Closed Through Flames and Fire (Elna)

[Kanri]

21st Day of Winter
7:15 in the Morning
The Glass Reverie

Kanri arrived into the furnace filled room at the normal time: Early. She still the effects of being someone her age, being annoyingly tired early in the morning so her mind was not the clearest. She moved through the adults who were early risers (or stayed up ridiculously late) with a foggy mind, finding an open marver. She nearly just collapsed and fell asleep, right there on the table. It was too early in the morning. She was still recovering from a cold she had caught from a snowball fight earlier on that season as well. It was not going to be a good day for her. She pulled herself up off her table, tucked her silky, red hair behind her ears, and stopped pitying herself. Self-pity was pointless and she was not going to get anything done! Hadn't she learnt that already?

The Glass Cat she was striving for still had not quite come out but she had come fairly close on several occasions before messing up the tail, head, ear size, or any other part of the body. It made her glad. Plus, she had gotten faster at making those evenly distributed paperweights and had even tried making a perfectly spherical one. It did not fulfill any of her orders, of course, so it was not helpful. But she was proud of it and decided, if she ever made that Glass Cat, then she would sell them both at the same time!

She had heard something about her mentoring a Yasi but it had been late last night as she was leaving and she did not really remember. Was that everyone's genius new idea now? To have her babysit the Yasi? Her father had asked her to teach them falconing twice at this point while he ran off and did his own thing. Now, someone was throwing a little kid at her while she was working. Then again, the Yasi could be just her age. For example, it could be someone who was only a year or two younger than her and that wasn't really a little kid. Either way, Kanri resolved not to talk down to them. She did not think that the lower castes deserved resentment or disrespect. Maybe they were not to be admired but they certainly tried hard and helped out a lot of people in Wind Reach. She couldn't imagine a lofty, powerful Endal ever cleaning out a gutter or some similar task! And so, she could not hold disrespect for someone just because they were young. That wasn't their fault. Of course, she was not just going to stand around and wait for them either.

She set about to her work. Today, she had been asked to make a few vases for someone's wedding that was in late Spring. It was not an Inartan commission, obviously. It boggled Kanri's mind as to why she needed to make vases now as opposed to in late Spring but, she supposed, whatever flies their kite. If it works for them, then she did not really care. She twisted a little bit of glass onto her blowpipe. When she had enough for a nice, small little vase, she held the blowpipe with the hot end towards the floor and let it slow flow down in a nice, neat wad. Then, she twisted it and rolled it across the tabletop to cool it off.

And as she rolled, she waited for the Yasi to arrive.

[Elna]

Elna made her way towards the Glass Reverie to attend her Bendi. She had tried her luck at a glassblowing before, but it had never really worked out well in her favor. She had only made a couple of glass balls, all of which were only one color, had uneven warped shapes, and were covered with a streaky texture. Her instructors never saw any potential for her having a career in glass so they past her down to other tasks. But when a new opening for instruction came up to leapt at the chance to try again. It had been a long time since she had last done glasswork, she figured she might have some more signs of potential now that she had matured a bit. Besides it seemed like knowing at least the basics was like a cultural imperative. It felt wrong to break tradition with incompetent glassblowing and it would make her feel better to improve her skill with it, even if it wouldn't turn into a job.

Elna had brought Iris, who stood perched on her hand. She wasn't sure if pets were allowed near the reverie, it was hot and people needed to focus. Still she liked having the company on the way over, it helped to clam her nerves when holding her little bird. If she had to, Iris was fairly good at staying around one place or finding her way home.

She walked up near the entrance keeping a hand on top of Iris so she won't fly away. She looked around, not knowing where to go or who she would be working with. She stood there looking helpless for a bit before someone came up "Can I help you" the somewhat aging woman asked in a slightly condescending tone. Elna may have been close to being an adult but her small size and lost expression hadn't helped in making her look like she was someone who belonged there. "I'm here for a Bendi. My instructor is someone named Kanri?" She asked in a non question, imply she'd like her pointed out. She gestured towards the young woman that would be teaching her that day.

Elna looked the across the room at her with a look of confusion, "Really? That one?" The woman nodded "Leave your bird outside, we don't want it getting hurt or knocking something over" With a bit of a sigh she handed Iris a walnut and pointed towards a perch where she could wait. After seeing the bird land she starting moving towards her instructor, dragging her feet as she went. Stepping up behind her she interrupted "Excuse me, you're Kanri right? I think I have a Bendi with you today."

[Kanri]

OOCI'm sorry for not replying sooner! I accidentally did not subscribe to the thread and I rely heavily on my subscriptions to let me know when I need to write. There should be no further trouble, as now I am subscribed. My apologies!

