[b]"Don't worry about the snare,"[/b] Ash assured Matteo, [b]"it resets when you loosen it."[/b]

With newly acquired rabbit in tow, the trio went to find a place to camp. Finding a stream, Ash was mildly disappointed in how pathetic the stream was. It wasn't nearly as clean as she would have liked, nor was it as large as she wanted it to be. If only she had a filter, she had thought, whatever that was. It was water, nonetheless. She needed it to prepare the rabbit. Everyone had to do their part in order to have a meal, Matter implied. Ash liked it that way. 

[b]"Yes,"[/b] Ash said to Matteo before recalling the lessons from her mentor, [b]"firewood would be necessary. Dead twigs and dry grass equal-size to your fist, dry sticks as big as your thumb and as long as your forearm, and larger wood as thick as your wrist and as long as your arm. And get some straight, wet sticks. Let me use your dagger, too."[/b]

Without much hesitation, Ash found a nice flat rock where she could prepare the rabbit. She washed her machete and Matteo's dagger in the small stream and began to work after washing the dirt-covered rock in muddy water. Brief protests echoed from Muu, to the point where Muu had managed to speak in an ordinary volume. But Ash really didn't care.

[b]"We're alive, this rabbit isn't. Nothing is going to bring it back."[/b]

Accentuating her point, she swung the machete down on the rabbit's neck, cleaving the head off. It was considerably easier than a deer. It usually took a half dozen swings to get its head off. Nonetheless, the small size of the rabbit was considerably easier to deal with than a deer. In four or so minutes, she had removed the rabbit's skin. The fur felt pretty nice when it wasn't soaked in blood. The organs took another six. Taking care not to pierce the stomach, the knife cut the rabbit from neck to groin. She took out the intestines, stomach, heart, lungs, any organ that they couldn't eat. She kept the liver, however, and made an effort to cut away the greenish gallbladder. Her cuts were somewhat clean, a few mistakes here and there. The meat, however, was untainted by bile or acid. It was an okay meal if they cooked it, of course.

Now it was just an issue of burying the organs, washing away the blood, and a getting a fire going.