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 Posted: Sun Jun 30, 2013 5:39 pm
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Posted: Sun Jun 30, 2013 5:51 pm
The sun beat down on Steg as he continued his dig. For three days now he had been busy looking for what he hoped would be the fossil of some ancient beast. He wasn't sure if this was the idea spot for him to start his current search. He had done some research, spoke to the local herd who had been here for many years, asking if they had ever seem any bone, not from recent kills but from many, many years ago. Some weren't too sure, others thought they had seen some odd things imbedded in the bank of the river one year when it washed out that could be ancient bones. Steg had to start somewhere and so he began to set up his sight, with the permission of the herds alpha since he was still within their lands. It had taken two days to set up a border around where he wanted to dig, moving sticks to mark where the edge was and then dividing all of that into smaller sections. After that it was all a matter of digging and hoping he found something interesting.
His cloven hooves dug fairly easily into the cool dirt as he scrapped more and more of the soil to the side. Once the pile grew to a certain size he would push it only a large piece of bark he had found deep in the forest and then move it further away from where he was working. It was tough work, especially doing it all on his. His hope was that his long time friend would come along and join him soon and make the work go by faster. But even if his friend didn't arrive Steg was happy doing what he loved.
Standing up and giving his back and legs a rest Steg glanced up at the sun. It was cresting near it's highest point which only meant that in a few more hours the baking heat would lessen and the work would go just a bit faster. His breathing was deep as he surveyed what he had accomplished so far today. This work was not fast, not did it always net any results but Steg was passionate about it and couldn't see himself doing anything else. The best part was when strangers walked by and asked him what he was doing, it was his opportunity to speak his knowledge of these ancient creatures to others. His hope was that one day he might inspire another Soquili to take up the task of searching out these creatures of the past, perhaps even work along side him. The more Soquili performing these tasks the sooner more bones could be dug up and once those bones were no longer hidden beneath the soil then they could start to learn more about the creatures and try to piece together their lives.
As the sun continued to beat down on him Steg made the decision to shed his favorite costume, one he wore every day to alleviate some of the heat he was feeling. It took a few moments for him to struggle with the buckles and free himself from this practical blanket. The straps were the reason why Steg rarely removed his prized costume, it was difficult to get off but even more so to put back on. Luckily he knew there was a raccoon who lived in the forest here who could give him a hand when it was time to put it back on. Placing his costume in a safe place Steg moved back to where he had been digging and looked over the exposed dirt carefully. He couldn't see anything yet so he took a deep breath and returned to digging.
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Posted: Tue Jul 09, 2013 5:28 pm
His cloven hooves made digging easy and also allowing him to dig around exposed objects better that hose with regular hooves. The downside to his lifetime passion was that it was also very hard on his hooves and often times he would have to take days, sometimes weeks off to let his hooves recover. Steg had lost count of the number of times he had chipped or cracked one or more of his hooves. He also learned how to dig with each of his hooves so that one leg wasn't always doing the work. This allowed him to work more hours than if he dug using a single leg and often leg to discoveries much soon than he had expected. He had been digging for some time now using his left front hoof and was beginning to feel the muscles getting tired. Adjusting his stance he shifted his body over a bit and let his right front leg pick up the work.
The key to all of this wasn't to dig blindly. Every now and then one had to stop, survey their work and sometimes shift to a different area. Occasionally large rocks would get in his way and force him to start digging in a whole other area. He hoped today would not bring one of those disruptions to his work. While he enjoyed the thrill of the hunt for buried treasure it was always the first part that took the most effort, the setting up of the dig sight.
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Posted: Tue Jul 09, 2013 5:30 pm
As he thought about all the things involved in his digging life his hoof hit something solid and he froze. He had to be careful now, if this was what he was hoping he would find then he couldn't frantically dig it up...even though he was dying to see what it was. Pulling his hoof away Steg lowered his head and blew the loose dirt away. Protruding just barely above the surface of the soil was the tip of something solid. It was too early to tell if it was a rock, bone or something else. Now that he had something solid to focus on Steg returned to digging, being extremely careful where he put his hoof and how much pressure he placed on the soil. Slowly the object grew in size, it became a bit wider and proved to be quite long. This was looking less and less like a rock and more and more like what Steg was hoping for - the bone of an ancient creature.
