Some sand from a beach, some ash from a beech [Private: Iseult]

[Desmodus]

Timestamp: Some as-yet unspecified date in the Autumn of Era XIV, PF

"The Best Glass House in Centripax"

That was what the neatly-carved and -limned sign read above the door of a building that resembled a stone chapel more than it did the hub of some grandiose industry. And lately, thought Dienheim Best grimly as he looked over his shop, it had begun increasingly to resemble an abandoned chapel.

Just a few eras ago, commissions had been pouring in from Midpoint Fortress, which lay just a couple candlemarks up the road to the north, and from Zerdargia not too much farther away to the south, and the glass house's name seemed more like an aptly-earned title than a mere canting pun on its owner's surname. The dwarf glassblower had done it all: panes for windows, bowls and drinking-glasses, decorative pieces and statuary. But hard times had descended upon his business, and just recently he had had to let his best assistant go, unable to justify keeping such a talented craftsman, much though he would have liked to, when he could not pay him.

And then, less than a cycle after Markus had trundled off towards Primus Gaudeo, just *then* a big commission had come in. A commission for which he sorely needed Markus. Dienheim had a couple apprentices, but they were young and inexperienced, with nowhere near the skills needed to assist him in this. The job was for thick, artistic bowls of multiple colors and layers of glass, mosaic bowl work he had done before, and which the prospective customer had seen and much liked, and now just *had* to have. It was a job that required working in warm glass, kiln-work, slumping.

The glassblower had read the letter, written in a flowing hand by some officer in the Alyssan Guard who probably hoped to impress his superiors by making gifts of these fine bowls to their wives, and the dwarf had slumped despondently in his chair; his apprentices thought that he was sad because business had slumped so badly. It was almost as if some cruel narrator prone to even worse puns than Dienheim Best were mocking his plight.

The dwarf ran his hands through his reddish-blond hair and twisted his grey-streaked beard anxiously. He didn't even have enough hands to properly express the extent of his distress. What was he to do? He couldn't afford to turn down this commission, and yet with Markus gone, how was he to fulfill it?

Helplessly he scanned the forest about him. The trees along the old road leading north-south between Midpoint Fortress and Zerdargia were just starting to color with the coming autumn. Or perhaps they were fully aflame with the crisp, ripe autumn. Or perhaps they were withered, consumed by the nearly-spent autumn. He wouldn't know until Iseult settled on a timestamp for this thread. If only there were some way, Dienheim thought, if only he knew somebody with some glassblowing skill comparable to Markus' to help him.

[Iseult Fluersdotter]

The Month of Junctior, Season of Autumn

Having lived in the north-eastern portion of the Carmelyan Province all her life (at least until recently), Iseult was accustomed to trees. The trees varied, of course; up north and east there were more pines, more trees that could weather the colder, harsher climates, while here they were given more to the sort that weathered only the changing of the seasons through a winter not nearly as hard in Jaedaxia and summers much warmer than Iseult was probably accustomed to. In the throes of Autumn, the trees were a myriad of colors, ranging from the faint remnants of green to the burnt brown of leaves long sapped of life and withered into a crisp shell of what had once been. It was lovely, she couldn't deny that, and felt a slight uplift to her heart from the recent burdens that had afflicted her. The air was comfortable, not too hot nor too cold, and had a crispness to it that felt refreshing. It was, all in all, a good brightening to be out traveling.

She and Ci'aran had left Medonia behind them and traveled northward now to the Eunesia Province, a place that promised to be warm even in Autumn. She longed for the smell of the salt seas, the sound of the waves; being inland was not something Iseult particularly enjoyed, something she attributed both to her life along the coastline and the thelyri blood that thrummed through her. Trees were fine, really, but she preferred the sight of the ocean to the endless cover of trees.

It was about mid-brightening when she smelt it. A heavy scent of woodsmoke and something else. It was familiar and yet...not. It reminded Iseult of the glass fires she had become accustomed to in Jaedaxia and Trysvale, the sort of smell that they effused when ash, sand, and lime were heated to the point of melting. But this was different and yet not. She hesitated, but chose to ignore it. Surely there wouldn't be a glassworks out this way. So she walked along the road, heading in the direction that people claimed to be where the Carmelyan Province stretched against the Centripax border (hoping profusely she was headed in the right direction).

