Nothing But Remains

[Praetorum]

Date: 12th of Vhalar, Arc 720

Status: Ready to start

Weapons: None

Armor: Platelike Leather

No Current Magical Effects

Continued from here

Normally, Prae would only take the major cuts of meat, peeling apart the hide with his knife and claws. But in Rharne, Clarissa had found someone willing to pay for a deer skin, and since their collective coinpurse was starting to get a little light...



Praetorum watched as Clarissa slid her knife over and around the knee joints of the deer's front legs, cutting a circle through its fur.  "Okay, here." She gestured for Prae to come closer. "Snap the legs off right here. Cut a little deeper if you need to." She moved around to the hind side of the deer to do the same thing, leaving Prae to wrap his hands around the leg on both sides of the cut Clarissa had made, and try to snap the bone along those markings. He tried at first to keep his hands close together, so the break would be exactly where he needed it to be, but bone was bone, and he couldn't get enough force like that. So he tried again, this time keeping one hand close to the cut, and the other one closer to the hooves to get some leverage—that worked just fine, and soon he had both legs off, leaving the deer looking a little bit like a dressed chicken. 



Clarissa, already done, had managed to thread rope into the space between sinew and bone on the hind legs and tie it into a loop; when she saw Prae was finished as well, she threw the free end of the rope loop at Prae and pointed to a thick tree branch. 



After some attempts, they had the rope flung over the impressively sturdy branch, and Prae pulled at it to haul the deer carcass up until the knees were around head height on a human. "There we go," Clarissa said, "that's perfect." She pulled out her own knife as Prae started to tie off his end of the rope around the tree to keep the carcass at the right height. As Prae watched, Clarissa deftly sliced along the line where brown fur met white, before connecting those cuts to the much larger one along the creature's belly.


With the cuts done, she put her knife to the side, and started to pull the hide back along the legs, revealing the red muscle beneath. 



Prae was not a good hunter, but he was an experienced one—he was certainly not stranger to skinning an animal. But on this trial, he stilled as the skin peeled away, tightness starting to rise in his throat as the mass of scars along his back and tail started to ache. Had he looked like that, when those madmen at Nifleheim stripped samples of his hide from him? He hadn't, he knew he hadn't—their cuts had been much shallower, and all the more painful for it, but he still couldn't get the image out of his mind, of his flesh, of Sneabru's flesh, glistening and exposed as—


"Hey, Prae. Your turn."


He blinked, starting slightly as he was pulled from his spiraling thoughts with a sharp nudge to the ribs. 


Looking at the carcass again, his heart settled a little—it was just meat, just an animal that was going to be pulled apart after they were done skinning it. Nothing to do with him at all. 



Looking closer, he saw that Clarissa had gotten the skin off of the legs entirely, and was now waiting on him to strip it away from its torso. She could do it, of course, but Prae was stronger, and along the torso, skinning had very little to do with cutting, and everything to do with pulling. 



So he did just that, carefully grasping on to the hide where it met the legs, and firmly pulling down, peeling the entire pelt away from the muscle, cutting only where needed, until only the hide of the neck and the forelegs were still attached. 



Grabbing the rope, Prae pulled the carcass even higher, so Clarissa could work on that last section of hide without having to kneel on the forest floor. The front end of the deer was dealt with much in the same way as the back end, and within a few bits, Clarissa was laying a pelt out on a piece of canvas, preparing to trim and clean it. 



Which naturally, left Prae to actually break down the deer carcass.

[Praetorum]

Laying out another piece of waterproof canvas, Prae padded over to the carcass, and carefully hoisted it over his shoulder, before untying it from the ropes that held it upright. He needed the body on solid ground in order to properly carve it up, after all. As Prae undid the knots, he grunted as the animal's full weight came down to rest on his shoulder. Even without its heads and pelt and insides, it still weighed heavy on him, and he had to shift his hold to keep a good hold on it, before carefully setting it down on the tarp, and pulling out his knife.  



