[center][h1][color=crimson]Eliza Marie Lee[/color][/h1] [h3][i]Year - 0 Day - 19 Location - ??? Village (Approximately near modern Okayama)[/i][/h3][/center] These people had no name for themselves, and yet they had begun to live closer to each other and more and more so over the generations all the same as family had run into family and eventually a suitable location for a home had been decided upon. A place with fair game, the fishing of the sea, and the proper source of water from a clear and beautiful river nearby. A place that sat at the foot of mountains, from which came cold winds in the winter and to where one could go to hunt more game and find good stone for tools. Because...well, these people used stone tools alone. They also foraged for berries in the right seasons, had cleared away other trees from where those that grew ripe chestnuts were located to somewhat cultivate the chestnut trees themselves, and sought each thing in its due course as they simply lived their lives. To the modern mind, the lack of convenience and so forth was astonishing and their level of technology far more so. Yet they were just like modern people in so many ways, from the laughing of playing children to the work of parents to repair and build up homes for their families and so much more. Some would look to places like this, days like these, and call them the 'pinnacle of humanity' that all should return to. Yet in either case, such people forgot the harshness that such a life brought as well. Disease. Lack of medicines. A lack of tools to improve the workload on those who labored with their backs and minds to mete out a life and survival. So, really, they were all products of their place and time. Modern. Ancient. Didn't matter where, or who, or how, life was life and people were people one way or another. And....in a sense this fact was rather comforting. In another sense, it was distressing to be so far from her own friends and family. From the laugh and relaxed humor of her best friend, to the warm smile of her mother, to even the stupid grin on her father's face when he'd tried to set a better example for her as a kid when he'd failed at something....heh. To think she'd miss something as simple, and long enough ago, as that. But the skies bore nothing that looked like airplanes flying or such like. No debris washed up on shores. It had taken over a week, but to her mind she was in a rather primitive place, one far from the likes off anything she knew. Terms, words, ideas from her day seemed to be totally alien despite attempting to ask some of the locals. Just to try to get a hint of...anything, anything familiar or that might indicate she wasn't living in some equivalent to an isekai anime (ha). She seemed to be, for all intents and purposes, in a world far flung from her own in more than just technology and culture....but time as well, as ridiculous as it sounded to her. Still, her hosts had been gracious enough to 'keep her around' at least thus far. "Hmm? Eriza, what are you doing here?" The vividly red-haired woman, her hair styled into a rough bun on the back of her head and held in place with a bone-wrought comb now, stood near where Kunne's husband sat with a stone tool in hand, sat hewing a piece of longer wood in his hands. Eliza, in turn, stood in her new set of similar animal-hide-wrought clothing as the rest of Kunne's family seemed to be dressed in. The same type of skirted clothing and two pieces of garments that had seemingly become common in this place. It was, well, it was more a lending of clothes she had recived rather than a new set. Closest 'size' they had to fit her, and it had come from another local family who had been kind enough to exchange them for some supplies until Kunne could prepare replacement clothes to send back to the other family. Such was closeness of the locals, apparently, in this case and particular place. And yet so far she'd been helping Kunne with household chores as part of things. She'd been trying to pick up from them simple things like....rough sewing with bone needles to help make clothes, and helping prepare food in the local fashion, and so forth. She'd also been telling stories, ones she'd begun to curate to tell of her 'homeland' to entertain her hosts by the fire each night before sleeping. She'd even begun to adopt the habit of rising up at sunrise, finally, without having to be prodded or awoken by a non-existent alarm clock...at least begun to sucessfully do such of course. "I wish to learn how to carve wood, as you and some of the other men seem to be capable of. And how to prepare tools of stone." Iramande, that being the name of Kunne's husband as she'd learned during her first night, raised an eyebrow in return. A peculiar thing for a woman to ask in this place indeed, though she had worked in how 'women worked alongside the men in many things' back in her homeland at least. Though in truth, the division of labor here seemed to be enough of a handful for women and men alike as it was. She was an extra, and a foreigner, so...perhaps something could be arranged. Maybe. "Such things are not beffitting tasks, and yet....hmm." "I wish to better help you and your family, to repay the kindness given me however I can. But I seem to be a burden to Kunne and the others as it is with their usual tasks. In that sense..." Narasu had been somewhat resistant to learn the craft of woodwork, from the appearances of things, in comparison to learning how to hunt at first. In that sense, he and his father had been somewhat at odds, and in that sense he'd gone off with Kunne's older brother (from the