As she rounded the bend, she caught sight of a building ahead. The smell was stronger here and she was almost certain this was a glassworks, but her eyes weren't so great from a distance and no matter how she squinted at the sign, she could make little sense of it. So she walked, her steps slowing slightly as she tried to make note of her surroundings.

[Desmodus]

Directly in front of Iseult as she headed North there rose a small, cleared hill, over the crest of which she could just make out, first the smoke from, then the tops of three chimneys rising up from some building or buildings on the slope facing away from her. The road she was travelling veered eastward a short ways to avoid having to scale that rise, but then finally turned back north-by-northwestwards to bring the wayfarer following it back on course towards Diana. Hence the bend.

Once she had rounded it, the crafty daughter of Fleur could see the north side of the rise clearly, and along with it the three buildings that stood on it, surrounded by a stone fence. One building was a half-timbered house, about two stories tall. One of the chimneys, the smallest, rose from that, and a modest amount of smoke puffed happily from it. Another, more utilitarian-looking and mostly wooden building stood next to it, and judging from the absence of any chimney was probably some sort of storage shed or barn. The third building, not quite as large in footprint as the wooden building but more massive, had two stout round chimneys rising from it, from one of which was issuing a healthy amount of smoke. Iseult would probably suspect this to be the source of the scent she picked up in the air.

A path led off from the road up towards the gate in the stone fence surrounding the small compound, a path that looked well-worn, but had seemingly not been plied with wagons in a couple cycles, judging by a lack of fresh wheel-ruts since the last rain.

A slender wooden signpost rose next to where this path met the road, with carved wooden arrows pointing in both directions along the road, as well as up the hill. The arrow pointing back from whence Iseult came read: "ZERDARGIA". The other that pointed the direction she was headed read: "MIDPOINT", and the third, pointing up the hill read: "BEST GLASSWORKS".

From her current vantage point on the road at the bottom of the rise, she could make out little of the buildings inside the surrounding wall, nor could she see any signs of activity or habitation apart from what she had already surmised from the smoke and the smell issuing from the chimneys. She could also see the front gate clearly. This was open, though she could only see a bit more of the non-descript storage shed through the entranceway. Next to the gate was a large bell attached to a cord.

[Iseult Fluersdotter]

The signs grabbed at Iseult's attention; poor though her sight might have been, she had begun searching for them as the distant chimneys and their building began to loom in the not-too-far distance. She paused at the signs, studying them, ignoring any confusion from her traveling companion. Glassworking she had thought to leave behind her. Iklov had cursed her with a certain death and Iseult had less than nine months left to life...what point was there to playing with the raw glass, molding it into pleasant shapes, if in the end it amounted to next to nothing?

But glass had been in Iseult's life for a while now. A small handful of eras, this was true, but it had saved her in some fashion, removing her from her mother's household for candlemarks on end, giving her creativity and energy a way to disperse itself. She realized now how much it had meant to her, this craft, having been absent from it for more than a month."I'll meet you down the road," she told her friend, caring little how much he protested and insisting only that he humor her just this once--she had no intention of being chopped up while wandering on her own. "Just don't go to Eunesia without me," she jested lamely and took off down the road towards the glassworks.

She started towards the building, feeling a little apprehensive and telling herself she probably should just turn around and forget it. She was teasing herself with this. She'd quit. She'd given it up. No sense in torturing her mind with the possibilities of what might be. So, stepping close to the gate, she hesitated for a span of time before finally reaching out and tugging on the cord that dangled from a decent-sized bell.

[Desmodus]

Grim though business had been of late, and in spite of the recent loss of Markus, ol' Dienheim did his Best to keep his place as open for prospective customers as circumstances permitted. The bell cord pulled easily, and the bell itself swung smoothly in its well-oiled housing and rang out its bright, clear B-flat.

A moment later a middle-aged dwarf with strawbery-blond hair and beard appeared, dressed in flannel shirt and heavy trousers and boots. He looked more like a miniature lumberjack than anything else, holding an axe in both hands as he approached to learn whether this visitor had come for good or ill, but the smell about him was the smell of furnace and kiln, not of fresh-cut timber.

