NotM Secret Santa: Backpack and Blanket

Marlena was glad that she had gotten such a simple Secret Santa request. A blanket? A knapsack? That would be so easy, and quite fun to do as well. She could make them out of the same fabric that she used for her own clothes: self-repairing, self-cleaning to eliminate most kinds of stains, and even slightly programmable in the fact that she could get it to change color if she had the proper device to change its settings in the first place –

And then she remembered that Kasatka was magical.

There was no telling what kind of unpredictable results a magical person coming into extended contact with an extremely technologically advanced fabric would do. It could block Kasatka’s magic, or give her a rash, or just explode… you could never really determine beforehand what kinds of results the clash between magic and technology would have, though said results were usually quite detrimental to both parties involved. Marlena would have to make Kasatka’s present out of completely mundane materials.

But at least she could make it more efficient. A backpack, instead of a knapsack that you would have to untie every single time to get whatever you wanted. This way, Kasatka could store things in a way where she could retrieve them any time she wanted.

The doctor did not have any kind of blueprints for a backpack, but she did have an actual backpack already, albeit one that was too worn and messy to give to Kasatka. She would have to essentially reverse-engineer a new one for her Secret Santa recipient by studying the old one.

And if she had to essentially take apart her old backpack in order to create the new one, so be it. Take apart the old and obsolete and use it to learn, to create something new.

That was what she had always done.

Occasionally with people.

All in all, creating the new backpack was not too difficult. The hardest part by far was being able to find materials on Detica that were of good quality but not magical in nature, as there was even more magic infusing the area than back on Crow Island despite Detica’s relative lack of development. Marlena had a lot of experience with sewing, albeit by way of sutures instead of making clothes or anything else more textile-related. The backpack was green and white, and although it was quite sturdy and efficient, with many pockets and compartments for storing things, it looked relatively simple. The doctor had never been one for unnecessary embellishments. At least visually. Personality-wise, she was far more theatrical.

Marlena had some fabric left over, so she decided to make a thick blanket for Kasatka as well. It was a plain white blanket, but it would work. She attached it directly to the backpack instead of keeping it separate, so that Kasatka could use it as a makeshift cloak if need be, and she could use the blanket while she was wearing the backpack if she needed to sleep on the go. It was a place to store and carry things, and it had a built-in blanket, two of Kasatka’s Secret Santa requests in one. Three, if you counted Kasatka’s interest in ‘surprises’, since she probably was not expecting a backpack with a built-in blanket at all. And besides, given Kasatka’s general fear of doctors, guns, and needles, the fact that Marlena was the person who had been assigned to be her Secret Santa was definitely going to be a surprise in and of itself.

Kasatka had also requested something like a smooth bone pin to keep her hair up, but Marlena couldn’t really spare any bones, and besides, most of the ones that she had once belonged to humans. From her experience, that tended to be a problem.

But, all in all, with her backpack and its built-in blanket, the doctor thought she had done well.