It took him some time to uncover as much of the object as possible. It was hard to tell how much time for sure, hours maybe, Steg wasn't too good at keeping track of time, especially once he had found something. Once as much of it was uncovered as he could manage at the moment Steg took a step back. There was still dirt loosely clinging to the object but he wouldn't use his hooves to remove it, that could damage whatever it was and he needed to see it clearly before determining what he had found. Moving the the edge of his dig sight Steg picked up a small branch from an evergreen tree in his teeth and carefully moved back to where he had been digging. These branches were great for gentle pushing away the loose soil and not causing any damage. Once he was satisfied he had cleared enough away he set the branch aside and went to take a look.
Stegs eyes grew big. It was a bone! His hard work had paid off! "Look at that! This is amazing!" He called out and then remembered he was alone. Looking out from his dig sight Steg didn't see anyone else around, no one to share in the glory of his find. That normally didn't bother him but there was one who he would have loved to share this with. A frown tugged at the corners of his mouth for just a moment before it disappeared and he turned back to he bone he had found. One bone often led to two and more, so his work had only just begun.
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Posted: Tue Jul 23, 2013 5:39 pm
Cera had returned to the herd and was looking forward to seeing her best friend only to be told he had left to do some searching. She had been disappointed but didn't let that feeling stick around for long. After catching up with her parents and a few of her other friends Cera wrangled the details of where Steg had been heading and set out to find him. He had traveled quite a distance away from the herd lands and she had been surprised more so to find out he had gone alone. Well almost alone, there was a racoon that had tagged along with him. That racoon had been a friend of the herd for many years and often accompanied the scouts and diggers whenever they went out. He wasn't attached to any member of the herd, just curious enough about things to almost always be around. And since no one in the herd as opposed to an extra set of eyes and ears to look out for danger, or something interesting, they all accepted his presence.
It took her several days of travel to make her way out to the area that Steg had left to visit and even then the herd only had a somewhat vague description of the area. It seems that Steg caught wind of a herd some distance away from their own discovering something near the banks of a river after a heavy rainfall washed away some of the looser soil. If she could find this herd or this river then she would be able to find Steg.
The river she had come across first and it was easy enough to follow. When she heard a family voice a smile instantly came to Cera's lip. Turning towards the sound Cera quickly covered the distance between the river and where Steg had set up his dig site. He had clearly been at this for a while as he had dug a fairly deep hole and seemed to have found something. Standing at the edge of the site, making sure to keep the sun at her front to prevent any shadows from falling onto him and giving her away, Cera peered down at her friend. "Keeping all the good finds to yourself now?" She teased him and then let her eyes travel down to what he had uncovered. Her eyes widened as she saw a fairly good sized bone sitting now mostly exposed in front of Steg's hooves. "Oooh!" She exclaimed and leaned forward to get a closer look. "Do we know what it's from? Have you found any others? How long have you been working at this site?" The questions tumbled out as she inspected, at a distance, the fossilized bone. If they could find enough bones they might be able to identify the creature they belonged to and learn some about it's part. Of course many times only a single bone was found so they wouldn't know for sure until more digging could be done.
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Posted: Sat Jun 07, 2014 8:22 pm
He had been so focused on the dug up bone that he had not heard the approaching hooves. So when a voice suddenly made it's self known above him Steg nearly jumped out of his skin. If it had have been a predator then he would be in big trouble by now. But luck was on his side, in more ways than one. Funny how Cera appeared only moments after thinking about her. "Cera!" He called out and lifted his gaze to the mare. He honestly couldn't think of a better moment in his life than having her appear right along with the discovery of this bone. Now if only he could get up the courage and one day tell her how he felt about her, how he had felt about her since they were foals playing in the dirt trying to mimic the rest of the herd. But that would need to wait for another time, as Cera's focus shifted to what he had uncovered and even Steg was curious to find out exactly what he had dug up.
