To Being Again

[Zaniel]

The house was modest enough. A small thing with only two bedrooms and a loft. Still the workmen had been in and out all morning. New furniture, new drapes for the windows, a proper desk. The bedroom set had taken weeks to find, and finally it was ready and being set up, complete with silk sheets from home. It really was shaping up quite nicely.

In the loft the desk would find a home, along with shelves upon shelves for books. Some he had brought with him, others he had sought out since his arrival. Two of the three walls were taken up completely by bookshelves, already nearly filled with books. The desk had quills and charcoal and paper of many types. Some carefully kept wrapped in cloth, due to their expense. He was a many who liked to write, and so he did, quite frequently.

There was little else that needed doing, save for two minor tasks. There would be need of a serving girl, perhaps a cook, those could be found easily enough. The other need was much more important, and would be much harder to find. He needed a seamstress. Delicate fingers toyed with the ornate embroidery on his shirt collar. No one embroidered like a Jerno woman. He knew of at least one in town. Her services would be required. If he did not see her in the tavern this evening, he would send a messenger to find her. A small pouch filled with silver coin sat on the desk. Payment awaited the right pair of hands.

[Rance]

“Do you know the value of a seam, child,” one of the Mother Sempstresses asked her.

”Yes,” Gloria said. “Yes, I do.”

”And that in all things, we praise the Nameless for our talents, our skills, our passions.”

”In Their Pursuit, the Nameless,” Gloria said, a litany.

”In Their Pursuit,” Mother Sempstress returned. “You must always take pride in your work; you must always remember that seams keep things together, that without the seamstress a tailor is nothing, that without the embroidery a shirt is just a shirt, a blouse merely a blouse. Lifeless, functional, bland things. Lifeless.”

”I bring them life,” she said. “With a needle.” Convincing herself -– giving herself a purpose.

”You are not beautiful,” Mother Sempstress said, cupping the girl’s cheek with her wrinkled hands. “Your face is uneven and your teeth are like yellow cave-rocks. The way your belly hangs under your dress gives you the look of a bloated jah’zoon. You are not an attractive thing, Glour’eya Wynsee. You will not find success in the birthing pens. No one should want for a child from you.”

”Then what is my worth,” the girl said.

”You are dull. You are intelligent like a stone is intelligent. That,” Mother Sempstress concluded, “is not very intelligent.”

”Then what is my worth,” Gloria said again.

”It is in your seamwork. You will scarcely amount to anything beyond being a fat-hipped sewing woman with a good right hook for those who try to steal your assignments. Pour yourself into your work, darling. The Nameless will be pleased. There is scarcely a thing that can be done with you.”

Mother Sempstress left her, and the girl stood idly by with an embroidery sampler clutched in her fists, needlworked designs crushed between her bare hands. There was, after all, scarcely a thing that could be done with her.

But two weeks later, something was done with her. And then she started wearing the little black glove.

When she received the post from the courier, who knocked with impatience at her door at the Broken Dagger, the girl scrambled out from underneath heaps of old cloth, thread tangling around her ankles and shears snip-snipping at the air with wild excitement. A visitor, a friend, someone to convince her that there was no more work she needed to do in the day. The letter slid across the threshold before she even opened the door, and she promptly read it.

The hand was deliberate, well-balanced, and organized. With her thumb she measured the perfect width -- two fingers, reasonably wide -- between parchment-edge and indentations, noting the formality.

And it was in Jernoan.

--for the commission of work, to convert dull, domestic garments into ones more fitting for a Jerno--

The paper was torn in haste when she realized who it was from. The wretched, deceitful man who had called her a thing and had made her look at her shoes like that was her proper place. She ground the parchment under a boot-heel, but had her satchel in her hand in an instant, and her needles, and her thread.

--to trust few others to do this work than a Jerno seamstress, whose eye for embroidery must be impeccable--

She stuffed the implements of her work with frustration in her satchel until its strap almost broke, for it was in her seamwork that she would find a means to subsist, a way to become more Myrkener and shake away the dust of Jernoah. And yet, he claimed he was a Jerno, and despite his foul demeanor and obtuse discourse, she was curious, fallibly so, desperate to know another well enough to speak her old tongue, to argue and banter with someone of her blood and tarsweat, to show she was more intelligent than the way a stone was intelligent.

--that my wardrobe would be better suited to your hands, and we may speak of your home, of mine, child--

The girl found the address on a winter afternoon. She knocked with curled knuckles. She told the housemaid she was there for work.

