Tools of the Trade

[snarky-raptor.livejournal.com]

Sharp Tongue has everything she owns spread out in a corner of the Obs Deck, where she's hovering over it jealously and arranging it with loving care as she makes sure it's all in order. The entire contents of her shaman's bag, and the bag itself, are here. Strange pastes and dried herbs and oddly shaped bits of stone, bone, and occasionally metal. Tools. All the mixtures and some dry ingredients are contained in various ways. Glass bottles are frequent, most of these in still-usable pieces with the few that are whole and stoppered containing some kind of mysterious liquid. Also common are things that at least appear to be the round bowls formed by the insides of broken skulls. Something whitish and about the consistency of cold butter is held in a sizable sea shell.

The bag itself is designed to hang across Sharp Tongue's back and against her left side, it's made of thick brown triceratops hide. Strange sigils have been apparently branded into it, usually in three claw slash motif. There are smears of paint in similar markings across it, in yellow and white and red. Hanging from the edges of the bag are teeth, feathers, and some claws. The biggest of these are two velociraptor hunting talons near the front.

It's a grisly assortment of things and doesn't smell all that great, but they all clearly seem to have a meaning to Sharp Tongue.

She's muttering to herself indistinctly as she goes over them, occasionally growling or hissing. She appears to have restored her body paint, having drawn long white and red slashed up and down her sides and legs, and a few across the muzzle for good measure. They're not sacred paint and they weren't done by Narrow Face, but they will have to do.

Comments

[raptorwithagun.livejournal.com]

Red Snout approaches, a bit cautious for now. Sharp Tongue is normally amicable enough, but she's pretty grumpy when you bother her and she's busy. So he's naturally hesitant. He hisses quietly.

"Ssst. Sharp Tongue."

[snarky-raptor.livejournal.com]

Sharp Tongue straightens quickly and turns to face Red Snout. Ordinarily she'd tell him to go away, but she's in a slightly better mood right now because she has her stuff back.

"What do you want, Red Snout?" she asks, suppressing the desire to make an irritated chuffing noise.

[raptorwithagun.livejournal.com]

He hop-skips to the side, feeling rather awkward now. She managed to do it herself, but he would feel better if a shaman did it...

"I need help with my paint." He grumbles, barely loud enough to be heard.

[snarky-raptor.livejournal.com]

Sharp Tongue brightens just slightly. This is something she knows how to do, it's part of her job.

"I am not Narrow Face," she says. "I do not have the sacred paints of the tribe shaman, but I will do what I can." She inspects the paint already there.

"You did this yourself, yes?" she asks, already ducking back to her rows of mixtures and dragging a few pieces of skulls over with a claw, along with a bare one for mixing.

[raptorwithagun.livejournal.com]

Red Snout pauses a moment at her question, tapping one claw against his snout. To be honest, the human had helped him...but Sharp Tongue would laugh him out of her sight if he said that, almost certainly.

"Yes...I wasn't sure if I would be able to reach my flanks correctly." He says, opting for a small white lie and a question to distract the shaman.

You have been Drive-by Sawyer'd!!

[ford-sawyer-815.livejournal.com]

Sawyer was moving down the corridor, making his way back from the Mess Hall toward the transport tube that he would take back down to the city so that he could get back to work on the Vatican. Not that there was much left that he could do by himself but, considering help in getting the place ready as kind of fort that they could all take refuge in if things ever went south hadn't exactly been forthcoming, Sawyer was determined to do what he could. If only to save his own skin down the road.

But, it was as he was making his way down the corridor that he passed the Obs Deck and saw... Well, he saw... That couldn't be right. Now way. Not a chance.

He blinked once. Twice. Thrice. It was still there.

He pinched himself. Still there.

There, in the middle of the Obs Deck, was a dinosaur...putting on make-up.

"What in the holy hell...," he practically shouted in disbelief. "Does this place ever stop being weird? Who invited the transvestite reptile?"

Re: You have been Drive-by Sawyer'd!!

[snarky-raptor.livejournal.com]

Sharp Tongue's head snaps up. She gives him an Unnerving Shaman Stare and narrows her eyes a little.

"What do you want, human?" she asks, with a touch of a growl in her tone. She's organizing her things! Also, depending on how he responds, she might glean some kind of insight as to his station in this human tribe that would be useful to her.

[ford-sawyer-815.livejournal.com]

After what he just saw, there was only one response Sawyer could ever give: "I could use some Tums right about now."

[snarky-raptor.livejournal.com]

Sharp Tongue chuffs. "I do not know what a "Tums" is but if you are incapable of locating and killing one yourself it is no affair of mine."

[ford-sawyer-815.livejournal.com]

"Right... Thanks," Sawyer answered sarcastically. Then, without another word, he resumed his walk toward the transport tubes. That settled it. He was sticking to the city even more than he had been. This place had just crossed a line into a realm of weird that even Sawyer thought was too far.

[wantstobebatman.livejournal.com]

McNinja stops short as he comes out onto the obs deck. All he'd really wanted to do was go for a walk and take a break from trying to absorb all the stuff he was trying to teach himself to use in the med-lab.

But... well... CLEARLY he'd missed something BIG the last round of new arrivals.

He approaches the raptor very very cautiously (because, DUDE, RAPTOR!) looking over the paint markings and the obvious interest it's taking in the objects laid out before it. He also tries to remind himself that he's punched out Yoshi at least once when necessary to settle his nerves.

