The trouble with centaurs was that they could not help you get things on their backs. It always took a lot of tugging and arguing on Catania’s part to get her burdens where the centaur could safely carry them—but somehow they always managed it.

They pushed their way through the underbrush to Catania’s “kitchen”. She called it this because it was where she butchered and cooked her quarries, so the smell would not attract wild animals to where she slept and kept her gear. It was really just a clearing in the forest, just South of a small creek, that filled it with a clear, tinkling sound. When they reached it, Tyre flopped the stag down on the ground, which the elf’s many light steps had worn clean of any grass or weed.

Catania whipped out her knife and began to skin her prey at once. “I can butcher it without help,” she said. Tyre had not offered his assistance, but she could not help flaunting her skill a little.

“Your determination, Catania, is a credit to your people.”

The young elf paused, knife frozen over her work. She had not expected to be praised; Tyre’s compliments were few and far between—almost unheard-of. It scarce sounded like praise in his voice, of course; he remained gravely authoritative and dutiful. But Tyre gave up everything, risked anything, to defend his people and keep the humans at bay; he thought of nothing else. It was probably the biggest compliment he could offer. She tried to feel grateful.

She shrugged in acknowledgment, and turned back to the animal at her feet. She had nothing to work with but her knife, but the bones gave way if she stamped on them with all her weight. She cut out Tyre’s portion and wrapped it with ferns. She helped him load it on his back and saw him off. She was glad to see him go. She was quite used to being in the forest by herself by now, and his keen gaze made her nervous, even when he seemed to be in a good mood, like today—despite their quarrel about Jéru.  Maybe he was beginning to think better of the swineherd.

She finished her work alone, wrapped the meat in leaves, and scraped the skin clean. She buried the meat in the mud by the creek, to keep it cool, and rubbed her hands off in the rivulet. It had given her shudders at first to see her hands splashed with blood, but she hardly noticed now. It was life in the forest.

The sun had fallen West, behind the canopy of the trees, and the woods were turning gold with the sunset as Catania scrambled along the edges of the clearing, gathering brushwood. She heaped up her findings among the ashes of her previous fires in the middle of the clearing and got a small blaze burning. She stood up, brushed the dirt off the knees of her trousers, rolled up the skin, tucked it under her arm, and started home to get her cooking-gear.