It started with short walks.
At first, Einar kept the hunts simple—quiet hikes through the wooded ridges behind our home, just far enough from the village that the trees muffled the world behind us. He'd point out tracks in the snow or scuffs in the underbrush, show me where the animals moved and how to read the land like it was a second language. The forest was a book he could read at a glance, and I was only just learning the alphabet. Moss on the north side of trees. Broken twigs. Fresh droppings. All signs, all words in a language I was only beginning to understand.
We never took Leofric or went too far from home—Ingrid would've had our heads—but those early trips felt like the world opening wider. Not a game. Not play. This was real, with real weight and real silence. Each step away from the house was a step toward something I hadn't realized I was missing. Something primal, something grounding. Something alive.
And gods, the silence.
Out there, with no one but Einar, the trees and the wind, it felt honest. There were no whispers. No sideways glances. No stories about curses. Just the snow under our feet and the hum of a bowstring across my fingers. Out there, I wasn't the girl with strange eyes and stranger powers. I was just another soul learning how to survive. The hush of the woods felt sacred, broken only by birdsong, the rustle of leaves, or the creak of old branches swaying above.
The first few times, I missed everything.
I loosed arrows at deer, hares and even once at a fox that bolted before I'd even drawn halfway. Einar didn't laugh. Didn't scold. He just kept walking, kept showing me the signs. He was patient in a way I hadn't expected—never indulgent, but never cruel either. Every miss was just another step. Another lesson. Another notch on the bowstring of experience.
"Don't rush," he'd say. "Let your breath settle. Let your hands listen."
And then, one morning, I saw the rabbit.
It was sunning itself near the edge of a thicket, half-obscured but not hidden. I froze. Lowered my breathing. My fingers moved on their own, drawing back the string. The cold bit into my cheek where I anchored the arrow. The bow felt steady in my grip, not because it was easier, but because I was beginning to understand it. To trust it. To trust myself.
I didn't think about how tired my arms were or how I'd missed the last four times. I just... felt it.
And then I let go.
The arrow flew.
The rabbit twitched. Then stilled.
I stared, heart pounding in my ears.
Einar stepped up beside me, followed my gaze, then looked down at the arrow lodged clean through the animal's ribs.
For a second, he said nothing. Then:
"Well shot."
That was it. No roaring applause, no dramatic hug. Just well shot, like it was the most natural thing in the world.
But the look in his eyes—that was something else.
Joy. Quiet, unmistakable pride.
And I glowed.
Not outwardly—I tried to keep my cool—but inside? I was soaring. It was the kind of win that came after failing, after trying over and over again and wondering if you were even close to doing it right. And now here it was. Real.
I'd never hunted before. Not in this life, not in the one before. I'd never even been camping without cursing over the lack of hot showers. Firearms I'd handled once or twice... at a controlled range... in a climate-controlled indoor facility where the loudest thing after the gunshots was the vending machine.
This was different. Real. Visceral. Something I had earned.
We took the rabbit home, cleaned it, and cooked it together. Einar showed me how to skin it without ruining the hide. I watched carefully, trying not to gag, and didn't let myself flinch. I made mistakes, of course. Nicks in the skin. A tug too hard. But Einar corrected me without judgment. He walked me through every part: the incision, the careful peel, how to keep the hide intact.
Ingrid didn't say much when we brought it in, but I caught the way she smiled when she set an extra place at the table.
And Leofric, barely old enough to understand anything, clapped at the taste of fresh meat like it was the greatest thing he'd ever eaten. He mashed rabbit into his cheeks with gleeful abandon, hands sticky and face smudged with grease.
It was a success.
Hunting wasn't a daily thing—not for us. Einar only took me out every few weeks, and never more than we needed. If we bagged something, we didn't go out again until every scrap of it had been eaten or put to use. That was his rule. No trophies. No sport. Just food, fur, and necessity. Respect. For the land. For the animals. For what they gave us.
The pelts, though—they were useful.
More useful than I realized at first.
When the villagers stopped trading with us, it wasn't just food or tools we lost access to. It was cloth, too. Wool. Leather. Thread. All those little things we used to barter for without thinking. And I was growing—still young enough that my clothes shrank every few months while I stretched out of them. Ingrid did her best to patch things together, but eventually even patches couldn't hide the wear.
