Solo Practice Makes Perfect

[Seirei Dawnwhisper]

Timestamp: 35th Day of Winter, 514 AV


Seirei stared at the block of wood sitting before her thoughtfully. It was perfect for making a figurine. She had never tried making one before, and she longed to do so. It was very tempting to try it now. But to truly do justice to a figurine, it had to be very detailed. A figurine of a fish should have scales. A figurine of a bird needed to have detailed feathers. The best figurines were the ones that looked as if they were alive. If the figurine depicted an animal poised in some form of movement, it should look as though it could explode into movement at any time. And for that, she would need a detailed sketch as a reference to work from. That, or a perfect memory, able to bring up the image of what she wanted to carve in perfect detail at need. Seirei had neither. She was working on it slowly, but surely, but she knew that she had a long way to go before her drawing skills were up to the challenge of creating the kind of detailed sketch she would need.

Some day... she thought wistfully.

I'm not going to give up. I'm going to keep practicing as much as I can. And some day, I will be able to draw well enough to produce a good sketch. The kind I will need when I am ready to try my hand at making a true masterpiece. For now, though...

It was a promise to herself, and one she intended to keep. The urge to carve something was too powerful to ignore, though, so drawing practice would have to wait until she worked the intense need to carve out of her system. If she tried to ignore the desire to carve in favor of something else, the desire would slowly build until it was an all consuming, aching need that would keep her awake until she gave in to it. Seirei studied the block of wood for a while longer. It was large enough to make a good sized plate. And it was thick enough that she could probably get five plates out of it if she was careful. That was enough to make a good sized set. The question was, did she want to make plain, functional plates? Ones that would be used, so any decoration she gave them would have to be simple ones so they would be easy to clean? Or did she want to let her imagination run wild, and create a set of decorative plates? Seirei felt a surge of excitement at the latter thought, and she smiled. Decorative plates it was, then.

The first thing Seirei did was to look at her thumb. Using that as a guide, she carefully used her saw to cut the block into five pieces. Each was no thicker than the first joint of her thumb. That would be thick enough to allow her some room for error when she began her detail work, while still being thin enough to be called a plate. When she had her five pieces of wood, Seirei set the saw aside, and started to smooth them out with her smoothing cloth. She wanted no rough, uneven areas when she started carving.

Once she was finished smoothing out the rough areas, Seirei used her adze to shape the outer edges. Under her careful hand, the square pieces of wood became round. The smoothing cloth was then used once more to smooth out the rough areas. Seirei didn't want anyone to get splinters from handling something she had made, after all. It was a matter of professional pride. Leaving rough areas that could result in splinters, or eventual damage to the plate itself was a sign of an unskilled novice.

After each of the five plates had been shaped, Seirei used her chisel to scrape out a slight depression in the center of each plate. This gave her plates a rim that was slightly thicker than the length of her thumb. Once again, the smoothing cloth was used to smooth out the rough areas that had been created as she worked. As she rubbed the cloth over the surface of each plate, she would run her hand over it, checking for places that still needed work. Only when she couldn't find any did she set the cloth aside once more. Her back was starting to ache from sitting for so long, so Seirei stood, and stretched for a few chimes.

She was at a good stopping place, so she decided to take a break. A short walk would do her good. It would give her some much needed exercise, and the movement might help her to feel a little more alert.


Word Count20,624 words.
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[Seirei Dawnwhisper]

The air was brisk, but refreshing when Seirei emerged from the tent. A light breeze brought a hint of the colder weather to come. But for now, it was rather pleasant out. Seirei didn't have a particular direction in mind, so she chose one at random, and began walking. People went about their business quickly. Some, those who saw her often enough to realize that she was a captive, eyed her suspiciously as they passed by, clearly wondering if she was trying to escape. Seirei ignored them as best she could.

A sharp, gleeful sounding barking caught her attention, and she realized she had made her way to the edge of the city. It wasn't too surprising, given that Lian often camped not far from the edge since he spent a lot of time out hunting. Out of the corner of her eye, Seirei saw someone watching her. She recognized the man as one of Lian's neighbors. The man watched her intently. When he saw that she was looking at him, he glared at her, his eyes narrowed in wary disapproval. Seirei could almost hear the questions going through his mind. Is she trying to escape? Should I try to stop her?

Seirei ignored him. She was used to such looks. The dog was of far more interest to her. It was a tiny little thing. Probably kept to keep rats and other pests away from its owner's tent. And yet, as she watched, the dog was trying to claim a bone that was bigger than it was. Seirei couldn't help it. She laughed at the little dog's antics.

As she watched, the dog's owner came and picked it up. She frowned at Seirei, then left. Seirei stared at the bone thoughtfully. There were several more near by. Judging by the size, they had once belonged to something big. Possibly a zibri, given the fact that they were so close to the city.

