Heavy downpour from the prior day had ruined any plans Niv could make, The rain simmered down and transformed into a beautiful sunny day with the misty breeze that came after rain. Having wasted a day stuck inside her nest, the Tunawa was determined to make the most of the favourable weather by doing something productive and fun. Normally when Niv wanted to be helpful she would go out looking for medicinal herbs but there wasn’t a need for them right now and she didn’t want to be greedy with Moseke's gifts.
Niv didn’t live in a “civilized” home like the Sev’ryn in Desmind but she knew many in Magani that adopted this trend as well as other more civilized means of construction. While it wasn’t how Niv wanted to live she was still interested n the idea.
Niv knew she should have sought out lessons on construction from an expert but she thought it would be more fun to learn by trial and error. She found a thick and sturdy branch to start her work, it was a touch damp from the day before but was otherwise perfect. With her work station picked out, Niv went to work collecting her materials. She climbed down the trunk of the tree and looked for fallen twigs. She fished for one twig floating in the swamp below but the moment she got her hands on the mushy film that covered the soggy twig the Tunawa was instantly turned off the notion. Niv didn’t like the idea of breaking the twigs off poor defenceless trees but it seemed like her only option. Trees seemed too resilient to be bothered by a few missing twigs so Niv had to assume that it was like getting nails clipped or hair cut to a Tree. Niv scurried up the trunk again to the thick branch and walked out to the connecting branches to see if she could break any off for the construction process.
She placed her hands around the base of a twig that seemed ripe for the picking and made a sincere apology to the tree it belonged to before she began to pry the twig free. The first one was a little hard to get free and the recoil almost sent her falling but the second twig she pulled was easier and the one after even more so. She collected the twigs she retrieved into a pile, once she felt it was big enough she would start making the base of her little fort, though she had little idea how that would be done.
Last edited by Niv on Sun Jun 12, 2016 1:28 am, edited 1 time in total. word count: 444
The fruit bat cast a long, thin shadow over the canopy, his wingstrokes beating a soft sound above the treetops. Shea had known Niv was planning to work on her dwelling and had been more than happy to offer her help, perhaps between the two of them, she had thought, they could get something constructed. A crash landing saw her to the right neighbourhood, even if it had been the wrong tree, and Shea held on tight to the short mane of hair around the bat's neck as the creature clawed its way skyward, parking itself upside down in one of the higher branches.
She dropped down onto the branch below and tiptoed across the thin bridge of wood, snatching up a large leaf on her way. At the end of the long weaving limb she spotted Niv and called out to her friend before leaping from the branch end as if it were a diving board. The large leaf she had found slowed her descent, causing her to twist and spin as it cut through the air, leaving Shea dizzy when her feet finally touched down.
Having come to her senses, Shea wobbled along the branch towards Niv and covered her mouth with her free hand to stifle a giggle, green eyes lit up with excitement and knowing, a day spent with Niv was always a day well lived.
"Good morning!" She grinned, waving the leaf back and forth.
Shea had gone to the trouble of doing her hair up this morning, if one could call it that, the long, spider-like silk twisted into a convenient knot in order to keep it out of her way, and was fixed in place with a small stick that she had stripped of its bark before adding natural colours to the wood by grounding up plants, flowers, and bugs. She glanced across at her friend to find that Niv was already well into collecting a pile of twigs to get things started, so Shea looked around for a thin vine, pulling one away from the trunk of the tree to climb down to the forest floor. Once there, she attached the end of the vine to the star shape lead, turning each of the points up in order to secure its load properly.
The rain had left the ground sticky and went, and every Tunawa knew that you couldn't build a home without glue! Nature's glue, as decided by Shea came in three forms, tree gum, wet mud, and lots and lots of spiderweb. With both hands she shovelled mud into the makeshift bucket until it was piled high and scaled the length of the vine quickly before heaving it skyward, countering the weight of the load with her own strength. Once secure, she lifted the leaf piled with wet mud and followed Niv along the branch to her new plot, ready to get started.
After placing another twig she pried free into her growing pile of miniature lumber, Niv heard a familiar voice call out to her from above. Niv looked about in confusion for a short moment before spotting the decent of her long time friend shea. Niv practically squealed the other tunawa’s name before running over and embracing her in a friendly bear hug.
