On an Uncharacteristically Warm November Day

[Less Than Beta East Tundra]

It was getting on noon when Less Than Beta arrived at the beach, and the sand had just barely heated up enough to be called warm. For a week now he had been soaking a number of types of long and thin twigs by tying them together and hanging them in the water, and now he was going to figure out whether any of them were flexible enough to be used for anything.

As he sat in front of his sandy den, Less began trying to weave the twigs together into a coarse mesh. If anyone were to happen to go down to the beach, he would probably appreciate a second pair of hands.

[Mellianne Joss]

Mellianne stretched, glad that it was warm enough for her to make a return trip to the beach. She probably shouldn't go into the water this time, but she wanted to visit it anyways. Coming onto the sand, she looked around and noticed Less doing something with twigs. Walking up to his den, she waved. "Hi Less. What are you doing?"

[Less Than Beta East Tundra]

Less continued weaving the twigs. They weren't as flexible as he would have liked, but the task was manageable as long as he kept a wary eye on the twigs on the outside. "I am making a smoking rack," he explained. "There is fish here, and rabbit. I will help the school build up food stores for winter. Will you help?"

[Mellianne Joss]

Mellianne grinned at his thoughtfulness, even if the school didn't need food stores. "Sure, I'll help. What do you need me to do?" She set her ever present bag nearby and kicked off her sandals and set them near her bag.

[Less Than Beta East Tundra]

Less scooted over to the side to give the girl room to sit. He pointed at the edge of the weave. "This bottom twig keep slipping off. Will you hold it in place while I bend these other ones around it? It does not work when I try it myself, see?" His demonstration of the motions showed that if he pressed the weave against his stomach to steady it, the twig tended to scoot farther into the weave and away from where he was bending the other twigs. Held in the air, it would simply fall out. "That is the main problem, but just in general the weaving goes faster with more people working."

[Mellianne Joss]

Mellianne smiled again. "Sure I'll hold it in place." She liked helping Less out because he looked so cute! And she was his friend too of course! Now if only she could find someway of telling him that the school didn't need food stores for the winter, but she would likely only end up confusing herself and him at the same time.

[Less Than Beta East Tundra]

"Thank you," Less said. Bending the twigs around the errant border one was a bit tricky, but he managed it with only a couple breaking. The werewolf mentally noted which type of tree had the most flexible twigs. After they were all bent, he jammed the frame down into the sand so they stayed bent, before continuing his weaving.

"Do you know anything about woodworking?" he asked in an effort to make small conversation. "Usually we use strips of hide for this."

[Mellianne Joss]

Mellianne shook her head as she helped. "No, not really. My family doesn't really need much woodwork besides fencing building done. Least not anymore. I know when my parent's first built the ranch, they got a few distant cousins who work with wood for a living to come and build everything. And what do the stripes of hide do? Or are they just easier to work with?"

[Less Than Beta East Tundra]

"Ranching is the caring for of large animals, right? Like the reindeer herders?" Less tended to use the word reindeer to mean caribou that were not available for hunting. "You must have a lot of access to hides and bone. There is very little wood in my pack's territory, so we have to use hides. We use bone for the frame."

[Mellianne Joss]

Mellianne bit her lip as she tried to find a way to explain it without messing up. "Normally, yes it does mean caring for large animals. However, we have many different animals of all different sizes. We call it a ranch because when we do it's harder to misunderstand what we do there. What we actually are is a breeding farm. We make sure that some of the endangered species breed."

She paused for breath. "And I suppose we do have a lot of hides and bones when the animals get sick or old and die. I don't know what my parents do with all of it though."

[Less Than Beta East Tundra]

While Less didn't know the textbook definition of 'endangered', he did know that it had something to do with tiny populations of animals. "You make sure there is enough prey to support predator populations? I did not know there were people who did that."

[Mellianne Joss]

Mellianne blinked. She wasn't quite sure what he meant, but she guessed and went on from there. "Um. We make sure those in danger of dying off completely as a species have a place to live, potential mates, and food. We don't really have them prey on each other. We sometimes sell the animals to others, and letting them eat each other would ruin business."

[Less Than Beta East Tundra]

"Can they still breed if you sell them to someone?" Less asked as he finished the weave. He pointed to the top edge of the frame. "Will you hold that still like the other one, please?" Eventually, the weave would be attached to four wooden legs and placed over a fire pit. He still had yet to dig the pit and line it with stones, but he could do that while the weave was drying.

