#rivervale_lodge

He pulls his feet back up into the shore. “Yeah, I’ll lose a toe...”

“It would be weird to only have eleven.”

"Yeah that would be a ..." blink

Dagmar snickers.

Crossing his legs, feet tucked away, and he blinks innocently over at Jaymes. “Hm?”

And when Symon is distracted... she bats her hand at the water, sending a splash the sluagh's way.

Seeing where this is going, Jaymes makes sure the fish they've caught are contained and not easily knocked over

A hiss, and he scrambles back- hat fallen off, hair damp, and looking for the world like an offended cat. “Oh no... you didn’t start this...”

She's grinning, but the hiss has it falter into something less certain.

And his hand dips towards the bait bucket - and a nightcrawler flies towards Dagmar’s face!

SPLAT. A moment, and then she laughs.

Dripping, his shoulder shake as well - silent chuckles.

She drops the worm on the ground - it wriggles towards the safety of the dirt!

Jaymes checks the rods then, "Okay okay, i think we have successfully scared any fish off at this spot. You three ready to go back to the lodge, or want to change location and try again, or you want to just do whatever you call this? Any of the three is fine by me"

“It’s like the lion and the mouse. You freed the worm and now it will someday return to do you a favor.” He remarks, solemnly. “Probably at night, squirming across your face....” a wicked grin as he gathers his hat and boots back up.

"Can we make a fire?"

"In the daytime? " But he sees the look on her face, then says "Yeah, a small one. I'll show you how to. Burning things? Not so hard. making sure it's controlled and lasting, trickier. But we have to drench the coals and ashes before we leave. Okay?"

"Well, we could cook the fish... like in the movies?"

"...Maybe not Symon's. Gollum."

“Yeah, on sticks, or hot rocks.”

She points at the sluagh and nods. "We can find sticks!"

"Sure, try to find some dry sticks let's see what you get," he says

A pause, "And call out if you get into trouble"

Dag rumbles up to her feet and nods. "Kay!"

“Lovecraft, fetch...” he whispers, and the mrow responded is a four-letter word in Feline...

Dag tromps off, in quest of deadfall.

Jaymes starts to prepare a bed for the fire, away from where sparks might fly too high to endanger trees, though with the wet around the pain will be starting it, or would be.

Symon lurks behind, peering up for dead branches still in trunks where they won’t be wet/muddy yet.

Stomp stomp, rustle... nope, definitely not a creature of stealth...

Stomping may scare off some birds, but not sticks, and she finds some likely fuel

And as for Symon, one branch in one tree is ready to fall off any time now

She loads up a good armful - likely more then they'll need for a few fish - and begins the trek back to the stream.

Rubbing his hands together, he stretches out fingers, and laying hands against the bark, it’s like he has glue on them as he steadily climbs up- fetching the branch, and clinging with toes to climb back down with arm full.

"Nice work" He says when they return, "more than I need really, but we can stack the excess for future campers"

"Sure. Frank says there's an art where you can make fire, too." She stacks her findings on the rocks.

"Frank is right" He says with a nod "Now, you have to be careful with fire. Point of fact we need to be extra careful. Chieftain Brekke loves these woods and if anything would set her off dark eyed and furious it would be if we got them burning"

"Yeah...."

He shows the two kids how to steeple the wood to catch the air just right to help the fire be well fed.

"Like a teepee!" Dagmar approves, and is enthusiastic in her efforts to help fan the flames.

Symon hangs back and watches - when a branch pops and a spark flies, he stretches out a toe to squash it into the damp leaves.

"Kind of, now some wood works better than others for this... but we're using what we got. the best sort is.."

Dagmar listens attentively. Mostly. She is a bit too enthusiastic about poking the fire with a stick.

"Dagmar, eventually the fire you're using may ignite" Wryly but amusd

Soon a fire is burning merrily

He snickers, watching and making mental notes.

"I'm helping." Poke.

"Logi might disagree" He says "Now, we set our little kibobs up" He says having sharpened some stakes out of the excess wood, and using them to set up a tray over the flames

"Fancy." She watches the process with a growingly familiar expression - that little crease between her eyebrows as she studies and files away scraps of knowledge.

Soon the fish is cooking, "I'm pretty sure these won't kill us"

“Dibs on the heads...”