Anemone sat on the ground, back against a tree, humming a sweet melody. The melody soothed her down, calming her nerves that were racing from the horrifying memories, and as she became calm, she stood up. It felt like Father had already been asleep for an eternity, but it had been a little less than two hours, which, telling time wasn't Anemone's strong suit, so she thought it had been three.
Anemone knew not to leave camp, let alone leave Father, her friend, completely alone in a forest, in the middle of the night. But, she told herself-
-it wont be long. I just want to go get some meat from the carriage and cook it.'
Anemone made up her mind and made a trip back to the carriage, trying not to make too much noise. She slowly opened up the tailgate, which creaked loudly, and grabbed out some meat; one slab of meat from a cow and a sheep. She then closed the crate, locking the very simple lock. The pieces of meat Anemone grabbed were quite large for a girl her size, but also could be small for a man. She did want to grab other types of meat and try them all, but-
'Oh well, we will eat the rest on the road, or save it and sell it at the shop.'
Anemone soon made her way back to the camp, where she began to ponder how to cook these and make them edible enough to eat. Anemone did love to cook and had since she was young, but she wasn't a professional chef. She now just wanted to find out what herbs and wildlife were around here that she could use.
'Oh, wait! The botanical encyclopedia, I can use it to forage for edible plant life that I can use to make the meat taste better.'
Anemone quickly walked back to the carriage, grabbing a simple wood-woven basket. Anemone thus returned to the surrounding area around the campground. She walked slightly, facing away so as not to have the flame glaring in her eye. Once her eyes adjusted to the dark, she grabbed a leather strip and pulled her hair around her head, over her left shoulder, then tied it to keep it in place while foraging.
'Now, where to start… I have never foraged before. This is so stressful. Okay, Anemone, just don't get poisonous plants.'
Anemone went to a place opposite the carriage. She wandered into the forest, and as she did, more and more life seemed to appear before her. Beautiful life. Her eyes adjusted to the dark, and she could see how colorful the surroundings were. She watched small animals scurry away, crushing leaves beneath them. She watched the fireflies seem to beat rhythmically, and looked at the green greenery that painted the ground.
Anemone did know one thing, and that was mushrooms grew in moist places, so she found an area full of soaked, dead trees. Which happened to be where she gathered wood from earlier, and on the floor, she found an abundance of small mushrooms.
'I heard the more colorful they are, the more dangerous.'
She skipped the mushroom she was looking at, which happened to be a red cap mushroom with white dots all over. And continued looking, she then found a beautiful, blue mushroom.
Anemone pulled out the encyclopedia and found the name, identifying it with a picture.
"Blue Oyster Mushroom?" Anemone muttered to herself, "It's so pretty."
Anemone then grabbed a few, putting them in the small basket after determining them to be edible and not dangerous. Anemone continued searching after doing so and found a strange plant. It was not a fungus of anykind, but was immensely pretty. It seemed to scream out its own name, and Anemone didn't even need to look in the encyclopedia to determine what it was.
'Purple Sage. It is SO PRETTYY! I have never seen them in the wild, but mom used to buy them all the time.. mom…'
Anemone forced the depressing image out of her mind and then plucked every piece of Purple Sage she saw, throwing it into the basket. She decided she only needed one more plant, but she didn't know what. But it wasn't too long before she found one; it had a square-like stem and oval-shaped leaves, which both seemed to have hairs growing along them.
Anemone opened up the encyclopedia and began to search.
Known as the king of all herbs, Basil is often used for its intense flavor and aroma.
"This is perfect! Time to go back, I sure am lucky right now." Anemone said excitedly after gathering a handful of Basil.
As she reveled in her newfound luck, Anemone made her way back to the camp, looking around for any other lucky finds that might make the meat more flavorful. After all, she wanted to start cooking; she was tired of lugging around the meat this entire time. To her dismay, she had no luck in finding other tasty ingredients, but she did find a way to stop carrying the meat around, and that was to hang it on a nail.
Anemone soon hammered a nail as quietly as she could into a tree, which still sounded like a woodpecker knocking on wood. Once the nails were in the wood, she tossed the slabs of meat over them, centering them so as not to fall off. Over time, Anemone began to prepare a sauce by cutting up each of the herbs and grinding it into a paste, a mellow purple paste with a hint of green and blue, which came from the basil and mushrooms, respectively.
'I sure hope this is enough to cover the pieces of meat entirely,' she thought.
Anemone soon went to the pieces of meat that she had hanging and began to rub the plant concoction all over them, making the red, fresh pieces of meat look unappetizing. She didn't want to keep the pieces of meat on the nail, so she found two sturdy sticks and skewered the pieces of meat, and stuck them in the ground, allowing the meat to soak up the flavor that resided within the concoction.