He peered up at the human with bright blue eyes. "You rang my bell," he said, holding his axe warily, though not menacingly. "That would suggest you come in peace, and if that's the case, you are welcome here. State your name, young lady, and what business you have with Dienheim Best."

[Iseult Fluersdotter]

She could not be entirely certain what she'd been expecting when she'd pulled the bell cord. A dwarf approaching with an axe clutched in his hands was hardly the image she had in mind. The half-breed watched him warily, her mouth tightening into a frown, hoping that he did not mean trouble. Of course, she had her daggers...but little help they would be against a dwarf with an axe. Especially if he knew how to use it.

Iseult resisted a retort that came to mind. She swallowed it down and cleared her throat, responding easily enough, "My name's Iseult. I saw your sign, smelled the furnaces. I thought to come and see just what sort of work you'd be able to do all the way out here...away from the beaches." She studied him curiously, squinting slightly.

"I'm a glassworker myself. From out of Jaedaxia. I had a curiosity to see your work, that's all." And that had been all. Iseult missed the glass and she had an interest in seeing the works of others, collected pieces for her own shelves. Not that she really had a large drive to do that any more. Little point in it.

[Desmodus]

The dwarf's expression was difficult to read. "A glassmaker," he repeated, neutrally, as if nonplussed by what the strange woman was telling him. "From Jaedaxia."

He lowered his ax to lean on it, and examined the odd-looking traveller, but did not immediately say anything else. On one hand, what the woman said to him was a joy for him to hear; however, her strangeness, and the sheer unlikelines of the luck this might represent for him, gave him pause. The road could bring dangers, and some of those dangers could be female. After a moment, he shrugged. "Why don't you come in, then, and take a load off for a bit. I shall be happy to show you around the works after I've gotten to know you better."

The dwarf stood aside and gestured with a free arm towards the half-timbered house. Evidently, showing her the works was *not* the first thing it occured to him to do. The house was tidy, the plaster on it well-maintained, and of course the windows were all glazed. It might have been a bit cheerier had there been flowers in the flower boxes, but whoever tended the house seemed to be doing the best they could, as the flower beds around the base had been recently tilled and planted with purple cabbages.

"Are you travelling with anybody, Ms. Iseult?" asked Dienheim. He gave the name a decent enough Jaedaxian pronunciation, but something in his tone suggested that he thought it was vaguely funny. "If so, you should tell me now so that we can prepare teh appropriate hospitality."

[Iseult Fluersdotter]

Iseult blandly examined the dwarf right back. It irritated her, but she had enough sense to maintain merely an image of impatience shifted through with indifference. She sat through the silence and waited for something to come of it. Perhaps he was dumb, half-witted. But the initial words he'd spoken suggested otherwise. The axe suggested wariness. Perhaps he did not trust her. That she could understand. She, herself, trusted few.

Invited inside, she nodded curtly and followed him into the house. She had no desire to sit and play with words. She was not considered by most to be pleasant company. That the dwarf was a a dwarf helped him considerably; a man of elvish or human lineage would have met with far more distrust than this. As it was, he seemed hardly a threat in comparison to one of those. But she followed him, making mental note of her daggers, but doing little in the way of physical straying a hand towards them. She was not a violent person.

"I am," she responded simply, brows lifting slightly as he gave her name such an odd intonation. For all that she had recently come from Jaedaxia, it was not her place of birth. She'd never quite heard her name butchered in such a fashion before. "He went on ahead a little, while I stopped here," she added, perhaps not wisely. Maybe it would have been better to let him think her companion was not far off and that he would be coming this way in good measure. "It's only me and I hardly need some sort of hospitality laid out. I'd come to look at the glass, not sit and talk over tea." Rude? Yes. Certainly. But she'd been a long time on the road and her feet were sore. Traveling had not improved Iseult's already poor manners.

"I hadn't thought to find a glassworks in the middle of the woods. Don't you require sand for your works?" she asked...bluntly. Because Iseult was the sort to cut straight to the chase, when it suited her, rather than spend all afternoon playing words games.

