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2.1 You accidentally got your hooves on and drank a bad potion. How do you feel?

The sun rises over Sedo, but Kolr does not rise with it. Instead, she is curled in a rather uncomfortable looking position beneath a cactus which towers over her frail and pale form beneath. You can see that a few of the cactus' spines have pricked Kolr in the rump. They - and everything else about the scene - make the entire thing look rather uncomfortable.

Hours go by and still the girl does not stir.

Her heartbeat - if you could possibly hear it from where you are - beats so slowly and silently that many an untrained eye might call her dead. Indeed with her ashen features and rib-y body, she does not look far from emaciated. But the heart beat is there, just as real as the colours that line her face. But unlike the colours, it is simply much harder to detect. Slowly and seemingly with much effort Kolr awakens. The sun has already made quite a bit of progress across the sky, making the hour a much later one than Kolr normally rises beneath. Groggily Kolr's eyes blink open, but the usual vibrancy of her blue gaze is no where to be seen. It is muddled and grotesquely changed by burst blood vessels behind her eyes. She looks like a creature from the stories she was told as a young filly to make her behave (not that she ever needed that sort of coaxing. Kolr had always been an incredibly obedient child), and if she had a mirror, she likely would have been frightened by her own reflection. Trying to sit up, Kolr felt weaker than she normally did. A nice sprint beneath the noon-day sun was always out of the question, but even so, Kolr had always been able to move her own bodyweight around. Currently though, she found it an excessive struggle just to pull her head off of the sand, and by the time she found herself resting on her collapsed limbs, a sheen of sweat had broken out around her eyes, nose, and ears.

"Mmm.." Kolr began and then immediately stopped. Her tongue was swollen and felt chalky in her mouth. Opening her lips as if this effect was something that needed to be physically expelled from her body, Kolr let out a loud snort and smacked her lips together loudly. No saliva came though, and her tongue remained as chunky as it was before. Through a memory blurred by poison, Kolr tried to recall what on earth had landed her in this position. She was not one to partake in any of the special beverages created, and she tried her best to stay away from the smoke which would billow from sweetly-smelling burning reeds. She found they clouded her mind and her eyes, and when she painted under these influences her work always seemed tainted somehow.

So how had she come to be like this?

The fog cleared slightly, and Kolr recalled having found a beautiful green pigment in the algae at the bottom of a rather brackish bit of water. Having nothing to put it in, Kolr had carefully put it between her teeth and carried it back to where she kept her supplies so she could properly prepare it. Had that been the cause? Had some of the poison from a frog gotten onto it, or did the algae itself possess whatever it was that could cause this sort of damage?

I bet we learned about this in herbology...Kolr thought rather sulkily to herself, allowing her body to collapse back to the warm sands, happy to be able to use the strength of the earth to hold herself up, rather than resorting to her muscles.

"Worth....-i..t.." Kolr mumbled happily to herself, seeing the beautiful bit of green pigment in her mind, that she had created, as sickly oblivion obscured her vision and pulled her back to sleep.

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2.2 What’s your favorite place in your herd's realm? Why is it your favorite? Tell us about it!

"Well..." Kolr begins, trying to think. "I mean, I don't really leave Ziuseset a lot...I don't really need to, it has so much of what I need right here."

For a moment Kolr says nothing, she simply looks down at her hooves which point towards one another, rather than straight ahead as they should. "I mean .. it is a bit difficult for me to travel, you see, and so...well, I haven't really been around the whole continent. I've heard of all the places though! I think I'd really like to go to God's landing one day ... perhaps if I can." Her shoulders rise and then collapse back to her body as a wooosh of disappointed air leaves her thin frame.

"But like I said, almost everything I need is right here! Without even leaving the capital city I can experience just about everything that Sedo has to offer. " A smile creases her features and for a moment it's hard to tell whether or not it's genuine. Then as it spreads, you think that it must be.

