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Writing Corner assignment; It was a trite platitude, but that didn't make it any less accurate."

May I, Good Gentle? I crave a minute of your attention for I wish to give you a present, a lesson, as was taught to me when I was young, by the Journiers who worked with me. I will tell you the story as I was told it, I mean by this is that you asked me a question, "Why is there a ding or blemish on each pot, clearly put there intentionally by someone?"

I will first give you my bone fides. I was a good and well behaved pup, I was schooled and brought up here, in the midlands. And while I am a master potter, I am a potter of no great renown; I have a pottery -- this is true. I will not tell you false.

But I have a story to tell about a potter of greater renoun, my Master, the leopard born as "Restive Carries a Ball", known as LaRayeen, who signed her pots Lurie.

Lurie was apprenticed at an early age, as punishment for not being like her sisters. They were all dainty and demure, and quiet, as befits daughters of a leopard and a Counselor of such rank; State's Counselor to the King. Lurie on the other hand was a wild cub, active and impulsive as a raccoon! Always too curious, always trying to understand, always asking questions which, I must state I don't know what they were, but the story is that some few of them were, "Indelicate."

In frustration or because of pressure from the sisters, Lurie's father took her far away, and sold her to be apprenticed to a Master Potter, and there she learned her trade.

Some say she learned too well, instead of six years to make Journier, she learned everything they had to teach her, in three, maybe four. She was so productive that she worked off her complete apprentices' debt in five years. Instead of four years as a Journier, she completed her knowledge, some say in two. Others say she surpassed all the requirements and was already as skilled as a master potter before she finished her apprenticeship, and there is no proof either way; those who love her say 'yes,' those who envy her say 'no,' and those who both love her and envy her are potters today.

Lurie made pots, and by the time she was made Master of Pottery, she was teaching at Schollia Noestern, the university of the Northern Midlands, and had a waiting list of two years long for pottery -- not pottery made by she, herself --but from us, her Assistants and Journiers. The pottery she made was bought and resold and resold again, and it bringing prices unheard of. Museums would come and beg her for "a thing, just a thing, any pot at all that you have that we might display? It doesn't have to be perfect." And that was the thing, you see?

She kept improving, getting better and better. She refined new ways to construct the dragon kiln, she invented new ways to compound the glazes, she understood how to load the kiln so that the greens would be bright and vibrant, and still the reds would not be over-fired. And oh, hey, that's not easy. She was driven to produce, and improve, and we all marveled.

Some will say, "Oh, it was pride." Some will say, "Oh, it was revenge." Some will say, "Oh, no, it was to prove this or that to her sisters, ... or to her father." I think that, -- I don't know -- maybe she was trying to work off some Kharmic debt she owed. I do know, for she was our Master, that her creativity was beyond our understanding. And all the Journiers marveled at her vision and understanding of forms.

And that led to the trouble.

She worked hard at her wheel, was driven to. We had undertaken all her teaching work to allow her to invent and develop her skill and as she taught us, we taught others, and still everyone improved, and still she strove to make the perfect form, the most perfect pot. Working hard all day, and then after dinner late into the night.

Her pottery was so good, we would look at a piece and stare at it, trying to understand what made it so good, what made it so sought after? What was its charm? Why did it draw one's heart to it so? It was a magical thing, what ever she had, it was past our ability to copy -- no matter how we tried. Then the Journiers from the glass blowers and the tilers guilds came to her to learn. And the other Masters were wroth, to have their students come to her for her knowledge, and there was 'talk'. And still she drover herself.

One day we were at work, I was wedging clay and she was wedging clay and we were together working at the same table, and I asked, "Master, why do you still strive so hard, your pottery is the best, there is nothing its equal?" And she answered me, "It is not perfect." And she turned away and went to her wheel, and didn't come out for her lunch, but went to bed late. As this story got around, two students; a Darwist the other a Satyrist, got into it -- nails and pearls-- arguing about perfection and whether or not that offended the gods, and which. And if her search for perfection would anger them or not.

