Solo Working Towards a Goal

[Seirei Dawnwhisper]

Timestamp: 65th Day of Summer, 514 AV Frightening, uneasy dreams erupted into an even more terrifying reality when Seirei felt a firm pressure on her abdomen. Her throat burned with every breath she took, but even that pain was better than the terror she'd felt when Lian had choked off her breath. She didn't quite pass out from the lack of air, but it had been a near thing. Seirei had seen stars, and her mind had gone faint and fuzzy before her captor had finished with her. Her entire body hurt, and Seirei was certain that she had a whole new array of bruises added to her already considerable collection. But even worse than the pain was the sense of shame she felt at her inability to protect herself from her captor's casual brutality. Lian's cold words warning her not to resist sent a shiver of fear running down her spine. How could she not resist? Everything was gone. Her family, her friends...her entire world. All she had left was herself, and the beginnings of a friendship with Waisana. So how could she just give herself over to her captor and allow him to use her as he pleased? She couldn't. There was no way she could do as he demanded. Not and remain herself. The fact that she wasn't capable of fending her captor off wasn't the issue. It was that she didn't simply give over that last bit of herself to him. That she didn't give him permission to rape her by way of not trying to stop him even if it was futile. Lian continued. It didn't have to hurt? She might learn to enjoy it? Enjoy being raped? No. The man's words were a lie. Believing them was madness. Seirei lay perfectly still. Her captor's words did not deserve a response, and Seirei refused to give him one. She would not allow the man to provoke her as he was no doubt attempting to do. It seemed as though Lian was looking for a reason to punish her again, and Seirei had no intention of giving him one. She was in enough pain as it was. She certainly didn't want to be hurt again. After a while, the man told her to seek Waisana out if the pain was too severe. Then he informed her that he was going hunting. Shortly after that, he left, presumably to go hunting as he said he would. Seirei really couldn't bring herself to care either way. Her first thought when he told her not to "risk her health," was to do just that out of sheer defiance. But Seirei wasn't that desperate. Resisting him when he forced himself on her was one thing. Risking serious injury out of foolish stubborn pride was another thing entirely. Fortunately, although she was very sore, she didn't think anything was seriously wrong. Nothing that warranted a trip to seek healing from Waisana, at least.

[Seirei Dawnwhisper]

Once Seirei was certain that her captor was gone, she gave in to the weakness of tears. She felt hopeless. Completely, and utterly hopeless. She was helpless to stop Lian from raping her. The man was bigger and stronger than she was. If he wanted to force himself on her, there was nothing she could do about it. She was helpless to prevent it...but she was unable to stop resisting either. Unable to simply give in and spare herself even a little pain. She was helpless to escape, because she didn't have the skills she needed to survive. Only death awaited her out in the Sea of Grass, and Seirei wasn't ready to seek it. Yet. Seirei hated feeling this way, but she was helpless to stop it. Her moods swung wildly from anger to sorrow to helplessness to hysterical laughter with seemingly no rhyme or reason for the change. She knew that her almost violent mood changes were a symptom of her pregnancy. But she was helpless to stop them, and helpless to simply ignore them when they hit her. And that only made her feel worse. Working with wood would help Seirei shake off her depression. It had in the past, and it would again. But Seirei knew that she wasn't calm enough to focus on the task. Her hands were shaking with the depth of her emotion, and tears still blurred her vision. So she fell back on something she knew would soothe her battered emotions. When she was certain that Lian wasn't coming back, she got dressed, and rummaged through her belongings until she found her wooden flute. Then she sat on her bed roll, closed her eyes, and shut her eyes, closing the world out as she raised the flute to her lips. At first, Seirei ran through the sounds she had learned how to produce on the flute one after the other. She ran through the series of note quickly, then she slowed down, and played them slowly. Then she repeated the process a few times, alternating between long slow notes, and short, rapid ones. When she tired of that, she switched things around, mixing the slow notes with the fast ones in no particular. She wasn't playing any song. She was just playing with the notes. It was...fun. And soothing. Seirei could feel her mood lifting as she gave herself to the "music." After a while, Seirei stopped. Instead of just playing random notes and stringing them together, she remember a song her mother had sung to her hundreds of times over the years. She concentrated on the song so intently that she could her mother singing in in her mind. Her focus narrowed. Seirei concentrated on each individual note in the song. Which ones were high, and which ones were low pitched? Which were loud, and which were soft? Rapid or slow? Long or short? With the notes of the remembered song firmly in mind, Seirei started with the first one. She blew softly into the wooden flute, positioned her fingers carefully, and ran through each of the sounds she knew until she found the one that sounded the most like the first note of the song her mother had sung. When she found it, she committed it to memory. Then she worked with the second note. And the third. And the fourth. After a bell or so of effort, Seirei had worked out the notes of the first verse of the song she was trying to play. Seirei played the verse over and over, committing the notes to memory. Each time she played it, it got a little easier because her fingers remembered where they were supposed to go. Seirei knew that she sounded terrible. Her notes weren't consistent at all. Some sounded okay, but those were far and few in between the mangled ones. Some notes were loud, and harsh. Others were painfully shrill and grating. Still others were wispy and frail because she didn't blow into the mouth of the flute hard enough. But at the same time, Seirei knew that she sounded better than the last time she had tried to play the flute. As her fingers became more accustomed to moving from one hole to another, and covering the holes fully rather than only covering half of the hole she was using, the notes she played started to become more recognizable for what they were supposed to be - actual notes rather than random horrific sounds. Feeling a little calmer, Seirei carefully placed her wooden flute back into its case, and put it away. As she did so, her fingers brushed over the blank book she had been lucky enough to find for sale in one of the caravans last season. She pulled it out, and looked at it thoughtfully for a long moment. Then she rummaged through her belongings in search for her charcoal sticks. When she found them, she pulled one out, and carefully put the rest away.

