Shadow was barely peeking out from behind the tree when he saw the bear look up in his direction, but the archer was completely obscured behind the tree. The bear hesitated for a moment- the moment of truth- before she went back to her berry bush. For a moment, Black Shadow was relieved. They had flown under the radar for the time being. Baby Espoir happily began to hit his chest with her little arm. Shadow had barely even taken a step, and that was when she cried out again, even happier and louder than before. Black Shadow knew what this meant, and instantly he turned around to see the bear charging in his direction. Swiftly, without missing a beat, he drew his bow, knocked an arrow and let it fly directly at the bear’s left eye in one fluid motion. The bear roared in agony as it jerked back and reared on its hind legs, but Shadow didn’t stick around to watch it be angry. In a moment’s notice, Shadow was behind the bear, an arrow aimed directly at its brainstem. Before releasing, Shadow thought of Baby Espoir, and how the bear was going to harm her. He drew the bow back extra, and released the arrow at a deadly velocity.

The bear hit the ground with a thunderous “thud,” and Shadow began to haul it back to camp. When he finally returned back, he made a small cradle of sticks and small logs to keep Espoir from rolling into danger, and set her swaddle down. He then proceeded to gather twigs and sticks for his fire. When he found enough kindling, he sought out some fallen logs which he could drag back to his camp. After finding about five large logs, he came across a mighty fallen tree which there was no way he could haul back to his site. Pulling out his short sword, Black Shadow began to chop and quarter the wood nicely and stack it so that he could return to this spot if he needed any more than what he had back at his campsite. After he returned and kindled the fire, he began to skin and quarter the bear meat. He made a pile of the meat on the face of a log which he cut the bark off of and leveled to resemble a table. He set the offal into a pile near the stream, and hung the hide on the branch of a small tree.

As Black Shadow began to cook a few filets for himself, a sudden wave of extreme exhaustion set in. His adrenaline rush had worn off and it was all he could do to stay awake. The archer finished his cooking and ate part of his food before he realized he was too tired to eat. He then threw a sizable log on the fire and lay down on the forest floor. He was asleep before his head hit the ground.