The Start Of A Job

by **Lora** on October 22nd, 2014, 9:14 pm

Timestamp:30 and 31, fall, 514 AV
Lora sat in the warm, soft sand. The midday sun beamed down on her, warming her back. The sun light was a rare reward seeing as it was fall and it seemed to Lora as if it was always raining. She sat with her legs crossed in front of her and a blank canvas resting on them. In her right hand Lora held a medium size paint brush. The other hand was holding the canvas, steadying it. Sitting next to her in the sand was the piece of drift wood she used as a palette. It had on it a rainbow of colorful paints. Each glob of paint reflected the sun’s bright rays.

A bit earlier, Lora had decided she needs to make money in some way. She knew she needed a job and the most obvious choice was to sell her paintings. She had always loved doing art so; to her it made the most sense to do that for money. At the time it had seemed like a brilliant idea and she had immediately grabbed her paintbrush, a canvas and her paints. After settling into a spot in the sand Lora was suddenly struck with a problem: people had to like her artwork to buy it. She had never painted anything that she planned to sell before so she wasn’t really sure what people were likely to buy. She remembered walking through the crowded bazaar of Syliras as a child. There were many different stalls there sell about anything you could imagine but Lora had always loved the ones that sold art related things. There were stalls that sold painting and some that sold glass work while others had pottery. Lora thought back trying to remember what types of painting had been sold in the bazaar. There had been everything. Scenes, objects, abstract, everything. Lora wasn’t sure which of these she should try to sell first.

After a while of thinking about it Lora decided to start with painting the beach. This beach was by far the thing she painted the most. It was right outside her house and she could get to it easily causing it to be her most common subject. This also made this beach the thing Lora was the best at painting. She swiftly dabbed the hairs of her paintbrush into the yellow paint. On the palette she mixed the yellow with a bit of red and white making a light sand color. Taking the brush, Lora covered a section of the canvas that she decided would eventually be the sand of the beach. She continued by mixing some colors into a darker color and added it to the picture.

As she painted the tide slowly came in causing the water to get ever closer to Lora filling the air with a scent of salty ocean water. When the waves got exceedingly close the splashes of ocean sent mist spraying to Lora. The slightly wet breeze felt good on Lora’s skin as she painted so she ignored the occasional drip of water that landed on the oily paint that covered her canvas. Whenever a drip of water did land on her painting she would just leave it or tilt the painting slightly so it ran off into the sand.

Around 4 bells had passed before Lora added the final dab of white paint to the canvas, finishing the crust of a wave frozen in time and finishing the entire painting. She leaned back to admire her work. Her mother had always said when she was doing a painting she needed to look at the whole thing to decide how it was. Over the years Lora had subconsciously learned to look at the entire picture the whole time she was painting it. Even when she was focusing on one part of it, she always had the entire thing in her mind. Despite this she had still acquired a habit of sitting back and looking at her paintings when she was done. It looked good to her. A wave was crashing over the oil painted beach, much like the waves crashing on the real beach. The sky was a light blue color with not a cloud to be seen. This contrasted the real world. In the horizon of the real sunlit sky a group of dark, menacing clouds were gathering. There were still some small things she might have fixed but she knew that if she fixed all the problems on her paintings had she would be out in the sand until well in the night.

Setting her paint brush and canvas on the warm ground Lora hopped into a standing position. She clasped her hands above her hand and stretched out. She was extremely stiff from sitting on the ground for 4 bells. She waved her arms and legs out getting them adjusted to moving again. Her feet had fallen asleep and the tingling feeling ran all the way up her legs. She ran in place until the feeling was gone and her legs felt more or less normal.

Lora picked up her thing, holding the paintbrush between her teeth and the canvas and palette in either hand. She walked over to where the first rock in the row of four rocks that led to her house over the water sat. The rock was a light gray color with various plants growing around where its base touched the slashing waves. The rock, which had a slightly curved top, was about as tall as Lora’s neck. Its height and slick surface made it difficult for Lora to get on when her hands were full.

