[Tevildo]

Dorran had managed to get a small fire lit and had pushed two long sticks into the ground, each with a Y-shaped prong at the end; a crosspiece was propped up between them. A small pot with boiling water hung down from the crosspiece. Dorran knelt beside the pot and set a small bag of herbs inside of it, watching it bubble merrily. Unlike some of the other young men he knew, Dorran had always enjoyed cooking. Learning to cook had been a necessity with both his parents gone and needing to care for his younger sister, epecially after their elderly kinswoman had first passed on.

A spot of hot herbal brew would do well at this point, he reflected, as he watched the steam rise from the pot and poured himeself a cup. The weather seemed to be a bit nippier than it had earlier that morning, or perhaps it was only the fact that a cloud or two blocked out the rays of the sun. Dorran was having a harder time finding anything to fix for the meal. He'd stalked around the campsite but could find no evidence of birds or small game nesting anywhere nearby. The absence of such wildlife was mildly upsetting. Usually, you could find such creatures hidden away in thick thatched grass that grew near the edge of a bushy thicket like this. But the ground here was too barren and rocky. He'd found one poor squirrel hiding in a hollow wooden log, but didn't have the heart to kill the only animal in sight, especially when it looked so puny.

In the end he stumbled upon a damp plot of land adjacent to a spring, a plot no bigger than a few feet across, where mushrooms grew in thick clumps. He harvested these and brought them back to make into a simple stew. He was not much on mushrooms, and all of the group still had other food in their packets that Aldwulf had given them. But it was probably wise to try and stretch the provisions they had by gathering things from the bounty of the land or hunting down small animals. They really had no idea how long it would take to reach Edoras, and it was best to be careful. His sister had given him so many biscuits in his satchel that he set these out on a plate to offer to the others. He thought there might be some berries nearby and hoped that someone had managed to find some. He went about his business and wondered when the others would be back in camp so they could sit down and eat.