Nich watched Damian closely to ensure that he was following the directions properly, his own rabbit dangling from one hand. After Damian had gutted the rabbit, Nich stepped forward to examine it closely. After pulling something fleshy out of the rabbit, he hummed in satisfaction and nodded. "Yeah, that's good enough. Have you ever skinned something before?" He asked, leading the way back into the building they had been in before.
Once in the building, he pulled out a knife that was remarkably sharp and started to skin his rabbit. He had a fluid, practiced manner about him; clearly he had done this many times before, and he didn't have to think about it all that much anymore. "Once the little bastards are empty and skinless, we can light a fire and cook them so they taste a little better. You can eat them raw, but uh… actually, I'm not sure whether or not humans can eat raw meat without getting sick. I'm not human, so it's not a problem, but I usually cook it anyway for taste."
(Ahhh, sorry for the long wait! Life went way sideways. :)
Damian watched as Nich inspected his rabbit, feeling rather proud when Nich approved it. "Nope, not once." He laughed lightly, wondering if he would be able to do any of this after he and Nich inevitably parted ways. Probably not, if he was being honest. Not having a person to copy would make the whole thing infinitely harder. And he hadn't even gotten to the skinning part yet, which seemed like it would be harder than anything else he'd done as of yet. It
Damian followed Nich into the building, leaning against a large piece of rubble while Nich skinned the rabbit. Yeah… there was no way he would be able to do that. Not only because it looked hard, but he also didn't have a knife. He'd never needed one before, having stolen all his food before. A sword and some necromancy were all he'd needed up until this point. "That does make sense. And I could probably eat it raw, but…" Damian shrugged. "Better to be safe than sorry. And I'd rather it tastes good." Damian noted Nich's admission that he wasn't human, but didn't say anything about it. He'd already assumed, based on the ears, but he didn't care all that much. They were in the same boat at this point. "I don't think I'll be able to do that one, darling." Damian nodded towards the skinned rabbit. "No knife."
(Np! Hope you're doing alright ^^)
Nich yawned as he skinned his rabbit with his knife, carrying the kind of relaxed, casual manner that came with having done this hundreds of times. He hummed softly to himself, scarcely remembering to slow down so that Damian could learn something from what he was doing. It wasn't exactly a tutorial, particularly since Nich wasn't at all accustomed to being a teacher for anything, but he hoped that Damian could figure it out from just watching. Once the rabbit was skinned, he held up both the rabbit and it's skin to show to Damian. "Just like that. I like to hold onto the skins and clean them; if you can find something similar to a needle or thread, you can sew 'em together and make a sort of blanket for when it gets really cold." He explained, setting the rabbit and skin back down and looking up curiously as Damian admitted he didn't have a knife.
"Well, ah… you can borrow mine if you want. Could help you learn how to do this when you're on your own again. You don't need a knife, per se, just something sharp enough to pierce the skin… a knife is ideal, obviously, but I've used sharp rocks and wood before. You can usually sharpen stuff you find enough to do the job."
(Just wanted to let you know, my replies will probably be a little slow for a bit here. I'll try not to do too long, but I just wanted to let you know ahead of time if I disappear for a few days. Thanks, and sorry!)
Even watching Nich skin the rabbit, Damian still had almost no confidence in his ability to do it. For one, the man was going ridiculously fast. He could hardly figure out what he was doing. Secondly, the man was offering no tips or tricks about how to do it. Also unfair.
Damian looked from the skinned rabbit to Nich with a slightly confused look on his face. This was going to be so bad. "Well, I'll be able to get a nice washcloth out of this, eh?" Damian laughed slightly nervously and shook the rabbit at Nich. "Oh, thanks." Damian accepted the knife, still looking rather unsure about himself. Because he was. This would end up with him mutilating the rabbit beyond recognition. Still, maybe he would get that first-time luck again. He wouldn't know until he tried it. And he wouldn't get better if he never tried it to begin with. It would be a fun experience.
"Stop me if I start fucking this up royally," Damian said, letting out a small chuckle. After a second, he turned his attention to the rabbit. Damian could sort of remember what Nich had done, and did his very best to copy it. It was definitely a mess, even from the start. Nich had been going way too fast for him to catch most of what he'd done.
(Np! Thanks for letting me know ^^)
Nich watched Damian with a curious, attentive expression to see how he would go about it with little to no experience. The skin from Nich's rabbit was completely intact, and he planned to clean it properly so that he could save it for something in the future. Since the rabbits were fresh, that made it significantly easier to remove their skins.
Soon after Damian started, Nich stopped him and started to give him some actual advice. "The easiest way to do it is by making slits here and here…" He pointed to the thighs of the rabbit, "and then you can pull the legs and such out and pull the skin up until you can cut through its belly and pull the skin all the way off in one piece. It might take a bit of muscle, but it's relatively simple. Does that make sense?" He asked, looking back up to Damian to ensure he understood. He seemed to be genuinely trying to teach the other man.
