Avanthal, Skyglow Hold
2nd Spring, 511 AV
Cold, yet strangely warm. Hard, yet oddly fragile. That was the turbulent medium he had to work with this day. Ice.
It was, of course, a prestigious thing to do, to work with ice in honor of Morwen's chilling charm. But it was still difficult. This day, Lesserage stood in an empty plaza within Skyglow Hold, dressed in casual Avanthalian winterwear, missing the traveling cloak he tended to sport so often, for he was going nowhere today. He would remain here, working, constantly working, deriving artistic perfection.
Lying a few meters away from him, casually discarded onto the floor, was a wooden tablet onto which was etched a very quick, rough sketch which depicted Morwen pointing dramatically outwards, hair billowing in the wind as she did so. That was the rough, base sketch Lesserage had imprinted into his head. Earlier that day he had gone out and found himself a nice, big block of ice, and had carved that out into a smaller block which he then carted back into the city. Once this was done, he found a plaza with a nice view of the open sky, and placed the ice block there. The effect was instantaneous. Nearby Avanthalians swiftly departed as soon as Lesserage placed the ice block down. This was out of a mutual respect, as fellow artists, for they knew Lesserage needed his personal space to work on the initial stages of the crafting. Later, they would likely come back once the initial stages had been done, to marvel and critique the final stages of his work. But for now, Lesserage was alone for the most part, save for a curious bystander or two who would pause momentarily to see what Lesserage was doing.
The first thing he did was to draw a rough outline on the chilly canvas itself. An open ice-sculpting toolbox lay at his feet, borrowed from a friend in Skyglow Hold; the Vantha of Skyglow Hold were quite willing to lend each other their tools to experiment with different mediums. Lesserage was a woodcarver and a merchant by trade, and possessed none of the tools needed for ice carving. Fortunately, his friend did, and thus he could work on this little project of personal honor. With his borrowed agrinder in hand, Lesserage proceeded to make light cuts into the ice, each line forming with a soft scraping sound as Lesserage's eyes narrowed to show he was focusing on his work. First, Morwen's delicate features, a light, curving arc, for her little chin, then a swooping line for her angled cheekbones, another arc for her forehead, smaller than the first, then a finish line that didn't quite meet the other line to complete the face. Once this was done, Lesserage proceeded to draw quick, looping, curly lines in the ice that served as Morwen's long, cascading white hair. Each strand of hair was drawn painstakingly slowly, carved into the ice with all the loving precision Lesserage could muster, for he was carving his beloved goddess unto ice, and if he made a single mistake, he would have to dismantle the entire structure and restart from scratch. Imperfection was not an option.
Finally, after about two hours of working, the grace of Morwen's hair had been captured in the ice. It did her no justice, of course. Morwen, in person, was breathtaking in her icy splendor, and her chilling beauty knew no bounds. One look into those cold blue eyes could set an artist's muse afire for life. Yet, this was passable work for a mere rough sketch. Pacing away slowly, Lesserage became aware of an ache in his thighs, as a result of standing perfectly still for the past two hours. He ignored it. Moving to the rear of the sculpture, Lesserage proceeded to chip away at it to make indents in the cold blue surface of his canvas, marking Morwen's lengthy dress. It took another hour for him to fully detail the dress's rough outline, and when he was satisfied, he dropped the agrinder and took up a percival, which he used to cut straight lines into the sides of the ice to mark the spots he didn't need. This done, he then took up a chisel and a mallet, and then pressed the chisel to each lined area and hammered away the ice, lightly chipping at small areas, at times switching out for an ice pick to carve out huge chunks of unneeded ice, until all that remained of the originally-huge block of ice was a rough, vaguely feminine outline.
With that stage complete, Lesserage next found held up an enchanted torch, and held it in his left hand as he paced about the statue and applied it liberally, glossing the rough surface of the ice, at times rounding certain areas, such as head area of the sculpture, to mimic the cowled look of Morwen's hood. When he was finally finished with the torch, he set it down carefully against a stand, and took up the agrinder again, chiseling in small, minute details, such as the perfectly, tear-shaped ovals of her eyes, the curved arc of her hood, the heart-shaped lips, the delicate angle of her cheekbones, the shadowed areas under her neck, below her eyes, on her forehead ... all these little details were worked on very, very slowly. Delicately. One mistake could ruin the whole statue, after all. Originally if one made a mistake, they could just repair it with the flame and redo it. But this, being a sculpture of Morwen, could suffer no such injustice. It would have to be destroyed mercilessly if even one mistake was made.
Hours passed as Lesserage chipped away at the ice statue. He started in the wee hours of the early morning, before the sun had even risen. By the time he was satisfied with the many fanatical details he had marked into the sculpture - the perfect alignment of Morwen's clothes, the lightness of her features, the slender fingers, the slight, frowning gaze, the tilt of her head, the position of her slightly pursed lips - it was already early evening, and the sun was due to set. His stomach growled at him, protesting in hunger, but to Lesserage, hunger was unimportant at this moment. He was more concerned about his work. With a lancelot saw in hand he sliced off small, redundant blocks off the statue, and then glossed them over with the torch and worked on them with the agrinder, chiseling away until he was happy with the way the details looked.
Soon, the sun had set, and Lesserage was still at it, using the agrinder to chip at Morwen's feet, showing the shape of her delicate shoes, barely showing under her lengthy dress, the many folds and arcs in her garments perfectly aligned, shadow and movement all taken into account. Her features, depicting a stern, yet secretly kind goddess, who appeared to be distracted with something, judging from the tilt of her face and the slight furrow of her brows. At this point a small crowd had gathered to watch Lesserage work on the finishing touches. Small details like the way the irises had to look, the fine strands of hair over her forehead, the nails of her finger, the dry lines in her lips, the materialistic look of her hood, and so on.
Finally, after hours of painstakingly dedicated work, Lesserage stepped back to marvel at his ice sculpture. Morwen, in all her chilling perfection, in a lengthy dress of silver satin, fingers held outwards to touch something that wasn't there, a distracted look on her perfect face, strands of hair tilted to the side. Lesserage smiled at his work sadly, then. It was no good.
This sculpture merely showed Morwen's mortal beauty. It did not depict her as a goddess. It did not manage to reveal her immortal splendor. It was a failure.
Many of the local craftsmen nodded in acknowledgment of Lesserage's skill from a distance; they, too, had noticed the fatal mistake, but chose not to comment on it and remarked amongst themselves of the skill instead. Others, mostly non-locals, marveled at the intricate details and clamored about how Morwen should be proud of this dedication to her beauty. How little they knew. If Morwen should lay eyes on this, Lesserage would cast himself off the tallest roof in disgust, out of utter shame for disgracing her this way.
His skill was insufficient. He needed to improve. This, was one of many failures that would carry him up the road of improvement. Looking at it this way, one could say it wasn't a complete failure, then.
It was then hunger hit him like a hammer to the head, and he staggered on the spot, swaying clumsily. His hands found the wall of a nearby building, and he leaned on it for support, vision swimming in confusion as he struggled to find feeling in his feet again, which appeared to have deserted him completely. Time to eat. And perhaps get some rest while he was at it. |
by Lesserage on April 3rd, 2011, 10:52 am 