I scratched the days every evening into the trunk of the tree with one of my house keys, the blue one with m&m's on it. I was at 47 days and in the best shape of my life. I had conditioned myself heavily, as much as possible, determined not to die because of my previous weakness. My training with archery was stolen straight out of the Ranger's Apprentice books. I had set up targets in various positions, firing rapidly in no order whatsoever, never hitting the same target twice before collecting arrows and trying again. Doing run by shots was near impossibly, walking shots were a bit easier, but difficult all the same. I was now a mock 'kings ranger'. All I needed was the cloak and knives. And a real bow...
Teaching Padfoot, Sirius had seemed too formal for a dog, had been swift. There was one moment of pure fear when I shot an arrow and he streaked across my improvised firing range. I taught him about that shit quick. His collar that I had was for when he was grown, so it was nowhere near the right size at the moment. His breed get up to 3 and a half feet tall still on all fours, and 130 pounds at least. He'd be mistaken for a fucking polar bear. But at the moment he was a cotton ball who had a backpack string set up as an improvised collar/leash set to train him not to jump in front of arrows.
I was thinking about patrolling further than I usually did from camp in an attempt to find civilization. But with dimensional differences for all I knew I could be the only human being alive so far. If I see a single dinosaur I swear…I was fear of the unknown, fear of my own incompetence, that kept me where I had landed.
But things were going smoothly enough, I guess. Turns out my canteen is pretty heat resistant. It took some finagling with hot rocks, sticks, and holes in the dirt, but eventually I managed and soup was on the menu. It wasn't the best soup ever, but it was warm and filling.
Padfoot made a brilliant blanket once it started getting a bit colder, and the fire plus the dog were enough to keep me from being too chilled, even if we still used my hoodie for a roof. Once I got confident enough to search for deer, and skilled enough to take them down, I had enough fur to make a blanket. Those keys got a work out yet again, poking holes and cutting stips of deer hide. Some was used to hold it all together, but I managed to attach a bunch of my rabbit furs to a main piece of deer hide. So I had a weather resistant rabbit fur quilt thingy. Sleeping rabbit fur down and facing me it was snug and fluffy, especially with Padfoot curled up with me. Entirely worth the days of constant labor it took to create.
I wasn't willing to even attempt wasting resources making a new shirt. This one was doing fine, and if I got cold I had a smaller blanket that I could wrap like a cape and huddle under when hunting. I had fudged together a quiver to hold arrows while I hunted, more of a deer hide cylinder held together with other strips of deer hide. But it worked well enough. A strap, also of deer hide surprise surprise, kept it in place in the form of an over the shoulder strap.
My clothes were washed, or at least rinsed and beaten, regularly I would trade out, doing layers at different times, so I would always have something on when other things were drying. It became easier when I had the cape and blanket done. I would wash all of it and wrap up, reading or something while bundled in the fur. It was odd, and I wasn't a fan, but there wasn't much I could do about it.
Padfoot had gotten better about roaming free. The more I fed him the closer he kept. Great Pyrenees were a herding breed, and apparently I'm the sheep. Who catches the food. It didn't make sense, but dogs will be dogs. He was growing, probably because of the mostly meat diet he had now. I had weaned him off Kibbles and bits because that stuff was now long gone.
The rangers apprentice books were my main source of practice material, and the one novel of it I had with me was my source of entertainment. Sure, I had my English textbook filled with stories and poems, but old habits died hard, and I would automatically try to start on the questions afterwards. I had more time to read than I thought. I had assumed that I would be constantly working on something, but I didn't have the resources to keep meat for long, so one animal would last a while. The plants I recognized that could go into my stew also wouldn't keep long, so I didn't spend time just gathering them.
Some days I would just...stop. I would lie there in my little nest I called a 'bed' and wonder about the point of it all. Then Padfoot would nudge me, wanting to play, or drool all over my face. Once you got over the ew factor it became easier to continue. I would spend the next week being productive, making more arrows, or improving what I had. I had already made two different versions of my bow, the second one was shit, but the third turned out better than the original.
Days, weeks, and months passed. I counted carefully, and on my seventeenth birthday I had a lazy day, no workout for the first day since I had arrived. No practice. Just me and my books. When it approached the first year I started to think it was time to move camp. I would have to go further and further to hunt the longer we stayed here. Padfoot was now around the size he would remain, though the pamphlet that came with him suggested he had more weight to gain when he got out of his 'teenager' phase. I had been making excuses about leaving, fear that I wouldn't find another good campsite, not wanting to run into anything dangerous, not knowing what was ahead, not wanting Padfoot to run off while we walked. The last worry was useless, he stuck to me constantly. If he ever wandered he kept me in sight. His collar fit now, but the hoodie string leash wasn't necessary.
So at my 18th birthday I forced myself to toss a coin. My wallet had 40 dollars and 72 cents in it, all useless now. But that lone quarter made the decision for us to get our asses in gear. My backpack was cleaned of trash and most useless things, but I couldn't let go of most of it. Who knew when I could find paper, pens, or pencils again. And my books were staying. Bookworm that I am they would get me killed, but I couldn't give them up. It was all I had left of home. I tied off my blanket as a way to carry the rest of my stuff, and tied it to Padfoot in a saddle-like arrangement. He hardly noticed. I carried my own backpack, TARDIS shaped, and still ingloriously heavy.
We followed the river. We walked, and walked. Sometimes when Padfoot was especially hyper we would run. My hair, well, I left it alone. There was really no reason to do anything to it. It's not like I had seen anyone in almost a year and a half. It wasn't likely that I would find them now.
That was my thought the morning it all went to shit.