How Green Becomes Wood

"It looks good," Dark nodded, internally cringing as Ivy immediately was covered in pumpkin and having the most fun with it, "You may have a trouble with the eye because it is so round, but I can help with that. And you may want to thicken some of the lines, even if it is inaccurate."
 
Xander carefully drew the lines thicker. Then he started trying to carve it out, going mostly by feel and guesswork while watching Cooger out of the corner of his eye.

Alec frowned at his pumpkin for the longest time before finally trying to draw out a smilie face with big, oval eyes and a thin mouth. He considered doing a dotted outline, but he wasn't sure if he could pull it off.
 
Cooger just fix a classic jack-o-lantern while Ivy squelched around in pumpkin guts. Dark was keeping an eye on her while also furiously sketching on his own pumpkin.

After Cooger had successfully completed his pumpkin, he did his friend and finished emptying out her pumpkin before distracting Ivy for long enough for Daizi to whisk the insides away. They needed to be sorted for the seeds, anyway. "Problem is," He said, taking a photograph of how simply orange Ivy had made herself, "Your dad'll be here all night."
 
"I don't doubt that," Xander agreed, frowning as he tried to get the lines right. Doing short cuts seemed to be working better than long ones even if they did make the sides look a bit scraggly. He could fix those up later.

The mouth was easy for Alec as it was barely more than a sliver. The nose was an inverted V and also easy. The eyes were much harder being rounded, and it took him some time to get them cut out. Finally, he succeeded in something that resembled two ovals and sat back with an exhausted gasp of relief.
 
Dark took brief glances up at what his sons were making to give them words of encouragement or advice while Daizi tried to sponge Ivy off. They all knew she'd need a bath later, but before they took her inside, it seemed for the best to clean as much of her up as possible.

As Cooger finished his jack-o-lantern, he looked over at Alec, "You done, kid?"
 
Dark looked up at it, setting his own pumpkin aside, "It looks good, do not worry. This is the first time you have ever attempted to carve a pumpkin, you did well. I can help you neaten it, if you would like, but I think it is special all on its own."
 
Alec debated, tipping his head one way and then the other before finally shaking his head. "No, thanks. It's ugly, but that's in the Halloween spirit, isn't it? I approve of this pumpkin! First time ever, I think it's good enough."

"I don't think it looks half bad," Xander assured him. He was still chipping away at his own pumpkin, going slow to try to make it neater and more in line with his drawing, but he was almost finished!
 
"Absolutely!" Alec said happily. He took her hand and guided it to his pumpkin face.

Xander chipped away the last bit and stood back with a sigh. "Finished!" He had gone all the way through enough for the light to highlight all of the lines, but then he'd gone around the edges and carefully removed enough of the orange to leave a bit of white on either side to emulate the chalk lines of his inspiration. It was nowhere near perfect, but it was recognizable.
 
Daizi filled all of the shapes, "I think it's really cute, you did a great job! Can I see yours too, Xander?"

"How is yours coming, Dark?" Cooger asked, trying to sneak a peak but Dark immediately pulled his away, "Are you going to have time to help Ivy with hers?"

"Of course I will have time," Dark huffed. Then after a moment, "Or I will just take a break on this one."
 
"Oh wow," Daizi murmured, "This isn't what I thought you meant when you said horse." She had heard of the chalk art before, but didn't immediately recall the name.

"You can call me a traditionalist, so I did your classic jack-o-lantern face with crooked teeth and all that," Cooger said, turning his around. It looked was completely standard, but he was proud of it.
 
"There's a spot in Britain where if you cut away the sod, there's chalk underneath, and it stands out on the slops," Xander explained to Daizi. "There's one that looks like this - kind of, this isn't perfect - and it's something like three thousand years old. Maybe older. There's some others that are newer, and they look like actual horses, but I like this one best. It... it feels like a horse."

Alec moved over to see Cooger's pumpkin and smiled broadly. "Now that's a pumpkin!"
 
"Oh, I do know about that one," Daizi commented, "I just didn't know the name. I think you did very well, and it's very unique. I like it a lot."

Dark set his aside, turning the face away from the rest of his family before picking up Ivy's, "Spider, we said we wanted hers to have a flower on it, right?"

"Yes, because that's what she said when she picked it," Daizi said, moving to feel what Cooger had carved.
 
"That is a good question," Dark said, looking down at Ivy and gesturing for her to crawl to him, pumpkin-covered though she was, "Tifla, what flower do you want? What is Ivy's favourite flower?"

Ivy babbled at him, grabbing onto his arm with a big smile.

"Oh, really?" Dark replied, pretending like he understood, "I will carve a rose then. I would have chosen a lotus, but I do not believe you have seen them, except for the one carved onto your crib." He waited for her to babble at him again before nodding seriously, "Oh, of course, I will also include vines of Ivy. How could I not, my darling girl?"
 
"How are you going to fit all that on that little pumpkin?" Alec asked. "No, wait, I'm asking that of the guy who built a carnival at, like, 1/32 scale."

Xander plopped down on the top porch step to watch. "Fitting will be no problem at all."
 
"One rose and a few vines of Ivy is more than possible to fit," Dark replied, "and it will not take too long either."

As he worked, Ivy watched him curiously for a time before flopping against him, transferring some of the pumpkin still on her onto him. Eventually it bored her and she crawled off to play with her toys. Soon enough, he turned the little pumpkin. In the center, he had carved the outline of the rose and trailing along either side of it were vines of ivy. "There, tifla, do you like your pumpkin?"
 
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