Quiana & BehnamGang - Gypsy - Female - Eleven
"Right away, Victor," Quiana said, nodding. She was used to taking orders from others, and the fact that Victor was several years younger than her and shorter to boot didn't matter much. She took a piece of string from her pocket and tied her hair back. It had grown out longer than she was used to during her captivity, and she hated getting it snagged on bits of wood or metal while she was searching for tinder. She clambered around between the boxes, and pulled one out from under a stack of wood. The wood was wet, of course - the dew had settled on the thick timbers and soaked it through to the core. She bit her lip, and handed it to Behnam. He took the box in his jaws and dragged it over to an empty spot near the centre of the camp, then shifted to his spider-monkey form to rip the paper into shreds for kindling.
Quiana, although it was a wrench to stay more than a few feet from her daemon, wove her way through the junk in the alley way, stuffing sticks and slivers of wood in her pocket as she went. It looked like there was a stack of wood near the back, under the pile of hay she'd slept on. She'd certainly felt it poking into her side while she slept. Most likely, it was dry enough to burn, and the straw would be good for kindling as well. She dug at the straw, and soon excavated a couple of logs of wood. Unfortunately, they were rather large for her to carry easily with an armload of straw.
Ah, but the ritzy landloper was coming in the back entrance to the place, his bear behind him like a huge furry mountain. Raf something. She tried to remember his name, straightening up with the wood in her arms. "Um, Raf... I'm sorry, I don't remember your name, quite." She jerked her head to the pile of hay. "Could you and your daemon get an armload of dry straw for the fire?" she asked, neglecting to add a please on the end. Then she turned, and trudged back through the aisles of junk with the logs in her arms, Behnam waiting with a pile of paper shards beside him. Let's hope she could make a fire big enough to dry out the hefty chunks of woof she carried in her arms.
She dropped the logs on the ground, and knelt down, taking the sticks out her pocket along with her precious iron and flint. Quietly, she built the sticks into a little home for the fire.
The fire has a little spirit of its own. It's got to have somewhere to live. Somewhere warm and protected, with plenty of air to breath, but not enough to blow it out. It's a living creature, and like all living creatures, it must be treated with respect. That was what Mamma had said. Her hand trembled slightly, and she knocked a couple of sticks away from the home she made. She clicked her tongue irritably and finished the first part of the fire.
Then, Behnam holding the end of the cardboard in his dexterous spider-monkey paws, she pulled a tiny, precious piece of charcloth. She was running low, and though she could make more with a tin and enough time and a fire, it was not something she wanted to do on the run. She folded the cloth on top of the fint, and, with a fast and fierce motion, struck the iron down the side. Sparks! But the cloth wasn't burning. Sparks! Ah! A little red patch was starting. She blew on it gently, and it began to glow. She inserted it carefully but quickly into the home.
See? It nestles in there like a mouse in a house. Give it breath. Give it life, Ki-ki. She breathed gently on it, and the kindling started burning.
It would take a few more minutes to really get burning though. Behnam fed bits of twig and cardboard to it, carefully keeping the little flame alive.
Well done. Just keep it alive, and it will keep us alive.