Solo It Can't Be That Hard? Can It?

[Lani Stranger]

4th of Spring 514AV

Lani’s fingers dug into the leathery material on her boots as she tugged them on. Not bothering to lace them she tucked the strings into the side. She only had to wear them for a bell and a half and then she could be done with proper appearances for the day. The students of her class stood outside of the door to the room, waiting on their professor. Most of the students were used to this schedule of waking up just after dawn and filing into a classroom but Lani was not. She never needed to wake up early before, and it was hard for her to be fully functioning at this hour in the morning. A yawn forced its way through her throat and out her mouth. Lani brushed the drop of salty liquid from her eye and straightened quietly, not wanting to draw attention to herself. She didn’t quite know what she was or what made her eyes so black, but she didn’t want anyone to point it out or ask question she couldn’t answer. Despite her somewhat monstrous height, her eyes were the only thing that made her stand out. Lani ran her fingers through her hair, reciting a quick prayer in her head. She didn’t want to draw too much attention to her necessary worship either. I seemed that everything she did had the possibility to draw attention.

It was a prayer that was specific to this door, as was every prayer. Lani made a point to never repeat a requested blessing, because each door was different. They might be simple and somewhat generic looking but each door had its own purpose set by Aquiras. And so, since each had its own purpose, it would be recognized for that purpose. The mixed blood couldn't make up a prayer for every single door she came across, it was silly to do so. But she liked to recognize the ones that she knew would mean a lot to her, or had come to be a staple in her life. The door to her carving class was to help students through their journey to learn to carve, and so Lani asked for Aquiras to recognize it. She had always tried to make her worship as simple and meaningful as possible, but it was hard when she couldn’t find anyone who recognized her God let alone worshiped him, she really was making it up as she went.

As Lani rehearsed her prayer one last time, people began to shuffle closer, the Professor had shown up and was unlocking the door. The crowd pushed Lani through the entrance, making her rush to whisper her prayer, her hand flashing to the doorframe to feel the smooth frame with her fingertips. Aquiras, bless this doorway and those who pass through it on their journey towards seeking knowledge. Someone bumped against her and Lani dropped her hand, filing into the room after the crowd. The room was large, even more so with the light high ceiling. The Pre-Valterrian ornate carvings on the ceiling were well worn with age, but clearly well kept. Large wooden tables with tools and materials arranged atop them were spread across the room in a two layered U-shaped pattern. People began to take seats in the front and Lani rushed to grab her own. She wasn’t nearly as close to the center as she’d like to be but she could still see the Professors own workplace very clearly which was her overall goal.

“Welcome to the beginners course in Carving!” The Professor was a small human with short salt-and-pepper hair and a sharp angled jaw. His grey eyes landed on her complete black orbs, and she held his stare. No emotions crossed his face which made Lani flash smile in relief. His eyes continued on, across the room making contact with each of his students. Without speaking he seemed to be a hard man with the beginnings of age were starting to wrinkled over his brow. But a grin snapped on his face and he clapped his hands once to get the classes attention, changing Lani’s initial thought of him. “It seems this class is going to be quite exciting this season! Shall we get started?”

[Lani Stranger]

With two steps he snatched a sideways looking axe off his desk. “This, ladies and gentlemen, will become your fondest friend and also your greatest enemy!” He held the small tool up, its wooden handle was word from repetitive use and the metal head of the tool seemed to curve forward in a strange way, almost like a crescent moon. “This is what we call and adze. Now each of you should have three on your table, a large one, medium one and a small one. Now it will be a blessing because if you ask it correctly, it will do anything you want it to. But if you do not know what you want, it will ruin your work with the simplest of movements.” Lani turned down to look at her tools as he spoke, they were all there.

