwhelming gale of emotion shrieking behind her eyes that kept pushing thick tears down her cheeks in stinging trails.

  “Shhhh, shh, baby, it’s okay.” She mumbled into his hair, even as he wailed like the world was ending. I’m the one who wants to cry! Why, why, why is it all like this? Why can’t things get better, why do things keep getting worse?!

  I’m doing everything I can! I’m trying every idea I have, trying to make sure this works, that we survive, and all for what?! Her breath choked, and she pressed her nose into her son’s shoulder, her own shoulders tight with the need to sob harder, but unable to do so. She held her breath, trying so hard not to make it harder on herself. If her son realized she was crying, he’d surely be even more confused.

  She can’t help the croaking sob that escapes her throat, and she shook her head when an adult hand presses to her shoulders.

  “Belbet.” Deenat’s voice called, and Belbet shook her head again. Deenat pushed against the shoulder harder, “Belbet, look at me.”

  She forced herself to do so, resentment rising in her chest even as her mind told her that was unreasonable.

  Her sister’s dark eyes were serious, pitying and soft. “No matter what happens, everything will be alright.”

  It was a placation. Belbet knew, just as Deenat did, that children died every day here. Victoria, on the other hand, couldn’t handle that. “It shouldn’t be this hard.” She creaked, her tears coming afresh. “It shouldn’t be this hard to live, to survive, to keep our children alive!”

  Around her, she heard the shuffling of the other adults, but her attention wasn’t on them. She was focusing on her sister. “Right?! It shouldn’t be this hard to live life!”

  “But it is.” Deenat reminded. “Survival means doing the hard things, when they need done. Survival is hard.”

  Typical. Of course Deenat would say so, she’d never lived any other life. She’d never been able to order food with the touch of a few buttons. She’d never had whole days where she could just lay around, absorbing knowledge from the internet.

  Victoria sobbed again, and Mohniit whined in her arms, His own tears were still coming, and there was snot sliding down his face. Belbet gave a miserable sniff, and wiped it away, before getting up. Victoria’s need for cleanliness pushed past the horrid feeling of failure and fear and got her to the water, so that she could wash the slick grossness off her hand.

  She pushed through it, through the fear and the anger, and turned to those watching her, She’d seen the same sort of wariness when the tribe had come together to condemn her as a murderer. Were they hesitating to trust her because of this?

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  She took a deep breath and spoke, “Hemlock can’t be used on food-animals, so there’s no point in putting it in traps or on hunting weapons. But we should keep a store of it so that if we have human enemies, we can use it on them.”

  Mohniit trailed over to her, wobbly from his exertion. Crying so much was hard for a little body, and Belbet picked him up again, cradling him. “Someone needs a nap. How about we move Sissy inside, and you can nap next to her, okay?”

  The boy nodded, his lop ears flopping. She turned to Deenat. “Can you help me move her into the hut?”

  It took some maneuvring, but their sleeping patient and napping boy lay down in the safety of the hut, with the door closed. Belbet turned to Eefim and Deenat. “Remind me, what were you two doing before we left?”

  Eefim spoke up, completely alright with reminding his aunt. “We were picking sweet potatoes, Auntie. We got a lot of them, too!” He murmured, pointing a finger towards the pile of them. With a practiced eye, Belbet nodded, looking over the pile and determining it was roughly a week or two’s worth of sweet potatoes.

  “Perfect. Thank you, Eefim, Deenat.”

  She turned then to Mermel and Ollob, “Can you two help me carry those over to the storage area?”

  She pointed to the half-finished raised-hut that was going to be their storage area. The dog-man nodded, and jogged over to the pile, already starting. The snake-man, however paused. She tilted her head, “Something wrong?”

  “...You’re pregnant. You should perhaps, try to worry less.”

  This was entirely unwelcome advice, and Belbet grit her teeth. “I’ll keep that in mind.”

