I did not expect to see Ares at all for a while, but I was actually relieved that he did not appear to talk to me or to ask whether I had been OK the previous night. I had not coped well, and I still felt tender even though I knew it wasn’t rational of me.
I spent my day practicing with the crossbow the way I had brought down the hare the previous day.
I wasn’t a bad shot with the thing, and I ended up carrying a menagerie of birds and small creatures by the time I decided to stop and make camp for the night.
At least that gave me something to keep my mind of things so that I didn’t end up a complete mess again.
There was more meat than I could possibly eat myself, but I prepared it and decided that I would catch up with the others and give them the surplus the next day.
I had no real
