Closed Of Slivers and Scorn

[Allassanachassanya]

3rd Winter 516 AV
"Speech"
"Others"

Ssanya found work to drag, especially as Alvadas had transformed itself into a paradise of delights on the turn of the season. The shopkeeper she worked for was particularly grim-faced today too, a fact that did nothing to lighten the Dhani's own mood. The two women sat crosslegged on the floor of the stall inside the Bizarre Bazaar, and carved chunky wooden beads together in silence. Ssanya's knife hand flicked gentle curls of wood to the floor impetuously, but her mind wasn't on the task at hand and was instead drifting to dream about what she could explore in Alvadas this season.

The wooden beads were for a vast pile of a necklace that had been commissioned by a haughty, elderly woman. She had insisted that the necklace have, "The longest lace and most amount of beads possible!" That she had come to this poky stall to fulfil this request drew attention however to the meagre amount of funds she had, despite her exaggerated request. Ssanya rolled her eyes just thinking about it, as she drew her attention back to the bead pinched between her fingers and softly dug the tip of the knife into the wood to create a singular, straight band pressed into the surface.

Still, work was work, and for it she received mizas. It had been hard to find a niche in the cities she had visited on her travels, as she had fit in neither of them. Endrykas has kicked her out almost as soon as she'd got there, which had hardened her opinion of humankind for a while. Then Riverfall... she thought back to the city. It had not been a bad place to live, all in all, but Ssanya had learnt a valuable lesson there in regards to malediction. With Alvadas being the third city she'd lived in since she had left home, now she felt like she had finally found a way to settle, even at the expense of open practice of magic. That was okay.

She lurched from her thoughts as a creaking voice spoke up. "What are ye thinkin' about, woman." Not a question, never a question. The older woman had her currant-like eyes levelled at the Dhani with an unreadable expression on her face, something akin to suspicion, although for what reason the other woman could not fathom. Ssanya frowned, and stabbed the knife tip-down into the floor, letting it waggle quietly. "Not very much. Why?" She tried to keep the frustration out of her voice, but didn't manage very well.

Vera's stare deepened, if that was even possible. Her grey hair left shadows across her forehead, and then suddenly she cracked a reluctant smile that made Ssanya even more wary. Today was an extremely odd day indeed. "Aye was just a'wonderin'. These are some good illusions this season, praise Ionu for his good'ess." She agreed, with a soft, low hum, but her expression lightened in response and the two continued carving. The conversation had ground to a halt, but the mood seemed to simmer instead of broil.

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512	512

[Allassanachassanya]

"Speech"
"Others"

She grabbed the knife from where she'd placed it, and cleaned the tip off with her sleeve. She had various more lumps of wood to turn into beads, and the day was only just gathering sand. All the pieces that were being used for the massive loops of the necklace were off-cuts, dribs and drabs from other projects that Vera had completed over the however many years she'd run and owned the Wooden Bones stall. Ssanya watched her calloused hands furiously working, and had to give credit to her for her determination. There was something to be admired in working non-stop in a job such as this, with not enough high-paying clients to truly stretch the imagination, and many jobs coming through that were quite run-of-the-mill, once you removed the illusion of charm and sophistication.

The Dhani ran her fingers over the darker wood, and began to get a feel for what shape she was looking for. The beads were all different shapes, although most were of the same size. These were chunky and were eventually going to be brightly coloured too, a task that Ssanya was least looking forward to. Alvadas' madness hadn't yet worn off on her, and gaudy colours were not her favourite thing in the world. That wasn't to say that she eschewed brighter shades... but the buyer of this particular charming item had specifically requested the starkest, most eye-watering colours and paints under the light of Syna's rays. To Ssanya's eye, the pots that lined up alongside Vera looked threateningly illuminating, as if they were waiting to beat you up with eye-punches.

The dark wood was tougher under her blade, so she dug in deeper as she scratched shards and slivers of brittle wood to form a smoother shape. This one was turning out into a sort of oblong oddity. Ssanya liked it for its randomness, and she twisted it into the dim light of the candle, looking to see what kind of pattern she could scrawl across its surface. The wooden bead seemed to be made out of a wood that was sprawled with different shades, and was quite beautiful. It looked like it belonged in the sand, like the strange pebbles she and her siblings used to throw into the desert as a game of seek.

