Solo [Job Thread] Of Bones and Beginnings

[Allassanachassanya]

7th Fall, 516 AV
Midmorn.
"Speech"

Synopsis :

"She arrives promptly and is asked by the stall owner to craft whatever comes to mind from three small oval-shaped pieces of bone. She has to use her creativity to come up with something. She makes three necklaces, one a patterned diamond, one a snake's head, and the other a leaf. The stall owner is not satisfied, but displays them anyway."
-Taken from plotnotes.

Ssanya left the Wolf's Cave at approximately the eighth and a half bell, yet in the manner of Alvadas, only arrived at the Bizarre Bazaar as somewhere the bell struck the tenth bell. Still, despite Ssanya's worries of being late, the stall owner didn't seem phased, and even smiled a curious smile and told Ssanya she was, "Earlier than expected." That confused the woman slightly, but then she had already seen five singing, turquoise frogs and a little clay puppy happily trotting along this morning. It would be easier to just expect the unexpected, and so Ssanya smiled back awkwardly and let the tent flap closed behind her.

The stall owner beckoned her closer, and as the woman approached she held something up in her hand. The market was quiet that morning, and the woman looked to have simply been reading a pamphlet and drinking a steaming mug of something strongly smelling. Ssanya looked at what she held in her hand- three slim, ovaline segments of smooth, white bone. "A tarsk for you dearie, a test I suppose. Here I got three things for you to make whatever comes to y'mind. It don't really martter shat y'make, but I'll be watching like a hawk!" She snorted and grabbed the Dhani's hand, roughly pressing the three bone segments into her palm, before turning back to her pamphlet with a practiced eagerness.

Ssanya was left slightly bemused, slightly curious, and mostly thoughtful as she inspected the bones with caution. The first segment was unfortunately cracked down the centre, but the crack was hardly visible and didn't look like it was going to fracture. She absentmindedly sat down on a faded cushion placed on the floor in the corner of the tent, and placed the first segment on the floor in front of her.

The next piece was the most pleasing. It fit snugly into the palm of the woman's hand, so much so that if she looked away, it was almost difficult to feel it was actually still there. She smoothed her finger over it thoughtfully, andeaytillnd placed it on the floor besides the cracked piece.

The final piece was decidedly average, and the only thing to note was that it was slightly discoloured and felt lighter than the others. Perhaps that was one to be cautious of. She didn't want to break anything else. She decided she would start first with that piece, and began to rummage in her bag for her crafting knife and her engraving toolkit, glad that she had thought to take the latter with her today.

The shape of it reminded her mostly at the moment of leaves. It was Autumn on Mizahar, and although it was pretty mild weather in Alvadas she had seen the leaves of the trees already beginning to brown and to fall to the ground. It was with this in mind that the snake lady began to cut nicks into the bone, leaving bone flakes on the ground like snow.

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[Allassanachassanya]

"Speech"

She worked slowly, almost hypnotically, gradually shaping the bone into a leaf-like shape. She was soon covered in flakes, and had to briskly brush them off from time to time. Her knife was grasped tightly in her hand, and as such she kept getting cramp in her palm. It happened occasionally, a result of gripping too tightly, something she did too often. Her mam would surely tell her off if she saw her like that, a small reprimand on the back of the head. Ssanya's face softened into a smile at the thought, and she stilled in her carving for a fragment of a tick, her left hand gently kissing her mam's bone.

Lapsing back into concentration, Ssanya tried to make sure she kept her hand more loosely. It was difficult to do: as soon as she had forgotten to remind herself, she would bring concentration back to her hand and find it grasped too tightly again. But she continued, nonetheless, ignoring her vice-like grip. She would have to make sure she stopped doing that at some point, but today was not that day. She now had a problem though. She had been creating the shape and meaning of the leaf out of the bone, but now she had to stop and think about exactly what she was making. What purpose it would have. She knew that it could be a brooch, but with her lack of interest in fashion like that, she thought that a plain, bone brooch would be a little devoid of interest for the casual shopper.

She pondered it carefully, before finally coming to the conclusion that the general downwards shape of it was reminiscent of a necklace charm. However, even as she thought that, she realised that to actually make it into a necklace, she would need to craft a hole for the lace to thread through. She ran a hand through her hair thoughtfully, and her gaze wandered to her little-used engraver's toolkit. Carefully she set the half-formed leaf down on the ground, and flipped open the flap of the toolkit. Inside lay a small set of metal-tipped tools with firm, wooden handles, shaped to fit into the palm. Picking up the tool she would need in one hand and the leaf in the other, she one-handedly twisted the leaf around so that the 'stem' was facing upwards. It would be best if she made the hole here, probably. A leaf facing upwards didn't seem fashionably right, somehow.

