Eureka

The rock looked almost like a short, fat peanut with a flattened top, and Kassander had decided it was perfect. It was just the right size for him to easily fit his paw over the flattened portion and of a material hard enough to scrape on something with all his weight on it without wearing away. After poking and prodding at it with his little hands and muttering to himself in his soft little mouse-lemur voice for some time, Remy had been able to devise a leather strap with a cut through the center of it that could be pushed down on the stone so that the flattened top popped through the cut. He'd stitched the leather strip together at the top with Rommel's help (the fox's much smaller, sharper fangs pierced the leather in a way that left smaller holes than Kassander's larger teeth) and the lemur had carefully woven through it a thin twist of rawhide attached to a needle made of a bird's wing bone.

The resulting loop of leather was just barely loose enough to wiggle his paw in between the leather and the top of the rock, and tight enough to press his paw down against the flattened surface. This allowed him to keep a pretty strong grip on the stone despite the lack of dexterity in his paws.

Overall he'd been pleased with how it turned out, and even more pleased by the use he was able to put it to. By dropping dried herbs into a concave, bowl-like rock of the same substance as his peanut-rock and pushing his weight against the stone on his paw, he had been able to grind them into a fine, dry consistency he couldn't have gotten by chewing them. This wasn't the first time he'd tried to use a grinding stone to grind up herbs without chewing, but paws were simply not dexterous enough to grip a stone with the kind of strength he'd need to move it that firmly against another surface. The tight strap solved that problem quite neatly.

He glanced up from his work to flash his two companions an excitedly boyish grin that transformed his whole face. Despite the gray beginning at his muzzle, enthusiasm made him youthful again. "It works!" he exclaimed aloud, gray tipped tail beating a staccato rhythm of excitement against the dirt. "Do you know what this means?"

"More herbs to gather?" Rommel ventured with dry humor.

Kass made a raspberry noise at him. "I can grind dangerous herbs without risking chewing them up. I can grind herbs fine enough to use in salves more easily. I can grind herbs to store more in a smaller space! This changes everything, don't you see?"

The fox nodded politely, though a faintly amused smile lingered around his narrow muzzle. Suddenly, he glanced up with his gaze sharpening. "Company coming," he murmured warningly.

Kassander froze, his pelt rippling nervously as he glanced around. It had been so long since he'd lived someplace as open as most of Abaven's lands, he couldn't help but feel exposed and jumpy out on the plains and the river it abutted. That's why he'd chosen to den up here in the thicket, with the comforting shelter of the shrubs and the grasses - but it did make it a little hard to see anyone before they came up on him.