[@Zeroth][@Stabby]

Femus let out a sigh as Nira flew off.  A brief pulse of pink mingled with yellow would have revealed how awkward those prior moments had been and how  hard it was to repress that tension and sympathetic embarrassment... if another wisp had been watching.  With Nira gone, however, Femus was quick to shake off his feelings.  There was work to be done.

First on the list was to collect materials that he would need for the design taking shape in his head.  Femus was no tailor or dressmaker but he knew what skins look like and clothes are supposed to do that same job... sorta.  They have to be removable and not get in the way while protecting the body's sensitive and delicate parts as best they can.  

So, for this project, he would need leaves.  Specifically, he would prefer to have two leaves that were each big enough to make a one-piece bathing suit with plenty of material to spare.  Failing that, he would need a set of leaves that he could 'tailor' together for the same result.  Also, it would be better if the leaves had strong internal structure.  It would make them easier to work with... kinda, as well as more resilient in general.

The leaves were readily available but without anything to bind them they would have little use.  Femus set to work finding a weak piece of bark on the branch and pulling it off.  It only needed to be big enough to allow him access to the inner bark underneath.  Once he had the outer bark piece set aside, he began working at the inner bark, gathering some of it and separating it into fibers.  The fibers would be braided into twine.  Meant for clothing, it did not need to be strong enough for proper armor.  But, the dress that he would make would become the basis for the armor that he was designing.

Braiding the fibers together with Lesser Force was both easier and harder than what he remembered of the braiding process.  Riba, Femus' sister, had braided her hair whenever she had to work with the meat.  She could braid her hair in just a few minutes because of how much practice she had.  Her hair had hung all the way to her waist.  It had caught the eye of more than one man in the neighborhood.

She cried when the officer ran his gloved fingers through her hair.

The twine of braided fibers dropped to land softly on the leafy branch as Femus began to tremble.  His concentration fractured by the sudden surge of memory, grief, loss, rage, and hate.  He had avenged his parents, his brother, and himself before his last life ended.  But, he hadn't even been able to say goodbye to his sister.  Now, he was much too far away to ever help her again, even if she still lived.

Pain, white and crackling, tore through his mind.

Femus sank until his body rested on the leaves, his light dimming to a faint and sullen red glow.

Rage, dull crimson and grey, flowed through his blood.  It burned and grew, slowly and relentlessly pushing past his attempts to control it... to push it back down.  He was losing.  He reached for something, anything that might be able to hold it... to give him a place to cage it again.  What he found with his grasping will... was his mana.

Pulling it out, Femus pushed and pulled.  He sought to force the flowing pain and rage to leave him and enter the mana gathered in front of him.  Searingly hot and cloyingly thick like lava but sickening like something diseased or corrupted beyond mere rot, his suffering did not readily obey him.  But still he pushed, unrelentingly tenacious in his need to purge this uncontrollable sludge of wrath and vengeance out of his body and into the mana.

His eyes were shut, his mind turned inward and focused on his efforts.  In this state, slowly, his control began to recover and he began to calm.  When he was again in control, the suffering reduced to a deep and throbbing ache, he opened his eyes and took one look at the mana before him.  Then he cast it at the forest floor, unable to bear looking at it anymore... this proof of his weakness and failure.  Then he meditated, regulating the flow of his mana and gathering his strength until his mana was again replenished.

This was the only mercy he allowed himself.

The work still needed to be done.  He again turned his attention to the twine, braiding it determinedly until he had enough for to reinforce the edges of the dress as well as the stitching that the back would need and the cord that would go around Nira's neck to keep the thing from exposing her without warning.  He also made some extra, in case of mistakes.

With the twine ready, Femus put his emotional episode out of his mind for the moment and focused on finding the largest leaves he could find on the branch.  Once he had a couple that were big enough, he began making a few necessary tears and then folding the first leaf into the form of the dress.  It would be backless and short but it would let Nira move her wings, arms, and legs without obstruction.  With the folds made and the corrections and adjustments done to the best of his ability, Femus took sap from the place where he gained the fibers for the twine and used it as a glue to secure the folded parts of the leaf and reinforce the structure of the dress.  He also used sap to seal both ends of the braided fibers and resist fraying both there and along the length.  It would become less sticky as it hardened and make the dress less flexible but it should also add to its strength.  With this done, he began using all his concentration and focus to push small holes through the leaf dress so that he could thread the twine through it to further bind the folded lower edge of the skirt and neckline as well as the edge that would frame Nira's back and wings... whatever that was called.  The final steps involved 'sewing' the skirt parts together in the back, where the folded edges overlapped each other, knotting and breaking the twine where it needed to be tied off, sealing the knots with sap, threading some of the remaining twine through the fold at the neckline like a drawstring and knotting it on either side of the neckline to keep it from slipping out with enough slack to allow Nira to tie the free ends behind her neck.

Femus's concentration had been extreme.  If Nira returned before he finished, he probably wouldn't notice have noticed her... and if he had, he wouldn't have stopped to talk.  This dress should suffice for modesty while providing just a little protection.  It had also given Femus quite a few ideas for what to do next.  But, there was one last bit of tidying up to do.

He had a growth skill.  It wasn't ready to use but it was close.  He didn't like the idea of leaving that hole in the bark.  It seemed... rude, somehow.  So, he drifted over to it and thought of his Growth skill in the making, the slow movement of mana and the healing and growth of plants as he gently... so very gently, began guiding his mana into the injured part of the tree.  His only goal, to help it stop 'bleeding' and heal faster.