He was slowly getting better. Moving around and standing was becoming easier with each passing day. Now, he had started to train again with his bow. It was nothing extraordinary, just light movements to not loose his arm muscles. Gwalarn had become familiar with Kollet, they were hunting together and from time to time they were playing catch with the dead squirrel. The funny thing about that was that they took turns in throwing the squirrel and catching it with their mouths. Observing them made Astir consider Kollet more like an animal than a humanoid. His reflexes and ways of moving were closer to Gwalarn than his. However he had kept his mental agility and was quite clever. That side of him was showing through the traps he had laid around his home and for hunting smaller animals also by  making the big ones avoid his camp. It was extremely difficult to go around his traps to reach him. Astir was thinking that they were quite lucky for avoiding them and not getting any more injuries the first time they were chasing Kollet. 

Life on the campsite was quite nice. There were no major events. Each passing day was like the previous one. Comfort lies in monotony, as Astir liked to say to Septem when they were still together. He had found a new way to process her loss. This time he didn’t want to carve her name somewhere for other people to see at a later time. No, this time he wasn’t sure she was dead, furthermore he wanted to keep a piece of herself on him at all time. He wasn’t able to grab something of her before falling, so he had to make it himself. He chooses a small piece of grey ifir*. This wood was quite particular for many different reasons, but the most important of them all, was that he bought it with Septem in Aguilepia’s market. It was an expensive wood, but a small piece like this one had a reasonable price. That day was the first time they had seen such a beautiful natural piece and they had to buy it. They didn’t carve it yet because they didn’t know what to do with it.  But now, Astir wanted to create a small version of Septem in the grey ifir to carry around with him. Around his neck, close to his heart. 

The idol was appearing leisurely. After a few days of carving with a rustic knife, the general form was achieved. You could guess that it was a miniature version of a woman, but it was still too soon to recognize which species she was from, or even a similarity with his friend except the woman’s part. Kollet and Gwalarn were quite curious about it. Neither of them was understanding the point of losing time chopping down a tiny piece of wood. It wasn’t something to be eaten or used. Astir had tried to explain it to them, but except for two very confused looks he didn’t get anything from them. He gave up on his statement and just said it was something he wanted to do to occupy himself while he was recovering.   

Getting better made him consider what to do. Desperately searching for Septem wasn’t a good idea, he had no clues of what happened afterward and he could spend years looking for clues in the mountains and not obtain anything. The clever thing to do was to spend the cold season with Kollet as the snow wouldn’t be far from falling on them. Freezing to death with Gwalarn was one of the last things he wanted to try. Furthermore, the Chelone seemed happy to share his home with living beings other than himself. By choosing to do that, Astir would get two more months to heal and to localise himself before going down in a city to find a job and at least some clues on what happened to the caravan. 

He finished Septem’s sculpture just before the beginning of Neptune, the months where the criollos were born. Some heavy snow had accumulated outside and going out for hunting was getting more complicated. Between the eclipses and the shorter days they only got at most six hours of light per day. Astir looked at her carved figure, caressed her hair and kissed her forehead, promising himself that he would do anything to find her again. 

* A grey ifir is a thirty meters tall tree which grows as far as possible as straight. It originates from the vast land of Pelfuvik. Pelfuvik being the continent North-North-West of Nasgaär. Let us go back to the ifir.  Totally tortuous but extremely resistant, their shape is closer to a very dense ball of wood at full maturity, which takes them a few centuries to attain. The tricky part of using this tree is its weird spherical shape, but for a small piece of that size, astir would not have any trouble to carve it, in a small version of Septem.