#baronyofthesilverwolf

"Actually, I like them. Are they professional level? not yet, but they're whimsical... I love the mushroom with the face. People pay good money for less quality than that. And money aside, this is... just joyous"

"It's a waste of materials..." She echoes, joyless. More color leeches.

Nadeen feels, something else. A presence, approaching. Normally she wouldn't sense the other members of the hold on their own, not unless looking for them, but Aiden is well-loved by the Bale, and it tells her that he comes.

"Thistle, is that man's hand up your ass that you're spouting HIS words with your mouth like that? You don't strike me a the puppet type"

She bristles. "I ain't no puppet!"

"Then stop repeating HIS words, stop letting him own your dreams. Good lord, I'm inclined to pleasant dreams of tyranny and even I don't do that. Why in the before time, when we walked like gods along the world, my own father once treated a master craftsman like a king because that nocker created a water clock the size of a mountain. You are of the same stock, creative, unboxed, ready to explore and expand. It is not a 'waste' of material to bring beauty to this world, to bring whimsical wonders. It is not a waste to bring expression to imagination. "

The Baron of Silverwolf steps into the kitchen. A Breathtaking counterpart to his Baroness, pale skin and dark hair, the night sky to her sun.

"Nadeen, is all well?" He asks, out of politeness - having caught the last, clearly all it not well.

Thistle stares at Aidan, caught up anew in the sidhe brilliance.

"No, I fear poor Thistle hear has been cut to the soul by that bastard who claims to teach art," Her tone indicating she's contemplating having said teacher flayed, "She thinks her work is not good , she repeats his words of dismissal."

He frowns, troubled - heart-breakingly sexily troubled.

"Um. Sorry, your... Lordship?" She tests the form of address.

"But look at this" She shows the phone pictures SHE was shown "I love to have that mushroom in the garden, or something like it. "

Aiden looks at the mushroom, curiously. The mushroom doesn't speak to him, Katrina can see as he looks it over in polite interest. But then, he looks at Nadeen, and the expression SHE has looking at it, and there it is, a blossom of appreciation in his face.

"I would have you meet someone. Come with me."

A pause, and he bows his head to Nadeen. "By your leave, Baroness?"

"Of.. course.. "

"...okay?" Tagging along.

She looks curiously at her lover, what IS he up to? But she smiles

He checks first to see if Willy is around...

Alas, it looks like she's driven that old rattletrap of a truck into town.

He looks around Willy's workshop, and - there, he sees something. Daring as few others might, to enter the workshop, and gesturing for Katrina to follow.

A modern building on the outside, built with a few peculiarities - one door sliding open wide enough for a truck to back up to - or a horse, for that matter.

Katrina... or is it Thistle now?... has a hunrgy expression on her face at the sight of tools and neat workspaces.

Aiden searches, and finds what he is looking for, and presents Katrina with... a silver horseshoe. "Please, take a look at this."

She takes it. "I haven't done a lot of metalsmithing yet... I saw this cool thing on tumblr with wire-wrapping..."

"Ah, but this, see. This? It is, as you might say, 'drek'. Trash. Surely you can see why?"

The horseshoe is solid and pleasant, cool from the metal, but with an inner warmth that comes of nearly anything touched by the dreaming. Glamour, is that what Dee called it? It is well crafted, smoothed and properly filed, and doesn't appear to have any problems.

She turns it over, examining it with her eyes and by running her knobby fingers over its surface... feeling the weight, the texture, the balance. Instinct.

"This... this is Dreamstuff. It's not..." She searches for a word. Real isn't right, for it is real in her hands...

"It's Chimerical, meant to shoe our horses for travel on faery roads. Alas, it must be throw away."

"....Why? It seems fine."

"Is that so? The raw silver that was given to Willy for the forging. If I were to say what it should have become, I might say, a necklace strung with amber, or a delicate goblet embossed with a golden sun."

He shakes his head, his hair drifting like black silk in a breeze.

"It is not what I would have thought it should be, so it must be trash. The Silver wasted, the effort worthless."

She bristles. "But it's good work! It's not dreck to throw on the trash pile! You want a furkin' goblet, then commission it new. You don't just spit on something after the work goes into it!"

He raises a brow, and reaches for another horseshoe from the stack.

"This one, my Steward Marigold would have dreamt the silver in to a fine silver carving knife. Alas, into the trash."

"And this? For my newest Knight, Perhaps adornment for a spear harness, collars for her hounds, or a shining rim to a new shield with the tree of Dairrean upon it... but no, Willy decided that it should look so."

He drops the two onto the ground carelessly. Dust scatters, and dulls the shiny silver.

"Stop it!"

She crouches to retrieve the shoes, spirals blaring red. "*&^^$%$%%$!!!"

She clamps a hand over her mouth, while trying not to drop the shoes.

He takes a step back, letting her pick them up without interfering.

"So, it is not the fault of the creation, that it didn't match the demand. I suppose then, it must be the fault of the creator. Surely Craftswoman Willy should have known that, despite how the silver spoke to her, that her fingers itched to transform and create, that it was meant to be a new seal and signet ring for Silverwolf's Baroness."

"Off with her head, shall it be?"

She sputters, trying not to spout of the stream of expletives she finds bubbling to her lips.

"That's not (&^%$* (&%^ &^%^%* J^&%H FAIR!"

Katrina hasn't met Willy, but...

"You can't do that to her!"

"Why, pray? Explain to me, if you would."

"What kind of dunderhead would scoff at these? They're good. You have, like, 57 horses, so clearly you need them! You can't expect her to read your mind, if you want specific things you gotta ask, not... not destroy something..."

"Watching your stuff get destroyed it just... it just..."

"It's like having parts of you ripped out and stomped into the dirt."

"Til you just feel empty inside. You can't DO that!"

"I see that the thistle has thorns." Not displeased! "Does that only apply to silver, or what if it was a carving of wood? A casting in bronze? A sculpture of clay?"

"You want somethin', you gotta be upfront ahead of time."

"And what if I had told her that I wanted a silver circlet, and still, she forged these horseshoes? Perhaps it is not what I asked, but does that make the results a failure?"