Year 3 Day 25

I don’t know why I worried about clothes.

African sunset, Emlyn AddisonI teleported to where Storm Cloud had said their last camp would be well into the afternoon, to find them still present. Songbird caught me by the hand at once, and pulled me toward the shaman’s hut. “Hurry, hurry, she cried, “we must adorn you!” The next thing I knew I was being stripped and elaborately dressed in beautifully tanned leather, covered with designs in ivory and shell beads, porcupine quills, and carved bone. At least the loincloth they gave me didn’t chafe like mine. Perhaps I could trade for some properly tanned leather?

I managed to talk them out of dressing my hair with mud, but not out of the strongly scented fat they rubbed into it. Not that it made much difference, as they then covered it with a creation of feathers, fur and more beads that covered my head to such an extent that I could hardly see. Then they proceeded to paint designs on whatever skin was still visible. I think most of the paint was colored mud, though a thinner red color seemed to be some kind of vegetable dye.

The final step was a heavy leopard skin, complete with head and tail, to wear as a cloak. By this time I was sweating profusely in the heat, and felt more like jumping into the lake nearby to cool off than accompanying them along the shores to the meeting place, where a bonfire was already lighting up the darkening twilight.

“Ah,” said Storm Cloud with satisfaction. “Now you look like the god you are.”

I almost teleported back to the shelter.