- Horribly long post, feel free to not read it all and just comment on the snazzy cave. If you want. P:
This is basically an in-depth explanation of the material used for the wings of the armoured wolves in Raquel (link here. The actual 'armour' itself is simply polished hide (leather) painted with a solution of extremely common minerals (anything shiny really. x3).
This material is called solnyte (pronounced like the words 'soul' and 'night' mashed together). It is made from a mix of minerals and gases, and also humidity, causing the substance to collect and form stalactites over long periods of time. The colours are mostly blue and purple, green is more uncommon but still seen a lot, yellow and orange are rare and red crystals are almost never seen.
After heated at very high temperatures (middle-of-a-bonfire hot) solnyte liquefies, and when it is cool enough to touch but still hot enough to be malleable, like putty, it can be shaped and molded.
Solnyte can only liquefy once. Once it is done the crystals are at their purest form and are hard like particularly strong metal (not diamond hard, but not bendable or pliable) but still lightweight. Most interestingly of all, they release gasses when falling at a certain speed that envelop the crystals and enable them to float. When they are used as wings by the wolves, the weight put on them reduces this to a glide.
Raquel's subespecies of wolves, Elapsian wolves, have learned after thousands of years how to harness the power of solnyte to make wings to glide from cliffs. Any formed crystals in the many surrounding caves in the cliffs surrounding the community are harvested and stored in a large, always protected cave. Then, every year, the elder wolves who have mastered the craft of wing-making, and who are the only ones knowing the secret of fire make a large bonfire and melt all the crystals. They also jealously guard the secret of how the are able to make the wings hover around the armour
Over time this has turned into a yearly celebration, the most important part of any Elapsian wolf's year. For 7 days, all day and all night the celebration goes on. On the seventh night the elders reveal the new armour. The wolves make nightly offerings to their goddess Arya, the largest game they can find in the woods. They believe Arya was the first to show wolves solnyte and how to harness its powers. The have ceremonies, during which they howl furiously around the bonfire, hundreds of wolves gathering together to form a formidable chorus that can be heard from miles on end.
However, this post is supposed to be about solnyte so I'll talk about the relevance of the celebration and Arya another time. x3
