Gerd entered the cabin with not one, not two, but seven black pelts on his shoulders, his brown leather coat and pants now red after hours working, not only after the fight or coming back to the cabin, but cleaning the copses of what he had caught. The meat and bones were now safely stored outside, in cages that were part of the cabin, they were sealed with pins and only he could open them, so no creature could manage to steal the meat from inside.
"Hello little one, did you miss me?" Asked the old man, Bal looked up from the board of storm, the pieces moved, some of them out of the wooden board, he was sitting on the rug in front of the fire pit, Gerd would have liked it if the child had chosen the table where they had taken breakfast, but at least he was keeping himself busy "Guess what we are going to do this afternoon and tomorrow" He said, leaving his load on the table, the pan half filled with food was still there, although the dough had already disappeared, Gerd looked at the child and smiled "Glad you liked my cooking". Bal started putting the pieces inside of the box, after all of the dark and light pieces were in their place, he stood up and walked over to the man
"This are the pelts of obsidian wolves" Explained Gerd, extending one of the pelts on the table, the rest piled up near the log wall "I had an encounter with some of them and they were so kind to let me take some of their pelts and meat, so, we need to work on this pelts before they rot, they can be sold back in the village for quite the sum, and, if you want, I can teach you how to do it, what do you think?" Bal nodded as the man filled his lungs with pride "Good, then go to the shelves and grab me a knife, it is small but as thick as one of your fingers, as big as my palm in width, it is on one of the drawers, you will find it easily"
Gerd watched as Bal ran to the shelves and started opening drawers, the clanking of the many things inside them meeting each other as the kid moved their containers filling the room, the man couldn't help but smile as he saw the situation, but the best was when the kid found the knife he was looking for and his eyes lit up in the dim light of the room, he let out a soft laugh as Bal ran back, knife in hand and handed it over
"Okay, come here" He said, taking the knife and turning the pelt, making the flesh side look up, Gerd grabbed the kid and sat him on his left knee, the stool creaked, but did not budge "Look, we need to clean the flesh from the pelt before we can start doing whatever needs to be done to work on it" Explained the blacksmith, he aligned the edge of the knife to the table and the pelt's surface, then he guided the hands of the kid, one to the handle of the knife and the other to the spine "Like this" He said, pushing gently the knife, making it glide over the pink flesh, small chunks of meat left over from the skinning splitting from the leather, "We repeat this until the pelt is clean" Gerd kept explaining as he guided the child hands over the big pelt of the wolf, soon they were done with not only that pelt, but the seven of them
The pair got up from the stool, hours spent cleaning the pelts from the leftover meat on them, at some point, Gerd had decided to take a bowl and put all the meat chunks inside, there were quite a bit, he could use them to make the next day's stew and there would be a pretty good amount of it, enough to take a chunk with every spoonful. The blacksmith's mouth watered when thinking about that, but, tonight's feast was going to be even better than what tomorrow's, after all, that night they celebrated getting more food and Bal being safe and sound after whatever that had taken him to get to the cabin
"Right" The man rubbed his hands against each other and looked at the cleaned pelts "Now it comes the most important part" He said "Now we need to salt the pelts for storage, and that will be everything from it, luckily, I tend to get a lot of pelts to clean and prepare during the winter so I make a point to get a big load of it during summer when the merchants come around this parts" Gerd started opening drawers and boxes, one after another, not caring about the mess he was causing as boxes started being left away from their original place
Then, after half an hour watching the blacksmith make a mess, Bal heard a happy grunt as he opened a box, the old man looked at him with a smile and grabbed something in the interior of the box, a huge rock of salt "This, my little companion" Said the blacksmith, rushing towards the table box in hand "Is rock salt, it is worth its weight in gold, luckily for us, I got my hands on it for a very good price this summer. What we need to do is pretty easy" He explained "We need to rub the rock in the flesh side, so, what, do you want to try your hand on this?" Bal nodded and Gerd handed over the rock salt and the kid started meticulously rubbing the salt against the flesh of the pelt. Bal's hands were small and he had to move his whole body to be able to get to every part of the flesh, causing Gerd to smile hopelessly before he sighed
"Let me just do it myself, you can get to do something else later" He said, extending his arm out to get the rock from the kid, but Bal grabbed onto the rock and approached it to his chest, Gerd let out another sigh, yeah, it seemed like he really wanted to do the job. Gerd let out a sigh and stepped back
"Alright, you do that, I'll start making the bed" Bal raised his gaze and looked at the man, a silent question hung in the air "What? Did you think I was going to be sleeping in the floor for the rest of the winter?" Snarled the blacksmith with a smile under his thick beard "I am making you a bed to use before you decide mine is the best place to rest at night, it is, but only because it is mine"
The blacksmith disappeared inside his workshop and came back with wooden boards and materials, along with a hammer and iron nails as long as his own fingers
"You keep working on those pelts and when you are done this should be long finished" Gerd started working, using the wood to make a bed frame easily, the boards helping a ton in his work. Bal kept rubbing the rock salt against the pelts, no part of their surface left unrubbed or unsalted, some of the salt falling to the ground as he worked
Soon, Gerd's hammering filled the room as he nailed the bed frame, securing the structure he had been assembling at first, nailing to the inside of the frame four stronger wooden pieces, when he turned the proto bed upside down the frame floated up to his knees in height, maybe a bit low for the blacksmith, but for the kid it would be a perfect fit.
Gerd looked at the kid, salting the pelts, sweat on his forehead as he focused on the pelts, Gerd placed the bed near the workshop's door, at the opposite side of his, and then, he started looking for some comfy things to put on it, some warm pelts from his own bed, some sheets he found that he used during the hotter seasons, yes, that would do nicely, and even if the bed had been made on a whim, it could hold him, so it being able to support the lightweight he knew as Bal was a no trainer
After that was ready, Gerd went outside of the cabin, the sun had already left the sky and the wind was picking up, the forest seemed empty from the clearing, but Gerd knew better than to trust no creature was out there looking for them, after all, in his fight he had made use of quite the sum of mana and that could make some beast brave enough to meddle in the he affairs of the old blacksmith who lived in the forest.
Gerd walked around the cabin and grabbed onto the cage where he had stored the meat, taking the nails he had used to block the lid into his left hand, he grabbed a big piece of meat, he closed the lid and sealed it with the nails, nails that went flying to their spots on the wood, making it impossible to open without a tool or magic to extract them, luckily for Gerd, he had both
"Alright boy, today we feast on the prey we got and for the winter we have ahead of us!" He said as he barged open the door of the cabin, Bal looked back at him and nodded, his eyes following the raw piece of meat on the man's arms, mouth watering as he thought of the flavour the old man could create from the meat