{"sf1_id":1702930,"sf2_id":"RnowJl6n","title":"Hubris. #2 Writinggroupchallenge","author":"geneseepaws","words":1362,"posted_at":"2021-04-04T15:29:00.000Z","tags":["Apprentices","Fire","Hubris","Leopard","WritingGroupChallenge"],"url":"https://fse.anthro.fr/stories/1702930-hubris-2-writinggroupchallenge","original_url":"https://sofurry.com/s/RnowJl6n","image_url":"https://cdn.sofurryfiles.com/submissions/thumbnails/46/f6/46f6dae0-b07b-4b5b-9a8a-25f08b5ebabf","description":"#2 of WritingGroupChallenge\n\nShort version, closer to 1400 words than the 2000 I had before.","content":"This weeks writing challenge is:\u0026nbsp; \"It was a trite platitude, but that didn't make it any less accurate.\"\u0026nbsp;\n\n\u0026nbsp;\u0026nbsp; \u0026nbsp; Among the Ancient Greek peoples, they say that the gods have only one unforgivable sin;\u0026nbsp; and that the only sin unforgivable is: Hubris.\u0026nbsp;\n\n\u0026nbsp;\u0026nbsp; Please, Good Gentle, you asked me a question, \"Why is there a ding or blemish on each pot, clearly put there intentionally by someone?\"\n\n\u0026nbsp; \u0026nbsp;My\u0026nbsp;bone fides: I\u0026nbsp;was a good well behaved pup,\u0026nbsp;was schooled,\u0026nbsp;apprenticed here\u0026nbsp;in the midlands.\u0026nbsp; I am a potter, I have a pottery, though I can neither aver nor avow the small details, I have a story to tell about a potter of great renoun; my Master, a leopard born \"Restive and Carries a Ball,\" who signed her pots Lurie.\n\n\u0026nbsp;\u0026nbsp; Lurie was apprenticed at an early age, as punishment for not being like her sisters.\u0026nbsp; They were both\u0026nbsp;dainty, demure, and quiet, as befits daughters of a leopard of rank; State's Counselor to the King.\u0026nbsp; Lurie was the opposite; a wild cub, active and impulsive as a raccoon!\u0026nbsp; Always too curious, always trying to understand, always asking questions -- some \"Indelicate.\" In frustration Lurie's father took her away, and sold her as apprentice to a Master Potter.\n\n\u0026nbsp; \u0026nbsp;\u0026nbsp;She learned too well, instead of six years making Journier,\u0026nbsp;she learned everything in three, hmmm,\u0026nbsp;maybe four.\u0026nbsp; Instead of four years as Journier\u0026nbsp;she finished, some say in two, others say she\u0026nbsp; was already a master potter before finishing her apprenticeship.\u0026nbsp; With no proof either way; those with love say 'yes,' those with envy say 'no,' those who both love and envy her are potters today.\n\n\u0026nbsp;\u0026nbsp; Lurie made pots, lots of them.\u0026nbsp; Before her elevation to Master of Pottery she was already\u0026nbsp;teaching at a university in the Midlands.\u0026nbsp; Customers waited two years for affordable pottery -- not pottery made by Lurie, herself, --but from us: her Assistants and Journiers.\u0026nbsp; The pottery she made was bought at prices unheard of.\u0026nbsp; Museums would beg her for, \"A thing, just a thing, any pot at all that you have made, that we might display?\" \u0026nbsp;\n\nAnd that was it, you see?\u0026nbsp; She kept improving, struggling toward perfection.\u0026nbsp; She refined building kilns, compounding new glazes, she fired\u0026nbsp;the kiln keeping the greens bright and vibrant and the reds not bleached by over-firing.\u0026nbsp; And that's very difficult. \u0026nbsp;\n\n\u0026nbsp; She yearned- burned- for perfection.\u0026nbsp; We all marveled, \"She will make the perfect pot,\" we said to ourselves.\n\n\u0026nbsp;\u0026nbsp;Some say, \"It was pride, or \"It was revenge.\"\u0026nbsp; I think that, hmm, maybe she was trying to work off some Kharmic debt?\u0026nbsp; She was our Master but her creativity was beyond our understanding.\u0026nbsp; We all marveled at her vision and it's forms.\n\n\u0026nbsp;\u0026nbsp;That led to trouble. \u0026nbsp;\n\n\u0026nbsp;\u0026nbsp; She worked impossibly hard at her wheel, was driven to.\u0026nbsp; We took over her teaching, for her to invent, develop her skill, -- still she strove for the perfect form, the most perfect pot.\u0026nbsp; Working all day and then late into the night.\n\n\u0026nbsp; \u0026nbsp;Her pottery was fabulous, we could look at a piece, stare at it, trying to understand it.\u0026nbsp; Why did it draw one's heart so?\u0026nbsp; It was magical!\u0026nbsp; Whatever she had - it was past our ability to copy.\u0026nbsp; Then the glass blowers and the tilers guilds' Journiers started to come to her.\u0026nbsp; And the other Masters were so angry, having their students come to her for knowledge... There was 'talk'. \u0026nbsp;\n\n\u0026nbsp; \u0026nbsp;\u0026nbsp;And still she drove herself.\u0026nbsp; One day at work, wedging clay together\u0026nbsp;I asked, \"Master, why do you strive so hard? \u0026nbsp;There is nothing your pottery's equal. \u0026nbsp;They are\u0026nbsp;perfect?\"\u0026nbsp; She answered me, \"Not perfect, yet, but I will create perfect pot.\"\u0026nbsp; She\u0026nbsp;turned away,\u0026nbsp;going to her wheel,\u0026nbsp;skipping\u0026nbsp;lunch, working\u0026nbsp;until late.