do you wanna build a strawman? ok bye...

Vanta was over the moon excited for the festival to come, the first she would experience in her short life and hopefully the best of them all. Many of the festivities were held away from both Hallows and Armada lands, requiring an escort to help bring the near-dozen puppies who might be interested to play and enjoy the various events. This time Vanta stayed away from the altars, disliking the new tense feel in the air around them. Rather than gamble her luck with the Gods, she'd drug her escort to the straw-making station. The sun had just finished setting but the familiars running the scene did not appear to be packing up to go anywhere yet. They waved the puppy over and gave her a place to begin to build, gesturing to the never-depleting pile of materials stacked up against one giant stone.

Vanta rushed to the materials pile, grabbing sticks, straw, vine, pebbles and anything else she could think even came close to looking like a part of wolf anatomy. Overencumbered, she drug her findings back to her assigned building spot and laid them all out. Sorting came first, placing the straw into various piles based on size and checking each stick for thickness and strength. The pebbles she sifted through for what felt like an hour and more than once she deemed them all unsuitable and returned the pile entirely to the free-use materials, grabbing a new pawful to sift through. Eventually she had found the one she was looking for - a piece of quartz, stained a little blue. It had already been broken open and the way the hollowed out cavity stared back at her Vanta knew it could pass for her own crystalline eyes.

With her materials in order, she began with a frame. Admittedly she had glanced over at other wolves working their projects and had modified their own steps to fit her work. Of course she needed something to hold up the straw, otherwise the wolf would fall down. Duh. The pup went in search of four branches of equal size to do for the legs, and even managed to scavenge a thick but flat strip of bark to work for the spine. Working to tie them together was rough, but with the help of her snake wrapping itself around the branches to hold them tight and the toucan assisting in tying the vine, Vanta succeeded in her goal. Four limbs stood steady beneath the bark spine, and from that grew a neck and eventually a smaller strip of bark for the head. Her skeleton had taken her nearly the whole night, and now it was time to move on to bulking up the figure with straw.

Pawful after pawful the young pup added her straw pieces, occasionally dipping the packed ball of them in mud to give some stickiness to help it to remain on the wood. She worked tirelessly and with patience, not growing frustrated when covering one limb took half as long as building the frame did. Though the more experience she got, the faster the work went. By the time she had reached the neck and head, patting straw was second nature to her. She even fluffed it as she worked, pulling pieces out strategically to look more like the fur ruffling around a pup's neck or to give shape to the head and form ears.

With the base of it formed, Vanta found she had time for some detail too. The sun was due to rise soon (and she was growing awfully tired) so she knew she had to hurry, else she'd be blinded and probably wreck the creation she'd spent all night tending to. Her two quartz eyes she gave to the toucan to carefully place, watching as he made a hole for them in the straw with his crystalline beak and offering guidance as he led the eyes into the socket. The bird continued his flight across the straw figure, occasionally being stopped by Vanta as she instructed him to pull out more or less straw from one place or another, addicted to the craft and wholeheartedly enjoying striving for perfection.

Last came the claws, the maw, the tail and ears. Vanta worked on each carefully, making adjustments to her straw wolf until the sun rose and reluctantly, she was forced to stop. Her viper climbed back up her neck and wove it's way into her fur, prepared to guide her home for a much needed rest. Before she left, Vanta bid the viper to bring her closer. She moved so carefully as to not knock the figure over while blind, eventually finding her muzzle in line with the straw wolf's shoulder and a piece of straw finding it's way up her nose. She placed a gentle kiss upon her creation, thanking it softly for the fun it had given to her and hoping that it did it's job well for the familiars. With that she turned to leave, a yawn on her maw, and went in search of a den to catch a nap inside.