Seirei didn't know how long the bones had been there, but it had been long enough that most of the flesh was gone. There were teeth marks visible, silent evidence of what had befallen the creature. But for all of that, Seirei decided that she wanted the bones anyway. She had never worked with bone before, and this was the perfect chance for her to experiment. Why waste good bones that could be turned into something of good quality on a carver's first attempt at working with the medium if there was a better option? She could practice with these, and if she ever managed to get her hands on some good bones, she'd have a better idea of what she was doing.

So Seirei gathered up as many bones as she could carry, and returned to Lian's tent. It took her three trips to get them all, because they were heavy. Once she had all of the bones, Seirei began digging a fire pit outside Lian's tent. She remembered her mother telling her that bones had to be cleaned before they could be carved, and that the best way to do that was to boil them for a while. Doing so would make it easier to scrape the flesh off of the bones.

When the pit was deep enough, Seirei lined the bottom of the pit with dried grass, and bits of bark she had saved from other project she'd worked on. Then she got a large pot and eyed it thoughtfully. The bones were big enough that she couldn't put all of the bones in at the same time. So she examined each of the bones carefully. Usually, she would pick the best of what she had to work with. But in this case, she picked the worst bones she could find. Since this was her first attempt at carving bones, it was highly unlikely that anything she produced from her attempt to carve them would be usable. This first attempt would be an experiment of sorts, an opportunity to get a feel for working with bone. And she would have enough left over to try again when she had a better idea of what she was doing.

Once she had made her selection, she put a few of the bones into the pot. Then she filled it with water. She wasn't sure how much water would be needed, but it made sense to her that the bones should be completely submerged in it, so she filled the pot nearly to the top. With that done, she set it aside. Using her flint, she struck it sharply against the stone that came with it several times. Her efforts produced sparks that flew into the pit. The bits of grass and bark caught fire immediately. Seirei carefully nursed the fragile, flickering flame until it grew into a strong, steady one.

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[Seirei Dawnwhisper]

Seirei wasn't sure how long she needed to boil the bones, so she decided to work on something else while she waited. Since she had to keep an eye on the pot as she worked, she needed something simple to work with. Something that wouldn't suffer too much if she didn't give it her full attention. After giving the matter some thought, she decided to go back to working on the plates she had been making earlier. With those, she could work on one at a time, and check on the fire, and the cooking bones in between each one.

So she went into the tent briefly to get the plates, and the tools she would need. Then she sat beside the pot so she could keep one eye on it as she worked. Seirei set the plates beside her, selected the first one, and got to work. She started by using her knife to cut notches into the edge of the plate she was working on. These notches were evenly spaced all around the edge of the plate. When she was finished with that, she paused to check on her pot. The water was boiling vigorously now. It wasn't boiling over, though. Seirei took that as a good sign. The bones didn't look any different, but she didn't know if they were supposed to.

She decided to let them boil for a while longer, so she went back to the plate she was working on. Using her chisel, she widened each of the notches, turning them into V shaped indentations. The overall effect looked something like rays. Seirei used her smoothing cloth to smooth out the rough edges. Then she set the plate aside, and selected another to work with. This time, she used her gouger to carve a floral pattern into the rim of the plate. Rather that drawing an image of what she wanted to carve, she worked from memory. It saved time, and in this case, when she wasn't using any specific type of flower in her pattern, it didn't matter if she got the details exact or not.

Seirei lost herself in her work. One by one, she carved a different pattern into each of the plates. When she finished the last one, Seirei remembered the bones. She looked over at the pot in alarm, more than half expecting it to have boiled dry. How long had it been since she last checked it? One bell? Two? Five? Fortunately, the pot had not boiled dry. She knew from experience that that could destroy the pot.

Taking care not to burn her hands, Seirei removed the pot from the fire, and waited for it to cool somewhat. The bones were warm to the touch, but not hot when she pulled them from the pot. She set the pot aside, thinking that she might reuse the same water for the next batch. She selected some more bones to boil while she experimented with the ones she had just finished boiling. This next set were somewhat better quality that the ones she would be experimenting with for her first attempt. Seirei added some more water to the pot to replace what had boiled away, then put the pot back on the fire to boil.

Seirei looked at her first set of bones. They looked very white. She thought that meant that they were clean, but she couldn't be certain. Some were completely free of bits of meat and fat, but a few still had some clinging to them. So Seirei set the clean ones aside to dry while she took her knife, and began the task of scraping the remaining bits of flesh off of the bones.

