Nalaieth and Vildaeth's Clutch, April 2006

The theme for this clutch was "Memorable Movie Moments." The clutching log can be found here.

Anguished Firebound Egg

The lower portions of this egg are a deep, verdant green-black, much like a meadow at night. Small flecks of golden color, almost like a light, are scattered across this green field, shining out of the darkness. Further up the egg is a black field with silver and gold specks across it; while the silver points seem to form a regular pattern, it is as if the golden ones are dancing. Across the apex of the egg is a bright red and orange marking, like a bonfire in the depths of night. A ring of a dark, smoky grey surrounds the red and orange splotch in an irregular ring pattern.

Inspiration: Grave of the Fireflies

One of the most heartbreaking scenes in this wartime tragedy by Hayao Miyazaki comes when the older of two orphans must cremate his younger sister, who, through misfortune and poverty, has starved to death. Instead of a proper urn to place her ashes in, he must use a tiny candy tin. The boy himself dies in a train station, in plain sight, and nobody comes to his rescue. It is as if with his sister's death all his hope dies. The custodian carts the boy's body away, and dumps the ashes into the wind. Moments later,the ghosts of both children are reuinited with each other. The final shot at the end of the scene, and the movie, shows two fireflies, (representing the children's spirits) floating up into a starry sky.

Jazra

Foreboding Woods Egg

Mist hangs on this egg, obscuring the forms that shade and mark the shell. Dark lines and masses, umber and gray, twist in craggy branches, fading into the fog and sharpening again where it clears. Pale brown brambles march along a ground-line before the base of the egg turns deadly black. On one side of the rounded shell, a path is cleared through the ominous shapes and their reaching fingers, a wind-swept road, with the brown specks of long-dried, fallen leaves, leading off into the shrouded, twilight gloom.

Inspiration: Sleepy Hollow

This egg is based on the foreboding wood and roads that the Headless Horseman prowls in Sleepy Hollow.

Griere

Fiery Fingers Egg

One side of this egg is dark, dark black, almost blending in with the hatching sands, although its faint shine makes it stand out enough to be noticed. The arc of the shell is smooth and clean, with just one slight dip marring its surface, off-center. Just past that dip is a wash of color, yellows and oranges and reds that curl along the edge like fiery fingers reaching for something. The colors blur together and fade into the black, almost giving a sense of movement even as the egg sits still.

Inspiration: Grease

The big car race in the movie Grease. Who can forget the car, Greased Lightning?

C'len

Terror in the Depths Egg

Midnight washes the surface of this large egg, condemning it to hold a terrifying aura. A silvery stream of speckles rains down from the surface, allowing a paler midnight blue to wash from top to bottom. The gravelly surface at the base of the egg forms a barrier between the watery blue and solid sandy surface of the "ground." Forms that inspire children's nightmares move through the inky blackness of the sea, around and around the egg. White masks with hollow eyespaces, drapped in tattered robes, these forms continue the endless circle around the poor ovoid.

Inspiration: Pirates of the Caribbean

I adored this movie, and I just love watching the special effects. One of my favorite scenes is when the old pirates are walking underwater, in and out of the moon's light, which turns them from their human form into their true form: walking skeletons.

Balinne

Gaping Chasm Egg

This egg is a trifle oddly colored. The shell is a mostly unbroken white, save for a swath of muted blue-gray that bisects it along its horizontal axis. The gaping chasm is unchained by any bridge and far too wide for any leap to span the gap. Shadows on the hatching grounds, or perhaps a dusting of Ista's black volcanic sands, put a vague smudge of darkness on the apex of the egg. The shadow of a heroic couple, prepared to swing across the gap, perhaps. Regardless, there is an uneasy stillness about this egg, as though it waits with leashed impatience for hatching day.

Inspiration: Star Wars

Who could forget Luke and Leia, in their panicked flight from the prison cells on the Death Star, taking a wrong turn and finding the bridge out? In a panic, Luke blasts the control panel to lock out the stormtroopers behind him, only to realize they also controlled the bridge. He throws a grappling hook across and Leia kisses him "For luck!" and the pair swing romantically across the chasm. Too bad they're brother and sister!

