A Fool's Goddess - Chapter Twenty-Two
Hed was still slumped over the table, a half-eaten piece of jam-coated bread in front of him. Niv was busy with the pottery wheel while Libi was still working her clay. I went to Hed first, patting his back to get his attention.
“Your mom came by. She’s pissed your stupid ass got drunk, but wants to see you again for some reason.”
He grunted ambiguously.
Message delivered, I then walked over to my third apprentice.
“Here, Libi.” I handed her the small bag. “Tzofiya came by to drop this off.”
“Oh, thank you,” she said timidly.
“Be sure to thank her tonight, alright?”
“I will.”
“Also, how do you feel about heading out in a little bit to go dig up clay with me and Niv?”
A tiny smile crossed her face. “That sounds fun…”
“Excellent. Once Niv is ready, we can head out.”
“Okay.”
I technically still needed to ask Niv, but I already knew his answer. That guy could have been swamped with requests, he’d still put them aside to waste time in the woods with us. But, being a responsible master, I’d wait for him to have his work in the furnace before I dragged him out there. Besides, it was Hed’s fault I even needed to pull him away.
I turned towards my second apprentice. “Niv, once your stuff is firing, would you be willing to help me get some clay?”
He kept his eyes on the spinning pottery as he spoke. “Of course, Master Lior, I would be glad to accompany you. If you should but allow me to finish this pot and one more, I will be fully prepared to leave.”
“Sure, we’ll go when you’re ready. I’ll be helping Libi with her lessons in the meantime.”
“My deepest thanks, Master Lior. I will be sure to notify you as soon as I am finished.”
And I knew he meant it. I’d probably have an hour or so with how quick he was these days. I pulled up a stool next to Libi to watch her progress.
My third apprentice was a young girl of about eleven years from Gods-know-where. She was tiny in stature, a frail and skinny thing. Her features were softer and rounder, akin to those from the lands around old Orec village, but she couldn’t remember her birthplace. Her hair was long, straight, and dark brown, and she tended to let it hang over her eyes when she wasn’t working.
A defense mechanism, from what I understood.
As one might suspect, Libi was a rather reserved girl. Laconic and shy, she was difficult to speak to until you knew her well enough. She was still on the quiet side even after she warmed up to me, but it came off more that she simply had a gentle nature that enjoyed peace and concord. Still, I couldn’t help but wonder what kind of girl she could have been if things had been different for her.
I first met Libi in Quatrot, about two months ago. She was wandering around the market street, dressed in rags and even skinnier than she is now. She stopped at our little stand to look at our wares, despite being clearly unable to afford anything. She seemed enamored by the figures of mythical creatures, so Hed explained the story behind each of his works. She listened intently, and once he was done, she then asked about a statue of Tornara. I took my turn and explained my Goddess’ history, garnering a similar intrigue.
I don’t know why, but I then asked Libi where her parents were. I was never particularly fond of kids, but I guess I felt inclined to find out why she looked like a beggar. Unfortunately, I learned that was because she was a beggar. She began to cry as she told us that she had been living on the streets ever since she lost her parents.
Honestly, her words still haunt me. Even now, whenever I look upon my little apprentice, I lament the terrible circumstances that made her so withdrawn.
You see, Libi’s parents are alive and well as far as we know. Instead, she literally lost track of them in a crowd during a trip to Quatrot. Like any child, she cried and screamed for them, but they never turned up, disappearing on her without reason. Libi even went to a constable for help, but they just turned her away when she couldn’t describe her parents, thinking she must have been some strange prankster. But it wasn’t that she was bad at descriptions or anything of the like.
No, she simply couldn’t tell her parents apart from anyone else.
It would be a few days until I learned this, but Libi is unable to differentiate between people. “Face-blindness” as the shaman would tell me. To her, Hed, Niv, and I all look the same. She can only tell the difference between people through other means such as gender, hair style, or gait. Hed’s height, Niv’s glasses, my beard, she tracks features like those to know who she’s looking at. Speaking to her isn’t a problem, since she can separate voices just fine, but she understandably remains disinclined to talk.
She can’t remember anyone by their face. Naturally, that puts a lot of strain on her relationships. How many times can you fail to recognize someone before they start thinking you hate them?
To her, a stranger may very well be someone she knows dearly. Outside of the right context, Libi could fail to recognize anyone, regardless of their traits. She can’t just assume every guy with a beard is me, but she knows the bearded man in the studio is Master Lior. So if I were to meet her at the general store, she would likely ignore me, unable to realize the man before her was me until I spoke up.
