This bone was not willing to give up its secrets. All she saw was flickers of lights, curiosity fading to fear, and then fleeing.

She came out of this memory easily, and began to carve on an open rib.

A long, rounded pair of lines. Jagged lines breaking them up. A four-legged thing moving. And that was it.

And so all that was left was the tiny, tiny vertebrae. She carefully hopped over to it, before gently picking it up between her forepaws, inclining her head and bringing it up and pressing it against her gem, taking a deep breath and closing her eyes.

Whatever she had been expecting, this had not been it.

She had expected more fear, more terror. Not this explosion of noise, of screeching. But there was anger, and fighting, and fangs and teeth. This bone had died a horrible death.

Skeena eyed the little bone between her hands thoughtfully. It was the only one of the four that hadn't been afraid - in fact, it had been angry, downright vicious. Yet, from what she could tell, it had been the smallest, as well.

She rolled the vertebrae between her paws, before carefully approaching the other bones. The hybrid needed to get them back to her cave, but... how?

The femur was likely going to be the hardest to move. It was large and awkward. The vertabrae she could carry, and the ribcage she could carry across her back, as well as the skull. But she would have to drag the femur, and that would take ages.

So, ribcage first it was!

Skeena set the tiny bone aside gingerly, not wanting to risk it being harmed. She flattened herself as low to the ground as she could, working her way under the rib-cage, until she felt it was securely on her back. Only then did she stand up, feeling rather like an awkward, furry turtle with a broken, mal-formed shell.

She slowly made her way forward, getting used to the awkward, uncomfortable weight on her back. Skeena was careful as she picked up the vertebrae, and began to make her way back to her home.

It took her the better part of an hour to make her way back to the cave, the vertebrae held gingerly in one, curved paw, the rib-cage on her back.

Thankfully, the cave opening was big enough to allow her entrance even with the heavy bulk, and so she made her way to the off-shoot that she had chosen to store her bones in. The rib-cage was carefully slid off onto a bed of fungi and, after a moment of thought, she took the vertebrae with her.

The jerboa hybrid made her way back to the off-shoot that she had claimed as her sleeping space - yes, she could keep the vertebrae here.

She paced a few circles, before finding a divot in the wall that looked deep enough. Looking down at the vertebrae, then at the divot, she decided that it was too rough, and so began to focus on her magic. In only moments, there was a nice bed of fungi that would allow the small bone to rest safely in the divot for a time.