Risa

"Risa! Come and get yourself some dinner before we eat it all!" Risa carefully put her things to one side at the sound of her fathers voice, before rushing into the dinning room, and sat down at the table. In front of her lay a big, steaming plate of stew, made with the various leftovers from the rest of the weeks meals. She pulled a face, and stuck out her tounge at it; she hated end of week meals. Sometimes they were good, but most of the time they were really weird. But she had to eat it, or else not be allowed down from the table. Reluctantly, she began to eat it, and after a while, she finished it all off. Smiling sweetly, she fluttered her eyelids at her father, "Is it all right if I go out and play now?" He shook his head, and laughed at her, "Alright then, but don't be too long, okay?"

Risa nodded eargly, put her plate in the sink, and washed it quickly, before pulling on her boots and skipping outside. Without even thinking about it, she headed into the unowned land next door, and explored it as she always did. Cruix had such a wide variety of plant life, and it was fun to draw the ones she could find in this forested area. She wandered casually around for a while, straying only a little further than she usually would. Doing so, though, she saw ahead of her a group of trees that were slightly darker than the rest a little further on. She knew she shouldn't really head out much further, but she just had to go and see it, and it had to be now. For all she knew, if she didn't go now she may never be able to find those trees again. So, going against all her best instincts, she headed deeper into the wooded area until she reached those trees. Not for one moment did she regret that decision. It was beautiful there, and so she settled herself against a rock, and proceeded to shape the fork she had managed to sneak from the kitchen. Finally settling on the design of a flower, she pearched the fork in her hair over her right ear, and settled back to enjoy the scenery. Out of the cornor of her eye, she saw something moving amongst the plants ahead of her, and after a while, her eyes managed to pick out the shape of what it was. A young Rykil, sitting and staring in her direction, although, she didn't seem to be looking at Risa.

"Hi!" Risa called out, with a smile on her face. The Rykil seemed to jump at the sound of her voice, turned to face her, and huddled deeper in the grass around her, followed shortly by her reply, "Hi... I-I'm Vles... Vesles-'Meset." Vles creeped slightly closer, and Risa introduced herself in reply, "I'm Risa! Risa Valenview! You don't live here, do you?" After all, if someone had bought this land, she wouldn't be allowed to run around in it for fun.

"N-nice to meet you Risa..." Vles smiled slightly, before shaking her head, and pointing in the opposite direction to where Risa had come from, "I live that way. What are you?" The unusual question didn't really seem to falter Risa. The fact that Vles didn't seem to be looking completely at her, more sort of through her, caused Risa to assume that the Rykil had problems with seeing. Rather than upset or offend her new friend, though, she refaind from asking, "Saklarian! My sister is a Rykil, though! Like you!"

"That's really cool!" Vles excitedly responded, a smile lighting up her face. She moved a little closer to Risa, but stopped suddenly, "Why do you have something... metal?" Laughing, Risa pulled the "flower" out of her hair, and twirled it around her fingers, "It's a fork. Or it was. You couldn't really use it for that now. I was just sitting here shaping it when I saw you. Wanna see?" Crawling forward, away from her rock, she placed the fork into Vles' hands, and she proceeded to run her hands all over it, her head tilted down in it's direction.

"You did this with a fork? That's really neat!" Vles held the fork back out to her, and giggling, Risa took it back, replacing it into her hair.

"It's not that hard. I can shape metals. Well, as long as they're not too heavy..."

"That's cool! I can just smell things really well..." Risa grasped Vles' hand in hers excitedly, "I can make you something if you like?"

"You'd really do that for someone you just met?" Vles replied, gasping a little in surprise at the offer, and Risa replied promptly, nodding excitedly, causing her whole body to shake, "Corse I would! We're friends now, right?"

"Yes, friends!" Vles smiled at the young Saklarian, and began to feel Risa's hands in her own, "Your hands are really smooth, you don't deal with metal all day, do you?" Risa thought about this, kind of unsure how to answer, eventually just saying, "Well, I play with metal a lot... But it doesn't really affect my hands. When I want it to, metal just seems to turn to putty in my hands."

