The Zeltivan Monument Series Part 6: The Carving (Wart)

[Minerva Agatha Zipporah]

65th Day of Summer, 512 AV Tock approached the site where she'd been given permission to make her monument. It was a broad, empty lot, covered in nothing by dry, dead, scrubby grass. Her granite dominated the center of it, hauled there with a fair amount of difficulty by Tock and her recruited coworkers. It had been sitting there for a good two weeks while she worked on finalizing her designs, and dealt with some other issues. Those issues had left Tock injured, with a rather nasty wound across her stomach. She'd spent several days in bed, resting, much to her irritation. The doctors had wanted her to spend even more time resting, but she had told them to petch the hell off. She had work to do, and she couldn't do it while lying in bed. She wasn't in too bad shape right now. Her friend, Iris, had healed her while she was in the infirmary. Her powers weren't strong enough to completely close the wound, but it WAS enough to help get it past the critical point. That, combined with some stitches and bandages, left her stable, albeit still in quite a lot of pain. She also couldn't walk without risking tearing the stitches back open. Luckily, she didn't NEED to walk. She was piloting the magic crutches she'd made last spring, when she'd broken her foot. They consisted of two supports under her arms, much like one might see on normal crutches. Except they had spring-mounted joints on the undersides, and instead of two wooden poles to hold her up, there were four, mounted like four long legs that could walk under their own power. Tock was held suspended in the crutches, strapped into them with leather strips across her chest and over her shoulders. The design of the Automaton held her suspended a few inches off the ground, and she piloted it with her hands touching two spring-mounted metal discs on the front of the arm supports. She'd been forced to use the crutches a lot for the past season, between her broken foot and her other various injuries. Thus, she was quite skilled at piloting them. Though she wasn't very happy with the design. The crutches were one of her earliest, crudest works. They moved with a lurch, shifting roughly as the legs hobbled forward, carrying her along at only a moderate pace. If she had it to do over again, she'd redesign them to run on wheels instead. She kept meaning to do it, too... except when she was no longer injured, the project got pushed to the back of her mind, and buried under more urgent constructions. Then, when she was injured again and NEEDED them, she didn't have the time to actually do the upgrade. She sighed as she made her way onto the monument site, looking up at the larger-than-man-sized boulder before her. It sat on sand for now, carried up from the beach, which was to help absorb the vibrations from the carving process and prevent unwanted cracking. She had worked out the final design a few days back, along with help from a rather peculiar ghost, as well as her friend-and-sometimes-lover, Wart. She'd invited Wart to come along and help her with the project, though today sex was the furthest thing from her mind. No, she'd asked the girl to come along because she was an artist, and could help make the monument even better. While Tock would be doing the intricate stonework herself, Wart seemed to have a lot of intriguing ideas about other ways to spruce up the site. If things went well, they'd be working on the project together long-term. It was mid-afternoon, Tock having just finished a day of work with her construction crew. Now, after a long day of carving for customers, she was ready to do some carving for her own project. She'd brought a few of her babies with her, particularly Diggy, the animated shovel on large wagon wheels. He rolled along after her like an obedient child trailing after his mother, which is just what he was, as far as Tock was concerned. Choppy waddled along as well, moving on his metal legs, and little Naily rolled around under them, racing back and forth between his brothers and his mothers like the energetic puppy he was programmed from. She gestured for her babies to wait off to the side, with Naily rolling around the boulder, exploring the area curiously. She summoned Choppy to her side and told him, "'Old 'is fer Mommy..." slinging her backpack over his handle. It contained her newly forged stonecarving tools, which she'd need to start the job. While she was waiting for Wart to arrive, she got started etching the design onto the stone. She used a sharpened piece of charcoal to begin tracing the design out, so that she would have a guide to follow for when she needed to start removing the stone itself. She had a precise image of just what she wanted, worked out down to every last detail. It was possible she'd make some changes as she went along, but for now, she had an image of exactly what she wanted the statue to look like. It'd be weeks and weeks of work, on top of all the work she'd already done. But she was determined to see it through until the end.

