"Hey, uh, miss Craven?"
Madeira was sitting cross legged in a quiet corner of the open deck against the railing, her skirt tucked in tight under her knees to make a convenient basket for the handful of long, yellow teeth she was working on. One was pinched between her fingers, being furiously sawed at by a short carving knife pilfered from the kitchen. She looked up from her project and squinted into the sun until the speaker came into view. A mane of tightly curled grey hair loomed like a great cloud over a dark, weather-beaten face. His voice was a quiet roll of thunder that came from deep in his chest.
"Chappy?" she blinked in surprise. The man was quiet and kept to himself, unless he was exercising his amazing singing talent. And while he seemed to get along fine with the others, he had not exchanged more than a handful of words with her the entire trip. “Is there something I can help you with?"
"There sure is, miss. Might I have a word?"
Bemused, intrigued and a little flustered, Madeira motioned to the space beside her with the blunt end of the knife and scooted over to make more room for the heavy man. And like everything he did, Chappy sat slowly. Lowering himself to his rump he let out a great gust of a sigh from his bellow lungs while the cheap copper bangles on his wrists chattered noisily. Madeira worried the tip of the knife into the molar she was working on while she waited for the man to speak.
"What's that you got there, miss?"
"Oh, ah, pigs teeth. I'm trying to carve them into stars. Kind of gruesome, isn't it?" she laughed disingenuously, motioning to the small pile of body parts in her lap. "Just something to keep me busy. You know how it is." The fact that she was planning to use the carved teeth for Malediction, she would keep to herself.
Chappy and the men were by now far used to Madeira's and Allister's eccentricities, so he didn't comment on her strange activity. He merely squinted at the tooth in her hand, the surface scratched and sawed half to death in only the most abstract concept of a star, and chuckled nervously. "Well, you'll take your fingers off doing it like that. Here, let me show you."
Madeira handed over the long molar and the pairing knife, which suddenly looked impossibly small in his massive hands.
“You’re taking too big of chunks out of it. Start small and chip away instead of sawing. It’ll save your knife and your fingers.” Holding the knife with his index finger along the back of the blade, he soon had slivers of bone raining from his hands. “And if you go at an angle, like so, you can use less pressure and won’t blunt the blade so fast.” In no time he had nicked one of the five perfectly smooth, deep angles that her stars needed while Madeira watched with wide eyes. “Here, you try.”
WC: 510
Madeira was sitting cross legged in a quiet corner of the open deck against the railing, her skirt tucked in tight under her knees to make a convenient basket for the handful of long, yellow teeth she was working on. One was pinched between her fingers, being furiously sawed at by a short carving knife pilfered from the kitchen. She looked up from her project and squinted into the sun until the speaker came into view. A mane of tightly curled grey hair loomed like a great cloud over a dark, weather-beaten face. His voice was a quiet roll of thunder that came from deep in his chest.
"Chappy?" she blinked in surprise. The man was quiet and kept to himself, unless he was exercising his amazing singing talent. And while he seemed to get along fine with the others, he had not exchanged more than a handful of words with her the entire trip. “Is there something I can help you with?"
"There sure is, miss. Might I have a word?"
Bemused, intrigued and a little flustered, Madeira motioned to the space beside her with the blunt end of the knife and scooted over to make more room for the heavy man. And like everything he did, Chappy sat slowly. Lowering himself to his rump he let out a great gust of a sigh from his bellow lungs while the cheap copper bangles on his wrists chattered noisily. Madeira worried the tip of the knife into the molar she was working on while she waited for the man to speak.
"What's that you got there, miss?"
"Oh, ah, pigs teeth. I'm trying to carve them into stars. Kind of gruesome, isn't it?" she laughed disingenuously, motioning to the small pile of body parts in her lap. "Just something to keep me busy. You know how it is." The fact that she was planning to use the carved teeth for Malediction, she would keep to herself.
Chappy and the men were by now far used to Madeira's and Allister's eccentricities, so he didn't comment on her strange activity. He merely squinted at the tooth in her hand, the surface scratched and sawed half to death in only the most abstract concept of a star, and chuckled nervously. "Well, you'll take your fingers off doing it like that. Here, let me show you."
Madeira handed over the long molar and the pairing knife, which suddenly looked impossibly small in his massive hands.
“You’re taking too big of chunks out of it. Start small and chip away instead of sawing. It’ll save your knife and your fingers.” Holding the knife with his index finger along the back of the blade, he soon had slivers of bone raining from his hands. “And if you go at an angle, like so, you can use less pressure and won’t blunt the blade so fast.” In no time he had nicked one of the five perfectly smooth, deep angles that her stars needed while Madeira watched with wide eyes. “Here, you try.”
WC: 510
