abrightboy | Voicemail (IC Contact Post) NEW

[She laughs.] You might win and have to wait for me.

[A pause, and then...] Do you want to keep me company while I work on something else I hope Will might like? Taylor is in a coma, and if I stay in her cabin much longer I'm going to remodel another room. I already did a mosaic mural in her bedroom last time.

I was about to go home to my own.

You're working on something for Will? I'd love to help. What is it?

Come and see. My cabin is the one on Level 5 with mosaics on the door. I'll meet you there. [The outside of the door is simple geometric motifs, but he'll see that she's gone way overboard inside the cabin.]

[He's very curious, so he goes there, examining the mosaic while he waits for her.]

Ulla is in human form today, in a pair of leggings and a t-shirt that says "Sting like a butterfly, float like a bee" (obviously stolen from Taylor) rather than her usual gowns, since she plans on kneeling in the sand for the next few hours.

"Hello, Malcolm." She opens the door onto an unconventional cabin. Inside it is a small beach, dark grey sand sloping down to a grotto that's usually underwater. It's like low tide now, the only water filling a couple of tide pool trenches Ulla dug to either side of the cavern entrance. Off to the side, a curved ramp leads up to a balcony.

The door and the ramp are all covered in mosaics in pearl and shell and precious stone. Ulla needed a hobby. Unlike the patterns on the outside of the door, the inside, notably, is more personal, featuring a wolf, butterflies, a barnacle goose, and a pool of water with a pair of chimera fish. That side is on full display as soon as he's through the doorway so she can shut it.

The ramp is ocean themed, from deep and dark at the base up to filtered sunlight at the top. And her balcony is definitely designed for human shaped people, filled with a lamp and a pair of comfy armchairs and Ulla's wooden harp carved with Celtic knotwork.

"The thing for Will isn't really a gift. But it's something I hope he'll appreciate."

He’s still looking, rapt, at the mosaics around him once he’s inside,

“What is it?” he asks without looking away from them.

"I'm going to scour and remake the mosaic inside the door. He knows everything on it is a symbol for someone who matters to me, and I don't really have room to add anything new. I want it done before we all have dinner here."

There is already a wolf, but, "The wolf on there now is for Warren, not Will."

He turns around to look at the door.

“Will is more brown.”

She grins. "We were wolves in the breach that gave him to me. I remember."

“I’m not brown. I wonder what dictates our colours,” Malcolm muses.

"I never thought about that." Huh.

"Let me get something to spread below the door and catch things." With the water lowered, most of her blankets and towels are down in the grotto instead of needing to stay safely dry on the balcony, so Ulla heads down the slope of sand.

"...Are we going to drop things?" Malcolm asks curiously, turning to see where she goes.

"Some of what I scrape off the door, we can reuse," she calls softly over her shoulder, and she'll be back with a cotton blanket to spread below the door to catch pearls and shells and stones.

He looks at the mural with wide eyes, then looks at her almost disbelieving.

“We’re scraping it off?”

"I told you, there's no room left for anything new. I have to redesign it to add Will." She purses her lips. "It's alright. I leave most of my art alone. But people aren't static. Our lives change. And if I want the most personal piece of art I have here to reflect that, sometimes that means remaking it. I'll pull it apart, and then put it back together."

"But... didn't it take you a long time?" Malcolm asks.

"Is time a scarce commodity on the Barge?" Ulla counters. "I need projects, especially with Taylor down again."

"I guess not." He pauses, looks at the mural again. "Do you have a picture of this version?"

The question surprises her, and Ulla tilts her head. "It's never occurred to me to take pictures of anything. We don't have those, where I come from. Sildroher don't have technology, or even written language. I have a good memory and I visualize things well. That's always had to suffice."

Malcolm takes out his phone, snaps a picture and then puts his phone back in his pocket.

"There you go." He smiles. "How do we take the pieces down?"

"I'll sing them down. You can help me and Hjerte sort them, if you'd like." Speaking of Hjerte, he's going to emerge from Ulla's satchel, where he's been chilling since she set it down on the sand, and help her spread the blanket.

"Hello, Malcolm," says the octopus in a warm baritone.

"Hi Hjerte," Malcolm replies, sitting crosslegged on the ground in front of the blanket. "I bet you can sort things four times more quickly than I can."

Hjerte laughs indulgently, and as Ulla starts quietly singing a wordless tune, he'll reply, "I also have more practice at it. She keeps singing supplies for mosaics when we get bored."

"I'll try and keep up a reasonable amount," Malcolm assures him. He sits down on the floor, watching the wall while Ulla sings.

Ulla will join them in sorting even while she finishes singing, pearls and shell and stone dropping to the blanket she's spread as a dropcloth. Some of her notes are a bit rough and abrasive, which is only fitting as they scrape the surface of the door clean.

Then she grins at them both for a second before her design consultation. "What do you think, Hjerte? Warren sitting above the pool, and Will laying below it? Maybe I'll put you on the door too. You can help balance out James symmetrically, if I have his goose on one side and an octopus on the opposite. His graduation gave you to me, so that feels appropriate. And Jasper's in the pool, so he'll be beside Will, also fitting."

Hjerte chuckles. "If you like. It did feel a little unbalanced since you added James, but you know you're bound to add someone else eventually, whether you like it or not. That's part of why Warren left you here."

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