[b][u]Jonrik[/b][/u]

As Jonrik departed to collect wood for a fire, Audrunar stopped him and spoke. "[b]We need a place to sleep, Jonrik. I ask you to do this, not me, because Alva is your wife.[/b]" Jonrik's eyes narrowed and he shot the other man a look out of the corner of his eye in confusion. Not only was Alva none of his concern, she had no problem spending the night on the ground. "[b]... just because people got exiled with us doesn't mean they are one of us... I'm not sure about him. Do you know what they called him? The Lokison, cunning and deceiving.[/b]" Jonrik had heard of the Lokison, but he hadn't made the connection to Faen before that. With a snort, he looked into the distance to the man squatting in the river. "[b]A short sword at day doesn't protect against a knife in the dark.[/b]" Jonrik wasn't really worried, especially in their situation. It wouldn't be hard to discern who had done what if physical violence was committed by one member of their small group. Plus, Alva was intelligent, even in the secrecy of their hearth Jonrik admitted that she was beyond him, so he wasn't worried about her getting manipulated. Jonrik honestly thought Audrunar was just handing off the task of creating a shelter to him because he didn't want to do it himself. As Audrunar turned away with a slap on the smith's shoulder, Jonrik repressed a roll of his eyes. Audrunar had been a little dramatic in Jonrik's eyes. Maybe the Lokison had dark intentions, but Jonrik doubted he would make any move with so little gains to be had at the moment. But he did note that Audrunar had chosen to view him as an ally. 

As the blacksmith breached the treeline, he shook those thoughts from his head and focused on the task at hand. There weren't many easy shelters to make that would hold so many people, and the only thing Jonrik thought would work would be a round lodge. As thunder rumbled menacingly in the distance it reminded Jonrik that time was a factor, unless he wanted to be working in the rain. A round lodge would take more time to put up, and so he settled on finding a spot with two trees he could base a lean-to on. But a lean-to couldn't hold a fire like a round lodge and if the rain or wind switched directions it would be like not having a shelter at all. He looked around. Mostly in the area were large-trunked deciduous trees, with a spattering of birch and other similar species. There was sparse brush in this area. Jonrik went past the line of trees and out to where the foliage flattened. He looked down the brush line and started walking, trying to decide between the two. Then he saw something that made the decision for him.

Just down the line of trees from where the group had stopped originally, Jonrik could peer through the trees and see a fallen trunk in the distance. Jonrik went to it, and saw that in its fall it 's branches had gotten tangled with other trees, keeping the log firmly hanging several feet off the ground. Jonrik inspected it, and tested it by placing his hand on top of the log and trying to dislodge it. Even when he jumped onto it, it held firm. He paid close attention to where the branches of the fallen tree had gotten stuck in other, smaller trees. A large limb, the top of the trunk most likely, had wedged in the forked trunk of another tree. Nodding and moving down its length, he saw the upturned side of the tree roots had grass and small flowers growing on the dirt that had once been submerge in the earth. The tree must've been there for at least a season, and Jonrik was not worried it would move.

Jonrik, thinking of the potential of the tree, was grateful for a solution to his problem. The existence of the tree took much of his possible work away. He planned to make a two-sided lean-to off of this fallen log, with a few feet of one side left open to allow space for a fire. It would vent, but would have protection from the coming rain. He hefted his ax from his belt and planned to get to work. He turned in a circle, looking for a tree with limbs long enough to get from the wedged tree and the ground. He made for a large tree away from the river. 

As he came to the large oak, he realized he was going to have to climb the beast to get what he needed. The trunk split close to the ground and went almost horizontally in one direction, and down that trunk were boughs the size he needed. With further inspection he saw they were too high for him to cut from the ground. With a sigh, Jonrik went to the V-shaped sprouting point of the oak. He jumped up with little difficulty and climbed on his hands and knees until he came to a branch he found suitable for the shelter. He hacked it down, awkwardly, and did the same for three other branches he found along his path. He carefully maneuvered back to the ground. He only had four main supports for the walls, and he had wanted seven. The other direction the trunk went was more vertical and harder to climb. He went to collect the ones he had cut down, and laughed at himself for forgetting the obvious. Large branches from the oak, these lacking leaves and most protruding limbs, had accumulated over time. He grabbed a large armful of long branches and dragged them back to their new campsite. He went about arranging them to lean from the wedged tree and the ground. One side went the length of the tree, and the other had a small entrance way and space for a fire. The whole group couldn't spread out in the shelter, but they would all fit without too much discomfort. The width of the wedged tree added surprising width to the shelter. When he was done, the basic skeleton of the shelter was done, a grid of limbs on either side of the trunk waiting to be filled.

"[b]Jonrik?[/b] The smith jumped at the unexpected call. He turned, and saw Alva coming from a direction some-what from where they had stopped. Her two small hands cradled something, and when she came close to him she offered him her bundle. Jonrik picked a small hazelnut from her hand and threw it up to his mouth, earning him a small giggle from the blonde girl. "[b]Can't make a fire without wood. What're you doing all the way down here?[/b]" She asked, pale blue eyes wide and curious. 

