Re: pris and the meet me at three-thirty, mudholes -][- open

[Madeline Cauthon]

Maddie's mouth dropped by the end of the exciting story. "Wow... Thats fascinating!! Well I'm glad the mud people have Vox!!"

Madeline clapped mud all over herself when Pris said that the runaway mudman would get his hat back. Looking at her watch she knew she had to go.

"Thank you for letting me help out today. It has definitely been a fun educational experience. I have to get going so I wont be late for my evening chores." Madeline bowed before the queen and the rest of the mud people. After that, Madeline made her way back to the inn.

[Elessar]

Elessar had the craziest luck an elf-turned-runaway mud man could possibly have and nothing cemented that fact more than when Pris actually agreed with his mystery tale of Vox the ninja mud man and the disappearing apprentage. To this fortune of luck the mud covered elf wanted to laugh, to roll in the mud and laugh hysterically at the sheer amount of dumb luck he seemed to have acquired.

Perhaps it was luck then, or merely the fact Elessar hadn't truly laughed in a very long time, that stopped the happy mud man from doing either of the things he wanted. Instead his pleasure at being agreed with was shown in the grin that stole over his face and morphed into barely contained snickering at the end of Pris' words. As for mud school Elessar hadn't a clue in scluuuuurple what that was. Where he was from there wasn't a school system but rather a system of tutors that instructed an elf from before they were old enough to walk until they reached their coming of age. Though he hadn't appreciated such when he was younger Elessar regretted such now.

What was that? Could it be true? Elessar was finally going to get his long-awaited mud hat! The joy that came from Pris' sing song-ed conclusion broke the hold the elf had kept on his laughter and he began to laugh, truly laugh, the sound sweet as a bird's song in the air. He almost couldn't believe it. He had come very close, more than once, at getting that hat and now he was about to be rewarded! Full of mirth, he watched Pris as he eagerly awaited his mud hat.

[Guest]

"hey! HEY!" was yelled after madeline, but to no avail. so pris puffed up her lungs with as much air as she could fill them with and bellowed, "the work clock hasn't blown the go-home whistle yet!" poor elessar, sitting right there when the teenager was using the full power of her air-pipes.

as the form of the apprentage grew smaller and smaller and distant and more distant, pris watched the girl go with a furrowed face. how the dots between her mudman's story, her own reaction, and her apprentage's reaction connected was something that pris didn't understand. well she understood, but she didn't understand. it was just pris' nature that she took stories - even overly fanciful and clearly fictional stories - more preciously than she took facts and laws, and for that reason if pris was the apprentage who heard a story like that she never ever would have run off before finishing her job.

"currishp." pris had just decided that 'currishp' meant thin-head in mudspeak. so now elessar had an official mudname. "she didn't get it. she left without painting on your water layer." it was the last job pris had given madeline to do before the vox story was told. when the sculpting girl shared this realization with her mudman, she paused in her finger workings to look down at currishp, right in the eyes. her own big green eyes were as solemn and serious as her tone. then she huffed. after that she puffed. finally she looked away. "she's going to let you crumble away into nothingness before jezebelington asks you to tea and crumples. that's not right. that's not right!"

it was enough to make pris want to stamp her foot. so she did. stomp stomp stomp, said one foot. and then the other foot went stomp right back. she had just acquired this new thin-head mudman. and while it was obvious he had a lot to learn about being a proper member of the mudfolk, she was not about to let him crumble away already. so, she would have to take action. "i will paint on your water layer," she decided with the grandness of a margravine eating tea cakes, "and it will be the best water layer that's ever been layered! a green water layer. to go best with your hat."

speaking of his hat. with no other warning than plop plop plop, three handfuls of mud were plunked on top of elessar's head and the base pris had sculpted around it to make it fatter. from the press of pris' palms and the flutter of her fast-working fingers, it was clear that she already had a particular hat in mind for currishp. it started with a thick box-shaped base, and she used her nails to chip away at the mud to make sure the boxy brim had smooth clean corners.

[Elessar]

Elessar had to hand it to Pris, the girl had a nice set of lungs on her. Even though her bellow had caused him to wince and rub at one ear he was rather impressed by it. As for the running away apprentage - Elessar wasn't really surprised. It had been his experience that either one of three things happened after he told a story; either they gave him an odd look, walked away shaking their heads, or worse, did both. The apprentage had turned out to be one of the runners and if it weren't for the mud covering his neck Elessar would have shook his head. There was nothing he could do about it though and he turned his attention back to Pris.

