Rise Of The Beast Queen: Elizabeth

Ch 24 Crabby

Time passed and the trio grew closer, they spent the days playing and building, trying to make each other's lives easier. Liz had some ideas on how to store meat for the cold season, the first one required salt but that wasn't exactly viable since she had no access to salt water or a salt mine. Her second idea was to smoke the meat, unfortunately Liz had no idea what she was doing as she had never once in her life smoked meat, but since coming to this world she found herself doing a lot of things she'd never done before.

She understood the basic concept thanks to some of the shows she's watched, only now she wished she'd paid more attention. It took several days of trial and error and ruined meat before things started looking right, in the first attempt the meat turned into hardened leather bricks that even Jin and Beau had trouble eating. And yes, they did try, Liz had to force them to stop by stealing the meat and throwing it in the stream, they could have gone after it, but didn't because of her negative reaction. The second attempt seemed alright but after 5 or 6 days it began to smell funny, Jin and Beau quickly got rid of it because they were afraid it would make her sick. Liz had made the mistake of telling them a little about bacteria, so now they were frightened of the microscopic invisible beasts that live in bad food and will hurt their female from the inside.

Serena came over every few days, most of the time with Hank but when he was busy one of her other mates would bring her, so Liz got to meet a few of Serena's male's. Her head male, a tiger beastman with 2 stripes named Marvin, was standoffish and stoic like a soldier or a bodyguard, it was almost like he was trying to impress Jin or he looked up to his strength. Murphy is the brother of Marvin from the same litter, he has one stripe but a slightly more playful personality, not that he acts like a big kid or anything but he talks more, smiles often and can hold down a conversation unlike Marvin, who apparently thinks talking and being polite is somehow a show of weakness.

One day Liz took Serena on an adventure walking down the stream, at first Beau and Murphy hovered over the females, until Liz made them back off and explained that half the fun of walking in the water was trying not to fall down. The males didn't get it, but their hearts lightened after a while of watching the two holding hands and laughing while they slid around on the slippery rocks and mud, trying to keep eachother from falling. They didn't succeed all the time, which freaked out the males a little, but Liz and Serena's continued laughter reassured them they were alright.

As they walked Liz happened to find one of the hardened leather bricks from when they first tried and failed to smoke meat. Somehow it must have softened in the water because it was missing little chunks out of it and was being fiercely fought over by some strange crab looking creatures with large jaggedy powerful looking pincer claws and oddly bumpy shells that kind of looked like an emoji frazzled face. 😖

While they were distracted harassing the emoji crabs with sticks, the females were spotted by males who wisely decided to remain hidden from sight while they watched since they didn't want to risk angering or frightening the elusive sheltered beautiful pure female. One of the males however quickly rushed off to inform his own female and was rewarded by being allowed to carry her as they rushed back.

"Oh. Hello." Liz called out with a smile and a friendly wave when she noticed the female approaching, she remembered her from the choosing ceremony as one of the pure females but since a lot happened that night Liz unfortunately couldn't remember her name.

"Hello." The female repeated with a relieved smile as she shyly waved back. "Umm... What are you doing?" She asked inquisitively taking a small step closer until she was right on the edge of the water.

"Poking emoji crabs with sticks and watching them fight over shoe leather." Liz said honestly but only received looks of utter confusion that made her burst out in a fit of giggles. "Wanna join us?" She offered feeling slightly bad about her own forgetfulness. The female happily agreed and tried to rush over to them, unfortunately in her haste she slipped on the slick rocks and fell hard with a big splash.