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 Posted: Sat Jun 20, 2020 6:33 pm
Summer's heat was making itself known on the island. At first it had been subtle; a warm breeze in the middle of the day, a touch more sun, maybe even a burn on any strip of exposed skin. Now that it was here in force, however, Taijana had been forced to improvise. She very rarely left the house without her hair piled high on her head lest it get stuck to the nape of her neck with sweat. Any furs and extra wrappings were left at home, leaving the yaeli native as bare as she could be while still remaining somewhat proper.
Under normal circumstances the summer months were the busiest of the year for the family. She and her brother would hunt, her sister and her husband tanned the hides, while her brother's husband managed the shop. Of course when her youngest children had been born Taijana had taken a few months off in the summer to tend to them, but the family finances had taken a hit because of it. They managed just fine, especially when Kieran's own work was factored in, but it had been tight, which was something she wasn't keen on making a habit of. Unfortunately, that meant when she was working the children were usually watched by either her father or the girls, which didn't leave her with as much time with them as she wanted. Still, over the years she'd tried, which was something Tai hoped they understood.
Today was special, though. Taijana had taken a secret day off without telling Caolan, though the others were fully aware. She wanted to spend some time with her children on a one on one basis and today was her baby boy's day! In the early hours of the morning she tip toed across the house, moving as quietly as she could to his door. Softly, Taijana knocked, and opened the door just a smidge. "Caolan, sweetheart? Are you up yet?"
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Posted: Thu Jun 25, 2020 2:33 pm
Caolan tended to rise with the sun, so he was very much awake when his mother peered into his room. Already, he had spread rolls of tanned leather out across the floor, a tiny tongue sticking out of the edge of his mouth as he painted. Tanned skin like this could be expensive, but his parents had given him a large square of it for one of his birthdays, and ever since he had painted and repainted it until the material began to crack.
Not that he minded. Sometimes, he just liked to see the swirl of colors - other times, spreading paint across pottery or other figures wasn't as satisfying as trying to create an image.
Each shape was rudimentary at best, but the little boy had always been overly invested in painting (and helping to make pottery, not so much for appreciation of THAT craft, as much as the promise of learning how to make pots and statues to paint later) ... and this morning, despite how early it was, he was already stained and covered in the stuff.
With a somewhat guilty flash of his eyes, Caolan quickly washed his brushes and stumbled to his feet, moving to wipe his hands on his tunic but pausing at the last second, knowing his mother would disapprove. "Morning." He grunted, chin dropping to his chest, gazing at her through the tops of his eyes. "Dad got me a new color - didya see it yet? It's purple -- he said they make it from shells in Matori!"
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scarlett arbuckle Vice Captain
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Posted: Sat Jun 27, 2020 1:17 pm
Seeing her baby boy already busy with his work this early in the morning came as no surprise to Taijana. While it was nice he was getting up on his own without his mother to coax him, there was something she missed about being the one to rouse him. When he and Alfina were toddlers she could wiggle their little toes to gently bring them back into the world, but now? Now they were developing their own routines. It was both a moment of pride for Taijana and also of an aching realization that her babies wouldn't be babies for much longer.
For a moment she watched him with a warning look as if daring Caolan to rub those dirty little fingers on his tunic. Since she wasn't planning on going into town Tai wouldn't have pressed for a wardrobe change, but really, was it too much to ask for one outfit to be paint free? When he didn't, however, she smiled and stepped into the room. "I haven't seen it yet, but I bet it's really pretty." When she got closer to him she crouched, drawing her knees up close to her chest with one arm wrapped around them. With the other she pointed towards his 'canvas'. "What have you been working on today?"
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Posted: Sat Jun 27, 2020 4:54 pm
She hadn't?! Caolan gasped softly in delight, especially as his mama moved closer and crouched down beside his work. He immediately dropped back onto his knees and reached for the wooden block where he'd mixed the paints, holding it up triumphantly. The purple was a very soft, almost blue, color; it would have taken a lot of work to get the powder from the ground up shells to make this, and his father had told him the paint was rather expensive. So only a small bit had been squeezed out onto his palette.
The actual leather, though, was a smear of greens and blues with carefully placed dots of his purples. Nothing was very clear in the image - after all, he was still so little that any of his work would seem abstract at best... but he still eagerly hovered his finger over it, "See, it's the beach! There's some grass and the sand and-- and this is the water! And these are shells--" He beamed up at his mother, "Do you like it, mama?"
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scarlett arbuckle Vice Captain
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Posted: Mon Jun 29, 2020 1:56 pm
Taijana had to admit the paint was a gorgeous color. She made a little 'o' with her lips and sucked in a small inhale before leaning in just a hair to look at it. "It's lovely, Caolan. Papa must have worked really hard to find it." That was so like Kieran. He would spoil his children with every coin he had if it meant helping them to explore and cultivate their dreams. He really is too sweet. It just made her all the happier to have him as a father to her children, and a partner for life.
"Oh, you're right, I can see it so clearly now! Must have been the way I was sitting." As if to prove her point, Taijana scooted a little closer to him, to better 'help her viewing angle'. In all honesty it still looked like a cacophony of paint splatters to her, but he was trying and that meant the world to her. "I love it, starlight, but....do you think you could paint a little crab on the beach? Just for mama?"
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Posted: Thu Jul 23, 2020 5:27 pm
(3/10)
Right! Of course she could tell exactly what it was, she was his mama and he'd painted it so clearly! ... In reality, that was far from the case, but Caolan grinned proudly, but gasped loudly at her request. A... a crab? He wrinkled up his face, trying to think of what one would look like. "Huh-- oh!!"
Immediately, he lunged for his jars, unstoppering the top of the vial and pouring out a small amount of dark powder onto his palette. With some water mixed in, it made a dark purple, which he smeared on his brush, oblivious of his mother's doting gaze as he worked.
"So-- so they have the clacker claws, right? So--" A large sweep of his brush painted a crab that looked roughly like a smudge of purple, with massive ovals drawn off of it, connected by lines. Coincidentally, it was the same way he 'painted' hands.
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scarlett arbuckle Vice Captain
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