Ketzi's Shop Old Rose Harbor
on the 2nd of Achtus, 2718 Morning
It was a remarkable day. Ketziana had actually managed to get out of bed well before it was time to open the store on time and the cold had done wonders for her mood. When she looked out the window and saw the streets covered in the year's first snow, she wanted to cry. The soft blankets of white made her feel at home, even though everything else about the city was wrong.
She felt like it would be a good day, the first in a long while.
After a quick breakfast, Ketzi made her way downstairs to the shop. Her stock was a bit depleted, so the first thing she did was open the kiln to take out the wares she had fired the previous day. The wares were nothing special – mostly inexpensive pottery, simply glazed since it was meant for humans and wicks who found their way to her store. Her non-magical customers had increased, since she had realized that Gauthier had greatly marked up his prices, effectively pricing anyone but galdori out of the store. When Ketzi had first looked at his books, she immediately understood how the fool had ended up in a ridiculous amount of debt to Hawke.
Ketziana had chosen to go in a different direction. She marked down the inexpensive pottery, knowing that the increase in sales would help counteract the loss of mark-up money. She had been right, and she found herself able to make both her tax payments and debt payments with just enough profit to survive. She still was uncomfortable around humans and especially wicks, but she had learned to hide her feelings and treat them just like a galdori customer.
She finished emptying the kiln, placing the newly fired wares on the shelves carefully. She had to admit, in this moment where she was in a good mood, that her skills had progressed during her months of shop ownership. Her work had been up to par when she worked with her family but, as much as she loved and missed them, she knew their refusal to let her move past the most basic of pottery had held her back. Being forced to run a shop on her own and pay back debt that she had been saddled with against her will had pushed her ahead and being allowed to work on whatever she wanted had increased her aptitude for plain pottery. Advanced skills could just as easily move basic skills ahead. What would have taken her 2 days to do, she now finished in one, with no decay in the quality of the wares.
Ketzi was discovering new techniques all the time, playing with the tools and glazes that Gauthier had left behind. Ketzi was smart enough to know that she should be stretching the supplies she had to keep from incurring more debt. Deep down, she knew that it would be unlikely that she would pay off the ersehole's debts until she was old and grey, especially when she kept having to take on more debt from Hawke to keep up her stock of basic supplies. But the siren's song of true art was impossible to deny.
She still wouldn't say that Hawke giving her the store was the best thing that happened to her. She constantly felt as if she had a sword at her neck, one misstep away from landing in the whorehouse. The stress did no good for her mental health. But there was no denying that Hawke's decree had made a positive impact on her art.
Ketzi still hated the black-hearted wick with all her heart.
She looked at the clock, seeing that it was an hour before she was due to open. She went to her studio, setting her alarm and taking out a bisqueware sculpture of Alioe. The goddess was draped in a gown that fell in waves down her slender body. Her face, even unglazed, was kind and her hair flowed down her back. Her hands, precisely carved, held an hourglass, as if she was presenting it to the person viewing the sculpture. The statue was a larger one, about as tall as Ketzi's forearm was large. She had wanted to experiment with details and a smaller statue wouldn't have allowed her to do that.
Ketzi had added the basic colors of the deity's face the day before. Her aunt and uncle would have focused on adding more base colors to the rest of the statue, but Ketzi felt up to a challenge of finishing the face first. Using a brush with only a few hairs on it, Ketzi started working on adding details. White eyes turned into proper eyes in a shade of green that matched the first grasses of spring in the mountains of Gior. Once the base color of the eyes was set, she moved on to adding color to the deity's lips while they dried.
She continued like that, switching between the statue's eyes and lips as she worked with finer and finer brushes. Ketzi took a deep breath as she picked up a brush with a single hair. This was the finest work she had done so far, and she was determined to do it right. She bit her lip as she added layers of color to the irises, deep green and gold and reddish-brown. Each line was laid precisely down as Ketzi tried to make sure that the eyes weren't just life-like – she wanted to make the eyes worthy of a deity. It was a challenge to balance the eyes, and Ketzi found herself enjoying it. She had to make sure that she didn't lay down too many lines – it wouldn't do to lose the base color of the eyes. But she also had to make sure the lines didn't merge or smear.
She finished the second eye just as her alarm went off. She set her brush in her cleaning mug, swishing the paint off the brush's single hair and then carefully drying it off on a rag. Then she stretched and went to unlock her door and open for business. The morning was quiet, as most mornings usually were. A few people came in and some even bought pottery. But Ketzi had plenty of time between customers to work on her latest statue. She was just getting up to lock the door for lunch when a dirty, bloody man stumbled in.
"Imaan's light! What happened to you?" Ketzi asked as she grabbed a rag and hurried over to the man. She was hesitant to touch him, so she just handed him the rag so he could clean up some. "Please, sit down," she said as she waved towards one of the chairs that were kept in the store for people who were waiting for service. "Should I send for the… Oh, hells. What do you call the police in this Gods forsaken country? Seventen, right?"