Was Osulas Kolr's favourite place? That was hard to say. It was such a busy place that often times Kolr found herself wanting to find some peace and quiet. And so, she'd walk to the outskirts of the city and into the golden-white sands to try and find some respite from it all. But that didn't mean that it wasn't her favourite place, did it? Maybe she was meant to be more specific? "There's a place near the port, where you can see far, far off into ... well, into nothing really. It's a place where it looks like the sea just sort of becomes the sky, especially if you're there at the right time of day. I do like being around the port, because of the sea, but it does get so noisy. And so normally I go just a little ways off-" At this Kolr looks down at knees as if to indicate that they are the reason it is only a little ways off, "-and take it in from there. The angle isn't as good for painting, but I can use my imagination." Just imagining it now brought a small shutter across Kolr's shoulders. She could hear the shouts of horses bringing things to and from ships, of merchants and traders loudly discussing their wares...how could anyone possibly think with all that going on?!

"Really, I love just about anywhere in Sedo." Kolr began after a few moments lost in the whirlwind of her memory. "But ... I do like it more when it is a bit quieter. Not that I don't love being around my herd-family, it's just ... sometimes I can be so hard to think, you know? And when the world is quiet, I feel like I can really pay attention and notice all of its little details. So really, anywhere I can do that is my favourite. It doesn't take much." Kolr wasn't really sure whether or not this answered the question, but she wasn't sure what else there really was for her to say. Unfortunately she just ... didn't get out much, and so that left the list of potential favourite places quite short. She assumed that others had much richer tales to tell about their best and most secretive places ... places that they just happened upon by accident, or that were shown to them by friends or family. Kolr had no such stories to share, because of course she was rather barred from those sorts of experiences.

Hopefully she smiles at you, truly trying to answer the question to the best of her (limited) ability.

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2.3 Have you ever met someone outside your herd?

"Outside the herd?"

Kolr stares blankly for a moment, wondering if perhaps this is a trick question. You do know you're in the Serora herd, right? Kolr wants to say, but of course she doesn't. That type of response might seem sarcastic or snippy, which of course isn't how she means it. What she wants to say, or at list hint at, is how unusual the question is for a Seroran. Likely one of the kindest and most welcoming of the herds, they are also the most socially isolated. With her inward pointing hooves and youth, Kolr is a poor candidate to become a trader like her parents are, which is the only other real way she'd have contact with anyone from outside the herd.

"No I'm sorry to say I haven't." She begins, her voice a mumble. Suddenly a look of concern creases her pale features. "I mean, it's not that I'm disappointed I haven't, because of course I love my life here. I don't mind at all that..but-" Again concern clouded over her. Kolr looked as though she was grappling for words which were just out of her reach. A little huff of annoyance left her lips, but quickly she clamped them together lest it sound as though she was annoyed by you. "Maybe not disappointed, because it isn't like I wouldn't want to meet someone from outside the herd. It's just that-" For a moment Kolr seems utterly youthful and utterly lost. She tries so hard to ensure that nothing she says is ever contradictory or offensive, that often she isn't sure what she can say. As is the case now, how is she supposed to communicate that she's simultaneously okay with the way things are, but that she'd equally be alright if the way things were was to change? Swallowing hard, her baby-blue eyes skirt around the sands as if the answer to this question is laying on top of the reddish-orange granuals.

"I've heard lots of things from others though. My parents are traders, and so they come home with the absolute best stories. Sometimes Vagabonds come home with our traders, but it isn't super often." Kolr's slender shoulders rise and fall. "I've never had a chance to meet any of them, obviously or I would have told you about it! Normally I'm off doing something, or there's so much commotion that I usually stay away. I don't want to be an imposition you see, and since I have nothing to offer yet I just try not to be in the way. This usually means that I miss out on a lot of the action, but I don't mind." Kolr's cheeks plump up as she smiles. You can tell that this isn't a pretence at all - Kolr isn't trying to be modest or polite (although she is always trying to be polite). She genuinely is alright with missing out on the more juicy goings-on in the herd. Kolr would much rather stick to the background, than push herself too hard and have her handicap become readily apparent for all to see.

"There was a story once of a Vagabond who had bells attached to almost every part of his body!" Kolr continues, her smile widening at the memory. "Mother told me about him. Everytime he moved it was like a symphony of bells choreographing his every movement! I didn't see him, as he didn't return back with the traders to Sedo, but I can still imagine it." Kolr shook her head slightly and closed her eyes, imagining what it might be like to hear bells chiming as she did so. "But maybe one day." She concludes before falling silent.

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2.4 Have you had a spiritual experience?