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[Seirei Dawnwhisper]

After she had been working for a while, Seirei noticed that her blade was starting to become dull. That seemed strange to her as it was a decent quality knife; one that could be put to a lot of use before needing to be sharpened. Since she had had the knife sharpened not all that long ago, it shouldn't be wearing out this soon. Seirei frowned. Was the bone causing it somehow? Bone was harder than wood, so Seirei guessed that that would make sense if that were the case. But it posed a significant problem for her. Although she did have more than one knife, she really didn't want to blunt them all in her experiment.

At the same time, Seirei didn't want to give up, either. So she retreated into the tent and rummaged through her tool kit, looking for something that might solve her problem. After searching for several chimes, she found something that might work. It was a knife, but one made of flint rather than metal. She also found a burin, a tool made of flint that had been flaked into a chisel point. Seirei had never used the burin before, because until now, she had never worked with anything other than wood. And her knives, and chisels had always served her well. But the burin was supposed to be an all purpose tool that could be used on wood, bone, stone, or antlers. She had heard that it could be used on leather, too, but Seirei wasn't sure how it could be. You didn't carve leather, after all.

Seirei continued the task of scraping off the remaining bits of flesh from the bones, but this time, she used the flint knife. It seemed to work better, much to her relief. As she worked, one of the things she noticed was that bone was a lot harder than wood. She had known that intellectually, of course, but it felt different under her knife. When she used her knife, the tool made a scraping sound as she pushed it along the bone. Seirei took careful note of these differences, wanting to get a feel of what it was like to work with bone.

When she couldn't find any more scraps of flesh on any on the bones, Seirei examined each one, trying to decide which one she wanted to work on first. After giving it some thought, she decided that she would try experimenting with a long, thin bone that was somewhat curved, and flat. Since Seirei was fairly certain that these were the bones of a zibri, she didn't think it could be a leg bone. It was too thin for that. It wasn't long enough, either, for that matter. Seirei didn't know much about different kinds of bones, but she thought that it might be a rib bone. It couldn't be a skull, and wasn't a leg bone. She had seen the spine of a rabbit before when she was cooking, and it didn't look like a bigger version of that, either.

The first thing that Seirei wanted to try was simply cutting a piece off of one of the ends. Removing unwanted material was an important, basic step in carving, and Seirei wanted to get a feel for how cutting through bone would be different than cutting through wood. She had already learned that metal dulled quickly against bone, so she was reluctant to use her saw on it. Fortunately, the bone wasn't all that thick. Seirei was pretty sure that a knife would work as well as a saw for what she wanted to do.

So she positioned her flint knife near the end of the bone. She pressed the blade firmly against the bone, and began cutting. As she had expected, she had to use more force than she did when working with wood. But she was surprised by how much more pressure was needed. It was also slow, painstaking work. When she had gotten roughly half way through, Seirei felt something give way. At first, Seirei feared she had managed to break her knife, but when she looked at it, she realized that that was not the case. It was the bone itself that had broken. The part she had been cutting had shattered, leaving a very jagged edge. And when Seirei examined the bone, she could see cracks running up the entire length of it, spreading out from the end she had been cutting.

Seirei stared at the bone in startled confusion. What had made the bone so brittle? Age? It seemed unlikely. While most of the bones had been picked clean, a good part of the skeleton had been there when Seirei had found it. Had it been a very old kill, most of the bones would have been scattered, broken, or missing altogether. As Seirei tried to guess what might have caused the bone to become brittle, a vague memory surfaced. One of the carvers who traveled with her caravan had specialized in bone carving, much the way she and her mother worked with wood. When she was a young child, he had kept an eye on her sometimes when her mother was busy working on a project. On one of those occasions, she had seen him boiling bones that he planned to carve. He told her that boiling them made it easier to clean them, but more importantly, it made them softer, and easier to carve. But he also told her that it was important not to boil them for too long, because that would make them brittle.

The mystery was solved, but the answer led to another problem. How long was too long? If Seirei had ever learned how long bones should be boiled, she had forgotten. She would need to experiment until she found the right length of time. Since she wasn't entirely certain how long she had boiled the first batch of bones, so she decided to boil her current batch for a bell. That gave her a little more than half a bell to work before the second batch was ready.

Seirei eyed the shattered pieces of bone thoughtfully. She had seen needles made out of bone before, and some of the fragments were thin, and straight. They might make good needles if they could be shaped properly, and if she could drill a hole for the eye. Some of the others had broken into interesting shapes that might make good beads if she could drill a hole in them. So Seirei gathered them up, and set them aside to dry out. She would practice making holes in them later. And with luck, she might get a few usable pieces when she did.

