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tamingthemuseTitle: Layers
Fandom: Original
Prompt: Murrini
Warnings: none
Rating: G
Summary: Cassidy knew she was the worst kind of practical. One dull layer after another, and the bitterness of her life made her eyes sting with tears. But when she cut through, she found the result was nothing like what she'd expected.
A/N: Not one I'm planning on pursuing, and it's rough and a bit too self-revelatory. But that's kind of appropriate, so I'm leaving it public.
Cassidy signed up for the class on a whim in the second semester of her third year at university. There’d been a conflict between the graduate-level seminar she’d talked her way into and her teaching assistantship, and the resultant shakeup left an unexpected hole on her schedule. For the first time since high school, when she’d filled the holes in her day with the maximum course load of advanced placement classes, extracurriculars, and volunteer work, Cassidy found herself with unplanned time. The empty slot left a three-hour void on Friday afternoon. From 1 to 4 pm, right in the heart of her optimal focus time.
Cassidy tapped her pen against the desk, thinking. She couldn’t just let such prime hours go to waste. She scowled at the blank spot on her schedule. From the other side of the carrell, someone rapped once on the partition. They cleared their throat, and the sound of their irritation was deafening in the stillness of the library.
"Sorry," she whispered, and slid down the plastic back of her chair. The disgruntled patron shifted, grumbling, but after a moment the tap tap of typing came again.
Cassidy put down her pen and reached for the coming semester’s course listing again.
It had been heavily marked already, with required and priority classes marked in green highlighter and transferred to her schedule. She’d lined through everything that conflicted or listed prerequisites she didn’t possess. Next, she’d marked optional classes which fit her educational or career goals in yellow. She researched current professors and checked the most recent textbook assignments. After she’d determined the potential return on her time, she added in the most promising. Until only this last slot remained.
Unscheduled and exposed.
Cassidy switched back to her yellow highlighter and flipped back to page one. She went through the listing again, class by class, in case she’d missed something.
When that failed, she went through once more and searched specifically for the Friday slot. Nothing, until her finger fell upon a Glass-Working class. Frivolous, she thought, and moved on. But no other course filled the time slot, and it listed no prerequisites.
Study hour.
She could spend Friday afternoon in the library, and get in some extra time on her coursework. But the narrow windows rang with voices from the quad below, and the beginnings of weekend madness made the students louder than ever. She’d never get any useful studying done then anyway.
But it would be an easy A, wouldn’t it? Art classes usually were. And even the most diligent of students could benefit from a dependable grade to shore up the GPA against unforeseen difficulties. She had that grad seminar, after all, and while she was fairly certain she could handle it, it would be her first exposure to a graduate level degree course. It never hurt to be cautious.
Which is how Cassidy discovered the secrets of murrini, and herself.
The completed project was nothing special. She’d started predictably enough, with an analysis of patterns and a formula to determine the width of each layer. But somewhere in the process, she’d stopped calculating. The process was slow, as she dipped the core in different colored pools of molten glass. Meditative. Each layer covered the one before, as the present gilded over the past. Soon, she forgot her planned design.
She chose the next color by instinct, and released her stranglehold on what had come before. She picked out the iced blue of her uncle’s cold eyes, and the dark black water of the lake that summer. She chose the pale white and deep green of canna lilies wilting on freshly turned earth. Memories rose wavering in the heat of the kiln, and she captured them in glass.
She’d thought of herself an onion. One dull layer after another, and the bitterness of her life made her eyes sting with tears. She knew she was the worst kind of practical.
Yet when she cut through the rod on the last day of class, she’d never seen such colors. Such deep bruised colors, but when the sun shone through them the room was lit with brilliance. The beginnings were clumsy, with the stiff square shape of the core showing plainly at the center. But as she’d given way, as she’d let the layers come through for themselves, the shapes had become loose and fluid. Her meticulous planning had given way to honesty at last. As she stared at this beautiful, fragile thing her life had become, Cassidy felt the tears prick behind her eyelids. At last, she let them come.
