The second day in the taiga began like normal.
Blanc making breakfast, waking everyone up, and using the wilderness as a toilet.
The only difference besides the cold itself was how they washed themselves.
And for that, Blanc melted pot after pot full of snow, boiling it to make sure to remove anything harmful.
Both for drinking water and to wash themselves and wipe away whatever sweat some of them had worked out during the night.
"My jaw is still hurting," muttered Celine as they ate.
To which Miyanna nodded sharply, "Same."
"Why are your jaws hurting, sisters?" Lune asked, unaware of the difficulty of such a simple, innocent question.
Blanc coughed, hearing it, since he was to blame for their pain, but wished not to let his way too young of a girl to concern herself about what happened last night.
He wanted to speak, but Celine giggled, seeing Blanc panicking.
"Not to worry, Lune, dear. We just slept in a weird position," she explained.
"I see," Lune replied innocently, before she turned to face Blanc, a deep frown on her forehead, "Make sure to take care of your wives."
"You heard that, husband?" Celine grinned.
"You need to take care of us," Miyanna added, as she played with the food in her bowl.
"Ah, y-yes," Blanc stuttered, replying to all three, an uncomfortable smile on his face as he wished to change the subject, "Although I can't change the position they sleep in, can I?"
Luckily, Kael did not have any interest in their conversation as he kept reading his books.
And so, having weird conversations around the fire, breakfast passed, and they soon began preparing for a day of hunting in this new Garden.
Which began strongly, for after only two hours, they managed to hunt five badgers, which gave most of them a new Mark, with Blanc getting his existing Mark into a light gray one.
Besides the badgers, they also managed to catch three stoats, which were harvested by Miyanna and the twins. A good addition to their smaller collection of Marks.
"Stop," Blanc muttered, raising his hand in the air.
To which all ceased to move, listening to their surrounding, yet there was nothing special going on.
"What's wrong?" Miyanna asked, not sure if she had to prepare for serious combat or not.
"Something is digging through the snow a fair bit of distance away, but what it is digging at, it's… digging at a rabbit warren," Blanc replied as he focused on his hearing while sniffing at the cold air.
"Oh, rabbit stew sounds nice," Lune said, "It reminds me of our time in the cave."
"Indeed," Blanc nodded, "How should we share the rabbits? There are quite a few of them underground."
"We do not," Celine replied, "You are to get all of them, my love."
"Me alone?" Blanc turned his head to her, "Why?"
Perhaps Blanc was too focused on the hunt to realize what Celine meant, but both she and Miyanna knew it was of utmost importance for Blanc to get them all.
But an explanation was in order, one that would satisfy the curious look the twins gave her.
"Call it a test," Celine began, coming up with an excuse on the spot, "You have eleven rabbits harvested, yet your Mark is still not black. It's important to see how many you can harvest before the Mark finally turns black. If there are rabbits remaining alive after that, we can decide how to harvest them between ourselves."
Blanc slowly started to realize what Celine was planning, only by looking into Miyanna's eyes, who looked away the moment their eyes met.
After all, he knew best where the Mark of the Rabbit stood on his body.
And how his wives started calling it 'The Rabbit's Foot.'
But he would sooner pass a sword through his own neck than ever mention that out loud.
"I see…" Blanc coughed, not sure how to act nonchalantly, "A fair point, my love. It also seems that your jaws are fine now. It makes me happy, since I would love to hear more such ideas tonight, after dinner."
Miyanna muttered desperately at his proposition, "Have mercy."
Which only confused the twins more.
But no time was left for questions since Blanc began moving forward, bow and arrow at the ready in complete silence, even between all the snow at their feet.
Minutes later, all of them saw what was digging through the snow, trying to catch the rabbits.
A red fox was jumping headfirst at an oddly shaped hill, before scratching at the snow, slowly making its way deeper inside.
"What a beauty," Miyanna whispered, as she looked at the fox doing its work.
"Blanc," Celine approached quietly, whispering in Blanc's ear, "I have the lynx pelt from you. It would be nice if my sister had received something as well, don't you think?"
Blanc looked into her sapphire eyes for a moment, but turned to face the fox, his mind doing a quick calculation.
They were at a distance of around a hundred feet. A distance Blanc was comfortable and confident with.
However, they were against the wind. Not a bad thing since the fox had not noticed their presence yet, but an issue for his arrow.
Which meant that if he were to shoot at an angle…
Maybe?
Got it, he thought to himself, nocking the arrow, raising the bow towards the sky, looking either at the arrow or at the fox a distance away from them, as he adjusted his aim, and… loosed.
The arrow flew towards the sky, rising higher and higher.
"Why did you shoot like that, Brother?" Kael asked.
"Just watch," Blanc replied, as the arrow began its fast descent.
The arrow began cutting the air as it picked up speed.
It drew closer.
And then, thud.
A loud yelp.
Then silence.
The fox fell to the ground, dead.
"There's that," he muttered as he placed the bow back on his back, and unsheathed his sword as he began walking forward, "I'll be back then."
What soon followed was Blanc using his sword to scare the rabbits to the surface, and catching all nine of them, which, even after harvesting all of them, still did not manage to turn his Mark from a dark gray to a black one.
Which made him sigh deeply.
But at least his stamina grew yet again, and his desire with it too, as, after the ninth rabbit was harvested, he began looking at his two wives a bit more than usual.
But he controlled himself, focusing instead on harvesting the fox as well.
A harvest which gave him the White Mark of the Fox, the fox's paw on the sole of his foot, making his mind slightly sharper, more cunning, and his steps even harder to hear than before.
A good harvest for him on this second day in the taiga.