That was when we started using what we had. What I brought home.
Rabbit. stout. Once, a fox with a perfect white winter coat.
"Warm, that one," Ingrid had said, running her fingers across the fur. "Soft, too."
Then she handed me a knife.
"Tanning's a messy thing," she warned, tying her apron tight. "Smells awful. Takes patience. But you'll learn. Just like you learned to shoot."
She was right on all counts, and it was far worse than I had expected.
Tanning hides did smell awful. I gagged the first time I helped scrape flesh from the inside of a rabbit skin. The brain mixture—used for softening—was even worse. But Ingrid worked through it all without flinching, hands practiced and eyes sharp. And I did what I always did: I watched. I listened. I repeated. I failed. Then I failed less. We soaked hides in urine and ash. We dried them. Stretched them. Smoked them over low fires.
There were moments where I nearly gave up. Where I had to step outside, breathe through my mouth, and will myself to go back in. But I did. Again and again. The smell clung to my hands even after scrubbing. The work was hard. Relentless. But slowly, it stopped feeling impossible.
My fingers blistered at first, then calloused. Over time, I started to see the steps not just as tasks but as craft. There was a rhythm to it, a skill that came only through doing. The way the hide changed between your fingers was subtle, but noticeable.
Then came the sewing.
Clothing wasn't fashion out here—it was protection. Layers against the cold. Ingrid taught me to cut carefully, to shape without wasting, to stitch with tight, even pulls so nothing unraveled in the wash. I botched my first attempt so badly that the leggings came out twisted, and Einar just grunted something about "fashionable new styles for left-legged girls."
We laughed. A little.
I eventually got it right.
By the end of that season, I had a new cloak lined with rabbit fur. Rough in spots, seams a little crooked—but mine. I'd helped hunt it, clean it, tan it, and sew it. It was warm. Durable.
It fit.
It wasn't just magic or a skill screen or a number ticking upward.
It was something real.
Something we made ourselves.
There was power in that.
In knowing that when the village turned its back on us, we didn't vanish. We adapted. We learned. We endured. Every stitch, every scraped hide, every crude but wearable garment was a quiet defiance.
I was growing in more ways than one.
And if the rest of the world wanted to forget we were here?
We'd survive without them.
And we'd do it well.
The cloak was rough, but warm. I'd sewn the hem myself—twice, actually, because the first one had bunched at the shoulder in a way that made it look like the pelt was trying to escape. Still, when I stepped outside and felt the wind bite and fail to reach my skin for once, I couldn't stop the small grin that tugged at my mouth. I pulled the hood up, ran my fingers along the inner lining, and for once, didn't feel like an imposter playing survivalist.
I was starting to get the hang of this.
And that thought—that quiet pride—reminded me of something I hadn't checked in a while.
"System"
A soft chime answered. The familiar flicker of light. The translucent blue screen bloomed into view like frost over glass.
The usual page blinked in—name, age, attributes, familiar skills. But something had changed. A small, pulsing tab I hadn't noticed before.
[Skills > Crafting Subset – Expand?]
My heart ticked faster as I tapped it with a thought. The list unfolded beneath the line like a scroll unrolling, each new entry bringing with it a tiny thrill.
[Crafting Level: 1] You have begun to engage consistently in basic production and refinement of materials.
Subskills:
– Tanning (Rank F – 13%)
– Leatherworking (Rank F – 9%)
– Sewing (Rank F – 17%)
– Tool Maintenance (Rank F – 4%)
– Cloth Repair (Rank F – 10%)
It wasn't much. The ranks were still low. The numbers barely broke double digits. But it was real. Tangible proof that everything I'd been doing—the stink of tanning hides, the endless hours of mending worn tunics by firelight, the quiet repetitions Ingrid guided me through—it had weight.
It had value.
And somehow, the system saw it.
Not just fire. Not just floating stones. But this, too. The slow, grinding, honest kind of learning.
It felt good. Different from the magic. The system hadn't handed these skills to me. I'd earned them, callus by callus, stitch by stitch. One stubborn failure at a time.
I closed the screen with a faint smile, the numbers still lingering behind my eyes like embers in the dark.
Then I returned to work.
Because the wind was getting colder.
And Leofric would need something warm before winter truly sank its claws in again.