\u0026nbsp; As that story got around, two students; a Darwist, the other a Satyrist, got into it -- teeth and nails -- arguing about mans' and gods' perfection.\u0026nbsp; And if the search for perfection would offend them, or not.\u0026nbsp;\n\n\u0026nbsp;\u0026nbsp; We had made\u0026nbsp;pots to fire,\u0026nbsp;but I had earned a pause to go visit my father who was ill, as the oldest child ought to.\u0026nbsp; So I was away\u0026nbsp;when it happened, but I was told this by my comrades when I returned:\n\n\u0026nbsp; \u0026nbsp;Lurie came in\u0026nbsp;before lunch one day, and announced, \"Oh, rejoice, I have thrown the perfect pot.\u0026nbsp; Not even the gods could make a pot this perfect.\u0026nbsp; We will not fire the kiln until it is ready.\"\u0026nbsp; So they waited for her -- the kiln was loaded, full, and ready.\u0026nbsp; But a place was cleared for her near the top center, for the pot.\u0026nbsp; She went into her studio asking for water and fruit.\u0026nbsp; Then taking some, she locked her door.\u0026nbsp; For a day and a half no sound was heard but the grinding of the muller\u0026nbsp;and splashes of water.\u0026nbsp; Apprentices posted by her door say there was no word until noon the next day. \u0026nbsp; She came out bringing the pot - carefully carried, and loaded it into the top of the kiln herself, and bricked the door closed sealing it off with clay.\u0026nbsp; She placed little clay dragons atop the kiln to watch over the firing.\u0026nbsp; Then she started the fire, standing there, and loading\u0026nbsp;wood. \u0026nbsp;\n\n\u0026nbsp; \u0026nbsp;She stood, or sat, or ate watching, until it was finished firing and left to cool.\u0026nbsp; She went to bed then, and slept late the next morning. \u0026nbsp;She stood so proudly, to know that it would be perfect, for she ordered a large display pedestal; gilded and painted.\u0026nbsp; They say it was magnificent, all celadon green and gilt, -- but she waited on opening the kiln, first putting her ear against it, then muttering.\u0026nbsp; When the time was right, she opened the kiln smiling. Remember, this is the story as I was told, for I was away\u0026nbsp;and so I missed unloading the kiln.\n\n\u0026nbsp; They babbled, \"It was magnificent,... magical,\" describing it to me!\u0026nbsp; They look far away into the distance, close their mouths and smile quietly.\u0026nbsp; Then say, \"It was Perfect, just ... beautiful.\" \u0026nbsp;\n\n\u0026nbsp;\u0026nbsp; She unloaded the kiln, herself.\u0026nbsp; Apprentices were stunned, Jouniers speechless!\u0026nbsp; She held the most perfect pot up over her head, then\u0026nbsp;cradling it in her arms carried it into her shop.\u0026nbsp; She carefully placed it on the pedestal in the middle of the studio. \u0026nbsp;Plopping herself down, the apprentices likewise sat down around her and marveled.\u0026nbsp; Though some of the apprentices said it was an \"affront to the Greenman\" to make something so perfect, still they sat wondering at its beauty.\n\n\u0026nbsp; \u0026nbsp;The day turning into evening,\u0026nbsp;the apprentices' tummies all growling, like bears, she declared\u0026nbsp;a party, commanding short beer for the apprentices, ale for the Journiers, rum for herself, leading the\u0026nbsp;singing and dancing into the early hours.\n\n\u0026nbsp; \u0026nbsp;Dawn was bright and hot in a clear sky, when suddenly screams from apprentices and cries from the Jouniers, \"Fire!\u0026nbsp; Fire,\" pointing to the smoke billowing from the studio and sheds, scurrying, running for buckets of water.\u0026nbsp; The assistants went in dragging her from her room sleepy and unsteady on her feet.\u0026nbsp; The older ones still trying to put the fire out, and failing it was so hot and well underway, they stood shaking, crying, watching their workshop burning to the ground.\u0026nbsp; As it burned the sides gave way, the huge ridge pole crashed down across the conflagration.\u0026nbsp; Soon only hot ash was left, blowing in swirls. \u0026nbsp;She never sat at the wheel again, but taught her classes using the assistants and Jouniers. \u0026nbsp;\n\n\u0026nbsp; \u0026nbsp;The fire \"cleansed her arrogance,\" say those that envied her, \u0026nbsp;\"She offended the gods - only the gods may create something that perfect and they were angered.\"\u0026nbsp;   \n\u0026nbsp; \u0026nbsp;Those who loved her say, \"No. The gods loved her.\u0026nbsp; The smoke rising from the devastation carried off her spark...\"\u0026nbsp;\u0026nbsp;\n\n\u0026nbsp; \u0026nbsp;But those who know, know that she grieved the loss of the studio that was as her child, it was not the loss of the pot that hurt her so.\u0026nbsp; For she knew what she had made, and knew that it was perfect.\n\n\u0026nbsp;\u0026nbsp;Still, just in case her detractors were correct, I carefully put a little ding or dent in each pot, to insure that it is not quite\u0026nbsp;perfect.\n\n  \n  \n\n","series":{"name":"WritingGroupChallenge","previous":"https://fse.anthro.fr/stories/1702644-hubris-long-form-2-writinggroupchallenge.json","next":"https://fse.anthro.fr/stories/1705021-and-just-where-did-you-leave-your-colony.json"}}