[Wart]

Wart would have made it to the site earlier but Lewd made a point of giving her a hard time leaving work. With the recent issues with her and Tongue, they still just weren't on the best of terms. She had even tried telling him she was leaving to help with a monument for the city, but he found that hard to believe and just laughed it off as a sad excuse. All the same he knew her well enough that whether he let her go or not she'd be leaving. So with a "I'd better be see that statue a' yours soon vagik!" he watched her out the door.

She'd brought everything she was going to bring to the site with her to work, so she was able to skip stopping by her house. Not sure of what she'd need she'd ended up just sort of bringing everything. Around her waist was her usual belt, full of her paints, paint brushes, and assorted chalks. On her back was an old brown rucksack that she hardly ever used. It carried the three books from the library, the thread and cloth she still had left, and a few pieces of blank paper she'd snatched from the tattoo shop. In her hand, not daring to have it ruined inside of the bag, she held the palette she'd used to take down different colors of flowers that had first inspired her. As of now Wart hadn't actually gotten a hold of any of the flowers she'd seen or wanted to use. Instead what she was planning to do was examine the area and work with Tock to get an idea and some plans of what she'd need exactly and what sort of layout would work in complementing the statue.

As Wart finally approached the site she stopped and hesitated. Tock's "babies" were there, as she had expected. She'd started to get more used to them now, seeing them less as strange, if not scary, magic moving creatures, but more as interesting creations. She could even allow herself to admire the design and functionality of each, and by comparing them to her own more special paintings from the past, could understand Tock's attachment to them. They were her creations, works of art. The fact that they moved on their own was… another level she'd just have to accept.

The thing Tock was strapped to, however, took a bit more than that. Her eyes narrowed. She'd never seen the crutches before, and it looked like her friend was sitting in the middle of a giant wooden spider. With a sigh Wart shook her head and bit back her apprehension. There was a job to be done, that's what was important, and all her feelings and premonitions were just going to have to deal with it. Walking forward she forced her mind into work mode, trying to forget everything but the task at hand. They had a lot to do and standing around feeling weird about stupid crap was pathetic waste of time.

As she got closer she greeted her friend with a "Heya, Tock" as she looked up at the granite she had already started working on. Gods the thing was tall. It was a wonder she got it all the way here. She allowed a small smile; knowing Tock it probably had to do with a lot of shouting and putting people to work, some of whom probably didn't know what they were getting into. A quick survey of the lot and she nodded, half-talking to herself. "'S a good spot, nice n' empty." She hadn't seen the area before now and, knowing Zeltiva, half worried that there might be a lot of rubbish that'd have to be moved. Her hand automatically moved up and brushed through her hair as her mind started thinking of the possibilities. As it was she could probably start laying stuff out and planning now, but there was quite a bit of dead grass she wanted out of the way first.

Swinging her backpack off she set it down on the ground. "Think I'll go 'head an work on clearin' all this shyke up," she said, gesturing around at the grass, "'nless you need me for somethin' else first?" She wasn't one to stand around and idly wait for orders and was ready to get to work, but this was still Tock's statue and she'd do whatever her friend said was needed.

[Minerva Agatha Zipporah]

"Oy, Conch!" Tock said, flashing her friend a smile. "Ain't she a beaut'!" She patted the huge stone affectionately. She'd been through a lot to get that stone, including almost being killed and then being forced, at knife point, to build an Animated clock. As Wart was examining the area, Tock gestured and said, "Aye, 'ere used ta done been a nice pile o' rubble 'ere, but 'en 'ey done stoled it. So's as 'at's why I done gots ta make my statue..." She was still a bit irritated that someone had taken all that perfectly good rubble without even asking her. When Wart talked about clearing the grass up, Tock waved dismissively at it and said, "Nah, Diggy'll git 'at..." Upon hearing his name, the wheeled shovel raised his spade and rolled over. Tock affectionately petted him and said, "See the square, baby?" She pointed to the edges of the lot, and Diggy rotated in place, tracing the shape with his little glass eyes. "Dig out the square, two inches. Good boy!" She clapped as her beloved baby started digging up the dry dirt and loose grass. She then turned to Wart and said, "If'n ya needs 'im ta dig sommat deeper, just trace the area on the ground and lemme know 'ow deep. I's 'as 'im does 'er fer ya!" She clapped Wart on the shoulder and grinned, then piloted her crutches around the back of the statue to continue tracing the outline. Naily rolled around watching Diggy work, and occasionally getting in the way. The much larger wheeled shovel swiped his spade at the little wheeled hammer, shooing him away from where he was working, but Naily didn't get the hint and just rolled back. Then, hammerhead bent low to the ground as if he were a puppy sniffing out a trail (which was nothing more than programmed mimickery, since Naily HAD no sense of smell), the hammer ended up rolling onto a patch of dirt just as Diggy was scooping it up. The hammer got lifted up high with the dirt, turning back and forth and peering around with his little glass eyes until he was dumped to the side with the rest of the dirt pile.

