Chapter 4 Hunting with Charlotte

I woke up very early in the morning, looked down, and saw that Charlotte was still sleeping in my arms. Looking around the camp, I saw Wells was standing at the dropship. It seems that I had changed the events…. I also found that I didn't feel as bad as yesterday about Atom. It will not fade into nothing, but it was easy enough to put out of my mind for the time being.

I was not 100% sure what to do today. In the TV show, today was spent accusing Murphy of murder and then hiding Charlotte all day, but with that no longer happening, it was a free day. Charlotte mentioned that she wanted to learn how to hunt. I can teach her that today and tomorrow and more food will help everyone's morale since Atom died. Making sure that Charlotte was still covered, I stood up and walked off into the woods. I can use magic to make the bows and arrows and lie about where I found them.

Walking through the woods, I went about finding two large sticks before using the cutting charm to split them down the middle. Then smoothed them out and used one of the first spells that you would ever learn at Hogwarts to turn a match into a needle, only I would be changing the type of wood into something that was fancy looking to make it look like I found them.

The good thing about Transfiguration is that there aren't spells for everything but just general spells like wood to metal or inanimate to living, and then it's your skill and imagination that do the rest. Conjuration is the same, so all I need to do is think of the bow I want, and I will be able to make them then; I can use the rope conjuring spell to get the string.

I decided I wanted to make them into a recurve bow. This was not something I could make by hand, and if I make the bows from dark ebony wood, it will be easy to pass off as something I found.

"Flintos"

I watched as the large wooden stick transferred into dark recurve bows. I noticed they lacked complete definition; however, the shape was there, but a proper place for your hand and the arrow to rest on were missing.

"Reparifarge"

And I turned them back into the base regular sticks split in half. Okay, I needed to visualise what I want in far more detail. The limbs of the bow were okay, but the handle and arrow rest required more detail. I closed my eyes and imagined holding the bow and how my hand would fit on the handle, then I imagined what shooting the arrow would look like and how it would rest on the bow.

"Flintos," I said, keeping that image in my mind.

Opening my eyes, I looked at the two bows that were now lying on the ground. They looked far better than before picking one up. I felt it. It held nice in my hand. It wasn't too large or small. I tried bending the limbs, and they were nice and springy and went back to the original shape when I let go.

Right now, I just need to add the string and then make arrows, and we are done. I could just make one arrow and then use the Gemino charm to make a ton more of them.

Pointing my wand at the bows. "Incarcerous" And two thin strings wrapped around the bow limbs and pulled tight, picking the bow's up. I pulled the string back a few times and watched them flex but not break, and I was sure that I was using more than human strength, so they seemed reasonable to use. 

"Conjuus Agonortus"

The arrows were easy to make, with the only semi-difficult part being the arrowheads which I decided to make large triangles with bladed edges.

So that any animal we shot would bleed to death as quickly as possible; that way, we didn't lose it when it tries to escape. As I usually used my vampire speed to attack any food that I had hunted and had never used a bow at all, and Charlotte was new to hunting as well, so the best option is broadhead. It may even be what was used for hunting.

Picking up the bows, I walked back to camp and saw that Charlotte was still asleep. I sat next to her and saw some people looking at me and the bows, undoubtedly thinking where I got them. I have Charlotte and poked her. She turned over, so I poked her again.

Charlotte gave a large stretch and looked around before she saw me.

"Morning", Charlotte yawned.

"Morning. What do you say about spending the day hunting?" I asked her while pointing to the bows.

"Really, we are going hunting," Charlotte asked, jumping up; all the tiredness seems to have disappeared from her. 

"Only if you want to. You asked about it yesterday, so we can spend all day today hunting if you want." I told her, not wanting to force her into anything.

"Yes! Yes! When can we go? Now?" Charlotte said, excited.

"Let me go let Clarke and Bellamy know that we are going hunting, and then we will set off. Go fill up some bottles with water and see if there is any meat leftover we can snack on during the day. I asked her while handing her my bag.

Walking over to Bellamy's tent and looking in, I saw that he was awake, which didn't surprise me. He always seemed to wake up early paranoia if you ask me.

"Hey Bellamy, me and Charlotte are going hunting today. We will be back by tomorrow morning at the latest." I told him so he wouldn't panic and think I was killed and go back to how he was.

"Ya, sure, at least you will bring back food. Our hunting party didn't bring any back in the last two days, " he replied, still down about Atom if I had to guess and not catching any food. He didn't even ask about the bows I had on my back, so I left to tell Clarke. Walking into the dropship, I climbed up to the top level and was that Clarke was up and was still looking over Jasper.

"Hey Clarke, me and Charlotte are going hunting. We will be back by tomorrow at the very latest, but I aim to be back by dark today. I told her as she was checking Jasper's wound.

