Extracurricular activities.

Posted on Thu 28th Jan, 2021 @ 2:15pm by Khellian s'Siedhri MD

908 words; about a 5 minute read

Mission: Denouement
Location: Khellian's Garden

It was a rare and beautiful thing when the Doctor had a day off. Truly off, where he had no clinic, no clients and a closed sign on his door. He was not seeing patients today as he had a duty to his hobby. A duty to ones pastimes was a Romulan concept, that shared no real corollary in human culture that he was aware of. Humans tended to think of hobbies as something to be done only for fun, and there was somewhat more to it than that. On romulus, if one had a talent one also had a duty to share that talent with others.

He was a skilled, even handed healer, and had made a name for himself on Romulus just as he was making a name for himself here it seemed. The glasswork was something he'd always done. He'd pumped the bellows for the glass furnaces at 5, and he'd picked up cutting as a boy of 10. He often made small sundries and suncatchers for the village ladies. He loved glasswork, just as much as he loved healing people. Finding satisfaction in the creative art as well as the precision the exacting craft held, Khellian was able to hone his skills as a surgeon without ever leaving the table the shards of colorful glass decorated. Khellian set up his flat glass on his small patio to the side of his home. Various glass colors and patterns were arrayed on the cushions of the seats that ringed the table.

A number of patterns and measurements littered the table. His mind occupied with the sketches he'd created of the possibilities for the jewelry box that he would create for the young master Maiek. Aiding in the proposal of a Romulan to his Lady was a great honor for a craftsman and he was flattered that the artist had come to him. He'd seen Maiek's skill with cloth and design, and was determined to give him something worthy of his talent and his station.

To start with, his clan symbols. A spiral. That was a difficult form to cut from glass, but not impossible. However he thought that spiral toggles for the box, and the feet might be more visually striking. It needed to be both feminine and bold, a dichotomy that he had not ever tried to work into his glass.

"Feminine and bold. Fitting for a human, but with Romulan esthetics...or perhaps the reverse" he spoke to no one in particular as he laid the glass in combinations. "For the human that loves a Romulan. How deliciously ironic." he muttered to himself as his mind wandered. Would he have proposed in a traditional fashion had Brooklyn stayed with him. For the millionth time since she'd left him what the humans call a 'Dear John' letter he wondered how she was faring. He had purposely not inquired with the computer as to her status. Was John such a common human name that one could address all such painful correspondence to him, Khellian wondered briefly, once again about the origin of the human idiom.

Moisture collected at the corners of his eyes, for the pain of her departure was still very real. It faded, blunted, eroded as if by water by the gentle love of his daughter and the resilience of his own heart. It helped that he had friends here, ones he thought might actually be real. There had been a time, not long ago where he'd despaired over the ache of loneliness in his heart. Now, his heart ached but his mind whispered to trust, to reach out. THAT had been something the Khellian of old would never have dreamed of doing. No more so than he would have dreamed of taking a lover and that he had already done.

The autopilot of his hand placing colored glass next to clear and patterned pieces, he stopped to stare at the purple atop the glittering of the diamond glass. If he combined that with the spiral impressed glass, then he could honor her water with the coloration and his clan with the pattern. If he split the blue with the purple, or painted the blue with a purple dichroic. Or he could paint the spirals with silver, or perhaps he should do both. If he edged the blue with the dichroic, the edge of the blue would shine with the colors of fire.

Cocking his head to one side, he considered that option for a long moment and decided to run with it. It would be elegant and beautiful and still remain in the Romulan linear style. Laying the hexagonal pattern out, he traced the pattern upon the clear spiral glass. Then systematically he traced each side of the hexagon out onto that sheet of glass. Breaking the straight lines, under the tiny black tracing lines would be easy. It was somewhat rewarding to take the diamond glasscutter to the lines and then break them off with a scrape and corresponding sharp crack. It was almost soothing to do it, and the sound felt almost sharper in his ears for the care involved in the making. The edges were smoothed with a grinding point that was the top of the line that money could buy. A wise master once told him that "the finest of materials can make an amateur into a master, but a master with the finest of materials has no peer. "

 

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