[Wart]

Wart frowned a little when the little shovel came over. She should have figured Tock would have it do the clearing, but she wasn't comfortable with the idea of letting it do all the work. All the same though, it did mean more time to get everything figured out, so she couldn't really complain. "A'right." She gave her friend an appreciative smile and a nod.

Setting her palette against it, she opened up her bag and started taking out some paper and the book on landscaping. She'd been reading through it since the day they'd met at the library, though for the most part she was interested more in the illustrations and explanations on different techniques. Flicking through she found the page she'd been considering the most, one that now had her own light notes and sketches drawn in. Whoever was in charge of the library probably wouldn't like that, but she didn't give that any thought.

Glancing over towards her friend she asked "You have stuff in mind bout right around the statue? Like wantin' a path or anythin'?" They'd probably discussed some of this back when they'd been with the ghost, but she wanted to make sure of any details Tock had added between then and now.

Her wariness overshadowing her resolve a little, she looked up and watched the wheeled tools for a moment. It was interesting, the way they interacted like that. The one trying to work, the other curiously following it around anyway. As the little hammer one got scooped up and dumped to the side Wart broke into a smile. "They're kin'a cute huh…"

[Minerva Agatha Zipporah]

"A path?" Tock asked, pausing in her outlining and looking the area over with a contemplative frown. She hadn't given any thought to something like a path. She'd just been focused on the statue, and really had not one clue what to do about arranging the land around it. Which is why it was so perfect to have another artist here to help. Collaboration was so much better than working alone; her friend came up with ideas that she NEVER would have! She was distracted at moment by her children's antics, casting them a mildly annoyed but deeply loving smile. "Naily!" Tock called out, laughing. The little hammer immediately turned and peered up at her. "C'mere an' leave yer brother alone. 'E's workin'!" Naily obediently rolled over to her side, not understanding anything she'd said except the command to 'c'mere.' As Diggy continued his work, Tock turned her attention back to the idea of a path. "Aye," she said, nodding. "I can find some more stones. Fer like, pavin' a path?" She pointed in an arc around the statue, "Alla way 'round, aye? Gonna 'as fer people ta see it from the back, too. Dunno 'ow close it should be though..." She frowned, pulling Grippy off her hip. She took out a long leather strip of measuring tape, and handed one end to Handy, sending the little wooden hand to stand near the base of the statue. Since she couldn't bend down in her crutches to measure, she'd have her babies do it. "'Old 'at," she told Handy. While he held one end of the strip, she used Grippy to extend the other end out away from the statue. Figuring Wart might be more knowledgeable on this particular subject, she asked her, "'Ow far should a path go from the statue? So's as yer close enough ta see 'er, but ain't so close ya can't see the 'ole thing...?" OOCTock's views on collaboration here match my own... I never even thought about adding a path or something. Which is why I'm glad to have another intelligent, creative writer here to add in the ideas I'd never have thought of!

[Wart]

Wart looked at Tock, a little surprised that the thought of a path had apparently not crossed her mind. Though, it probably made sense. She was a builder, the focus was on the statue and its probably really all she'd been thinking about up until now.

Wart herself probably wouldn't have thought of it if it weren't for the fact that she'd been sketching different concepts of the area for the last few days. She didn't formally know anything about layout or architecture, but she did know about painting.

Being trapped in Avanthal, the majority of her paintings ever since she'd started them were of different places. They ranged from landmarks to small cities to little areas of land, all of them places she wished she could be. Not growing up in the Iceglow Hold, or having every seen these places herself, she would have to make them up in her head. Things were laid out logically, according to what the needs were, what functionalities had to be present, and what looked good aesthetically. Of course without any actual training in these things, this meant things were drawn out, re-drawn, painted, painted over and over again over long periods of time until she got them close to what she wanted. As illogical as she could be when she was upset, her paintings were one place where she absolutely did not mess around.