  As if she had a fucking choice in how much she worried. Ollob nodded, his eyes searching her form, only to turn and go help Mermel with his job. Kaion’s bulk settled into the space next to her, and she found herself pushing back a want to lean into his chest. She instead turned to look at him. “I think it’s about time for dinner, don’t you? Do you want to go grab some of the snake meat, and I’ll cut it up?”

  Kaion looked at her with that same searching look, before nodding, and going off to do what she asked. While he did that, Belbet set up the skin they used to boil soups, and began the boiling process by adding some of the beaver fat to the inside of the skin and throwing in some herbs and water.

  She didn’t like that she couldn’t sear the meat inside the pot first, to get the flavor. But one had to work with what they had. So, she started the ‘broth’ to boil first, and then moved to begin cutting the other vegetables they’d been gathering.

  She added dandelion leaves and roots, as well as some of the parsnips, properly identified, to the pot as well. Kaion came back with a chunk of the snake meat that smelled a little… off. She made sure to cut it into as small of pieces as she could, cook it thoroughly on their stove-top-rock, and then dump it into the stew that was being made. A few sweet potatoes cut up and dumped in too, and then the stew began it’s bubbling process of turning into something edible.

  While waiting for it to finish, she turned her attention to preparing the Threesquare seeds into flour. It was a slow, difficult process, and she wished she had a more useful mortar and pestle. Or even one of those rolling apparatus’ Victoria used to see in those videos of Chinese influencers who made old fashioned meals from scratch.

  She sighed, and rubbed at one shoulder as it got achey. Ollob seemed to notice, and frowned. “What are you doing?”

  She looked up, wondering when the Snake-man had returned. She gestured to the seeds with her chin. “Grinding these into flour. It will store better, and makes good food.”

  He nodded. “We used to do that in our old tribe. What do you plan to do with it?”

  “Make bread to go with dinner for now, and to store for winter.” Belbet explained. “...if you know how to do this, would you be willing to do this? I need to make a sieve, but that requires me working on my netting.”

  She gestured to the pile of snake-woman-hair she’d been turning into a fishing net over the last few days. He blinked, and then shrugged, reaching out to take over the grinding of the seeds. Mermel came over as she was doing so, and looked at what she was doing with curious eyes.

  “...I’m making a fishing net. If done right, it can also be used as a trap for larger animals too. If I practice and get the knotting small enough, eventually I’ll be able to use this technique to make something called a sieve, which will let me strain solids out of liquids.” She explained. “And cloth, too, which will be useful for all kinds of things.”

  “Like what?” Mermel asked.

  Mini Character List

  Victoria/Belbet - Our Main Character, 21 yr old pregnant Mom. - God, Hemlock can kill a grown man with a bite... There's no cure for it! She... Am... Am I going to lose my baby?!

  Dahnei - 5 year old paleolithic child. Daughter of Belbet. Jerboa Mouse-Spirited. - I'm so dizzy, everything hurts! Mama! Help me, Mama!

  Mohniit - 2 year old paleolithic child. Son of Belbet. Rabbit Spirited. - What's happening?! Why is Sissy so sick! Why is Mama crying?!

  Unborn Baby - Oh great, more stress.

  Deenat - 25 year old paleolithic gatherer - Ermine Spirited. - Ah, fuck. This isn't good... Belbet is so attached, if Dahnei dies... ...what am I gonna do if Dahnei dies?

  Eefim - 11 year old paleolithic hunter-in-training - Is... Is Dahnei going to die?!

  Kaion - 26 year old man. Ram Spirited. - Shit, Shit shit, okay, the kid's sick, or dying... fuck, Keep calm, Kaion, we don't need panic here!

  Wolf - ...my food is very VERY late.

  Olleb - age 35 - viper spirited - Listen, I've already told Mermel we have to leave. We might as well learn as much as we can before we go. It'll be useful.

  Mermel -age 39 - Malamute spirited - Olleb will come around. Ooh, what's that? That's a lot of fiddly little knots...