“I’m so glad you came” Niv said as she squeezed a bit harder into the hug. She released Shea and stepped back to marvel at her hair. “I like what you did there” Niv gave a quick gesture towards the coloured twig ornament “It looks very pretty. I should really do more with my hair but it’s doesn’t seem to ever want to listen to me.” She pulled at a strand of her hair which sprang back in place the second she let it go.
Niv had always been a touch envious of the long silky strands of grass that grew from Shea’s head. Niv’s hair was more like twisting grape vines that while beautiful in their own way, didn’t have the versatility other Tunawa hair textures had.
Niv didn’t need to give Shea any instructions, her friend was a hard worker and was already doing what she could the second their greeting was over. Niv didn’t catch on to what her friend was doing at first but it soon became clear once the mound of fresh mud was hoisted up to the branch.
“Oh great thinking” Niv smiled as she looked over the hefty collection of mud that Shea had collected with a clever bit of ingenuity.
It seemed like the next course of action was to set down the foundations.The earthy smell of the fresh dirt was relaxing to Niv as she started to arrange the straitest of the twigs she had collected. She laid them down in a in circle with the ends overlapping to hopefully give the house stability.
“Does this look good? I was thinking we could make a dome shaped house by weaving the twigs with the dirt into a big upside down birds nest, probably with a support beam inside if we feel it needs it.” Niv asked as she gestured with her hands to further illustrate the plan she had in mind.
“I love it!” Shea clapped her hands together gleefully as Niv went on to explain her plan and what she dreamed the house would look like by the time it was finished. As an artist, Shea loved to take design ideas from nature and use them when getting creative. She stood back and watched Niv for a few trills before she got the idea of what her friend was trying to achieve and set to work, helping her build a strong base for the beginning of what would eventually, hopefully, be Niv’s new home.
Shea fixed the ends of the straightest twigs with a few handfuls of mud, just like she had seen some of the local birds do with their nests, but unlike the birds, the two of them were missing a key ingredient, one Shea rose to scan the forest floor for. She was looking for grass and would prefer some of the half dead, dried out stuff she had often seen sparrows fighting over from time to time, which grew around the tufts, new stuff springing from the middle as the old curled up and faded away about the outer edges.
“Ah, there’s some!” She beamed and ran past Niv to tiptoe along the branch and scale down the trunk of the tree for the grass she had spotted, but not without taking a playful little swipe at her friend’s backside, where she left her muddy little handprint with a giggle, and dashed away, making a race of things as she often did.
On the forest floor the tufts of grass were twice the height of the little Tunawa, and she pushed her way through the jungle of flora to make her way to the best picking spot, sweeping up handfuls of old, yellow blades of grass to tuck under one of her arms. Soon, she was almost done with her collection, when a young fawn skipped up to her, which saw the little woman cower in the shadow of the animal, who bowed its head to snatch up part of her collection.
“Hey!” Shea scolded, pulling on the grass she had worked hard to gather in order to attempt to steal it away from the young doe’s grasp. “That’s mine, you give it back!”
The fawn shook its head with a sneeze, sending Shea and her collection flying. She landed with a light thump and blinked, looking down at her empty arms. The Tunawa threw her hands up and scrambled to her feet, hurriedly collecting the yellow grass she could see, some of which was still floating down to land on the ground all around her.
The makeshift pulley was put to use again, one hand thrown in front of the other to heave the heavy basket (as far as Shea was concerned), up into the treetops. She wandered along the branch and set the pile down with a delighted smile. “What do you think? I could weave you some rope to hold everything together?”
Niv replied with enthusiastic bird chips to her friends approval and was happy to see that her ideas had sparked creative interest in shea. They quickly went back to work slowly stacking the twigs and packing them with fresh mud as a team. Niv kept pace with Shea for the most part but would stop ever so often to pack the mud harder of to straighten a sticks alignment. She was adding some more mud to one spot that seemed to be lacking when Shea suddenly called out about something. Niv was about to ask what she meant when she felt a sudden slap of chilled mud hit her back, causing her to spasm at the sudden sensation. Knowing Shea, Niv understood that her friend was challenging her to a race and Niv wasn’t a Tunawa who backed down from a challenge.
