Just Cover it in Pointy Things

Ulmaria had grown curious about some of the weapons and armor she'd seen other wolves walking around with including her uncle from time to time. Such items could add an edge in battle, especially against predators so with Piper's help she decided to try and craft something. She wasn't quite sure what but seeing a pair of spiked bracers inspired her to give those a try. Álarr had some scraps of raw hide he'd agreed to let her practice with and see what she could make as far as bracers. Piper was working on making some cording so that she could fasten it to her leg but first things first. How much did she need to wrap around her leg?

Ulmaria took her leg and laid it down on one of the scraps of hide. She took her other paw and wrapped the lose end over her leg to get an idea of the width. She leaned forward and nipped an edge in the hide as a mark before flipping it off of her leg. Ok, well, so far so good. Now she just needed to chew a line down the mark she'd made so she had a piece to work with that didn't have a lot of excess hide hanging off of it. Ulmaria dug her teeth in and started chewing. There was something kind of soothing about chewing and it felt good on her teeth. All in all an easy way to pass the time. The afternoon sun warmed her back and she watched the river flow lazily on by. There were a number of birds singing in the trees above her. She didn't know where her siblings or the adults were but she wasn't to worried. Ulmaria had set up shop not too far from her family's den site so she wasn't too worried about predators or anything like that. If worse came to worse she could run back to her family.

Ulmaria kept on chewing and soon split the piece of hide in two. Once she'd finished she rested one of her legs in the piece of hide and wrapped it around to check that her calculations were correct and that it fit before she went and did more work. It would suck to do a bunch of work only to find out she'd chewed it too big or small and wasted all that effort. After folding the hide once more she was pleased to see that it fit. It was a touch small but that was fine since they were going to lace and tie up the back of the bracer. Of course if they were going to thread leather lacing through there needed to be holes. Ulmaria took the hide in her jaws and started pushing her teeth through at various points along each side of the hide to make holes. It took some work and some of the holds were larger than others but this was her first time, she couldn't expect it to be perfect.

Once the holes were done she turned the bracer over to her companion to start adding in and tying the lacing while she figured out how to attach something sharm to the bracers. She had a mix of items. A few coyote teeth, some metal scraps and then some honey locust thorns. The thorns looked like they might work the best but how to stick them on? There was a pointy end and then a flatter end. They could push the thorns through the hide but she wasn't sure how best to secure them on the back. Perhaps they could use something sticky to stick them on? She knew Álarr had some rabbit skin glue as well as some honey. Honey probably wasn't sticky enough and she knew the glue was important so she hated to ask for some more things to use in her crafting test. Still, it was the best idea she had and maybe she could offer to help Álarr make some more so she could learn how to do it and replace what she sent Piper to grab.

Soon the lemur returned with a small glass jar of rabbit skin glue which she set on the ground. Ulmaria took a clean stick and stuck it into the jar, grabbing some of the glue and dotting it onto the bracer before Piper picked up a thorn and stuck it onto the bracer. The duo repeated this process until she had a line of thorns all the way down the front of the bracer.

They let it dry and once that was done Ulmaria tried the bracer on, waiting patiently as Piper laced the cording through in an ‘x’ like pattern and tying it tight. Ulmaria squealed in excitement as she bounded off to show her dad.