Black and Red

Autumn was here, and with it, the colors of autumn were all over the place. It was his first autumn of course, and all the colors that came with the season gave him an idea as he sat there. He wanted to make something, and he had noticed that a lot of his siblings had one thing or another that they wore. While he was too young to really go out and fight everything and everyone, he figured he could make himself something small. A necklace? A pendant? Maybe a bracelet? He glanced up at the trees with their falling leaves, the birds fluttering from branch to branch. A feather fell from one of the birds, and as it touched the ground, he got up and walked over to it. An idea struck him then. He'd make a small bundle of feathers to wear in his fur, perhaps with a bead or two if he could find some. Didn't that strange skeleton-marked slave have a bunch of bones in her old den? Maybe she had some things he could use in her den. He picked up the black feather and hurried over to the former slave's den, finding that it was empty and everything had been left abandoned.

There were bones and furs, rotted corpses of different animals, old, rotted heads on spikes that were decayed with flesh falling away and the skulls peeking through. He shuddered at the sight but found it mildly fascinating. The main thing he didn't like, however, was the smell. He wrinkled his nose, but there was nothing he could do to not smell it. Instead, he chose to ignore it as he went to the den and began to search through the various things that were there, rummaging here and there until he found something that worked. And oh hey! More feathers! An array of black, white, brown, and an assortment of various other colors. At least he wouldn't have to figure out how he was gonna catch birds to pluck their feathers.

He picked up a few that were black and white striped, as well as a cardinal feather, along with a few cords of leather and some small bones that he assumed were the vertebrae of a squirrel or something. While he had never met the former slave, he was glad at least that she had left behind all this stuff for him to use! Grabbing what he needed, he exited the den and moved further away from the stench so he could work without having to smell it. Settling down, he separated the items and placed a few of the feathers side by side so he could decide which ones he wanted to put together. He quite liked the solid black raven feather with the vibrant red of the cardinal feather.

Deciding on those two, he removed the other feathers and replaced them with a piece of bone. One of the spine pieces he had found earlier, and he used his talon to dig out any remaining stuff inside so that it was nice and hollow. He carefully placed the pin of one feather into the center of the bone, and then the other. Considering the bone piece was from a rodent, the feathers fit perfectly and he didn't need to do anything extra, though just to make sure they wouldn't fall out, he inserted a thin piece of leather cord in through the bone a couple of times before he made a knot. That would certainly keep everything together.

The cord length was long enough to tie into his fur, so after he finished the final touches, he painstakingly and clumsily did his best to tie it into the ruff of his fur. After several minutes of working it on there, he finally managed to do it and he sat back, tilting his head to get a good look at it, and was satisfied with his work. It was a simple task, but one that he felt pretty satisfied with.

He couldn't wait to show Enki! He was perhaps the only littermate he felt somewhat closer to compared to the others, though perhaps that would change in time, or not, he didn't know and he didn't care. Mom was always pining over the dead older sibling and was constantly clinging and smothering the rest of them with affection. Was it a bad thing? Probably not. But Akuma was starting to feel suffocated by it. Standing up and shaking off the dust, he reached up to make sure his little trinket would stay in place. He shook his head, turned left and right, and all around, ran for a few yards, and twisted and turned, and sure enough, it was secured enough that it certainly wasn't going to fall out. Now he just had to find Enki and show him! Maybe he could make him one too!

WC: 816