[Seirei Dawnwhisper]

Seirei brought the book and charcoal stick outside. The bright light of the sun was much better for than she wanted to do than the dim light within the tent. Seirei sat down, and opened the book to the first page, and placed her left hand on the sheet of paper. Holding the stick of charcoal with her right hand, Seirei traced the outline of her left hand. Her movements were slow and hesitant, and the rest of the world faded away as she focused on her self appointed task. The paper was smooth and even, but her own lack of experience made her lines uncertain. As a result, the black line of the charcoal on the paper was thicker in some areas, and thinner in others rather than being a nice, even line. And even though she was tracing something rather than drawing it freehand, the lines weren't perfectly straight. If anything, Seirei found it more difficult to trace her hand than to try to draw something without the aid of tracing it. Part of that was the fact that she was trying not to get any charcoal on her hand, and that made her hold the charcoal farther away from the object she was trying to trace than she should. But she was going to work with wood when she was done practicing drawing, and she didn't want to get any charcoal smudges on the wood. With the drought Endrykas was suffering, water was at a premium. She simply couldn't justify using even a little of what she had stored in her waterskin for washing her hands when she was done. Likewise, there was no water available to wash her clothes if she should try to wipe her hands clean on them instead. The end result was hand shaped...mostly. Seirei could recognize it as being a hand, at least, so that was something. But it was a far cry from what she imagined it would look like when she got the idea to trace her hand so she could get a feel for what drawing a hand should feel like. Well, I guess it could be worse... Seirei mused as she eyed her efforts critically. In the small blank areas around the image of her hand, Seirei tried to recreate her efforts. But this time, she used the traced hand as a reference while she was drawing, and simply drew her hand in a smaller scale. She had more luck with this than she had with tracing her hand. Since she wasn't trying not to get charcoal on her left hand anymore, her lines were more precise. But drawing something when she had only traced it once before wasn't easy. Especially when she was trying to make it smaller than the one she had traced before. So while the smaller versions were also recognizable as hands, the palms of the hands she drew were too round, or too square, or too angular. And they weren't often the right size in proportion to the fingers. The fingers themselves were a problem as well. They were too long and narrow, or not long enough, making them look fat and stubby. They were drawn too far apart from each other, or not far enough apart. And there were none of the details a hand would usually have. Things like fingernails, and lines for the finger joints, and lines in the skin of the palms were all missing. For now, Seirei was focusing only on the basic shape of the hand. Details, while important, could wait until she got the basics down consistantly. Seirei moved to the page opposite the one she had begun drawing on. Slowly but surely, she filled that page with hands as well. Big ones, and small ones, she tried drawing a mixture of sizes. The repetition paid off. As she gained confidence, and began to remember how to draw the hand shape rather than having to focus on every inch of every line, her lines grew straighter, and more even. And it was easier to space the fingers properly in proportion to the rest of the hand. By the time the page was full, her efforts, while still far from perfect, were a good deal better than her first attempts. Seirei flipped the page. She was tired of drawing hands, so she decided to try something else. But what did she want to draw? Seirei stared at the blank page before her for several chimes before an idea came to her. Then she set her charcoal stick to the paper, and began. A straight, horizontal line roughly an inch or so from the bottom of the page became the "ground." Two triangles drawn a short distance apart with a straight line connecting the top two points, and a second straight line connecting the two bottom ones that were nearest each other became a tent of sorts. A small square drawn in one of the triangles gave her a tent flap...sort of, anyway. Short, thin straight lines sprouting up from the "ground" became grass growing around the tent, while a circle drawn in one corner of the "sky" at the top of the page became the sun. When Seirei paused to judge her work, she couldn't help but laugh. The lines were straight, and even. The circle she had drawn was round as it was supposed to be, not oval. And it wasn't lopsided. When looking at the picture, you could tell what it was supposed to be...mostly. And yet... As a reference for carving an image, this is useless. Completely, and utterly useless. No details of any kind. Just basic shapes. And I guess those shapes came out all right, but the picture looks as though a young child drew it. Seirei wished that she could draw better, but she wasn't especially annoyed that she couldn't. Skill in drawing would come with time, and practice. Lots, and lots of practice. Just like it had with carving. And Seirei knew that if she practiced a little whenever she got the chance, she stood a decent chance of being skilled enough to make a good reference drawing by the time she truly needed one. Seirei tried to recreate the image she had just drawn on the opposite page. It took her less time than it had for her to draw the original, but it wasn't any better than the first. On the other hand, it wasn't any worse, either. Seirei stared at it for a long moment. Then she looked at Lian's tent. The ground to one side of it was covered in shadow due to the angle of the sun. Seirei stared at the shadow, then looked back at her drawing. With the charcoal stick she was using, Seirei blackened the ground near one side of the tent she had drawn. Then she eyed it critically. It was a shadow...sort of. If one looked at it the right way. But Seirei had no real hopes that anyone else who looked at the picture without knowing that it was meant to be a shadow would see it as such. Seirei sighed. She silently reminded herself once more that the more she practiced, the better she would become. She glanced at her hands, and sighed again at the smears of charcoal she saw on them. After a moment, she wiped her hands on the ground. That left them dusty and covered in dirt, but the friction had rubbed the smears of charcoal off of her hands. She felt small scrapes on her hands as she rubbed them on the ground, but she didn't mind. The slight sting was far preferable to getting charcoal on what she was trying to make. When she was done, she wiped her hands on her pants. The dirt and dust left on them would be far easier to clean than charcoal would be when the rains came, and she could finally wash her clothes. Then she closed the book with a snap, and retreated back into the tent with it. She emerged once more after putting the book and charcoal away, and gathering her carving tools, and the pieces of wood she had cut earlier in the season. It had been well over a week, so the wood was dry. Seirei sat on the ground, and spread the pieces of wood on the ground around her.