"You sure it's a good idea after the fog yesterday?" Clarke asked, worried while still checking Jasper.

"Ya, the fog doesn't seem to be daily, or we would have seen it before. And regardless, we need food, or we will starve." I replied, knowing she also knew that the food we have wouldn't last long.

"Where did you get them?" Clarke asked as she looked at me and saw the two bows and arrows.

"Hmm, oh, found them in a bunker. There was some other stuff. If I remember the way, I will bring the other stuff back." I said while handing one of the bows over for her to look at.

"It is beautiful. What type of wood is it made from, I wonder." Clarke asked more to herself than to me, thinking I didn't know.

"Hmm, the label said it was something called Ebony wood. Not sure beyond that though it looks nice bet it was popular for making tables and chairs out of. I told her.

"Hmm, I haven't seen any tree like this. Maybe they are all gone now. Clarke lamented.

"Maybe you can use one if you ever want to try to hunt," I said as she passed the bow back to me.

"Okay, tomorrow midday is when I expect to see you back at the latest," Clarke said before walking back to Jasper. "Oh, and if you see any red seaweed or other herbs, pick them up and bring them back. She added on as I climbed down the ladder.

"Will do", I called back to her. Walking to the exit, I saw that Charlotte was waiting for me with the bag and two water bottles. "Ready to go then," I asked, taking the bag and putting the bottles into it.

I passed her the bow and half of the arrows. "Be careful. The arrows are very sharp". I warned her as we walked into the forest. We spent about 15 to 20 minutes walking before I stopped her.

"Right here seems good. First, we need to get you used to using a bow and arrow, so take it off and hold it in your hand." I told her and watched as she did that I wasn't sure what I was meant to look for, but it seemed okay.

"Right now, copy what I do," I said, pulling an arrow, loading it on the bow, and drawing the string back and closing one eye. "So close the eye that isn't next to the arrow as it will distort your aim and then line it up and let go," I told her to do the same and watched the arrow fly towards the tree that I was aiming at.

"Hmm, well, the arrow went lower than I thought, but that takes time and experience to learn, so we can spend the next hour or so practising and then we will look for animals," I told Charlotte. "Come on your go", I encouraged.

Charlotte gave me a nod and placed an arrow on her bow, and pulled it back, and I saw her taking her time before letting go of the string and letting the arrow fly. It was a strange thing when I was human. I thought arrows just flew straight, but now I could see they made a wave motion as they passed through the air in a snake-like way.

I could see that the arrow was going to fall short of the target. Charlotte had not aimed high enough, so it was going to bury itself in the ground. I looked back at Charlotte.

"Hey, it wasn't a bad first go. Try again; no one is a master shot from day one. Archery is a skill, and it takes months and years to become someone like Legolas." I encouraged Charlotte, knowing that most people think it is easy to use a bow when it really isn't. I remember holidays where I tried to use a bow and learned that the hard way.

Charlotte nodded and tried another arrow and then another. It took Charlotte about thirty minutes before she managed to start hitting the tree with any degree of reliability. Looking around, she saw that one of the grounders was in the trees watching them. He was far away, approximately 200 meters away, far enough that he could make out what we were doing but nothing beyond that.

Looking, I saw that it was someone new and wasn't Lincoln, but I guess I should have expected other grounders to be watching us. None of the others seemed to come very close to camp though I was tempted to talk to them. I knew they would pretend they don't speak English, so it was pointless to try at the moment.

Looking back at where Charlotte was shooting, I saw that the last five arrows had all hit the tree and were not that far off the mark. "Good job Charlotte. You have gotten much better in the last hour right, pick up all the arrows, and we will go look around." I told her wanting to explore and find food.

Once she had gotten all her arrows, and I picked up the one that I had shot, we started to walk through the forest.

"Right now, be careful where you place your feet. Try and avoid placing them on little sticks and leaves." I had used the quietening charm on both of us, which made me near-silent, and I'm sure to humans and animals, I was silent. It made Charlotte very quiet, but now and again, she would step on something that made a louder noise, but it was far better than the others when they went hunting.

I saw that the grounder was following us but keeping a distance between us. I don't mind him following us as long as he doesn't try and attack us. If I had to guess, I think they want to know how good we are at hunting and moving in the forest. They must understand that most of our group is not very quiet and bad at hunting.

"Don't bother looking for any small prey. Neither of us would be able to hit them, and they are not worth getting as it will only feed one or two people. We need something like a deer or panther," I told Charlotte as she was looking around for birds and other animals. Looking around, I didn't see anything, nor could I hear or smell any large animals around.

They had spent the entire morning with no real luck, nothing around to hunt that would be worth taking back to camp. I had found deer around here the few times that I had gone hunting, so I was hoping for some more deer to come hell just getting it back to camp would take maybe three or four hours if I had human-level strength, then it would no doubt take six hours or more they had to walk a good 5 miles from camp at this point.

