Just more dye-making, but anyone's welcome at any time!

Elspet was on another sort of adventure, today - she was in a thousand-year-old cage or marrow and ferns. Her knuckles brushed against a bit of pale white spine every once in a while, and multiple times she scuffled up into a bipedal stance and shuffled away.

Her glass jars and trinkets clacking against one another was enough, at least, to remind her to not be so easily frightened. She had yet to figure out how glass-making worked, and the Blacksmith wasn't too readily available for advice. Maybe other older Gembound would know...

At last, coming into a small clearing with shorter ferns on either side and creeping mosses along the floor, Elspet plopped down. She took out her supplies in practiced order: jars and bottles; corks; smaller leaf-bags; mortar and pestle. The crinkling of her bag was reminder enough that she needed to work on fashioning a fresh one, but it would hold well enough for now.

The gorilla extended a lanky arm towards one of the ribs embedded into the wall, then another. Holding a bowl beneath the curve of the bone, Elspet tapped away at it, very gently breaking off chunks of the bone into it. She settled back down, scooting so that her back was pressed against the wall and she could idly work away at crushing the bone into a fine powder.

Crushed Bone acquired!

Deli

Deli was busy wandering around Eridanus, picking off berry after berry after berry, refilling as much of their dyes as they could - just the base colors. It wasn't difficult, Eridanus was teeming with life. Flowers and berries and feathers all over the place, just waiting for an artistic eye to pick them off the ground and stuff into an old satchel that hung at their waste.

It should be noted that, at this time, Deli still wasn't too accustomed to their new body - stumbling easily over roots and completely face-planting multiple times, tripping over everything in their path and stumbling on their own feet. Finer motor controls would come with practice, but they might as well get something done while they were at it. Not that Eridanus was a good place at all to be practicing how to walk.

They, the tripped on, stopping every so often to pick up more plants and shove them mercilessly into their bag. It was probably a disaster in there at this point since they weren't exactly stopping to crush them all into dyes. They didn't mind, though - as long as they had them it was fine. Not that the bag would last much longer - the seams were already starting to burst and the tears were getting larger.

At one point, Deli once again tripped over...something, probably a blade of grass, and went stumbling into the same clearing that Elspet was sitting in, trying desperately to catch their balance and failing completely, falling flat on their face into the moss, the glass and crystal in their bag tinkling dangerously loud as they banged against each other. How they all hadn't broken yet was a mystery.

Spitting out dirt and grass, Deli pushed themselves onto their knees, brushing away what plant-life had gotten on their fur before glancing up, catching sight of the gorilla before them. They paused. Just another gembound, probably, but the supplies in front of her sent a jolt through their spine. A smile spread quickly on their face - a genuine one - and they barked happily. "Oh! You! A fellow artist! You have all the stuff!" They gestured vaguely at the supplies in front of Elspet, shuffling closer without asking permission to get a closer look.

---

@Elspet

Elspet was just enjoying her bone-crushing escapades when some strange manner of creature rough and tumbled right into the clearing. She gave a sort hooh? as the white figure smashed into view, face-planting completely onto a rather long snout. The great ape pursed her lips slightly, and grimaced. That had to hurt.

But, just as she set down her bowl to take a look, the canine(-like!) being stood and seemed to absolutely light up at the sight of her many tools of the dye trade. Electric eyes peered at them for a moment, before Ellie just burst out into cheerful laughter and nodded, "yes, I do!" She glanced at the dog's satchel, and hummed, "do ya' got the stuff, too?" It sure looked like it. The poor thing was nearly bursting at the seams!

Keeping her hands busy, Elspet picked her bowl back up and tipped it into a water-filled bottle, rotating it gently so that it dissolved. With a resounding hum, she held it to the light and asked the dog, "y'got any bark? I'm thinkin' any kinda tree bark'll do. I'm Elspet, by the by." It was never too late for an introduction!

@Deli

Deli

Deli grinned widely at the short laughter that Elspet let out for him, allowing a small chuckle of their own to fall from their jaws. Oh, hey, she had a sense of humor! Yeah, their nose kinda hurt but also that must have looked pretty ridiculous! They saw her eyeing their bag and they excitedly pulled it close, opening the top to reveal the rather messy contents within. "I do, I do! Gotta restock - used a lot of it recently, but there's lotsa berries to pick!"

