Citizen 122 Lazuli

High summer was upon the Dome. Heat shimmer danced above the roadways, mingling with the fine dust that rose beneath the feet of those travelers who braved the worst of it to create a peculiar haze that coated everyone with a matching, ruddy hue.

That same dust puffed up around Lazuli’s paws as he walked, though now that he was off of the main thoroughfare, it was only turning his extremities that earthy pinkish-red– Almost purplish, where it was thin enough over his deep blue scales, and peachy where it mingled with the pale gold of his underside. Though he was ordinarily quite fastidious, today had been given over to dirty work; he couldn’t be bothered to care about a bit of road dust, knowing that he’d be getting thoroughly filthy before he was done. At least his scales were smooth and fine, with fewer crevices where dirt and muck could collect out of his reach. His armor was thinner than most, but he considered it a small price to pay these days. Without an inclination to hunting or other dangerous jobs, it was no hardship to be free of the inconvenience of jutting plates while maneuvering through a pottery shed, with fragile projects all around.

And in that vein, he had been sent out by his master today to replenish their stock of clay. Lazuli was perfectly well aware that anything he gathered was liable only to be used for simple, sturdy crafts, rather than anything with real detail or artistry - but he was being tested, he knew. A potter who gathered his own clay needed to know how to process the raw material, to remove impurities that might create flaws in the firing. Organic material might create a pocket of steam when it was heated, the expansion causing the piece to crack or even shatter violently– which had the potential to not only destroy other pieces around it, but embed shards of itself in other objects or the walls of the kiln. Lazuli had been saved a truly nasty scar from one such shard by his scales some years back, but there was still a subtle furrow along his forearm that showed where the fragment had tried to carve away a piece of him.

Behind him, the shop’s small cart caught on a furrow and jerked against the slightly-too-loose straps across his shoulder and chest, creaking in protest; with a grunt, the Ocean-blue Rex heaved against the harness and forcibly tugged it over the rut, down a well-shaded side path. The world took on a greener hue; his scales immediately began to cool, and Lazuli exhaled with relief. The potter’s cart was a little bit unwieldy for his compact frame, meant for a Rexal more muscular (or at least larger) than he, and he had been distracting himself from the physical effort with his thoughts.

Not unusual for him; hard physical labor was not something he enjoyed– Not without the promise of creation at the end, anyway. Pleasure could be found in physical exertion, certainly, and there was a peculiar sort of enjoyment to be found in beating the air pockets out of a lump of clay. But when it came to tasks like chopping and hauling wood, carrying water, or scrubbing dishes and laundry? He would take his mind a thousand miles away while his body went through the motions of a repetitive task.

Today would be different, he hoped.

It would be hard labor. Tedious. Repetitive. But it was something new… At least, as far as things that his master was beginning to trust him with, now that the older apprentices no longer needed to learn the task. And it would be the kind of work that would bring him closer to the sort of creation that he considered to be Art. Sparse leaf litter crackled beneath his paws as he picked up the pace, breathing in the green scent of shallow river water and thinking of what he might make once he was allowed to try his hand at more than repetitive, utilitarian wares. The most elaborate thing he’d been permitted to make so far had been a watering can– And he’d taken some liberties there, shaping the broad spout-end into something that suggested a flower or a star. His master had warned him not to add too many frills; it was a piece meant to be used, after all, not set on a shelf to be admired. But after the firing and glazing, he had been pleased enough with it, for it served its purpose well in addition to its small aesthetic value.

Orange eyes squinted against a flood of sunlight as Lazuli stepped out from the protection of the forest’s overhanging branches and onto a shallow, silty beach. The river seemed sluggish here, but its appearance was deceptive; a deep channel let it flow swiftly through the area, leaving the surface relatively smooth except for eddies near the banks where the current caught on the riverbed. Rexals came here often enough to keep the path clear, but it was not a popular spot on laundry days– Too dusty, and not enough flat rocks to spread things out on. Fortunate for him, since he had this little beach and its clay-rich banks all to himself.