Kanri perked up at the voice behind her. It was a girl's voice and a young voice. As in, just a tad "younger-than-Kanri" young. A "not-adult" voice, perhaps. But Kanri couldn't stop too look at her at the moment. She had to keep the glass cooling evenly, so she continued to roll the vase back and forth to keep it even as she could. She thought she already spotted a spot that could not be repaired. That one side seemed off somehow...

"Just a moment," Kanri answered the voice dismissively, her voice much harsher than she had intended. Where had she learned to be so snappy to younger people? She had once heard your enemy is your best teacher and, in Kanri's case, this was true. He never cut her any slack. But that did not mean Kanri had to be the same! There were plenty of good and kind teachers. For example, her father was a pleasant enough person and he often worked with the Yasi. Then again, his qualifications for a teacher were a little shaky.

Kanri held up the vase and spun it slowly, eyeing it carefully. Then, she saw it. One side was a little flatter than it should have been. Where had she gone wrong? She thought it had blown out evenly and her rolling of the glass had been constant. Oh, the gravity twist trick! That often resulted in lopsided work if you were not careful. Kanri figured she must not have noticed the off-centered nature of the piece then. She would need to melt down the piece and start over again. Better yet, she could get her Yasi to reheat the vase for her!

"Here," Kanri said, thrusting the blowpipe into the hands of the Yasi. "This needs to be reheated in the furnace. One side is flat so I need to start over. Make sure you spin it so the glass layers itself evenly or else reheating it will be pointless. It's like spooling honey onto your bread in the morning. Be careful that you don't run into anyone or crash into anything. I'll wait here for you to get back."

Kanri wondered if she wasn't being too obvious. After all, most Yasi at that age knew how Glassblowing worked. Then again, it never hurt to be too careful.

[Elna]

When Elna got a good look at her, it was just as she feared. This girl was young, very young. By the look of it it was entirely possible that they had spent a glassblowing bendi together before, only with them both being Yasi at the time. The difference being while Elna was tossed aside this girl was picked up and brought into the Avora caste. There was so little between them in terms of life experience, yet this girl was given so much more. She always hated that. The young people of higher castes especially had an undeserved sense of self-importance. They hadn't done anything to deserve respect, they just happened to show talent at an early age that society just happened to give a damn about. The only thing worse were young Endals, who were literally carried into success by their wind eagles. They were the kind of people that just never understood hardship, and they were always more contemptible for it.

Still, she would have to push though this, if she could learn glassblowing fast enough she could be lifting to Avora caste herself. Except she would be the exception to the rule, someone who understood handwork and failure. She didn't have to like this Kanri girl, but she did have to learn form her, for today at least.

Kanri snapped at her dismissively. Seemed typical, sure someone can teach her to be successful, but when it comes time for to return the favor to the next in line she isn't willing to make the effort. Elna let out a small but disgruntled huff as she waited for Kanri to finish, hoping she wouldn't be waiting long. She looked over her shoulder trying to watch just what it was that was delaying the lesson. The vase she had been spinning didn't look to be coming out all that great. This girl was already done with her apprenticeship, and still she couldn't get it right. "Some teacher she's going to be" she thought to herself.

Kanri then pushed the blowpipe in front of Elna, instructing her to undo the mistake and start over. She didn't even know you could start something like this over. She jerked out of her hand, not really hard but harder then she should have while handling hot glass. Luckily, nothing broke and no one was injured. Clearly she was letting her anger slip out for a moment with that one. Still, she listened carefully to her instructions. She wasn't completely sure if she was going to do it properly, the instructions given to her were fairly simple and vague. She already knew she had to spin it but she didn't know at what speed or if their was a way to keep a consistent shape. If she had learned any of that before, she had forgotten it now, it had been a long time since she had done this last.

She made her way to the furnace, spinning the glass slowly and carefully. She watched to see if it would start to fix it self, she had know idea how long it was supposed to take. Sure enough it started to revert back to a smaller size and ball like shape after a while. She slowly brought back to where Kanri was sitting, being careful not to run the glass into anything. She showed it to her asking apprehensively, "Is this right?"

[Kanri]

Kanri felt a little bad. She had been overly snappy with ther girl. She had not been trying too! She just had this bad habbit of acting arrogant when she felt uncomfortable, puff up her feathers to appear bigger. But in reality, Kanri did not feel any better than anyone else. Kanri knew she had two choices when the girl came back. She could either act like it was part of some grand plot she had or she could apologize. She figured that many of her teachers were not perfect, no matter how much they would pretend as such. She didn't want to be like that. Your teachers did not have to be your enemy.

The girl returned with the glass. Kanri hopped off the table and took the glass gently from the girl.

"Thank you," Kanri told the girl, keeping her voice as normal as possible, trying her hardest to keep out the arrogant tone that threatened to bubble up. "I just wanted to apologize... for acting so self important. I know other people don't appreciate it and it isn't very honest of me. So, I'm sorry..."

