Salem requested I paint the inside of his wagon. He originally wanted just a depiction of Port Kar..but after hearing how ugly that place looked, I decided to pester him for more details about where he has been. He gave me the most memorable places he has been. What follows is what I did for him.
What little light from the torches illuminated the inside of your wagon, throwing a soft yellow light first upon the floor, which, beginning at your left, started with almost life like cobblestones (think of the 3-d sidewalk chalk paintings people are famous for) the wall above the cobblestones showed the reason for them on the floor, the gray walls of the city of Port Kar rose from the bottom of the floor, split by the canals that served as the more common mode of transporation thoughought the city, in the distance at a perspective rose the islandic marketplace, and beyond that, the deep blue of the Thassa rose to meet the sky above, which traveled upwards towards the dome of your wagon, showing the beginnings of night. The edges of Port Kar faded, melting into the scrub and rock encrusted landscape of the Tahari, and the Oasses of the Four Palms, the Kavar Outpost south of Red Rock. She could never get a clear deion of what such an Oasis would look like, so she imagined it up. It may be quite a bit of a surprise, that she had gotten it quite right. The floor in front of this part of the mural was also painted as though one could actually walk over the depicted rocky and scrub brush terrain. The moons had begun to rise over the Oases on the dome of your wagon, the sky, with its glittering diamonds of stars growing darker as the moons travel over the length of your dome. These two took up the wall to the left of the doorway, and then half of the next wall. The Tahari faded once more to the soft velvety sea of grasses of the Turian Plains, the Nine walled Turia rising from lushness of the grass, of course this would have been easy for her, having actually been to Turia, it's steeples and towers rising into the velvet night sky like fingers reaching for the stars themselves. The tri-moons had traveled once more over the dome of your wagon. The floor beneath this was nothing but grass, split in twain by two wagon ruts leading to the outer wall of Turia. The grasses of the Plains faded both on your floor and the wall. The soft loam of a jungle floor, moss and rocks all in life like 3-d appearing on the floor as the leaves of the Jungle part to reveal the Port of Schendi with it's two rivers flowing into the bay. The buildings with their straw hatches, as steam and the heat of the day rises out of them. Above Schendi the moons had once more shifted along the night sky, each movement of the moons depicting the pass of time. The jungle faded, blending in to the high rise of the Voltai mountains, somehow she had managed to paint an elevation of a slope going upwards onto your floor before the lines met onto the wall and it seemed as though the Voltai Mountains stretched upwards, looming before you, well if you were closer, but since you can't walk into your wagon just yet, you'll just have to get that small feeling of vertigo later. The moons had begun to lower in the night sky now, their brightness fading as the sun would soon rise.
The rocky terrain of the looming mountains begins to fade into something that could only be categorized as...squishy. The floor becoming the Rence marshes. Rising from the floor, painted on the wall was the fin of a marsh shark, a reference that you just knew, she could not resist making. The thickets of rush and sedge, and the tangles of marsh vine clearly seen within the murky waters of the marshes, because she chose for them to be that way. In the distance the Akas of Agula rose, she never could get a clear deion of it, but it was what she imagined an outpost of Rencers would look like. Rence huts, and whatnot. In the lightening sky, vosk gulls flew and swooped over the marshes, seemingly crying out. The moons were now barely visible as the leeching light of day began to burn its fiery trail across the sky like grasping fingers in hues of magenta and fiery red, as the marshes, like all the others began to fade, blending in to yet another mountain scene, but within this scene, the high cylinders of the city of Thentis rose within the mountains, tarns easily seen flying into their cots, the small figures of the tarnsmen who rode them, trained them, took care of them seen. Dotting the area around the city were needle trees, the evergreen found only in the thentis region, and also the Thentis Veminium, a bluish, softly petaled wildflower commonly found in the lower ranges of the Thentis Mountains. The moons now disappeared completely, the rising of the sun imminent as the mountains faded, giving away to grassy knolls once more the lush green of plains grass overtaking the floor, as if one could lay down directly into the blades and breathe in the heedy smell of warm grass on a summer day. The plains of Turia once more sprawled across the landscape, broken only by the numerous wagons settled neatly into their columns and rows, small figures of Tuchuk children here and there...Adults moving around as dawn breaks upon Tuchuk for another day, another beginning, a new life of sorts. It was symbolism at it's finest. You had given her your most memorable places of residence, and so she had used that, reminding you of your journey throughout your life, but in the end..the dawn of a new life..still broke over Tuchuk, your home.
