Welcome to Gaia! ::

Fae placed her hand against the corner of the forge and leaned into it. "Hasn't she? She's nearly a child now," Fae smiled thoughtfully and pushed off to approch the adult. "I was wondering if you could help me with something." She paused, as if remembering what it was. "I'm on the last item to Pueblo's quest. Would you happen to have a plain metal anklet?" She smiled hopefully.

Pueblo's ears flickered and she gave a wide smile towards the bison. Floating between the two adults, she hung upside down at their eye levels before she grinned and flew back to Fae's side shyly. It was fundoing air-acrobats!

Fae's eyes watched Rahujo walk back and forth curiously. Listening to the sounds, she wondered what she could have been doing-surely not a five seconds job! But as she walked back out with the copper loop, Fae couldn't help but smile thoughtfully. "It's pretty in its own way," she examined, then started to nod. "Yes, yes, this will do nicely. It wont fall off her foot like a chain would." She then grinned. "Thank you so much, Rah. Now I can take all the items back to Aly!" She said rather excitedly. "Abby, look at your new anklet!"

Pueblo leaned upward and move forward to look directly into Rahujo's hands. She blankly blinked at the "O" shape and wanted desperatly to touch it. Glaring at it because she couldn't do such a thing, she flew back to Fae and sulked.

((Sorry to have kept you waiting last night. >< The computer died and I couldn't get it to start back up again. It's been bugging out ever since my dad's been trying to unsucessfuly hook DSL up.))

Fae mused at Pueblo's expression and nodded in agreement with Rahujo. "She's right, Abby. You're thiiis close," she said, measuring with her thumb and index finger.

She grinned when the bison asked of her job. "Actually, I do." She held the pain brush up for her to see. "Pueblo's going to be that first artisan that Cetalu needs. Although, she'll be working with paint and clay more than metal," she shrugged.

Fae fiddled with the copper in her hand restlessly. "Well, I should try and find Alyosha now. I'm sorry to cut the visit so short.." She really looked troubled and embaressed at the same time. She was excited, maybe too eager as she called for Pueblo and waved goodbye to Rahujo. "We'll drop by again soon so you may witness your craftmenship on her!" She called out and grinned before she continued on her way.

( continued from here )

Rahujo walked into the shady coolness of the forge, dropping her bag on the table by the door and walking over to one of the shelves housing random tools, unfinished projects and other miscellaneous smithed items.

Prodding around for a while, she eventually found what she was looking for - a wide, flat leather holster, with a sturdy wooden handle protruding from it. She took it down from the shelf and walked back outside to meet Kami and Keanu.

"I made this a month or so ago, on a whim. I had a feeling that someone would find a home for it eventually," Rahujo said with a smile. Pulling on the handle, she carefully slipped the holster off, revealing a gleaming bronze rectangular blade.



"It's not fancy, but it should come in useful - once you trust Keanu with it, that is." She grinned, eyeing the diminuitive Aerandir. The cleaver was a foot long - not too far shy of a third of his height. "Perhaps once he's grown a little."

Slipping the knife back into its holster, she held it out to Kami. "Would you like a cup of tea while you're here?"

Rahujo nodded, and headed back inside, grabbing her kettle. It was already half-full from her abortive attempts at tea-making last night (which had ended when she had realised she had no tea), so she emptied out the water onto the sun-baked ground outside the forge and refilled it. After quickly tossing some wood onto the always-smouldering fire and hanging the kettle over it, she returned to the sunlight outside.

Sitting herself down cross-legged on a large tree-stump, she grinned at Keanu. "Well, I use mine to do pretty much everything. Cutting meat and vegetables, pounding herbs and spices, chopping up bones for soup... it's good for moving food about on the chopping board and into the pan, too, since it's wide enough to carry things."

Rahujo chuckled. "I haven't seen one of those for a while." She took the heavy bowl from Keanu and examined it, the polished marble cool in her hands. "It's a mortar and pestle. You use it for pounding or grinding things. Here, let me show you."

She stood up and carried the mortar to her small kitchen, setting it on a countertop, then bent down and opened a cupboard. Her mouth quirked slightly upwards - last time she'd opened this cupboard there had been a cat in it. This time it contained only smoked fish. Hm... not really the right kind of thing. She closed the cupboard and opened the next one, withdrawing a small paper packet.

She placed the packet on the countertop, and opened it to reveal several long, red-brown, wrinkly dried chillies. Realising that Keanu couldn't see, she bent down and held her arms out to lift him onto the counter.

Rahujo plopped the child down on the countertop with a grin, then turned back to the packet of chillies. Taking the heavy stone pestle in her hand, she picked up the packet with the other hand and tipped a couple of the chillies into the mortar.

Opening the spice cupboard again, she took out a few more packets, sniffed them, put a couple back, opened the remaining ones and tipped a little of their contents into the bowl.

"I'm going to make a spice mix that I'd use for some fish stew. It's mostly chillies, but I throw in whatever smells good at the time as well. Ginger, cumin, dill, lemongrass, coriander..." She grinned. "It's my favourite approach to cooking - a bit of this, a bit of that."

She lowered the pestle into the bowl and started crushing the ingredients. "What you want is a nice powder without any big bits."

After a minute or so, she lifted the pestle, shook off the little powder that clung to its smooth marble surface, and placed it on the worktop. She picked up the mortar and held it up to Keanu. "See? Mm... smells good. Just don't sniff too hard or you'll have chilli up your nose - which is rather painful, as I learned from experience when I was little..."

Rahujo smiled, and tipped the powder into one of the packets sitting on the countertop which she'd emptied into the bowl. "I'll save that for later... oh, that's the kettle!"

Carefully lifting Keanu down to the ground, she strode into the forge and took the kettle off the fire, pouring the boiling water into a couple of mugs. As she prepared her own tea - black, with honey - she called out to Kami, her voice floating out of the shadowed interior of the forge. "What do you take in your tea? I'm afraid I can only offer powdered milk, since it doesn't keep well in this heat."