She was a big hog now. Hog knew it. She knew it by the way her sides reached just a few centimetres higher on her favourite scratching spot. Not the biggest of growth spurts for most, but to her, this was huge. She was no longer a pipsqueak, and naturally, she'd outgrow the entire cave given a little time.
Yet, she'd also grown bored of simply mulling around and eating. There was a craving for a certain direction for her life. Something to occupy her mind that was more enriching than a routine of sleep, eat, roll in mud, scratch itch and drink.
It was arriving at Scorpio that'd inspired her. The food there, it all smelt so much better, but she had to work for it? Ugh. What a drag. Why would she work for it when she could try to make it herself? It couldn't be difficult to simply warm food over some hot-thing.
First things first, she'd need something to make a hot-thing out of, as well as some food to cook...
...Turning her snuffling snout to the floor, that was the easy part. After she and Rei had travelled here, she'd gotten to know the area pretty well. There were some roots at the bottom of a stalked plant that the Walleye's liked to eat sometimes. Those were easy to find and dig up. But, perhaps this hot-food stuff needed something more substantial?
She'd need a lot more ingredients in that case, she nodded to herself. There were baskets, she'd seen them at the market. So, with that Hog set off to collect all sorts of sticks, straight, hard ones and ones from trees closer to the water, bendy ones. It'd take time to get enough...
Hog's odd behavior caught October's eye. It circled overhead on a warm air current, watching quizzically as Hog gathered sticks from all sorts of sources. Droopy-looking trees by the river, dense hard sticks from bushes, and more. It had never seen anything like this before. What did she want all of these sticks for? Was she building a nest? October had only ever seen birds build nests. Hog didn't look like a bird. What else could you use sticks for? It occurred to the bird that sticks could be set on fire. This thought fascinated it, and it imagined what such a fire with so many sticks would look like. It imagined itself setting the fire. Perhaps it should also collect some sticks.
Curiosity got the better of it. It swooped down and alighted on a stick. Incidentally, one of the sticks that Hog had just collected.
"What are you doing?" it asked, tilting its head.
"Are you making a nest?"
@Hog
The hoglet looked up at the newcomer. She makes a few syllables that fail to form words with her collection of sticks in her mouth. With a puff through her snout, she moves to find a nice dry spot to deposit her collection.
"Why would I need to make a nest?" Hog asks, the brightness in her voice so genuine, it's hard to imagine the question was asked out of anything other than curiosity. Without the sticks, she tries to take a peep at her guest, turning this way and that to catch a glimpse, but she seems unable to look directly up.
"I'm making hot food!" Hog exclaims in the general direction of the voice. "There's a place that makes it, but they want you to work for coins, and that's stupid. So, I'm making it myself. But, I need a basket to carry my food." She explains further, hoping it understood what she meant.
"I wish I had those gripping limbs that others seem to have." Hog complains as she looks at her pile of sticks. With trotters, she nudges some good-shaped sticks into a cross shape; like a very bland snowflake, all the sticks overlapping in the centre...
Apparently, she was a natural at this. Weaving the bendier sticks through the base with a precision that a pig likely shouldn't have. In no time at all, the base of a basket was taking shape already.
@October
Why would she need to make a nest? October didn't know that either.
"What else would you need sticks for?" it cawed quizzically, but she answered its question a moment later. It didn't understand most of what she said--why did you need to work for hot food, what were coins, why was that stupid, what was a basket? But it fixated on one particular word that it did know, and that it liked very much.
Hot.
Its eyes brightened.
"I LIKE HOT THINGS," it announced with sudden enthusiasm.
"AND FIRE! I LIKE FIRE. Do you want me to make things hot? I love to make fire!" It took several quick hops forward eagerly.
Please tell it to set something on fire!
@Hog
Hog made a sound of agreement, muffled from her work making sticks into a basket. She paused her work to speak to her new friend.
"I think we need fire. But, we need something to make hot first..." Hog trailed off as she considered what would be best to make hot. The roots weren't that interesting. But, she'd remembered a prize she once had when she first came to Polaris.
"Like fish! It has to be something tasty!" The piglet decreed to her new, fire happy, friend. "It can't be something that's a little icky like moss or roots. It
has to be tasty."
