Elevation of Mana Chapter 6 Pottery

I expected my auntie to be mad, but she was not mad. No, no she was furious, she screamed and raged so loudly that my mother even looked up.

"WHO!?" I heard her exclaim before a series of words I didn't know.

"What in the world is she screaming about?" Father asked, moving to the front of the hut.

I had a feeling I knew, and knew well. I'd really thought that she would be mad, but this was on another level. Perhaps I'd underestimated how much she liked that particular basket, even if I was sure that she valued it, this seemed extreme. Really I should be worried that she might ever find the culprit, because if she did, I might have earned my first beating.

There were a few more sounds of incoherent rage and the gathering of a crowd before mother picked me up and headed outside.

"Atie, what are you screaming about. You'll wake up the whole village," mom said as she stepped outside.

My aunt turned, her face in a horrid expression of anger. Seeing who she was talking to and the baby in her arms my aunt calmed considerably though, even lowering her voice to a hiss.

"Someone burned my favorite basket!" She pointed to the ashen remains of the fire.

I looked to the ashes and was glad to see that my first secretive attempt at a pot had survived. There was a real chance that it would burst, or chip too badly to be useful, but it seemed to have come through relatively unscathed.

"Are you sure you didn't just leave it too close to the fire last night?" Mom was trying to be a voice of reason, even if she was wrong.

"Even if it was near the fire, look at it Adia. It's turned over and buried. You can even see where someone piled sticks on top of it." I could see her jaw strain in anger as she spoke. She was right, there were a few bare remains of twigs that I'd pushed on there.

Mom looked with a deepening frown at the fire pit. Clearly thinking about the repercussions of this. This was a very, very small community, and someone going out of their way to destroy other people's things may well be a rarity. Before it could continue though another person showed up.

"What is all the noise about?" Elaya asked as she approached.

I noticed that most of the men had stayed back a little. There were, for the most part, two separate groupings in our village. The men spent most of their time away, while the women most of theirs on their own as well. I suspected that they viewed this as something to stay out of, at least unless violence broke out.

"Someone burned my basket," my aunt explained.

Elaya listened before turning to the small crowd of elves. "Don't you lot have things to do?" She raised her voice and people quickly found things. With the elder around you might well be assigned something if you couldn't find something yourself. That done she turned back to my aunt. "Who?"

"I don't know," Atie hissed, still quite mad.

Elaya's hand snapped out like a viper, grabbing my aunt's ear and twisting. I wasn't sure, but the little "Eep," sound she made indicated that it was probably quite painful.

"Don't take a tone with me child; you're not to old for me to twist your ears." After a second or two she let go, leaving the younger woman rubbing the grabbed part.

Mom looked a bit irritated, but said nothing. There must be some organization to how things were done when it came to... crimes I supposed.

"Sorry," Atie pouted a bit, "Nobody should have. Not like I've had any real fights with anyone in years."

"Well, if you didn't see anything I'll ask around. Don't expect me to find the truth though, not unless someone else saw something. If I do find who did it you'll get a pair of new baskets, but that will be the end of it." Her voice was hard and she stared daggers at my aunt, looking for confirmation.

"It was my favorite..." Atie continued to pout a bit, but still cowed by the older woman.

"They'll be nice. If I can find whoever did it."

Finally my auntie nodded, confirming she understood. That gesture was the same here, though there were only so many simple gestures like that. As she turned to go start talking to people Atie continued to rub her ear like it hurt.

"You know better than to mouth off to her like that sister, particularly when she's trying to help." Mom was still trying to be the voice of reason.

"She didn't twerk your ear," her sister complained.

"I didn't do anything to deserve it. She also knows better than to do anything that would put a child at risk." Mom bounced me up and down ever so slightly to indicate my presence here. "At any rate, looks like the mud at least survived."

