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“I mean…” I said to myself. “How hard can it be?”
Hard, it turned out.
Very hard.
I had thought I could get away with staying near the edge of the creek, waiting for a fish to come down stream, and snatch it out of the water with my snout.
First, the water was freezing. That cold water was the absolute last place my nose wanted to be, which meant I was prone to hesitating, which in turn meant I would miss the fish as it came down. Second, the creek was shallow. If I plunged too hard and too fast into the water, I would eat a mouthful of cold, wet dirt and rock. That left me with more than just a cold snout, but a bruised one, too. And third, the ground I was standing on was uneven, which saw me falling whole-ass into the water more than once and coming upsans fish.
It would’ve been quicker to go and find the stupid berries. I would have ended upnot soaked, as well, but hindsight was only there to teach. Luckily, my endeavors hadn’t proved entirely useless. By the time I returned to the cave, I had somehow caught enough fish for Valerian and I to eat.
I returned to the cave in my wolf form, dripping, partly frozen, with three fish trapped between my jaws. Valerian looked like he had perked up a bit, because when I found him, he was standing next to Colbolt, rummaging around in the empty saddlebags.
He looked over at me, and it was as if he couldn’t speak.
I let the fish fall to the floor.
“What?” I asked.
“Nothing…” he said, “It’s just… impressive.”
“That I’m sopping wet?”
“No, just… never mind. You caught fish.”
“Probably hypothermia, too. Don’t laugh.”
“I wasn’t going to.”
I sank low to the ground, and then sprang back up, using the momentum to take on my Fae form and get to my feet at the same time. Though my fur had been wet, the clothes I had been wearing were protected by the magic of shapeshifting. All that meant was, I was damp under my clothes, but they at least were dry.
I grabbed a section of my black hair, pulled it off to one side, and wrung it out letting the ice-cold water fall to the cavern floor.
“What are you doing in there?” I asked, “I already checked those. They’re empty.”
“Not quite,” he said, and he pulled out what looked like a long, metal slab. It was about half a foot long, dull, and not shiny at all. He then reached into the saddle bag again and produced four small rocks. I frowned at him, wondering how in all of Arcadia I had missed that.
“That has to be some kind of trick, isn’t it?” I asked.
“It’s no trick,” he said.
“How are you pulling things out of that bag, then?”
“They’re not in the bag,” he said, pulling out a small set of what looked like… candles. Small, flat, shallow candles; the kind my mother calledtea lights.
“Okay, how are you doing that?” I asked.
“I have a cupboard,” he said.
“Cupboard?”
“Back in Lysa, in a small safe house. I have a special cupboard I can access no matter where I am as long as I have something with a small door, or in this case a flap.”
Valerian set the tea lights, the metal slab, and the four rocks down on the floor. He then placed the rocks under the slab, at each of its four corners, and, impressively, lit the wicks on those tea light candles by simply blowing on them. He put the candles under the slab, and when he was happy with their placement, he held out a hand.
“Pass me a fish,” he said, drawing a knife with his other hand.
I handed one over to him, and then I watched him carefully cut, gut, and de-bone the fish right in front of me. He then cut the fish into small chunks, setting each of them on the metal slab. A moment later, the bits of cut up fish started to sizzle and cook, and we had a little light by which to see.