Currishp? Elessar got a thoughtful look on his face as he considered this new name. "Currishp," He repeated, testing out the name on his tongue. It wasn't hard to say and after thinking it over a moment or two more Elessar decided he liked this new name. His agreement to it showed in the grin he directed at Pris before fixing that thoughtful look on her. She had given him a new name so it would be only fitting for him to give her a new one as well, right?

Right. As she huffed and puffed and stomped over the apprentage's departure he was plotting and thinking of a name that would suit her. She hadn't given him a name to call her by and while he was sure he had heard her name spoken before it temporarily escaped him which left him hunting for a name. It was in the same moment that Pris announced that she would be painting on his water-layer that he settled on the perfect name for her. "Fanyare," He pronounced the elvish name slowly but with triumph clear in his voice. She had told him that she was a sky that would never fade and what would be a more fitting name for a sky than cloud? That's right, he had just named her a cloud - which was a good name in his opinion and would not break his promise of keeping her sky-ness a secret.

As for the water-layer, Pris unwittingly knew the colors to an elf's heart. Greens and browns were colors to live by when you lived in a forest. In fact, before he had went crawling through the brush earlier his tunic had been the bright color of grass green. Now the color had been muted by the dirt and mud that it resembled more brown than the green it had started as. Beyond the color attraction Elessar still felt a bit unsettled by the shell he was sure the water-layer would turn his mud parts into, but under that there was a spot of trust for Pris that had started when she skipped covering his ears in mud. Perhaps this water-layer would not be so bad after all with her as the painter.

And now he was finally getting his hat! This was the moment Elessar had been waiting for all along and he wished that he could watch it. As it was he tried hard to swivel his eyes to get a better look, but without being able to move his head all he could catch was a glimpse here and there. Would he get to see it when she was finished? He certainly hoped so.

[Guest]

everything had been decided, and once all the decisions were made pris went quiet. while her fingers fluttered at the speed of snipping scissors, she wasn't a hairdresser type of sculptor who had to continually chatter with what she was sculpting. not most of the time, at least, and certainly not now. stillness of sound was a comfortable thing for her, it was stillness of her sight that lead to schizophrenically-tainted troubles. this stillness of sound worked well for her currently because elessar was a good mudman.

mudman currishp. she'd named him that because it sounded both like 'curl' and 'crisp'. pris felt those two words combined into 'currishp' were a good way to describe the curvature of his ears. she'd never seen ears shaped quite like his before, which is why she felt they (and he) needed a new word.

but the word currishp said back she didn't know. "fanyaren't?" she asked back. that was the part of the word she recognized - are. which is why she questioned back with the word ending in 'aren't'. it was the way her mind worked. to pris, saying the opposite was a way of saying that she didn't understand - even if saying that wasn't a way of admitting misunderstanding for just about everyone else.

"fan-yard," she murmured thoughtfully to herself as she left elessar's side to return to the mud moat, where she would scoop up another large armful of mud. after she murmured that translation of the word, pris' oddly imbalanced mind went click and click. "fan? yard?" both of those were asked as a question to the elf as she walked back over to him with an armful of cold went dirt, dropping the load at his knees with a slop just as she'd done with all the mud prior.

two fresh handfuls of mud were plunked down on his head on top of the box-shaped base, and the girl set to work. unlike the clean corners and lines she'd worked on for the base, her hand quickly shaped the mud she'd just plopped atop his base into a nice smooth dome. it looked a lot like a bowler hat, if bowlers came with square instead of rounded brims. but pris wasn't done yet, no no no. three smaller handfuls of mud were rolled between her hands into nice clean mud balls each about the size of an egg. one was placed in the front left corner of the dome, one was placed in the back right corner of the dome, and the third was placed on top of the dome right in the center. pris used the wettest mud as a sealant between the three balls and the dome, to make sure they wouldn't fall off when he moved. she had built him a functional hat. well, as functional as a mud hat could be, anyway. this hat was certainly heavier than most conventional hats.

after stepping back to examine currishp's new hat, she nodded to herself and went over to jezebelington to fetch the water bucket that the apprentage had left behind. pris dumped out all the water left in there besides two inches worth, bringing it back over to currishp and setting it to the side of him. it was time for her to start preparing for his water layer, which meant that pris would need to get some green.

