the trees are strong

Max Klein · 09-08-2012, 11:11 AM

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(1580) tl;dr Max and Maddox finish the porch.

The day had started off with rain. Max had woken to the sound of it coming down outside of his cave and, feeling none-too energetic about it, rolled over and gone back to sleep. He slept very shortly, perhaps an hour at most, before rousing himself to go about his days work. This began with a series of long, deep-breathing stretches and a four-legged jog that carried him towards the semi-wooded area south of the caverns. While he had considered corralling the horses, Oblak had proven herself unwilling to leave the border. With the filly and Stallion as her companions, Max hardly had to worry about the would-be herd going far.

They did not require much unless he rode them, and so after shifting to his two legged form to look the trio over, he decided they were alright. Orinana was growing fast, though she would need several more seasons to truly fill in. He also suspected that Gunther was doing his best to claim Oblak as his own, and was looking forward to having another foal to look after. He had debated trading them, but found that he enjoyed the animals too much to want to do such a thing. Especially now, when he needed them for work.

Oblak was his primary go-to animal, and the filly was just old enough to not require her dame’s presence endlessly. Still, as soon as Max mounted up the little palomino was whinnying and crying loudly, and trailed after the mounted horse at a distance. Gunther, perturbed by her distress, did little to help. Max finally decided to take all three and store the tag-alongs with the Boreas animals until his work was done.

So, an hour later, he and Oblak rode out into the Forest of Nod. She was hitched up to the cart and plodding along at an easy pace, content with the work. Max was well-versed with driving the wagon by now. He hardly could recall a time when he didn’t know how to do such a thing. A fallen tree, struck by lightning by the looks of it, caught his eye and caused him to stop. Using a sharp-bladed hatchet he worked free the thickest sections and proceeded, using a stick for measurement, to cut them further down to size.

It was a long, arduous process. He had made crude approximations using a staff and tried to fashion the tree into something resembling the boards that formed the porch roof. In the end he was left with a collection of logs cut in half, some of them longer than others. A great amount of cursing, heaving, and frustration was put into work getting them into the cart—Max, being stubborn, had not even thought to ask for help.

He drove a much heavier cart back to the Mansion and was surprised when a woman emerged from inside. She was a true coyote, lean and copper-brown, but with striking green eyes. Max pulled alongside the building and she eyed the collection of wood in the cart with a great deal of interest. “You the one that did this?” The woman asked, and patted the pillars.

“Yeah. Max,” he introduced himself quickly and climbed out of the cart. “Rorarii.”

“I’m Maddox. Max wouldn’t be short for Maxie, would it?” Something about her faint grin told him she already knew the answer. While a flash of irritation surged through him, he forced it down and smiled grimly. “Met the cook, huh?”

“He’s fond of you,” she said with a laugh, and came down to his level. She was shorter than him, but this was unsurprising. As Max moved to pull the logs free, she joined him. Between the two of them unloading went quickly, and silently, though once done Maddox let out an exaggerated breath of air. “You don’t fool around. What’s this for?”

“The top of this,” Max motioned to the porch.

“Think you got yourself too much for just that,” the woman exclaimed, and surprised, Max stared at her. “We can cut these down some. Make some more wood for the inside of this place; it’s gonna fall down if we don’t, I reckon.”

“You work with wood?”

“Son, I’ve been working with wood since before you had teeth to cut on it. I’ll go get the tools; I reckon you need to put that hoss of yours away.”

So that was how Max and Maddox met, and how an hour later they were carting much thinner sections of logs up the steps and to the second floor. The middle sections of these were left in a pile inside the first floor. Maddox mentioned that she would make use of them somewhere, after having lectured the younger coydog on the state of the building. Even though he tried to argue with her about it, her loud voice and way of interrupting him was like a mother hen. He recognized (with horror) that she was going to be just as bad as Rémy.

“…probably too heavy, so let me go out and work this. Once we get the good wood on you can climb out and help.”

Max found she was right. Almost as soon as she made it onto the porch’s roof a section of the wood let out a groan and cracked under her foot. Maddox maneuvered carefully after that, and between the two of them, the difficult process of placing the first section down was underway. This gave Maddox firmer ground and the freedom to rip out the rotting, overgrown sections of wood. It wasn’t until three of these had been put down that Max joined her, though his purpose was more to pass the heavy material over and position it.

The project was an ordeal, and it wasn’t until late in the afternoon that they finally finished. The new roof was slightly angled and layered with the various sections of wood. This gave it a shingled appearance, and the bark-on logs would be able to stand up to at least a few seasons of weather before this flaked away. He had seen the way that bleached wood looked and was positive that in time the whole thing would resemble white bone. Maybe someone with more skill would illustrate on these, or carve them—it was all beyond Max’s basic skill.

Maddox looked thrilled with their work and nodded smartly. “Looks good. Come on, let’s put the rest of these tools away and get some grub. I’m starving.”

“Cleaning” was hardly a process. They had used most of the nails fixing the wood in place, and the few left were carried off with the hammer to the storage area. Upon Maddox’s suggestion they arranged the remaining sections of wood into a neat pile downstairs, and once done, went into the kitchen. Though Rémy was gone, Max found quickly that Maddox had made herself at home in this area. She twitted about, talking as she did so, telling him all about the differences between this place and her home, about how she came to be here. She did not ask him much, but instead directed the conversation to focus on their common interest in woodworking. As it turned out, Maddox was something of carpenter herself. She complained loudly about having to fix up some sort of chapel, but in a sarcastic way that suggested she wasn’t half as irritated as she seemed.

Beyond that, she was almost exactly like Rémy in the kitchen. She even bragged that her “shine” was superior to the Cajun’s, and proceeded to lambast the Louisiana man’s work. Too much spice, not enough sauce, something about “under-rock shrimp” and on and on. Max found the whole thing amusing, in its own way—if he didn’t know better, he might have thought the ranting was in spite. Young as he was, it was hard to mistake the obvious interest in Rémy for anything less than that.

Maddox used a dry rub on a cut of deer ribs and proceeded to grill the thing over open flame. She explained her technique as she went, though Max lacked the interest or ability to cook and instead listened patiently. When the food was finally presented, he found the flavor delightful—smoky and woodsy, it was an interesting contrast from Rémy’s normally spicy dishes. They ate together, consuming meat and bone (for these had picked up on the tasty smoke and the marrow was absolutely delightful), and in the end if not for the scent it would be hard to tell any food had been prepared.

It was twilight by then, and Max was hardly surprised when Rémy joined the pair. He and Maddox proceeded to bicker over cooking techniques and a thousand other things. One of Rémy’s bottles of moonshine made its way to their company and someone decided that the firepit out back might make for better company, so they wound up sitting around this. Talk ranged from food to construction to Inferni itself, and between Max and Rémy it wasn’t long before Maddox was filled in on the past several months of events.

Much later, buzzed and well-fed, Max left the two of them and went and found his horses. Despite his inebriation he let the trio loose and mounted Oblak. He clung to her mane and leaned on her neck the whole way home, half-asleep, and in fact did fall asleep (and off the horse) under a starry sky in the expanse of the Waste.

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