Kanri waited a moment, watching for a reaction. Then, she added, "I'm Kanri, by the way..." But she knew that. "And you are?"

Elna. The girl's name was Elna. Kanri smiled in return and inclined her head lightly. Well, with that mostly out of the way, it was time to work. She turned to face away from the girl so she could start reshaping the glass. This time, she blew slowly and steadily into the glass to try to get that nice, vase shape. She could do some explaining when she had finished it.

It had a fairly nice shape and it did not look uneven. Kanri quickly turned to the marble table and began to roll the glass back and forth across it. She could begin explaining now but Kanri realized that Glassblowing, while she was not good at it, was something that just felt natural to her. What was there to explain?

"I'm sorry, I don't know how to explain it... it's like..." Kanri stumbled for the words and failed. Now, the Yasi was probably going to tell her up on how to do it. Perfect. Another person who would think she didn't deserve her caste.

[Elna]

An apology? That was far from what she was expecting to return to. Normally she'd be reprimanded for her behavior or how she melted the glass. Most people in the higher castes had self importance though the roof, but this girl was at least aware of her's and was even making steps to correct it. It was impressive, probably more impressive then her glass work. The surprise was clearly written on her face, and she was stumped on how exactly she should react to the situation. She shock her head side to side once to snap herself out of the daze. "No, it's fine, apology excepted." she professed. "And my name's Elna"

With that Kanri returned to her work, starting over what she had messed up previously. Elna took a close by seat so she could examine closely. Kanri wasn't really explaining the process so she had to learn what ever she could simply by observation. She rolled very slowly and carefully, clearly it was a process that took a whole lot of patience, just like anything else worth doing.

When she was finished, it looked pretty good, perhaps not something professional but better then anything she could pull off herself. Still if that was all it took to be an Avora, Elna wouldn't be under such constant stress, it seemed weird to her that this level of work was worthy of such admiration.

As she finished, she began to stumble over her words, clearly her skills in teaching were even weaker then in glassblowing, although she figured she couldn't be blamed for that fact to harshly. That skill was new to her. It was probably why she was only assigned a single student who little was expected of. "Well, you just roll it in that metal dish, right? I don't really know how it works beyond that." Just rolling it around wasn't going to give her an even shape, she knew there was more she was missing. Hopefully Kanri could find the words, it would be just Elna's luck to get an inexperienced teacher who couldn't really help her.

[Kanri]

Kanri grimaced. She had been no help to the Yasi at all. She was supposed to teach her? Kanri told her where she could get some gloves to protect her hands then handed over the finished vase. "Please take this to the annealer. It's that furnace right over there," Kanri told her Yasi friend, sending her off once again before returning to her thinking.

How could she explain glassblowing? Even though she wasn't exactly an expert, she had a really good sense of what it felt like in her hands. And she had an eye for what was good work and what wasn't. She knew, for the most part, her work wasn't. However, clearly, people thought she was good enough to make wedding vases. That wasn't much of a step, then again, since they were fairly plain wedding vases. Why had her own mother agreed to take her on as an apprentice? At first, Kanri had thought it was a great idea. It let her get to know her parents more than most Inarta. But it made her feel as though she was cheating! And for the most part, her mother just gave her the leftovers of her own work, the stuff she didn't want to do. Where was her mother today, when she needed help explaining the basics of glassworking to someone who may become a Glassworker themselves one day?

The Yasi returned. Kanri leapt to her feet once again. "Alright, walk with me," Kanri said, that arrogance from her discomfort edging into her voice again. The Yasi must think she had some sort of bipolar disease, considering how many times she had changed her tune! With her blowpipe, Kanri took the girl to the furnace and dipped the end in.

"Alright, see this? It's like honey. That's the best metaphor I can think of, anyway. You can't just spin it like crazy, wickety wack. You have to take it slowly so that it comes up in one large clump. Then, once you have the amount you want, you lift it up out of the furnace and spin it so it disconnects," Kanri explained slowly. Was she making sense? She wasn't quite sure.

She then walked back to the marvel and began to spin the glass across it. This was the part that was hard to explain. And Kanri always worried quite a bit about cracking the glass.

"I once had a master who demonstrated that you only roll the glass around a third of the way if you want it to be evenly lopsided," Kanri said as she rolled the glass. "But if you want it to be even, then you have got to roll it all the way around."

And even as she said it, she noticed that it was coming out uneven on that one side. She walked away briskly to the drum oven to reheat. Then, she realized, she hadn't said anything to the Yasi about following or staying behind. There came that lying arrogance again. Kanri was fairly certain that the Yasi probably didn't believe her apology at this point. But there was nothing to be done now, was there?