He started, as always, with the hind legs. It was something of a habit he'd picked up from his mother, and since it worked well for him, he saw no reason to change. The carcass was on its back, so all Prae had to to was pull each leg to one side, and carefully start to cut at the tendons and connective tissue between the legs and the torso. There was much less actual flesh there than people often expected, so it took only a few cuts on either side for Prae to expose the joint. With some joints, Prae had to slide his knife in and cut or lever the two bones apart, but these sorts of joints—the ones that looked like a ball stuffed into a cup—Prae's brute strength would do just fine. 



Putting his knife down, Prae put one hand on the torso to steady it, then grabbed on to the leg with the other, and gave an experimental tug. Sometimes, especially with smaller animals, Prae could simply pull the joint apart; this specimen, though, appeared to be too large or tough for that. So instead, Prae started moving the leg in his hand around, looking for a place where the joint encountered some resistance. Then, all he had to do was give a sharp push, and the joint would pop out in his hand with a startlingly soft pop. 



With the joint out of the way, it was easy enough for Prae to cut away at the meat of the rump, until the leg could be pulled away from the rest of the carcass entirely. Setting it aside, Prae made short work of the other leg as well, and then moved up into the stomach and chest cavity. There were cuts of meat in here that Prae could never remember the names of, and which he'd never been particularly good at carving out. It was one thing to know, conceptually, that certain cuts of meat were only anchored to the bone with some connective tissue; it was another thing entirely to actually find them. 



Still, after some fumbling, Prae was able to pull out some semi-decently neat cuts of... loin? Tenderloin? Sirloin? He wasn't really sure, but they were mostly whole, at any rate. The meat along the outer ridge of the spine—backstraps, he was pretty sure—got the same treatment, coming out ragged but whole, exposing the knobs of the carcasses backbone. Here, Prae stopped to quickly check over his knife—to get the backstraps, he had to slide his knife along the spinal column, and this wouldn't be the first time he'd nicked or blunted his knife against bone. This trial, though, his knife kept its edge. Perhaps Karem was looking out for him. Or perhaps he was just growing more experienced with this. 



Then, all that was left were the shoulders. Those came apart even easier than the back legs, the joints there smaller, and all Prae had to do was cut through a few flaps of meat and tendon to pop the front legs right off. With the front legs especially, Prae found that just by pulling and twisting the leg, he could see where the muscles were connected, showing him where to slice. Proper cuts of meat, he'd been taught, followed the natural form of the animal, which was why he cut mostly along the edges of the muscles, and not through them. 



All that was left now were the spine, ribs, hips, and neck, all of which were edible, but none of which held any particularly prime cuts. What they had was enough, Prae decided. They had enough to carry back anyways—Clarissa had to carry the head and pelt, Sneabru could carry the boneless cuts, which meant Prae would have to carry all four limbs.



The rest, he decided, could be left for the scavengers.

[Doran]

Prae:

Knowledge:
Field Craft: Nothing But Remains [1/3]
Field Craft: Nothing But Remains [2/3]
Field Craft: Nothing But Remains [3/3]
Strength: Nothing But Remains [1/3]
Strength: Nothing But Remains [2/3]
Strength: Nothing But Remains [3/3]

Loot: -
Lost: -
Wealth: 1 WP
Injuries: -
Renown: -
Magic XP: -
Skill Review: Appropriate to level.
Points: 10

- - -

Comments: I think it’s great that you described Prae and Clarissa butchering that deer in so much detail, and that you had Prae struggle with some aspects of it. The interaction with his NPC was well written.

Prae’s thinking about his experience in Niflheim turned this into more than a simple Field Craft thread.

I appreciate that you have such things affect your PC. At the same time, I hope that he’ll eventually be able to leave Niflheim and the bad things that happened to him there behind.

I noticed that you didn’t link your Vhalar 720 wealth thread in the review request. I found it by checking your CS though.

In the future, could you please link to your wealth thread if you request WP though?

That being said, enjoy your rewards!

P.S.: I just realized that we actually have a “Butchering” skill in ST. “Field Craft” can be used for that as well though.