K'tor

Solitary Reflection Egg

The light plays tricks with this egg, causing it to gleam and glimmer like the ocean under the sun's light as it plays through the tropical foliage of an Istan forest. A lone image stands out from the multihued trees and rushing-water backdrop, seeming brushed across its surface. The image is a poignant one, hinting at a lifetime of memories, these entwined lines representing fingers in close-up, bent in focus to the minute task of tying a small bit of feather and carved, curved bone into a semblance of a fishing lure.

Inspiration: A River Runs Through It

This autobiographical film tells the story of the Mclean brothers, Norman and Paul, growing up along the Big Blackfoot river with the backdrop of the wondrous Montana skyline. The ending scene in the film is of an aged Norman, the narrator, standing knee-deep in the river, tying a simple lure. The shot is a powerful, meaningful close-up with the light playing through the trees on his shaking, lined hands as he speaks, telling the audience that 'all things fade into one, and a river runs through it.'

Nolee

Starry Rose Egg

A surface as abyssal blue-black as the night sky is flickering traces of lighter blue, yellow, red, orange and even silver-white. The colors shimmer like stars against the depths of the midnight skies. Midway down the egg's side, a chain of red and green markings, very much like the blossoms of a rose, float along in the galaxy of stars, dancing through the glittering night sky. The blossom markings are so realistic that they could float off of the egg's surface, becoming a garden of roses twisting a path on a silver and black river, a river of stars in the depths of the night.

Inspiration: Adolescence of Utena

Utena finally has a breakdown, and Anthy comes up with a romantic surprise for her girlfriend. She takes the nearest tool, a hoe for her garden, and cuts the wire to the lights on her garden, as well as the pump for the water for her roses. The lights go out, the water fills the garden, and you can see the reflection of the stars in the water. The roses float along on the currents of water, spilling a snow shower of fragrant rose petals over the school below. Utena and Anthy dance to the soothing strains of the song, 'Toki ni Ai wa,' dancing among the stars.

Jazra

Waterlit Romance Egg

This shell is riddled with striations, bands of colorless pale interrupted by lines of gray, brown, green and yellow that stretch from base to crown, thick and thin as a crowded wood. While the lower half of the egg seems to be a mirror of the upper portion, it is in no way identical - liquid ripples mar the dark lower line, and between gleams the glossy reflected light of sky. It is a wood in water, dark trees that rise directly from the glassy surface of a still cove. On that surface, where strong line and blurred reflection meet, a blossoming of pale forms drifts peacefully. Yet they are not flowers - they are an ethereal flock of serene, white waterfowl.

Inspiration: The Notebook

This egg is based on a scene from The Notebook, where Noah takes Allie out on the rowboat to show her a strange flock of white birds that have amassed in a nearby pocket of swamp trees.

Griere

Sad Sparkle Egg

There's red here, glorious and vain and brilliant, celebratory in its bloody brilliance. From a few angles the blending, blurring shades of carmine and scarlet are all there is to see, but from one telling angle it's clear that all those hues of rouge are there only to do one thing: frame the pale, sparkling diamond that crests the shell's east-facing curves. At no point do its colors truly approach white - this seeming jewel is cast in pale and shadowy, sorrowful blues. It shines despite itself, its glittering beauty unsuppressed by even such gloomy depression.

Inspiration: Moulin Rouge

'Hindi Sad Diamonds,' the number of the 'show' put on at the Moulin Rouge which showcases Satine's character in all her glorious misery.

V'lano

Watery Tart Egg

Most of this egg is a study in blues, starting with a large band across its middle in a dark shade that's the color of fresh berries in fall. The hues blend and flow across the spectrum, from medium azure to a splash of pale like Ruatha's Ice Lake. The blues are bound on each end by a soft golden beige that corrals them into place. Contoured lines of burnt sienna weave over and through the boundary so that it looks crimped, as if shaped just so by a caring baker.

