Solo Forming the Blanks

[Eleret]

Fall 51, 512 AV morning It was still strange to sit indoors during the bells after dawn and not hear Na'tera's feet pattering against the stairs, nor the soft notes of Meline playing her lute. To look out the window and not see Ne'len's carefully tended garden, ever shifting with the seasons. To be in a room, in a building larger than her mother's household, and know that most other people in the inn around her were strangers, aside from the few Konti Eleret knew by sight and name. It was a certain adjustment, but one she considered good preparation for the journey she would make; out there, not even the surroundings would be familiar, aside from the University and some other parts of Zeltiva. But perhaps solitude was a good thing this morning, as Eleret had a project of her own to attend to, something best not interrupted. A project which would benefit from good lighting; accordingly, she maneuvered the room's low table over before the window, which faced somewhat south of east and let in quite a bit of morning sun -- the very reason she had set aside a morning for this. Once the table was placed to her satisfaction, Eleret unrolled her kits and picked out the tools she would need -- a set of three clamps from the crafter's kit and a small knife from the carver's kit. These, she arranged on the side of the table that would be her working space; the rest, she pushed to the far end. Eleret also retrieved the two lengths of driftwood she had brought back the other day, placing them in the midst of the table and making sure they wouldn't start to roll. That sufficed for preparing her working environment. Eleret then took a few moments to prepare herself, something she had learned was an equally important undertaking. And as this project was personally important to her, not to mention the last she expected to start in Mura for a while, she wanted everything to go smoothly and well.

[Eleret]

Eleret folded down onto her knees by the table, resting her hands on her thighs and closing her eyes. She thought not of the room, not her family, not her project, but the long roll of ocean waves. The rise of a swell in the gray-blue surface, capped in near-white foam as it crested, rushing up to fizzle out on the sand. Waves which rolled in, and rolled back out again, one after another, pattern steady and even. The Konti matched her breathing to her mental image, the half-remembered, half-imagined rhythm of the ocean. She thought of the hissing susurrus of waves lapping against sand, formless and constant background noise. Here memory intruded, supplying unasked the intermittent punctuation of seabird cries. Patient and determined, she cast them back out each time, always reminding herself of the sea, and only the sea. When her mind felt clear, her body relaxed, Eleret allowed her focus to change. She let the sea in her mind recede, calling to the fore her objectives for this morning. She had no drawing for reference, but in this task needed none; her only objective today was to parcel the lengths of wood out into individual discs. Some might have thought her preparations elaborate for such a simple task, but even simple things benefited from deliberation and care. Other people were of no concern in this. Only the wood, and the process by which she would shape it. Eleret thought about the cuts she would make, envisioned the way the wood would section. She imagined how the discrete pieces would feel in her hands as they were split off, thick medallions with broad bevels around their outer edges, surfaces rough and unpolished. Only when her mental image was firmly set did Eleret open her eyes and set her hands to work.

[Eleret]

Eleret took up the first length of wood, nearly as long as her arm from elbow to wrist. Its surface had been bleached gray, slightly more silver than ashen; it was abraded smooth, any traces of the bark the limb once bore long since claimed by the sea. She ran her fingers along its length, and around over the slight irregularity in its shape -- a channel dimpling one side, as though the scouring sand had found a softness in the grain and worn deeper there. The irregularity gave the wood character; Eleret rather liked it. She had no way to tell what kind of tree it had once come from; after extended exposure to the sea, most woods looked much the same to her eyes. But it was a thing of Mura and the ocean, like Eleret herself, and that suited her intent better than any specially particular strain of tree would. Setting the piece of driftwood near the table's edge, she picked up each of the three clamps in turn and arranged them along its length. One, Eleret set at the left third of the wood, one at the right, both of these cinched down rather lightly upon the stick. She only wanted to keep accidental nudges from moving it out of position, and would be moving the clamps again soon enough. The third clamp, she set at the very end, lining up the side of its plate with the end of the wood. When it too was tightened into a gentle grip, Eleret picked up the little knife she had set out and made a shallow tick in the wood. That was all -- after scoring that mark, she loosened the last clamp, sliding it over until its outside edge aligned with the mark. Another tick was drawn alongside its inner edge, then the clamp moved again, these actions repeated down the length of the stick. She paused to rearrange the securing clamps as needed, shifting first one, then the other, right by one-third the length of the wood. When Eleret was finished, she loosened all three clamps and rotated the stick by a quarter turn. Then she went through the very same process all over again.

