What Must Be Done on Dyer Avenue

What Must Be Done on Dyer Avenue

Postby Rance » Thu Jul 11, 2013 4:16 pm

She must have a love for it, she had been told.

She arrived on Dyer Avenue well before sunwake. The Crawl Moon sunk like a bloated coin toward the relief of one horizon while on the opposite the Glass Sun was retribution; it would dare, with its first blade-like rays, to slice away the fog of night and give chase to its celestial twin with arrogant zeal. But by then, the girl -- she had washed the day before with considerable effort, so much so that the crook of her arm ached -- was already inside the building Channtelas Atrahasis claimed as her own. A working fellow with a boil on his nose had begrudgingly let her in.

("It's early," he had said; "I'm only now throwing down canvas for the stripping of the old rafter wax," he had said; "It must be done before the others arrive, because these high-brow puffer-fish they call ladies might up and die should I drop a lump in their hair," he had said;

"Help me set the catch-cloth, girl, and I will let you in to await the owner," he had said. And he had said, he had said more, but there were other matters that awaited her attention.)

She traced her fingers along the bulging bolts of extravagant cloth, testing the tension of expensive fabrics and their willingness to hold shape. She found bobbins of threads, some of which she dared test by plucking a withdrawn string against a browned eyetooth. And in this odd little shop, in its odd little place, with all its odd little fabrics--

--the Jerno girl with skin the color of wet sand, who was a sea apart from the last seamhouse she had ever set foot in, was pleasantly transported. For the moments until Channtelas Atrahasis would arrive, she remembered how much she loved to sew, and the three steely needles in her mismatched cuff gleamed against the morning lantern-light. Under her breath, she sang a song--

"Ed do t'lzha ed do d'toldoch od ekkil, ekkil, ekkil mit hil.
Ed do q'lzha ent-ent do pardak od ko'el, ko'el, ko'el mit hil.
Ha'dloc, ha'dloc, hil j'er ool! Hil j'er ool!"

--and thought she'd never seen so much fabric in her life.
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Re: What Must Be Done on Dyer Avenue

Postby channe » Fri Jul 12, 2013 9:31 am

And it is an odd shop, for it isn't like any other dressmaker's --

-- in the Myrken dressmaker's, things are laid out haphazardly. This shop, with its odd mixture of decor from Thessilane and somewhere else that Gloria will probably not be able to identify, is incredibly well-organized. Everything is in a row: needles in a case, thread sorted by color, sketchbooks piled up and labeled: Men. Women. Children. The cloth as well: cottons, jacquards, velvets, all by color and all wrapped and placed in an easy-to-access wooden rack.

And it is from behind a modesty-curtain that the gracious Mme. Atrahasis appears, wearing a very simple burgundy gown with no petticoat. And she curtseys to Gloria like a gracious hostess would, indicating a table where a tea-set is laid out. "Miss Wynsee. May I pour you tea? Or would you prefer wine?"
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Re: What Must Be Done on Dyer Avenue

Postby Rance » Fri Jul 12, 2013 9:46 am

She had slid her fingers just along the edge of a wooden needle-case when the floor murmured and she heard Menna Atrahasis's voice behind her. It was with a startled breath that the girl turned, promptly flattened her palms against her thighs, and smoothed out the wrinkled fabric of the Storyteller's patchwork skirt. The rest of the garment had been strewn with browning stains -- mud along the hems, and from the left hip to the knee beneath, a darkened smear of old, dried blood.

The courtesy was returned, of course; with fumbling grace, the girl teased up the edges of her skirt and fell into a mismanaged bow. "I -- I think that wine would be very nice, Menna. There are some people about here who -- who like tea far too much."

Her eyes held long over the older woman's pristine gown, her gaze naturally seeking out what stitches were visible -- if there were any at all.

"I hope that I am not too early," she said, lingering near to the table, but not yet sitting. "I could -- could scarcely sleep. You see? I thought of how we spoke, and that I might have instilled doubts in you as to my dedication to -- to coor-doo-ree." Between her accent and her unfamiliarity with the word, her slaughtering of the sounds was not simply a task to be done on paper. "Intimidated? Yes. But I've got no issue with -- with dedication.