[Elessar]

Elessar was as quiet a mud man as he was a good one. The comfort found in silence was something else he could agree with Pris upon, and while she was busy sculpting his hat he remained quite and simply listened. In the quiet he was able to pick up the soft sounds made by the flutter of her fingers as they worked and it made him grin from the sheer anticipation. The elf had never had a hat before, mud or otherwise which was part of the reason he was like a child awaiting a present. The rest of the reason was pushed out of his mind for the time being when he heard his new name for Pris being repeated back to him as "fanyaren't?" He mumbled the word to himself, wondering why she added the 'aren't' in there until . . Oh. The thought occurred to him then that there was a high possibility that he had given an elvish name to someone who had probably never even heard the elvish language before. That was the deceptive nature of Rhy'Din for you - Elessar had met people whom he would not have guessed spoke the language of the Eldar and did, but on the flip side there were also those whom he would have said could speak the language and didn't.

As Pris headed back to the moat side for more mud Elessar watched her go with a bit of a frown on his face as he mulled over the word in his head. When it came to translating elvish into the common tongue Elessar found a bit of a challenge. To him the words simply sounded better in their natural language, even rolled smoothly off the tongue, whereas the translated version did not. So what was he going to do about fanyaren't? Nothing! Absolutely nothing, because in her own way Pris had already started figuring out Fanyare on her own with the words fan and yard. Elessar pounced upon the two words like a cat on a canary as the proper way to pronounce it was suddenly clear it him. "Fan-y-are." The earlier triumph returned to his voice as he was sure he got it right this time, although just to make sure he went on to add, "Fanyare. Cloud." There. Did that make sense? Would she understand that he had named her cloud? Elessar hoped so.

It was a strange sensation to have someone placing cool, wet, squishy mud atop one's head and do nothing about it. He could feel the plopping of the mud on top of his head and he wondered again what this new mud hat was going to look like. He found it slightly, very slightly, ridiculous that he had nothing to compare the hat with when it was done. What if it was actually a funny looking hat and he didn't know it? What if he didn't like it? The suspense was killing him.

The water bucket was eyed over with a margin of curiosity as he considered how she was going to make the water inside green. Elessar had never attempted to color water before - what use would he have for it anyway? Even so he had seen it done before with a liquid Mary had called food coloring that could change whatever it was added to that color. Elessar hadn't been that impressed by it however, because who wanted to eat something that had been turned dark blue?

[Guest]

pris was definitely a didn't. there were a few elven students at the school she went to (a typical school of the nexus, there were students of all creeds there), but pris didn't exactly get along with them. because she didn't exactly get along with anyone at school, including her teachers. well, besides lumie that is. but lumie was different. the point was, pris didn't know much about elves at all, and the nexus cultures class wasn't until her senior year.

"fan, y' are." after he pronounced it precisely, to pris' eccentric mind the word made a sentence in that way. "purr." she had a habit of saying the word, instead of actually doing a purr. with pris purr could mean a lot of things, but in this case it meant that she was satisfied. her mind understood the word not as cloud exactly, but as the part of the sky that fanned the clouds overhead - clouds were always moving, after all. she knew that. the point was pris understood to a degree that was comfortable for her, and that was all she needed. besides. she didn't mind being a cloud-fanner. while she never got to know one personally, from the view down on the ground the clouds seemed very nice, except on the days when they grew big, grey and angry and threw-up rain. but all things got sick sometimes.

now that the water bucket was where she wanted it, pris left her mudman to sit on his own while she crossed the wooden plank over the moat, wandering around to the other side of the mud garden where there were a few trees. walking up to the shortest tree of the bunch, pris rolled up onto her tip toes so that she could reach up and collect leaves. the eccentric girl hummed a dreamy, eerie series of notes to herself while she gathered what she felt were the 'best' leaves - the greenest, and the biggest.

she had her hands cupped together full of them as she crossed back over the wooden plank. uncupping her hands and letting all the leaves fall into the bucket. besides two, they fluttered hither and thither around it and tried to escape. pris couldn't let that happen though. after she plopped down on the ground the two leaves were plucked up by her fingers and tossed in. then, she reached down into the bucket to where the leaves were all floating on the water's surface, and she started kneading with her hands. like she was trying to make leaf dough. between the water and her grinding fingers, the leaves were turning into pulp. as they turned into pulp, they released that juicy thing inside of them which gave them their color green. giving it to the water instead.

and that was how elessar was going to get a green water-layer. all natural, leaf approved. she just had to get the brush the apprentage left by jezebelington.

