It had indeed decided to snow for a while. This far north and close to the mountains, snow was a pretty normal occasion during winter. At least, that was her assumption as the winters had gotten more extreme along her journey since she had awoken. She didn’t have enough data to say for certain, but it made sense to her.

Maura didn’t mind too much, as it gave her time to work out a really good design for her cloak. She hadn’t worked on the missing sleeve yet, but since she had the time she decided she would work to make her new things as well as she could. She could use a bit of the super strong feather and some bone for a replacement bracer.

She realized that using the cloak as a bed wouldn’t be feasible after she was finished with her work, so she went out to hunt down a new bedroll first. She could also use some of the scraps from any pelt to replace her sleeve - win win!

The mountains were a great place to hunt for heavily furred critters during winter, and after a few hours stalking around her hilly area, she managed to find something just the right size. It looked somewhat like a wolverine and a groundhog combined by a disturbed magician, except… huge, but it’s fur was very fluffy and nice looking. It also wasn't a heavily magical creature, so the hunt was as simple as good timing and a quick stab.

Tanning skins and working pelts was a quick and easy process for Maura as she was basically a walking encyclopedia of advanced techniques and magics to use on biological materials. The information she had was heavily slanted towards healing and people as opposed to animals, but plenty of that knowledge worked on just about anything. None of her skills could be applied on herself of course, which was mildly infuriating, but working on leather and hide was a snap.

First, she cleaned and flipped the cloak so that the fur was on the inside. This was much preferred to wearing it the other way because it would be fuzzy and warm. Then she planned out the order of all of the feathers.

The shoulders and hood of the cloak would be covered in the smaller and more flexible feathers. The strong flight feathers would be layered on the back with the most impressive one in the middle and then the rest somewhat symmetrically placed to the sides underneath. The edges along the sides and hood would get the softest and fluffiest feathers, while the tail of her cloak would have lots of the medium feathers underneath the large ones to give the cloak more pliability and coverage.

It took a long time to clean and prepare all of the feathers. Maura was only four feet and eight inches tall and the feathers were… not. She was also working with just one hand for the first day or two. The nicest biggest feather was trimmed down to be the largest one going down the middle of the cloak. She clipped and then split the other feathers down the quill which she would layer like shingles to increase flexibility and give a cool look. There was a bit of gunk and parasites and such she needed to clear out before everything was ready.

During the cleaning process and disposing lots of trash, she decided to go ahead and just take a bath in the river. The skin on her arm was sealed with three new thin silver scars though there was still deeper damage that needed time to heal, but it was good enough for a bath.

It was always a dangerous proposition to clean herself in the wilderness. She didn’t really need to do it often as her body didn’t produce sweat or oils or smells or anything, but she did get dirty eventually. She also made sure to properly wash every time she had to… get rid of waste products. Which didn’t happen often.

Just before dusk was the best time to go to the river as the water monsters were mostly hiding from the sun, and the daylight predators were beginning to bed down for the night. There was also less ice to break through after the sun had warmed the river during the day.

She felt very exposed stalking around the woods naked except for her spear, but it only took a half hour trip to clean herself off well in a shallow spot using sand and some minty smelling leaves. Luckily she couldn’t really freeze to death, but she did get extremely uncomfortable with not a little pain and it took hours to warm back up to a point where she could actually use her fingers.

Back in her burrow she decided to lose herself in the creative process for a while after she had brushed, dried, and reworked her trinkets into her hair and warmed up some. She loved working on clothing in a nice warm safe place. She could be more comfortable without needing to wear any of her furs and relax into work and design.

She was constantly fiddling with and adding to the different pieces of her outfit. It was just about perfect at this point.

Her boots were layered and designed with clever straps that kept the fur on the outside clear and uniform while keeping the soft fur lined inside from moving so she always had secure footing.

Her leggings and coat were made from many different sections and stips of hide, sometimes sewn and sometimes woven together, with fun dangly pieces of fur to break up the silhouette in locations that wouldn’t impede any movement. Her coat had bone and scale areas that were reinforced along her spine and covering her torso designed to allow full range of motion. There were smaller bits that were strapped on all over the place on her furs and hidden little spots where she had added designs or souvenirs over time like carved bone or wood, pretty stones, shells, scales, claws, teeth, and feathers that she collected from places she had been or battles she had won.