“All of you should know what a hatchet is, yes? This tiny, little axe thing? It’s a hatchet. If you don’t know what it is leave.” His small joke set off a few soft chuckles, Lani glanced around the room, it honestly wasn’t that funny. “Hatchets are useful for laying out your general shape before you go into detail. But other than that it serves you little purpose. Don’t get me wrong, it is important, but not widely used.” He held up the tool, and Lani checked to make sure she had that one as well. She pulled the three adzes and the hatchet a little apart from the rest of the tools as he listed them off, to make sure she had them all. Adzes, hatchet, hammers, knives, razors, a metal square-edge ruler and a series of rough textured rocks used for making the wood smooth when they were finished, cluttered her desk when he was done listing them off. The class continued for another half a bell, Lani taking less than enough notes, before the professor gave them their first assignment. A square. They were to make a simple square block of wood from the wood provided to them. Lani had gotten bored quickly with the Professors words, and when she realized he had stopped talking she didn’t know what to do. A thin slab or rock was propped on a wooden frame with chalk marks on it describing what their assignment was. Everyone around her was already working but Lani stared at her tools for a minute before hesitantly picking up her hatchet.

Her black orbs flew to her right to see another girl doing the same and Lani turned back to her work, pulling a medium-sized plank of wood from the corner of her table. She straightened in in front of her and was ready to throw the hatchet down when she heard the Professor's voice. “Oh, no no no! Do you really want to use a hatchet?” She followed the words to her right where the professor held two lopsided halfs of a plank, that the girl had chopped. Lani set her hatchet down carefully as if it would detonate, watching the Professor closely. He placed the bigger piece of wood down, resting the edge of the hatchet on it. He then took the ruler and aligned it with the end of the wood “Do you see this is twelve centimeters? So this side . . .” He moved the ruler to align with the long side. “Should also be twelve centimeters.” He moved the hatchet slightly to align it with the 12 cm mark on the ruler. He then raised it slightly, and brought it down hard on the wood, making it half way through. He did it again and raised the square it produced. “Now you can carve it with your adze until both sides are equal and sand the edges until they are smooth.” He turned away from the girl continuing down the U of tables commenting on minor mistakes and giving student who asked more insight on the assignment.

Lani stared down at her own plank of wood again. It can only be so hard to make a square. She picked up the ruler and measured out a 12x12 cm square. Lani looked through her tools briefly picking out a serrated knife, she pressed it into the soft wood at the 12 cm mark so that she could see it when she started chopping. Then she aligned her axe and repeated the Professor’s actions.

The results were definitely not the same.

Her hand had wobbled on the way down, which made the hatcher totally missing the set mark and falling crooked a few centimeters out from it. The hatchet had barely broken surface, and the wood had splintered drastically where it did. She placed the hatchet down, silent frustration coursing through her. She ran her hand through her hair again, looking around the room to see what other students were doing. They all held different tools and some were already smoothing the edges with their rocks, rendering her search helpless. This was surprisingly harder than she thought it was going to be.

[Lani Stranger]

It’s just a square, you can do a square. No problem.

Lani picked up the plank examining the splintered hole her axe had made. Next to it was the neat cut she had made in the edge with the serrated knife. Would the knife work better? It had made a neat mark on the edge where she wanted it to, so it seemed more fitting for the job.Lani picked up the tool, laying it back down on its previously mark. She put pressure into her harm, dragging it back and forth along the predesignated line. After some rather hard work, Lani had only made it to the middle of the wood, it was becoming increasingly harder the farther it went in. Yanking the knife out, Lani wrung her hand out, the pain in her wrist was probably from her holding the knife wrong. After the flaring pain in her arm had eased down some, Lani switched to her right one, but she couldn’t even fit the knife back in the cut. It just wouldn’t go. Lani huffed in frustration as the professor walked past.

“Flip it.” He winked and sent a smile her way and kept walking. Lani’s eyebrows scrunched, and she was ready to ask him what she meant when she realized. Flip the wood. She turned the plank over, aligning the ruler up with it again. Carefully to make sure her cuts would match up, Lani began dragging the serrated edge through again. There was a snap as the two cuts connected and Lani’s square broke off. She grinned looking up to share her accomplishment with someone, but realized she knew no one, and looked down again, grinning to herself.