My aunt turned towards her new bowl with a scowl, marching over and picking it up from the fully cooled ash of the pit. I worried for a minute that she might throw or break it in her anger, but it seemed she'd calmed down a bit. When she felt it she made an odd face, like it was something strange, then we all headed back to our hut.

With the village elder asking questions we'd be a little late getting out this morning. As that was going on Atie sat there with the pottery, examining it deeply as she ran her hands over it, tapping it in places and making an nice ringing sound.

I could see the gears turning in her head as she looked at it with a critical eye. Many people from my previous world thought that so called 'cave men' were stupid. To an extent, that was a misnomer though. Sure, humans of the past hadn't had the tech that we did in my age, but they still knew things. More than that they knew how to look at things, and how to solve problems just like any more modern person would have.

This was happening in real time with auntie Atie. She seemed to know she had... something, in her hands, but not quite what to do with it yet. I saw her looking for cracks, or imperfections. To be true, the edge of the pot was really rough, but that was mostly because it hadn't been designed as a pot, but rather as a simple basket coating.

"Eduan, will you take a look at this?" She finally asked.

My father had been to the side working on some tool or other, shaping stone with a critical eye and a few hard thwacks. At her request he rose from his spot and moved over to look at the little clay bowl. He didn't seem all that interested, but she'd asked nicely so he held out a hand.

"Just dried mud right?" He asked, confused as to what she'd want him for.

"Doesn't look quite like dirt, or feel like dirt, and it makes noise if you tap it."

Dad brought it up close to his face, turning it around a few times and running a fingernail along the surface. "Hard, not good stone hard, but hard."

"You could make something like that from stone right?" She asked.

"Yes, but it would need to be thicker or it would be very brittle. It would also be a pain to do," We didn't have any stone cups or bowls in our hut, so my guess was that he just didn't ever feel like making such a thing was worth his time.

"Do you think I could still use it to gather berries?" My aunt asked hopefully. "It's a lot lighter now."

"Sure, it might break though, so I'd be careful. I could clean up the edge if you want, it's still rather bad." He pointed to the parts that were starting to chip away a bit, and at my aunt's nod went back to his corner.

Dad was careful in his work, and filed the edges with one of the stones he used for shaping, before singing for a few moments and frowning. He was trying to shape it like it was stone was my guess, only to find that it wasn't quite the same. A few more rounds and he finally got it to move a bit like he wanted it to, making a nice, smooth rim.

My aunt seemed quite pleased with her new item, giving it many, many looks. I hoped that she'd take up pottery, and based on the smile that was forming on her face as she held the pot I guessed it was fairly likely to happen.

Elaya showed up after awhile with a frankly terrified looking girl, one who I'd seen a number of times by the name of Aria.

"Couple people said they saw Aria here with your basket yesterday afternoon," the elder declared.

'I-I was just looking at it. I even asked, and I gave it right back. I just wanted to know how to make one for myself the berries..." The poor girl looked pale; understandable after Atie's rage not so long ago.

"She's telling the truth. She borrowed it to look it over for a bit and returned it. Whoever burned it did so last night, far later." For all that she could have scape-goated the poor girl Atie didn't, quickly explaining the truth to the older woman. For all that she might have a temper, at least she didn't go after those she knew were innocent.

I sighed internally in relief. If the had gone to punish that girl for something I did I'd have felt obligated to do something. It would be easy enough to float a few of the things around the room into a pile, baskets particularly. That should be enough for them to know the true culprit, but I didn't want my aunt mad at me. I had only been trying to improve things after all.

"Well, I got no other reports dear. We'll keep an eye out for any other mischief, but without anything there's not much to do."

Auntie Atie frowned a bit, but there really was nothing to do without a culprit. In the end she took up her new pot, which she seemed quite taken with, and we went out to gather, like we did on most days.

A/N:  I know that Justin/Elian is very inactive for these chapters, but he's still a baby.  Next one he'll be about a year old so I can give him actual parts in the conversation, but for now he's content to observe for the most part.