This, of course, was no painting, but she looked at in the same generally-logical way because it was all she really knew.

Wart nodded, listening to Tock. Having it all the way around would give maximum amount of view... But for how far… She bit her lip, thinking for a moment. Moving her arm against her side she looked down and saw that it spanned about half of her height. "Max height a' most humans is what sevenish? feet… Half that is three an' a half… prolly round up to four…" She brought her arm up, bent and perpendicular to her shoulders. "Lil' more n' half, so more 'n half of half, bout two feet each, foot in the middle, so five…" Her entire system of scaling things out was extremely convoluted, but being neither a mathematician or anatomist this was just how she tended to do things.

Finally she nodded to herself, satisfied. "A'righ so should prolly be like five feet wide, thas' room for two people next to each other, but you're gonna wan' it a' least four feet away from the statue, so no one can touch it." Any artist who had their work out somewhere in public knew well enough the damage the oils on someone's hands could cause over a long period of ignorant touching. "So edge a' the path from the statue'd be nine feet total." Wart paused for a moment, trying to imagine it in her head, then looked up again. "… That make sense?"

oocAaww thanks, I just figure its part of me being overly visual lol

[Minerva Agatha Zipporah]

Tock listened without understanding at first where Wart was getting her numbers from. But she was used to working with a crew, and having others make decisions within their area of expertise. Tock knew the intricacies of carving, but not of landscaping. So she trusted Wart to know what she was talking about. "Sounds good, Conch," she said, measuring to the specified distances and using Grippy's claw to mark the ground. "Maybe need a lil, fence o' sommat, at the inner edge? Makes fer people ta know 'ey ain't s'posed ta hop over an' touch 'er o' climb on 'er..." Which was a bit hypocritical, considering the time Tock had been yelled at for climbing on a statue. But this was different. This was HER statue. She marked out multiple spots, able to reach quite far with Grippy's extendable arm without even moving from her spot. "Ya wanna mark 'ese out in proper circles, Conch?" she asked Wart. It was easy for her to mark the basic distances with Grippy, but drawing a proper circle on the ground with him would be awkward, and she couldn't bend down to do it by hand. "'En I's 'as Diggy dig out a bit deeper 'ere, make room fer pavin' stones." Once this first issue was settled, Tock finished marking the outline of the statue. At this stage, she wasn't sketching it out in full detail, since the first step was simply getting the basic shape. Once she had her marks complete, she thrust Grippy into her pack and used him to retrieve one of her heavy iron picks and her stone hammer. Then with the hammer in her own hand, she had Grippy hold the pick in place as she carefully selected where to start cutting into the stone. She had to remain aware of the natural shape and flaws in the stone, or else she could put a crack in it that might spread to the wrong place. So she worked slowly, with firm, steady strikes against the pick, adjusting the position regularly. After a few minutes the first, cobblestone-sized piece came free from what would be the statue's arm. When it fell to the ground she shrugged and said, "Oy, Conch, we gots our pavin' stones right 'ere..." She took the pick from Grippy and used him to retrieve the fragment, then extended the metal arm towards Wart and dropped the stone in her hands. She did some quick math on the area of the path compared to the size of the boulder and how much stone she was expecting to chip free. "Might not quite cover all o' it, but it's be 'at much less what fer ta 'aul in later, aye?" She grinned. Tock never threw ANYTHING out. Every pebble that came off this boulder would get used in SOME way, either here, or in some future project or another.

[Wart]

"Right, fence perfect…" Wart went and made a quick note of "fence" on a piece of paper so she wouldn't forget. That was one more good layout detail she'd have to go look into.

Once she finished she looked up and saw the way Tock was marking things out with… The grabby one Gotta make time 'n write down all 'ese names somewhere…. "Yeah, a'right." Shovel one's "diggy"… Makes sense 'nough. While she had her paper out she went ahead and jotted that down. Then she took a softer piece of chalk from her belt and went to go finish the circle. She'd have to find a better way of marking the circle as it would be fairly light on the ground, but the softness of the chalk meant it'd be at least visible for now.

