Traveling on such extended expeditions is not without dangers and challenges. One such challenge is keeping our clothing in working order. I’ve replaced my clothing several times over the course of this expedition, although the boots Pelmarco had me buy in Sehol four years ago are still in decent condition, withstanding all the rigors I can put them through. The last town we passed through where we could obtain fresh clothing was Kaluna about a year ago. Since then, we’ve traveled through jungle, savannah, grassland, hill countries, and every other type of rugged land I can think of except the arctic, which I hope to avoid from now on. Some of our clothing is thin and threadbare. Some has holes that we’ve attempted to patch.
Today, Dawn tore a rather large hole in her pants while trying to catch a bird in a tree. She was successful in catching the bird, but her pants did not survive her vigorous acrobatics on a rough tree branch. Niahla’Sen thinks she can provide a temporary mend that will last a few days, but we’ll need to patch Dawn’s pants with some deer hide or something else that can withstand the rigors of her antics. With the rest of our clothing also having minor holes and patches, we might need to spend a day, perhaps tomorrow, just performing maintenance on our clothing. If we cannot repair our clothing, we’ll continue on to Atalan, but we’d probably arrive naked.
The bird Dawn caught was a species of large waterfowl that nests in trees. The gray plumage is an interesting accessory for her to use in the various ways she does. Some feathers she will use on arrows, and others she will use as decoration. I doubt it will be as ornately interesting as the colorful headdress she made when we were nearing the Razhin Jungle, but it’s always interesting to see what she does. She said she’ll need to wash the feathers first. I guess waterfowl tend to smell like the fish they eat, or at least this species does.