She briefly considered her new friend's enthusiasm, perhaps mistaking its arson-like tendancies for a passion for making.
"What's the tastiest food to you?" Hog asks brightly, before returning to putting together her basket so she can carry these tasty treats.
@October
We need fire. FIRE! Absolute music to October's ears. It listened to the rest of Hog's words with difficulty. It was hard to contain its enthusiasm about its number one favorite activity, but apparently this might be important information about where and on what to set the fire. So it would listen.
Fish. It had never set fish on fire before, and it tried to imagine what the results would be like. Tasty? Perhaps. They could find out. Yes, please let them find out soon!
What did it find tasty?
"I like the taste of FIRE in my bill," it said decisively. That was the first and foremost thing. But,
"also BIG FAT BUGS and JUICY FRUIT." Again it tried to envision what those things would be like after being burnt. The bugs, it imagined, must crisp up nicely. Was it even possible to set juicy fruit on fire when there was so much liquid inside-?
Oh, who was it kidding. Of course it was. October was confident it could set ANYTHING on fire if it put its mind to it, which it would. And if not, it would GET STRONGER until it COULD.
@Hog
Hog paused as the words sank in. Well, she hadn't tried tasting fire yet, but she supposed that may also hurt her. She didn't have a bill to contain the flames to get a good taste of them.
"Big bugs." She echoed, that sounded much more doable than embodying the taste of flame in the mouth. As her basket took more shape, she began dragging it across the dirt, nosing around for drier sticks.
Though being by the river banks, she couldn't find a single one. Who'd of guessed? Apparently not Hog as she continues to search high and low for a dry stick to put into her half-finished basket that looked more like a bowl in its current state.
"Ugh-- We need dry things to make a good fire! And some good bugs!" Hog complained loudly, perhaps hoping this new friend would overhear and come to the rescue.
@October
October was not particularly good at picking up on social cues. Thus, when it had finished announcing its tier list of tastiest things, it simply settled back and continued to watch Hog gather her sticks. It was almost growing impatient. How long would she spend searching for sticks before it would get to make things hot?
Hog's pointed complaints struck a bolt of sudden enlightenment into October's head. Finding dry things was inherently connected to making FIRE. Thus, it should immediately get started on that! It took flight in a flurry of wings, circling the area to look for anything it could use. Rocks. Rocks. More rocks. River. Rocks in river. None of these were dry materials that Hog said would make a good fire. After a lot of fruitless searching, October did not want to search anymore.
It landed back in front of Hog and eyed her basket.
"Maybe you already found all the sticks." it said.
"Let's give up. I will make things hot anyway! With magic fire." Of course the fire would be magic. Fire was always magic.
@Hog
Hog nodded sagely. That was sound logic; she'd simply used up every stick making her basket. How foolish of her. The stranger was right. She regarded it for a moment before nodding. "Well, then we need bugs and tasty things!"
She hummed, well, bugs liked shady spots under debris and natural litter. So, she should look there first for a snack. Hog scanned the area and.. Bingo! A piece of fallen bark within the leaf litter.
Upturning a large slab of rotten bark turned out to be a hit. Bugs crawled and attempted to scatter when they were exposed to the lights of Polaris; fleeing for the nearest piece of cover, while some more sluggish bugs remained stuck inside the bug-panic on the bark piece.
"Oh! Oh! Quickly!" Hog shouted towards her new friend, scampering away from the piece of bark, lest she also end up charred and on the menu.
@October
Working with others had its advantages, October thought as Hog flipped a large piece of bark it'd never be able to overturn on its own. A wave of fleeing bugs spilled from underneath, and October quickly jumped--literally--on the opportunity. Its feet heated up to scorching temperatures and it hopped around in a frenzy, stepping on as many bugs as it could reach. The bark where its claws touched smoked and crumbled into black ash.
When it had gotten as many as it could, it stilled, feet coming to a rest to delicately grip the rocky ground and breathing slightly fast. Its freshly-burned flesh stung so brightly that it felt extra awake, as if a beam of orblight had cut through all shadows in its mind. Without thinking much, it leaned down and pecked up a slightly charred grub. It was still hot, almost but not quite enough to burn October's tongue, and quite crispy. It made a trilling warble of approval and looked expectantly at Hog, as if waiting for her to take a bite as well.
@Hog