"Oh my goodness..."

[snarky-raptor.livejournal.com]

Sharp Tongue's head comes around on a long, narrow neck to give the Doc a bit of a raptor scowl.

"You are the second interruption I have taken in organizing my tools. What is it that so fascinates you pinkskins about a shaman's work?" she grumbles. She doesn't consider Red Snout an interruption, that was normal raptorness.

[wantstobebatman.livejournal.com]

McNinja just STARES for a minute (and internally prays not to get his face bitten off).

".....oh dear lord you talk."

He clears his throat, feeling like an idiot all of a sudden. "Sorry. Just... never met a dinosaur that talks."

[snarky-raptor.livejournal.com]

Sharp Tongue turns around fully. She's not being particularly threatening, handclaws tucked against the chest rather than at the ready.

"Then you have seen dinosaurs, yes?" she asks, a little more firmly than is necessary. "That is more than can be said for the rest of your lot. I do not doubt they were stupid herbivores." Sharp Tongue understands vaguely that humans use dinosaurs as mounts in their cities sometimes, insane as this seems to her.

[wantstobebatman.livejournal.com]

"No, actually, Yoshi's a raptor about your size but he doesn't talk. My sidekick Gordito rides him places. He's a raptor bandit see."

Doc is actually kind of fond of Yoshi, now that he's gotten over how he trashed his office that first time.

"Hey, did you say you were a shaman?"

Yes yes, getting to the important details now that he's finished processing the 'holyshitdinosaurontheship' moment.

[anoldtrickster.livejournal.com]

"It'd make good rituals so much easier if there was any livestock," Wednesday comments as smooth as silk. He's bizarrely stealthy, for a human, and for a moment it might seem as if he could have almost come up out of nowhere. "Any livestock that wouldn't complain about being sacrificed, anyway."

[snarky-raptor.livejournal.com]

Sharp Tongue is slightly startled. She didn't notice Wednesday approaching, which is surprising to her due to her being a raptor.

"There is no honor in killing something penned," she says. "If you must eat, then it is necessary. Rituals work better from a kill that took skill and cunning."

[anoldtrickster.livejournal.com]

"But if you have to kill penned things to eat, then giving up even one can be a potent sacrifice, in the right situation... and sacrifices have much power in them."

He slides a little closer, sitting cross-legged, to get a better look at those things that Sharp Tongue has laid out.

[snarky-raptor.livejournal.com]

She looks at Wednesday, though it's hard to say what she's thinking as she does so. Raptor faces aren't very expressive, and she's being intentionally blank anyway.

"Perhaps," she allows. It bothers her when someone else makes a point. Especially about shamanship, which is her sole claim to status.

"Do not touch any of my things," she adds, flexing her toe claws a little and with a growl on the tail of the words.

[anoldtrickster.livejournal.com]

"I wouldn't dream of it," Wednesday says, his tone suddenly shifting from biting but half-joking to deadly serious. He does seem rather intent on watching, though.

[worm-dancer.livejournal.com]

Sheeana is on a similar errand, having filtered as much Spice she can out of her food and the sand her worm came in. Frankly, she needs this. Her eyes, totally blue in both pupil and sclera, attest to the addiction.

It would be wisest to take it somewhere private, hidden away in the bowels of the ship where she can shudder her way through a deep spice trance. There's something about the stars though...The rushing void, twinkling voices of light calling her to the alam al mithal, the place of spirits. She was a Bene Gesserit and didn't really believe anything mystical was happening. But she was also Fremen, and so she believed despite her nonbelief.

She measured a careful amount into her palm from her little hand satchel. Before she could quaff it, however, she noticed she was not alone in the room...

[snarky-raptor.livejournal.com]

The raptor in the corner looks up from her neat array of possessions, eying Sheeana with no small amount of curiosity.

She's carrying something. Something with a smell to it that Sharp Tongue does not know.

"What is that?"

Sharp Tongue, being almost the shaman of her tribe, is something of an expert on substances. It bothers her when she encounters something she can't identify.

[worm-dancer.livejournal.com]

The greenish powder she holds in her hand smells of flint and cinnamon and tastes...exactly like what you love to eat most.

She smiles wryly at the tiny pyramid in her hand, a small piece of her homeworld there with her. "This is the Spice. It extends life...expands consciousness...and opens the gate to the Land where Men Walk without Footprints." Her voice is tinged with a Fremen's reverence. This is Shai Halud's gift, after all.

[snarky-raptor.livejournal.com]

"The Spice," Sharp Tongue repeats. She can hear the reverence, the respect with which Sheeana treats this stuff. It's clearly sacred to the human in some way.

"This is a thing of your tribe, then?" She rarely meets humans that even pretend to know anything about spirits. The Swiftclaw have a few things of their own that they consider to be deeply spiritual, a few of which Sharp Tongue herself has. But they aren't as real as the Spice.

[worm-dancer.livejournal.com]

"It belongs to us by right, though outsiders are always trying to steal it." She allows the Fremen side of herself to take over, flowing into their simple reverence.

"This is a strong dose. It's taken me some time to refine this...You at least came with your tools." Sheeana glances at the array Sharp Tongue's spread out. Her worm and its Spice are valuable, but oh the things she could do with those things...