Completed Taking to the Brush

[Tsaba]

27th Summer, 513 It's not that Tsaba hadn't used a brush to write before. She just much preferred the quill. But in some cases, a brush was necessary, and no other tool would really do. Glyphing seemed to be one of those cases. Tsaba spread out a fresh sheet of parchment on her little desk, and dipped her brush. It had been years since she'd last handled a brush. She started with something familiar; writing. She wrote out the alphabet twice, and the right forms and pen placement rushed back to her. Very quickly, she was as good as she'd ever been with the brush. Unfortunately, that wasn't very good. To get her hand in, she filled half the page with letters before taking out the now-slightly-tattered example Focus glyph that Dr Marin had drawn for her. Last time she'd practiced Glyphing, she'd developed a specific stroke order to sketch out the core of the Focus glyph and then add peripherals. She used that method, laying out swift, bold strokes with the brush tip instead of her more familiar quill. She could see how the brush would be easier to sketch the glyph's shape, but in her hand, the lines were lumpy and uneven. At that rate, she'd obscure the glyph's shape with splatter and wobbly lines! But she would persist. She would learn, even if she went broke buying parchment and ink. Bought1 brush -- 1SM

[Tsaba]

Tsaba's brush glided cleanly over the parchment as she once again etched out the Focus glyph. It had been foolish not to begin with the brush; the pressure and pacing was different than with a quill, and she needed to learn that all over again. But Castor's first rune had been drawn on flesh, with a brush. If he could do it, then so could she. Yes. On flesh. As a rune should be drawn. When Tsaba was happy with her ability to paint the rune onto parchment, she opened her left hand and instead turned her attention to writing on flesh. Feeling a little risque, she began to paint the focus glyph over the site on her palm where she drew runes for the body transfer ritual. She worked slowly, carefully; it was a lot more bother if she made a mistake on her palm than if she made a mistake on paper. But eventually, a focus rune glistened on her hand, drying in the air. There. She knew that she could do it.

[Tsaba]

The dark ink staining her palm was very inviting. It looked regular, complete, ready to be used. Tsaba had done a lot of stupid things in her life. But she wasn't that stupid. To use a glyph drawn on her flesh, unsupervised, with a tool she didn't specialise in and with hardly any experience writing glyphs and no experience using them, sounded like a great way to... what even happened when faulty glyphs were used? Explode, maybe? She blotted out the temptation with a few more quick brush strokes along her palm. Only then did it occur to her that writing glyphs on flesh probably wasn't all that useful a skill for a Nuit. Her skin could only take so much hardy scrubbing before it began to disintegrate, which was why her fingers were permanently ink-stained in the first place. But at that moment, she wasn't trying to learn or perform magic. She was learning control of a writing tool. She should have no problem with a writing tool. Writing was her element. Or was meant to be. An impulse struck her, and she snatched up her writing tools and headed outside. A few chimes later, she knelt on the ground outside the dormitory, looking over the university grounds. Then she put brush to paper, and began to draw. The fact that trees traced out under her brush looked more like horrifying shadow-people was unimportant. As was the rather sloppy perspective, making some buildings look much larger than others. What was important was the straightness of the lines, that sharp angles were sharp, that she could vary the pressure and angle of the brush to vary the width and smoothness of the lines. Because if she was going to use a brush for glyphing, then merely practicing her letters wouldn't help her. She needed to use it to draw unfamiliar shapes that hadn't been drilled into her since childhood. She needed to wield it as a tool for making new things. So Tsaba laid out her environment in ink on the paper.

[Tsaba]

Once she was a little more happy with her ability to control the brush, Tsaba returned to her room and once again quickly hashed out the skeleton of the focus glyph. She reminded herself that she was drawing lines, a shape; the glyph hadn't really become a "letter" to her yet, although she had no doubt that it would in time. She carefully fleshed out the glyph and waited for it to dry. It looked fine. To her. Of course, she still didn't know what to look for. How could she know if a glyph 'looked fine'? Well. It looked about as good as she could do with a quill, given the limitations of that particular instrument. And that was close enough to 'fine'. Anything else, Dr Marin would identify and correct. Tsaba allowed herself a small smile. Sometimes, it was the little things that made all the difference.

[Abstract]

Tsaba

Skills

+ Drawing - 3
+ Glyphing - 1
+ Observation - 1


Lores

+ Re-familiarizing with the brush

Other:



Notes

I like how it's practically the same name as the last... lol

If you have any questions, comments or concerns about this grade, please PM me and we can work it out!