After hearing Libi’s heart-rending story, I decided there was no way we could leave her on the streets. However, it was Hed who spoke first and suggested we take her back to Tresety. He thought the shaman might be able to fix her disorder while we looked into finding a home for her in the meantime. I agreed to the plan and asked Libi if she wanted to come with us. She was understandably unsure, but after Hed offered to give her a meal and one of his figures, she meekly accepted.
I suppose a kid would know how to convince a kid.
Once we got back to the village, I took her straight to the shaman. Unfortunately, although he knew about her condition, he couldn’t treat it. Libi didn’t even seem surprised or disappointed, like she had already accepted her circumstances. Something about that pained me.
Meanwhile, Hed managed to find her a home, namely his old one. Tzofiya offered to give Hed’s old room to our newfound stray. She was midway through her pregnancy so the prospect of having someone to help around the house was welcome. Libi accepted the offer and has lived there ever since. It seems to have paid off as well; she’s been putting on much-needed weight and looking healthier every day.
And lately, she’s even started smiling.
I looked over Libi’s practice figure as she worked, nodding with approval. “I can see you’re already using the brush for texturing.”
“Yes, Master. I saw Hed doing it the other day and decided to try it.”
“You know, that was a technique I didn’t learn until I had been sculpting for a year. My second master had to teach it to me. Until then, I had been doing it manually with a pick.”
“Really? That seems… difficult.”
“It was tedious more than anything. It’s sometimes preferable, but in general, I use the brush now. I’m glad to see you’re bypassing my struggles.”
“I-I can still use the pick if you think it’s better…”
“No, no, do what’s comfortable for you. You’re progressing well, but you’re still early in your apprenticeship. It’s more important that you do what feels right to you. My job is to guide you, not make you follow a path. I’m here if you need advice, but I want you to develop your own style too.”
“Okay… thank you, Master.”
“Hey, where was this nice, sensitive Master Lior in my early days?” Hed grumbled from the table. “You had lesson outlines and everything that I had to follow, and you’d get snippy when I tried to experiment.”
“You were too stupid to leave to your own devices,” I shot back. “You kept trying to run before you could walk, so I was forced to set intermediate goals for you. It might have felt suffocating back then, but look how you turned out. Your statues sell better than mine now.”
“Damn right they do.”
“And who do you have to thank for making sure you didn’t ruin your own potential?”
“… Thank you, Master…”
Libi let out a little giggle. A delicate, endearing chuckle. I grinned as well.
I was surprised when Libi requested to join our studio, mostly because she seemed too shy to ask for anything. I thought she was asking from some contrived desire to repay us for finding her a home, so out of pity, I decided to indulge her. I figured she could help out here or there, clean things, maybe dabble a bit in sculpting until she lost interest. Honestly, I initially only called her my apprentice for show.
If only I could have known how badly I was underestimating her. I’ll have to carry that embarrassment with me to the grave.
It turned out Libi was a true prodigy, mastering in a month what took the rest of us three. I didn’t give her a project at first since I thought she would just play around with her clay, but she instead started copying Hed while he worked. As he molded his clay into the shape of a lamb, Libi watched and quietly mimicked his techniques. In the end, while she couldn’t match his quality, she did far better than any novice had a right to.
Afterwards, Hed pointed out her efforts to me, and I scolded him for making such a tasteless joke. It was only after Libi nervously confirmed Hed’s claims that I realized she probably had more potential than the rest of us combined. I still remember asking her at least a half-dozen times if she actually made that lamb, in foolish disbelief of the surprising display before me.
I took her seriously after that and started to give her proper lessons. Libi continued to grasp new techniques like they were reeds, excellently mimicking everything I showed her. Teaching her almost felt like cheating with how issue-free it was. In just two months, she already had a solid understanding of pottery, so I was left with no choice but to let her to start sculpting.
Since then, Libi’s been molding her clay into effigies of humans. However, she tends to exaggerate their features in order to draw attention to particular qualities. If she were to sculpt a lumberjack, his upper torso would be massive while his legs were small, his arms ridiculously large and his face hilariously plain. Likewise, a scholar would have a gigantic head with disproportionate facial features, but a tiny, underdeveloped body.
They felt like her attempts to express how she saw people. It was too difficult, if not impossible, for her to sculpt the likeness of a person as they were, so she focused on the core traits that defined them. In a word, she would capture their essence.
And in some ways, her unique interpretations of humans reminded me of Master Malka’s work. It was that same drive to share something only she could see, perhaps even born from a similar internal struggle. Maybe I could talk to Libi about that when she was older.
All in all, I’d like to think being able to express herself has helped Libi. She’s still too quiet by my standards, but that’s probably because Hed was usually what I thought of when it came to kids. I did have some concerns about her spending most of her time around guys twice her age, but Tzofiya told me not to worry as Libi had apparently shared that she felt safest around Hed and I. Now, while I can’t claim to have a fatherly side, I was admittedly proud to hear that.
