Completed [Solo, Flashback] The Nimble Fingers Gene

[Vernadel]

Vernadel 7, Summer, 508 AV When her mother blew the horn, Vernadel knew there was no ignoring that call. She bobbed in the water, staring upward as another Akvatari child flipped in the air, curled his body inward and splashed into the sea. Vern shrieked, along with her other friends, as the water droplets hit her face and shoulders. Then, regretfully, she propelled herself up out of the sea with her tail and hovered over the others. “I must go play for my mother,” she told the children, who frolicked and dove in the late afternoon. They all understood, as this was not an uncommon occurrence. Vern waved farewell, none too eager to leave the merriment. A few of them stopped their games and waved back at her as Vernadel shook her body, dispelling as much of the clear liquid as she could before fluttering higher. She was not even to the fourth story of the tower, however, before the young Akvatari had resumed their acrobatic play, already having forgotten her. Vern sighed and lifted her arms overhead, stretching in a streamlined position as her wings jetted her upward as fast as she could make them go. There would only be a scolding coming if her mother had to blow her horn a second time. Just before she entered through the doorway to her apartment, she paused to listen to her mother’s soft hum. Not for the first time did Vernadel long to have inherited her mother’s lilting voice. Bremla could sing beautifully, though she rarely did so in public, for a reason that Vernadel never understood. Still, sometimes Vern felt especially extraordinary that her mother usually only sang in her daughter’s presence, at home, and that Vern’s ears were the only ones treated to the melodious sound. Floating inside the main entrance now, Vernadel grabbed one of the sheets of cloth that was folded neatly and stacked in the corner. She thrust the fabric out in front of her while grasping one side until it billowed out to its full length. Then, she wrapped it around her shoulders and let the rest of it dangle to the bottom of her fins. Clutching the cloth at her throat with one hand, she pushed aside the makeshift curtain of strings of shells, pearls, and sea glass that hung in the doorway to her mother’s workroom and peered inside.

[Vernadel]

Vernadel The sunlight poured into the large, open space from the plethora of windows that had attracted Bremla to this apartment in the first place because the light was excellent for her working conditions. Miniscule dust motes moved through the air, winking at Vernadel as she crossed the threshold. They swirled lazily through the room and some eventually landed on the gold harp or the multitude of molded figurines, while others nestled in Bremla’s long, flowing hair and soft tail. Vern drew in a breath when she caught sight of her mother’s back. Bremla’s copper waves that flowed from her head like wine poured out of a bottle were so different from Vernadel’s own kinky dark curls. Her mother’s wings shimmered with fiery colors: all shades of orange and red with bright blue veins while Vern’s were a lavender purple streaked with the color of the midnight sky. Her mother turned her head and Vernadel almost had to squint to look into her bright eyes, an intense yellow-green that contrasted so sharply with Vern’s shiny, black fur seal eyes. The two of them could not look more different if they had been completely separate species. Vernadel often thought of her father and dreamed what he must look like: an older, male version of her, surely, since she hadn’t gotten her looks from her maternal side. She had never known her father, as many of her friends knew only one of their parents, and Bremla almost never spoke of him. Vern did not know a life that could have been different than the one she had, so she didn’t miss him exactly. No, she just wanted so badly to see him. Just once. “Sit, child,” Bremla spoke, forming the words in the middle of her hum, but not breaking the melody. She gestured toward the harp with her elongated fingers and Vernadel rushed over to the giant instrument, draping her cloth over the seat of the stool and clambering up on it. She waggled her fingers and bent them backwards over the back of her hands, until they felt limber enough. Then, she positioned her arms on either side of the harp and placed her fingers lightly on the strings required for the beginning of a haunting tune that always sent shivers down her spine. Her mother ceased humming and scrutinized those fingers and, nodding, turned back to the table where she was preparing her latest sculpture. Vernadel breathed in deeply, closed her eyes, and began to strum the strings.

[Vernadel]