Steg couldn't help but chuckle at the stream of questions coming from the mare. "I only just finished uncovering it, so I haven't had the time to properly examine it to start the identification process. It's the first one so far at this site." His gaze dropped to the bone for a moment. "But there's bound to be more, especially considering how good of condition this one is in." He looked back up at Cera with an excited smile. "Come on down here, we can take a look at it together." He was confident that given Cera's sudden appearance shortly after digging up this bone that if they worked together they would find even more. Perhaps the would even find an entire skeletons worth, something that was quite rare to come across.
"I haven't been here too long." He told the mare as he nosed the bone up onto a flat piece of ground so they could get a clear look at it. It was a small bone, though not so much that he had to worry about breaking it through moving. He estimated it's length to be slightly shorter than his foreleg. "Looks like it could be a femur." He said as Cera joined him to have a closer look. "Though remember that one we found when we were younger, we thought it was a femur but it turned out to be something completely different." He let out a big of a laugh. The older members of the herd had been the ones to set the two young diggers straight and they had certainly learned from their mistakes and began to pay a lot more attention to the lessons of the herd in how to properly dig up and identify the bones of long gone creatures. "If it is a femur, the creature would be about the size of us." Which if that was the case would make the entire thing much more manageable for them to take care of than something that was the size of a regular Soquili, or larger. "I wasn't expecting to see you." He finally peeling his attention away from the bone to look at Cera. "I thought you would be at that dig up North for a few more weeks." Had he known she would be returning so quickly he would have waited for her before setting out to this site.
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Posted: Sat Jun 07, 2014 8:48 pm
Cera hadn't intended on scaring Steg like that, in fact it was the last thing she wanted to do. But then she hadn't exactly made her presence known until she spoke and that would have made her jump had she been in Steg's position. Even so she couldn't help but laugh slightly after her good friend had jumped and then looked up with such a happy expression on his face. She was certain that had she been here a few moments earlier she would have seen a very similar smile coming from him when he finished uncovering that bone. It was something that every herd member felt with each new discovery. No matter how many things they dug up, each one felt like the first time and because of that there was always so much joy. And of course it only got better when that joy was shared with others. In this moment it was Cera that got to share in Steg's joy and she wouldn't have had it any other way.
She was leaning well over the edge and if she wasn't careful she might just fall into the hole right on top of Steg and then bone. The bone did appear to be in excellent condition. Often times they were found in pieces and sometimes only pieces were found and then bone was never fully assembled which also meant the creature was not identified. "It is in excellent shape." She said enthusiastically. When he suggested that she come down to get a closer look Cera was so happy to comply that she nearly fell into the hole trying to get up quickly. Some dirt crumbled from the side of the hole as she got her hooves under her and then made her way around to the other side where she could easily climb in.
"You've done a lot of work for only having been here a short time." She pointed out, but she knew Steg all too well, when he worked along he would devote every waking moment to the dig and even sometimes cut his sleep short to have more time to work. Cera laughed with him at the memory of them proudly presenting their mentors with that 'femur' only to be told it was in fact not a femur. Standing beside Steg she got her first clear look at the bone. She took a moment to appreciate the fact the it was, as far as she could see, intact and then took a closer look at the shape and size. "Definitely a femur." Cera confirmed with a nod. Looking up from the bone she smiled at Steg. "That site turned out to have been nothing more than a deer that was probably killed before last winter and got buried with some dirt. That's the last time I will trust that darn crows information. When they told me you had found a new site I just had to come and see you and to find out if you had found anything yet." She looked down at the bone and let out a laugh. "Looks like I arrived just in time."