"Hmmmmmmm.." What an interesting question. Kolr had certainly never had any visions from Alya or anything like that. She'd heard of others who had, like the oracles. But of course they had had visions, that's part of what made them so special! And it was in virtue of them being special that Alya had appeared to them. Some had even seen her, Kolr knew. The pale girl couldn't imagine what it would be like to stay before the goddess of the winds and the air. Well, probably she shouldn't be standing, actually. She should be falling on her knees to pray, or perhaps it wasn't even polite to look Alya directly in the eye? Realizing she was getting off-track, Kolr shook her head slightly and tried to refocus.

"No, I don't think that I have. Although sometimes when I paint I feel..." Her voice trails off and her eyes grow slightly distant as she tries to think of the words she means to say. In her minds-eye she can imagine the serene blissful feeling that falls over her during prolonged hours of painting. It doesn't always come though, but when it does, the world seems to fall away and everything becomes very very quiet. Only it doesn't.

If she's painting the sands, then they sing to her and they dance. If she's painting the water, it sparkles and becomes like a diamond beneath the sun. If she were to paint the grasses or the trees, then they would grow and die and be reborn all under her hungry gaze. It was like nothing else she could describe. Almost like being transported to another world. If Kolr had been more familiar with hallucinogenic drugs, she might have compared it to an extremely peaceful trip. There were no side effects, only the serenity of seeing things the way nature had intended.

"Well, I feel like ...like maybe I see the world as Alya does." The words leave her lips and Kolr looks up hesitantly, wondering if what she's said is blasphemous or obtuse. "Of course I have no idea how Alya sees the world ... it's just ... it's just so amazing. And if I can see something like that, then surely Alya can too. And so maybe that's how she sees all the time, and I just get a brief glimpse of it?" Her voice fades at the end, as if she's dug herself in too deep and now she doesn't know what to do. On the one hand the comparison with Alya makes sense in her mind: if Kolr is able to see something magnificent, it would be impossible for her to see it and for Alya not, since Alya is so powerful. But on the other hand, why on earth would Kolr be able to see even a fraction of what Alya could? She was no one - just a small folken girl with turned-in knees and a rather small voice.

Perhaps it was just chance?

"Maybe that isn't the sort of thing that you mean anyways. It really is too bad you can't just read all of my thoughts at once!" Kolr blurts, laughing in a silly manner and shaking her head. "Because maybe what I see when I paint really is the sort of thing you mean, and maybe it isn't! It isn't the type of thing oracles see ... but is that the only kind of spiritual experience that exists?" Pursing her lips together, the pale girl falls silent. "But I'm rambling. My apologies." Closing her mouth for good now, Kolr tries to force the memories of golden sands and diamond waves from her minds-eye but finds it difficult. Her way of viewing the world is so much more beautiful.

[624/600]

2.5 Your leader has just sent you on a mission. What is it? What do you do?

"Oh well, I am probably much too young to be sent on any sort of mission. And even if I weren't, there is probably someone more suited than me? But oh .. I suppose if I really were going to be sent ... well...I think I'd be sent to make a map.

Sedo is so large that many of us don't ever leave here. What reason would there be to go anywhere else, when everything you could ever want is right here?" Kolr begins, her voice light and her eyes beaming. "So even without leaving I think that there would be a need for a map here .. If ever the Screamers weren't around to direct the herd away from possible dangers or places to be watchful of, perhaps a map could serve to assist in the same way." It of course isn't Kolr's place to provide safety options for the herd, but on this topic she has had a few thoughts. And cartography has been one of her favourite past-times for as long as she could remember. "Or if that's a bit too much responsibility, a map showing off some of the various locations would be nice too. Almost like a sight-seeing tour?" She smiles hopefully at the thought. Yes. Sight-seeing actually seems much more at her speed than creating a map showing potentially dangerous areas.

"I should probably say that if Baram ever asked me to do anything, that of course I would." Kolr adds sheepishly and hastily. "They really are a wonderful Sultan, and I would do whatever it was they asked." Kolr felt the need to outright articulate her loyalty to her Sultan, in case it wasn't clear enough.

