Summary: One-shot. Hiko has some difficulty centering his clay.
A/N: Poor Hiko. Not being able to center one's clay is a nasty feeling, indeed. The more you try, the worse it gets, and the more you want to force it, and so on. Sometimes, the only thing you can do is leave it and take a little time to regroup. How similar to life, yes?
CenteredBy: gure
Hiko gave the platform a few irritated kicks. The wheel spun, and he watched the lump of clay go round and round. It was still off-center. When he put his hands on it, he could feel it bumping against them. Ba-thump, ba-thump. It was vexing. The entire wheel was covered in mud and water. The slurry went flying as the wheel spun, spraying his stomach, the tops of his thighs, his forearms. He was surrounded by a ring of water. Today, the stool dug uncomfortably into his backside. The muscles in his back were starting to cramp; he wasn't sitting properly. Why wouldn't that damn lump of clay center?
He was a master potter. This was his art; he'd been throwing for years. Centering had stopped being a challenge ages ago. Why, with his skilled prowess, he had mastered one of the most difficult aspects of throwing with ease. He just used the same sense of concentration and balance that he employed in his swordsmanship. He pushed in and down, with just the right amount of pressure, evenly distributed between both hands. He never had to muscle it. That much force just threw the clay even further off. No, it had to be coaxed. This time, however, the clay resisted his coaxing. He was ready to yank it off and sling it away.
Instead, he gave the platform another kick and reached for the linen cloth resting across his knee. He held the cloth to the wheel, and let the wheel spin under it, wiping away the excess slurry. Dropping the muddy cloth to the floor, he then held the back of his thumbnail to the base of the lump, where it met the wheel, and cleaned off the extra clay and slip that had built up. The small blob of wet clay joined the cloth on the floor, as Hiko stared at the uncentered lump. It was shiny, except for a dry, shallow groove at its base, spinning lazily with the wheel. With a little more force than necessary, Hiko stomped a sandaled foot on the platform, stopping its spin with an unpleasant scraping sound. Sometimes, when the weather was especially warm, he threw barefoot. Today, he was thankful for the sandals.
He stood abruptly and left his pottery shed without a second glance. Frustration surged through him as he briskly rounded the corner of his house. He came face to face with the unlit kiln in his front yard and sighed. It squatted there, off to the side, cold and empty, mocking him.
Hiko scowled. He was Hiko Seijuro the Thirteenth. He was a master swordsman. He was perfection personified. How, how could he be bested by dirt?
Years ago, when he first took in his baka deshi, he had resigned himself to the reality that he'd die by that idiot boy's hand. As time passed, this didn't seem like such a horrendous fate. Privately, he was pleased with the idiot's progress. He'd make a fine swordsman. Then the idiot left. Not that he cared if he was alone or not, but the boy left him to an uncertain fate. In an odd sense, he was bereft. For years, he resented being deprived of an honorable end by an accomplished swordsman. And the idiot would have been accomplished, had he stayed under his expert tutelage.
Then the idiot came back, begging for help. That was rich. His baka deshi had made a glorious mess, and had looked to him to help clean it up. Well, all hadn't been lost. At least he had the relief of knowing his baka deshi had survived, and had finally learned what he had been trying to instill in him all those years ago. He even bestowed upon the idiot the honor of meting out his death. A high honor, indeed. Unfortunately, the idiot wasn't even able to do that correctly, and he yet lived. Only to fall to a lump of clay.
Bah. Hiko shook his head, his long ponytail swishing back and forth across his back. Perhaps it was for the best that the idiot didn't kill him. He'd never tell Kenshin, but he was pleased to know that his baka deshi had internalized the philosophy of their shared style. He was even pleased the idiot had found that girl and those other misfits. He had no desire to visit them, or to have them visit him, but still and all, even he could admit to the comfort of knowing they were just a day's train ride away.
Occasionally, he received a letter from his baka deshi. He'd curse the childish handwriting as he read through the inconsequential news. An odd job here, a new student there, the arrival of a squalling brat. Hiko was convinced his baka deshi secretly planned on keeping that girl permanently barefoot and pregnant. He smirked, and almost wished he could watch the idiot try. He very much doubted his success.
He kept the letters in a small ceramic box decorated with a maple leaf pattern. One of his more successful forays into handbuilding. The less successful attempts had been finely crushed and used to give his clay a little more tooth. People in town had admired the height of some of his pieces; he didn't tell them that height was a direct result of his failures. No one needed to know that.
Hiko snorted and shot one last contemptuous look at the kiln. It sat innocently at the edge of his yard, bathed in morning sunlight. He turned and went inside to clean up and tend to some of the more mundane tasks he had set for the day.
Late afternoon sunlight found him lounging with a saucer of sake on his log in front of the kiln. He sat facing away from the kiln. It hovered like a malevolent presence at his back. Hiko ignored it.
Chores completed, firewood split, Hiko was done for the day. He had even made a list of items to pick up the next time he went to Kyoto. Sake and foodstuffs he could find in the little village further down the mountain, but he needed to visit the apothecary in town for ingredients for his glazes. He had an arrangement with the apothecary. The old man kept silica, feldspar, and pigments such as iron oxide, cobalt, and copper on hand, and he made certain the old coot was well supplied with mixing bowls and tiny bottles. It worked well enough.
Feeling quite accomplished, and well-lubricated by the sake, Hiko returned to his pottery shed. He had worked a good deal of his frustration out between splitting wood and making a temporary patch for a small leak in his roof. He looked at the partially dried lump of clay, and with a quick motion, snapped the thing off of the wheel. It came free with a squelching shlorp.
Lump in hand, he used his other hand to dig a little more clay from the barrel in the corner. Replacing the lid, he took both blobs over to a small, waist high, canvas-covered table and slammed one down, followed by the other. It landed with a splat directly on top of the first. He took a cord, cut the combined lump in two, and then slammed the halves down again, one on top of the other. He kept this up until there weren't any more striations in the clay. He couldn't tell one piece from the other; they were thoroughly mixed. Then he started to knead the clay, much like one would a piece of dough. By the time he was done wedging, the lump resembled a conch shell, complete with a spiral on the larger end. He patted it a bit to round it out a little, and then went back over to his wheel.
He plopped the clay back onto the center of the wheel, pointy end up. Started up his wheel with a few kicks, wet his hands in the bucket by his stool, and this time, the clay centered easily.
Hiko felt vindicated. There. All it took was balance and concentration. And perhaps a bit of distance and a bit of work. As he poked a hole in the center and opened it up, his mind wandered back to his baka deshi. He began the first pulls to bring up the sides. Yes, a bit of distance and a bit of work. Most importantly, though, one needed balance and concentration.