Before Lora attempted the tedious task of getting her stuff to her cottage she stopped to think. Realizing that she was planning to sell this painting and thus would need to have it on shore at some point in the future she gently placed the painting on the ground next to the rock. When she realized she needed more than one painting to sell she placed the palette and paintbrush on the ground with the painting. Then, with a lot more ease than she would have had if she had been carrying all her things Lora climbed on to the rock and stepped across the other 3 almost identical rocks over the water and to the front step of her cottage.

by **Lora** on October 26th, 2014, 7:14 pm

Lora stepped through the opened door to her cottage. She walked across the room to the table that sat in the corner by her bed. The table was relatively small and square. It was covered with a disorganized array of art supplies. Lora looked through the pile of canvases at dominated the right corner of the small wooden table. She selected on of a rather small size. The rectangular canvas was just a bit bigger than her hand span. Grabbing the canvas Lora spun around and walked back to the door, the wooden floor creaking under her bare feet. With the blank canvas tucked under her arm Lora scaled the rocks that connected her to the beach. When she got to the last one she stopped and dropped the canvas into the sand, taking care to make sure she didn’t hit her still drying painting or land the canvas close enough to water that it got splashed by the oncoming waves.

Lora had been interested in acrobatics ever since she was young. Most sports required great amounts of strength and because of her disorder Lora couldn’t really build up much muscle and got tired easily. Acrobatics required some strength so she had never been able to excel at it but Lora found that most acrobatic maneuvers mostly focused on how one positioned one’s body. She thought that if you can get the momentum right you can do any acrobatic move.

Because of this, Lora liked to try to do flips off that last rock in the series that connected her house to the beach. She didn’t have the strength to jump far enough off the ground to pull off a flip but if she could jump from some place higher like the rock she was standing on, she could do it. At least that’s what she thought. Having never actually made the flip off the rock she could only hypothesize she might be able to but it did seem easier that the ground so she kept trying.

Lora moved her feet so they were firmly positioned on the stone making sure she didn’t accidentally slip when she jumped, then she kicked off the rock flinging her body as high into the air as she could. Lora pulled her body into a tight ball pulling her forward and trying to roll in the air. Just as she had spread herself back out from the ball her feet hit the sand. One of her feet was slightly of set from the other causing her to lose her balance and fall backward into the sand. The lose sand provided a nice cushion to her fall and so she wasn’t injured at all. Almost as soon as she hit the sandy ground she hopped back and brushed the sand off her back, smiling. She had almost got it. She just needed to keep her balance when she landed but at least she landed. She considered trying again but ultimately decided she needed to get started on her next painting. She had only done one small painting and she sun was already starting to set.

Lora dashed back to her canvas that still lay on the ground. When she had dropped it, it had knocked up some sand and now had some sand on its surface. She picked up the canvas wiping the sand off with her hand and walking over to the nearby place at which her finished painting and her paints sat. She first grabbed the paintbrush sticking it behind her ear. Then she tucked her canvas under her arm and picked up the palette with both hand. It wasn’t really heavy but she liked to carry it in both hand so she could make sure not to spill the paints.

Suddenly Lora realized she didn’t have a plan for what she was going to paint. She couldn’t paint the beach again. No one would buy the same painting twice. Another subject matter Lora painted often was seashells. There were so many interesting ones she would see on the beach and she loved to paint them. With that Lora decided to paint a seashell. Palette still in hand, she walked closer to the water where the seashells usually washed up. She saw some interesting ones as soon as she started looking but she decided to walk down the beach a little more to find a seashell she really wanted to paint. She started walked parallel to the water with her back to the rock and her painting that lay drying there.

After some walking around and struggling to look at the ground while holding a huge, bulky palette she found a seashell she wanted to paint. It was obsidian black and shiny. It was sitting just at the edge of the water so when a wave can in it washed, just barely, over the sea shell’s sparkling surface. There was a small piece taken out of the corner of the otherwise unbroken flat seashell. She shell was half imbedded in the sand and Lora wasn’t going to move it. The only problem was that the shell kept getting washed over with water which would be fine except that mean she would either have to sit a ways way or risk getting the canvas wet. After a bit of pondering, she decided to risk it and sat down right where she was. Every time a wave of salty ocean water came in it would splash against her legs, which were tucked under her, soaking into her pant legs. The next problem she faced was where to put her palette down. If she put it down next to her like she usually did the paints would either get washed off the board or the whole thing would float away.

Eventually Lora decided to set the palette on the front of her lap near her knees. She carefully pulled the small canvas out from under her arm, making sure to keep it dry. She held that up on her lap, closer to her stomach than the palette. Reaching around her canvas with her paintbrush she had to tilt the canvas onto her left more so she could see what color she was selecting. It was a bit awkward and difficult to paint like this but eventually Lora got used to painting with all her supplies on her lap and having to ignore the constant distraction of the water splashing against her legs.

