[His response is a photo of his scroll, and the most recent uploaded pic: it's of Taylor, a few minutes prior, like someone was standing beside her to take the photo, curled up around her carving like a cranky mother griffin.]
watching you disappoint your summer camp counselors
[that works for her. She sets her communicator on the deck beside her legs, and goes back to carving away tiny slivers of wood, trying to fix that shape.]
I don’t want a bird - no offense, Flap. I’m just practicing technique. Trying to get the shapes to come out kind of like I picture in my head.
It's not that they're the odd ones out, they're more of a signature. But insect palismen are pretty common! Captain has one- uh, Willow, her palisman Clover was a bee, and Skara has a hopper.
If we'd gotten here... [She pauses for a moment, the top of her tongue between her teeth as she carefully makes another shallow curving cut, and then continues.]
- before I went home, I'd probably have gone for a bee. Or a gu. Though I bet they're both hard to carve.
Give me a few minutes, just gotta wait for Dr. Reid.
[But it's not long, and for once he races out the door rather than linger and chat with the other doctor. And Flapjack finds her first, giving a loud cheep before he settles in to land on her knee, examining the attempted palisman with intense curiosity.
And Hunter's there a moment later to sit down beside her.]
She shows Flapjack the chunky, blocky little figure, which could optimistically be said to resemble him. The beak is wildly asymmetrical and the tail very short and stubby.
Flapjack bounces as he tilts his head, flicking his tail and head to try and match the angles on the knobby first attempt.
Hunter just chuckles, as he gently takes the result and the chisel.
"I've done some research on palismen before, but- not as much on carving." He still looks the work over curiously. "But I'm pretty sure you're meant to follow the grain - see the direction the wood lines go?" He points out a trail of them going sideways across a 'wing'. "You're meant to carve with them, not into them."
“Maybe that’s why pieces kept breaking off?” She works her hands - cramped from the sustained effort, and with a good nick out of the side of one nail.
He picks up a new piece of wood, giving it a look over. "You see how you can count the rings, on this side?" He shows her the underside, where they're visible, before he adjusts it in his hand to have his own turn practising. "I think the idea is you're kind of peeling those off."
Granted, he's not technically that much better than Taylor, but the bark does seem to peel back a lot more easily than how she's been doing it, even if it still comes off in chunky fits and bursts.
"Right. Plus, palistrom wood is magic. This is- purely conjecture," he adds, a little sheepishly, as he starts trying to build a rough blocky shape with the wood - he keeps glancing over at Flapjack for reference, trying to keep the wood from getting too small. "But apparently it might be possible that when you're carving the wood, the palisman can feel you trying to create them."
Flapjack shakes his head, and chirps a few times, conversationally, and Hunter nods as the bird pauses, bringing his wing up to his beak like he's scratching his chin, and then tweets again.
"...he says he remembers waking up, and meeting the person who carved him, but that was... a really long time ago," Hunter translates. "That... maybe being carved is what being hatched from an egg feels like."
Taylor has to press her lips thin for a moment, because the little chin-scratch is too cute. Bird please.
"Well, afraid I don't have a- don't have a good frame of reference for that, either." She does have to pause, a flicker of memory needing squished, but she shakes it off and smiles. "Thought I'd ask, though."
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
no subject
watching you disappoint your summer camp counselors
no subject
creeper :p
I'm going to have the ugliest palisman
no subject
[But he's also going to switch to calling her instead, and he sounds deeply fond.]
I didn't know you wanted a bird, actually. It didn't seem like your thing.
no subject
I don’t want a bird - no offense, Flap. I’m just practicing technique. Trying to get the shapes to come out kind of like I picture in my head.
no subject
He doesn't mind. From what I read, bird palismen are actually pretty uncommon. They mostly belonged to one name, a family of master carvers.
no subject
no subject
no subject
- before I went home, I'd probably have gone for a bee. Or a gu. Though I bet they're both hard to carve.
no subject
no subject
no subject
[But it's not long, and for once he races out the door rather than linger and chat with the other doctor. And Flapjack finds her first, giving a loud cheep before he settles in to land on her knee, examining the attempted palisman with intense curiosity.
And Hunter's there a moment later to sit down beside her.]
How's it going now?
no subject
“Carving is harder than it looks.”
no subject
Hunter just chuckles, as he gently takes the result and the chisel.
"I've done some research on palismen before, but- not as much on carving." He still looks the work over curiously. "But I'm pretty sure you're meant to follow the grain - see the direction the wood lines go?" He points out a trail of them going sideways across a 'wing'. "You're meant to carve with them, not into them."
no subject
no subject
He picks up a new piece of wood, giving it a look over. "You see how you can count the rings, on this side?" He shows her the underside, where they're visible, before he adjusts it in his hand to have his own turn practising. "I think the idea is you're kind of peeling those off."
Granted, he's not technically that much better than Taylor, but the bark does seem to peel back a lot more easily than how she's been doing it, even if it still comes off in chunky fits and bursts.
no subject
no subject
no subject
"Flapjack... do you remember being carved?"
no subject
"...he says he remembers waking up, and meeting the person who carved him, but that was... a really long time ago," Hunter translates. "That... maybe being carved is what being hatched from an egg feels like."
no subject
"Well, afraid I don't have a- don't have a good frame of reference for that, either." She does have to pause, a flicker of memory needing squished, but she shakes it off and smiles. "Thought I'd ask, though."
no subject
no subject