Gloria Wynsee was there only an hour. Her dress pocket was heavier with shillings, and in her mind, the twisting, envious schemes of needlework tangled in her head like wild snakes. Under her arm, his journal, a familiar piece of home through another’s eyes and quill.

In her gloved fingers, distracted and proud, a little brown date, half-eaten, preserved for the cold snap and drizzled with crystallized honey.

He was not all bad, she supposed. She was good –- a very good seamstress, a very good Jerno.

[Zaniel]

The visit had been...productive. The seamstress, it seemed her name was Gloria, had proven her skill with needle and thread and there had been a hefty purse exchanged for her agreement to work three days per week, fitting, hemming and embellishing his clothes. He had also set aside the second bedroom for her, for nights when her work ran long, so she need not trudge all the way back to the inn alone. He was not so cruel a man as others might think.

The had talked that night of her skills. He had tested her, and despite the slightly bruising of her wrist that he had caused, she did a more than adequate job. She had embroidered two fine blight roses on the collar of his favorite shirt, within the time he had given her. She was skilled, as he knew she would be. When one learned a trade in Jernoah, they learned it better than any. Gloria was no exception, save that perhaps she was better than any other he had seen. Not that he would tell her that, of course.

She had spoken of her love for reading, and for stories, this was an unexpected thing. Usually when he told others of what he did, they would smile and nod and pretend that writing, preparing documents, keeping journals, was somehow interesting to them. Nearly all of them lied. Gloria however had shown more life during that conversation than he had seen in her before. He had gifted her a small leather journal, full of stories from home, written in his own hand, in their tongue. Perhaps if she worked for him for a time he would gift her with a journal with pages that held nothing, to fill with her own memories of home.

For the better part of the day, since she had left, he had worked on the letters for Menna Folier, 5 silvers each, just to write the words she herself could not. Another job for Messa T'ygrith. There were many that paid him simply to write what they could not, or wished written in a more elaborate hand. Once a month the orders were taken by courier to the docks, new orders waiting there.

By evening, his fingers were covered in the deep black of the ink, his cream colored shirt dusted with charcoal, a spattering of sealing wax on his desk. The small leather courier's pouch was nearly full. It would be on the Solstice that the boy would come to gather them. He absently wondered if there would be a letter from Menna Gry'nof. She often favored him with something from home, on the anniversary of his birth. 18 years, this coming Solstice. Last year she had asked him to return, he shuddered to remember it. He loved her, as one would their own mother, but he would not return. He could not.

"You will be nearly an old man next year, my Zan. Have you found another wife yet? Is she as beautiful as Ha'nah? We miss you here at the House. I know the death of Stal'vak Vincent was difficult for you, but you know you can come home whenever you like. No one has been able to replace you, Zan, and I doubt anyone ever will"

As he made his way downstairs to wash up, he called for Cook, and told them woman to bring him the tray and the packets he had hidden away on the top shelf in the kitchen. When he returned from his washing, these things had been set upon the table between the two couches in the main room of his home. On a silver tray he carefully arranged the contents of the packages. Dates, sprinkled with sugar. Almonds, lightly salted, and some rolled in powdered carob. Figs, dried and halved. Deep black olives, oiled and rich. Carefully unwrapping the final package he smiled softly. He had saved this for someone who would truly appreciate it. A rather large piece of honeycomb, carefully trimmed into a five sided shape. The tray was placed with a pot of hot cider on the table.

Zaniel returned to his desk in the loft, there were more letters to write of course, and Gloria was not due for some time now. There were five pairs of pants in need of hemming, and a jacket which needed a particular pattern copied from him onto the back of the coat. He knew she was capable, now it was time to earn her wage.

[Zaniel]

It was another evening of work. More letters, more documents, and this time a map. It would cost him a good amount to find someone who could make the map from his description alone. Perhaps the seamstress would know where to look. She seemed to have all sorts of unusual information about this town.

He was dubious to allow her to return to the house, after what had happened. She seemed a sweet girl, but the horns might be a bit off putting to her. No horns one day, horns the next. It would be enough to scare any normal person he assumed. Fingers rose to his head and traced the gentle curl of the horns. Felt the point at the tip where they ended just beneath his ears. If they were on someone Else's head he might find them beautiful. On his own? Not so much. They were delicate and spiraled three times, to almost close in on themselves. They were a lovely pearl ivory with what was almost insets for opal coloring. But they were, after all, horns.

A heavy sigh then, as he put away the inks and the charcoals, stashing away the portrait of two maidens sitting on the floor. One he wold keep. One he was likely going to give to Gloria, but he just wasn't sure anymore. She might not even want it now.