[Desmodus]

The dwarf shrugged when the stranger declined his hospitality. He was not unused to customers who only wanted to see the wares and talk business, and he certainly was not going to complain that somebody didn't want to eat his food or drink his beer. It was a bit unusual for somebody to have come all this way, apparently on foot, and not want some sort of refreshment, but nothing that was going to give Dienheim Best pause.

"In that case, Mme. Iseult," he said, "I shall be happy to show you some of my wares. Please follow me." Putting his ax back on his shoulder, he turned and began to walk towards the stone building. At Iseult's next question, he paused and turned around.

"You want all my trade secrets just like that, eh?" he asked with a gruff laugh. "We shall see." He resumed walking towards the stone building, gesturing with his free hand for the woman to follow him. He walked slowly, as if there were no pressing work for him to return to, or at least no work he was particularly eager to return to. "And yes, we require sand," he continued over his shoulder. "Though not too much of it. My glass is made mostly from wood ash, beech is best."

He opened the front door to the store. Another dwarf, -a female much younger than Dienheim, looked up from whatever she was doing in surprise. "I'm showin' her around, Iris," he said to the girl: "go to the house and help your mother."

"Okay, dad," the girl answered, and came from around the corner to walk out the same door Dienheim and Iseult had just entered. Iris shot Iseult a curious, mistrustful glance as she walked around her to get out the door.

"Don't mind her," said Dienheim dismissively. Then waved his hand around the store. "I'm afraid I don't keep much stock; we don't typically get a lot of walk-in customers. What you see is mostly the odd forgotten commission."

There were a few of the standard glasses, bowls, and flasks around, mostly with a greenish, smokey tinge that Iseult's colleague and customers back in Jaedaxia would have considered the mark of inferior quality, but some pieces were quite clear, others colored bright red, or emerald green, or purple. One particular piece that might catch the itenerant glassblower's eye was a sort of small basin or bowl, made with several strata of differently and various-colored glass. From the side, it looked like the smile-shaped strata that sometimes appeared in rock exposed by a roadcut, only more vividly colorful. From above, the variously- colored layers shown in an almost kaleidoscopic array that also gave the impression of having some depth.

[Iseult Fluersdotter]

Iseult said nothing for a moment as she followed the dwarf toward the stone building. She did feel a slight pang of guilt, as if her failure to be polite had hit a mark in her own mind. She was not a woman without conscience. She simply had little patience for others from time to time. But she had said what had been said and there was little point in apologizing for it. It would change nothing and would not take back the words.

She shrugged as he laughed. She had not asked him for precise measurements. Nor had she even seen his glass, to judge if the mix he used would be worth using. She would find out, at any rate. The wood ash was not unsurprising. All glass was made from some portions of wood ash. It was the purity of the potash that often mattered as to the quality of the glass. Pearlash was better, but often hard to come by if one did not have the appropriate materials at their hands.

In the store, she nodded curtly to the girl as her father sent her back to the house. She wondered briefly at that, at the distrust in the girl's eyes. Did they see her as a threat of sorts? The dwarf did still carry around his axe. And for what reason? Was he planning to hack some wood up as he spoke to her? Or was it simply a visual threat to keep her from doing something stupid? Men seemed to be much the same regardless of the race--they loved their tools and took great pride in displaying them. Even if they were laughable.

Iseult was not unaccustomed to the 'odd forgotten commissions'. She'd seen them aplenty in her life and had kept a few herself to use as a showcase for her work. She stepped forward to take a look at the glasses. They had a smoky quality she was unfamiliar with, as if some impurities in the glass had not been baked from the raw material before using. At least for some. Others she could view without seeing those discolorations in their pannels. She picked up a bowl and examined it without much thought for whether or not he might wish her to handle them. She turned it about, notting the strata in the glass with interest. It was certainly different from the material that she was accustomed to working.

"What technique is this, that you've gotten the bowl to look like this?" A trade secret. She knew it. She asked anyway.

[Desmodus]

Perhaps noticing that his visitor was eyeing his axe, Dienheim leaned it in a corner behind his counter before continuing the interview. If it could be called an interview, that is. This one wasn't much to talk, was she? What did she actually want? Was it really nothing more than curiosity? Well, it wasn't as if he currently had more pressing matters at the moment.

