Dinner Date

"So how did you find these? Did you find Xunsu?" Shuule had dressed herself in her new snakeskin dress, and the two of them were now on the top cliff of their cave. Set had cleaned up the area thoroughly, laying down some animal skins to keep the area clean after being used to process smoked meats. In front of the skins was a small fire, with two stones on either side. Shuule was kneeling over the cleaned and skinned Shortwing bird carcasses, getting ready to show Set how to cook.

"No," he answered. "I just followed the stream back to where I first met you. I didn't find the horse, but - I've seen her. She's around."

Shuule's ears shot back, looking up at Set in alarm. "She's near?! Why haven't I seen her?! I want her to come back!"

Set stared at his mate, wondering why someone he felt to be so capable sometimes asked him such stupid questions. ".... You're living with a snake four times larger than her."

Shuule snorted, baring her fangs at Set half heartedly, before brushing off the conversation to start to explain how she was going to cook their meal. Set was in his human form again, cross legged and ready to take in the information.

First, she buried the eggs into the embers around the outside of the fire. Something in the back of Set's mind reminded him that he would really enjoy the end result of this. While the eggs cooked, Shuule and Set both used sharp scales like knives, cutting up the meat at the joints, and spreading it evenly on a thin slab of fresh pine wood. The wood was then placed over the fire, being held up by the rocks.

"Eggs cook fast," Shuule explained, using a stick to roll the eggs out of the fire. She then picked one up with a clawed hand, using her nails like tongs, and placed the egg into a basin of water to cool them off faster. Set followed, pulling the rest out with her. As a snake, he was naturally averse to doing anything with fire - but for his mate, he would push it aside. Once the eggs had cooled enough, Shuule plucked one out of the water and peeled it, handing it to Set.

"You can dip it in the salt, or you can eat it like this." Set took it from her, staring at the salt in a little wooden bowl, and then back at the egg. Snakes also were not particularly into flavorful foods, and he hadn't actually eaten straight salt before. He had a feeling he would not enjoy it. So instead, he popped the egg whole into his mouth. After chewing twice, a smile creeped onto his face, his green eyes almost glowing.

Shuule laughed, eating her own egg more slowly while she turned the bird meat over to cook the other side. She noticed that he had chosen to not use the salt, but decided to sprinkle it on the meat anyway. By the time they had eaten the eggs, the birds were done.

The two of them feasted, Set surprised by both the amount that he enjoyed cooked food even with some salt cooked into it, and how easy it actually was. Shuule explained the specifics; that the thickness mattered and he couldn't just cook a giant slab of meat this way and expect it not to be raw in the middle, that the type of wood mattered and would change the flavor. She also explained how some other plants in the forest could be used to change the flavor, but that her mother had only learned this from going to the Second Great City once, and that nobody else in her village wanted to use their herbal medicines like that. There were quite a lot of similar plants in her world - basil, chili peppers, garlic, onions. Set physically recoiled at the idea that someone would use the red peppers in food, yet another inkling in the back of his mind telling him that snakes would not appreciate this.

The sun had set by the time they had finished, their bodies illuminated by their fire. Set cleaned up, taking the now charred cooking slab and the carcass bones, and tossing it over the opposite edge of the cave. Shuule had brought her bow and arrow up with her, and was now going through the arrows, figuring out what she could salvage.

"So, what is it?" Set asked, looking over her shoulder.

"It's a weapon that allows me to kill prey from far away," she tried to explain. "The Other World called it a bow and arrow. My mother learned this from The City also. Nobody else really used it," she went on, flipping the bow over in her hands a few times. "Males don't think they need it. Females didn't want to learn."

The girl picked up one of her arrows that was broken, but was still long enough to be used in the bow. Her arrows were very rudimentary, just wooden sticks with a point, but the point was sharp enough to pierce wild animal hides when launched, and the sticks had been painstakingly worked to be entirely straight. Standing up, she walked to the edge of the cliff, raised the bow, and shot the broken arrow off into the distance. Sets mouth hung slightly agape watching the arrow bolt through the darkened sky.

"I can make you more," he stammered out once he stopped stuttering at the only technology he had ever really witnessed. For the first time, the snake was starting to think that perhaps this female would be able to survive the winter while he hibernated after all.

--

Set had thought that perhaps that night would be when they finally completed the spousalship, but after another hour of laughing, talking, and making plans for the future, Shuule had fallen asleep in his arms. It was a long day, considering they often didn't have enough to fill a day with without waking up late and napping at noon. Shuule, however, just as excited about her bow being returned as she was the morning before for her hunting adventure, woke up with the sun. She found herself back in the cave, Set having carried her in after she had drifted off.

She really, really wanted to use her bow, and she also knew that having Set outside would make most of her prey go off in hiding. The bow was not particularly helpful in the thick jungle, but Shuule figured that she would be able to sit in a tree by one of the small clearings she had found just a few paces past the stream.

Slowly, she peeled herself out of the snake's coils that had become her routine bed, and quietly picked up her bow and arrows, slinging the sheath over her back and exiting the dark cave into the morning light.