[Eleret]

When Eleret finally finished with all four iterations, she removed the wood from its clamps and examined the resultant marks. Four rows of tickmarks, one to each quadrant, marched their way down the length of the stick in evenly-spaced increments, dividing it into... Rather than estimate the number, Eleret took the time to count them out. There were a total of nineteen distinct sections marked on the wood, including the very ends which she would not be able to use; potentially seventeen, then, which she could. Provided that the next part worked out so well as the first. But before that, it was time for a break. Eleret set her project aside, only now noting the angle of the light through the window; more time had passed than she had expected. She was in no danger of losing the good morning light, not for a few bells yet, but the Konti thought she would have to revise her agenda and process the second piece of wood tomorrow. No matter; these things took their own time, and she had no need and even less desire to hurry through. Eleret rose and stepped out into the middle of the small, spare room, the better for a little exercise. She thought a warm-up routine from her suvai lessons would be appropriate now -- it would stretch out all the kinks and rehone her concentration. Reviewing those she had learned, Eleret selected one, setting her feet in appropriate stance -- shoulder width apart and parallel to one another. Then she brought her hands up before her chest and drew in a deep, cleansing breath, envisioning the sequence. The Konti stretched her arms up towards the ceiling, as high as her fingers would go, then let them swoop down in a curving manner suggestive of wings. She bent forward as they descended, hands sweeping in before her knees. She brought them up again, straightening, this time in a leftward lean, her upper body curving to that side; down to cross, before rising in a rightward lean. Then her arms swept down a third time, now rising up to an angle partway between shoulder and head; afterwards, Eleret folded at the waist as her arms dropped, spine curving so that her hands hung near to her ankles. She stayed in that position for some uncounted moments, feeling the gentle stretch of her muscles. The motions, the stretching, were meditative and focusing; for the time they took, Eleret thought of nothing but the physical -- neither what she had done nor what she would do next -- and the physical was more felt than thought about.

[Eleret]

Eleret straightened back up after a bit, rolling her shoulders and leaning her head to either side. Her mind felt a little clearer, refreshed and ready to move on to the next task. It would be another exercise in tedium, except considerably greater, to cut apart the sections she had marked out. She could do it far faster with a saw, but the tiles the Konti would make from the pieces were intended to be personal tools, and she thought they would benefit greatly from the personal effort on her part. Even if it was time-consuming and in some ways mind-numbing. She returned to the table, sinking down onto her knees beside one corner and reaching out to rearrange her tools. Eleret adjusted two clamps to hold the length of driftwood across the corner, such that one ends hung off the edge. She again kept the pressure of the clamps light, allowing her to reposition the wood fairly readily. Taking up the knife again, she angled a cut in towards the end-most mark, shaving off a small wedge of grayed wood. By mirroring the cut from the other direction, she created a V with its deepest point replacing the earlier scored line. Eleret then rotated the stick a small amount, making another V-shaped cut next to the first; with this one, she linked the first tick-mark to its next closest counterpart. She continued on around the wood in this manner, replacing the marks with a shallow groove perhaps only a millimeter or two deep. When the first circuit was finished, the ring completed, she continued with a second in the same track, then a third, angling her cuts ever deeper. In principle, this resembled how both beavers and woodsmen might chop down trees, except the woodcarver took more out of the middle than from along the sides; the resultant bevel had a very sharp angle. Ultimately, she whittled the sides down until only a thin sliver of wood connected the stick's end to its body. Then, Eleret was able to simply press through it with the blade, separating the end from the rest. The detached piece, she set aside; the rest, she worked forward over the table edge and clamped down again, repeating the process at the second tetrad of marks.

[Eleret]

Eleret focused on each cut, on the feel of wood giving way before blade, fragments cut lose and cast aside. Focused on each action, how it connected to the previous and would to the next, linking the original scores together and chipping ever deeper into the wood's core. For all the meticulosity of this process, each pair of cuts was simple and straightforward, and quick to accomplish. What took the longest was rotating the stick to bring the next segment into place. She finished the second ring in the same way as the first, separating a single disc from the body of the stick. Eleret paused to study this first blank round, setting her knife aside and picking it up, running her fingers over the rough surface. It was not quite an inch thick at the center, its widest point; the outer edge was somewhat thinner. The beveling between was a coarse melange of individual cuts all layered atop one another, as reflected her process; Eleret would polish the roughness off later, but not attempt to sand all the marks out; she thought they gave the piece character. Soon enough, the Konti set the disc aside and turned her attention back to the parent wood. She worked it forward to bring the third ring into position, then began chipping away at it in the same manner as the first two. So with the fourth, and the fifth, and others after that; stopping sometimes to get up, stretch, and pace around the room before returning to that monotonous task. Syna rose higher in the sky all the while, eventually angling her light away from the room's sole window. By that time, however, Eleret had only the last disc left to cut away, and her fingers were well-accustomed to the technique. At the end, she sat back on her heels to regard the results of her effort: thirteen rough discs, four more marred by errors on her part, and the two unusable end pieces. Along with a pile of shavings, which she would have to sweep up and remove from the room. All together, they made a gratifying sight. Eleret basked in her accomplishment for a short time, despite the simplicity of the morning's task; even simple successes were worth appreciating. Then she sighed and rose to her feet, setting about the chore of putting everything back away -- until tomorrow.

[Traverse]

Thread Awards! Eleret : Experience: Carving 3 Meditation 2 Observation 1 Lore: Clearing the Mind Before Work Cutting Discs of Wood From a Whole Inventory: + 17 Rough Wooden Discs Additional Notes : Because this thread is a two-parter I put the collection of my notes in the second grade. Questions, Concerns? PM me and we'll be to the bottom of it. Safe Travels!