It was a relief to slip out of the cart’s harness. He rose to his hind feet and stretched, rolling his shoulders and neck to loosen them up before he went to work. Rocks beside the cart wheels to keep it from wandering, then latches undone on the side so that it could fold out, with sturdy ropes hooked on the inside to keep anything that might have shifted from rolling out. Once those were also removed and set aside, Lazuli began to unload his tools. A mattock, for chopping raw clay out of the eroded banks; a hammer, for breaking those chunks apart; a sieve, for filtering out foreign material and larger pieces from the unrefined clay; and a bundle of coarse cloth, for hauling clay chunks and helping to pour the pounded material through the sieve. Several battered old pots still sat in the bed of the cart, cushioned from each other by wrappings of rope and rags. It would be much easier to haul dry clay back; water was heavy, and though the cart was small, it had still taken some effort to pull with only his tools in it.

For now, Lazuli took only the mattock and the roll of cloth, leaving the rest with the cart as he strolled along the riverbank toward a swifter, stonier portion where the slope had been cut away during times of high water. There, he could find streaks of a consistent color and texture; a firm stroke of a fingertip along the band showed it to be dry, the particles falling from it fine and the texture almost like suede. With a little nod to himself, Lazuli spread the roll of cloth out on a flat spot and took up his mattock.

The Ocean-blue Rexal took a bit to get into the proper rhythm. The first rough ‘bricks’ of unrefined earth were uneven and fractured - though, he supposed it didn’t matter much if he intended to break them down shortly anyhow. Still, he couldn’t help his own little perfectionist streak, experimenting until he managed to get a roughly squared-off shape directly out of the wall. (It might not be perfect, but he fancied that if he was consistent enough, he could stack the rough clay blocks in the cart and haul them back to the workshop for processing instead.)

Blocks were unwieldy in a carrysack, though, and once the heap of clay was big enough for his liking, it had been a bit of a challenge to pull the corners together and tote it back to the rest of his tools. There was a shallow depression in the ground not far from where he had left his cart, the earth scraped back to expose hard stone. Probably where the other apprentices had done this in the past, he guessed as he lowered the makeshift sack into the middle of it and spread out the cloth, setting most of his haul off to one side. Out came the hammer, and he set to work breaking up the dried hunks of river mud. There were stones and roots and sticks to pick out, dried bits of leaf and the occasional tiny bone on occasion– All things that shouldn’t be in a good clay. When there was enough almost-powdered dirt to make it worthwhile, he carefully folded up the sheet and shook the dust down into one area so that he could easily pour it through the sieve and into one of his pots, clearing out any remaining bits of organic material or tiny pebbles.

As predicted, it was a repetitive, tedious, and physically demanding task - but Lazuli let himself fall into a rhythm and wandered off into his own thoughts, grinding down everything he had brought, one piece at a time, and then moving on to collect more. The Dome’s artificial sun gradually drifted across its equally false sky; morning passed into midday, and then afternoon, before Lazuli roused from his thoughts to the reverberation of striking something hard as it traveled through the hammer and up his arms. The mud block appeared to have split, though, so what on earth had caused that sensation?

Lazuli leaned forward, and colors winked at him from veins within the rock that had been hiding inside his mud. The stone sparked with every movement of his head, light catching on a thousand different angles. The apprentice potter knew little enough about gemstones; all he could say was that he was fascinated by the shards of color glittering before his eyes, and before he could consider what he might do with it, he was already breaking away bits of clay-mud with his bare hands. He had already cracked the stone in half; what if he shattered it trying to use the hammer instead? No, this… This was too precious. That it had only split and not shattered into a multitude of tiny pieces was a small miracle, and he wanted it whole.

By the time he was done clearing away what was not the stone, the sun had descended quite a ways toward the horizon. He needed to hurry, or his master would have some strong words for him about laziness (not uncommon, if he wasn’t working as fast as the old Rex would like). The two halves of the stone were tucked into the cradle of a coil of rope before Lazuli hastily - but ever meticulously - finished crushing and storing his last load of clay powder. A vigorous shake of the cloth sent a cloud of dust into the air and he quickly rolled it up to store in the little cart along with the rest of his borrowed tools. The stone pieces were tucked more securely inside the cloth, then, as he fastened the side of the cart back into place and shrugged into the harness.

The trail back to the main road was a blur; he hardly felt the heat of sun-baked earth beneath his paws as he hurried down the path, his thoughts only on the shifting lightning-flash of color and a sense of something growing in the back of his mind. An idea? Inspiration?

He would make something beautiful with this. But… What? (And how?)

Author: VisceralLuster