She went and connected each of the spots Tock marked, first the inner circle, then the outer. After going over it a couple times she remembered the thread in her pack. Maybe with a few sticks stuck in and the thread around it she'd be able to mark it off more formally. Going back to retrieve it she pulled out the spool and looked it over. There wasn't much left, but it'd be enough to mark off the inner circle at least. She'd just have to find some sticks of some sort.

Before she could consider it more a chunk of stone falling to the ground caught her attention. She smiled, having not even thought about how much extra stone would come from Tock's carving. Catching the bit of rock in her hand she nodded. "Yeah is'll work great, you wan' let em drop an' I'll start layin' em out as ya go." She liked that they'd be putting it to good use. There was no point in letting perfectly good rocks go to waste. And if they did need more, she'd be more than willing to go and scrounge whatever they'd need up outside the city to fill it up.

One more note on her paper Take rock from here to find similar if needed. Now, she needed to get down to the flowers. Until she'd decided which would be best to use and how to use them she wouldn't be able to do whatever it'd take to get the dirt ready for them. Picking up her palette she held it out in front of her, trying to picture each color in different places around the area. Blues and greens were her first thought, of course, because of the ocean, but Zeltiva was good for variety, so she'd have to thrown in some others while keeping them complimenting each other.

After a moment she came up with an idea to help her picture it. Taking three of the sheets of paper she ripped them up so that she had a bunch smaller pieces. Now she popped the lids off of her paint and started to copy the same color mixtures as on her palette onto the pieces, each piece getting its own color. As she did this she stopped every so often to pick up a few of the rocks from the statue and place them inside the marked off area for the path. It took a few minutes, as she wanted to get each piece as close as those samples she'd gotten that first time.

Once she was finished she had a bunch of pieces of blue colors, a bunch of bluish-greens, some bluish-purples, and a few yellows and oranges. Laying them out she gave them some time to dry in the sun. It wouldn't take too long, but she didn't want to end up with paint on the dirt.

[Minerva Agatha Zipporah]

Once the area for the path was marked out, Tock gave Diggy his orders, and he set about digging out the layout of the path. He worked quickly, having no other purpose in life besides digging, and before long the circular path was dug out and ready for the stones. Then Tock ordered the shovel to wait off to the side, and he rolled off to the corner of the lot, watching with his little glass eyes and waiting for another task to perform. Meanwhile Tock continued taking off chunks of stone, setting each piece in a pile for Wart to make use of. She took a glance now and then at what her friend was doing with the colored paper, but didn't understand one bit of it. So she just left that part to the color expert, and continued working on her own task. Some of the largest chunks of stone came from the front of the statue, at around what would become chest-height for the final image, though this level was actually just above Tock's head. The statue's right arm would be extended forward, holding the city aloft in the palm of his hand. That meant Tock had to take a huge chunk of stone out from above the arm and in front of the chest. She couldn't take it out as a single piece, however, lest she risk damaging the boulder. So she continued taking out chunks at a time, hammering her picks into grooves in the stone, and adding more and more pieces to the ever growing pile. As the work continued and the basic shape of the statue slowly started to form, she asked Wart, "So, 'ow long fer ya been in Zeltiva?" Something told her that, like her, the other artist wasn't a native here.

[Wart]

As she waited for the paint to dry Wart watched Tock's work on the stone. With each piece of stone that fell on the ground, she found herself appreciating the precision and care it must be taking more and more. When painting, she could make any mistake and still be able to paint over it, to a point. But if something went wrong with a huge boulder like this… She wasn't sure she could trust herself working on something like that.

After a few moments of watching it slowly take shape, she returned to her papers. They were dry enough that they wouldn't get all over the place, so she started picking them up, holding them carefully on her arm. With those in hand she moved over outside the larger circle and started placing the different colors in different areas around it. Once each was on the ground she'd step back, shake her head and rearrange them. The pattern of the flowers needed to have some sort of order, but not perfect symmetry. That would just be irritating and uninteresting.

When she heard Tock's question she paused and looked up. "Bout... two years now?" She wondered how it was her friend could tell she wasn't from there, but vaguely remembered mentioning not being born in Zeltiva when they'd been at the library. She also remembered Tock mentioning something similar and had been curious about that since. "Ha bout you? Been 'ere real long?"