Two Crows Watch from the Gallows Tree (part 18)

(She's back as of yesterday afternoon!! Someone found her wandering along the hiking trail 3 miles from us. She's totally fine, just some raw paws.)

He tried to scrape off some of the dried blood with a handkerchief and it came off in flakes, but there was too much on his hands to do it quickly. He headed for the library in resignation.

(Omg yes!!!! I’m so so so happy to hear that <33333)

Ky started for the the door, then doubted herself and paced back towards the table, then back towards the door. She didn’t want to be a pest. But she was getting anxious with the wait.

(She's such a doofus. My mom is the one who picked her up from the lady who found her, and she said it was like nothing had really happened; the pup just trotted up to her all happy like it was breakfast time.)

He reached the library and opened it, still wiping at his face and hands. "Any luck?" he asked her.

(Omg >.> )

Ky blinked at him. It looked like he’d lost the battle with how much blood was on him. But he’d asked a question. “Uh… yeah. I found this.” She held up the bone. “And wrote this… if… you could translate it…”

Gaius approached and studied the writing. "That's a long message," he observed. "But you've chosen a good sized bone." He seated himself at the table and picked up one of the quills. "This'll be a rough translation, just to warn you."

“That’s okay.” Ky nodded. “As long as he gets the gist, it’ll be okay… thank you.”

"That he will." Gaius dipped his pen into ink and began to write. "Be careful to carve exactly what I've written," he said as he worked. "Runes are designed to be easy to carve, but some can still be troublesome and it's easy to be overconfident with the knife."

"Okay." She nodded. She didn't tend to have a problem with overconfidence -- quite the opposite, really. "I will... and... can you check it when I'm done, just to be extra-sure I did it right?"

"Certainly." He finished writing; there were quite a few runes on the page but he'd done his best to get them organized into a format that would fit the bone.

"Thank you." She nodded, looking at the page, even though it was all gibberish to her. "Did I... miss anything? Or is... is this good enough?" He was no doubt silently judging her whether she asked or not -- may as well get it over with. Get the judgment out in the open.

"It's not my message," he said with a shrug. "It seems you covered the main points, though."

"Okay." She nodded, glad that he seemed to be getting the hang of reassuring her better. Not just leaving it at non-answers like his first statement. She appreciated that. "So... how do I...?" She pulled out her rune bone to look down at it as an example. "Is there... a... protocol? For how these are supposed to look? Like... depth? Or... spacing...? Or...?

"Not at all. So long as it fits on the bone, it'll work just fine. The old religion isn't really one for extreme precision."

"Okay." She nodded, tucking her rune bone back into her pocket and pulling the knife out. She sat down at the table to give herself more stability, then looked at the paper. Her stomach did a little flop. She didn't at all like the thought of not getting a do-over with this. What if her hand slipped? What if she misread the script? What if--?

Gaius remained seated, rubbing absently at the blood on his hands.