It wasn’t perfect, the first cut was a bit ahead of the second one which made a splintery ridge on the side of the square, but it was a square now. Now she had to sand it. She pulled the small basket that held the rocks over to her. Each rock had a different texture, some were very grainy and others chunky, and some were almost completely smooth which seemed odd to Lani because they would be useless if they were smooth, but they were there for a reason. She picked out a medium grain rock and brought it to the edge of the square she cut. She began rubbing it back and forth, but it was doing almost nothing. She picked out the chunkiest rock next, dragging it across the rough wood like she had the first, this time the results were too prominent. All she wanted to do was smooth the wood out, why was it so hard? Why was making a square so hard?

Lani examined the rocks some, trying to figure out what she did wrong. She decided that since there were seven rocks, the first one being the smoothest and the last being the chunkiest/roughest, she would need about a number five or six to smooth the rough side, and a three to smooth the rest. Nodding to herself, she picked up the sixth rock, scratching it against the wood. It was working! The ridge was slowly starting to disappear with her rubbing, leaving a fine dusting on her fingers and table. After she was satisfied that the edge was straight, Lani picked up the third rock. She tossed it in her hand some, deciding where she wanted to start. She could hear the faint bell from the center of the city, letting her know there was half a bell left in class before she could go home, so Lani just put the rock against any side and began sanding it out.

When she was done Lani ran her sensitive fingers over the smooth surface of the square. She was genuinely proud of herself. It had taken her half a bell to perfect her square but it was smooth and mostly even and she was proud of it. The Professor came around checking the student’s work. He measured her square with her ruler. One of her edges was longer than it’s parallel one, meaning she had a crooked side, but it passed.

[Lani Stranger]

“Now! I will simply have you carve the first letter of your first name into the square.” Lani’s heart fluttered. She didn’t know how to write very well, but she at least knew how to spell her name. “I expect you will all use the small adze to do this and make sure you don’t split the wood. I will make you start over.” He warned lightly, but Lani took it more seriously. She didn’t have time to start it over and get it done before class was out, so she had to do it right the first time. The great thing about the first letter of her name was that it was just an L. Lani, who only knew the lower cases, thought it was just a line. So picking up the small Adze, she aligned it in the center and dragged the tool down the center of her square.

“There, done.” The indent was dippy, deeper in some parts and shallower in others, product of her unsteady hand, but it was done.

“You’re done? Already?” The Professor walked over, frowning down at her work. “What is your name again?”

“Lani."

“Then you should’ve put an ‘L’” He picked up her square, brushing away some shavings.

“That is an ‘L’ . . . isn’t it?” Dread filled her voice at the thought of her Professor thinking her illiterate. He didn’t react, like she thought he would. Instead he grabbed a stick of chalk, drawing a perpendicular line at the bottom of hers, in a proper L-shape. It was somewhat squashed but he didn’t say anything.

“That’s an ‘L’, and I want you to carve a bit deeper so that your indent is smooth inside. None of that bumpy mess you have.” He placed the wood back in her hand and left to go address another student. Lani sighed, picking up her adze again, and digging into her premade line. When she finally got that mostly smooth, she traced over the chalk line, completing her ‘L’. Before she was finished, the Professor began talking to the whole class.

“When you are finished, leave your square on your desk and you can leave, we will do more tomorrow. If I have not approved you, you cannot leave.” A few students stood at his words, gathering their things and leaving. Lani continued smoothing the indent of her ‘L’, making sure it was perfect before she caught the Professor’s attention again.

“Good, next time I wouldn’t let you have an ‘L’ that squashed, but I drew it in so I guess it’s fine. Do you see how the long part of the ‘L’ is deeper than the short part?” Lani nodded, trying to absorb the information he was giving her, determined she would do better next time, like he said she should. “Okay, that shouldn’t happen next time either, but you can go.” Lani nodded gratefully, grabbing her still-blank notebook and rushing out of the room.

As soon as Lani left the classroom she kicked her boots off, picking them up and running all the way to her dorm room. Her first class had been exciting and intimidating. It had been boring and fun, hard and easy. Did she like this form of learning? Yes.

[Ssezzkero]

LANI
+1 Observation, +3 Carving, Religion: Blessing Prayers to Aquiras, Carving Tools, Carving: Adze