"That's really neat," Vles inquiered eagerly, "How big is the biggest metal thing you've worked with?"

"Well, I mainly only ever use the cutlery I've sneaked from the kitchen... But I sometimes try and bend them togethor. It doesn't always work, but I'd say I've so far been able to get five or six all at once."

"Well, that's still pretty cool!"

"How much can you smell, then?" Risa knew that Rykil had better senses than she did, but the comment Vles had made earlier seemed to imply to her that she could smell even better than that... Scratching her head, Vles thought about how to answer her, "Well... Lets see... Ya'know those old dogs from Earth? My smelling is similar to a breed with really good smelling abilities; a bloodhound I believe they were called... But I can smell like they can... I can smell what you had... what's the word... stew? For dinner." She leaned back a little, and then sat down, careful to avoid the flowers around her. Risa grabbed her new friends hand tightly, "Wow! That's so cool!"

"It's nothing, really...Risa, we're friends, right? Friends tell other friends things, right?" Risa nodded eagerly before answering, "Corse we are! And we shall always, always be friends!" After which, she nodded solomnly, as if it would completely answer the question. Vles took a deep breath before continuing, "I'm glad we'll always be friends. Risa, I can't see. I never have.." Risa just paused for a while, unsure of how to answer, but, knowing she couldn't do that forever, she just said the first thing that came to her head.

"How do you find your way around?"

"Well... I have to use my other senses..." Vles replied blinking in surprise at the question, "Hearing and smell and touch are the main ones... and my sense of smell being really good to begin with helps." Vles smiled and Risa happily replied, "Cool!" She was just mainly relieved not to of offended her.

"I wish I could do that! Then it'd be sooo much easier to find my way around in the dark. And I wouldn't have to open my eyes if I'm tierd or head-achey."

"I could help you to try and learn..." Vles smiled, pluckinng a strand of grass, and twisting it around her hand, "First you gotta close your eyes." Risa promptly did so, eager to learn what could help her notice what others didn't; it was fun to annoy them by pointing it out, "Okay then! What next?" Taking a deep breath, Vles continued with the explaination.

"Take a deep breath, then let it out slowly. Once you've done that, just listen... Hear your surroundings, smell...listen.. feel works better indoors, but..." She broke of a little here, her voice trailing, but resumed soon enough, "If you're wearing shoes, maybe you could take them off and feel the rock... What do you here?" Risa flicked off her shoes, and did as instructed, just letting the sounds wash over her. She started by listing the obvious things; the animals, the plants rutling in the wind, but she tried to hear the less noticable. The rock was cool and hard under her feet, and the smell of the plants was refreshing. "I think I can hear something else in the distance, but I'm not sure what..." It sounded sort of like someone shouting, but she wasn't really sure.

"Yeah... Someone is yelling... I think I should go, Risa... Wanna meet up here same time tomorrow?" Risa re-opened her eyes at the sound of Vles' voice, "Yes, lets! But can it be a little earlier? I wasn't meant to be out this long as it is." She smiled bashfully, more to herself than to Vles, and beagn to pull her shoes back on.

"So, I'll see you tommorrow?"

Vles smiled and nodded, "Sure!" She then stood and stretched.

"See you then!" she added, before heading back into the trees towards her home, and Risa did the same.

The metal chain flexed easily in her hands, as she split and swirled and looped its links to the shapes she desired. She carefully placed each of them into the sculpture she had made. Chain, cutlery and scraps of metal of various colours, curling and entwining around each of in complex shapes. She had many such things decorating her room, infact, she could barely move around in it. Maybe she should listen to her farther and try to sell some of them. Maybe then she could afford her own place. Heck she was 27 and still hadn't moved out. Tasnim, her sister, had moved out 4 years ago! Either way, some of this stuff had to go. Sighing, Risa looked at the flyer that her father had given her when she came back from one of her frequent trips to see Vles'. It was advertising a local art show for that would begin tommorow, anyone could come and sell there art, buy other peoples art, or just go to view. She'd been planning on going anyway, but maybe she should take his advice, and try and sell something. It was worth a shot. If no-one wanted to buy anything, she could just take it back home. She didn't really care it people liked her art or not: she liked it and that was what mattered. Anything was worth a try once, right?

