CHAPTER 6 — Chicken - Lizard . It’s What’s for Dinner . #2
She uses the chicken to gesture at me. “You came in fitted clothes that Namak?ga says you didn’t make yourself, and you’ve capped your teeth in precious metal.”
“Two. I have two fillings.”
“Then, Roarg let slip that you’re a miller’s daughter, and there are few families better off than millers, unless your gristmill is in some strange plane nothing like here—”
“I’m not actually a miller’s—”
“—you practically threw away coin to play a game you didn’t even believe would work—”
“You guys are so hung up on that part,” I mutter.
“—and you don’t prepare your own meals.” She clucks her tongue. “Well, you start today. Grab a bird.”
Grimacing, flinching, I make my way back to the henhouse like I’m marching for the gallows.
I manage to catch a bird, getting thoroughly beaten by wings for my trouble.
Joktepitha patiently uses her dead bird to demonstrate how I should hold it, and then she takes my hand and presses her thumb and fingers over mine to control where I’m touching my chicken.
“Right here,” she says, thumb nudging mine into place. “Where the skull meets the spine. You need to disconnect the connection swiftly, and the bird will be ended in an instant.”
“Like ripping a plug out of the wall socket?” I ask.
Joktepitha screws up her face. “What now?”
“Never mind. Here goes nothing. Sorry, Toofy Chicken.”
I carefully extend the bird’s neck and crack my thumb down.
I feel the vertebrae crunch away from the chicken’s skull.
“Ewwwww,” I whimper.
“Huh,” Joktepitha muses. “You didn’t pull hard enough to separate the neck from the head, yet you still dispatched the bird. Good job,” she praises.
And weirdly, I feel accomplished. “Thanks. I guess… now we pluck the feathers and stuff?”
She sends me an amused look. “And stuff? You are a Highborn! Here, we only stuff our birds on holidays.”
I blink at her. “No, I meant ‘and stuff,’ like cutting it up into quarters or whatever—”
“We usually defeather, but we’ve been saving feathers all season and these hens don’t have the nicest plumage. We need at least three more to feed everybody. Maybe we should do four more besides,” she muses, not even listening to me try to explain. “Let’s do the rest over there in the shade.”
We butcher several more, Crushosh not making a peep on her back as his mom preps our ‘lunch’—
And why would he? His mom has a surprising and terrifying power, and what is with this culture and their affinity for beheading?
—and at an outdoor chicken-killing station, she shows me how to skin the birds, since there’s no plucking of feathers necessary.
That done, she watches me skin a chicken by myself, and hands me what she informs me will be my final one, for now.
“I’m going to put the others on ice. It’ll take a bit to teach you how to process them, so we’ll get these here salted and cooling off in the meantime. I’ll be back in a moment.”
My head whips up. “You have ice?”
She gives me a long blink. “Yes.”
I look around. “Where?”
She gestures to the opposite side of the yard from the privy. “Did you not have an icehouse where you’re from?”
“Oh. No, we technically do. We have fridges.”
When she looks at me blankly, I add, “Ice boxes kept inside the house.”
Her brows go up meaningfully. Playfully, she mutters, “High—”
“Oh, shut up!” I laugh. “I’m not highborn! I’m the farthest thing from it.”
She pats my arm. “Hmm. Seems you’re a little further from it here than you were before. But any way you want to look at it, you’re doing well, Stephanie. Keep going.”
When she returns, she deems my skinning job properly done, and when we leave the outdoor skinning area for the house, chicken legs clutched in my hand, bloody necks dangling above the ground—the geese honk in horror and don’t try to chase me as I trail Joktepitha.
“That’s right!” I tell them, shaking dead chickens in their direction.
Joktepitha cocks her head at me and smiles at me as if she’s sure I’m crazy. Yet this conclusion doesn’t seem to worry her in the least. She keeps leading me to the house.
Soon, we’re parked at a table laden with dead birds. I make the remaining two skinless, and Joktepitha shows me on one bird how to make them organ-less. She can dress a bird in almost the blink of an eye, scooping out innards with a practiced ease.
Meanwhile, I reach my hand into the warm cavity of my first lunch project, and shudder. Butchering isn’t for sissies.
Joktepitha gives me some pointers, oversees me until she’s certain I won’t spill the intestines on the meat when I pull them from the birds, and then she gets ready to leave, saying she and Crushosh are off to visit with Roarg for a bit while he does his forge work.
“I love to watch him swing that hammer,” she says with a long, lusty sigh. And then she winks at me.
