Elevation of Mana Chapter 7 First Words

Ding!

[Achievement: Pottery]

Well, at least that's what I'd been hoping for, sadly, this was not some game world. No, in this world there was no 'ding', and there were no achievements that magically made you understand what to do. Unfortunately, you had to just go ahead and do it.

I spent six months watching my aunt trying to work out the basics of pottery. Something which seemed so obvious to me was still a mystery to her, so she had to work it out the hard way.

Her first attempts were doomed to failure. She'd taken regular mud from near the village and packed it into baskets, which she then put in the fire. With no clay, and no chance to dry there was no success. Her frown as she looked at her first experiments was a bit disheartening, but she was a trooper and trooped on.

Part of the problem was that she had no context for what was right and what wasn't. She didn't know what part of the process was important, and therefore didn't know where she was making mistakes.

She seemed to think for a long time that the berries were the secret, something about them, or their juice had made it so that she could form these new pots. That was untrue, but an interesting guess. Mother was very, very irritated after awhile of her constantly pestering to make the dark berry bushes fruit again, a change from her previous stance of hating them.

After those didn't seem to work though she looked into the basket she used to form her pots. Did the weave pattern matter? What about the plants it was made of, maybe they burned different, or they did something to the mud.

After each failed trial she would sift through the mess she'd made, trying to work out the point of failure. Time and again she had pots that broke because they were just mud, or exploded in the fire. After awhile she realized that they needed to sit for a time to dry first. I think that was accidental, as she'd been aiming to have the plants impart their essence or whatever into the mud she was using.

Did the time of day the mud was gathered matter? What about the shape? Perhaps it was an issue with the fire? After repeated failures she laid back in the grass one day. Mother had been getting rather tired of her spending so much time, but she was away tending to some emergency with one of the hunters for the moment. I hadn't heard the problem, but she'd run off quickly.

"What do you think Elian? Where am I messing up?" She asked in a singsong voice as she held me and looked at the mess.

I wanted to yell and scream at her that she needed to use proper clay instead of regular mud, but I was still a baby, and I didn't know the word for clay, if it existed in this language at all. I'd been quietly practicing a few small words recently, mostly the equivalents of 'mama' and 'papa' something my parents were repeating to me all the time.

"Coo," was the only response of note I had to her question, but she nodded along sagely.

"Hmm, you think so? I don't know."

"Another failure Atie?" Dad asked as he came over to join us. "Look, I don't mind, but your sister is getting tired of how much effort you're putting into this."

"I know, she thinks it was just some one off mistake or something, but I'm close, I can feel it." My aunt was persistent, most people I knew would have given up in much less time than she'd put in.

Each basket was a chore to make, and while she was now using simpler ones, and had gotten much faster, it was still time. It wasn't a problem for the group as such, since there was plenty to go around, but she was using a lot of time and effort on this that could go into other things that mom wanted done. I feared that if she didn't get it right soon, then she might face some real repercussions to her place in the village.

"Hmm, perhaps there's something you're missing? I've run into issues like that working stone, and it's often something that seems silly later down the line, like, learning how the stone cracks along certain lines." Dad shrugged, he too knew nothing about making pottery.

"Any thoughts on what I'm missing?" She asked hopefully.

"No, but you might try working the exact same way you did with the first one, see if something stands out. That's what my father taught me when I first started knapping stones, and what his taught him."

"Hmm, have to try that then. Now, that day we were..." She began musing to herself, drifting off a bit as dad took me from her arms and sang to me.

As my aunt began making yet another basket dad held me. He seemed content, happy with life and the way things were. This world was different, but here he was, happy to have his child in hand and the world around him safe.

Mom eventually returned, looking a bit tired. She sat down near us and took me from my father. "Say, 'mama' Elian," she encouraged once more, looking at me as she tried to illicit words.

"Were down by the river... maybe..." Atie was still mumbling to herself in the background.

"Oh give it up sister. That bowl you got was nice, but whatever it was isn't going to happen again. See, you're even bothering Elian, even he knows you're silly and he's a baby. Isn't that right Elian?" She looked at me and for once I was a bit irritated.

Mother sometimes spoke as if I had an opinion that was the same as hers, but I didn't, and frankly, it was rather annoying. This was particularly the case here, where I not only disagreed, but I disagreed heartily.

