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 Posted: Tue Jul 19, 2011 2:01 pm
 As a young, happy hyena, Payaso would have found the idea of curling up in an elephant skull at night morbid and depressing. After witnessing the brutal murder of her mother by lions, over a skinny antelope her mother had brought down as a pup, Payaso found herself too cynical to be impressed by anything like an elephant skull.
She had actually grown rather fond of her little den - it was too small to allow anyone else in, so she had her privacy (except for her nattering crazy neighbor, the scout who seemed to think his shadow could com off), and there was just room for a few tattered skins from the hunters kills, some bones she cherished, and a few more she kept around to gnaw on. It was tight, but comfortable.
She was headed back to the old skull after a shift of guard duty, when she accidentally bumped into another of the pack's hyenas.
"Sorry."
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Posted: Tue Jul 19, 2011 2:33 pm
 Skada was trying (and failing) to carry her latest treasures back to her den. She had found several promising bones that could be used as tools or trinkets, but she had a hard time getting them all home. The obvious answer might be to bury some of her finds and go get them later, but that was not how this hyena worked. She had just managed to balance all bones when someone bumped into her and it all fell apart with a clatter. She spat out the last bone that she had managed to hold in her mouth and turned towards the offending pack member. Oh, if it was a slave she'd SKIN it and make a bag. (Again, it might be easier to make a slave carry everything, but making a bag sounded more satisfying)
"Watch it," she snarled as she turned around, and glared at the female. Skada knew her by sight if not by name, since she lived in a skull not far from her own. It was probably not wise to start to argue with a guard, but she would have managed to carry her load really far this time, she knew it!
"I should..." she started, but Payaso never got to hear what she should since Skada lost it a little bit, "Gaaah! I nearly got it this time..."
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Posted: Tue Jul 19, 2011 4:38 pm
"I said sorry, Skada, it was an accident. Do you need help getting all this stuff back to your den? I'm off duty anyway." Payaso knew the Bone Collector by sight and by name, but have never really talked to her. She knew though, that like other Bone Collectors, Skada usually had a lot of stuff with her.
"You should see if you can get some kind of bag or travois to cart all this stuff around in, you've got so much of it," Payaso said as she bent to pick up the largest of the bones that had fallen off the other hyena.
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Posted: Thu Jul 21, 2011 2:29 pm
Skada grumbled some more, but she had calmed down considerably. The other female had apologised and even offered to help, so there wasn't much to be upset about anymore. And more importantly, she was pretty sure the other female was stronger. She might mess with a male guard, but she tried to stay on good terms with the females. At least the higher ranking ones. It was challenging to try to figure out the pecking order when joining a pack like she had done. The top hyenas weren't too hard to figure out, but the order after that... Skada had mostly winged it so far, and she had her own way of challenging or judging those she met.
"Some help would be good," she said, "And yes I do need a bag. Or a couple of slaves if I can find any that don't suck. I think some of them are messing with my things."
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Posted: Thu Jul 21, 2011 2:59 pm
"A bag would probably serve you better; the slaves might just break stuff, and then you have to keep track of them. They're more of a pain then they're worth when they're out from the center of the pride lands without ten sets of eyes watching them. A bag you just have to not lose or not rip. "
Payaso piled as many of the bones as she could into neat little heap, easier for carrying. She wasn't exactly sure where all of this stuff was going - Payaso had no idea where the bone collectors actually lived on the lands. Her neighborhood was mostly guards and scouts.
"Where do you want all of this stuff?"
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Posted: Mon Jul 25, 2011 4:36 am
"Mmmh," Skada agreed, "Probably. Or I could make a bag out of them if they don't stop being useless."
It was nice to get some help with her latest load of bones, and between the two of them they managed to pick everything up without too much difficulty. Since Skada had been assigned a skull before she figured out what job she would be best suited for she had ended up in an area without many other bone collectors. In fact, one of her closest neighbours was the Scout with the shadow problem that annoyed Payaso so.
"I'll show the way," she said, "You can just dump it all in the pile outside my skull. I'll sort them later."
Skada had bullied some of the slaves into making some repairs to her skull, so it no longer whistled in the wind. She still dreamed of a more central den, but that would come in due time. At the moment she focused on work, and on the idea she had got from watching what creatures she had met in the roguelands wore.
"I've seen creatures using bones to get an advantage in fights," she said as she unloaded her own burden, "They just tie bones or sometimes other things over sensitive places to make it harder to bite them. I'm going to see if I can make something like that."