Fandom: Original
Prompt: Murrini
Warnings: none
Rating: G
Summary: Cassidy knew she was the worst kind of practical. One dull layer after another, and the bitterness of her life made her eyes sting with tears. But when she cut through, she found the result was nothing like what she'd expected.
A/N: Not one I'm planning on pursuing, and it's rough and a bit too self-revelatory. But that's kind of appropriate, so I'm leaving it public.
Cassidy signed up for the class on a whim in the second semester of her third year at university. There’d been a conflict between the graduate-level seminar she’d talked her way into and her teaching assistantship, and the resultant shakeup left an unexpected hole on her schedule. For the first time since high school, when she’d filled the holes in her day with the maximum course load of advanced placement classes, extracurriculars, and volunteer work, Cassidy found herself with unplanned time. The empty slot left a three-hour void on Friday afternoon. From 1 to 4 pm, right in the heart of her optimal focus time.
Cassidy tapped her pen against the desk, thinking. She couldn’t just let such prime hours go to waste. She scowled at the blank spot on her schedule. From the other side of the carrell, someone rapped once on the partition. They cleared their throat, and the sound of their irritation was deafening in the stillness of the library.
"Sorry," she whispered, and slid down the plastic back of her chair. The disgruntled patron shifted, grumbling, but after a moment the tap tap of typing came again.
Cassidy put down her pen and reached for the coming semester’s course listing again.
It had been heavily marked already, with required and priority classes marked in green highlighter and transferred to her schedule. She’d lined through everything that conflicted or listed prerequisites she didn’t possess. Next, she’d marked optional classes which fit her educational or career goals in yellow. She researched current professors and checked the most recent textbook assignments. After she’d determined the potential return on her time, she added in the most promising. Until only this last slot remained.
Unscheduled and exposed.
Cassidy switched back to her yellow highlighter and flipped back to page one. She went through the listing again, class by class, in case she’d missed something.
When that failed, she went through once more and searched specifically for the Friday slot. Nothing, until her finger fell upon a Glass-Working class. Frivolous, she thought, and moved on. But no other course filled the time slot, and it listed no prerequisites.
Study hour.
She could spend Friday afternoon in the library, and get in some extra time on her coursework. But the narrow windows rang with voices from the quad below, and the beginnings of weekend madness made the students louder than ever. She’d never get any useful studying done then anyway.
But it would be an easy A, wouldn’t it? Art classes usually were. And even the most diligent of students could benefit from a dependable grade to shore up the GPA against unforeseen difficulties. She had that grad seminar, after all, and while she was fairly certain she could handle it, it would be her first exposure to a graduate level degree course. It never hurt to be cautious.
Which is how Cassidy discovered the secrets of murrini, and herself.
The completed project was nothing special. She’d started predictably enough, with an analysis of patterns and a formula to determine the width of each layer. But somewhere in the process, she’d stopped calculating. The process was slow, as she dipped the core in different colored pools of molten glass. Meditative. Each layer covered the one before, as the present gilded over the past. Soon, she forgot her planned design.
She chose the next color by instinct, and released her stranglehold on what had come before. She picked out the iced blue of her uncle’s cold eyes, and the dark black water of the lake that summer. She chose the pale white and deep green of canna lilies wilting on freshly turned earth. Memories rose wavering in the heat of the kiln, and she captured them in glass.
She’d thought of herself an onion. One dull layer after another, and the bitterness of her life made her eyes sting with tears. She knew she was the worst kind of practical.
Yet when she cut through the rod on the last day of class, she’d never seen such colors. Such deep bruised colors, but when the sun shone through them the room was lit with brilliance. The beginnings were clumsy, with the stiff square shape of the core showing plainly at the center. But as she’d given way, as she’d let the layers come through for themselves, the shapes had become loose and fluid. Her meticulous planning had given way to honesty at last. As she stared at this beautiful, fragile thing her life had become, Cassidy felt the tears prick behind her eyelids. At last, she let them come.
