Lost Things

[Perun]

Perun was lost. He'd been lost since his feet touched land outside the valley he'd called home for almost thirty years, but he felt truly lost. He was trying to find Ostia, and the man at the last inn he had slept in seemed to say he was getting close, but Perun's use of the common language wasn't very good. So the big man simply walked down what he hoped was the right road. Apparently Ostia was once a city, like a village but bigger, but it had long since been destroyed. Perun felt his stomach rumble, and decided it was best to stray from the road just long enough to find some sort of food. He took the longbow from where it rested on his shoulder, and strolled into the woods. After about fifteen minutes of walking, he saw two rabbits, who immediately ran away. Perun pulled an arrow from his quiver, and shot for a few inches before the slower rabbit, but he loosed too early. "Yebat," he cursed under his breath in his own tongue. He turned to go North, the direction the road was leading but stayed in the forest.

He heard the snap of a twig, and put an arrow to his bowstring. Then he saw a Moose walk out from behind a wide tree headed away from the road. Aiming for the neck, Perun loosed, and drew another arrows before he heard a cry from the animal. His next arrow took the beast in the left foreleg. It began to have the complications one tends to have when breathing with an arrow in the neck, and fell to the ground. Perun sprinted up to the moose as it struggled to rise, and looping the bow around his shoulder, he grabbed the axe from where it rested on his back, and swung the killing blow. Perun carried the moose back to the road where he started a small fire. He hadn't eaten in a long while, so he didn't plan to take the time to make a stew. Instead he simply cut slabs of the animals flesh from its body and began to roast it on a spit. While the scent began to water his mouth, the large man looked over the large pelt of the animal. It was big enough to serve a few purposes for a man his size.

[Perun]

Perun ate a great haunch of moose leg, it tasted bland, but Perun didn't care. They'd only had reindeer back in his home, so different cloven hoofed beasts were unfamiliar, but welcome flavors. He took some salt he'd bought in some fisherman town, and covered the remaining meat to preserve it, placing it into his pack. As he rose to his feet, the large man heard footsteps coming from the road to his left. It was a man a head shorter than Perun, and he carried a pack on his back filled with pots and pans by the sound of clattering. The man smiled widely at Perun, and called, "'Lo traveler." Perun raised his right arm along with his right eyebrow, "'Lo?" He smiled even though he didn't understand the man's words. He hoped they weren't insulting each other. Perun saw the man's eyes widen as he drew closer, but it didn't insult him. Smaller people were always frightened by him when they saw him for the first time.

The man stopped in the center of the road and said, "My name is Gerant, I am a merchant, specializing in wares for travelers. What is your name sir?" Perun understood the man this time around, "Me am called Perun." The man nodded, though he was clearly taken back by Perun's thick accent. "Mhm, and do you need any instruments to improve your travel? Pots? Walking sticks? Knives?" Perun shook his head, "No, but Perun is to be needing for better directions to Ostia. If little man be kind enough to tell him where to go." Perun was sure he saw the man's mouth curl into a poorly hidden smile. "Of course," he said, "if you go directly East of here, you should find a dirt path. That way, it leads to Ostia." Perun smiled and said, "I am thanking very much." Then the big man lumbered towards the treeline on the other side of the road, going in the wrong direction.