[center][img]https://i.imgur.com/ONd4lpK.png[/img][/center]
[color=00F8FE]Time: 11:00 am
Location: Ballroom
Interactions: Ruby [@SausagePat] [/color]

[color=9FA1A4]Callum, slightly confused, did his best to match the strange and overly zealous handshake from Ruby. She was dismissive towards his comment about the king, whether that was because she wanted a happier conversation topic or she simply held a general disinterest towards the king’s antics, he wasn’t sure. He stared at her hand as she left it lingering between them, eyelashes fluttering and fingers waggling expectedly. Callum obliged, less than gracefully, as he stood to politely kiss her hand, and knocked against the table which rattled and echoed in the room before the sat back down. 

Her instance to turn the conversation back to pottery was more than welcomed. It was a topic so far removed from all the things he didn’t want to talk about, this day or any day in the foreseeable future, that Callum felt much more relaxed. He didn’t hate talking to people half as much as he pretended he did, he only hated how fake it usually was. 

[color=00F8FE]“Ten pots?”[/color] Cal repeated the offer, whistled, and shook his head. [color=00F8FE]“That seems like a lot, wouldn’t know what to do with so many and I’d hate for them to go to waste. One sounds perfect. And I like purple or blue.”[/color] He offered, before he could think up something else to add Ruby was rifling through her things and pulled out a small, slightly dusty, teapot. She excitedly launched into a story about it and Cal listened with equal enthusiasm. 

He took the tiny teapot from Ruby, holding it as she had; like it was a precious thing, and he was careful not to drop it as he looked it over.  [color=00F8FE]“Can’t say I’ve ever given much thought to worms.”[/color] Or pots but he didn’t mention that aloud. The teapot itself seemed simple and functional, well made but hardly meeting the standards for anything that would be found in the palace. He liked that about the tiny pot; that it was a mundane object decorated to honor an oft-forgotten creature. [color=00F8FE]“And you, made a teapot that remembers them,”[/color] Callum said, nodding, [color=00F8FE]“and to the worms we all return, whether we remember them or not.”[/color] Maybe that was just the whiskey leading him to ramble and find meaning in random things, but today a worm pot made perfect sense to him. Cal carefully offered the teapot back to Ruby. [color=00F8FE]“A very fine piece, thank you for sharing it with me.”[/color]

Callum gave everyone he met snap judgments. They often weren’t fair, he was just as easily swayed by rumors and his own bias’ as everyone else was. But he really did try to see the good in people, and people he knew nothing about were much easier to see in a positive light. He could trust strangers inviting him to parties with lax rules, he assumed bakers who spent all day making cakes did so to add something sweet to the world, and today he decided that anyone who would make a pot to celebrate worms certainly had to be a kind person. 

[color=00F8FE]“If you are going to make me a pot, then I’m going to have to figure out something to make you in return. Sadly I’m not half the accomplished craftsman as you are but maybe you could help me think of something.”[/color] He offered with a smile. And he then thought about worms some more. How they were a small, seemingly insignificant part of a much bigger world, but one day, even Edin would become just another feast for the worms and his smile brightened at that. [/color]