[Act] Samael's Seal Hunt

Samael woke Kjerag in the early hours of morning, insisting they should go do something extremely important.

The adult stood in the dark street only lit up with the first rays of sunlight, trying to shake herself awake. The pup had asked her to wait for a minute so he could gather a few more things. The look on Kaiser’s face when Sam walked out dragging a large tanned fur across the floor between their houses with a tall pile of stuff on it was legendary. It had everything the arctic adventurer may need.

To be perfectly honest, she did not really want to go seal hunting, but what else was she supposed to do when the pup had been harassing her to go with her?

Sam had gathered an impressive pile of stuff. It was too much to carry everything to the hunting site, furthermore, it seemed that not all items should have been here. Kjerag raised her brows at a tiny pumpkin that rolled down the pile. A leftover from hollow’s eve. It was quickly picked up by Sam and thrown away. The pup busied himself with something else, slightly embarrassed.

‘I was in a rush…’ He excused himself. ‘Take what you need!’ Sam added. There was equipment and furs to withhold extreme cold for felvargs who may need it, hunting knives and spears, tanned furs to make shelter and other survival items.

The felvarg could feel that Kjerag was not her excited and merry self. He hoped a successful hunt may cheer her up. She had not taken anything yet, he thought, as they both stood facing each other with the pile in-between.

‘I have never seen you hesitate at the possibility of a hunt.’ Sam said.

‘You don’t usually wake up during the night.’ Kjerag responded, rubbing her eyes with her paw. Her half-asleep raven, which was buried in her thick neck fur, let out a faint *caw*.

‘It’s technically morning…’ The pup whined. ‘We shall go hunt in the frozen sea and see a beautiful sun rise on the water.’ He perked up his ears; he’d just had an idea.

‘Wait a minute!’ Samael said while trotting to the centre of the village to get more items. A minute later, he bounced back with a bowl in his mouth.

Sam put it down in front of kjerag. It was a bowl of seal broth, and Kjerag’ eyes lit up at the divine smell. ‘Fergus sells broth in the centre of town. Delicious, isn’t it?’ Sam said, watching her eat the meal. ‘We can get more. We just need to catch some seal!’ The adult did not need any more convincing.

- -

Half an hour later, Kjerag and Samael reached the hunting site. It was a place larger than anything he’d seen; the valley all around them was covered in thick snow under a dim blue morning sky. The sea was calm and the border between the shore and the ocean appeared to be frozen, allowing for the direwolves to safely walk on ice. Giant vertical clouds rose to the sky.

The wonderful early morning light shone on the ice under Kjerag and Sam’s feet, creating beautiful streaks of multicoloured light. The felvargs finally reached the perfect spot for seal-hunting and they took out tools from each other’s backpacks before starting to cut out a circle in the ice. It was a meter wide and about thirty centimeters thick and the ice was hard to cut into, but they managed.

Sammy laid down on the ice, stuck his head into the large hole and admired the crystalline water flowing. His face was hit with a burst of cold, fresh air. The water underneath was transparent and looked very pure. Deep, he was a silhouette swimming past. Excited, Sam propped himself up and barked ‘Seal! Seal!’. Kjerag grinned.

Sam bounced with excitement. The other wished he was more careful because the ice was slippery. He wouldn’t want to fall into the hole, would he? Sam barked : ‘That has to be the easiest kind of hunt. They will simply come into our trap because they need to breathe sometimes. Most seals typically come out to breathe every five to twenty minutes.’ He said, proud of his knowledge..

Kjerag was surprised that Sam knew about seal hunting. She did not expect him to, but it seemed he had been trained on the subject. Thinking he was much too close to the hole, she told him to step back. Because he ignored her, she grabbed him by the back of the neck and yanked him back gently. Sam protested but Kjerag shut him down. ‘The ice is slippery. What would happen if you were to fall into the freezing cold ocean? You would be paralysed by the icy water, sink and drown with no chances of climbing back. That is if you even knew where the hole was in the first place.’

Sam went away and sulked for a few minutes for good measure, but he knew deep down she was right. Kjerag obviously did not want to act motherly towards the pup, but every good mentor had to set boundaries sometimes. Just as adults do. The pup’s cream-coloured fur flocked tightly against him on the parts of his body that were facing the North wind. The canine’s tail flicked every so often but was kept pressed tightly against his fluffy rump most of the time. Then, the pup decided that warming up would be a good idea. He rose up and bounced around in circles around Kjerag who had been studying the hole and its occasional visitors… Although seals had come up to breathe, she had not laid paws on them.

‘I waited for you.’ The husky-coloured wolf said with a slight grin, cocking her head to the side. ‘I have been observing them. They are probably heavier than they look, so we need to be careful not to slip into the hole when attempting to drag them out.’ She continued. ‘We ought to strike for the head for two reasons; one so they don’t struggle, two so we get high-quality pelts.’

Sam nodded. ‘I have a solution.’ he said before rummaging through the bags they had brought. He took out a large deer pelt and placed it next to the hole, before gathering a hammer and thick, large iron nails. ‘Could you help me secure the pelt to the ice?’

That worked surprisingly well. Samael had not invented this tool, it was rather a traditional hunting tool that his previous mentor had taught him. The result was effective; they had secured the area and the second part of the hunting process could begin.

They did not wait for long. The first seal’s silhouette appeared in the water, poked its head out of the hole and breathed. The seal colony must have felt safe because quite a few of them had used this hole since Kjerag and Samael had carved it. Unfortunately for it, it was facing away from Kjerag. Thus, spear in mouth, she easily dealt a powerful and deadly strike to its skull. The canine then slowly pulled the heavy mammal out of the ice, with great difficulty. Samael grabbed the end of the stick and helped out. His help did not matter much in the equation, but Kjerag allowed it to make him feel included. His tail wagged furiously and sent some of the thin snow layering the ice into the air. The prey’s blood ran down the spear and onto Kjerag’s lips. The predator licked it off and dragged the beast a few meters away from the hole. Sam followed her, jumping over the trail of blood on the snow to not step in it. Some of it was already starting to freeze.

‘Can I have some? I’m starving.’ Sam whined. Kjerag considered it, but she knew that the best hunter is a hungry one. Feeding him may make him lazy and want to nap. ‘Only after today’s hunt is over.’ she finally declared. His ears and tail dropped. ‘How about we cook some of this one, and in a few hours we eat?’ She asked. ‘Sounds fair.’

Their objective was to kill two other seals. In any case, the two of them would not be able to carry more than three. In this world, the direwolves would only hunt to use the whole animal; they would never hunt more seals just for their pelt. This was the way.

With these seals, Kjerag and Samael could sell them to the village cook; they planned to get gold by selling two seals and use the third’s pelt, make tools out of the bones and candles out of the fat and finally cook the rest.