wear you like a halo

It was time to finish up his bracers, now that his sight was restored. Working on them with his sister in the southern continent had been a pleasant break from the monotony of exploration and feeling useless, and now he was ready to have his weaponry prepared for the next battle. The metal plates had been hammered out into a rough shape to fit around his lower forelimbs, and when he fit them against the thick column of his foreleg again they still slipped perfectly over the curve of his forelegs. Now that he had a permanent home, he had gone back to collecting random shit that seemed useful. Which meant that he had punches available for fitting the various teeth he'd collected into a neat arrangement along the front of the bracers. That didn't necessarily mean this would be the quickest of tasks, but the titan had plenty of time to work away at his latest project.

Somewhere in the ratty burlap bag that had been on its last legs when he'd found it, the rest of his materials were squirreled away. It was far easier to dump the contents of the bag out onto the cave floor than to rifle around looking for them, and so he did. The delicate chime of a dozen-odd disembodied fangs clattering onto the cold stone floor was downright musical, in contrast to the dull thud, slap of leather straps landing on the ground. Flopping onto his flank, the hellish brute set to work with his sturdy iron punch. The conical shape of it allowed him to drive the point further and further through the metal until the hole was finally the right circumference. His cooking fire in its half-finished stone hearth was being coopted to heat the metal to the point it would be more workable without outright burning all of the skin off his pawpads. With a well worn hammerstone, he aligned the conical punch with the points he wanted to set the fangs into. Struck once, twice, and moved to the next spot. Rinse and repeat, until each plate had been punched with a series of.. five holes. Perhaps he'd underestimated the space available along the fronts of the bracers (being blind makes guessing surface area tricky!). At least he'd have spare materials in the event that something broke.

As the metal slowly cooled, the brute scraped both the front and back surfaces with the rounded edge of the hammerstone. Cleaning up and warping from heating, and getting rid of sharp edges from the punch. That way the only damage would be to his opponents, and not his forelegs while he was moving around. From there, it was merely a matter of fitting the teeth themselves into the holes he'd made for them. Earlier in the morning, he'd gathered up some pitch from the conifers that proliferated all over the island. It was an extremely useful binding agent for crafting, and would help him set the teeth into place. Which is exactly how it went. Placing the sticky ball of pitch near the hearth heated it just enough to become workable, and he was able to dip each fang's root into the mixture before slotting it into place. As the pitch cooled, it would harden and hold the fang in place. Arranging each fang with the point facing up and out ensured that when he needed to, he could swing one leg up against a vulnerable belly and tear into an opponent's gut. Perhaps, with practice and honing of the points, he could even disembowel particularly troublesome prey with them. Food for thought, at the very least.

Finally, it was time to line the inner portion of the bracer with a thin layer of softened hide. It would prevent the edges of the metal from rubbing his skin raw, and keep the ends of the teeth from being worn down along the inside of the bracer as they rubbed against his skin, thus loosening them and eventually leading to them suddenly falling out at some inopportune moment. The last remnants of pitch were slathered along the inside of each bracer with a twig clasped between his teeth, mingling with glowing drool as he laboriously covered every fraction of metal with the sticky substance. By the time he was done, he needed to run the whole damned thing over the fire again for a few seconds so it would adhere properly to the hide he'd prepared. Two strips of rabbit skin, dehaired and worked until they were supple and soft. The dark stripe that marked the length of the spine had turned out to be a feature of the skin as well as the fur, and he decided it would be useful enough as a guide to keep the whole thing lined up evenly. As he laid the first hide over the inside of the bracer and smoothed a paw along the whole surface, he felt the warmth seeping into the skin from the sticky pitch and grinned to himself. This was turning out far better than he could have hoped.

He'd been lucky to have straps ready, having been scavenged from existing objects on the ancient ridge in the south. It was merely a matter of securing them to the sides of the bracers. Sewing wasn't his specialty, so for now he'd simply tuck each end beneath the edge of the rabbit hides, and wrap the outer edge with the hides for now. That way they'd be secure enough to use once the pitch had cooled and absorbed into the materials to secure them together. This was easier said than done, and by the time he'd finally gotten them tucked away into the right spots, the sun was beginning to cast long shadows across the mouth of his den. The hellish goliath stifled a yawn, and grabbed one of the blades that he kept around the den. Trimming away the excess hide was arguably the easiest part of the crafting process, and once it was done he felt a cramp in his stomach, accompanied by a loud grumble. Ah, it was well past dinner for him.

The adhesives would need to set before he could try on the bracers for fit anyways, so it was better to distract himself with a quick hunt. Then he could eat and pass out without feeling tempted to keep messing with the finished project. Hauling his bulk from the stone floor, the giant shook out his thick coat and nudged his new bracers out of reach before lumbering out of his den to grab himself something fresh to eat.

(WC: 1 111)