Placeholder What to Offer a God?

[Kirsi Winterflame]

Timestamp: 28th of Summer, 513AV Kirsi thumbed through her grandfather's sketchbook disinterestedly. The images within were lovely, no question. Her grandfather had a remarkable talent for capturing the personality of the animals he drew. But the animals were all of the frozen tundra she'd come from, and not fitting for Laviku, God of the Sea. For Laviku, no land-dweller would suffice, and Kirsi found that even the watery creatures of her homeland didn't quite ring true. Besides, her grandfather had done precious few sketches of beings from the sea - probably because, in a land of perpetual ice, those animals were so rarely seen in their element. Kirsi snorted softly to herself. Somehow the thought of presenting Laviku with a carving of a dead fish seemed a bit irreverent - even for her. With a sigh, she closed the book and looked around her tiny apartment. The room above the Terra Cottage was small, but not overly so. Kirsi found she had more than enough room for herself and the few things she'd purchased from the warrens. Bed, table, chairs... Hutch, which currently stood mostly empty, holding nothing more than her carving tools and various blocks of wood. Nothing inspiring. Nothing that spoke to her. Certainly nothing that brought to mind the sea God or his domain. Though she hated to carve without a clear plan of what the outcome would be, Sea-Faire was fast approaching and Kirsi had nothing to offer. This time, she would make an exception to her own rules. She'd select the wood and hope that she could find something appropriate within it. Crossing to the shelf that held her supplies, Kirsi ran her hands across the various blocks of wood. There were lovely dark woods, a couple medium golden samples... Suddenly Kirsi's hand stilled, settled on a nearly white slab of wood of indeterminate variety. The vendor hadn't been able to tell her what sort of wood it was, but Kirsi had purchased it anyway. It had a bleached appearance, as thought it had sat too long under the hot rays of Syna's light. Viewing it anew, Kirsi noted the resemblance to driftwood and decided impulsively that no other wood was fit for this work.

[Kirsi Winterflame]

Nearly a bell spent staring intensely at the block of wood yielded nothing but tired eyes and fingers twitching for her tools. "Carve what you see. Before you can carve a thing, you must see it within the wood." Grandfather's advice had made so much sense at the time, but tonight the words only served to add to her frustration. Try as she might, Kirsi simply couldn't find the life with the piece of wood. Against her better judgement (and her grandfather's advice), the impatient carver put chisel to wood and readied her mallet. Before she could talk herself out of the decision, the she brought the mallet down on the chisel, forcefully. A segment of wood sheared off the side, not quite rectangular and not quite a triangle, but some awkward shape in between the two. Flipping the wood over, Kirsi repeated the action, lopping off another similarly-shaped chunk of the white wood. The pieces lay there on the table, indelicate and blockish, almost mocking her for her rash plan. In her hand, the remaining wood sat unmoving, no more inspirational in its pared-down state than it had been at the start. "Maybe I could just pretend I've carved a block of ice." The morose statement held nothing of amusement in it; Kirsi suspected that if she tried to pass off any of the misshapen bits as her gift to Laviku, the God himself would send a monstrous wave right through her window to carry her off in her sleep. Perhaps a new plan of attack? Setting aside her tools for the moment, Kirsi lined the separate pieces up, inspecting each for possible merits. The main piece, the largest was shaped like a skewed and irregular rectangle. Certainly it was large enough to make something out of. But what? With a huff of frustration, Kirsi set the offending piece aside and turned to the next largest specimen. This one was smaller by half, being only about as large as Kirsi's own palm. Not much to work with, but it could still make a reasonable carving. If she could figure out what carving lay inside the wood, of course.Turning it this way and that, Kirsi carefully inspected every angle. Boat? Not really Laviku's creation, more like a visitor in it. Whale? Pfft. While that might be a good subject, the Vantha was largely unfamiliar with the details of such creatures. The finished product would probably look like a toddler had been hacking away at the wood. Dejectedly, she set that piece aside, as well. Each idea she'd had had felt like a stretch, and Kirsi knew that if she tried to carve the images she'd bandied about, it would not have any of the life or personality that Laviku's tribute deserved. With little hope, she turned her attention to the last piece, the smallest, and picked it up. Though it lacked in size, this piece at least had the benefit of a beautiful whorl, an imperfection she had attempted to use to haggle down the price of the initial block. Reconsidering the aspect now, however, she saw instantly that it resembled a whirling pool of water. Though she had only seen others' interpretations of whirlpools on paper, Kirsi had been fascinated with them. The idea of the water all twisting downward into itself, dragging boats, flotsam, people into its mysterious and deadly currents had both intrigued and frightened her. In fact, whirlpools had been the subject of a very long talk she'd had one evening with a salty old sailor while she'd been gathering information for her departure. The gentleman's stories had been a deciding factor in the Vantha's choice to travel by land rather than sea. Absently, she rubbed her finger over the knot in the wood; the ridges would never be made smooth, but that was not a bad thing. It was a rough and natural texture she'd have had to struggle with imitating. In fact, the more she thought about the concept, the more excited she became; this piece of wood measured no wider than two of her fingers, and no longer, but had finally provided the inspiration she'd been searching for for bells. Kirsi found herself, finally, excited at the prospect of carving her tribute.

[Kirsi Winterflame]

Flipping to an empty page in her grandfather's book, Kirsi laid out the rough outlnes of her intended carving. It would have to be small, the piece of wood was small, but that didn't mean it would be lacking in details. As she drew, she picked her brain for all the details that she'd learned from the old man. Though not technical information, the words he'd used to paint an image of watery fright would help to put her in the right frame of mind. "Powerful currents." "Waters white with the fury of the seas," Kirsi remembered that description vividly, it had spurred her to spend bells near the frozen water near Avanthal, imagining the ice suddenly spinning, circling, dragging shards of ice down and down... "Circle of despair." That one had seemed particularly fitting, as well, once the sailor had explained that very few boats were ever successfully captained out of a whirlpool once they'd been caught up in its currents. It certainly did give one the impression of power, and a healthy dose of respect for the God who wielded it thusly. Though Kirsi knew the stories had been embellished - what Vantha didn't understand embellishment, after all? - still she'd shivered at the images the sailor had painted. That night she'd been more than happy to be at home in her family's arvinta, warm and safe and dry. Forcefully dragging herself from her reverie, Kirsi studied her outlines; the drawing itself wouldn't win her any prizes, but the imagery did have its desired effect. Looking down at the strong charcoal lines, she was inspired to bring the tempestuous water to life in her piece of wood. Circles, spirals, curving lines around the base... Kirsi nodded happily. It would take thought, and planning, and careful strokes of her blades, but she was confident that the finished project would be a powerful statement to the power of the sea. But first, the basic shape. An inverted cone, with the knot at the top. Carefully, as there was little spare wood to afford mistakes, Kirsi moved her chisel and mallet around the piece, creating the roughest of shapes as her base. It would be inverted, or course - to hollow the knot from the wood and create the conical shape would remove it from the piece entirely; Kirsi was loathe to attempt the excision, and chose to carve around it instead. Selecting a knife from her toolkit, Kirsi carefully began peeling away layer after layer of rough outer wood, until the design she sought began to take shape in her hands. Pressing outward, against her thumb, Kirsi slipped the knife across the wood, creating a sharpened point at the base, sloping back to the knot. It wasn't the smoothest angle, but Kirsi spared little time cleaning it up; there would be swirling lines scaling the piece regardless, and the texture would add depth the the water that would otherwise be difficult to achieve.