The tool she held was long, with a sharply pointed tip that had slight, raised ridges that provided a drill-like effect when applied to wood and bone. She looked closely at the stem, and gently pressed the tool to a point that looked mostly central. It was as far from the edges as she could make it without looking odd. Any closer and the hole she was about to make would cause the entire stem of the leaf to crumble and would ruin the piece. She didn't want to get herself a track record of destroying the wares of the shop. That was a sure-fire way of finding herself out of a job.

She twisted the engraving tool slowly around and around, going carefully because she didn't want to slip and stab herself accidentally. After a time, the pressure behind the tip broke free suddenly, and she lifted the bone up to the light to look through the freshly made hole. Satisfactory.

Ssanya didn't put the tool back in the pack, but kept it out. It wasn't because of some foresight on her part, simply because she soon grew distracted by completing the bone leaf. Her knife comfortably back in her hand, she worked on the leaf until the ragged edges were smooth, and gently waving like a beech leaf. The finished item wasn't so bad, but the bone she was working with was quite mottled, even after she had smoothed the surface with a scrap of sandpaper. Even so, it was finished. She moved onto the next ovaline shape, the one that fitted most perfectly into her palm.

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[Allassanachassanya]

"Speech"
"Others"

Note :

Prior to this post I had forgotten that I had name for the NPC shop-keeper: http://www.mizahar.com/forums/topic1474.html . Apologies for any confusion!

She enjoyed the texture of the grain as she ran a gentle finger along the length of the smooth bone that lay in her hand, and rubbed her thumb against the knife blade thoughtfully. What was it? Every piece that she had ever made had been a process of discovering what lay inside. Every bone she had crafted contained the finished form, hidden away in it's fabric. It was her job to encourage it out, to craft it and mould it into what it wanted to become.

The tip of the dagger danced along the bone, tracing the lightest of lines into the surface, and then Ssanya hissed in surprise as her hand slipped, the knife nicking her hand as it fell to the floor with a clatter. She hurriedly picked up it up again, laying it on her lap as she softly touched a finger to the welling blood. Yet her hiss made her stop and think, as she sucked the cut to draw out dirt, the faint trace of blood on her lips. Ssanya grinned, and gripped the knife handle more firmly as an idea sprang to mind. She set to work.

Vera drifted into the shop to sit on a cushion, but for the most part the two women ignored each other. The atmosphere under the scarves that draped like a roof of coloured water was not pleasant, but it was still welcoming. A few customers drifted in and out as Ssanya worked, but Vera dealt with them all. That was fine by her. The design was now pleading to be released, and she was glad to oblige.

The scrap of bone was beginning to take shape under her blade. With deft flicks, she began to carve the eyes, debating whether they would need to be painted or not. By the time she had finished, the answer was a decided no. The small maledictor traced a rough scale pattern onto the emerging nose of the bone snake's head with the thinnest engraving tool, as she ever-so-gently tapped with a tiny hammer. The pattern grew deeper, and she tapped with increasingly fervent stillness, going as slowly as she considered possible. The miniature size of the fragment of bone actually made it more difficult to put a pattern on, which she was finding out through the process.

Even so, she was smiling as she finished off the engraving, and blew the dust out. The snake head was actually modelled on her sister's unique patterns. Chassanya had always been close to her sister, Ssessanyen, especially as the two were of the same clutch. Having grown up with her in the nest, the distinct patterns of her sister's head were not difficult to remember, and she felt pleased to have reproduced them, in a land so distant from Eyktol.

By now, she had almost finished. This was to be a necklace, similar to the leaf she had created previously. So she took up the engraver's drill and held the bone carefully as she drilled, her teeth gritted and her fingers held in odd positions to make sure she didn't drop it or otherwise knock the item. Then finally, after a few strokes of the knife to even out one side, it was done. Her finger had, by now, stopped bleeding. But there was a desire in her to cut it open again, to paint a circle of meaning on her sister's likeness and activate her magic. Only Vera's presence stopped her, even as she pressed the tender finger to the snake's nose with a soft, whispering sigh of longing.

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[Allassanachassanya]

"Speech"
"Others"

Then she came to the final piece, and if she was being honest with herself, the least interesting to work with. She picked it up hesitantly, feeling the minute crack and the imperfections in the bone. During her life, she had spent a great deal of time interacting with bones. Yet she was constantly surprised by how little she actually knew about them. Perhaps it was the mystery that kept her hooked on her magic. Or maybe it was the excitement of being close to something that once kept a being alive, but was now dead. All she knew was that the bones held all the meanings, interactions, and aspirations of the person or creature that once used them. That these meanings would emerge through the process of crafting them.