[Elna]

Elna cringed in embarrassment when she realized she hadn't even put on safety gloves yet. She went over to them and put them on quickly as if it would cover up her mistake. She held her hands out to receive the glass, holding it very lightly, worrying that she might mess up the shape if she held it to tightly. Then she told her to return to the furnace. Was she just going to melt down the glass again? Again she wasn't being terribly explicit. She let a huff of breath "I don't understand, am I melting this one to?" She responded with a bit of challenge in her voice. Kanri explained to her that it was for cooling the glass slowly and The she should't melt it again. She rolled her eyes a bit saying, "well if you'd just explain that" under her breath as she turned to put it away.

She returned and followed Kanri as she took her to a new part of the room. Kanri was doing her best explain the process, but wasn't quite accomplishing the task. Like reusing her honey metaphor, or the phrase "wickety wack". Elna assumed that wasn't the technical term for spinning the pipe to fast. Still she got the basic premise, Don't spin the glass to fast, simple enough. The next part didn't make sense though, so she decided to ask about it "Disconnect form what? The pipe, wouldn't that defeat the point? And is there a proper way to blow it?"

It was just a series of questions one after another. It was almost frustrating, like she was wasting valuable time. She explained it properly eventually but it still felt like if she is having to ask this many questions, she must being missing a bunch of techniques that she didn't even know that she should ask about. She started rolling the new piece explaining two basic techniques. Again it sounded simple, but Elna's paranoia was kicking in at this point as she started to assume that she was oversimplifying it. And then she left to stick it the furnace, she messed up again. It was almost painful to watch.

She deiced she stayed at the spinning dish waiting for Kanri to return sighing with annoyance and resting her chin on her hands. She looked around the room watching the other workers performing at a much higher level then her instructor. She wondered why couldn't have wound up with them rather then this girl. She was completely tuned out by the time Kanri returned.

[Kanri]

Kanri returned to find Elna sitting dazedly on the table. She was probably bored out of her wits. She was pretty annoyed as well. Kanri was not doing a lot to help her. It would be better for both of them if Kanri found her another teacher. But who wanted to deal with babysitting a Yasi?

"Elna? You awake?" Kanri greeted her, gently as she could. The Yasi snapped back into focus and hopped off the table. But she looked fairly put out. Kanri was absolutely wasting her time.

Kanri asked her to watch carefully as she continued to blow and roll put the glass piece. She stopped giving commentary because she knew it was not helping. Eventually, Kanri had achieved a relatively round, simple vase.

"Here, Elna. Could you take this one to the annealer? Then, you can try making a paperweight for yourself," Kanri offered. She didn't think Elna looked terribly excited but she held her tongue for the time.

Kanri took this time to reflect just a little more. Who can she ask? She didn't know any of the other glassblowers that well. She looked around the Glass Reverie all the same.

Kanri felt a wave of shock hit her and she held her breath. It was THAT man. He crossed around the marble plate in front her. She made brief eye contact with his piercing bright eyes. Under an intense scowl, he seemed to be smiling, just a little. His wing-tattoo was under a black cloth but she knew it was him all the same. Once he had passed, she breathed again.

He was arrogant, but he was a great teacher. She had learned so much from him! She could ask him and...

...and he would say 'No' with a tone so disgusted, she might as well have asked him to stick his head in bird droppings. He would tell her to deal with it herself. She sighed but just seeing him again, she felt that sense of unworthiness. But she also wanted to challenge that worthiness, prove that it wasn't true.

Elna returned. Kanri smiled and handed her the blowpipe. "Your turn. You will learn more when you try yourself," Kanri tried to assure her.

[Elna]

Elna had been in trouble enough times to know that being asked if you were awake was a pretty bad sign. Great now she was coming off as lazy, thats the last thing she wanted to appear to be. Looking unmotivated was far worse then looking untalented. She snapped to attention. "Of course I'm awake, why wouldn't I be." she responded with an air of over compensation. She was not about to look bad in front of some young Avora, lest she give her an even bigger sense of self importance. She sat with her hands on her knees intensely watching the glass roll, as if showing that she could pay attention well would be a good way of showing her up. It was a pretty silly way of going about things, but at least she was being a better student for the moment.

She took the vase from her, keeping her temper under control this time and taking it away more gently. She looked forward to finally being able to do some hands on work, she was worried she would just be watching all day. Now was her chance to prove her self, with whatever little she had to prove it with.

From across the room she noticed Kanri staring at some guy but she decided not to push it, especially because she was rather quick to attention when Elna returned.

"Your turn. You will learn more when you try yourself"

"I know" was Elna's only response at first, coming out in a not quite dismissive tone. "Just do it slowly and not wickety whack right? And I can just dip it in any color I want?" She made her way to the furnace and dipped her pipe into a shade of blue that she liked. She wasn't quite sure how it would turn out when finished, but she figured she'd probably like it if it was blue. She twisted it in her hand slowly and carefully "Is this right?" she asked, looking over to Kanri for guidance.