"I have been tasked with making a shelter." He said simply, motioned toward the start of his work, "Audrunar went to get wood."

"[b]Do you need any help?[/b]" She asked in her delicate voice and Jonrik chuckled. He reached out and stroked her jaw with his knuckles. 

"No, dear. Go back and wait where we stopped. Or you can start making camp here but make sure no one gets left behind." Had another man offered his assistance, Jonrik would have accepted, but he was too prideful to accept such help from his wife. She bowed her head respectfully and walked past him, getting a kiss on the top of her blonde hair as she went. He didn't watch her leave, but instead started on the threshing of the roof. Jonrik had the smaller side of the shelter done, some of the other, and was working on gathering smaller boughs and foliage to finish and reinforce the longer wall as a few raindrops started to careen from the sky. 

[b][u]Alva[/b][/u]

"[b]Keep it. A smith has more need for it than I do.[/b]" Alva, the front of her dress now weighed down with round stones, sticks, and dry reeds and grass, smiled and bowed her head at Audrunar.

"Thank you, Audrunar, I will not lose this one," the woman said firmly, taking the nodule and holding it in a clenched hand. As Alva discharged her burden, both Jonrik and Audrunar departed toward the forest. She picked through the seemingly random debris, pulling out the round stones. She placed them, side by side, in a circle in the reeds. She didn't think this was the best place for the fire, but they had no established spot or shelter. A fire could be moved relatively simply with a simple torch, she knew, and so figured she would just move it when the time came. Next, in the center of the circle, she placed the dry reeds and grasses for tinder. She laid a few thin sticks in a cone over the tinder. There she paused. She could make fire easily with the flint and the nodule of ore in her pack, but the tinder and sticks would probably burn up before Jonrik returned with wood. It would also be some time before either Erika or Faen came back from their separate jaunts. Alva shifted and opened her personal pack, pulled out her extra white shirt, and then closed her personal pack and wrapped it in the shirt. She put the white package on top of her black pack. It stood above the reed grasses and so she would be able to find her way back to it. So would anyone else, though. She wedged the flint in between to two packs in a spot visible to someone who came back to the started fire-pit. 

Thunder rumbled as Alva stood and turned toward the woods. On their trek, Alva had wondered if some of the nuts and berries she had seen had been edible, but she had only trivial knowledge on such matters and hadn't been able to tell in passing. Jonrik had gone down the treeline, and Alva breached the woods before going in the same direction. The season was late, and Alva found much less then she had hoped for. Most of the berries around were stiff and small, and the stems of the plant were spiny. She did manage to find a small handful of hazelnuts, and popped one in her mouth as a finders fee. 

She kept looking, keeping in the direction Jonrik had gone, and eventually came upon him after a decent amount of time had gone by. He stood under a tree wedged horizontally with the beginnings of a shelter built around it, his mail shirt sparkling in the dappled sunlight. Smiling, she called to him, "Jonrik!" He turned to her and she quickened her pace. She came up to him and offered him a hazelnut. With a raised brow, he selected one and tossed it up into his mouth. She giggled and said, "Can't make a fire without wood. What're you doing all the way down here?" 

"[b]I have been tasked with making a shelter.[/b]" His tone told Alva that the task had not settled well with him. She wondered if it was the task itself or who said it or how it was presented that agitated him. Nevertheless, Alva was sure he was over it by now, or would be by the time the task was done.

"Do you need any help?" She knew he would say no, but she had to asked either way. He laughed, and she rolled her eyes as he caressed her face. 

"[b]No, dear. Go back and wait where we stopped. Or you can start making camp here but make sure no one gets left behind.[/b]" Alva smiled and inclined her head properly, sashaying past him and getting a peck on her head. She turned back after a few steps but Jonrik had already turned away. It didn't take more than a few minutes for her to come back out to the glade that ran along the river. She spotted her pack in the distance and went for it. 

She shifted the hazelnuts to one palm and fumbled with her pack for one of her wooden bowls, pouring them into one when she managed to free the stained bowl. Figuring that she would soon have to up and move anyway, she began to pick up the stones she had placed earlier, but froze when she saw someone walking in the distance. Her hand twitched toward the short sword at her hip, but relaxed when she saw it was just Faen returning. It looked as though he had been successful. She reached for the bowl of hazelnuts as he got close, the sound of his whistling in sharp contrast to the increasingly loud thunder. She wondered briefly if he was really happy enough to be whistling in such a situation, but she let the thought go as irrelevant. 

Alva reached up to him and offered him the bowl as he spoke to her. "[b]May I borrow the flint, m'lady? I can feel the promised warmth of a fire and cooked meal calling to me, and I fear we best get it started now if we want the flames to take before the rain sets in.[/b]" She gestured in turn at her dismantled fire-pit, a polite smile on her face. 

"That's what we'd all like, but Ardrunar has not returned with firewood. It won't make you very warm until then. I would start it, but Audrunar asked Jonrik to make a shelter, and he started it back from the river in case the rain makes the water rise. I figured I would move the fire-pit there before we start it." She shrugged. "But our group is spread out and I do not want anyone to return to nothing."