Inspiration: Monty Python and the Holy Grail

"Well, you can't expect to wield supreme executive power just 'cause some watery tart threw a sword at you!"

C'len

Honorable Mentions

Unfortunately we weren't able to use every egg we were given; here are the ones that didn't make it to the Hatching Sands:

Victory Upon the Sand Egg

Stretching wide from one side to the other is a large band of tan. The color of the northern beaches, the sandy stripe widens towards the bottom, while narrow at the top. Brown and black blotches color the surface, and the smudged lines of them suggest speed of incredible proportions. Colorful speckles sprinkle the top of each moving blob, and the sense of urgency from the intensity of these little riders is felt through the movement of the image. Ahead of the pack of browns is one lone figure, a blotch resembing a runner, whose miniature color splotch atop seems to be urging it towards victory.

Inspiration: Seabiscut

Balinne

Magical Moment at Sunset Egg

A brilliant burst of pink dominates this egg's surface, complimented by oranges, yellows, and even a hint of midnight at the top. A silver form makes its way throught the midst of the egg, below which the rough surface and reflected colors of the top offer a startling sea at sunset. Barely visible upon the triangle bow at the foremost point of the silver splotch are two grey-blue smudges, a hint of blush across the top of one. The general feel of this egg is complete, comfortable, and warm. Although lost amidst the pink and orange sea, the little silver vessel is comfortable and safe... for the time being.

Inspiration: Titanic

Balinne

Herbal Fires Egg

Red and black, as bright as a smith's fire, this egg shines with fiery hues in a range of colors. Black markings dot the flames, as if it were marked by tiny spinners of soot. The apex of the egg consists of many earthy tones, russet, army green, mustard yellow and other shades in streaks that fall into the flames, as though they were bundles of herbs thrown there by a healer making a brew for a patient. It is as if the bundles of herbs are consumed by the egg's fires, making the one inside it stronger.

Inspiration: Spirited Away

Jazra

Glowing Grace Egg

This egg has a pair of red circles, much like a firelizard or dragon's eyes against a golden background of something, very similar to seaweed, but golden looking, as though it shown with an inner light all its own, the light of a golden sea. Within this sea and between these two eyes is a blue armored figure of a woman, with her head tilted upwards, her hands fallen at her sides, her body arched as though experiencing a great uplifting of spirit. Shapes are visible in the golden ocean, shapes of death and rebirth, trees and palaces, and a huge, huge uneasy looking, sludgelike creature directly opposite the woman and the eyes.

Inspiration: Naasica of the Valley of the Wind

Jazra

Passion Fire Egg

Searing shades of orange and red pour up along the curves of this shell, engulfing seeming weather-worn wood of brown and gray as fodder for the fire. The egg's crown is a little paler, obscured by smoke and steam, but within the roiling clouds a dark splotch nearly conveys the silhouette of a figure on runnerback scooping up a wayward maid from her feet to the saddle.

Inspiration: Like Water for Chocolate

V'lano

Memories Egg

Flames dance across the surface of this egg, a fiery background from which a bright, happy figure emerges. His delight is rapt, attention-grabbing, and stretches from his pale-blonde shorn hair down his dirty chest, capturing him in a pose of great glee and wild abandon. Unfortunately for the figure, a black soot-line creeps up from the apex of the egg, the burning edges left by the eager fire's spread threatening to swallow and consume the oblivious figure, leaving only cinder crumbs behind. It is a moment of memory, one of delicious joy, but also of intense uncertainty.

Inspiration: Memento

Nolee

Vanishing Paths Egg

The curve of this egg's shell is only accentuated by the green rolling lines and grassy shades that paint a landscape of endless hills. Splotches of stone gray are smattered here and there, along with the dark shadows of woods and shrubbery. Winding through this green expanse is a thin dark line, a path, a track, one which a scarlet creature travels like a snake. It chugs dauntlessly onward, puffing pale smoke as it carves around the hills to some hidden destination.

Inspiration: Harry Potter

Griere