[Seirei Dawnwhisper]

With file in hand, Seirei picked up one of the pieces. She stared it for several chimes, visualing what she wanted the bead to look like when she was done. When she was ready, Seirei began filing off all of the sharp edges. It was slow going because there were a lot of edges that needed to be removed. If she didn't use enough pressure, the bead would remain rough around the edges. But if she used too much pressure, the small piece of wood would break. Once the piece of wood had been smoothed down, Seirei stared at it once more. What shape did she want the bead to be? She knew that round beads and oval beads were the easiest to make, but she was also confident enough in her abilities to try other shapes. The challenge of a more difficult shape was appealing to her. After a few moments, Seirei began work once more. Using the file with precision, Seirei rounded the bead. In the process, she smoothed it out some more. She would make a variety of shaped beads. Then she would paint them, and make a necklace. Or several necklaces. She had enough bits of wood to make a lot of beads. Even if she broke some as she shaped them, as was likely, she would have enough to make quite a few necklaces. Or she could make a few and sell the rest as loose beads. When she was finished with the first bead, she set it aside, and picked up another piece of wood. Once again, she used the file to remove the sharp edges. But instead of rounding the edges, she created angles. The end result was a square bead rather than a round one. The third became an oval bead. The fourth shattered when she accidently used too much pressure when she was removing the sharp edges. But the next two became a triangle shaped bead, and another round one. One by one, each piece of wood was shaped into a bead. The work took several bells, but Seirei was very satisfied with the end result. Only ten of the pieces of wood had broken as she attempted to shape them into beads. Seirei took a moment to admire the efforts of her hard work. As she did, the summer heat hit her like a sudden blow. It startled her, making her realize that she had been so focused on her work that she had shut the rest of the world out. So much so that she hadn't even noticed the brutal heat.