[Elessar]

There was a nexus cultures class? Where did Elessar sign up? A class like that would be oddly perfect for Elessar. Ever since he had confined himself to his room and the inn at large he had been trying to learn more about the heritage of the various creatures that lived in Rhy'Din. There were only two glaring drawbacks to learning like that, however - the history channel on the television could only cover so much and he would learn more if he would just get out among the people he wished to study. With that in mind it was almost a shame that even with the youthful elven appearance there was no way Elessar could pass as a senior in high school.

When Pris repeated the way he pronounced fanyare Elessar wanted to crow. It never failed to slightly surprise him when he found someone who knew how to speak elvish, but teaching it to someone was a triumphant feeling. As for the 'purr', well that earned Pris a bit of a look. As it turned out, while his studying of people didn't turn up so well, his study of the different animals had. That's right, Elessar finally knew what a cow was, and after learning such had vowed off eating beef then and there. Getting back to the point, there was only one animal Elessar had learned about that purred and that was a cat and when she said purr the elf found himself trying hard not to picture her as a cat. Tried and failed, and hoped two seconds later that Pris didn't unwittingly have the gift of reading other people's minds because Elessar was sure there was no faster way to loose a mud hat than to picture it's creator as a giant cat-girl. Well it was too late now to do anything about it because it wasn't like he could take it back. How could you take back something in your own mind?

At any rate Elessar had learned that cats purr when content and after banishing the cat-girl image he had begun thinking of cats. He had learned that they purred when content so could it be possible that the same could apply to Pris? Elessar decided to take a stab in the dark and decide that it could so for him it translated down that 'purr' meant she was content which in turn meant she didn't mind being called cloud after all. Wasn't that just a twisted string of logic?

Elessar had been left on his own then and took the chance to slowly stretch his legs by rising up ever so slightly. A person could only remain in a crouching position for so long until they started to cramp up, including an elf. As he stretched he was also watching Pris gathering leaves from the trees across the moat. As he watched a crazy notion rose to mind that perhaps she was going to cover him with water and stick the leaves to him. It made sense - sort of, but perhaps this was a sign that the guy had been watching way too much television after all. How else do you explain all the crazy ideas?

By the time Pris returned Elessar had settled back down into the same position he had been and had left his stretching to his fingers that were trapped under his head. As it turned out his crazy idea had been wrong after all and he watched the leaf kneading in the bucket with a barely suppressed snort of laughter at his own foolishness. Getting green from the leaves was a stroke of genius in Elessar's opinion and sudden he was looking forward to this green water-layer. Hopefully Pris would begin painting it on soon before he got anymore crazy ideas in his head.

[Guest]

elessar was safe because the girl who was greening his water was not a mind reader. even if she stared stared stared at him with her big emerald eyes, all she would see were the secrets of his insides - while those secrets might include fears or dreams or truths that the person themselves may not even know, what she saw didn't include specific thoughts. especially thoughts the person was having about other people.

once pris mashed the leaves as much as they could be mashed in the water, her fingers scooped up all the mush and she tossed it on the ground next to them. a second skim of the surface, and a second handful of pulp was slopped on the ground before she stood, wiping her hands off on the sides of her dress. skipping off to get the brush where it lay near jezebelington, as the teenager walked back to the elf she held both of her hands up with said brush laying across her palms, as if it was a most precious item that she was presenting for inspection. and to her, that's exactly what it was.

"currishp," she drew his name out in a tone of great seriousness and suspense, "you will now be granted your water layer, hey nonny." carefully removing her right hand from underneath the brush, she picked the brush up from where it sat on her palm and twapped the tip of his nose with it. an initiation of some sort, it was very possible that pris invented said initiation right then and there. she would've smacked the top of his head, but she'd just finished his mudhat and she didn't want it to get damaged. until it was dry, it wouldn't be very strong.

picking up the bucket with her left hand, she'd hold it at her side so she didn't have to bend down each time she dipped her brush. pris was too fast a brusher to bother with that. bristles were dunked halfway deep, and pris quickly swished the brush over the areas on elessar that she had covered in mud. while she'd considered brushing him with a water layer even in the places were he wasn't covered in mud, she decided against it. not because she was being nice by refraining from getting currishp's clothes soaking wet, but only because she knew that if she painted on his flesh or his clothes, neither one of those surfaces would pick up the nice leaf-green color the way the smooth brown mud would.

because she was only painting where he'd been mud-manned by her, it wouldn't take her long at all to do the first coat. walking around him, pris gave her brush a fresh dunk and started on his second coat. from the looks of it, after the second coat the green would be tinted a shade that met pris' satisfaction. in the coming minute she'd be finished, and what then? would this living mudman take his mudhat and run away?

