9 Cylus 716
The rooster crowed loudly. Lei'lira muttered in sleepy annoyance. The rooster crowed again. To Lei'lira's sleep fogged mind, it sounded more urgent than before, even though she knew it wasn't true. But her pleasant dream world had shattered at the strident call. It was time to get up, and no amount of wishful thinking would change that.
Lei'lira dressed quickly. She paused just long enough to grab her soup bowl before heading out to start work. The early morning air was cool, but it was refreshingly so. The cold of winter was no longer lingering in the air.
Collecting the eggs each morning would be a lot easier if I didn't have to find the hens first... she thought ruefully.
Lei'lira vowed to herself that she would build a chicken coop as soon as she had enough money saved up to buy the lumber she'd need. That was for the future, though. For now, she had five hens to find. Chickens were stupid animals. But even they knew better than to nest too far away from a steady food supply. It was for this reason that Lei'lira didn't have to fear that her hens would become lost as they tried to nest away from the farm.
Her first stop was at the barn where she put a thin lining of straw in the bottom of her bowl. This would give her something soft to put her eggs on, and hopefully prevent them from moving around much as she searched for her hens. Once that was done, it was time to begin the hunt in earnest. Since this was just the first task of the day, Lei'lira hoped that it wouldn't take too long.
The first egg was easy enough to find. One of the hens had chosen to nest in a clump of tall grass growing beside the barn door. Lei'lira might had tripped over the nest when she emerged from the barn had the hen not clucked loudly in protest.
"Well, that's a silly place to build a nest, now isn't it?" she scolded the still frantic hen.
"What if one of the horses stepped on you by mistake when I let them out for some exercise?"
It wasn't likely to happen, of course. Horses hated to have anything beneath their hooves other than the ground. Stepping on anything by accident wasn't something one had to worry about often when it came to horses. Doing it on purpose to express their irritation however...that was another story. How often had Darkwind, or Kaiyu stepped on her foot when she accidentally pulled their manes too hard while grooming them? Lei'lira had stopped even trying to count long ago. Neither horse was afraid to make their displeasure well known when the situation warranted it in their opinion.
"Still...I suppose that it's unlikely that a predator will find you with your nesting there. Most predators around here won't risk coming this close to the barn with Shinta there to guard it." she mused.
Lei'lira waited until the hen calmed down before attempting to check to see if she had laid an egg. Reaching under a hen that was worked up over something was a good way to get your hand pecked. She had learned that much long ago. When she eased her hand under the hen, she was pleased to feel something hard, and oval. Lei'lira's hand closed around the egg gently as she withdrew it from underneath the hen. Then the egg went into her bowl.
"Don't look at me like that, you silly bird. This isn't the first time I've taken your egg, and it won't be the last." she said firmly when the hen protested vigorously.
One egg down, and hopefully four more to go. she thought with satisfaction.