I had got lost in thought when I felt Charlotte tug on my arm and point at the end of the clearing. I saw that there were some deer. A few of them were female and young, and there seemed to be two bucks.

"Okay, here is what we are going to do. We will aim for the buck on edge both of us simultaneously, and that way, even if one missed the other should. Draw and keep shooting at it as fast as you can." I told her while crouched down.

"Keep low until we get closer," I told her as we both drew an arrow and crept forward. I could hear the grounder's heart behind us. It seemed calm, so I was sure he wasn't planning on attacking us. We both stood up and were about eleven meters away, which seemed quite far, but I wasn't sure how close or far we needed to be, and closer seemed like we would spook them.

I looked over at Charlotte and whispered, "I will tap your leg with my foot when I do shoot."

We both took our aim and pulled the bows back before I tapped Charlotte's leg, and we both let our arrows go. I watched as Charlotte's arrow hit the buck just above the leg, with mine hitting it in the lower neck. All the deer started to bolt. I pulled another arrow and took aim at a young deer and let the arrow go and see it hit the deer centre in the chest. Charlotte let another arrow hit the buck that we 1st shot at, hitting it again in the top back.

The buck didn't even make it more than 4 or 5 steps before it fell to the ground. Both of the first arrows hit in vital parts, and it started to bleed heavily immediately, and the second arrow from Charlotte was the nail in the coffin. It seemed to make it near impossible to run, and it more limped before falling.

The young deer that I had hit with my second arrow had seemed to make it much further, but we will find it after we deal with the buck if it is still alive. "Nice shot, let's go see the buck, then we can check on the other deer," I told Charlotte while giving her a pat on her back.

We both ran to where the buck was, and I could hear that the buck was no longer breathing and that his heart had stopped beating, no doubt due to blood loss. I walked over, pulled the arrows out, and passed two back to Charlotte, who looked a little uncomfortable.

"The first time is the hardest. When I killed my first animal, I had problems sleeping at night." I told Charlotte.

"I don't know. It feels weird I have stepped on bugs while on the ground, but this deer just seems different." Charlotte said, confused and not sure what she should feel.

"Well, let's go check on the other one that I shot, and then we will find a way to transport them back to camp. And hey, remember that the other people in the camp that hunt have never brought anything back." I told her while hugging her.

We both walked in the direction of where the other deer went. I knew I would have to carry the buck back. It looked like it must weigh around 90 kg. I hoped the other deer wasn't that bad, or we may have to leave it behind.

After walking for about 1 minute, we came across the deer. Thanks to my vampire hearing, it was taking shallow breaths, and its heart was racing. I walked up to the deer and grabbed its head before twisting and breaking its neck, killing it instantly.

Looking back at Charlotte, "Do you know why I did that?" I asked her to make sure she understands just in case she goes hunting on her own.

"You didn't want it to suffer," Charlotte said in a quiet voice.

"Correct, we may be hunting it, but it would be cruel to make it suffer, and we are better than that. I'm sure some of the people that go hunting would not care, but we should," I told her.

"Right now, let's find a way to carry both of these," I said, looking around. Walking over to a tree, I snapped a large branch off and stiped all of the side branches off before lacing it between the deer's leg and bound them with rope.

"Right, I will get one end. You get the other, and we should be able to carry it." The deer was relatively small and would maybe only weigh around 20 kg. Perhaps I would make a wooden sledge to drag them in.

We both carried it back to the buck, and I could hear that the gounder was closer than before, but his heart rate was still calm, so I doubt he planned on attacking us. Placing the small deer next to the buck, I decided I would have to drag them both.

"Right, let's collect large and thick sticks, and I will make something that I can use to drag the buck and small deer, okay" I instructed Charlotte. Looking at the sky, it was maybe around two or three pm, so we had around six hours to get back to camp, which was more than enough time.

It took around ten minutes to gather all of the sticks that we would need. I started to lay them out and bind them together while whispering "Epoximise" to magically tie them together to ensure that they wouldn't fall apart.

I then layered the tarp over in a triple layer to protect the buck from and sharp stones ect and pushed the buck onto and used the sticking charm to make sure it won't fall off.

"Right, let's head back. This should last us two or three days. That gives you time to practice your archery; I think Clarke will want to join you as well.

We started to pull the deer back home. I was limited by how fast Charlotte could go, but we were making decent speed. We would have to stop at the river on the way back to refill our water as we have drunk most of it. The time passed without any problems. 