I shake my head. “This is too weird. I should want to claw out your eyes for talking about the guy I just spent the night with.”
She pats my shoulder. “I’d eviscerate you.”
Since I just saw her eviscerate some chickens, it’s not hard for me to believe she can back up her promise.
She pats me again. “You’re sharing beautifully.”
Then she and Crushosh are out the door. I’m all alone in the Hammerfist cottage, me and my table of avian friends.
I’ve got my arms deep in my second chicken corpse when none other than Ulda walks in. She takes one look at what I’m about and makes a bewildered face.
I can’t even blame her. My technique isn’t as practiced as Joktepitha’s, meaning my birds look pretty ragged. Think of a Jackson Pollock, if he butchered instead of painted. Honestly, the kitchen looks like a crime scene.
Ulda’s eyes are very wide when she looks up from my mutilated project. Voice unnaturally high, she asks, “Would you like to wash up?”
“Gosh yes—but... why?” I eye her.
She raises Opkug from her hip, bringing her up to smile at me. “Do you want to hold this brat?”
“Umm…”
Ulda gives me a look that tells me my answer had better be yes.
“I’ve got my hand stuffed up a chicken’s ass. You really want me to hold your baby?”
She gives me a baleful stare. “You’ve heard of soap.”
“Yeah. But I don’t even know how to hold an Orc baby,” I protest.
She makes a face at me like she thinks my intelligence is on par with wet dirt.
“Are you stupid?” she asks in disbelief. “Have you never held a baby before? Ever?”
My chin goes up. I clench my teeth. “Only human ones.”
She’s beside me in a flash and cuffs me upside the head. “The only difference is a couple of tusks and the color of our skin you numbskullion.”
Elbow up, shoulder clamped defensively to my ear, arm coated in chicken viscera, I point out, “How do you know that? You didn’t even know humans existed before you met me.”
“I’m beginning to think the only difference is how much more a human can complain. You fuss like a newborn brat. I’ll ask you again: do you want to hold Opkug? I will hit you until you give me the correct answer.”
“In that case, sure. I’d love to be entrusted with your precious child who I have absolutely zero experience or necessary qualifications to—”
Ulda raises her hand, ready to strike. I backpedal out of her swatting range, backing right off the bench, extracting my hand from the bird crevice. “I’d love to hold her!” I assure her with enthusiastic sarcasm. “Give me a second to clean the gore off.”
It’s a process, but I manage to get my hands free of the slippery feel of…
stuff, then hold my arms out. “Thank you,” Ulda says as she transfers Opkug, who is heavier than I expect, into my arms. “This will free up my hands so someone can finally put this poor bird to rest. Who taught you to butcher? This is the work of a serial killer.”
“No one. Joktepitha diced hers up like a pro then left me to practice on the rest. This is my first day.”
She shakes her head in derision, but her tone isn’t scathing or scornful now. “First day or not, this is still a sad attempt. However, your willingness to work is admirable. You are doing well to weave in with us here. Console yourself with the knowledge that your effort hasn’t gone unnoticed.”
There’s a metallic clunk.
We both glance to the source of the noise, and find a gold coin shining amid the bodies of my victims.
ZULDANA, reads the gold.
“My Eternal,” Ulda breathes as she picks it up and examines it. Her eyes are unnaturally wide as she sets it aside, her gaze locking on me.
I shift Opkug to my hip like I’ve seen Ulda wear her and gesture down at the money. “Sooo… seriously, how much are each of these worth? With the coins that appeared last night, is it enough to pay you guys back for what you spent on me?”
Her appraisal turns considering. “And if it was? You aren’t leaving, so what difference would that make?”
Clinging to me like a koala, Opkug makes a burbling noise.
I shoot her a wide smile and happy eyes before I start to bounce her.
At her mother, I frown. “I am leaving. I’m in a game, and my objective is to become intertwined with your household.
” I gesture to the birds, arm still wrapped under Opkug’s little butt.
“I’m intertwining pretty good, as evidenced by the reward coins appearing from thin air.
Before I’m gone from here forever, it’d be nice to leave you guys with enough gold that I won’t feel so much like I owe you.
Namak?ga seems really concerned about Roarg finding out how much she dropped for me, and if this gold adds up to what was spent on me in coppers, she won’t be sweating bullets anymore. ”
Perhaps Ulda’s brows rise in surprise or even some esteem.
There’s a lengthy pause before she shares, “It’s good that you are concerned for Namak?ga.
You don’t have to fret for her, but it’s a very good thing that you care.
” She ignores my question about the coins’ value in favor of turning to the sink and washing her hands.