Hopefully we’ll be able to provide an approximation of family for her.
“By the way, Hed,” I said as I spun around on my stool. “How do you plan to waste this day, now that you’ve rendered yourself even less useful?”
“Once my head stops trying to kill me, I was gonna focus on casting molds.” He was still laying on the table, weak and unmoving.
“Good idea. That should be quiet enough for you.”
“Exactly…”
“Where’s that water I told you to drink?”
“Too far for me to get…”
“Oh for love of the Gods, you’re fine. Get your ass up.”
“Um… I’ll get it for him.” offered Libi, climbing off her own stool.
“Don’t spoil him. If he’s too lazy to help himself feel better, he deserves the pain.”
“No, it’s alright. I want to help.”
She went to the kitchen and poured a cup of water. She then brought it over to the table and placed it in front of Hed. He finally sat up, smiling at Libi before taking a drink.
“Thank you, Libi,” he said. His honest smile then turned into a smug grin directed at me. “I’m glad to see a fellow apprentice can sympathize with my plight.”
“Um… well, I can’t, actually. It’s just that Master Lior told you drink some water but you weren’t doing it. I don’t want him to yell at you…”
“Ack, you really are going to spoil him,” I griped. “If I have to yell at him, he deserves it. All my hard work to turn him into something worth its salt will be undone at this rate!”
“That’s where you’re wrong, Master,” said Hed. “I was always worth my salt.”
“What’s that? Did I just hear a request for grindstone work?”
“Ngn… no, not at all…”
“Yeah, it’d be weird if a drunk layabout asked to use the grindstone. Almost as strange as that layabout talking back to his master after they were so graciously allowing him to take it easy and drink some water.”
“Yeah… it’s good neither of those things happened…” Hed muttered as he took a sip.
“Indeed. The only thing salty about you is your attitude.”
“If I’m salty, then Libi is sweet. Which is why she and I work so well together.”
Libi blushed slightly and looked at her feet. Her face would have been completely hidden if she didn’t have her hair tied back, but as it was, I could see that embarrassed smile.
“You dumbass,” I said. “Don’t toy with the feelings of a young girl. Otherwise, she’ll make the mistake of liking you.”
“What’s wrong with liking me?”
“I don’t have enough time to list everything.”
Libi laughed again. I’m glad she understood the difference between me giving him shit and actually lecturing him. This was just how Hed and I talked. Even if it sometimes looked like a heated exchange, we were both having a good time. He liked to be a smartass and I enjoyed playing the condescending master.
The front door opened and closed. Niv walked back in, having deposited his latest batch of pottery into a kiln.
“Hey, what flavor is Niv then?” asked Hed.
“He doesn’t need one. He’s more like a staple food.”
“Feh, so bland is fine so long as it gets the job done, huh?”
“He could be spicy for all I care. Point is, we’d all be worse off without him.”
“You honor me, Master Lior,” Niv said as he approached. “To receive such kind words from you is beyond what I deserve. I must thank you for your gracious compliments.”
“C’mon, you have to be aware how much you do for this studio. You’re the key reason things go so smoothly around here.”
“I cannot see it that way, Master Lior. My work here is simply an indulgence in my selfish desires. The results may bring pleasant side effects that I am glad to see benefit everyone, but I cannot claim ownership over them with any good conscience.”
“You’re undervaluing yourself. You’re worth at least twice as much as Hed. Though, I’m not sure two Heds are better than one….”
“Hey, that one ain’t bad.”
“Again, you honor me,” bowed Niv. “I feel I still need to repay you for your own kindness before I can endeavor to appreciate my own worth more.”
“Don’t be like that. You’re too hard working for your own good. It makes me feel like I’m taking advantage of you half the time.”
“My sincerest apologies, that was not my intent, Master Lior.”
“I know it wasn’t.” I paused. “My first master would have loved you, you know.”
“You have mentioned as much, but you also expressed that he was an unpleasant man.”
“Yup. He would have actually taken advantage of you, and he wouldn’t try and convince you you’re worth something in the process.”
“Hm.” Niv put a hand on his chin. “Although I feel you overestimate me, I must agree that never being appreciated would damage my work ethic. I will consider your advice further.”
“Good enough. Ready to go?”
“Yes, Master Lior. I just put my pottery in their respective kilns, so I will be ready to leave once I change into more appropriate clothing.”
“Alright. Libi, go get yourself ready.”
“Okay.”
I then looked back at my table and the youth melted on top of it.
“Hed, try not to die.”
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