Meanwhile...
"Nothing?! It's not nothing. The 7 principles are one of the most important foundational ideas of Glassitecture. Without it, it-"
"No-no- I didn't mean to! It was a figure of speech."
As Wade found himself in an interesting part of town, Ember found herself in the midst of an interesting conversation with Phil, stood in a class-esque learning space akin to the Elemental Affairs department.
"Watch the back chat, Ms Lumen. We're only so gracious enough to fast track your progress." Phil retorted.
Ember bruxed her teeth in fright, frantically shaking her head.
"Sorry- sorry. It won't happen again." she panicked.
Phil interrupted by signalling a hand, looking downward and closing his eyes.
"I'm going to move past this. But be warned; backchat in the workplace is a no-no, especially toward a supervisor." he warned.
She cleared a heaping gulp in her throat, standing straight. He stamped a foot on the ground, leaning a leg on the chair next to hers.
"Now that's out of the way... are you ready to put it to practice?" he queried.
Ember straightend further, nodding silently.
"Good." Phil responded.
He tapped on a blank A3 page on the desk in front of her.
"Your job is to draw up a building design using the 7 rules. Your progress in fast-tracking will depend on how well you do with this." he advised.
Ember cleared another lump in her throat, nodding again with hands in her lap. Phil nonchalantly got his leg off the chair.
"As I say this, you may ask as many questions as you like. It's your future job, after all..." he raised.
He reached over to his mug, which he left on her desk, taking it and slowly walking away. Ember could only stare, her senses heightened in stress. She slowly turned her attention to desk as he departed, shaking her head and leaning over the page with pen in hand.
"Okay...
7 principles.
Draw up a building using these 7 principles..."
Slightly clueless, she looked over to the left of the blank page at her notes she jot down that morning, as well as a rough guide sheet outlining the tasks involved.
"Preliminary items necessary; plot area (w x h), and building area (w x h)." she observed.
She gently thought to herself...
"Plot space...
...my flame, what's a standard plot area?
. . .
Wait...
...why not ask FireNet?"
As she was moments away from grabbing her phone out at work - an action she was unsure was allowed there - to surf FireNet - a Google-like search engine - a group of 3 coworkers gasbagged their way past her room. Not one to hide panic very well, she lit up from nerves, shoving her phone away.
"I heard the new intern is gettin' fast-tracked to exams by, like, the end of the week. She has to be the second coming of Vulcan for something like that to happen." one mentioned.
"Nah, man. That has to be some family booster. They probably paid, like, 100,000 coals for that." another replied.
Without a care, they strolled past, continuing their talk oblivious to her presence. She slowly looked at them in her peripheral view, raising an eyelid in curiosity.
"What in hellfire?" she queried.
As the coast cleared, she pondered as she slowly grabbed her phone out. She leaned in, covering her phone with a hand as she typed with the other.
"FireNet search...
264 x 900 feet.
Round it up to 300 for ease of learning-"
As she wrote down her plot dimensions on the sheet, a sneaky Phil stopped in the doorway, checking up on her.
"Hey. Cuppa machine's got a line. How's it goin' so far?" he asked.
She bruxed her teeth in panic, hiding her phone in her lap and covering it with a hand.
"Yup! All going really good at the moment." she answered overzealously.
He chuckled politely, tapping on the door frame once.
"Good. I better be seeing some Stona Lisa-esque quality by the time you're done." he quipped with the point of a finger.
Ember chuckled nervously, grinning widely in feign.
"Ha-ha! Stona Lisa! I- I see what you did there." she laughed sarcastically, wrapping arms tight around her stomach line.
Phil gave her a nice, gentle grin as he walked off once again. Ember slowly turned back to her desk, leaning down in frustration with a hand holding her head up.
"My flame...
Is this gonna be harder than I thought?"
She gently tapped her pen on the paper, going blank. Beginning to formulate some semblance of an idea, she hesitantly twirled her pen ready to write.
"Okay...
A simple city structure will do the trick. Not as boring as a house - contrast - not too overzealous, like some buildings. But it must be calm, it must be classy... it must be balanced...
. . .
Symmetrical. If a line was drawn in the middle, it would be the same either side...
. . .
Yeah? Okay.
Rule 1; tick."
She put her pen down, pushing herself away from the desk and holding it up in survey.
"Okay... that looks good."
She placed it back on the desk, leaning down and moving forward.
"Right. Moving onto #2; rhythm...
A pattern, or unifying element of the building.
. . .
We'll do something simple. Floor to ceiling windows all the way. Floor space can be, say, 10 ft tall and 30 ft Wade- I mean, wide!
. . .
Wade...
I wonder how Wade's day is going?
Maybe I should check up on him?
. . .
Focus! Do that later.
Rhythm - focus on the rhythm...
. . .
