Solo Day one

[Zikiro]

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49th of Fall, 514AV

Day one. Forty one years old, by human standards this was long overdue. Zikiro sighed, staring in to the empty room, seeing only a bed, a chest and a table. The room smelled of stale air, as if the door had been closed for a long while, and with no windows the air had stagnated. It was less than welcoming, it was almost terrifying, but it was inevitable.

The room was a gift from his stepfather, and it was a very nice gift when considering the money put into it. The fact they were not blood related only made the act that much more shocking. The words that came with it too were uplifting. "For now," he had said. "Until you show your skills with that hammer of yours." Zikiro's stepfather had always struck him as a dreamer, and at times he envied the man for it.

Zikiro took a lungful of stale air through his nostrils, then sighed. He picks up his sack of belongings from the stone floor in one hand and borrowed the torch nearest his door on the opposite wall with the other. Taking the first steps in his room, his skin crawled with the cold of the unheated room. His eyes flick towards the fireplace, and sure enough a day and night's worth of firewood was chopped and waiting.

He first took to his trunk, lifting the lid with his foot to halfheartedly toss in his sack of clothing and other basic belongings. Tomorrow, he would go out and treat himself to a day of shopping, a luxury only afforded by the hundred gold mizas given as a birthday gift.

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[Zikiro]

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The room was warming up with the hearth's fire gently licking at the air. Zikiro was fascinated with the fast and slow flicks of the heated tongues. He held an unlit log in his hands as those in the fireplace burn. With his right hand he felt the rough texture, the slight pain of the sharper edges cutting into his thick flesh. His left hand left ridges, felt the rough texture, but pain was lost on his gifted arm.

"Day one..." It was almost noon, or at least it was the last time he had asked a passing guard. Since then, Zikiro has sat in that lone chair pulled in front of the fire, his hands running over the piece of firewood. His left hand squeezed lightly, shaping the split log's splintered edges to a smoothed surface. It felt like clay under the power of his Gnosis, as would some metals.

Forty years spent moping, protected by his mother. He had thought on that for a long while. "A burden, more like it." He stated, sighing. His hands squeezed a small ball into the piece of firewood, then pressed out the rough shape of shoulders. "Forty years..." He may not have been the best at mathmatics - in fact, the word was about as much as he knew of the topic - but he could figure she and her new boyfriend would have a much easier time now, with one less mouth to feed.

But what about me? His mind rung with the question. He had felt alone, at first. Now he felt... bored... Using this left hand to continue working the wood, his thumbnail edged out details; hair, eyes, mouth. His hands seemed to have a mind of their own. Well, his left hand. His right was busy building a collection of splinters, the seldom few that could make it through his dense hide.

The idol forged by the Gnosis wielding hand was not a perfect replica, but it did at least resemble its inspiration; himself. The wooden idol appeared to wear rags and a dark expression. It was supposed to be the loneliness he had found lurking in his heart upon stepping into this empty room. He smoothed out the rest of the wood and shaped it into a round base, where he carved words in common. Day One.

He could see the loneliness in the small statue, a bit of the trepidation too. Maybe it was just because he knew what the statue stood for, or maybe he had unintentionally Izentored the item. No, he still felt too lively to have marked the item with his Gnosis. Maybe he could though, to mark the occasion? Again he thought better.

Instead, he rose to his feet and steps towards the hearth. He places the wooden idol on the far left of the mantle; the first in a series, he hoped. Maybe after his first day of work, he would make another? The thought helped break through the murky clouds of his mind. He could already imagine the shape of the second idol; a proud Isur standing over an anvil.

Maybe his trepidation was a bit exaggerated...

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