Akeno
Shamar was looking for an apprentice? Why hadn’t she mentioned anything when Akeno had helped her with the tanning earlier? Even when Akeno asked her if she hunted everything herself, the head hunter hadn’t said anything about needing more help. Maybe she was waiting for Akeno to broach the subject first, or maybe she just wasn’t looking to take on a runt barely finished with their first hunt as her apprentice.
Still, that was an option. She could keep going to the hunter and tanner for work and if she could prove that she could keep up and do a good job then maybe that could lead to something more permanent. Something secure. It would mean hunting most likely, which meant more fighting and more danger, but it would also mean she was closer to a roof over her head and presumably a consistent source of food. It would also mean tying herself down to the tribe though, for the time being anyway, and Akeno hadn’t decided if that was something she wanted to do.
Running off into the woods was still kind of appealing, or would be if she wasn’t sure to lead to certain death at the moment.
Her other options were the shaman herself, surprisingly, and some Orc called Bowbh. Akeno didn’t know who that was, but following the shaman’s line of sight made it pretty obvious who she meant. Gaining an apprenticeship with the tribe’s blacksmith had a lot of the same advantages and disadvantages as going with Shamar, as far as she could see, minus the advantage that she had already done work for the head hunter. It would potentially mean access to metal-worked tools and weapons, maybe even armour if Orcs made such a thing, but Akeno didn’t know the first thing about working a forge or an anvil or anything else. Plus there was that other thing Yamabagorn said, which was definitely ominous. “The blacksmith? What do you mean he hasn’t been right? Where did he return from?”
Training with the brutes and warriors was her last option, both in terms of when it was offered and how seriously Akeno was taking the suggestion. Her ability to fight was the one thing Akeno was fairly confident in, at least compared to her complete lack of skills in every other relevant area, but that didn’t mean she couldn’t stand to learn more; you could always learn better ways to defend yourself, could always improve on your skills or seek out new ones. Even though she had gotten her black belt not too long ago, Akeno had no intention of stopping or settling for just that; she could keep learning karate, progress to the next level of her black belt or, more likely, try out a different martial art instead. She’d dabbled a little bit with boxing, by virtue of having a friend who was into it, and had looked into jiu jitsu dojos a couple times before she died.
There was no way to follow through on that now and there was probably nothing as formalised as that in the tribe, but she could still learn something from the warriors here. How to properly swing a club if nothing else. But like Yamabagorn said, it wouldn’t be an apprenticeship and she could train on the side while pursuing a job with someone else.
“If I became your apprentice, what sort of things would you teach me?”
@Zeroth
