Okay, it had been a good long while, time that Tuck had spent lying back and watching the canopy of leaves above him. He sat up now and faced the bag and one of the vines he’d brought out with him. He reached for it with Magic, but nothing happened. At this point, he’d just gotten used to the fact that his Magic was gonna fail him about half the time and there wasn’t much he could do about. Unfortunately, at this point along in his craft, there wasn’t much he could do other than the Magic parts, so he’d just have to keep trying until it worked or until he ran out of Magic.

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There! Now it worked. He nodded to himself, and then picked up the bag and carefully clutched it, holding it with his claws, as he forced the thin-but-strong vine to wrap around the bag vertically this time. It worked like a charm, and soon he was done with that part. He set the bag down on the ground and carefully reached behind him for some tree sap so he could glue the end of the vine down onto itself so that it wouldn’t unravel… Ahh, now look at it! Nice and green and pretty. He was almost done!

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His Preserve Spell took some time, and wasn’t very strong when it finally trickled out from his collarbone, but he again decided that it would have to do. Besides, he was gonna rub more resin on this vine, too, so that it would stay waterproof, so even this weak spell cast shouldn’t mess with it too much. He set the bag back down after letting the spell go and climbed up the tree a final time to collect more resin. He came back and carefully rubbed his sticky paws all over the final part of his creation. When satisfied, he left the bag where it was to let the resin harden and went to watch his sticky paws in a small nearby stream.

He couldn’t help but feel very accomplished. He had just spent a day, a night, and half of another day making this bag, and he’d done it all by himself! As he back over to the bag, and began cleaning up his space, he had a big smile on his face.

Some time later, when the resin had hardened and set, he tried the backpack on again. The extra vine had made it bulkier but he didn’t mind because it forced the pack to stay snug against his back which would prevent it from throwing him off balance while he was moving. He grinned happily. So worth it!

[Exit Tuck]

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