"Papa!" I said, reaching my arms out to my father where he sat nearby.

Mom looked like she'd been slapped. She was the primary one trying to teach me to talk, and her favorite word to get me to try and say had been 'mama'. I'd also done it at the perfect time to indicate that I wholly rejected her opinion. At least it seemed that way to me.

Dad on the other hand looked elated, and quickly reached out for me. It took a few seconds of grumping and a few more shouts of "Papa, papa." but eventually I was handed over to him. I could have called for my aunt, but that would have just been mean.

"Hmm, perhaps he doesn't agree with you dear," my father teased.

Auntie Atie had smartly said nothing, and was instead trying to hide her laugh at my clear rejection.

"Betrayed by my own son," mom said with mock darkness. "Fine then, do what you want."

She pouted for a bit, sitting there working on cracking some nuts she'd gathered up. As the night went on though I took pity. It wasn't a big thing, she just needed to know that she was wrong sometimes, as everyone else was too.

Dad finally put me on the ground as the sun went down, something that was being done more and more as I grew. I was always watched, partially because there was a fire nearby and nobody wanted me to get into it. I'd made a few inroads to walking as of recently too. There were mostly halting steps and a few paces of running, which I put to use now.

I ran quickly over to my mother, crashing into her since slow speeds and stops were still giving me a good few problems. "Mama," I declared as I grabbed on, eliciting a smile from her as well. It would seem all was forgiven.

"Two words in one day, that's great!" She declared. "He even knows what they mean!"

Mom was happy, I was happy. I was also happy that I'd managed to get a little bit going for me. Being a baby was tiring, and now that I was approaching a year old I was finally getting past the worst of the helplessness. Soon, oh so soon if I continued to grow normally, I would be able to talk freely, and walk, and run, and all the good things that I'd missed out on doing for the past year.

There were a few things that I had noted over the past year.  The first was the seasons, or lack of real ones.  There were a couple of months where it definitely rained more, but nothing like the deluge that one might get in some places back on Earth.  Other than that it was just cycles of plants, rather than a major change in temperature and weather.

Another important note was that my memory was... different.  I found that everything seemed to come back to me easier, so much easier.  I could remember formulae and the like that I'd learned once upon a time, like it was ingrained into my memory.  Heck, on a whim one night I'd started going over the periodic table, each and every element crystal clear in my mind, and I didn't even really study that other than a few chem classes.  Perhaps this was something about being an elf.  My working theory was that since we lived longer, our memories were just different somehow, stronger.  How or to what extent I didn't know, but it was really cool to be a walking encyclopedia.

That wasn't to say there weren't gaps in what I knew.  If I hadn't looked at anything with a hard eye, or studied it, it was still not there.  I could recall things like algebra and geometry well enough, but the single semester of piano I'd taken didn't mean I could think of anything more than the basic pieces, and I wouldn't be playing any masterpieces anytime soon.  The things I liked were also definitely clearer in my head than those I hadn't cared much for, or not tried to learn.

The next day my aunt took her basket and did as dad had suggested, following the one she'd made previously as perfectly as she could remember.  It was as she got down to the creek bed and began taking the clay out that she began laughing maniacally.

"Adia!  I've got it, it's the mud, the mud here is different!  It's all weird and strong and stuff!"  She cheered as she got to work on her new pot, and I laughed with her.

"You seem sure," mom said doubtfully.

"I am sure.  Just you wait and see!"  She struck a pose like something out of a t.v. show, proud and upright and I nearly fell out of my carrier I laughed so hard.

A week later her first pot, the first she'd made intentionally and without my direct influence came out of the fire pit and she began a little dance.  The difference was clear to her, and to everyone else.  She'd managed to make something new, something truly new, and that was special.

"What do you think Elian?"  She asked after passing the new pot around to everyone else.

I looked at her and clapped my hands, "Atie, Atie,"  I was proud as I could be of her success, and happy she'd managed it with only a hint from me.

This world had its first potter, a major step forwards into a bright future I hoped to make.  If I had centuries like I thought and a memory as good as I hoped, I might actually manage to bring us somewhere, time would only tell.  That one of my favorite people in my new life had been the first to make inroads towards the brighter world I imagined only made me more elated.