Okay. 10 by 30 ft. If the building had, say, 20 floors... that'd be... uhh-"
She went blank once again momentarily, before having another quick eureka moment. She looked around side to side, sneakily whipping out her phone and launching the calculator app.
"20 x 10 equals...
200 ft."
She quickly shoved her phone away, leaning forward and writing it down.
"Not great at maths on the fly?" a voice queried gently in her left ear.
Once again, Ember jumped in her chair, holding her hand at her heart.
"AHH- Sir!" she exclaimed.
As it turned out, Phil stood over her opposite shoulder while she wasn't looking.
"Some airhead at the cafe stuffed the cuppa machine, so I had him go for a cuppa run." he quipped.
"Oh-ho- did you? That's unfortunate!" Ember said, chuckling nervously.
Phil placed his hands and leaned on the desk next to her.
"Look, this isn't a test. Well, it is- but it's not test conditions. You can look stuff up without consequence." he notified.
Ember lit up in relief, exhaling sharply.
"Oh- oh! Really?" she queried.
Phil nodded slowly, leaning up and down on the desk.
"So you can use it for work-" he began.
Without a second's hesitation, he slammed his hands as hard as he could on the desk in emphasis, rattling Ember.
"Just don't use it to slack off, huh?" he forcefully advised with a smirk.
He gently tapped once more on the desk, turning to leave.
"Alright, I got a department to keep an eye on, so you keep doing your thing." he said.
As he nonchalantly strutted off, Ember turned her head back to her work, her mouth slightly agape.
"What in hellfire was his problem?" she thought.
She grabbed her pen and leaned inward again, shaking her head in refocus.
"Alright...
...enough with the distractions! Focus...
. . .
Focus...
. . .
Whew. Okay. Where was I?
200 ft tall...
So the pattern of the windows is 10 x 30, and will times that by 20."
As she jot the measurments down, she innately reached for a ruler to her left that wasn't there.
"Needing this?" a voice prompted.
She dropped her pen and pushed herself away from the desk, spinning and folding her arms with a scowl.
"Flame- you need to warn me before you come sneaking up." Ember retorted.
Like a pest ineradicatable, Phil stood in front of her with a ruler in hand. She ungraciously yoinked it from his hand, sharply placing it on her desk.
"I think the surprise adds an air of mystique and intrigue. It makes the employee question; is Phil behind me? That constant feeling of being on edge because of my presence will make them focus harder, thus improving productivety." Phil said, shrugging and chuckling.
Ember scoffed with an eyeroll, leaning toward him.
"...and stress; thus decreasing productivity." she snarkily remarked.
Phil simply shrugged, folding his arms.
"It just depends on whether or not you can learn to deal with it." he retorted.
Ember shot him a very confused stare, folding her arms in an innate mirroring.
"And might I say, you know how to deal with it far better than any fire person I've met." Phil admired.
To emphasise his point, he tapped on the backrest of her chair, departing for what Ember hoped would be the last time. Slightly frazzled, she shook her head.
"What?" she thought.
Her frazzle only persisted. She groaned, spinning around and refocusing, holding her head with her hand once more.
"Ugh- why can't I just focus?" she exclaimed to herself.
Suddenly, a mug was sharply placed to her left side. Becoming rather agitated, she flashed purple momentarily.
"Flame- again with the-" she snapped.
The moment she realized what was in the mug, her eyes bulged open. It was her favourite; a molten serving of Lava Java - almost straight from her family's shop. She looked over to catch a sneaking Phil - strutting away like the sly Earth guy he was.
"There; gonna work now?" he quipped.
Ember let out an exasperated groan, scoffing, giggling as she turned back to work. As he departed the room for what seemed like the billionth time, she slyly looked over her shoulder with a smirk. She refocused to her work, taking a sip as she restarted the engine.
"Ahhhh. Hotter than the scorching sun, just the way I like it." she admired.
She took another sip of her Lava Java, picking up the paper with the other hand and looking at it from afar. She let out a smirk of admiration as she looked it through, nodding.
What seemed like minutes turned to hours as she found her flow. By the time midday rolled around at Aquatecture, Ember held her paper up, admiring it with pride. She placed it back down on the desk, getting up and stretching herself out with eyes closed.
"Marvellous work, Lumen." Phil admired.
Ember sharply broke out of her stretching trance, stumbling backward slightly in shock.
"Seriously, what the flame is with you?" Ember pressed.
Phil slyly looked over his shoulder at her as he stood at the desk.
"I'm just that good." Phil quipped.
Ember let out a sharp guffaw, slouching and folding her arms with a grin.
Phil took the piece of paper in his hands and stood up straight, pacing about as he studied it. Ember stood in her spot, holding her arm in anticipation. Such would only grow as Phil began sounding in admiration, nodding his head. Before long, he walked back over to the desk and placed it down, staring over to Ember.
