Completed [Lapis Park]Writer's Block

[Eldrid]

4th Winter 515 AV

Eldrid sat quietly on one of the benches in the beautifully wild park. She could see one of the ponds and one or two gem statues from her current vantage point, something she had been attempting to capitalise on. The book filled with blank pages had been expensive, but she found now why. It was a marvelous change from the standard parchment she was used to working on. Before her on the page stood,

Silent Watchmen

Never an utterance and never a word
These stalwart sentinels shall never be heard
On their neverending silent vigil
Night and Day, Summer to Winter
Their hardy form of stone, Elemental
As the

She held the book open in her seal fur lap with the charcoal stick pressed against her cheek as she gazed wistfully from the page to the park around her.
"And so yet again, inspiration is gone. As my hands tried to grasp it tight it slipped between my fingers like some tauntingly elusive shadow."
She muttered aloud to the gemstone and the park. She placed the book and charcoal stick back in her backpack before speaking again.
"And you my silent sentinel? What is it that you think I should write?"
She asked the gemstone, not that she expected a reply.

[Eldrid]

4th Winter 515 AV

Eldrid sighed tiredly as silence greeted her question. She picked up her book and charcoal stick once more, not noticing the small smudge of black across her cheek. She turned to the page she had been working on and read the lines she had written, over and over. As she read she felt as if there were some strange wall between her and finishing the poem. The sensation had become quite familiar to her since she had departed Abura. Lack of inspiration, it was the cause of her current journey and the reason she would likely not stay for longer than a few weeks. Not unless she found some spark of revelation in this city.

A flash of red caught her eye along with a flutter of wings. A small Crimson Jay lighted upon the tip of the large gemstone statue in front of Eldrid, causing her to freeze as she watched the bird. It flitted across the rock to a small dip in the gemstone's top where a small pile of seeds had congregated. It picked at the long dried remains of spring and summer, evaluating the selection. Eldrid meanwhile had quietly turned over the page and had begun putting a few gentle charcoal strokes down on the page. The crude outline of the top section of the gemstone statue took form rapidly, barely being given more attention than four to five rapid strokes. The drawing then began in earnest. Eldrid kept her movements slow and steady, looking up every now and again as she sketched to refresh her mental image of the bird. The head came first, she always made a point to start with the head, for her it was the most important part of any creature. The beak and neck were straightforward enough although she had some complaints about the curving of her beak compared to that of the real artifact. The crest she found to be quite tedious, consuming a large amount of time for something purely decorational. The colours she could not add, not with the charcoal medium, but she left the twin crimson stripes above the beak empty on her mimicry of the creature. As she moved down the body of the bird her strokes became lighter and gentler as she attempted to divert the black charcoal into a slightly grayer shade for the crimson wings and tail.

Sadly, just as her charcoal stick was beginning on the tail, the bird dismissed the offerings of the statue and departed on its brilliant crimson wings. Eldrid released a long pent up breath as a loud sigh, not even realizing that she had been holding her breath while she sketched. She looked down at her half completed bird disappointedly. Here and there she could see points where she had skewed the outline a bit because of the birds movement, and the beak still eked her slightly. It just felt ever so minutely off, at least to her eyes.

With that she grabbed her backpack and took to the air with her book and charcoal stick in hand in search of any form of inspiration at all. Still unaware of the charcoal smudge on her cheek.

[Eldrid]

6th Winter 515 AV

Eldrid arrived at a different bench of the park, this time with only one gem statue in view. She released a tired sigh as she withdrew her book one more time and began to write once more.

[Box=400,black, white, white]

As the poet paints

With a palette of words
A canvas of parchment clean as morning dew
And inspiration as free as the birds
A world is captured in a single hue
The scrawling, sprawling, tumultuous sea of sensation
From which she takes her literary paint
And applies it to her artistic creation

Her heart and soul flow through the palette
And permeates the being of her piece
A moment of feeling, brief, literary release[/box]

She read the poem over and over. It was . . . It rhymed in places, and there was a meaning. She felt it was jerky though. It didn't flow from one point to another in her mind. She closed the book tiredly and rubbed the bridge of her nose,
"Well, that's what I get for forcing it out."
She mumbled softly to nobody in particular as she began packing up once more.
Eldrid glanced around the park silently as she lifted her bag up into the sky with a flap of her wings.
"I do not know why I continue this search. I have seen the most beautiful desert scenes and an amazing city built around a waterfall. And yet I still have no inspiration worth noting . . . "
She murmured softly as she took to the skies, feeling crestfallen as she disappeared into the open blue sky, on her way to the Blue Gem.

[Konrad Venger]

Hey, Eldrid! Once you get back and deduct your Winter Seasonal Expenses, I'll grade this up, no problem. PM me when you get back!