“Deja Vu.” Amihan greeted, thrumming a hind-leg over a pedal. Clay ground against his palms and he strained to hold it into a tower. Passing through the curtained doorway into the studio, Deja Vu strode by with her own sachet of clay to work with.


She grunted a greeting as she took her seat and reached for the faucet connected to her wheel, turning it on and wetting the base. “More decoys?” she asked, glancing at the ruddy tower between his palms.

“Nah, not this time.” he answered. “Doin’ a study.” with a tilt of his head, he motioned to one of his spoils from his most recent trip. In front of his wheel, rested a simple stone figure, but nonetheless beautiful. It depicted crudely formed humanoid figure with long hair and a dress. Their torso separated from their lower half by a thick band of stone carved to resemble a rope belt, the lower half of the figure resembling a pear. The face was marked by a hooked beak of a nose, and blank, almond shaped eyes. A crude daisy was carved on either side of the figure’s head, recognizeable only for the 5 petals. From the figure’s back, crude wing-like shapes emerged from partings in the hair. If he squinted, they called butterflies to mind.

Deja Vu eyed the statue, blue eyes bright with appraisal. “Is that from Shalekesh?” she asked, squirming in her seat to position herself so she could reach the pedal with her hind feet, and grip her clay in her front legs. The wheels were not designed with ketucari in mind though, and it was as awkward a fit for her as it was for Amihan. He leveled her with a sympathetic look.

“It is. Found it near the old temple in the south.” he answered. “Temple was full of a lot more like it. Bigger, too. Makes me think they had a religious purpose.”
The clay bit into his palm and he carefully pressed the sides of his thumbs in to start creating the basic pear shape making up the figure’s lower half. “Couldn’t make myself take any but this one after that. It was already out, you see.”

Grey claws dipped into the water tray and with the bobbing of his companion’s knee her wheel began to spin. Deja Vu patted her clay into a ball. It struck the wheel with a wet Slap, and more water was dribbled onto the clay. Palms on either side of the spinning ball, she pulled it up into a tower, and pushed it back down into a plate. Back up into a tower. The familiar, soothing motion of unifying her clay. Amihan smiled at the sight. “Yeah, I think I understand that.” Deja Vu pulled up her tower. A claw tip ducked into the clay, marking off four main, uneven sections.
From the ochre color of the base clay, Amihan could guess where she was headed with the overall design.

“Eirian? Or is it Verdani?” he hummed. Deja’s tail flicked. He couldn’t begin to tell if it was in annoyance or amusement. “Either way, you work quickly.”
She was further sectioning off the sections, making loops in a grid. Maybe he should be taking notes. Des would. Maybe after his paws were clean. He dipped one into his own water bin and shook it dry before returning to his crude shapes. Meanwhile, Deja Vu had already grabbed the cutting wire and was dragging it under her figure.

Her whole process had taken less than 20 minutes.
He was still fighting with the crude shapes of his own, and she had a near wire-frame carved into her figure. He laughed. Well, he’d get there eventually.

As Deja Vu carefully gathered her figure, she spared his piece a curious glance. Hummed. “The base is too thick. That’ll break in the kiln.”
Before Amihan could respond, she vanishe out the door again with her supplies, presumably to carve the rest of the figure out of her clay before it tried out.
Amihan gaped after her, palms burning from the wet clay grinding away at them.