"Materials would certainly be an interesting challenge.." Kolr continued, voicing her thoughts as her mind created them. "I wouldn't be able to use my normal canvas, because I presume a map would need to be more flexible. It would need to be rolled up into a tube and carried in a pack ... I wonder if leather might not work better than some sort of paper..." Hmmming away, Kolr tried to envision if she would be able to find leather supple and thin enough for this task. "As for pigments, presumably you'd want a fairly high contrast so that the map would be easiest to read. Would colours be strictly necessary?" Falling silent again, Kolr pondered this. On the one hand, having additional colours other than black would increase the contrast between different elements, separating mountain ranges from trees, for example. But they could also clutter and complicate the map unnecessarily. "You know, I don't know. I suppose I would ask Baram what they thought of the whole thing, and just do whatever they said."

Kolr had been avoiding the most complicated part of this entire question, and that was the actual doing part of it. Not the cartography bit, but the adventuring bit. She wouldn't be able to take second-hand accounts of the terrain if she was going to put her own stamp of approval on a map. No, no. She would have to see things for herself. But given the state of her body and how her knees (sort of) worked, trekking all the way across Sedo seemed like an absolutely impossible task. "Maybe someone could pull me in a cart? Or perhaps I could be magic'd so as to make everything easier?" She says, her voice rising at the end as if to suggest a question. Was such a thing possible? Would anyone pull her across the entire continent just so that she could draw a silly map?

"Hmmmm...maybe this is why I haven't been asked to share any of my cartography skills yet.." She concludes, her voice falling low at the end, indicating her disappointment in her abilities.

[631/600]

2.6 What do you do in your spare time?

Oh! Immediately Kolr brightens for this is certainly a question that she can answer. "I paint!" The expression on Kolr's face is one of absolute joy. Despite how slow she can seem sometimes (both mentally and physically) on the subject of aesthetics and Kolr's particular set of artistic skills, there is almost no one who can best her. Although she is still young, Kolr has shown a penchant for painting from a very early age. She spends so much of her time dabbling with different pigments in fact, that it's unclear whether the splashes of colour on her face are actually just that (paint), or whether her body has simply given up and become permanently coloured.

"I like painting best, but I do other things too." She begins, showing you some of her tools. "These are brushes I've created-" She spreads them out carefully, adjusting each one so that they lay perfectly parallel to one another. You can see that she has used a number of different mediums to create the bristles of each one, and no two are alike. "You see, some I used hair for, others vines, and some even have scales! They all provide the most interesting textures, and really, that's the most important thing." Turning, she directs your gaze towards a number of small pots and jars. "This is where I keep my pigment. Some need to be kept cool, others need to have water added...It really depends on how I made them." As a demonstration, Kolr lifts the lid off of a greenish-looking jar holding an identically green-ish looking liquid. Immediately she recoils and quickly you find out why: there is the most disgusting smell wafting up towards you. Kolr hurriedly puts the lid back on. Looking to you she smiles apologetically. "Erm..I think that was from the swamp..." Her shoulders rise and fall as a sheepish grin spreads across her features. "Greens can be so complicated! So when I find the right shade I have to take it ... regardless of the source." Her nose wrinkles comically as she puts the little jars back away.

"And for canvas, I can paint on almost anything. Hide, rocks, wood...although I liked dried out leaves the best. They really hold onto the pigment, whereas stone washes away, and wood absorbs it too much. But because I can't always go that far, I sometimes have to just take what I can get." Despite this obvious reference to her disability, she doesn't look that upset.

"I'm also trying to learn to do other things...like work with glass or stone. It's much harder though to find materials, and even harder still to make them workable. Not all types of stone become glass I don't think ...or at least not all of the ones that I've tried. Then again maybe I haven't got them hot enough? That's another problem too. It's almost impossible to find a way to keep the temperature hot enough. Usually I find some that has been melted already. That's the easiest way."

"So after my lessons are done, normally I try to paint ..or at least sketch. There's loads of charcoal around from our fires. Sometimes I sketch what I see, or sketch things I'm thinking about ... sometimes I try to take notes during my lessons, but that doesn't usually work out that well as we're normally moving about. I wonder if I could draw what I was learning, if that would help me remember better?" A look of contemplation crosses her features for a moment before she shakes her head - and the thought - away.

"But yes. Mostly I just paint." She reiterates with a broad smile.