The grounder that was watching us all day had left no doubt to report about us and the camp, I would guess. I tried to see if I could hear any grounder villages around, but I couldn't. I was sure they were not far away from the TV show, but judging distance from a TV show was impossible. Then again, when they met on the bridge after setting the village on fire by mistake, they had to use horses to arrive, but that could have been for intimidation rather than needing them.

We stopped at the river to refill our water, and I went to pick some of the seaweed in case we needed it, and sure we can store it or dry it out for making tea with or something, I will leave that to Clarke.

"Let's take a rest here for fifteen minutes or so," I told Charlotte. I could see that she was a little tired and taking deep breaths as we got to the river. Looking at the sky, it was maybe five or six. I know that the sun doesn't go down till around eight, so we will undoubtedly get back to camp in an hour more than enough time to prepare and cook the food so everyone can eat.  

"So, do you enjoy today?" I asked Charlotte. I know she wanted to try hunting but wasn't sure if she liked doing it in practice.

"Yes, it was so much fun hunting with you. Can we do it again sometime?" Charlotte asked. I wasn't sure if she enjoyed the hunting or just being able to spend time with me, but either works for me.

"Ya, we can go hunting together again, no doubt in three or four days when we need more food. Right, let's continue. We should be back at camp in an hour and a half tops." I encouraged her while getting up and starting to drag the deer back to the camp. "This is what you bring other people for," I told her as we both began to laugh.

I could hear the camp long before I could see it, and with my new senses, that was saying something. The grounders cannot miss us, and I wonder what they think of us when they are watching us. We finally made it to camp just as sunset had begun.

"Hey, the hunters are back with food", I heard a few of the people in camp shout out as we placed the buck and deer down in the centre of the camp. Which made most of the people shout and cheer that more food was in the camp as people had gotten used to eating their fill, so being low on food would no doubt be worrying for them.

"Thanks for getting more food. Some others tried going hunting and had got nothing back." Bellamy said as he walked up to us and started to tell people to prepare it and cook it.

"No problem, me and Charlotte had fun. See if they can take the skin off without damaging it." I asked Bellamy, but I was sure that they didn't even have proper knives. I would have to magic some up and say I found them if I wanted them actually to skin the deer. That was something for next time, though. 

"Come on, Charlotte, let's go give Clarke this seaweed. I'm sure she would like to see you as well," I said, pulling Charlotte to the dropship. I know either tonight or in the morning, the drop pod with Raven and the radio will come down. We can finally get in touch with the Ark., climbing up the ladder. I could see Monty, Jasper, Octavia and Clarke standing together with Monty doing something with the wristbands, no doubt trying to get in touch with the Ark via morse code or something.

"Hey", I greeted them. "Any luck with the wristbands," I asked.

"Nope, but in a minute, we should be able to talk to them," Clarke said, excited about finally being able to contact the Ark.

"Well, actually, it will be more like morse code than speaking, but ya, we can contact them," Monty said

Well, being able to contact them anyway is better than not being able to. Not sure what we plan on asking, but at least we will stop a culling." I said

Monty looked at Jasper and asked, "You want to do the honours?"

Jasper walked up to Monty while looked at everyone and took the red cable.

"It goes right there," he said point to a part on the wristband.

Jasper carefully took the cable and clipped it onto where Monty said and let go. As he did, the wristband gave out a large spang and a small bang. I saw Finn flinch and heard some other gasp out in pain outside. It seems like he has fried all of the wristbands.

"What happened?" Clarke asked with a touch of panic.

"It didn't work," Monty said before taking a deep breath to give the real bad news.

"I think we have fried all of the wristbands," Monty said. I saw everyone looking at each other before Finn stormed off, with Clarke following him shortly after.

"Are we going to be okay?" Charlotte asked me.

I hugged her. "Ya, of course, we are going to be okay. We will find another way to get in contact with the Ark," I told her while stocking her hair. " Now, let's go get some food.

As we walked out of the dropship, Bellamy walked up to me.

"What just happened?" He asked.

"All of the wristbands are fried, so the Ark will think we are dead, maybe, but I'm sure that someone will be sent down tomorrow or the day after to check," I told him, but he didn't look convinced.

"Look, either way, it's a win-win for you" I shrugged at him.

I pulled Charlotte over, and we both got some meat, and then we walked back over to where we slept the night before and started to eat.

"So, do I make a good pillow?" I asked as I noticed Charlotte cuddle next to me.

"Ya, you are very warm, much better than the cold tree and ground," She said, smiling at me. It was at this moment that I was glad that I had changed the future. I could hear Wells arguing in the dropship about the wristbands and asking where Clarke was before he came out and looked around before giving up and going back into the dropship.    

I think today was the day she sleeps with Finn and then finds out he has a girlfriend the very next morning. I would make sure I was awake all night so that when the drop pod comes down, I can run to it at vampire speed to make sure I get the radio and stop the culling before it can even get started.