I can try but it's sort of hard to breathe right when my ribs hurt like this?

"Oh, I can fix that." Bonesaw reaches in and fiddles around for a bit and then Beka can't feel her torso much at all - a couple of seconds and a further adjustment by Bonesaw and feeling returns to everything except for her ribs.

"There!" The pleading eyes are back.

"Oh much better." She takes a breath and croons a song she learned from a prisoner once, taking osanwe-diictation when rewarding him for killing everybody in his hallucination.

Missing a sternum is still somewhat impairing even when her ribs don't hurt, but she has a lovely tone, and she practices a lot, whenever she can get a minute alone. If she had all her parts where they'd belong she'd be an exceptional singer among humans.

She pauses for a moment, listening.

When she resumes working she does so quietly, with a smile that fits her face better than it did before. 

If you want me to come sing to you sometime when you aren't planning to take me apart I'd do that!

You would? she thinks, genuinely surprised. 

Sure, my family doesn't like it so it can be hard to find practice time.

I'd like it, yeah.

You seem real important so you can probably get me assigned whenever you want.

Usually if people see her more it's not good for them, she thinks within the privacy of her own mind - because if she thinks it in public the orf might change her mind.

Yeah, I'll do that sometime I think.

Singing singing singing.

Eventually the muscles are installed and the ribs are back - there's some claylike substance and pins through the bone to keep the pieces together while they heal, though Bonesaw anesthetises the ribs while doing this so it won't hurt. 

And finally the skin flaps are unpinned from the table and she applies a a salve before stretching and sewing and folding the skin into place. When it's all done there's a spiral* of lines on her upperchest that when tensed with muscles that weren't there before move outwards to reveal a pocket the size of two fists. 

"If you tense it it should be able to open and close it. You can also overfill it and it'll expand to hold the extra stuff but it'll push at your other organs and if you do it too long it'll start trying to spit the stuff back out."

*A similar mechanism to the iris diaphrams used by camera lenses, though Bonesaw isn't aware of this.

"Neat!" She tries this.

It works, skin sections tensing and sliding around each other without much effort at all. 

"Cool! Thank you for the pocket."

"Hope you have fun with it!" 

And Bonesaw has her work to get back to - she has so many ideas for exciting things based on today! Uncle JackSauron will be so proud. 

Off trots the orf.

A week and a half later Bonesaw has been having troubling sleeping and asks a nearby orc if he can find Beka and ask her to come sing her something.

Presuming Bonesaw asks for "the orf", since nobody knows Beka's name, that will work fine! In lopes Beka. She's got a fresh tat on her chest incorporating the spiral, sort of like a top-down view of an aloe plant except it's in rose and tan. "Hello milady."

"Hi," says sleepy Bonesaw. "Do you know any lullabies?" 

"Do you want a magic one or a regular one?"

"Regular I think,"

She's not surprised a magic one exists, but she still feels like she needs to be on guard against hostile Masters hunting her, even in Angband where she's safe.

"Yes ma'am."

She finds a spot to stand and sings about sleepiness and dreaming, rocking and quiet and comfort.

And eventually Bonesaw will fall asleep, curled up around the fleshy pillow she made to keep her warm at night.

It's kind of clever.

She is not really sure if she's supposed to stay or go now and there's nobody to ask. Is there... a place in here where she could fall asleep herself, where she isn't hiding but also isn't intruding?