They sat themselves next to Elspet and flipped their bag over unceremoniously. There was a very large amount of noise as various glass, crystal, and other bottles crashed onto the ground and various other materials plopped into the moss between them. The entire inside of the bag was wet with dye. It seemed that a vial or two (or four) of paint had broken during their clumsy tumble through the forest. Curious, they carefully picked out the bits of glass shards that were scattered about. "Oops," they chattered cheerily, "Spilled a bit! But it'll be fine!"

Disregarding the spilled dyes, they shuffled through all the materials they'd picked up in eridanus until they raised up a fairly large slab of tree bark. "Here ya go! Straight from a tree! People call me delirious but I like Deli better!" They handed off the bark to Elspet before pulling their own materials towards them. They had all the colors they could find - save for the red, green, purple, and white that had broken in the bag - and opened each vial accordingly as they began crushing berries in their paws to quite messily shove into the class containers. It seemed they hadn't noticed how ridiculously messy they were being.

---

@Elspet

"Restock?!" Elspet guffawed, thick brow hiking up nearly to the ceiling at seeing just how much was in there, "you're needin' a whole 'nother bag there, kiddo!"

She couldn't help but cringe as the spry pup just upturned the entire bag without any dramatic or careful flair, sending a whole bunch of crystals, resources, dyes, et cetera just crashing all over the mossy floor. Vivid eyes could only watch on with the horror of a mother watching her child scribble on the freshly painted walls. Maybe it was organized chaos, but good Caves, it was chaos indeed! Elspet tried and failed to help in cleaning up the glass shards, but there were just too many and now her hands were smudged with either red paint or blood. (Who knew which it could be?)

But, alas, Elspet couldn't help but continue to laugh at the eager-beaver nature of this kid. They were cheery even in the face of a million pieces of glass and precious broken bottles. She accepted the slab of tree bark graciously, snapping off a (gorilla) fist-sized hunk and passing the rest back to Deli - "well, it sure is a pleasure meeting you, Deli." The great ape crushed the bark in her hand and sifted it into the bottle. She corked it and shook it vigorously.

She was going to test out her creation in a moment, but first... a little word of advice for Deli: "what if ya' add another strap to that bag? So it won't shuffle around as much 'n break stuff inside?"

Bark-like Keratin dye created!

@Deli
lmfao ignore that attempt m'guy

Deli

Deli looked at their bag and chuckled along with the gorilla. Haha, maybe she was right! Maybe they could try making a new one. They’d never really tried doing tangible art before, only paintings and stuff! ”Ah, yeah, maybe! But I like my bag, I’ve always had it!” It was one of their few things of attachement. Sure, they liked all their paints and stuff, but those could just be replaced. They’d picked up this bag when they were young and had been carrying it around ever since.

They saved the vials that they could - there were still a number of them left, considering that a fair few were made of crystal. He’d scavenged them from all over the caves, but someone in Polaris had a pretty nice stock of crystal. That they’d just kinda taken. Hey, they were unused and dusty, might as well!

They started crushing berries and feathers in their paw-hands and doing the same as Elspet, dropping them into different vials to replenish the dyes that they’d lost in the crash. ”Hm? Another strap?” They considered as they crushed a white feather between their paws (and spit into it to make it more paint-y). ”That’s a good idea! How do I do that though? Don’t know how!”

---

@Elspet

Elspet laughed along, perfectly familiar with sentimentality. "I get'ya there, kiddo - I'm gonna have to make another bag at some point. This one's definitely fallin' to bits." With a flourish, she lifted it up and showed Deli the various tears and holes in it. "Nothin' a few leaves can't do," she shrugged off.

The great ape poured out a little bit of her newly-produced dye, smudging it between her index and middle fingers. She twisted around to smear it along a moss-free patch of wall. Her eyes fixed upon the spot for a moment, watching as it seemed to form a strange, bark-like shell on the wall. Now, wasn't that neat?

Attention no longer divided, she corked the bottle and put it back in her oversized purse. "Could maybe use some vines! Just twist a couple 'round each other or braid 'em, and tie the end. Nice and simple."

@Deli

Deli

Deli continued smashing berries and feathers between their paws - far less elegant then the mortar and pestel that Elspet had, and far more messier, but it go the job done as they stuffed the finished paint into one of the vials, wiped their paws on the ground, licked off the residue, corked the vial of white paint, and moved onto the next - red this time.