same village) today to begin learning that. This despite his father's status as a woodworker and fisher, well, at least as far as trying to slot him into a given role went on Eliza's part inside her own mind. "It would be useful to have more hands, yes, though Kunne...haha! Perhaps Narasu will see, if a woman can do this work, then he can learn it from his own father as well! And as you are a foreigner, well, this perhaps could work out well after all." The man's hair sat back in a smaller bun than hers, but as a smile appeared on his hairy and bearded face he let out a large guwaff of a laugh. His eyes would likewise dart to her hands for a moment as well. The man then gentured for her to sit next to him, his usual stoic focus on the task at hand replaced with something of a good sense of joviality for the most part. Giving a grateful nod and brief smile, then, Eliza would walk over and carefully sit upon the log next to Iramande as he placed the wood in his hands on her lap and helped her get a grasp of of the sharp stone carving tool in his hand. His expression, in kind, would turn back into more of his seemingly usual 'working look' in kind, eyes focusing on her hands, the tool, and the wood itself. "You must be careful which direction to move the tool, but at the right angle. Like so. Shave it back, bit by bit, that's how it should go. You likewise do not want to break the tool, especially by applying too much pressure. So try to take a few shavings off of the wood." Attempting to feel how he'd moved his hands and placed pressure on the tool, Eliza in turn would try to mimic those motions with her own two hands on the stone tool. Find the right angle...dangit, a slip! No matter, though at least she'd missed hitting herself, she'd just try again. Get a better angle this time, angle the stone blade like so, apply better pressure now...and...aha! It worked! She could see a glimmer of amusement on her teacher's face for a moment, though he would wait as she continued to try to get a few more shavings off. So, it seemed, she just needed to try that same approach again! She had to get a feel for the tool in her hands, yes, that was the key to things like this. Like with any other, well, use of tools that is. In her mind. "Yes, like so, but no too much in one place unless you want to whittle it too far down for use. This is being used to help move a canoe for fishing, so the end will be wider than the shaft will be. With this sort of skill, you must be able to envision what the end product will be each each bit." "Hmm...that makes sense." An oar? That made sense with how the shape looked so far, but ok! She had to let him show her, however, no use in just trying to jump ahead. And so things would go this way for what felt like a few hours, at least to her, the sun hanging in the sky as she was introduced to the idea of woodcarving and how to handle it. Albeit even after their woodcarving session, as he noted the progress of the sun across the lit and clear blue sky of the day, the bearded man would calmlly end things and would again try to encourage her to 'put in the effort for helping Kunne and the other women' as well. At the same time...he seemed happy to at least show somehow how to work with wood, even if a little bit, before he had sent her back to explain to Kunne where she was and to keep trying to assist her. Or in Iramande's own words- [i]'She'll let you know she's irritated, but don't let that fool you. She's glad to have more hands to help than just our older daughter whike Kimyo is still rather young.'[/i] Well, he knew her best. Even so, it was clear that he at least would let her come back the next day to learn more based on his attitude about things. Hopefully. Because as much as she had made it clear she wanted to help Iramande and his family... ...she also had goals of her own, both in that vein and personally. And it had taken her over two weeks to become more grounded in this rather new world, enough so at least to realize that her first personal goal in it all was far from feasible without much practice and some new skills to add to her existing ones. And not just skills she wanted to learn, but practical ones to help with local women to boot. More than skills, she'd need to locate some things as well that no one here seemed to know how to look for or after to boot! Likely up in the mountains as well for that matter. Hmm. But what was her first goal, the first one she had in all of this? It was simple enough, she supposed, but she felt herself growing more thankful for the greater simplicity of access she had to it back in the modern US-of-A at the very least. [i]She wanted to make an area for blacksmithing, mainly for herself, and beyond that to try to give the locals new tools to help them out.