"I would like to learn," Gloria said. "I would like to learn with you."
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Re: What Must Be Done on Dyer Avenue

Postby channe » Sat Jul 13, 2013 4:40 am

"Well, then," she says, "there's no time to waste. The Marshal just ordered a Militia's-worth of uniforms from my shop, and I will need your help. She seems to trust you already, so it's only right to put you on the project, with your fee paid with each finished quality uniform. But --" and she lifts her finger, forestalling any excited response, "that is only sewing, and is not quite couture. Let me tell you a story."

She pauses, walks over to a sideboard where there are crystal glasses and a swan-head decanter, and pours a glass of wine. She returns to the table and places it in front of Gloria, reaching for the sketchbooks and some charcoal. "When I first moved to Orvere, I had nothing," she says, quietly. "I'd rented rooms here in Myrken, but sold pretty much everything to pay for the move itself. When I got there, I tried to do what I used to do, but a town like that, recovering from such terrible loss, did not need a singer. And, to be honest, I'd lost my desire to sing a long time ago."

Her eyes go faraway and glassy for a moment, and then returned to Gloria. "What they did need was clothes, as all men and women do. So I sewed, and I sewed, and I needed cloth to sew with, so I traveled around and found cloth-supply that no-one had introduced to Orvere, and before I knew it, I had a little shop. And after a year or so, a local countess heard of my shop and invited me to tea at her manse. But I had nothing to wear."

She laughs. "I know it seems silly, to have nothing to wear and be a seamstress! But I had so much seamwork to do for others that I just did not have time to sew a thing for myself. So I went to a coutourier, and --" She pauses. "The rest, as they say, is history. The only way you can truly understand the feeling of high fashion is to experience it yourself. You cannot sing a song you have never heard and for which you do not have the music; likewise, until you know how to give others this experience, and it is an experience, all you will do is plain needling. So today, my dear, that is what we are doing for you."

So she pauses, and looks at Gloria with her dark, kind eyes. "So, tell me. If you could wear anything in the entire world, what would it be? What would it look like?"
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Re: What Must Be Done on Dyer Avenue

Postby Rance » Sat Jul 13, 2013 6:04 am

Let me tell you a story.

Not all stories came to life; not everyone was a Storyteller, and she knew this. Yet, perhaps the rigidity in the young woman's form was immediately visible and only began to fade as the tale waned on, and she remembered--

The Storyteller was gone. This was Menna Atrahasis. This place was safe.

She listened over the glass of wine, her fingers vicing the stem as she had seen ladies do. Occasionally she sipped, but her palate was not one that knew how to navigate wine; it was a bitter juice, the taste of which reacted poorly with the residual sting of mint-leaves still lingering in her mouth.

I know it seems silly, to have nothing to wear and be a seamstress!

The girl smiled into her wine-flute. That was her. She could work wonders with a needle and the collar of a shirt, or be sure a sleeve's pivot never puckered from its shoulder-seam. But these were scarcely talents she reserved for herself. "It's not silly," she responded, a meek support of the woman's story. "It is not silly at all."

Atrahasis was a woman of culture. She dripped refinery, but not the cloud-blind, frill-choked finery that Rhaena Olwak had dribbled, like a plague, upon some of her fellow Myrkeners. Dulcie in shades of pink; Ariane donning slippers and a parasol! No, Atrahasis was something totally different -- an authoritative fashion, a modest sensibility that reminded the younger seamstress that perhaps she was due this: a chance to understand what it meant to not simply suffer clothes, but to engage them with earnest--

If you could wear anything in the entire world, what would it be? What would it look like?

"Something," she said, glancing at the sketchbooks, "that does not compromise who I am. I am not a pretty girl, Menna. I would prefer not to lie to myself and the world. I am not afraid to muddy my palms or -- or stink of hard labor. I come from a place where the sun scorches clear sweat to a boil. I am sturdy. I have got fists like stones.

"I do not know what it would look like," the girl admitted, "but that is what I wish it would say of me, because far too many people have forgotten what they are. And I fear that making clothes speak so boldly yet with such propriety may be a magic that is hard to marshal through fabric and stitches."
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