Ordinarily a painting this small would have taken her 1 and a half to 2 bells at most to complete. With the odd, watery circumstances she wasn’t done for 3 bells and she sun had started to set. As she had worked the tide had started to go back out as well so by the time she was finished she was sitting on dry land and her still damp legs had lots of sand sticking to them. At least when the waves were no longer getting her wet she could take her canvas off her legs and put it on the ground next to her. The area had changed so much since she had started the painting, what with the lighting change and water level change that Lora had to compromise in her painting. The painting was a strait down view of the shell. The sand behind the shell was in a semidry state and the lighting in the painting represented that of just before dusk.

Setting the painting on the ground, Lora stood up and stretched just as she had after finishing the last painting and pretty must every painting she did. After the quick stretch, Lora scooped up her paint brush and dipped it in the ocean water, washing the paint out of its bristles then putting it behind her ear and grabbing her painting and starting to walk back to her house which wasn’t too far away but it was a short walk. She left the palette on the ground because her hands were full and she made a mental note to come back and get it. She walked quickly back to the rocks that lead to her house because she was eager to start another painting. It was already getting dark and she didn’t want to be out to late painting. She was anxious to start the sell part of her new found job but she knew she would have to wait for her paintings to finish drying which would take a few days but the sooner she started the faster they would dry. She wasn’t exactly sure how many painting she would need to do before she could start selling them but she knew that 2 weren’t enough.

As she approached the rocks she set the wet painting down next to the other one that was drying. As soon as she set it down Lora began walking with a fast pace back to where she had left her palette. She grabbed the piece of wood and dashed back to the rocks. She set the drift wood palette down next to the rock and then proceeded to bounce across the rocks to get to her cottage and get her next canvas.

As she entered her cottage Lora’s eyes took in the whole room. It had various pieces of furniture and a lot of clustered items on each of them. Lora had never been a very organized person but she was still able to find all her stuff amidst the mess. Her mother had always kept things in order but now without her mother around all of Lora’s stuff just lay there. Her eyes drifted to the colorful pile of completed painting Lora had sitting the corner of the room. Lora stopped walking suddenly. When Lora thought of her plan to get a job she had thought of it along the lines of: 1) do paintings 2) sell them. She hadn’t even thought about selling the painting she already had. Her brain had just sorted those paintings into a different category. Now, seeing the paintings Lora realized she should sell those because they weren’t doing her any good just sitting there.

Lora decided that it was getting late so she should start selling the paintings in the morning when the most people would be going by. With that she started to grab a meal then go to bed for the day.

by **Lora** on November 1st, 2014, 7:32 pm

Lora woke up to the sound of birds chirping outside her window and the steady splash of waves crashing underneath her cottage. Rays of slightly darkened sunlight poured through the window casting a spot of yellow light on the wooden floor. The slightly less vibrates revealed that the sun was once again semi-covered with clouds. Carefully, Lora swung her legs over the side of her cot setting her bare feet on the floor. She yawned rubbing the sleep out of her eyes. She stretched a bit before jumping to feet.

Today was an important day. She knew that for sure. Today would be the day she would start her job. Having a tendency to do things without thinking Lora’s mother had told her that if she knew a day would be important that she should make a plan for that day first. Lora leaned back sitting down once more on her bed and began to think. She was going to sell things. She had seen many people, mostly at the harbor, selling things around Mura. She thought back to the way they had their goods set up. She remembered distinctively one Konti woman who had been selling her goods on a blanket. When she came up with the idea to start selling items she had based it off what she saw that woman doing. She had been selling glass blown trinket which had caught Lora’s eyes, this being the reason she remembered it, and, though they would sell different things Lora would base her place of selling off this Konti’s set up.

The woman had been sitting on the ground on a large multicolored blanket. Lora glanced at the blanket that covered her own bed. She didn’t want to use this. Having it sit on the ground all day would be sure to cover it with dirt and that would be a huge disadvantage.

So, with that, Lora hopped off the bed again and decided to go buy a blanket. She was eager to start her job due to the fact that she knew the sooner she started the more people would see her art but mostly she was excited for the new job. She rushed around the room preparing to leave the house with her normal routine only now with a little more zeal than normal.

Before long Lora was out the door and hopping across the rocks leading to the shore. She jumped off the last rock, her bare feet hitting the warming sand. Suddenly she realized that she still hadn’t put on her shoes. Ordinarily when she was just going to stay on the beach she didn’t wear her shoes. Her sandals would fill with sand and just weight her down. When she went in to the main town Lora usually tried to wear shoes in case she stepped on some sticks or something. But also to avoid any awkard mements. Pivoting on one foot, she turned around and ran across the rocks to grab her shoes. She spun around the doorway and grabbed her sandals, stopping only for a second to fasten them onto her feet.

