Yggsdrasil
Chapter 12: Mesa - The Children...hunting
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years later...back near the Ark
Initially the meat gathering expedition hadn’t gone well. The kids had lacked critical information:
Kraki was mind-melded to his bear while they paced the running herbivore. Now what? Somehow, he realized, the VR’s had always skipped over this part. Somehow the running beast was to transform into a dead heap on the ground. He wasn’t real clear about exactly how. He pulled away from the chase and found a small clearing. His bear laid down and napped while Kraki began running queries in his intracranial database.
“Kill Animal: how to”
Kara flew up and alighted, she dismounted her gryphon and walked over to Kraki. The Griffin eyed the sleeping Bear...an evil gleam in it’s eye.
“Cha-doing?” she asked, leaning up against him.
“Thinking” he replied leaning back into her.
“ ‘Bout what?”
“Killing”
“Silly...look here.”She mentally guided him to the correct location in the data base. It had a creche-manager lockout.
“Ooops no wonder….now what”
“Boys…(giggle) Always following the rules, you gotta love them, so innocent.“
She guided him through the mysteries of using an illegal override. They hacked the system together. They both spent minutes absorbing the data.
“Brrr” he shuddered “ Do we really have to do that? Isn’t there some other way?
“Nope, ‘fraid not living in the wild sucks. Vat Meat is so much less messy.” She said.
Kraki’s next attempt wasn’t much more successful but it was different. Kara had vectored him toward some large herbivores. They were a species of cattle. He decided not to waste any time. He’d just jump it. So he did. Kraki was en-rapport with his bear. As far as he was concerned he WAS the bear. Kraki was surprised to find himself riding a bull. The Bull wasn’t at all happy to have a bear on it’s back and protested. It was a bumpy ride.
“Ok...I’m on the damn thing...It’s not cooperating” Kraki spoke to Kara thru the Gestalt. Meanwhile Kraki tried to kill the bull. He tried to bite it. The Bull got really excited about that. Kraki slapped the bovine a few times. The Bull staggered a little but didn’t go down. Kraki fell off the Bull. He easily caught it again but was still at a loss of what to do. The Bull didn’t even seem to be getting tired. Kraki was getting very tired, and frustrated.
“I could use some help here...any suggestions” The Bull was doing everything in it’s power to escape the inexperienced bear. In the process it was running, jumping, bucking, trying to gore him and kicking. Kraki got too close a few times and got kicked.
HARD.
“I dunno” said Kara, between laughing and giggling” Shouldn’t it be dead by now?”
“Ya think?” Replied Kraki, slapping the Bull again, HARD, and ripping his claws across the Bull’s throat. That had an effect. The bull staggered, fell down and bled. Seriously to bleed. Blood went EVERYWHERE. It was all squirtie. The bull got to it’s feet again but it was perceptibly weaker. It continued to pump out it’s life’s blood. That throat slash had done the trick. After a while the bull’s exertions declined and after a longer while the big herbivore collapsed.
Kraki just lay on his bear beside the carcass. “Whoomp!!! That’s a lot of damn work! ”
Kara stood there looking at the dead with her fingers in her mouth “eeeewwwwwwwww!!”
Kraki rolled over and sat there panting. He guarded his kill while waiting on the meat wagon to show up. Oddly enough the wagon couldn’t get very close so Kraki had to move the dead bull to the wagon. That was work too. It was a lotta Bull. It weighed almost a ton. When he finally dragged and tugged the carcass in front of the wagon kraki’s bear was getting restive. It wanted something to eat then to rest.
Fine by him. Kraki wanted the same thing.
He got some food out of the wagon, fed his beast, took a few bites himself, then encouraged the bear to find a resting spot. He ensured it was ok then turned to go back to the wagon to help skin out the Bull.
“And where do YOU think you’re going young man?”the group Gestalt asked him. Kraki inwardly groaned.
Whatever they were going to tell him he probably wasn’t going to like it. “You’ve done your part, the rest of us will take it from here.” Said the mental voice.
“ummmmmmmmm….ya think“ said Kraki in a reasonable tone. Son of a Dragon, he DID like it. He was about to fall asleep on his feet.“You sure you guys don’t need my help?”
And they were off….. the gestalt persona shattered and all the members voices were heard”
“You’ve done more than enough……”,
“ You were so funny being dragged around the prairie.!!”.
”Don’t worry we’ll handle it.……”
“Get some sleep and get ready for tomorrow”
”You’re the hunter I just drive the wagon”
“ Reconnaissance isn’t that much work”.
And so it went. The young elves were determining, in their own way, the division of work. Eventually they worked it out. For that particular kill Kraki had done all that he needed to do.
Kraki curled up against his bear and went to sleep.
Hours later he woke up. It was a new day. The kill had been prepared and the mess was taken care of. Time to go kill something else.
To be Continued
If you missed the start of this book
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21