Kire straightened up, clapped her hands once. “Right. I can do that. I’d be happy to, it’s the least I could do.” Even before their exile, Kire was familiar with the kind of work involved in overseeing a camp or shelter, though of course she had a well-fed and compensated assemblage of people who would carry on the actual tasks of managing a refugee camp, or a province in need after a battle or natural disaster. After leaving the Capital, Kire had to experience the grunt work herself. Already she was inspecting the meager rations around the makeshift kitchen. For the long term, she knew it’d be best if they had tools, weapons, training. If they could farm, and find a source of water for irrigation, all the better. She could plan for that later, after her mission. For now, supplies. “How many days do you need?” she asked. “I may—disappear now and then within that time, but I’ll be back here.”

She spent the rest of the afternoon exploring their immediate surroundings, already imagining how they could use the land to thrive. Before she could lose the daylight, she disappeared into the surrounding woods to hunt and gather firewood. By evening she had managed to catch and clean some fowl. Kire inspected her work, unsatisfied. [i]They need more. At least for the next couple of days.[/i] 

It wouldn’t be until well past noon the next day when she returned with several sacks in tow. Herbs, for medicine and cooking, and various cuts of cured meats. She was grateful to have a healer in the family, and for the fact that in the much colder Northern Amrian territories, preserving rations was something of a specialty. And in her satchel was a bag of coin. She didn’t really think they would have the same kind of currency, but she hoped gold would at least have some value here, too. She grimaced, remembering her promises to be careful. The day she spent back home was a quick blur of her and her cousins working together even as she tried to fill them in on everything that had happened, and them mouthing off to her out of worry. In the end, however, after she told them about Ziad’s refugees, they quieted down their objections. They didn’t need to say out loud that they understood. 

While she was alone in the kitchen, she busied herself with organizing their provisions, meaning to look for Envy afterward to ask who she could entrust the gold to. “Well. That’s looking more and more like a proper pantry,” she murmured, stepping back, as she dug into her satchel to chew on a sweet.