'Now time to let them soak in the flavor, and just hope it's good in the end. I guess I will go find some more firewood.'
She made her way back into the forest, carrying her trusty axe. And as quickly as she went in, she returned, this time with a bundle of wood that she dedicated to be firewood.
'How long has it been? I hope he wakes up soon.'
She was beginning to feel groggy from all the walking she was doing; she could have decided just to sit there in the meantime, but she wanted to stay busy.
"I guess I will read," Anemone muttered.
She soon retrieved a simple book that was about humans. About humans killing all of their natural predators, the ones that could use magic, including vampires, dwarves, elves, and goblins, until the humans reigned supreme. Then, over a millennium, magic was forgotten. Spells, conjurations, chants, magic circles, mana circulation, any knowledge relating to the mana core and how it worked dissapeared off the trace of the earth. And over time, humans began to rely on something called 'technology'.
After reading for half an hour, she stood up, grabbed the sticks of meat, then skewered them both onto the same stick and put it over the fire onto two 'Y' shaped sticks that would hold it in the air.
'I hope it doesn't burn.'
Anemone let it sit there over the raging fire, and it slowly began to cook. She could see the paste beginning to form a solid crust on the outside, which look unapealing.
'Please be good! I worked hard for this.'
Over the next two hours, she turned the pieces of meat a total of five times, leaving twenty minutes remaining until Father Hatheway awoke.
'I'm so tired…'
Time seemed to crawl by at a snail's pace, while Anemone began to fall into sleep's loving embrace.
'I can stay up… twenty more minutes. Twenty more…'
Her eyes began to feel heavy, and she began to doze off even as she put herself into an uncomfortable position to try to stay awake. Her head began to slump, and as her eyes closed for the final time, she saw a figure in front of her.
"Get some rest, young one," a tender voice said.
At this confirmation, Anemone fell into sleep's embrace, forgetting about the food completely.
Time flew by, and before she knew it, she was being shaken, her groggy eyes slowly split open, and she looked ahead to see Father squatting down. As her vision unblurred, she looked around and saw some of the meat had been eaten, saving her the rest, and the mortar and pestle were cleaned up. Anemone looked to the sky to see that the sun was already well past sunrise.
'I slept much longer than six hours.' She realized, then apologized, "I am so sorry, Father, I overslept!"
"It is okay, young one. I made some tea with some herbs for the food you had cooked. And do not worry, I finished cooking it. You did really well. I am proud of you."
"Thank you so much!" Anemone jumped up, despite just recently awaking, and saw the meat, drool foaming out of her mouth.
She lunged toward the meat, her stomach growling like a beast, and devoured the remaining meat like said beast. They were exquisite; despite it being such a small meal, it satiated her throughoutly; she had never once been this satisfied. Once she finished eating the scrumptious meats, she began to drink up a cup of tea that Father had prepared. The meal the two had just eaten was the kind you would get from a high-end tavern, and they had just produced it in the wilderness.
Anemone soon cleaned up, making sure to grab the encyclopedia, the mortar and pestle that Father cleaned, and anything else that had been lying around.
Anemone turned, ready to take everything back to the carriage, that's when she saw it, a beast, one of nightmares. A lycanthrope, it was radiating bloodlust, covered in a dark pelt so thick that arrows would never hope to pierce it.
Anemone stood at a large distance away from the beast, watching it smell around the carriage, drooling out of its red maw. The beast stood on its hind legs and had bloodshot, crimson eyes that reflected the sun casting down upon it. The claws adorning its hand were each the size of a human hand, large enough to crush a human skull without much effort.
Anemone began to slowly back away, leaves crunching beneath her, causing her heart to race. Despite the noises she created by accident, the beast didn't turn.
'I can't scare it away; it would kill me before it decided to run. It will probably think I am after the food in the carriage as well. Should I get Father to kill it? Water magic won't be of much help. A lycanthrope has incredible senses, so why has it not attacked us yet? Wait! A lycanthrope is similar to a werewolf, but has one distinction. Control. It still has human thoughts and emotions. I could try to convince the beast to back away. No, I have to.'
"Hey, you!" She tried saying softly, trying not to invoke fear, "If you are hungry, we can get you some food!"
The beast turned its head; its mouth was foaming like a rapid beast, pouring out crimson bubbles. Then the body turned, facing Anemone completely, showing off its three-meter-tall body (~10 ft).
'Please, listen to me. I don't want to fight. Why am I even doing this? The carriage isn't worth it.'
She watched as the claws began to grow, its mouth opened in a deep growl, both hands uncurling as it towered over her despite the ten-meter distance (~30ft). The scene was like something out of nightmares, a predator hunting its prey, the unkillable killing the killable. Then the beast lunged, shooting after Anemone and Father like an arrow flying through the wind. Before Anemone knew it, she saw red.