Alvadas, it seemed, had turned into the map of Mizahar for Winter. Ssanya suddenly wondered if perhaps, if she was lucky, Ahnatep would be there glimmering in the mirage of the desert. She smiled, and couldn't stop the warmth of that happiness escaping with a low laugh. She readjusted her legs, then used the broad side of the knife to cut into the surface like she was sawing, then levered the hardened wood from the cut. She then shaped the smallest wave she could, finding it difficult to make it even. Not that it mattered too much, as it would presumably be covered in garish paint, but it would be good enough.

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503	1015

[Allassanachassanya]

"Speech"
"Others"

"How's ye gettin' alon', woman." The voice startled her once again. Ssanya had got herself into a good rhythm, picking a lump of wood, finding the shape, making the bead, and repeat. In a way, once she half-forgot about the wonders outside that tempted her like a child, it was easy to lose oneself in the sway of the stall's tent doors and the scritching and scratching of the two woman's knives. But the sudden and startling way Vera spoke never failed to make Ssanya jump.

"It'sss good, thanksss. I..." She was about to mention the story she was remembering, the time when she had thrown a stone out for one of her sisters to find, and yet it had got lost down a hole in which her sister had fumbled for a good fifteen chimes, not wishing to be beaten. But Vera's face had lost its temporary good cheer, and so Ssanya was not inclined to continue it and share stories of her past. They were her memories, besides, and somehow she found speaking about Eyktol difficult in the Common tongue. So, she stayed silent and faded away to continue carving.

After a moment's silence, she heard Vera sigh slightly and pick up her tools again. Ssanya ignored the festering quiet to instead immerse herself in the routine again. But nothing seemed to be working. The sounds outside the stall suddenly intruded on her workplace, a child's crying, a man yelling about, "Fish, delicious fish!", as a rubbish one-man band trudged past tooting a horn and banging a desultory drum. Petch it. The Dhani softly held the worn knife handle in the palm of her hand and sighed a breath as deep as Vera's own, time-worn one.

She let go of her scorn and irritation towards the woman and to the boring working day, and relaxed to focus only on the warmth in her hand and the imagined sound of wind across the sand dunes. It was difficult to meditate in the middle of the bazaar, but Ssanya could tell that her muse wouldn't come back at least until she'd tried to calm her busy mind down. Her knife felt heavy in her palm, and the blade dipped to rest lightly on the floor, but her fingers kept a gentle but firm grip. Her little finger twitched, but she ignored it.

Instead, she imagined the sand of the desert. She imagined it rolling over her, enveloping her, like it was pouring from the knife in her hand and filling up around her. The sand was peaceful, it reminded her of night-time and sleep and the restful dissipating warmth of the early evening that was her favourite time of day. She drew the imaginary sand around her, and let it run over and around her head, letting it wash away the nagging thoughts and distracted meanness towards her employer. It worked, just for a moment, where all she was thinking of was the individual grains of sand as they clung to her underbelly, that rough yet soft texture that flowed so organically.

Then Vera coughed, probably on purpose, and Ssanya came back down to Mizahar with a crash. But... It had made a difference, after all. She took another deep breath, and toyed with the knife as she scanned over the loose chunks of wood, looking for her next victim. There, nestled behind an ugly shard of driftwood was a round lump of wood. She leaned forwards, and took a good look at it's form, before beginning to shave curls of wood from it. This one, she felt, would make a perfect sun.

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607	1622

[Allassanachassanya]

"Speech"
"Others"

Ssanya's carving was growing steadily better as she worked, although the improvements were difficult to see. She could feel it though, feel it in the way she handled the knife, in the way she fumbled less with how she carved and focused instead on what to craft and design. The sun orb she was now working on was an example of that. Bells of carving beads had given her a good idea of how they worked, and she almost felt like she could do it in her sleep. But the making of the design, on the other hand, was different.

The bead wasn't entirely spherical, but it was close enough. The Dhani curved her knife carefully across the outer edges to even it out, and grabbed a bit of sandpaper to ease off the kinks, gently rubbing the fine sand as well as she could with the grain. Then it was simply a matter of making sure that anyone that saw it would think it was a depiction of the sun too. That was difficult... In pictures and drawings and paintings, Ssanya could simply add wavy lines emenating from the central circle and anyone would know it was what it was. But without those, it was tricky. She scratched her head, and adjusted so she was sitting more comfortably.