The main town of Mura was a short way from Lora’s house. Jogging, it took her very little time to get there. Once she started getting into the streets of the Ivory City she slowed to a walk. She wandered around glancing at each of the beautiful buildings, checking the shops for if they sold blankets. Lora was surprised at the lack of blankets that were sold in Mura. Usually she could find anything she was looking for fairly easily but today she couldn’t find a blanket where ever she looked. She even asked in a few fabric shops to see if they knew where a blanket could be bought. None did.

Eventually Lora stumbled into a quaint little shop on the corner of a street. She almost missed it because the small little shop was surrounded by larger, flashier ones. The door to the small store was opened so Lora walked right in. Inside, the walls were covered in various quilts and blankets of any size and color you could possibly want. The floor was made of light wood and creaked under Lora’s step. The room was lit only with natural sun light streaming in through the window. Because the sun was becoming increasingly more covered with clouds as the day went on the room was dimly lit. Against the far wall was a desk and sitting behind it was an older Konti woman. Her pale white hair was pulled back into a neat bun, showing off the glistening scales that adorned her for head. Her round face was covered in wrinkles from the smile that was on her face when Lora walked in.

“Look around. See if there is anything you like.” The Konti said warm-heartedly.

“Thank You,” Lora nodded to the woman and walked over to the right wall. Lora had decided that she didn’t want a quilt with designs on it because, even though the quilts looked beautiful, they would probably distract people from her art. Lora walked over to the section of the wall covered with plain blankets. As she did she noticed the faint smell of lavender in the air. She had never been a big fan of lavender but the slight smell fit the personality of the quirky little shop.

The plain colored woven blankets came in a variety of colors from dark green to light yellow. Lora immediately attracted to the light blue one that hang in the middle of the section. Blue had always been her favorite color. Seeing no reason not to, she decided this was the one she would get.

“I’d like to buy this, please.” Lora turned around to face the old Konti who was still sitting at the desk. The woman nodded and stood up. She walked slowly over to the place Lora was standing.

“Yes, yes. The blue one wasn’t it?” She nodded at the light blue blanket. Lora nodded. The woman looked at Lora. She seemed to be judging her, deciding what kind of person she was. Whether it was a Konti gift she had or just a natural talent Lora couldn’t be sure. “Hmm, that will be 3 silver, dear.” She seemed to have decided. Lora nodded again and reaching into her pocket. She had expected the blanket to cost a lot more so she was glad it only cost 3 silver. Pulling from her pocket 3 silver she handed the shiny coins to the woman. She smiled.

“Thank you,” The woman said, tucking the coins into her pocket without even looking at them. She reached up and pulled the blanket off the hooks that held it up and handed the neatly folded blanket to Lora.

“Thank you,” Lora took the blanket carefully tucking it under her arm.

“Take care, dear.” The woman said as Lora walked out the door. Standing just outside the door, Lora paused for a second thinking if there was anything else she would need while she was in the town. Nothing really came to mind so she started walking home. The sun was behind a great deal of clouds but Lora could still she that it was almost directly above her indicating it was almost midday. Ordinarily, Lora would have been hungry by now but she was too excited to stop to eat.

Before too long Lora had started to smell the familiar scent of the salty ocean and her cottage came into view. She jogged up to the stones in front of her house, kicking up sand as she did. With the blanket still under her arm she hopped happily across the rocks. When she entered the house she would usually take off her shoes but today she left them on and ran over to the pile of paintings that sat on the floor, being careful not to step on the wet paintings that still sat on the floor drying. She grabbed the pile of paintings being careful to balance them so they didn’t fall and still keep the blanket under her arm. The pile had about 6 or 7 paintings in it and Lora hoped that would be enough as she carefully stepped across the rock. She was extremely cautious as she walked over the stones because she knew if she dropped the paintings in the water they would be ruined. Getting to the last rock she was extremely relieved to jump off it into the dry sand that wouldn’t ruin her paintings if she dropped them in it. Lora started to walk across the beach in the direction she knew was toward the harbor. She had to walk rather slowly to make sure not to drop the paintings, nothing like the fast pace she had before when she had jogged to the town. She hoped it wouldn’t take her to long to get to the harbor.

by **Lora** on November 2nd, 2014, 8:28 pm

Lora looked at the variety of people who walked by her little set up. She had laid her blanket out on the side of the harbor on the wooden planks that made it up. The harbor was unexpectedly busy place compared to the calm serenity that surrounded most of Mura. The majority of people here were, like in most of the island, konti but here there were a lot more other races there too. The fast paced, diversity of the harbor reminded Lora of Syliras, where she had lived as a child. Although they were similar, the harbor was a lot more orderly than the streets of Syliras. In front of her, the paintings were spread. The dark sky was threatening to rain but Lora hoped that it didn’t because that would completely destroy her paintings.