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Posted: Mon Jul 25, 2011 8:03 am
"That would be handy for the guards and the scouts, especially when we patrol the borders where the lion pride's butt up. There are fights sometimes. Maybe strips of hide would help to keep the bone on."
Payaso quite liked the idea of a lion trying to bite or claw at her throat and just meeting bone. It would be a lot safer, and they might hurt their mouths while they were at it. They would deserve it, too, the murderers.
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Posted: Mon Jul 25, 2011 10:46 am
"That's what I though," Skada said with a wicked grin, "It would serve them right to get poked in the eye by something like... this."
She fished out half a rib from the pile, showing the sharp edge where the bone was broken. There were many more like it in her pile, since she had gone out of her way to try to find pointy bones lately. That and bones with shapes that would make them easy to strap to a hyena. And acquiring pieces of hide could be her next step. It should be easier to haul around than bones at least.
"I once saw a lion with a skull on his head," she said, more talkative now when she got to discuss her work, "But I don't know about that... Seems to me that your vision would suffer. And most would go for the neck and not the head so it would be a bit of a waste."
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Posted: Fri Jul 29, 2011 8:36 am
"If you had to look through the eyeholes, yes, but something to guard the neck and the softer bits, like cheeks, that might be handy. And if you used a horned skull it could be used as a weapon. But something to protect the neck, legs, and belly, I think, would be the most helpful. And if you added spikes, that would be a bonus. What are you going to use to keep them on?"
Payaso was willing to put in some free time on helping with armor, if she could get some out of it. She had seen what a group of lions could do to a lone hyena, and something to get between their teeth and her flesh when she was patrolling would be more than welcome.
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Posted: Fri Jul 29, 2011 4:16 pm
Skada was itching to try her theories and... Pay-something. Could that be it? She knew she must have heard her name, but she could always ask around later. Well... the guard girl... The other hyena came up with things she hadn't thought about yet, and that was enough encouragement for Skada. She started to dig around in her pile of promising bones to find a particular one.
"Here, let me try," she said and held a scapula she had found against Payaso's body, moving it around to try to find a place where it fit, "I don't know how to keep it on yet... but I might need to put something between the bone and the fur, is this uncomfortable?"
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Posted: Tue Aug 02, 2011 2:07 pm
Payaso tried wiggling against it to imagine how the bone would feel after several hours of wearing.
"It's not, now, but I feel like after a while in it, it would get uncomfortable. Maybe you could pad it with something, either furs from kills, or those fluffy rushes that grow by water sometimes? They don't grow right around here but you could probably get the scouts to bring you back some when they go out, and that would made good padding. I don't know how you'd keep it on, though, tie it I guess. Something nice and tough to keep the padding on and to keep it on the bodies."
Payaso was thinking of some of the larger bones around the graveyard, from the elephants, that could be broken down into plates. They would make good protectors, if they bone collectors could find a good way to break them.
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Posted: Wed Aug 17, 2011 11:38 pm
Skada nodded and tossed the bone back in her seemingly random heap. She had some other promising bone pieces she had been itching to try, but this padding idea was a fresher and more exciting concept at the moment. Payaso's suggestions got her mind working and she quickly worked out a few other possible materials she could use. In fact... she could find some of them today, probably.
"Mmm... yes," she said absentmindedly, already trying out materials and designs in her head, "I must go look for materials. And ties... yes. Thank you for helping out!"
She began wandering away, but then stopped as she realised she might need some help later on. And if her guard neighbour might be willing... So much better!
"Oh," she said and turned back, "Do you want in on the action when I have a working model? I should think it'll need some fitting before I show it off to the rest of the pack."
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Posted: Thu Aug 18, 2011 4:38 pm
"That would be good. Just send a slave to come get me when you have it ready, and as long as I'm not on duty I'll let you practice the fit on me. I look forward to seeing it and wearing it."
With a nod of farewell, Payaso set back off to her own skull to get some sleep before her next shift of guard duty.
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Posted: Sun Aug 21, 2011 4:30 pm
Skada said a hurried farewell and left the cluster of skulls in a quick trot, eager to find some more materials to experiment on. This would be useful, this would be good... And if... no.. when she had her finished armour she could really rub Itzal's nose in it. She'd love to see him come up with something as good with his obsessively neat piles of bones. Hah! That would be the best part of it all.
-fin-
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