Chirping like a territorial squirrel was Niv’s way of playfully trash talking during the race as she charged after her opponent. Niv wasn’t even completely sure what the goal of their competition was but she wanted to be the one gloating at the end. Landing on the ground with a big thud she sprang up as quickly as she could to scan for the appearance of shea. It became clear to Niv that the challenge was to collect as much grass as possible after he caught sight of Shea tearing at the long green strands. A fire lighted in Niv and she dashed towards the grass determined to leave Shea in the dust. While Niv furiously collected the grass, she heard a squabble break out between Shea and a fawn. Niv wanted to win their little competition but she couldn’t allow her friend to get pushed around. With a deep and veracious growl of a raccoon which was the most veracious creature Niv could imitate, Niv struck fear in the creature. The easily spooked fawn scampered away and Niv helped Shea collect the grass she had gathered.
“We’ll call this a tie but next time I’m going to beat you.” Niv smirked in a playful manner. Niv headed back to the tree with the help of Shea’s pulley system and set the materials they gathered down with the others.
“Oh yes please do, a rope would be great.” Niv nodded her head with a smile as she went back to packing more mud and twigs. She stopped her work as a sudden idea jumped into her head and turned back to Shea to share it.
“I wonder if the grass seed would grow with the house of if they would resist one another?”
Niv looked down where they had just been, in one of the few grassy areas within the wet land under Magani. Not much of the grass produced seeds yet but there were still a few with pods.
“I’m going to go gather some seeds, if you can think of other things to add to our fort just call them out to me.” With that Niv jumped of the end of the long branch.
Shea was always so inspired by her friend's enthusiasm and unique ideas, having a house that grew grass from its walls would disguise the place perfectly and Shea could imagine all of the fun Niv would have cutting different shapes into the new green shoots. She sat on the branch with her long, lean legs hung over the edge, tiny toes pointed at the ground below as she watched Niv weave her way through the jungle of grass to find the tufts which had already sprouted seeds.
"Acorn shells!" Shea cooed and pointed, Niv could use them like containers to hold the grass seed she collected.
Slowly she weaved the dry strands of grass she had collected into a few lengths of makeshift rope, careful to make sure that she was following the right pattern, right side over the middle, followed by the left. Shea stacked the rope once she was done with it and climbed down the trunk of the tree to join Niv in her hunt for grass seed when she stumbled upon the skeletal remains of what looked like it had once been a small bird, perhaps a blue jay. Shea picked up the skull by its long white beak and placed it on her head as if it were a hat. With the front tipped down to looked through the eye holes, Shea scooped up an acorn shell and started filling it with grass seed, she had plans to paint the bird skull black and decorated it with small, yellow markings and lines, a house warming gift for Niv.
"What about a door?" She turned around to ask her friend and mimicked the call of a passing bird.
“Oh thank you” Niv called up into the tree tops as she looked about for fallen acorns. The squirrels had already started to collect the fallen treats but luckily they didn’t snag them all. In the wet dew of the grass she found one solitary acorn, laying gently on the damp forest floor. Niv quickly grabbed it and began prying at the top, it a tricky little nut but the tunawa was able to twist the top free with a great deal of effort. With her bowl ready she bent the long stock of grass until the seed pod was where she wanted it. Niv then started plucking the seeds out and throwing them into her acorn bowl. She had gathered enough to fill her acorn bowl but on her way up the tree a few fell. It bound to happen but it meant that a simple task required more time than she had hoped. Niv leaped down the trunk again and went on a scavenger hunt for her fallen seeds and stubbed upon the acorn bottom. She decided to take it again as a present for her squirrel friend Skret, who always seemed to be scrambling to get food for the winter.
“A door? I’ve never had a house with a door before.” Niv pondered Shea’s question once she made her way back. Niv hadn’t ever had a door for her house it had always been just a open hole in a tree. The tunawa looked over what was available and arranged the possibilities in her mind. They could could hang ropes from the ceiling or hang a scrap piece of fabric in front, but those seemed to simple.
“How about we tie or weave some of these twigs twigs into a door?” Niv made her pitch but she wasn’t ever certain how possible it was “ If it doesn’t work will just put a leaf in front of the door or some kind of blanket”
Niv went back to work, placing the seeds gently into the dirt as she packed it with the twigs. It was nearly at Niv’s waist when she realized she needed a bit more twigs. She started prying a few more free when she started to think of possible decorations for her house.
“Do you see any feathers around, I feel like this house needs feathers.”