[Elessar]

It could be debatable that seeing the secrets of someone's insides could be more telling than reading their thoughts which arises a curious question: Just what did Pris see when she stared, stared, stared at Elessar? The elf was a man of as many secrets as regrets to go along and he kept it all locked deeply inside. Although, on the other hand, it might possibly be considered a relief to have another share those deeply guarded secrets. There were some secretes that simply hurt too much to keep locked inside forever.

Now Elessar was more of a writer than an artist but he understood the presentation of the brush. To him it was the same as preparing to write with his favorite pen - the nearly featherless quill pen that was badly in need of replacement. It was finally time for his water-layer and . . he was twapped on the nose with the brush! The elf blinked in surprise as he realized, rather belatedly, he should have seen that coming.

Elessar wasn't a mind reader either although if he had known about it, he would be glad that Pris had decided against greening him from head to foot, even if the reason was because the color wouldn't look as good. While the elf had no problems with water, and had set out in the pouring rain once fully clothed getting soaking wet hadn't been part of the plan for the day.

It surprised him at how fast a painter Pris was, she would be done before he knew it and then what would happen? He could take his new hat and run, although that would be rather rude, wouldn't it? As Pris continued to paint him the mud man mulled over his predicament until it suddenly struck him. It was a brilliant idea in his opinion and if his run of good luck would hold out this could turn out well. "Fanyare," She had been using his new name for him so it was only right to address her by the one he had given her. "I bid that I wish to see what my hat looks like when finished." One didn't wait so long and go through all that to finally get his mud hat without seeing how it looked in the end. "I also bid if it might be possible to remove said hat afterwards when dry so it might remain safe and intact for it is growing near the hour to return inside for supper." That was his great plan then, to see if there was a way to remove the hat once it had properly dried so when he did run away it would remain undamaged and safe. He was starting to grow hungry in the meantime so could it be possible she was as well?

[Guest]

while pris had settled her eyes on elessar here and there as she'd worked on his mud base, his mud hat at his water layer, she hadn't really lingered her eyes on him long enough to truly stare. to pris, giving him a mud hat wasn't like painting a person's portrait. the best hat was a hat that best matched the body, not the insides. so pris hadn't stared at elessar long enough to really see anything at all, and hyper-focused on her work as she was it looked like she was intending to keep it that way.

dip and swish swish swish, dip and swish swish swish, that was the quick rhythm that pris had developed as she speedily gave the mud its water layer. the strokes were firm enough that the combination of the wetness and the brush bristles smoothed out a lot of the bumps or small cracks in the mud that pris had piled on to the poor elf. by the end of her work the parts of him that were mud sculpture improved were also looking polished and clean. at least, as clean as greenish mud can be!

once pris was done with elessar, she took a step back. brush in one hand, bucket in the other. big green eyes bopped here there and everywhere as she scrutinized every nook and cranny she'd rendered and colored. as he addressed her, pris gave a nod nod nod. but she wasn't nodding at him. she was nodding at her own work, at her good job, and at her satisfaction with the events of today at her sculpture garden.

as for what the elf said. pris cocked her head to the side when he was done speaking, looking at him with contemplative curiosity. her eyes never staying in one gazing place for long. "it's your mud hat," was pris emphatic reply. "and she's the queen." pris turned, using her brush to point at the statue that was, of course, jezebelington. if currishp wished to excuse himself, as a loyal mud man he would have to ask his queen.

as for pris, the eccentric artist was currently carrying her bucket over to vox. while the statue was a notoriously bad influence, he deserved his repairs and water layer just like all the others. without her short-lived apprentage here to help her, pris would have to do it herself. but that was just fine with her. she'd created this sculpture garden in the first place, after all, to give herself something to care for. dunking her brush into her bucket, pris started the swish swish swish rhythm that would help to repair the cracks in vox that came with dryness and hours in the too-hot sun.

so it seemed that, for once, pris wasn't interested in supper and that she was committed to staying here. but surely if currishp asked politely jezebelington would let him be excused for the dinner table.

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