After a few moments of umming and aahing, the snake woman settled on an idea. If she carved waving, horizontal lines into the surface, then it could potentially imitate the rays of the sun as they fell to the surface of Mizahar. It would be the yellow paint that really told the story, but Ssanya felt like helping the image along a little herself. She took up the tiny ball and began to trace the very point of the knife across the surface. It was thinnest there, and as such the lines she left behind in the soft top layer of the wood were the narrowest. She poured her attention into making the lines as neatly as she could, weaving them occasionally one over the other when she ran out of space at the smallest points.

The object was only small, and almost not worth it to put that much attention to detail in. However, Ssanya wasn't thinking of the woman who was going to buy the necklace, nor was she thinking of Vera her employer and her grumpish ways. By now, the soothing sands of her imagination had faded but the feeling of focus had remained and the Dhani was in her element. The sun bead was now finished, and she put it down with satisfaction, glad to see her pile of beads increasing. She scanned the dwindling pile of loose wood beside her, and rummaged through it, touching different pieces to see which one she wanted to work with next.

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471	2093

[Allassanachassanya]

"Speech"
"Others"

It was natural, after finishing the sun, to go next onto crafting an orb of the moon. Ssanya's fingers alighted on a lump of wood that was just perfect for such a bead, and her lips worked with satisfaction as she picked it up and ran her fingertip over it to check for impurities. There were none- and it was the perfect shape. The Dhani flicked sawdust from her blade and began to cut a larger shape from the chunk. She had an idea for the moon, and it could not be the same as the sun. They were both round circles that hung in the sky, but at least the moon was sometimes cut into a crescent. That shape was recognisable to anyone.

Ssanya curved the knife first in large scoops as she cut away the unwanted parts, and then in decreasing sizes as she hollowed out the cup of the crescent. She was working fast now, her fingers barely registering what she was holding as her mind poured almost as devoutly over the bead as she would over bones she wished to maledict. Almost. She wiped her hair from her eyes and began to smooth the sharp points. This was due to rest against someone's skin, it wouldn't do to give the client scratches, even if some petty part of her thought it would be amusing to think of the haughty woman trying to discover what was making her precious skin marked.

The moon's wood was light in colour, and she almost decided not to paint it, except even with all the other beads it would look out of place. The moon was gradually coming into shape, and after she peeled the last bit of wood off she rubbed sandpaper over once again to make the surface less bitty and horrible for when she and Vera were to paint them.

Vera spoke then, her gravelly tones marking the air with finality. "Do you wan' start painting now, girl." It wasn't a question, but Ssanya knew that. She didn't answer for a moment, but once she had finally finished and placed down the moon, she looked up and tried not to let the irritation come back. "Okay, Vera. I ssshall make a ssstart."

Naturally, her hands went first for the ones she had just finished, the matching sun and moon beads. These were the ones she was most proud of, oddly, despite her overall lack of interest in the necklace. A brush lay nearby, its bristles ragged but still just about functional. She took a piece of flat wood that the two women used as a palette to mix colours, and picked up a pot of yellow and a pot of white. The yellow was beautiful, almost too real, like a lemon. It smelled strongly of paint though, and Ssanya poured a little out onto the palette with a spot of white to water it down. That was for the moon. Her fingers were covered in paint already as she mixed the two colours, making sure that there were no smears and streaks of brighter colours that hadn't combined.

Finally, she dipped the brush into the mix, and began to paint the moon. She had mixed far too much colour than she needed, but it didn't matter. She would learn for the next one. She painted her fingers almost more than she painted the bead, but after a little experimentation she laid the freshly decorated wood on a scrap of cloth and leaned back satisfactorily. The day was going well, despite Vera's scorn, and her own bad attitude. Ssanya was looking forward to Winter, and all it had to bring. Maybe she would even experience the sand of her imagination for real.

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623	2716

[Allassanachassanya]

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Grade Rewardsss

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Ssanya

Skills

Carving: +5
Observation: +2
Meditation: +1
Painting: +1
Lores

Carving: Simple indented patterns
Carving: Using touch to assess quality
Carving: The darker the wood, the tougher, usually
Carving: Sawing with a knife
Meditation: Using imageries of sand to cleanse the mind
Painting: Simple colour mixing technique
Alvadas Winter 516: Map of the world illusion
Riverfall: Not a bad place to live
Vera: Dexterous, hard worker
Notes

Tell me the good points of the thread and what could be improved.

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