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Posted: Sun Jul 20, 2014 5:48 pm
Steg jumped a little when Cera lost her balance at the edge of the hole. It wouldn't be a long fall had fully slipped, but it was deep enough that she could seriously injure herself, not to mention him if he had been in the way, and then they would be in big trouble. But luckily she found her footing once more and was able to safely enter the dig site. He moved over a bit to give her room so she could get a clear look at the bone he had found. He smiled as she came to a stop beside him. "You know me, once I start digging I can't really stop until I know nothing will be found." He had been pushing himself quite hard this time, his sore muscles were proof of that, but he was at his happiest when he was at work. Well, he was also at his happiest when Cera was around, so now he was double happy because he was doing what he loved and his favorite mare was at his side. Oh if only he could shake off his nervousness and tell her how he felt about her. He'd had the biggest crush on her when they were foals and it never went away. One day, he told himself, one day he would tell her.
But for now he ignored those feelings and turned his attention back to the bone and the conversation at hand. "It's a shame that site didn't work out. I swear the crows tell us things just to see us race off. But they have been right from time to time." In truth he was happy that the site had been nothing, because it meant Cera could be here with him now exploring this site together. He supposed some of it would depend on the bird, some were more truthful than others, and some liked to spin fanciful tales that were so well told that no one knew it was a lie until they had gone to investigate it. "You did arrive just in time." He said with a chuckle. "And with two of us working this site we can uncover things much faster.
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Posted: Sun Jul 20, 2014 6:03 pm
"And when you find something then you dig twice as much as you were before." She said with a laugh. Though honestly a lot of the herd were that way, herself included, part of the fun was in the digging itself, but it became something much more fun and challenging when bones were found and the time to build what was found came to be. Of course if enough bones were found in a site they would not try to assemble it there, they may lay them out to establish placement, but the majority of the assembling happened in the herd lands. That way they didn't need to build it, disassemble it, move it to the herd lands and then put it back together once more. Assembly, in Cera's opinion, was the least fun part of what they did. Mostly because all too often too many bones were missing of broken to the point that it was near impossible to put them together to resemble even part of the animal. But even so she would never give up her love of the search.
"Yeah, but it left me available for other things." She said with a smile. "Some of the others headed to another site, about two days east of the one I was at, who knows maybe that one is a true site and they will find something. I guess we will find out when we get back to the herd." Pausing Cera looked at the bone once more. It really was in excellent shape, which wasn't always something they came upon, most often bones were found in pieces and sometimes not all the pieces were at a site, but this one was not only in one piece but seemed in perfect condition. "I'll put this off to the side, I would hate to step on it while we dig." She lowered her nose and began to carefully roll the bone towards the edge of the dig site that had the ramp. If it were a smaller bone she would have carried it in her mouth, but this one was a bit too big for that. "What part of the grid do you want me to work in?" She asked as she continued to move the bone to a safe location.
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Posted: Sun Jul 20, 2014 6:18 pm
He couldn't help but laugh, it was true, he was addicted to digging and finding bones. It was in his blood and there was no denying that part of him. Even as a foal he would spent hours digging, it was only as he grew old enough to start getting the proper training that he had realized that he couldn't just dig whenever and wherever he please, bones would often only be found in certain places and conditions. Even so, Steg truly loved the feel of the dirt giving away to his hooves but most of all he loved it when his hooves came across something.
His smile grew at Cera's words. She was free to do what she wanted after that site had failed and where had she ended up, with him. Perhaps he should tell her now. But the lure of the dig had gotten to both of them now and he figured he could talk to her once they were done. "Good idea." He said. "A bone in that good of condition needs to be taken care of." He would make sure it was well wrapped up for the log journey home. When she asked what spot he wanted her to work in Steg glanced about the site. Really anywhere would work since he was really just getting started, but he liked sticking to doing things a certain way. "That corner across from me will work best. We'll work towards each other until we meet in the middle and then we will start on the next row."
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Posted: Sun Jul 20, 2014 6:27 pm
Cera took her time moving the bone out of the site. She carefully held it in place with her hoof while she looked back to see the spot that Steg wanted her to work. "So we are working with standard dig procedures." She said with a nod before going back to rolling the bone up the ramp. She could feel dirt collecting on her nose as she gave the bone the final push to get it to the top. Once there she carefully rolled it over to where Steg's costume lay. It would be safe there. Her gaze lifted to the sun, they still had several hours let of daylight to work in so they would likely get a good section of the line done before having to call it a day. Though she thought about taking her own costume off it would take time and she really wanted to get to work. Tomorrow, tomorrow she would make the effort to take it off before diving into work.