For now, though, Seirei had another idea in mind. The bone she had been working with was useless as is. With cracks running through it, it was useless to even try to carve it. But what if she were to shatter the rest of it? That might give her some more potentially usable pieces to work with. So with that thought in mind, Seirei looked around for a good sized rock. When she found one that was roughly the size of her palm, she brought it down on the bone as hard as she could. As predicted, the bone shattered under the abuse. Seirei examined each piece, and set aside the ones she thought she might be able to use.

While she was doing this, she noticed that several of the pieces had bits of bone marrow clinging to them. She cleaned them off, but she found that she had another problem to consider. It was easy to remove the bone marrow from the shattered pieces of bone. But how would she remove it from one that was intact? She couldn't simply ignore it, because it would rot, like any other meat. She would need a tool of some kind. Something long and thin that could be inserted to scrape the bone marrow out. Did she have something in her carver's kit that would work?

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[Seirei Dawnwhisper]

Seirei decided that she would have to look for such a tool later. She picked up another bone. This one was a leg bone, and it was a lot thicker than the first one she had tried to carve. It also had two knobby parts, one on each end. Seirei wasn't sure how to carve that part, so she decided to cut those off. She also had the idea that cutting both knobby ends off might make it easier to remove the bone marrow. So she got to work, using her flint knife to cut through the bone just past the knobby end. It was slow, painstaking work, especially since she was cutting slower than she normally would in the hopes that this bone wouldn't shatter as the first had.

After a while, she managed to get through the bone. When she looked, she could see some spongy...stuff inside the bone. Seirei ignored it for the tick. She wanted to cut the second knobby end off before she tried to remove the bone marrow. Seirei glanced at the pot, checking the progress of the bones boiling inside it. They seemed to be doing okay, but the bell she had decided to cook them for wasn't over yet. The stench of the boiling bones was intense. Seirei noticed several people glaring at her, but none of them wanted to get close enough to berate her for causing the smell. She eyed them warily, but decided to ignore them. But she did decide that her current batch of bones was the last one she would boil today. Partly because she was afraid of what the neighbors might do if she boiled a third batch, and partly because she really wanted the air to clear before Lian returned home. He would likely be furious at the stench, and Seirei hated to think of the punishment that would be hers when he realized she was the cause of it.

Fortunately, there was a decent breeze that would help to clear up the scent once she stopped boiling the bones. Seirei turned her attention back to the bone she was working on. She began the tedious task of cutting through the one just past the knobby end. But she didn't get far before the bone splintered. Seirei bit back a groan of dismay. Then she glanced at the other bones from her first batch ruefully. If both of the bones she tried to work with were too brittle to be used, then there was a good chance that the rest would be as well. Seirei frowned, thoughtfully. That wasn't necessarily true. It was true that she probably wouldn't have any luck carving them due to how brittle they were. But what if she tried smashing them the way she had the first bone? She might get some fragments that she could try to turn into needles or beads.

The bell was up, so Seirei carefully took the pot off of the fire so it could cool. Then she put out the fire. As she waited for the bones to cool enough that she could touch them without burning herself, she took the rock she had used earlier, and began smashing the rest of the first batch of bones. The act of pounding the rock against them and watching them shatter released the frustration she felt at not being able to try carving them properly. After the last bone had been shattered, Seirei examined each piece as she gathered them up. She divided them into piles depending on their size, and shape. The straight, thin ones would become needles if Seirei could figure out how to do so. And the rest would become beads.

When Seirei was done, the bones in the pot were cool enough to touch. She spread them out on the ground, and carried the pot to the edge of the city so she could dump the water. The scent of boiling bones clung to the water, and she didn't want to dump it out within Lian's camp. She didn't think the stench would disperse if she did. She was also worried that scavengers might be attracted to it. There was a stream not too far from the edge of the city, so Seirei brought the pot there, and cleaned it as best she could.

After she was done, she returned to Lian's camp. The second batch of bones had started to dry out a little. Seirei examined them carefully. None of these bones had any bits of meat or fat clinging to them, so Seirei began cutting one of the knobby ends off of a leg bone. She noticed the difference immediately. This bone was much harder to cut through than the first batch she'd boiled had been. It didn't splinter as she worked with it, though. Seirei decided that if she ever got the chance to work with bones in the future, she would try boiling them for two or three bells to see if that would be enough time to soften them up without making them brittle.

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[Tribal]

G R A D I N G

Seirei

Experience

• Planning: 2
• Logic: 3
• Mathematics: 2
• Carving: 4
• Observation: 1
• Scavenging: 2
• Cleaning: 4
• Wilderness Survival, Plains: 1
• Cooking: 1
• Organisation: 1

Lore

• Carving: Adding fine details to wood
• Carving: Bones
• Cleaning meat and fat from bones
• Burin: Carving tool uses

Notes

I like that she is finally working with something other than wood. Job well done.