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2.1 You accidentally got your hooves on and drank a bad potion. How do you feel?

The sun rises over Sedo, but Kolr does not rise with it. Instead, she is curled in a rather uncomfortable looking position beneath a cactus which towers over her frail and pale form beneath. You can see that a few of the cactus' spines have pricked Kolr in the rump. They - and everything else about the scene - make the entire thing look rather uncomfortable.

Hours go by and still the girl does not stir.

Her heartbeat - if you could possibly hear it from where you are - beats so slowly and silently that many an untrained eye might call her dead. Indeed with her ashen features and rib-y body, she does not look far from emaciated. But the heart beat is there, just as real as the colours that line her face. But unlike the colours, it is simply much harder to detect. Slowly and seemingly with much effort Kolr awakens. The sun has already made quite a bit of progress across the sky, making the hour a much later one than Kolr normally rises beneath. Groggily Kolr's eyes blink open, but the usual vibrancy of her blue gaze is no where to be seen. It is muddled and grotesquely changed by burst blood vessels behind her eyes. She looks like a creature from the stories she was told as a young filly to make her behave (not that she ever needed that sort of coaxing. Kolr had always been an incredibly obedient child), and if she had a mirror, she likely would have been frightened by her own reflection. Trying to sit up, Kolr felt weaker than she normally did. A nice sprint beneath the noon-day sun was always out of the question, but even so, Kolr had always been able to move her own bodyweight around. Currently though, she found it an excessive struggle just to pull her head off of the sand, and by the time she found herself resting on her collapsed limbs, a sheen of sweat had broken out around her eyes, nose, and ears.

"Mmm.." Kolr began and then immediately stopped. Her tongue was swollen and felt chalky in her mouth. Opening her lips as if this effect was something that needed to be physically expelled from her body, Kolr let out a loud snort and smacked her lips together loudly. No saliva came though, and her tongue remained as chunky as it was before. Through a memory blurred by poison, Kolr tried to recall what on earth had landed her in this position. She was not one to partake in any of the special beverages created, and she tried her best to stay away from the smoke which would billow from sweetly-smelling burning reeds. She found they clouded her mind and her eyes, and when she painted under these influences her work always seemed tainted somehow.

So how had she come to be like this?

The fog cleared slightly, and Kolr recalled having found a beautiful green pigment in the algae at the bottom of a rather brackish bit of water. Having nothing to put it in, Kolr had carefully put it between her teeth and carried it back to where she kept her supplies so she could properly prepare it. Had that been the cause? Had some of the poison from a frog gotten onto it, or did the algae itself possess whatever it was that could cause this sort of damage?

I bet we learned about this in herbology...Kolr thought rather sulkily to herself, allowing her body to collapse back to the warm sands, happy to be able to use the strength of the earth to hold herself up, rather than resorting to her muscles.

"Worth....-i..t.." Kolr mumbled happily to herself, seeing the beautiful bit of green pigment in her mind, that she had created, as sickly oblivion obscured her vision and pulled her back to sleep.

[649/600]

2.2 What’s your favorite place in your herd's realm? Why is it your favorite? Tell us about it!

"Well..." Kolr begins, trying to think. "I mean, I don't really leave Ziuseset a lot...I don't really need to, it has so much of what I need right here."

For a moment Kolr says nothing, she simply looks down at her hooves which point towards one another, rather than straight ahead as they should. "I mean .. it is a bit difficult for me to travel, you see, and so...well, I haven't really been around the whole continent. I've heard of all the places though! I think I'd really like to go to God's landing one day ... perhaps if I can." Her shoulders rise and then collapse back to her body as a wooosh of disappointed air leaves her thin frame.

"But like I said, almost everything I need is right here! Without even leaving the capital city I can experience just about everything that Sedo has to offer. " A smile creases her features and for a moment it's hard to tell whether or not it's genuine. Then as it spreads, you think that it must be.