Returning to the dig site she made her way down the ramp and to the spot Steg had picked for her to work. Spotting the lines of what made up the grid of the site Cera pushed an old turtle shell towards her spot. That would be used to move the dirt out of the site. Slowly she began to use her hoof to scrap away a lay of dirt and push it into the turtle shell. "Remember when old Anky decided to do a random dig in that one site near the herd? He ended up filling one side of the hole and then had to dig it all out to find the spot he hadn't dug yet." She gave a laugh, that big stallion wasn't the best digger in the herd, but he was an excellent protector when needed.
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Posted: Tue Aug 19, 2014 6:01 pm
"Standard dig procedures." He said with a bob of his head. It was really the only way to go about it. Although every now and then a certain dig site would prove to be overly problematic and they would need to use an alternative dig procedure to work it properly and efficiently. This site however was very straight forward. The ground was almost perfectly level, the soil wasn't too hard, there were no major obstacles in the way, thus standard procedure was the best way to approach it. Picking up the brush made from a small pine branch Steg moved it over so that it wasn't in the way but still accessible before getting back to digging.
Lifting his head he looked at Cera and let out a chuckle. "You have to give him credit though, he did eventually get it right. His heart is in the right place. At least he found a job that better suited him." And that job, for the most part was protecting the herd, but the stallion also helped to haul the larger pieces from dig sites that were too heavy for the smaller members to manage.
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Posted: Tue Aug 19, 2014 6:03 pm
She focus on digging for a few minutes, getting into the rhythm before glancing up at Steg. "That's true, and Anky does a darn good job at it as well." Anky was the biggest member of the herd and often times his large body proved to be more of a hindrance than a help. But they really did need him to help keep them safe and do the odd jobs that the regular members just couldn't manage. She knew that the larger stallion desperately wanted to be a digger like the majority of the herd but he just didn't have what it took to be one.
Turning her focus back to her patch of the dig Cera kept up a steady rhythm. Dig out some dirt, place in turtle shell, repeat until shell was full, push shell out of site and dump a bit away from it, return to site and start the process all over again. Some would see it as a waste of time, but the herd lived for this. Though there were dedicated gatherers for food and other things that would keep the herd going, without those individuals things would not run very smoothly for long.
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Posted: Tue Aug 19, 2014 6:05 pm
The sound of them working together filled the air. The scrap of hooves on dirt, the thunk of rocks being pushed out once it was determined they were regular old rocks. It was amazing how quickly the time passed and soon it was starting to get dark - a sign that the work day was coming to an end. Funny how hours of labor intensive digging felt like only a few moments. Giving his legs a stretch her glanced over to see the progress that Cera had made. Her section was coming along nicely, it was a shame they would need to stop for the night, but with the first rays of morning they would be back.
"Best get this cleaned up with what light we have left." He told her as he pushed the final turtle shell full of dirt out of the hole. Once done that he carried the empty shell back into the site and placed the pine needle brush inside of it along with a medium length piece of hard wood. "There's a grove only a short walk from here I've set up as a temporary home." He said and waited for her to finish up so they could head there.
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Posted: Tue Aug 19, 2014 6:09 pm
Had the time really gone by so quickly? It seemed like she had just started and now they were forced to quit due to waning light. With a bit of a sigh Cera set about cleaning up and gathering her tools up. It didn't take more than a few quick moments to get this all done. "Haven't found anything yet, but the dirt is easy to work with and I just know there will be something else to dig up if we keep at it." That was the mentality at every dig, but Cera was sure they would find something after seeing that practically intact femur earlier.
With her few tools gathered Cera looked to Steg. "Lead the way." She said and then picked up her turtle shell of things and waited for Steg to show her to where they would be spending the night - where they would be staying until this site had been totally picked over.
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