"Alright, I've got my thoughts. Why don't you come sit back down?" Phil invited.
Ember lit up in response, gently walking back over and sitting at the desk politely. She looked over at her design, smirking.
"Okay, so this is pretty good given the amount of time you had." Phil began.
Ember chuckled to herself, swaying about giddily.
"I can see you went for a nice and simple city structure, but with a few added twists. You can instantly see upon first look that you drew a flame sculpture atop - indicating both Emphasis and Contrast. Well done.
I can also see you added an extra concave-like curve to the building. Want to explain your decision for that?" Phil said.
Ember scooched forward in an innate response, leaning over her design.
"So with the concave, I added it for both Emphasis and Contrast. It also provides a more striking Visual, but is structurally sound enough to not impact it's proportion and/or scale." she explained.
She took a breath from overexerting herself in explaining, leaning backward. Phil let out a singular chuckle, nodding in admiration.
"Very well done." Phil admired.
He gestured a hand to her design silently in prompt for her to continue. She acknowledged such, turning back and taking another quick breath.
"Right- so with the visual, I drew a scale to the side of the page indicating where it is in relation to a real-world setting. Each floor of the building has it's measurment, which as indicated on the design, is 10 feet tall and 30 feet wide. I added ceiling to floor windowing as well, providing 20 floors that makes our total building height up to 200 feet. The building is a oblong at the base, with a rough area of 100 x 300 feet." Ember began.
"Exquisite. This addresses the visual, proportion and scale rules all in one." Phil answered.
Ember quickly looked over to him, a smile growing on her face in pride. Phil took a pen out of a pocket on his shirt, clicking it. He leaned over to her design, scribbling a little tick at the bottom followed by an initial.
"Okay. You've done well with the 7 principles segment. I'm letting you progress to the next stage." Phil acknowledged.
Ember lit up a fair amount, a big smile covering the bottom of her face.
"Really? It-it's good?" she queried giddily.
Phil simply nodded his head with arms folded and a smirk on his face.
"Yes." he answered succinctly.
She let out a big sigh of relief, throwing her utensils down and jumping to her feet. She straightened her posture eagerly, throwing out a hand to shake. Phil assuredly returned the shake with an air of genuinity.
"Sit once more for me." he requested.
She slowly let go of the shake, gently taking a seat.
"Before I tell you about what's going to happen next, I'll need a word's consent that you are prepared to take part in something that may or may not be above your skill level." Phil began.
Her eyes widened in slight discomfort, yet her heart told her to listen with open ears.
"Now I spoke with Lin and management as you were doing this. Judging by your prowess, they've greenlit an evaluation for you this Friday." he told.
Her eyes widened further in astoundment, to the point of her stumbling backward.
"2 Days?!" she exclaimed.
"2 days. There'll be a judging commitee of four - including myself - who will watch how you work in making a mockup design. For the remainder of today and tomorrow, you'll be working on said mockup with me." Phil advised.
Hitting her like a tidalwave threatening her very existence, she leaned back and hyperventilated, daunted by the thought.
"Flame. This is all so fast. It's-" she stammered.
Before she could spiral, Phil hushed her with a finger in the air.
"Nonsense. Before, when I asked if you were willing to learn..." he began.
He chuckled a couple of times, his gravely belly jiggling in the process.
"Well... this is the big chance." he finished.
Ember's discomfort and hyperventilation only grew in stress, causing her to squirm about on her chair.
"Oh- this is so... it's so-" she struggled.
Seeing how uneasy it was making her feel, Phil reeled in his subtle elation to tell her.
"Before you become too worked up, I'll tell you now that you're more than welcome to take more time to learn." he offered.
In the midst of a quasi-panic attack, Ember sharply halted him with a hand. Her hyperventilation calmed, and as did her squirming about. She gently moved herself into proper posture, standing on her feet.
"I can do it. I know I can." she began.
Phil looked at her, chuckling and folding his arms in curiosity.
"Agh- there's so much to get worked up over, but... I've waited so long to even begin thinking about chasing my dreams, and now that it may very well become a reality..." she said.
She took one heaping breath, closing her eyes.
"...I'm prepared to push myself further than I thought I could go. I don't feel ready, but I know now that if I don't try, I'll regret it for the rest of my life." she wisely stated.
Phil chuckled in admiration, nodding slowly.
"I admire you, Ms Lumen." he said.
With a tear of hesitation in her eyes, she looked up to him, nodding. With that, a gentle moment of calm came into the room.
"Okay. You deserve a quick break. Go. Grab yourself a bite or something." he allowed.
After caving on herself in stress, she stood up straight and dusted herself off. She took a long, deep breath in and out, beginning to walk past him with a smile. As she strolled off tiredly, she stopped in the doorway, looking back at Phil with an arm on the door.
"Thank you," she mouthed to him, slowly turning to head out.