He saw her looking at the bowl. Well, she knew the good stuff, then didn't she? he thought with some satisfaction. And she knew an unusual technique when she saw it. She got straight to the point and asked him how it was made.

"Oh, it's called 'slumping'," he volunteered readily. But that was all he was going to volunteer readily. "Are you familiar with the technique?"

[Iseult Fluersdotter]

Iseult had never been--and likely never would be--the talkative sort. She let others carry on conversations for her when the situation allowed for it or let the silence carry on around her even when at risk of discomforting others. This was fine with her. Inevitably she would open her mouth and inevitably she'd have the other scowling, scoffing, or laughing at her. There were few times she ever let herself wander into an actual ramble--when provoked (Rougenoe excelled in this area) or when she was drunk (which was never particularly pretty).

"Slumping?" she repeated, but not before she'd given it some thought she was continued to turn the bowl in her hands, holding it close to her face and then far away again, towards any available light in the room. She seemed determine to look at it from every angle, to catch every faucet of detail that she might possible see in the bowl. "No, I'm not," she admitted with a slight shrug, lowering the bowl so that it was level with her stomach, her hands still clutching it carefully so that it did not fall.

"At least, I don't recall anyone turning out something like this where I was taught." One hand clutching the bowl, she used her other to tap a light tinkle of fingernails against it. The bowl's shape was not entirely fascinating, but everything else... that was.

She pursed her lips, refraining from asking outright how he had made it. He'd already scoffed when she'd asked what materials he used. "This what your glassworks is good for? Or do you specialize in something else?"

[Desmodus]

The dwarf scowled a bit sourly and shook his head. Not that he wasn't used to curtness, being a dwarf and all, but this one's manner was anything but endearing.

"I reckon my works are good for quite a bit, young lady," he said, his tone slightly stiffening at the implication that it might be otherwise: "though of late I lost my best assistant, so doing specialty work like this is difficult."

Dienheim scratched his reddish-blond beard thoughtfully, blue eyes regarding the odd creature in front of him. She had to be part elf, he decided. That would account for her being so annoyingly snooty. But she seemed to know a thing or two about glass. And that meant he might have some use for her.

"I don't give away my trade secrets for nothing, but if you're really interested in learning slumping, there is something you could help me with in return. That is, if you and your glassblowing skills are up to it." The dwarf crossed his arms across his chest and regarded Iseult with a self-satisfied grin. She had slyly challenged his competence, and he had returned the favor. For the moment, at least, they were even.

[Iseult Fluersdotter]

Iseult did not seem to notice that the dwarf was bothered by her attitude. Or she did and simply dismissed it. He would not be, after all, the first to bristle at her poorly chosen words. She'd gotten accustomed to the stiff, distant responses of those she spoke to. It was those who countered her commentary with sharp, stinging words of their own, that tended to drag her to a halt or force her to seek out responses more biting. "Of course," she responded dismissively, as he placed the blame for works of lesser quality being produced due to lack of a good assistant. She did not argue it. Neither did she think he might be lying.

She stood there admiring the glass bowl still, turning it about in her hands, as if the mystery of how it was made somehow produced itself in a mere glance. There was no doubt that she was half-elvish, for her appearance was too strange to be entirely human. There was too much blue in her skin, her structure too thin and angular, the gills at her neck visible, and the sclera of her eyes black, not white. No, no doubt of elvish lineage there. Her brow furrowed as she focused on the bowl. She could not think of how this was done. Slumping. No, it was not a word she'd heard used before and she had thought she'd recently come from a place that worked the glass in a sophisticated manner...

"Hm?" She looked at him in some surprise, eyes narrowing slightly as he grinned to himself. Thought he'd got a barb in there, did he? She did stiffen somewhat, though she kept her mouth shut for a fraction of a moment, lips tightly pursed. She set the bowl down carefully. "Since you seem to have lost your 'best assistant' then I suppose me and my 'glassblowing skills' might able to lend you hand. In exchange for a little lesson on how you slump the glass, of course."

She looked down at the dwarf with some interest. She hadn't previously had much contact with dwarves before, but that could have easily been because she lived so close to the ocean most of her life. Dwarves did not seem overfond of the ocean.