My Words | Your Words | My Thoughts
57th of Fall, 514AV.
The hedgehog knew that he needed to finish maledicting the bodies of the rat before they began to stink with rotten meat. The last thing he wanted was anyone finding out just what he was doing with the various remains of a rat in his possession - bones would be able to be explained, but the still-dripping head of a rodent with eyeballs, brains and all the other organs still intact would be harder. He couldn't pass it off as an old gift from others he'd received a long time ago, after all. He'd kept all of the remains inside his bag, along with the small Legacies that he'd made once he'd killed the rat. It made him uncomfortable, holding the bones in the same bag as the tools that he'd use to carve them, but as long as he was gentle with them, they wouldn't be damaged too badly.
He also knew he couldn't maledict the bones inside the city. He didn't have anywhere that could really be deemed 'private' in the Towers Respite. Everything was shared with several others, and he doubted any of them would keep his secrets to themselves. No, he needed to return to the Unforgiving if he was going to continue his work on his malediction. Once he had the bones, he could happily return to the city and find a place to store them away from prying eyes. Things would become so much easier when he didn't have to rely on the Tower's lessons for his work and his livelihood. He could rent out a place, possibly buy his own if he gathered together enough money.. he could turn it into a studio, or a laboratory, far away from the prying eyes of the general public and the Shinya.
That was all many, many seasons away though. For now, he still needed to clean the flesh and organs from the rats head. He needed to maledict the fur that he'd recovered as well - perhaps another time he'd work on that, since there was still more things the hedgehog would need in order to turn it into an effective coat. He needed to maledict the bones and he needed to keep experimenting with how far he could push the effects. There were so many things that were all pushing themselves into the Pycons schedule uninvited, he felt like he was being walked over them all at once. It was a crushing weight that nearly brought all of his other thoughts to a stop as he tried to push it away from the forefront of his mind. Looming over the matter wouldn't change his situation - he needed to prioritize himself, scope out exactly what he needed and how he was going to get it.
First, he'd work with what he had. He'd maledict the remaining bones, in whatever time he could find and with whatever effects he felt he needed the most. Then, he'd work on the head. Perhaps another time, but he'd get to it eventually. Finally would come the skin - he'd have to return to the city again in order to find some needle and thread.. actually, he'd need to catch the assistance of one of the employees of those silk and fine clothes stores that seemed to appear out of the ground itself. He didn't have a clue about sewing after all, and he doubted he'd just be able to fasten the rat-skin around his neck in a knot and hope for the best that it wouldn't fall to the ground in a bloody heap the second a light breeze drifted over it. He wanted it to be secure and sturdy - he wanted it all to last as long as he could wring.
Knowing that he'd likely be spending most of the day out in the Unforgiving, maledicting body parts and the like, he spent an extra twenty or thirty chimes wandering about the rocky hills in search of a perfect spot to settle. It may have been an extra twenty or thirty chimes that he could have spent maledicting, but the hedgehogs back and backside would thank him when everything was over. His new seat came in the form of a small, flat rock with other rocks scattered about it. They might have come from the same rock, at first - before shattering under some unseen pressure, splitting into smaller clusters that worked as makeshift tables for the hedgehog to set his bag and all of his other materials over in a loose and disorganized scattering. He had all of his paints, all of the bones, the head staring at him lifelessly at the corner along with the bundle of fur that had once been a mouse's skin. He had his brushes, paints, chisels and screws.
Now all he needed to do was pick the first bone to be maledicted. He still had many of the arm-bones and leg-bones left over, including the radius and ulna of the right side of the mouse. They would have been attached to the humerus - the part that he'd already maledicted. Both the radius and ulna seemed fairly thin, for the hedgehog - it'd be rather difficult to carve some kind of message to them. Both of them seemed relatively thin, but there was a fractional difference that meant the radius was only slightly thicker. Really, it would have been better to start on a thicker platform that would have been easier to carve into.. but the sooner he got all of them out of the way, the better. He'd be facing all of them sooner or later.. why not get the hardest parts out of the way the fastest, and then he could leave the easier ones for later? Resolutely, he picked up the upper portion that would have once been connected to the mouse's main body, and at the same time took up his smaller pick.
These bones were much more fragile than the humerus or the femur - they were thinner, less robust. He wasn't even going to bother trying to use a chisel on them, for fear that he would simply snap the thing in two as he'd already done with the humerus bone. Instead, he began on the basics - the circle. Like with the others he'd done, this was a regular circle that curved around and joined with itself on the opposite side. It wasn't as wobbly as the other two, at the very least.. since the bone itself was smaller, he had to make the circle smaller to work with. A normal human would never have been able to carve on something so tiny unless they were a near-Master in the field, but the Pycon was miniature anyway.. the bones were small, but not tiny.