Her gloves had taken a long time to find proper materials for and get just right. The leather was thin but tough on the inside of the fingers and palm for better grip and dexterity, while the outer surface had non-reflective scales layered over strips of hard bone and covered in thin patches of fur attached to thicker leather on the inside with spider silk for extra protection. They could be tugged off and would stay attached to her coat with part of the network of straps that kept everything tight to her body as if it was a second layer of skin.

Her headdress was designed to cover her hair, ears, and face down to her nose and was made of a mix of yet more monster parts. It’s soft and fit snugly so wouldn’t fall off if she had to jump around in combat.

Her bracers and leg armor was made from yet more monster parts - mostly reinforced bone and such, but they fit the overall design.

All of her clothing together followed a color scheme of greys and browns specifically designed to blend into the wilderness environment and to break up any patterns. Everything was harvested from strong or magical monsters that she had either fought or hunted specifically for.

Her new cloak would be great for the winter weather. It had only started snowing about a month ago so she still has a lot of winter to get through and the whitish-gray ghostly feathers would blend in perfectly with snow.

“Time to work!” Maura whispered as she got down to it.

First she sewed on the underlayer of smaller feathers, then she placed the layered split feathers from the outside in, then placed the large central one. After that she layered the feathers from bottom to top along the shoulders and hood, then finished it all off with the edges of the cloak. As she worked, she took some breaks to fiddle with other things and check to make sure her wound had finished healing.

Overall this was a massive upgrade to her cloak. The fur lining on the inside would keep her nice and warm, while the feathers on the outside would shed any weather perfectly while also working as great camouflage and an extra layer of protection.

She went a little over a week working on everything along with the healing and such, but as she held up and studied the finished product, she couldn’t have been happier. She swept the cloak dramatically over her shoulders then pushed her chest out and tilted her head up with fists on hips in a super hero pose.

Maura nodded happily and whispered, “I look like some sort of arcane crow witch ghost thing! Er… I will when I’m not naked, anyway. So cool!”

She attempted an evil cackle, but with her volume down to a whisper it sounded more like a cat with respiratory distress, so she stopped quickly.

Maura had taken some time to smoke a large portion of the grouderine thing… she wouldn’t call it that except in her head she decided - sounded like a fuzzy fruit... so she had travel rations all ready. Her new bedroll was easy to pack by folding the edges towards the center and rolling it up tightly with the fur on the inside and then strapping it to the bottom of her pack.

She packed up everything and got ready to leave. She would be leaving the extra now clean large feathers here along other bits of non-essential items she had gathered.

Like she did every time she packed up to leave she lied to herself with a, “I can always come back later, and get this stuff if I need to.”

Only the essential materials and tools went in the pack, along with her remaining jerky. Her pack had lots of straps so she could tie it to itself as securely as possible so it wouldn’t move around or make any noise.

She dressed up fully, with straps in strategic areas, her ‘sword’ in its sheath attached to her left hip, waterskin tied on her right as a counterweight, dagger sheathed right above her butt, pack on and tight underneath her cloak, and the drawstring for both the pack’s straps across her chest and the drawstring of her cloak were woven lightly together so she could yank on a single string and both would fall off in case of combat.

If she could see herself, she would probably not think she looked as cool as she thought she did. The pack on her back bunched the cloak up and with her gigantic spear she looked like some sort of stooped over evil crone from a children's story.

Luckily no one was there to tell her she looked funny. As she left her little burrow for the last time, she tossed the covering leather and moss flap into the tunnel, then rolled a large stone over the entrance. She had chiseled a little moon design on the rock so if needed, she could find it again.

Her nerves were a confusing mess and she was nervous about what she might find; as one might get after reaching the end of a seemingly impossible project and hoping nothing went wrong.

Maura took a steadying breath and steeled herself. She chanted another part of her mantra:

Fear is the enemy.

“Southeast. Let’s see what is to be found.” Maura whispered (like a spooky witch) to herself as she began her stealthy hike.

In a wobbly line for hundreds of miles stretching far to the west, if one had a sharp eye and a little bit of luck, stones with moons carved on them could be found marking safe caves. A silent testament of an arduous journey.