What am I even doing?

Caelia wasn't quite sure what she was doing. Crafting wasn't something she'd spent a lot of time doing - okay, she hadn't done any at all - but she'd been watching some of the others in Valhalla craft various pieces of armor when she could, and watching how they assembled them. She knew Aurielle had plans for Valhalla to raid soon, and Caelia wanted to be prepared, truly prepared, both physically and mentally. She'd gotten more than enough training lately, between her lessons with Aurielle and the few practice fights she'd managed to find, but she wanted to figure out another way to ready herself.

Maybe a set of bracers to wrap around her forelegs? It felt like a straightforward option, practical and not too cumbersome. Something heavy like a mask felt like it'd weigh her town and possibly make focusing on an actual fight harder. Imagining something protecting her throat was just as strange; useful, perhaps, but it was hard to imagine moving quickly or with any kind of certainty with something pressing on her throat, or on the back of her neck. Forcing opponents to ignore her forelimbs would give her a better idea of where they might attack, and might help her maintain her balance in the process. Sounded like a good enough thought, at least.

A few days back she'd managed to take down a young pig, an easy enough feat on her own. Usually she didn't bother with skinning her prey but she'd made an effort to tear a large portion of its hide free. Scraping the fat and guts from it had been a messy task, not something she'd was particularly fond of doing herself, but she wasn't sure this would be a repeat activity or not - but she wanted to figure out how to do it herself. Scraping some of the hair off the opposite side was equally as tricky, but after a long, arduous process she was content she'd gotten rid of as much of the animal as she could from the hide. Unsure of just how much she'd need of different sizes, she worked at tearing the hide into smaller portions - some large, some quite small. She knew she'd need to find a way to fasten them together, but she wasn't quite sure how she'd do it yet.

The part she was least looking forward to was curing the hide. It sounded completely disgusting... but somehow, doing this on her own made her feel a bit less squeamish about it. Caelia had a plan, and she wanted to see it through to the end. Smashing the pig's skull to extract its brain hadn't been super hard on the rocks... all she'd had to do was find an outcrop to drop it off, and then it was just a matter of prying pieces of its skull apart. After retrieving it she went to work it against the hide, smashing it with her front paws and squishing it down. This was infinitely grosser than just extracting it but she'd heard this was this best way to do it. Once she was finished she left it to dry, deciding leaving it here on the rocks was the best bet.

When she returned, she was pleased to find that her hide was not only where she'd left it, but it was also dry, hard but still pliable with some working, it seemed. The day was sunny, which pleased her too; it was the ideal kind of weather to sit and focus on crafting these bracers. Warm, but not so hot that it was sweltering, either. After examining it, she lowered herself to her belly and began to work it, trying to bend and shape the hide as she imagined just how she'd do this.

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Fall, Year 14 Bonus prompt (Intellect/Fighting)