Completed Ink, blood, tallow

[Tsaba]

69th Summer, 513AV There were problems that a Nuit had to deal with that humans just didn't think about. There was the inability to heal wounds, of course. That was a big one. But there was more than that. A nuit had to remind themselves to blink in mixed company, if they didn't want to unsettle their conversation partners. Nuit couldn't spit, or cry. For that matter, they had to remind themselves to breathe. Nuits couldn't eat or drink socially without making certain preparations, as Tsaba had, and it they did, the cleanup was tedious. There was the decay, the constant threat of decay; every tear in the skin was a never-sealing infection risk. But the real problem that nobody ever thought about, or indeed talked about, was washing. Tsaba, on the whole, tended not to wet her skin unless she had to. She certainly didn't scrub it. She didn't need to. Nuits didn't sweat, and she kept herself fairly clean. Water and friction peeled away skin and let rot set in. As the skin never regenerated, that was an unnecessary risk. But as a scribe, that left a few problems. Most notably, her fingers were constantly ink-stained. She'd seen other people paint glyphs on their own body in order to improve their use of magic, but hadn't found a way to do so on herself, simply because the ink would be impossible to safely remove on a regular basis. But that was an unacceptable disadvantage. A wizard could not rely on scraps of painted paper and glyphs etched on-site. She needed to find a solution.

[Tsaba]

Tsaba's first test material was a small jar of blood she'd begged off a butcher. The man had looked quite unsettled at the request but had, at least, fulfilled it. She dipped a clean brush into the jar, rested her bare left heel on her desk, and with a wince at the pain that shot through her lower back as she bent over, began to paint the top of her foot. The focus, as always, took time to draw. Tsaba was still learning how glyphs worked, and she took her time, making sure her strokes were laid out carefully and in the right order to ensure they held the proper relation to one another. Drawing on flesh had the slight drawback of seriously limiting the amount of space she had available, so she couldn't afford a smudge or wobbly line. Of course, the focus was just a test run of the painting material -- she wasn't intending to actually use it. But there were standards. She finished the glyph and cleaned her brush thoroughly before inspecting her work. Blood was definitely a suitable material for actually painting the glyph. But there were, it seemed, definite drawbacks. The most obvious one was that a small undead child wandering about town covered in intricate designs drawn in blood might cause a slight panic. But there was also the very characteristic that had drawn her to blood in the first place -- it rubbed off skin very well. Blood would simply dry and flake off, leaving only traces that were easily washed away. Even as the blood on her foot dried, it began to crack. She rubbed it with her other foot, and the focus was soon illegible as the red powder was pushed away from her skin. She was going to have to try something else.

[Tsaba]

What else was there to try? Dyes, as a whole, were out, for the same reason as common ink. Blood was out, and mud would face the same problems. She needed something that stuck, but that could be removed. Tsaba glanced around her room for inspiration, but it was somewhat sparse. Writing materials. Her embalming salts. The tiny candles, approximately six chimes each, that she used to time her aura reading. She frowned, picked up a candle, and rubbed it between her fingers. The wax made her fingertips feel smooth. Actual melted wax would be difficult to paint with, as well as having the problem of damaging her skin, but there were similar, more liquid materials. Tsaba went down to the university kitchens and begged a small measure of pig fat off them. It was slightly more liquid than she'd have liked, but it was probably her best choice so far. She took it back to her room and began drawing a focus on her other foot. The big problem with fat, of course, was that it was almost transparent. Tsaba didn't know if that affected the viability of the rune -- none of her readings had mentioned such a thing. But that turned out to be irrelevant, because in the end, she couldn't even see the fat clearly enough to finish the rune. She stopped. She had something approximating, although not quite reaching, the right consistency... but now she lacked colour. Her gaze fell back on the jar of blood.

