Fang of Ahrooni
The Fang of Ahrooni is an exquisite example of clockwork craftmanship; an enari forest cat fang converted into a writing utensil with a piston filling mechanism.
History and Construction
The forest cat fang used to create this pen used to belong to Ahrooni, the beloved forest cat companion of former Queen Amiela of Enarion. The queen was so devastated when her companion had passed that she commissioned one of the cat's fangs to be made into something special, yet functional, but left the specifics to the clockwork tinkerer who would work on it.
The item that returned to the Thalor Alari palace was a fountain pen, carefully created with the now hollowed out fang as its body. The nib, made out of a golden alloy, and the feeder, which makes the ink flow to the nib, is embedded into the tip of the fang. The outside of the fang was decorated with almost impossibly detailed carvings of leaves and vines. However, no matter how beautiful its exterior is, it's the inside mechanism that is the most spectacular. Inside the hollowed out fang there is an ink chamber, which is filled with the help of a clockwork-driven piston mechanism pulling the ink inside through the nib.
Writing Performance
There are both positive and negative sides of using this pen for writing. The golden nib is softer than a steel nib would be, and gives the pen a softer and more luxurious feel when writing. The ink chamber makes it possible to write for a long time without having to dip the pen into the inkwell, which would make the risk of spilling ink much lower, at least in theory.
Things tend to not work out so well in practice, though. While the piston mechanism worked well in the beginning, while it was new and unused, all clockwork mechanisms need a certain level of maintenance from time to time to run smoothly. It didn't take long until the pen needed to be sent back for maintenance. With the closest clockwork tinkerer being in Elmazar, on the opposite side of the continent, it soon became tedious to send it back and forth, not mentioning how risky it is to send such a unique and priceless item across hundreds of miles of road and three national borders just for maintenance. And while the pen still wrote, the piston started leaking in air from the outside into the ink chamber, which made the ink slowly leak out of the nib as long as the pen wasn't stored with the nib upwards.
Another issue was the shape of the pen. A hollowed out fang isn't all that heavy in itself, but the piston mechanism was created in pure metal, making the back of the pen drastically heavier than the tip. The shape of the fang contributed to worse writing performance as well, as the broad and now heavy end made it hard to write.
The Fate of the Fang
It didn't take more than half a decade until Queen Amiela decided that the Fang of Ahrooni was better suited as a decorative item than a writing utensil. She sent it back to the clockwork tinkerers one final time, to get it professionally cleaned and maintained. When it returned, she kept it on display in her office. When she died, her daughter, Queen Loranel, inherited the Fang of Ahrooni along with the throne. It is now one of Loranel's dearest possessions, still on display in the royal office.
Diameter at thickest point: 3 cm
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