[/i] Sure, the concept of metal tools wasn't here, and indeed if she wanted to have enough hubris as it was she'd think herself higher than the people here for that. But...they weren't stupid. They weren't fools, or idiots, or unthinkintg savages. Not from anything she'd seen and experienced with them so far. Traditions changed slowly, things that worked stuck around for myriad reasons practical and otherwise, and what she wanted to do in the first place was radical enough a concept as it was in this place in the world (wherever it was). So rather than simply balk with a 'wow why didn't they just think to do that instead or something', or giving the hollywood glazing of the idea of the 'noble savage' and abandoning the idea of metalworking even for herself, she'd work with where she was and who she was around. Whether it was learning a new skill, or learning to work with others, or learning about a new home, or the like, it all went 'one step and one thing at a time', right? So it was here in her mind. One thing, one day, one skill at a time. [hr] [center][h3][i]Year - 0 Day - 100 Location - ??? Village (Approximately near modern Okayama)[/i][/h3][/center] One hundred days since she'd arrived in wherever and whenver this place was located. One hundred long, laborious days of learning a new slew of things and about this new place, all between her work alongside Kunne and the other women as well as learning from Iramande as he struggled to get his son on-board with his craft one way or the other. One hundred days away from everything she'd ever known before, as well as having to cool her heels and her initial new ambitions with their own tempering, and yet applying herself with increasing vigor and gusto to the things at hand. Pottery. Cooking. Woodcarving. The creation of stone tools. Practicing in her own spare time, with whatever she could get of it. And, as of the prior day, maybe pushing the young Narasu to pay more attention to his father by gutting a deer the family was provvided by a neighbor during a trade alone in eyesight of the boy, much to his father's surprised amusement and his mother's mild shock. Heh. No one had seen that coming, not from the foreign woman at least, so it had been something she did take a bit of pride in saying her own father had taught her to do on top of that! Though all the same, while it had helped in part to convince the boy to begin learning woodwork from his father... "Ah...hah....whew..." She'd been trying to find some good trees, ones to use for her work on making a smithy plus home for herself. She'd managed to get word of older chestnut trees the locals had been about to cut, near the edges of a natural grove of them nearby to the village, and had been granted one or two if she could manage to haul them off by herself. All that had taken, however, was patient work, a piece of carved wood, and some cord on one end of each of the two logs to get them ready to move. Then had come a few days to get them moved, though Iramande and Narasu had also admittedly helped her on the final leg of the journey to a spot just a little ebyond the edge of the village where she'd wanted to move them (at Kunne's insistence to boot, though the latter had told her to not mention anything). Just to, well, give herself some space it seemed. Part of the day she learned from Iramande, sometimes at his family home with Kunne keeping close tabs on them on the side even, and sometime around Iramande's brother and another man of the village who also carved some wood or felled trees for the village alongside him. Part of the day she assisted Kunne and the other local women who got together to cook, make pottery out of gathered clay, and look after the children. Part of the day, then, she would go to where her logs were, sat atop a bed of branches to keep them off of the ground at her own design, to repair or make her own tools, perform physical exersizes to try to stay fit, dig out a proper foundational area of some kind and roughly level-ish sort with the guidance of Iramande and another man of the village (who knew how to make their own houses), and keep working on the two rather large logs to prepare them for her use. A lot that didn't always all happen each day with exactness in the same exact order, but it was a predictable enough schedule at the very least as far as she was concerned. This day, well, was one of the days she'd been setting out to carve away at one of the felled trees she had. But...what to do with it? She had decided that they would make for solid pillars, tall ones, and that she didn't want to dig out the floor of her future smithy plus home as deep as the locals did. She'd need two more trees, maybe three now that she was measuring it out more in her own rough capacity, but it would take a lot more work to finish for sure. Though all of her work had garnered some curiosity from others in the village at least~ "...I know you're there, Narasu." The younger boy had been spying upon her for a short while from behind a tree, perhaps after coming back from learning how to hunt with his maternal uncle, but she'd been noticing him doing this for a few weeks now. Not that he hadn't tried to stay silent and hidden for what it was worth, even as she labored with tools and the like at her little personal worksite. The boy had been spending more time with his father than she'd seen at first glance after her arrival, though, somewhat more of the time when she was around learning from his father as well. A touch suspicious, perhaps, but nothing she'd assumed was but the curiosity of a growing boy about an oddity like herself in a place like this perhaps. Haha. The boy froze still at her voice, however, though she would simply look in his direction, seeing a head pop rapidly behind a tree and letting a low chuckle come from her lips. Kid was noisy with his sisters, the only living son his father and mother still had admittedly, but he wasn't a bad kid either in ways. He seemed to put effort into what got his interest, at least, but this all did give her some room for teasing if she ever felt so inclined. Er, though she didn't want to mislead him by accident either, nor earn Kunne's wrath by even putting on the appearance of such a thing. She got [u]terrifying[/u] when she was mad, such that even Iramande and others paid full attention to her like soldiers almost at attention! "Fine, hide if you wish. But I guess I'll tell your mother