[Tsaba]

A mix of blood and fat sort of worked. It was easy to paint, sure enough, and clearly visible in the threads of red marbling through the white; the focus she drew on her left wrist wasn't great, but it was a focus. She was pretty sure that she could combine the two fluids better with more work, creating a more consistent pain. But even if she left it to dry, the fat smudged against her clothes, and would obliterate the glyphs over time. Besides, she'd rather not rely on blood at all. Even mixed with fat, people might smell the blood, which could be taken rather negatively. And she couldn't exactly guarantee constant access to it. Fats and oils were universally available because of how often they were used, but animal blood could cause raised eyebrows and not necessarily be easy to find, especially during food shortages. Most Zeltivan meat was fish, after all. She dressed quickly and headed out into town in search of inspiration. Humans were incredibly inventive, after all. There had to be something out there to suit her purposes.

[Tsaba]

Tsaba walked down through the market, towards the docks. Paints? No. Honey? Definitely not. No food extracts that couldn't be produced in Zeltiva, either. Nothing with too strong an odor, especially an unpleasant odor. It was beginning to look like simply carrying her focuses on parchment was her only option. Her own ichor... as poetic as the concept was, it was also really stupid. Firstly because it was a waste of good ichor and skin integrity, and fairly dangerous to do regularly. Secondly because it probably wouldn't show up clearly enough to paint with anyway. Charcoal; rubbed off too easily. Candlewax; cracked far too easily. Tsaba cast her eye over the market stalls, dismissing them one by one. she took a breath, hping for some other kind of sensory inspiration, but times it right when a drunk man ambles past, reeking of kelp beer. In the middle of the day? Really? Of course, she'd had a negative opinion of the drink since her own poorly thought out preservation experiment with it. It seemed useful, but... But... Tsaba smiled. That... that might work.

[Tsaba]

Collecting seaweed was an easy enough task in Zeltiva. When Tsaba had enough for her purposes, she headed home, stopping briefly at the shop to buy a mortar and pestle. Back at home, she hung the seaweed in the remaining sunlight to dry, and waited. It often took bells at least to dry herbs, especially without a fireplace. Tsaba didn't know exactly how long kelp would take. She'd squeezed as much water out of it as she could to start with. She took a couple of Bells to tidy her room and rub salts into her body, then set herself to Glyphing homework. Eventually, the weed seemed dry enough to work with. She crumbled some of it into the pestle and began to grind it to powder. It had been a long time since Tsaba had ground anything. Turning seeds or herbs to fine powder used to be a standard part of her routine, many years ago. But she didn't live with a healer any more. When she had a powder, she added just a little water and kept grinding, turning it into a bright green, nearly liquid mush. That, she combined with some pig fat, mixing them until the fat was green. She took her brush, and began to paint a focus on her chest. The kelp mush combined with fat much nicer than blood did, producing a focus of nearly even colour. Painting on one's own chest wasn't the greatest angle, but it was workable. The fat was still a little sticky, though; still easy to smear. How to... to draw some of the fluid out? Well. Preservation was almost always about drawing the fluid out of things. Tsaba's eyes rested on her embalming salts. A light trickle over the glyph seemed to do the trick, turning the kelp and fat into a solid painted layer. If should was off with soap, being fat. But Tsaba didn't want to get rid of it just yet. She pressed her fingertips to the glyph, and pulled djed into her sight. The glyph grew briefly warm on her chest as djed was pulled diverted through it, and then her own aura glowed in her vision; trails of bright, living energy networked through dead flesh. She shut it off quickly; she was still too weak from the body transfer to make a habit of utilising magic. Tsaba permitted herself a small smile. Yes... it would do. boughtMortar and pestle (1GM)

[Vanari]

Tsaba

Observation	+2 XP
Glyphing	+1 XP

Lores :

• Nuits: The Trials of Staying Clean
• Glyphing With Blood and Pig's Fat...No Good!
• Waiting for Kelp to Dry
• Fat and Seaweed, Who Knew?

Notes :

As always, very intriguing subject matter ^_^ I really enjoy all these nuisances you explore that go with being a Nuit.

Cheers!

I'm a newbie and will make mistakes, so please don't hesitate to PM me with questions, comments, or concerns! Also, please remember to either delete your grade request or edit it as "graded."