The inside of the cabin was dark, even compared to the relative darkness outside. The only light being thrown was from the low embers in the fireplace on the far right side of the cabin, and what little light from the rising sun struggled in through the open front door. Finn stared into the gloom and willed her eyes to adjust as quickly as possible. Luckily, the light levels weren’t so different, so it didn’t take long. She scoured every corner of the cabin with her eyes for a huddled figure, a human hidden under blankets or sleeping in a corner.

Sure enough, sitting by the fire in an old wooden rocking chair was an elderly human man sleeping heavily. He was bundled under several heavy knitted blankets, his frizzy white hair and beard almost completely obscuring his sleeping face. His skin was deep brown and weathered like old leather from countless days in the sun. He breathed shallowly as he slept in front of the low fire, the embers casting his long dark shadow across the length of the lodge to where Finn was crouched in the doorway.

Okay. So, there was one human inside, but it was a frail old man. Hopefully, if Finn was quiet enough, he would sleep through the whole burglary. But, even if he didn't, it wasn't like he was going to be able to give chase.

Finn could do this.

Moving cautiously, Finn dodged into the cabin and pulled the door almost shut behind her. She needed clothes, food and weapons, she thought fiercely. She visually scoured the room again, but for these items.

The first thing that caught her eye was a large empty bag made of rough fabric sitting near the door. Judging by the faint sheen on the fabric, it had once been waxed on the outside to make it waterproof. It had some holes in the corners and the wax had worn off in some places, likely the reason it was passed over and left in the lodge, but that didn’t give Finn pause. She grabbed the bag and flipped the top open, and then began casting around for what to put in it.

Clothes were probably the most important thing they needed, so she focused on that. The bag was sitting beside a small wardrobe that barely reached Finn’s shoulders once she stood up from her crouch. She began ruffling through the clothing that was hanging and folded in the small closet. She only found two shirts, one long sleeved and thick, but badly stained by what looked like animal blood and the other threadbare and short-sleeved, the hems coming undone, and the collar stretched out. Regardless, she shoved both of them into the bag. There were a few thin undershirts beneath these two outer shirts, and she shoved those in the bag as well. She looked around for pants and only found one pair made of soft deerskin, with the bottom hems all stained and dark with something she couldn't identify and wasn't sure she wanted to. The pants looked narrow and long, unlikely to fit Adi’s wide hips, and would probably be a squeeze for Finn as well. She shoved them in the bag anyway. The only other pants were one beige pair of men's underwear, as old and well-worn as everything else in the wardrobe. Finn frowned at it, resisting the idea of bringing only a pair of men’s underwear for Adi to wear. But, she liked the idea of her being completely nude on the bottom less. At least the underpants were clean, if old. She shoved them in the bag.

There were a fair number of socks. Someone obviously knew how to knit, and apparently only knew how to knit socks. Finn sorted through lumpy heavy wool socks and came out with four pairs that looked okay and threw them in the bag. There was only one pair of boots. They were definitely too big for either of them, but it was a good idea to take them. There were ways to adjust boots if you needed to do so. Finn used the laces to tie the boots onto the strap of the bag, rather than letting them take up valuable real estate inside the bag.

Finally, there were two old cloaks hanging in the wardrobe. These were also worn and probably the worst set of all their other cloaks, as the other hooks in the wardrobe were empty. They were made of tarpaulin with no lining, the outside waxed to keep out the rain, but the wax was faded on the shoulders. Finn grabbed them anyway, rolling them into a tight ball and shoving them as deep into the bag as she could manage.

Food next. They would starve if they had to rely on forest berries, roots and herbs. Luckily, this was something the lodge had in spades. There were jars and jars of dried venison, and Finn happily dumped at least three jars into the bag whole. They also had a smaller store of dried herbs and vegetables, some colorful dried fruit catching Finn’s attention in specific. Finn dumped two jars of dried fruit in, followed by what looked like a paper bag of dried sweet potatoes. It was hard to say for sure in the low light.

Finally, tucked near a dry sink in the back corner, Finn found a round slab of greasy soap. It was probably fanciful to grab it, but Finn could feel the grime on her skin, so thick that it cracked in some places when she moved. She hoped she could convince Adi to brave the river for a quick bath after they finished robbing the hunters.

Lastly were weapons. Despite being a hunting lodge, there wasn’t any real selection to speak of. It wasn’t that surprising, considering that weapons were usually the most expensive thing a hunter might own. Even if they made their own bows and arrows, these were still the most time intensive and required the most skill to make.

Finn almost had to pull the whole lodge apart to find what she was looking for. More than once she found herself freezing in fear as this sound or that scrape made the old man in the chair grunt before settling back into sleep. She finally found a small foot locker at the end of a flat, lumpy cot. It held an old dried out bow that was unstrung with a quiver of equally sad looking arrows. Luckily, a small jar of wax and a soft cloth were beside the bow, as if someone had been waiting for an opportune moment to rehab the old weapon. Finn grabbed all of this and was gratified to find an old hunting knife hidden underneath. The knife was probably the nicest thing she had found in the whole cabin. It was over half the length of her forearm, a graceful curve of deadly sharp steel with a carefully carved soft wooden handle. It even had a soft leather sheath with a clip to attach it to a belt. Finn hesitated to take the nice knife for a moment. It was obviously a high-end tool, probably a family heirloom or a gift from a lord or princeling or something like that. Still, Finn needed a knife, and she hadn’t found anything but little pen knives so far.

Guiltily, Finn tucked the knife into the bag along with the jar of wax, the soft cleaning cloth and, as an afterthought, a few ratty falling apart belts that were shoved into the corner of the foot locker.

Finn stood and hefted the bag onto her shoulder. She felt like she had been in the lodge for hours going through the unsuspecting hunters’ belongings, but it had probably been barely thirty minutes. She glanced quickly at the old man, but he was still breathing softly in his chair. The door she had left open had cooled the interior of the cabin pretty significantly, and Finn watched as the old man tried to snuggle deeper into his pile of blankets. Sighing, Finn carefully picked a big log off the stack of wood beside the fireplace and carefully placed it atop the pile of coals in the hearth. At least she could keep the old man warm in return for all the stuff she had stolen.

Finn glanced around the cabin one last time before she began shutting cabinet doors and shoving empty jars out of sight. It was probably useless. It was likely the hunters who used the lodge regularly would quickly realize someone had been through their things, but any time she could buy herself and Adi to get away before they noticed would be best.

Once everything was as close to put back to rights as Finn could manage, she crouched down by the front door and glanced cautiously around the edge to check the clearing. It was still empty, as she expected. Taking a deep breath, she felt it was probably not worth it to bother trying to be stealthy on her way back under the house and up the hill. She would just go full speed out and up. She was fast enough that even if a human was looking at the lodge from a distance, it was unlikely they would get a good look at her before she was gone.

Finn focused her little bit of magic into her legs, the thoroughly abused muscles protesting loudly. She ignored the pain, scrunching her face into a grimace the only allowance she gave herself, and darted off the top step of the lodge and down into the soft ground of the clearing. The ball of her foot had barely alighted on the ground before she was pushing off and darting up the steep incline back to the flowering tree that marked Adi’s hiding spot.

“Gods!” Adi gasped, jumping as Finn suddenly appeared beside her.

“Jackpot,” Finn whispered back, grinning at Adi as she gestured over her shoulder at the bag.

Adi leaned around Finn to glance at the straining seams of the bag, her eyebrows steadily advancing toward her hairline.

“Let’s move away, though,” Finn suggested. “I’d rather not be found with all their stolen shit when the humans get back.”