Deli looked closely at the bag that Elspet was showing them as they began smashing red berries between their paws. They giggled a bit as their eyes moved over all the holes and patched in the purse the gorilla was carrying. "Maybe try using fur or skin! When you eat a thing, just eat the meat and not the outside part and use that instead! I think that's how my bag was made!" They touched the beat-up exterior of their bag. It certainly felt like animal hide, maybe a little different, pretty old, but definitely not plants.

Their eyes flicked up towards where Elspet was smearing her new paint against the wall and eyes widened as it hardened, looking almost similar to the bark of a tree. They jerked forward, stumbling a bit in their haste to look closer, an expression of amazement plastered across their face. "Oh wow! How did you do that? What did you do? Is it magic?" They poked at the drying paint - it really did feel like a tree!

---

@Elspet

Elspet shook her head gently, "ah, kid - I don't use these big 'ol teeth for eatin' things." As much as she could do that, nothing about the act appealed to her. In the natural wild, meat might be a highly sought-after commodity, but since nutritional deficiencies seemed to not exist down here, the great ape had the luxury of choosing not to. Also, she was proudly vegan. "I'm big on fruits and veggies!" She shrugged a burly shoulder, setting down her mortar and pestle. "Y'ever tried eatin' em? There's some real tasty bunches I can show ya."

Because, again, nutrition seemed to not matter when you were in hot pursuit of food you didn't have to actually chase down of kill.

"But," the gorilla warned, because her inner grandma was coming out, "y'can't just eat anything you come across. You'll get sick, kiddo." Elspet laughed softly, remembering all the times she'd gotten sick and had to sleep outside of her and her beloved's den so she didn't puke in the moss-bed.

But, anyways: magic paint. "I wouldn't say it's magic, Deli - but it may as well be," she guffawed, reaching out with a calloused palm to feel the bark-like dye. "It's just a little experimentin,' and learnin' how to make a few of them from some tall 'ol thing... the Blacksmith or somethin' or another." Elspet extended a forearm idly, "this is pretty funky, too." She rubbed at the geometric patterns criss-crossing and dancing over her fur, seeming to shift colors in the light. Static ran harshly through the dye, making her hair stand on end. "It likes electricity a lot," and here the gorilla grinned, eager and clearly up to no good.

She stretched out a finger, to give a staticky poke to Deli's nearest shoulder, "and electricity likes you."

@Deli

Deli

Deli looked up at Elspet curiously. What, she didn’t eat meat? Like, at all? They’d never actually had a conversation about diets to anyone before so this was pretty wild. They tilted their head. ”Why not, it’s tasty!” Their teeth bared in a wide smile. ”I’ve eaten berries and stuff but I like meat better! Would rather have a warm meal then a cold one!”

Deli continued rubbing at the bark-like paint. Of course it was magic - paints didn’t just do that unless it was already on a bark-y surface! Maybe it was risidual magic that did it, but Deli wanted to make some of that too, that was really cool! They hadn’t even really thought to experiment with different materials before, only trying to mix different base colors with the dyes they already had.

But when Elspet extended her arm, Deli squealed with excitement and reached forward to gently touch the lines across her skin. They hadn’t noticed that before - that was amazing! ”Wowie, oh wow did you do that? That’s so cool! How did you make it? I mean, I know how to seal paint but how did you make that paint?” They looked back at themselves, looking over their own markings - hastily scribbled over white and black fur, messy, far less nice-looking then Elspet’s markings.

They were so elated and deep in thought that they didn’t notice Elspet’s finger coming out until it had touched their noise. They squealed and for a second time froze for them as their mind whirled into action. Obviously, this was a threatening gesture - the nose was sensitive, very easy to hurt and maim. They had to get ready to fight again, just like they’d done against Alpha. Because everyone wanted to hurt them, probably. Everyone else was really really mean. They didn’t want to get killed again.

But then rational thought broke through a fraction of a second later and reminded Deli that...no, no this was okay. Elspet was nice. Gentle. Kind. Loving. Stability. They’d only known her a brief few minutes, but she had shown them more kindness than anyone else in the caves.

They still flinched back, a myriad of emotions crossing over their face, all hidden by the thin veil of their smile, but then it settled on a genuine giggle that escaped through their chest and out their jaws as they tumbled back. ”Hey!” they barked, but there was no real hurt behind the word. How could there be?

---

@Elspet