A dark skinned man stopped in front of Lora’s little display. He bent forward, placing a hand on his beard and admiring the art. Lora looked up at him with hopeful eyes. In Syliras the people had done a lot of shouting about their products especially if some stopped to look at them. In Mura people only sometimes did this. Lora started to wonder if she should or not. She wondered if there were certain types of products that one could yell for and some types you couldn’t. The woman she had bought the blanket from earlier that day came to mind. She had been extremely gentle about it and Lora thought that was a good start.

“Look around, see if there is anything you like.”She said repeating what the woman had said. Suddenly she realized saying that didn’t quite fit, seeing as there wasn’t any ‘around’ to look because she was just on a blanket not in an actual building.

The man looked at her with a questioning look. “Sorry, I don’t speak-,” He pause like he was trying to recognize what language it was. “-that.” He concluded and started to walk away.

“Wait, no, I speak this too.” She called after him. He turned around and looked at her.

“Hmm, well, I wasn’t going to buy anything anyway.” The man shrugged. “Give it a few years and I’m sure you’ll make a great artist. Until then, I suggest you try something else.”He turned and walked away leaving Lora a bit distraught. Was her art really that bad?She would have spent more time dwelling on it if another person, a young konti who couldn’t have been much older than Lora with a short haircut and a childish smile, hadn’t walked up to her blanket set up.

“Hi! You look sad. What’s wrong?” She cocked her head slightly to the side.

Lora looked up at the girl; she couldn’t help but return her smile. “Well there was this man and he-” Lora stopped herself quickly, realizing it was rude to talk about people behind their back.

The girl nodded, knowingly. “He told you your art wasn’t good enough, did he? Well,” She glanced over at the paintings, “I think they are phenomenal and I’d like to buy one. They really brighten thing on this dark day.” She frowned up at the dark clouds above them.“Hmm,” She returned her attention to the paintings scanning them with her eyes. “I’ll take that one. How much will it cost?” The girl pointed to a large painting Lora had of the beach. Cost. Lora hadn’t really thought of that. She wasn’t sure exactly how much she should charge for a painting.

“Um, how much do you think I should charge?” Lora asked the konti.

The girl thought for a second. “Well, It is pretty big and very well done,” She glanced up at Lora who was watching her intently. “I’d about 8-9 silver. Maybe even more.”

“Really? Do you think it is worth that much?”

“Yes, I do,”She reached into her pocket and pulled out a handful of silver coins. She counted them quickly in her hand. “Here,” She placed the coins down on the blanket infront of Lora. “There’s 9 silver. Hopefully it will help you get started with your little business here. Good luck.”The girl winked at Lora like they shared some sort of secret. Then she picked up the painting and walked away.

“Thank you!” Lora called after her.

For the rest of the day no one else bought anything from Lora. A few people stopped to look at the art and even more than that glanced at it as they walked by but no one else bought any. Lora stayed sitting there until the sun was setting and she decided to go home. She carefully picked up the painting stacking them like they had been before. She set them down next to the blanket and proceeded to fold the blanket up as neatly as she could. As she did she noticed a large amount of dirt and sand sticking to the bottom of the blanket. She was forced to unfold the blanket and shake it out to get it relatively clean. Although, it was still not as clean as it had been before it had spent the day sitting on the ground. Lora refolded the blanket neatly and tucked it under her arm. She then picked up the paintings and started to walk home.

She thought about her day. Only one person had bought her art. She knew she would have to do better than that. She wondered if she should talk to people first in Common and not Kontinese. More people knew Common and so it might not scare off customers like her Kontinese had. If she had been just about anywhere else on the island, Kontinese would have been just fine but at the harbor, where there were many visitors, Common was probably better. She also considered calling to the people the way most merchants in Sylira’s bazaar did, trying to get people to buy their goods. That thought quickly vanished as Lora couldn’t possibly imagine she being to strait forward and rude. She also considered trying to talk the people who were looking at her goods into buying them. This idea seemed a little more reasonable. Maybe if she at least talked to the prospective buyers that would make them more likely to buy her paintings. Today, she just sat there and let them look at the art. She also thought about trying to sell different types of art than just painting. Well, She decided as she approached the rocks to her house I’ll figure it out tomorrow.