[Seirei Dawnwhisper]

With all of the beads, Seirei began sorting them into piles. The first set of piles separated the beads by shape. Square beads went into one pile, oval beads into another, round beads into a third, and so on. When that was accomplished, Seirei divided each pile in half. Then she cut several pieces of string, and strung the beads. One piece of string was used for each pile of beads so that they were organized by shape. And when the string was full, she tied the ends together so the beads wouldn't fall off and get scattered once more. Some of the strands of beads were carefully coiled, and placed in a pouch. These would be used as is when Seirei decided to attempt making necklaces with them. They were her best beads, and the light colored wood would make a pretty bead in and of itself. The rest of the beads would be painted. Some of them were flawed in some way, either through her error, or because the wood itself was flawed. They were still perfectly useable as beads, but the paint would hide the minor flaws that existed in them. Others weren't flawed in any way, but Seirei wanted to get a little creative when she was painting the beads. She planned to paint them a solid color as she had before. But once the paint was dry, she wanted to borrow a small paint brush, and try painting simple designs on them in another color. For that, she needed a good number of beads to practice on so that she could try a number of designs. Having a lot of beads to paint would also give her practice in creating the designs she wanted to try. Perhaps I can borrow a brush from one of the people I saw living in the red tents earlier this summer. Many of them were working on all sorts of crafts as I walked through that section of the city. So if I asked around, someone might point me in the direction of someone who could loan me what I'd need. I could buy some brushes, I suppose...but I'd rather not do that until I get a bit of practice in and decide whether it is something I actually want to get involved in. I could offer a lesson in woodworking as trade for borrowing the brush. Or perhaps I could offer a few of the beads in trade for the use of the brush. Seirei mused. I wonder what clan owns the red colored tents? Since the Drykas seem to name their clans after gemstones, maybre Ruby? Or Garnet? No...garnet would be a darker red, I think. So Ruby, then. Seirei set the strands of beads she wanted to paint aside for the moment. She retreated into Lian's tent long enough to get her paints. Since she had only used them once before, she had plenty left. Once she had them, she set the cakes of paint down, and poured some water into three bowls she had borrowed from one of Lian's neighbors. Then she crumbled a small amount of the paint into the bowls, one color in each one. She mixed them throughly until the colors were even. When she was done, Seirei picked up one of the strings of beads, and dipped it into the bowl of black paint. She made sure that each bead got completely coated by the paint. Then she lifted the string out of the paint, and hung it so it could dry. Hanging the beads would ensure that the paint didn't rub off when it rested on the ground. And putting the beads on a string before painting them made it easier to fish them out of the paint when they were completely coated with it, and would prevent the paint from getting inside the holes that had been drilled into them. Seirei alternated which paint she used for her beads. She wanted to make sure she had plenty of each color. Before long, her task was done. Dipping beads into paint just didn't require the same amount of time and skill that actually painting them by hand would. Seirei wasn't entirely certain that it counted as "painting" at all. When she was done, she looked around at all of the strings of beads she had hung up to dry. Then she glanced up at the sun, taking care to shield her eyes from its glare as she did so. Well, I guess this heat is good for one thing, at least. As hot and dry as it is, these beads should be dry in a day or two at most. Maybe even less. she thought with some satisfaction. Seirei walked over towards the bags of twigs she had set beside the tent. Some of the twigs were considerable thicker than the others. These, set set to one side, collecting them all into one of the bags regardless of what type of wood they were. They were too thick to make beads out of, but she thought they might be able to be used to make handles for eating knives. Seirei knew that she didn't have time to start a new project right now, but by gathering the bigger twigs together, she'd have them all in one place when she was ready to start her new project.

[Khida]

Seirei

Skill	Points
Carving	+1
Drawing	+2
Instrument: Flute	+2
Organization	+1
Painting	+1
Planning	+3

• Carving: filing different shapes from a cylindrical base
• Drawing: the shape of the human hand
• Drawing: a simplistic shadow
• The effects of pregnancy on mood
• Flute: remembering a melody, note by difficult note
• The importance of illumination for artistic endeavors
• Painting: the dip method

Notes

Another nice glimpse into Seirei's everyday life. You get 'bonus' points here for the detail you went into with Seirei figuring out that melody and all the trial-and-error of drawing hands. Overall, all the awards should be pretty transparent.

Please let me know if you have any questions or concerns regarding your grade!