you were slacking off-" Speaking of his mother, the boy would leap out from his hiding place almost instantaneously at the mention of Kunne learning what he'd been doing. "No! No, ah, my mother doesn't need to know. I'm right here." What was he, just short of his teen years perhaps? He was growing taller, that much was for sure, and he stood taller than his sisters already. Hmm. Just short of a growth spurt maybe? Eh, she'd have to ask Kunne if the chance came up when they were in private for a moment. She didn't want to embarass the boy, but...well, Kunne was a touch of a gossip sometimes around the other women and herself at times. That was just a liiiiittle something to keep in mind for the future. "Indeed you are." "What are you trying to make anyways? You don't have a husband, and if that's gonna' be a house you really don't look like you know what you're doing. Dad and some of the other men don't seem to fully know, but they wonder if its just some foreign house or something." The boy crossed his arms, trying to reflect back something of an attitude and fire back against being forced from his hiding place. Yet his words were enough to get Eliza to raise an eyebrow at the very least. Was...he curious too? Sure he spoke of the other men, but they weren't here and he had begun to spy on her more often than any of them came over to try to give her guidance and direction in handling tool making and wood carving. She wasn't a master at any of it, far from it yet, but practice was important to cultivating what she knew if nothing else. "Hmm. I'll make you a exchange. I'll tell you what it is and explain it....if you help me build it, and if you go learn more about woodworking with your father." She winked back, a light blush appearing in the boy's face for a moment as he stood silent. After a few minutes of said silence, then, he would cough before darting off back toward home. In turn, Eliza felt a small pang of worry inside. Er...had she pushed him too far? Perhaps the teasing should have waited. Ooooooh dear, if Kunne got word of this she was DEAD, wasn't she? ...Wasn't she? [center][h3][i]Year - 0 Day - 115 Location - ??? Village (Approximately near modern Okayama)[/i][/h3][/center] Today, no special day in particular it had seemed, her usual guest watcher would approach her more openly this time around of all things. Narasu. The growing boy who was being trained as a hunter, apparently had a more natural knack for it from what Iramande had talked about with his brother in law, and yet even his father had commented to her that he'd been trying to be around him more some days when he wasn't hunting. Just in the past two weeks alone! But she hadn't joked with him about things either, and he'd seemingly been avoiding her before now, so she'd been worried he'd been unnerved a bit too much in the end. Even still- "You said you'd tell me if I learned more and help, right?" ...Eh? "I-I did. Yes." Looking on the youth's left hip, a wooden axe sat by his side now that was attached to him with a belt-like cord. Eliza's eyes then went back up to Narasu's face, one that was staring right back at her determinidely rather than as nervously as it once had. Not that he hadn't crossed his arms and wasn't trying to look big for the occasion as well, which itself was almost funny even with his efforts to sound and act serious at the time. In that sense, she was trying to at least give him the respect of listening to him without a laugh or such...though her own surprise did help his case this fine later afternoon. "So?" He was serious about this? Did his parents know, and sure the village had seemingly become more accustomed to her somehwat in the short term, but-...but...hmm. Actually, yeah. Yeah, the kid had his own curiosity. Worst case, she'd sound like an idiot and mad foreign woman to the village. "Ok. I'll keep my word. You can help me, and I'll tell you what I am trying to make." The boy nodded, before walking over and looking to her and the log she was nearly bent over to work on before looking back to her once more. "So, what're we carving, and what're you building?" ...What direction was this going? She had no clue. But it would be a while to explain what she could to the boy. Long enough for them to get some work for at least a few days if nothing else! That much help at least would shorten down the time for doing things, if nothing else. "A long story, but first I am carving these logs into the first of a few tall vertilar pillars for this building I'm making. I'll explain along the way as we work." [hr] [b][Summary - Eliza is getting adjusted to the village, began learning woodworking and tool making skills from Kunne's husband Iramande, and while being a foreigner is trying to contribute to the village where she can to better integrate with them. She does this while also beginning to pursue her own goal: Building a blacksmith + home, which isn't going to be some small feat amidst this sedentary hunter-gatherer society. Or, well, she's going to at least build a blacksmith if it turns out her initial idea doesn't work or isn't safe (just part of her learning process here). Along the way, she's gotten some curiosity from afar and a bit closer to her host family. Yet Narasu, the only living son of her host family, has curiously taken up her on an innitially-joking deal to learn what she's doing if he helps help her work on things and spends more time with his father. He called her bluff and is doing his part a bit over two weeks later after making the joking offer, so after the initial shock Eliza is going to take up her end of the deal.][/b]