Shea held her hand up, balled into a fist with her thumb pointed skyward from where she stood down below on the ground. The twigs sounded like a great idea for the door and would let a lot of sunlight in to help make the place feel warm and inviting. The young Tunawa was very fond of hunting for bird feathers. She climbed the trunk of the tree, her arms growing tired from all the running back and forth, though she appeared in high spirits. She took a shortcut to the floor of the forest, leaping from the branch once again after plucking a large leaf free, only to float to the ground, spinning like a winged tree seed.
On the ground the hunt began, acorn shell at the ready, the only problem was, sending Shea out to hunt for treasures was a bit like sending a thirsty dog to the river and asking him not to drink, she had real restraint issues when it came to collecting things and wouldn't stop at feathers. There were small, brown snail shells, flowers she looked forward to pressing in order to dry them out and decorate the inside walls of Niv's home with, and all kinds of smooth little stones just begging to be painted.
Half a break into her search, Shea came across an upturned bird's nest that looked to have fallen out of its tree some time ago, perhaps after a storm of particularly windy day. She heaved, lifting the nest up to flip over and examine what remained of the broken egg shells underneath, the contents of the little blue eggs long dried up. She collected up the pieces of shell and started plucking feathers from the nest, red, green, and yellow, causing her to think a parrot must have once called the nest home. When she had enough feathers, she returned to the tree tops where Niv was busy working on the door, and put down all that she had found.
"What do you think?" The little green woman beamed and plucked a red feather from the pile to put in her own hair before taking a bright yellow one to contrast the deep green of Niv's hair.
“You out did yourself Shea!” Niv gleefully proclaimed as she looked over the treasure trove of materials Shea had collected. Niv had wondered if she had made the right decision letting her friend go out looking for decorations knowing how distracted Shea could get. It was good to see that the other tunawa hadn’t become too distracted and she saw great potential in making their fort the best fort that had ever been made ever.
“Oh thank you! It’s beautiful” Niv gushed as she spun the feather in her hand. The gift inspired her to do a preform a dance using the colourful object as a prop. The agile Tunawa waved the feather about as if it were an elegant fan and pranced and spun about with it like it was an extension of her body. She let the gentle breeze inspire her movements, and didn’t follow any particular pattern. Niv only stopped when she looked back on the still unfinished fort.
“Sorry I got carried away” Niv slumped in embarrassment and shuffled back to the fort. The tunawa placed the feather in her hair next to her ear and while she couldn’t see it, the decorative feather made her feel fancy. Niv continued to work on the house until the two had built the structure into a decent sized dome.
“Okay now lets decorate it” She held both fists up in triumph, feeling a great sense of accomplishment from finishing a project she had little experience in. The nest was slightly misshapen in a few areas but was still great for a first attempt. Niv was sure any bird in Makubwa Lori would have loved to have a nest as solid.
Picking up one of the hollow snail shells, Niv placed it on one of the sticks that poked out. The snail shell hung on the twig will enough but Niv took a hand full of mug and patted it down around the shell to secure it.
Inspired by Niv's moves, Shea danced along the tree branch, turning slowly as she tiptoed this way and that, moving with the music of the forest and the light breeze that saw the tree leaves rustle. Niv, suddenly shy, had returned to the task at hand with the focus shifted from building to decorating, something else Shea enjoyed. She worked away quietly, mimicking the odd bird song every now and then without realising what she was doing, having been so absorbed in her work. After a while, and with most of their resources exhausted, the little Tunawa woman brushed her hands together and stood back to look at their masterpiece, which was certainly something, even if not very masterful.
"A touch more mud over the next few trials and it should start to take shape," Shea encouraged, willing Niv to keep working on the new house, even in her absence. "I should be getting home myself, Tere will be wondering why I've been gone so long," she smiled and picked up the things she had collected to work on at home, like the small bird skull Shea planned for paint and decorate with pretty patterns before offering it to Niv as a housewarming gift of sorts.
"You know you're more than welcome anytime, and if you need more help, just drop by," Shea winked and whistled for the fruit bat who had hidden himself up in the treetops, sniffing around for any ripe fruit. It had been a busy day and Shea was looking forward to all of the crafting she had planned. "See you soon," she waved her hand before wiggling her fingers and climbed up the trunk of the tree.