The tension of a standoff was broken by a fourth contender, and at the runt's sudden attack and escape, Esfir couldn't help but let out a rasping chuckle.

She didn't mind runts that acted like brats, even if that Miasma Bolt clued her in on the possibility that a [i]much[/i] greater number of the runts were turning out to have been given the favour of that strange phantom. A little aggression was charming for a boy, after all. Showed the vim and vigor that others didn't. Others, like the scamp in front of her.

[b]"Well,"[/b] Esfir said. [b]"Next time."[/b]

And with that, she turned, striding back the way she came.

...


[quote]While she thought about this decision, the smell of smoke reached her nostrils---the dry stick she'd been using as a drill on the fire plow had produced a thick sprinkling of black ash by this point, and a single glowing ember was producing a thin, curling trail of vapor even as she stopped moving the drill. With some tinder and a few careful breaths, a small fire was soon born![/quote]

Smoke tickled Esfir's nostrils as she neared the clearing, the tell-tale signs of a sputtering fire. More kindling could be used to stoke it to a higher heat, but for now, this was enough. Making fire without a match or a lighter was a miserable experience, after all. Even a fire-drill was annoying to use, regardless of know-how or practice, and despite her decades of experience, those early, early days of being a youth out in the woods were faded away now. Dried stains where water once rested.

She had simply never let the embers die out, once she reached her old age.

[b]"Good,"[/b] the runt nodded. [b]"Keep the fire going, and watch."[/b]

The fire was taken care of. Now, it was simply a matter of seeing just how sharp these small stones were.

Sitting cross-legged on the ground, Esfir pulled one of the Elwets towards her. The horns protruding from its head would make for difficult maneuvering, but they made for good handlebars. Made for greater leverage. Like popping out a drumstick or a wing, she twisted the bird's neck around until she heard the pop of neck bones separating. There was a point now, where she could cut through with such a small knife, and she took full advantage of it, sliding her stone knife underneath the scales in order to sever the skin, then the flesh, then the sinew that connected head to neck.

The rest of it was smoother sailing, if only based off of familiarity. Whistling a little tune about free range eggs and twenty lemons, the runt pulled and cut in a rhythmic fashion, pull skin and feathers back while slicing off the connective tissue that kept it clinging to the muscles beneath. The torso of the bird was cleared out in that manner, while Esfir took a quicker approach for its wings, legs, and tail: hacking them off from their joints and leaving them for later. The small size of the knife, despite making the progress slow overall, meant that she ran less risk of slicing into the organs of the Elwet and could subsequently work faster when skinning the monster's back.

Soon enough, it definitely resembled a chicken. A large chicken, limbs quartered off.

She rubbed her cheek with her shoulder, then let out a sigh. Now, it was the difficult part. Pulling the innards and internal membrane out, all without any real knowledge of what the creature was. And the stone knife, a blunt instrument compared to proper steel, was now such a clumsy thing.

If Esfir had sleeves, she'd be rolling them up right now, but she didn't, so she simply plunged her hands up the monster's widened cavity and began to feel around, one hand caressing and teasing the slippery organs, the other hand wielding a stone blade to separate those organs from the surrounding flesh-walls.
[sub][@Kazemitsu][@King Cosmos][@Crusader Lord][/sub]