Was Osulas Kolr's favourite place? That was hard to say. It was such a busy place that often times Kolr found herself wanting to find some peace and quiet. And so, she'd walk to the outskirts of the city and into the golden-white sands to try and find some respite from it all. But that didn't mean that it wasn't her favourite place, did it? Maybe she was meant to be more specific? "There's a place near the port, where you can see far, far off into ... well, into nothing really. It's a place where it looks like the sea just sort of becomes the sky, especially if you're there at the right time of day. I do like being around the port, because of the sea, but it does get so noisy. And so normally I go just a little ways off-" At this Kolr looks down at knees as if to indicate that they are the reason it is only a little ways off, "-and take it in from there. The angle isn't as good for painting, but I can use my imagination." Just imagining it now brought a small shutter across Kolr's shoulders. She could hear the shouts of horses bringing things to and from ships, of merchants and traders loudly discussing their wares...how could anyone possibly think with all that going on?!

"Really, I love just about anywhere in Sedo." Kolr began after a few moments lost in the whirlwind of her memory. "But ... I do like it more when it is a bit quieter. Not that I don't love being around my herd-family, it's just ... sometimes I can be so hard to think, you know? And when the world is quiet, I feel like I can really pay attention and notice all of its little details. So really, anywhere I can do that is my favourite. It doesn't take much." Kolr wasn't really sure whether or not this answered the question, but she wasn't sure what else there really was for her to say. Unfortunately she just ... didn't get out much, and so that left the list of potential favourite places quite short. She assumed that others had much richer tales to tell about their best and most secretive places ... places that they just happened upon by accident, or that were shown to them by friends or family. Kolr had no such stories to share, because of course she was rather barred from those sorts of experiences.

Hopefully she smiles at you, truly trying to answer the question to the best of her (limited) ability.

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2.3 Have you ever met someone outside your herd?

"Outside the herd?"

Kolr stares blankly for a moment, wondering if perhaps this is a trick question. You do know you're in the Serora herd, right? Kolr wants to say, but of course she doesn't. That type of response might seem sarcastic or snippy, which of course isn't how she means it. What she wants to say, or at list hint at, is how unusual the question is for a Seroran. Likely one of the kindest and most welcoming of the herds, they are also the most socially isolated. With her inward pointing hooves and youth, Kolr is a poor candidate to become a trader like her parents are, which is the only other real way she'd have contact with anyone from outside the herd.

"No I'm sorry to say I haven't." She begins, her voice a mumble. Suddenly a look of concern creases her pale features. "I mean, it's not that I'm disappointed I haven't, because of course I love my life here. I don't mind at all that..but-" Again concern clouded over her. Kolr looked as though she was grappling for words which were just out of her reach. A little huff of annoyance left her lips, but quickly she clamped them together lest it sound as though she was annoyed by you. "Maybe not disappointed, because it isn't like I wouldn't want to meet someone from outside the herd. It's just that-" For a moment Kolr seems utterly youthful and utterly lost. She tries so hard to ensure that nothing she says is ever contradictory or offensive, that often she isn't sure what she can say. As is the case now, how is she supposed to communicate that she's simultaneously okay with the way things are, but that she'd equally be alright if the way things were was to change? Swallowing hard, her baby-blue eyes skirt around the sands as if the answer to this question is laying on top of the reddish-orange granuals.

"I've heard lots of things from others though. My parents are traders, and so they come home with the absolute best stories. Sometimes Vagabonds come home with our traders, but it isn't super often." Kolr's slender shoulders rise and fall. "I've never had a chance to meet any of them, obviously or I would have told you about it! Normally I'm off doing something, or there's so much commotion that I usually stay away. I don't want to be an imposition you see, and since I have nothing to offer yet I just try not to be in the way. This usually means that I miss out on a lot of the action, but I don't mind." Kolr's cheeks plump up as she smiles. You can tell that this isn't a pretence at all - Kolr isn't trying to be modest or polite (although she is always trying to be polite). She genuinely is alright with missing out on the more juicy goings-on in the herd. Kolr would much rather stick to the background, than push herself too hard and have her handicap become readily apparent for all to see.

"There was a story once of a Vagabond who had bells attached to almost every part of his body!" Kolr continues, her smile widening at the memory. "Mother told me about him. Everytime he moved it was like a symphony of bells choreographing his every movement! I didn't see him, as he didn't return back with the traders to Sedo, but I can still imagine it." Kolr shook her head slightly and closed her eyes, imagining what it might be like to hear bells chiming as she did so. "But maybe one day." She concludes before falling silent.