[Mellianne Joss]

She held what he pointed to still. "We don't sell endangered species to anyone. And if we give two of the same animal, but different genders, it is possible for them to breed. But that doesn't happen often unless the person we sell them to has a lot of land, and money."

[Less Than Beta East Tundra]

He bent some of the twigs around the upper one like he had the bottom one. Like before, several broke rather than bend. Enough behaved like they were supposed to, though, so this wasn't much of a problem. Afterwards, Less laid the weave down on the sand and placed rocks on the bent twigs so they would stay bent until they dried. "That should do for now."

[Mellianne Joss]

Mellianne stretched a bit. "What else do you need help with?" She didn't really have anywhere to be anytime soon, and she really did like helping Less out, so she immediately offered her help once they were done with the frame.

[Less Than Beta East Tundra]

Less scooted a short distance away from the weave and drew a circle in the sand, roughly directly in front of the den. It was fairly large, but not enough to completely block the entrance. "I need to dig a firepit here, about half as deep as it is wide. The sand may make it hard, though." He took a few scoops of sand and dumped them a short distance away.

[Mellianne Joss]

"Alright!" Mellianne thought for a moment to see if she could think of a faster way of digging. She practiced her idea, using the water from the ocean to 'suck' the sand up and deposit it in another spot, perfectly dry if she wanted. Since it worked, she started helping with the pit, though to be careful, she didn't take very much at a time, usually only about the size of a tetherball.

[Less Than Beta East Tundra]

Less reached into the hole for an armful of sand. As he was sitting cross-legged at the time and the hole was fairly deep by this point, this took considerable flexibility. "That is a clever trick," he said as he dumped the sand on top of the growing pile. "Can you also extract salt from the water?" He did not show any notice that those sentences had little to do with each other.

[Mellianne Joss]

Mellianne paused in her work for a moment to think if she had even tried to do that. "I've never tried before. Then again, I had never been around salt water before I started school here." She started emptying the pit again. "I'll have to try it sometime."

[Less Than Beta East Tundra]

"It would be good if you could. Both salt and fresh water are valuable, but not mixed together." Since the pit was almost completely dug out, Less stopped digging in order to scan the area for any large, flat stones. He would need to line the pit so that the heat from the fire would not be wasted by going into the sand.

[Mellianne Joss]

Mellianne finished the pit while Less was looking for stones. "I don't know if I would be able to make it fresh water though. There is a bunch of other stuff in the ocean besides salt that would make someone sick if they drank it."

[Less Than Beta East Tundra]

Having spotted a few of the proper size, Less darted over to them and began stacking them into an easily manageable pile. "It would probably be enough to just get the water to the point where boiling would be enough to make it safe. I mean, most people boil their water anyway, right?" he called out as he lifted the stack triumphantly.

[Mellianne Joss]

Mellianne shrugged. "I wouldn't know. By the time it gets to us, it's been purified and cleaned by some sorta system. Technology definitely isn't my strong point. Though, we do boil water when we cook it usually. I don't help out much in the kitchen and I tend to drink caffeinated sodas more often than not." Looking at the pile of rocks, she asked, "So, do you need anymore of the rocks? Or do you want me to do something else?"

[Less Than Beta East Tundra]

Less began to arrange the rocks around and within the pit, with the flattest ones on the inside. He looked up at Mellianne as he answered, "Some more rocks would be nice."

[Mellianne Joss]

"OK!" Mellianne scanned the beach for rocks similar to the ones Less already found. Seeing some, she jogged over to them and stacked them for easy carrying. She went a little slower and more carefully so not to trip. She set them down near the pit. "Here you go!"

[Less Than Beta East Tundra]

"Those are perfect," Less said. "Thank you." He smiled up at Mellianne as he began arranging the stones. They pressed into the sand quite nicely, but he still took the time to give each one a good kick after they were placed. He hadn't dug a firepit in sand before, and he hoped that it would be as good as one dug in dirt.

[Mellianne Joss]

Mellianne smiled again. "What do you need me to do next?"

[Less Than Beta East Tundra]

"This should be good," Less answered. "Let's head back to the school and wait for the weave to dry. It will take too long for waiting here."

((Ready to wrap it up?))

[Mellianne Joss]

Mellianne nodded as she brushed off the sand from her clothing. "Alright. It's not warm enough to justify staying here. Thanks for explaining what you wanted each time. I've never built a weave or a fire-pit before."

((Fine by me))