But with this particular scrap of bone, Ssanya was stumped. She stared at it with mounting frustration, feeling every aspect of it as she felt for what it might have come from, or what shapes it lent itself to. Then, suddenly acting on impulse, she grabbed the two halves and pulled the bone apart. It cracked fiercely in her hands, and then she was left with two thin slivers.

Yet, where some might call it a mistake, the dark-skinned woman sitting cross-legged on the pillow would call it perfect. Because now she knew exactly what the bone had been trying to tell her. She quickly took the knife from her lap and started to slice thin slivers and fragments off. The bone was slightly misshapen, but that was all part of the plan. She hunkered over the fragment, squinting in the dim light. She carefully dug the blade into the surface of the bone, shallowing out a narrow trench, edged with a bank.

This, she cut little chunks out, slowly at first as she was unused to this particular way of crafting. Then she sped up, growing comfortable with the movement. Her hair fell across her face and the woman brushed it back impatiently. All the patience she had was taken up with the carving. Her idea had been to make two spirals, one painted with negative black stripes and the other with positive black stripes. This was the first one, a thin necklace with a thin trench for the paint to sit in.

Vera painted some of her creations too, so she quietly stood up, stretching her arms before walking the short distance to rummage through the stall-keeper's paints chest. She soon found what she was looking for: a vial of black paint stoppered with a crumbling cork. She returned back to her place, carefully upending the paint to mix it back together, as it had separated somewhat.

Then it was time to paint, a task that was more for decoration than anything. Ssanya found it relaxing on her hand, after a long while of holding her fingers in one particular position. Then she set the first spiral to one side, and picked up the unworked piece.

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Total	2279

[Allassanachassanya]

"Speech"
"Others"

The second piece came to her naturally, having already gotten into the rhythm of the previous one. This time however, instead of digging the spiral into the bone, she was creating a spiral that was raised from the surface. It was the reverse of what she had been doing, so despite it being comfortable to her she proceeded into it slowly, not wanting to petch the second part of what she knew to be a matching pair. And it had to be a matching pair... because the two pieces of bone had once been connected together. To her, it would be alien to part them now. The bones would never be complete without each other.

She sighed, and slowed, feeling Vera's eyes stalking her. Although the woman was quiet, busy, bent over a diorama she was sculpting, Ssanya had been able to feel her eyes boring into the back of her head all through the morning. It was unnerving, especially now as she took a small break to ease the pressure on her fingers. The elderly woman was not masking her staring session either- Ssanya just about managed to avoid staring straight back at her, feeling the elder wouldn't appreciate her new employee being uppity.

Instead, after five chimes of breathing deeply the scented air drifting outside the stall, the snake woman returned to her work, and continued. She was scraping away a lot of bone for this necklace, she had to in order to create the ridge that was to be the spiral. She carefully smoothed the edges with a scrap of sandpaper, and used her knife to take a heavy clump of material from the side. Then, at the top, she took the drill and carefully twisted it to make a hole.

At the last moment, the drill bit into the side of the charm, and knocked a small chunk off.
She cursed, hissing through her teeth in the closest approximation to a Dhani curse that she could in her human form, before lifting the bone piece up to inspect it with a worried expression. Vera cleared her throat, presumably alarmed at the woman's ferocious expression, but as she quickly glanced over all she saw was the back of the old woman's head. Turning back to the charm, she decided to make the best of it, and scrubbed the ragged hole down to make it smoother.

Then she continued cutting the spiral into the bone, until it was all but finished. Finally, with paintbrush delicately held between her fingertips, Ssanya ran the black pigment over the raised curve, taking care to get as little as possible on the background. She only slipped once, and even that was quickly scraped off with her fingernail.

She held it and blew the paint until it was dry. Finally, the snake woman laid all four charms out in front of her. The stall-keeper came over, and Ssanya looked up, expecting... well, she wasn't sure what. But her expression was one of disappointment. Ssanya felt another biting urge to inform the woman she would have fared much better without the piercing gaze stabbing her, but held back. Vera collected the bone fragments, and Ssanya was dismissed, nursing a feeling she couldn't quite describe.

Something close to anarchy.

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[Faradae]

Allassanachassanya
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E X P E R I E N C E

• Observation +2
• Carving +4
• Painting +2

L O R E S

• Alvadas: Impossible to be on time
• Vera: Owner of "Wooden Bones"
• Carving: Keeping a light grip helps avoiding cramps
• Carving: Utilizing engraving tools
• Carving: Drilling holes
• Carving: Pendants
• Carving: The smaller the object, the harder to trace a pattern
• Chassanya: Misses her sister
• Painting: Paint seperates over time
• Pieces that used to be one belong together

N O T E S

The amount of carving lores in this is not that surprising, I suppose, but I still thought it was alot. I had lots of fun reading this, and it seemed to be going so well! I wish there's been a little more reaction from Vera at the end, but some people are just peculiar like that.

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