[616/600]

2.4 Have you had a spiritual experience?

"Hmmmmmmm.." What an interesting question. Kolr had certainly never had any visions from Alya or anything like that. She'd heard of others who had, like the oracles. But of course they had had visions, that's part of what made them so special! And it was in virtue of them being special that Alya had appeared to them. Some had even seen her, Kolr knew. The pale girl couldn't imagine what it would be like to stay before the goddess of the winds and the air. Well, probably she shouldn't be standing, actually. She should be falling on her knees to pray, or perhaps it wasn't even polite to look Alya directly in the eye? Realizing she was getting off-track, Kolr shook her head slightly and tried to refocus.

"No, I don't think that I have. Although sometimes when I paint I feel..." Her voice trails off and her eyes grow slightly distant as she tries to think of the words she means to say. In her minds-eye she can imagine the serene blissful feeling that falls over her during prolonged hours of painting. It doesn't always come though, but when it does, the world seems to fall away and everything becomes very very quiet. Only it doesn't.

If she's painting the sands, then they sing to her and they dance. If she's painting the water, it sparkles and becomes like a diamond beneath the sun. If she were to paint the grasses or the trees, then they would grow and die and be reborn all under her hungry gaze. It was like nothing else she could describe. Almost like being transported to another world. If Kolr had been more familiar with hallucinogenic drugs, she might have compared it to an extremely peaceful trip. There were no side effects, only the serenity of seeing things the way nature had intended.

"Well, I feel like ...like maybe I see the world as Alya does." The words leave her lips and Kolr looks up hesitantly, wondering if what she's said is blasphemous or obtuse. "Of course I have no idea how Alya sees the world ... it's just ... it's just so amazing. And if I can see something like that, then surely Alya can too. And so maybe that's how she sees all the time, and I just get a brief glimpse of it?" Her voice fades at the end, as if she's dug herself in too deep and now she doesn't know what to do. On the one hand the comparison with Alya makes sense in her mind: if Kolr is able to see something magnificent, it would be impossible for her to see it and for Alya not, since Alya is so powerful. But on the other hand, why on earth would Kolr be able to see even a fraction of what Alya could? She was no one - just a small folken girl with turned-in knees and a rather small voice.

Perhaps it was just chance?

"Maybe that isn't the sort of thing that you mean anyways. It really is too bad you can't just read all of my thoughts at once!" Kolr blurts, laughing in a silly manner and shaking her head. "Because maybe what I see when I paint really is the sort of thing you mean, and maybe it isn't! It isn't the type of thing oracles see ... but is that the only kind of spiritual experience that exists?" Pursing her lips together, the pale girl falls silent. "But I'm rambling. My apologies." Closing her mouth for good now, Kolr tries to force the memories of golden sands and diamond waves from her minds-eye but finds it difficult. Her way of viewing the world is so much more beautiful.

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2.5 Your leader has just sent you on a mission. What is it? What do you do?

"Oh well, I am probably much too young to be sent on any sort of mission. And even if I weren't, there is probably someone more suited than me? But oh .. I suppose if I really were going to be sent ... well...I think I'd be sent to make a map.

Sedo is so large that many of us don't ever leave here. What reason would there be to go anywhere else, when everything you could ever want is right here?" Kolr begins, her voice light and her eyes beaming. "So even without leaving I think that there would be a need for a map here .. If ever the Screamers weren't around to direct the herd away from possible dangers or places to be watchful of, perhaps a map could serve to assist in the same way." It of course isn't Kolr's place to provide safety options for the herd, but on this topic she has had a few thoughts. And cartography has been one of her favourite past-times for as long as she could remember. "Or if that's a bit too much responsibility, a map showing off some of the various locations would be nice too. Almost like a sight-seeing tour?" She smiles hopefully at the thought. Yes. Sight-seeing actually seems much more at her speed than creating a map showing potentially dangerous areas.

"I should probably say that if Baram ever asked me to do anything, that of course I would." Kolr adds sheepishly and hastily. "They really are a wonderful Sultan, and I would do whatever it was they asked." Kolr felt the need to outright articulate her loyalty to her Sultan, in case it wasn't clear enough.