Vernadel It did not take long for Vernadel to forget all about her young friends and their games. She concentrated on the song that permeated from her fingertips and vibrated down the strings of the harp. After a moment, she opened her eyes and found that her mother had closed her eyes as well, her fingers working their own magic on the mound of clay plopped onto the marble slab in the center of the room. Vern tried to guess what the lump between Bremla’s hands would be molded into, as she always did, but it was far too early to distinguish yet. Her mother was simply kneading and folding the clay, the muscles in her forearms trembling with the effort to make the medium supple. Vernadel glanced at her own arms and noticed the same ripples of movement taking place beneath her skin. The tinkles of the harp strings morphed into deep moans as Vern moved her fingers down to the lower, thicker strands. As she did so, Bremla began to form a point at one end of the clay heap. Whatever it was going to be, it would be one of the larger sculptures, Vernadel estimated. Bremla enjoyed listening to harp music while she worked on her sculptures, though Vernadel was partial to the flute. Her mother had made her a simple clay flute when she was a mere toddler, and the little instrument was one of Vern’s most prized possessions. She had tooted on the flute for years, usually when she was supposed to be practicing her harp playing, adapting well-known songs and making up melodies of her own. Bremla said it was too high pitched and the sounds made her too tense when she was sculpting, and Vernadel had to admit that the harp produced much more soothing sounds. Even so, she preferred her flute, which, in any case, was much more portable. The sculpture was rapidly turning into a shape that looked, to Vern, like a capital T. She scrunched her face up as she continued to play for her mother, racking her brain. What was this sculpture going to be? It certainly wasn’t an Akvatari, though the cross of the T did rather resemble wings. Hmmm. Vernadel let her eyes drift away to light upon the other figurines, all shapes and sizes that dotted the room. Some small ones were gathered together in groups on tables, others were perched on pillars, and the largest ones were standing on the floor, some nearly reaching the ceiling. One of Vern’s favorites was of a tiny human man sitting inside a clamshell. She loved to imagine this miniature man and the adventures he went on in a world populated by giants. Why, he could swing from string to string on the harp that was huge, even to Vernadel, dodging her flying fingers, which, as she recognized now, were long and graceful and reminded her suspiciously of the fingers on the hands of another.

[Vernadel]

Vernadel The harp song was nearing an end and Vern began thinking about what to play next. She looked at the T sculpture and decided to play a livelier, but still mellow tune that her paint tutor, Gindio, often played on his lute during class. Bremla’s eyes and hands never moved from her creation as Vernadel smoothly switched songs. Half a bell and two more melodies later, and Vern was beginning to wilt. Her arms were getting stiff and her fins were twitching from the lack of movement. She had been daydreaming for a bit and returned her focus on her mother’s sculpture. Aha! She knew what it was. The details were being carefully carved with little wooden tools. Ridges along the form’s body, and veins in the, yes, the wings! The clay figure was a dragonfly! “That’s a beautiful dragonfly, Mother,” Vernadel said, proud of herself for her correct assumption. Bremla looked up for a brief moment and smiled at her daughter. Then, she went right back to work. Vern was always amazed at how much patience her mother had with the clay and how she could form it so perfectly with hardly any flaws. When Vernadel herself tried to sculpt, her forms were lopsided, and she quickly lost patience when she could not capture what was in her mind and mold it out of clay. That’s why she enjoyed painting much more. She could move all around when she painted, sweeping her arms across a canvas. She could throw color after color up on the board and blend them together, or not. There was so much freedom when it came to painting! With clay, you had to restrain yourself from fast movements, and be very careful once the clay had hardened so as not to shatter the fragile sculpture. One of the best things, too, about painting was that she could easily fix any mistakes she made. She only wished that some of her life mistakes were as quickly and painlessly remedied.

[Vernadel]

Vernadel Vernadel’s deft fingers strummed over the strings of the harp as her mother’s slightly larger ones continued to shape and smooth and carve the dragonfly out of what had once been a shapeless lump. The sun was nearly setting by now and soon there would not be enough light to see by anymore, so Vern knew this session was coming to an end. She was secretly grateful, for she had been sitting and playing for two bells and she was tired. Plus, she was anxious to head to her own room and by the light of the candle flames begin a new epic poem. She was just bursting with inspiration now. “Well, what do you think?” Bremla asked a few moments later, and Vern trilled her hands across the strings in a premature ending of the song. She stretched her fingers as she fluttered off the stool and over to the marble slab. “He’s lovely,” she told her mother sincerely. “There’s still a lot of work to do on him, but when he’s done, I’m going to hang him above your bed, to watch over you while you sleep.” Vernadel looked up into her mother’s face. Before now, Bremla had never allowed one of her sculptures to be put in her daughter’s room. She feared that the young Akvatari would be too clumsy and break it. “Thank you, thank you!” Vernadel breathed. She clasped her mother’s hands, rough with dried clay. Bremla laughed and tried to pull them away but Vern gripped her mother’s fingers tight in her own. She studied them for a moment while Bremla stood silently. Once her own fingers grew a little longer, they would look just like her mother’s, long and slender and lithe from years of molding clay or practicing the harp. She realized then, that though she might not have her mother’s hair or eyes or wings, she had gotten her hands. Her nimble fingers, so agile and adept at making art and music. So skillful at creating. And no Akvatari could wish for a better inheritance. “Vern,” Bremla said, “what are you going to go do now? You can’t go back out, it’s getting late.” “Oh, I know. I’m going to go write,” Vernadel informed her. Then, she dropped her mother’s hands and rushed to her room to jot down the words that had been floating in her brain throughout the evening. Words about Inty, the miniature man who lived in a clamshell and rode around on a big dragonfly.