Damian was quite glad when Nich started actually telling him how to skin a rabbit the right way. The man hadn't started out as a teacher, but he sure was making an effort now. It was nice.
"Oh, I see." Damian nodded slowly, following Nich's instructions as best he could. It was a lot easier once he got instructions on how to actually do it. "Yeah, sounds good," Damian said, giving Nich a grin. Combining what he'd watched Nich do with his instructions, he was sure he could quite confidently skin this rabbit. It wouldn't be as nice as Nich's, but at least it would be off so he could eat it. Now that he was so close to being able to eat these, he couldn't help but start to feel really hungry. This was going to be the first real, fresh meal he'd had in… gods, he couldn't even remember anymore.
Damian pulled the rest of the skin off of the rabbit–not as smooth as Nich, for sure–and triumphantly held it up. "Mostly in one piece. Not bad, eh?" It had ripped in one place, but that was fine. He didn't really have any use for rabbit pelts at the moment. "Now we cook them, right?"
Now that Damian had a better idea of what he was supposed to do, Nich watched him go about skinning the rabbit in a more effective manner than before. While he watched, he continued to prep his rabbit so that it would still be fresh when it was time to cook them. He smiled when Damian was successful and clapped a couple of times to congratulate him.
"Nicely done. I'm sure you've probably cooked things over a fire before, so this should be the easy part." Nich dipped his head and carried his rabbit out of the building so he could cook it. He figured it wasn't very wise to build a fire indoors, after all. He fetched some stray pieces of dry wood that were scattered around and created a small flame in one hand with which to ignite the wood, which was pretty easy.
"Thank you, thank you." Damian bowed his head, since he couldn't bow in full at the moment. "Yeah, I have." Although he'd never hunted stuff himself, he had stolen stuff that other people had hunted. And some of the things he'd found while scavaging/stealing had required fire to be edible. So yeah, he knew how to cook things over a fire.
It was rather nice that he didn't have to gather the wood, at least. That was always annoying, especially if it had rained recently. Then most of the dry stuff was inside buildings, and those tended to be pretty sketchy. It always stressed him out to have to go inside them when he didn't know if they were structurally sound. After all, most of the structurally sound buildings were picked clean by the people who'd come before him. Or by the people who were actually residing in the buildings at that point. He couldn't exactly live in the least populated areas for very long, since he relied on other people for a good portion of his food.
"You can create fire?" Damian asked, peering at Nich's hand with interest. That must make it easier to start fires. He still relied on an old wizard-charmed firestarter that only worked properly about half the time.
Nich nursed the fire for a minute or two to make sit it was strong enough to leave alone before he turned to Damian, his ears pricked. "Hm? Oh, yeah… I don't have a lot of magic, to be honest, but I can make little flames like that… it's helpful enough for this kind of thing, but not much else. I can also make a little light, so I guess that's helpful in the night, but I can see well enough in the dark anyway." He held up one finger and lit up the tip with a bright light for a moment before extinguishing it again. "Magic isn't really my thing. I'm more into fighting with my hands and physical weapons and stuff. Making fire is kind of a pain, though, so I don't mind using it for that…"
(Profuse apologies for the long absence! I hope you've been well. :)
"That's understandable. Magic can be quite difficult sometimes." It had taken him quite a long time to learn necromancy, and even now he still learned new things all the time. "You wouldn't believe how long it took me to be able to summon as many dead people as I can at the moment. And that's not even the most one person could summon." Damian's eyes lit up a bit as he talked about his own magic, grinning at Nich. "If I find the right spellbook, I could even raise people from the dead. And not as my minions, either. As themselves." What he spoke of was a true resurrection. Something that might be able to bring back those lost in the war. It was dangerous magic to look for, but he couldn't not look for it. Not when it might be able to bring his family back to life. "But never mind that. Fire magic is much more practical for survival. Especially when you can take anyone threatening you with a sword."
(Np! You too ^^)
Nich was with Damian at first, but he kind of got lost and uncomfortable when he went on about necromancy. Generally, dead people made Nich uncomfortable. It wasn't exactly strange to be uneasy around death. But death was a part of life, and in his opinion, dead people… should probably stay dead. He didn't want to think about the possible consequences of taking someone's soul away from wherever it was and putting it back in their body long after they stopped breathing.
Nich shook his head a bit. He didn't need to think about that. He probably wouldn't be around Damian for much longer anyway, right? It wasn't his problem, even if it did make him uneasy. "Uh… right. If you say so. Ready to cook your rabbit?" He asked, not-so-subtly trying to change the subject.
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