"Materials would certainly be an interesting challenge.." Kolr continued, voicing her thoughts as her mind created them. "I wouldn't be able to use my normal canvas, because I presume a map would need to be more flexible. It would need to be rolled up into a tube and carried in a pack ... I wonder if leather might not work better than some sort of paper..." Hmmming away, Kolr tried to envision if she would be able to find leather supple and thin enough for this task. "As for pigments, presumably you'd want a fairly high contrast so that the map would be easiest to read. Would colours be strictly necessary?" Falling silent again, Kolr pondered this. On the one hand, having additional colours other than black would increase the contrast between different elements, separating mountain ranges from trees, for example. But they could also clutter and complicate the map unnecessarily. "You know, I don't know. I suppose I would ask Baram what they thought of the whole thing, and just do whatever they said."

Kolr had been avoiding the most complicated part of this entire question, and that was the actual doing part of it. Not the cartography bit, but the adventuring bit. She wouldn't be able to take second-hand accounts of the terrain if she was going to put her own stamp of approval on a map. No, no. She would have to see things for herself. But given the state of her body and how her knees (sort of) worked, trekking all the way across Sedo seemed like an absolutely impossible task. "Maybe someone could pull me in a cart? Or perhaps I could be magic'd so as to make everything easier?" She says, her voice rising at the end as if to suggest a question. Was such a thing possible? Would anyone pull her across the entire continent just so that she could draw a silly map?

"Hmmmm...maybe this is why I haven't been asked to share any of my cartography skills yet.." She concludes, her voice falling low at the end, indicating her disappointment in her abilities.

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2.6 What do you do in your spare time?

Oh! Immediately Kolr brightens for this is certainly a question that she can answer. "I paint!" The expression on Kolr's face is one of absolute joy. Despite how slow she can seem sometimes (both mentally and physically) on the subject of aesthetics and Kolr's particular set of artistic skills, there is almost no one who can best her. Although she is still young, Kolr has shown a penchant for painting from a very early age. She spends so much of her time dabbling with different pigments in fact, that it's unclear whether the splashes of colour on her face are actually just that (paint), or whether her body has simply given up and become permanently coloured.

"I like painting best, but I do other things too." She begins, showing you some of her tools. "These are brushes I've created-" She spreads them out carefully, adjusting each one so that they lay perfectly parallel to one another. You can see that she has used a number of different mediums to create the bristles of each one, and no two are alike. "You see, some I used hair for, others vines, and some even have scales! They all provide the most interesting textures, and really, that's the most important thing." Turning, she directs your gaze towards a number of small pots and jars. "This is where I keep my pigment. Some need to be kept cool, others need to have water added...It really depends on how I made them." As a demonstration, Kolr lifts the lid off of a greenish-looking jar holding an identically green-ish looking liquid. Immediately she recoils and quickly you find out why: there is the most disgusting smell wafting up towards you. Kolr hurriedly puts the lid back on. Looking to you she smiles apologetically. "Erm..I think that was from the swamp..." Her shoulders rise and fall as a sheepish grin spreads across her features. "Greens can be so complicated! So when I find the right shade I have to take it ... regardless of the source." Her nose wrinkles comically as she puts the little jars back away.

"And for canvas, I can paint on almost anything. Hide, rocks, wood...although I liked dried out leaves the best. They really hold onto the pigment, whereas stone washes away, and wood absorbs it too much. But because I can't always go that far, I sometimes have to just take what I can get." Despite this obvious reference to her disability, she doesn't look that upset.

"I'm also trying to learn to do other things...like work with glass or stone. It's much harder though to find materials, and even harder still to make them workable. Not all types of stone become glass I don't think ...or at least not all of the ones that I've tried. Then again maybe I haven't got them hot enough? That's another problem too. It's almost impossible to find a way to keep the temperature hot enough. Usually I find some that has been melted already. That's the easiest way."

"So after my lessons are done, normally I try to paint ..or at least sketch. There's loads of charcoal around from our fires. Sometimes I sketch what I see, or sketch things I'm thinking about ... sometimes I try to take notes during my lessons, but that doesn't usually work out that well as we're normally moving about. I wonder if I could draw what I was learning, if that would help me remember better?" A look of contemplation crosses her features for a moment before she shakes her head - and the thought - away.

"But yes. Mostly I just paint." She reiterates with a broad smile.

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