We were going to fire the dragon kiln, and I, having worked so hard had earned a pause to go visit my father who was ill, and comfort my mother, and tend to such details as must the oldest son of the family. Now, know; I was away from the studio when these events happened, but I was told this by my bother Journiers when I returned.

Lurie came out just before lunch one day, and announced, "I have thrown the pot. We will not fire the kiln until it is ready. And so they waited for her -- for the kiln was loaded almost full and ready, but a place left open at the top near the center for her pot. She went back into her studio and asked for water, and some fruit. And they brought it to her, and she took those from them and locked her door behind her. And for a day and a half there was no sound to be heard from that room, but the grinding of the large muller, and some splashes of water. We know that because there were apprentices posted by her door to answer her any need, but there was no word from her till noon the next day. She came out then, and brought the pot - carefully carried, and loaded it into the top of the kiln herself, and bricked the door closed herself and sealed it off with clay, and she placed the new little dragon figurines atop along the arch to watch over the firing. And then -she- started the fire, and -she- loaded the small wood, and -she- loaded the large wood, and still called for more wood, and they brought it. And she stood and watched, or sat and watched, or ate and watched; but she stayed and loaded wood, nor left her post until it was finished firing and left to cool. She went to her rooms then, and slept that day and night and late into the next morning.

She seemed to know that it would be perfect, I guess, for she ordered a place built to display the pot. Oh, not a shrine, certainly! But had a large display pedestal ordered from the Wainwrights' Guild, to be made and gilded and painted, and ready in two days -- hardly enough time for the paint to dry, but it was made and delivered in three, and they say it was magnificent, green and blue and turquoise, and gilt, -- but still she waited to open the kiln. It is true, some of the products ordered would be delivered late, but they said she didn't care. And still the kiln was closed. And she would go to it putting her ear against it, and mutter, and then listen to it again, but didn't open it but sat and waited. And when the time was right, she opened up the kiln, and smiled. I am telling you this, as I was told, I was away tending my obligations.

My father continued to improve, but slowly, and I was eager to have him in good health, so I would know what to do; go or stay. Improvement was slow and I was restive to return, but was delayed and so missed unloading of the kiln.

They tell me it was magnificent, magical, they tell me they will describe it to me! Then they look far away, into the distance, and smile quietly then say it was, "Beautiful, perfect, just beautiful."

She unloaded the top of the kiln, herself. She handed off pottery until she came to the one pot of hers, the perfect pot. The apprentices were stunned, the Jouniers speechless, but she held it up and cradled it in her arms, and held it up over her head, and carried it into her shop. She put it on the pedestal in the middle of the studio, sitting on the floor looking at it, and sitting around her the apprentices did likewise. Though some of the apprentices said it was an affront to the Greenman to make something so perfect. But they all sat and wondered at its beauty.

And when it turned into dinner time and the apprentices' tummies were all growling like bears, she rose and bade them come with her, and she lead them into the refectory, to eat. She commanded a sort of a fete, she ordered short beer for the apprentices, ale for the Journiers, and saki for herself. And they all sang and danced and ate late into the early hours of morning.

And as the sun was rising bright and hot in a clear sky, there were screams from apprentices, and cries from the Jouniers, pointing to the plume of smoke from the studio, and sheds. The other assistants went to her and dragged her from her room, still sleepy and unsteady on her feet. Moving everyone clear of the flames, and the older ones trying to put the fire out, and failing it was so hot, and already well underway, so they stood and watched the horror, as their workshop burned to the ground for there was no fire service so far from town. And the way it burned, the sides gave away. The huge ridge pole gave away, and came crashing down into the middle of the conflagration, and soon there was nothing but hot ash blowing in swirls.

The fire cleansed her of arrogance, so they say, ... those that envied her, "She offended the gods - only the gods may create something perfect." Those who loved her say, "The fire carried off her spark. The gods loved her." But we, those who knew her well, know that she grieved the loss of the studio that was as her child, it was not the loss of the pot that hurt her so. For she knew what she had made, and knew that it was perfect.

But still just in case her detractors were correct, I put a little ding or dent in each pot, to insure that I do not offend the gods.