Beauties and Beasts Pt 2

Chapter 158

Making pots...teapots, that is! In between the smashing and rolling, some conversation happens and hopefully feelings are soothed.

"Don't smash it flat."

"I'm not trying to, this is just really heavy."

"You're holding it too close to the head; it needs to be closer to the other end so you have a light, consistent pressure."

"So nit-picky..." Shay grumbled as she bent over her slab of clay again.

Neara carefully pounded her clay down, eyeing the thickness to make sure it was even. "It should be smooth and the light should reflect in a single sheet. If you're having trouble, rubbing it down with a little water will help you see the light better." She demonstrated by dipping her finger into a shallow bowl of water nearby and slicking down the top of her piece. A slight rise on a neglected corner caught her eye and she tamped it down accordingly.

"Is this from another YouTube video?" Shay pounded her clay in various places, not bothering to eye it. "Because this feels like something from a YouTube video. I was hoping you had a pottery wheel or something set up and me and Ryan could reenact the scene from 'Ghost'!" She shot a sly look at her husband, who nodded slightly in return.

"Well, they wouldn't let me bring it over because they'd probably think someone was hiding in it, and they won't let you over to Orson's territory, so..."

"Orson said his territory is wherever Neara is as far as his eye can see." Tony happily smashed more clay together, working it with his hands and pressing the air bubbles out.

"That's... a little ridiculous, don't you think?"

Neara shook her head and brought out her sharpened flat stone, which she used to carve away the excess. "When you're as powerful as Orson is, the entire world is pretty much your territory."

"Yeah, not buying that. Speaking of which, how did he get his stripes?" Shay copied her friend, carving the shape of the eventual teapot into the clay and handing the extra to Tony. "I've been dying to hear that story."

"I only know how he got the rest of them, not his first one. Basically..."

"You're his mate and you don't..."

"I'm not done."

"Sorry, I know, I know, save your questions for the end."

"Anyway, predators would challenge him once they saw his stripe and he'd keep outsmarting and beating them and getting more and more stripes and apparently after four stripes, they disappear and you just get a threatening aura, but that STILL didn't deter them, so at six 'stripes', you can control that aura. He doesn't even know how high his level is now, but he says he once made a pack of Wolf beastmen bleed to death just from thinking."

Shay raised an eyebrow.

"You can talk now."

"Yeah, wouldn't want to do that without permission. I'm kidding. I know I interrupt a lot, I just have a lot of questions and blurt them out without thinking about it." She smiled toothily and began pounding a separate piece of clay for the bottom. "Anyway, how come you don't know how he got his first stripe if you're his mate?"

Neara shrugged and began cutting a disc. "I don't know; it's never come up, I guess."

"What do you talk about? I mean, Curtis and Ryan always want to talk about business and trade and how to be the most efficient, and Harvey is always talking about massage techniques and medicines." Her brow puckered. "I haven't really talked to Parker or Muir since I got back though. They're not allowed in the house."