The hustle and bustle within the gigantic hall was intimidating, but Risa ignored it as best she could as she set up the final sculpture of the many she had bought here to sell. She'd turned up early, so as to get enough ground for her sculptures to fit on, but it seemed the other artists had done the same. Still, she had just enough room it seemed. She had organised them into a kind of spiral, with similar colours placed next to each other, so that from above it would look gradient from one colour to another. Kind of pointless to be arranged that way, but it helped keep her mind off of the stress of the moment. Risa looked around her. It seemed that the number of people were increasing. Good thing she didn't actually have to be in here while they were looking around at the art for sale. She was going to go and see Vles' during the day, and come back and see if anything had sold; it would be easier for her than having to deal with everyone walking past her, looking at the art, and no-one buying anything. At least this way she wouldn't have to worry about it until the end of the day. Due to how rapidly the ammount of people coming in was increasing, Risa assumed that it had finally opened to the public. She'd better get out of there pronto.

Risa stood outside the gigantic hall that she had been in just hours before. The few people that were still inside were trailing out, carrying their spoils from the art show. Well, this is it, she thought to herself time to find out if my art is any good... She closed her eyes, breathing deeply to calm herself down, before she quickly proceeded inside, not thinking about what she would do if she hadn't sold even one sculpture. She headed over to the Valanu who had been handling the sales for the day. He looked over the top of his glasses at her, as she asked him about her sculptures. He reluctantly began to flick through all of the sales records until he found what he was looking for.

"Ah yes. Here it is. Thirteen of your sculptures have been sold." He handed the money out to her, and she took it, staring at it in amazment.

"But...but...but that means that there are only three left! I sold thirteen sculptures?!" The Valanu just shrugged, and turned back to his work, "Your other sculptures are where you left them for you to take home." Still slightly in a daze, she nodded, and headed over to them, counting the money as she did so. There wasn't that much there, but still enoungh to convince her that her art wasn't totally useless... Maybe in time she would have enough to move out on her own. Obviously, just selling her art wouldn't be enough to get by on reguarly, but she'd get a side job to make up for that; maybe at a checkout or something. Either way, making her art would be something she would never stop doing.

Risa pushed open the door to the shop, the little bell ringing, and headed over to the counter. She'd finally forced herself to get a job. After the art expedition she realised that she did actually have ability to fend for herself: she didn't need to sponge from her dad. Since then, she had been searching everywhere for a job, but one that wouldn't be too hard and would give her alot of free time. Eventually, she settled for two shop jobs. Unfortunately, the first turned her down, but the second snapped her up after the interview. The human behind the counter, as she entered, was the owner of the shop, Mr.Leigh. He was a strange man, in that he never seemed to show any emotion. But that didn't bother Risa. As long as he paid her, he could have as many emotions as he wanted. When he noticed her, he rummaged around underneath the counter for something, "Ah, Risa. You're here. Lets get you started straight away." He chucked her the apron that was to be her apron, and proceeded to show her how to work the till, as well as everything else she would need to know. It didn't take long, and pretty soon he left her to deal with the customers, while he went to check stock.

It wasn't a difficult job. Customers came to the till with what they wanted, paid and left. Sometimes they would ask her for something in particular, and she would have to search everywhere to see if they stocked it, but even that wasn't a problem. It wasn't the best job in the world, but by setting some of her pay aside for a flat, some for food and clothes, and some for art materials, she would slowly but surely become more independant from her father, although still living with him.