Sales Pitch

Red waited politely off to the side, working, while Aurielle greeted the newcomers who hadn't made it the day before. Before it got too busy, he cleared his throat and murmured, "Could I have a word, Aurielle, when you are finished?" before moving aside to a more sheltered area. There was a faint chill in these early mornings in autumn, and while the cold didn't bother him enough to need to shelter from it, he didn't want their conversation to be as much in the public eye. While he waited he absently rolled a bit of birchbark into a wide cylinder. He had a pot of pine pitch glue he had heated that morning, and he carefully scooped a bit out of the pot with a stick carved something like a cross between a spoon and a spatula, carefully not getting any of the glue on his paws, and smoothed it into the spot where the two ends met. He held it there while it cooled and hardened to keep the birchbark into that shape. A second smaller bit of birchbark capped the end, with another dab of glue to hold it there. Scooping up a bit more, he worked it into the center of the cylinder to coat the entire interior, spreading it carefully so that it didn't ooze down before it hardened, until the entire interior wall was coated in a hard, waterproof layer. The exterior was given the same treatment before he set the tube aside and capped the pot of glue to let it cool again. He would make a removable cap for it later, but he could see that wolves were beginning to stir, and the newcomers drift off to the various interesting festival pursuits.