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Uwaritace The return of the draper - Printable Version

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The return of the draper - Zahra - 05-10-2018

Zahra & Ilham
It was pride that turned angels into devils
The night was peaceful, raining, of course, and there was a new biting chill to the air, but comparatively speaking, for there had been few moments free of spirit or stress in recent weeks, there were no grievous concerns churning through her mind. Eleos lay sleeping nearby, or looked to be. He stood with his neck crouched low and his burly black shoulders hunched forward, wedged between a weedy copse of trees nearby.

Zahra traced the murky, broken line of his figure through the darkness and couldn’t quite see if his eyes were closed or ajar, either way masking the storm of thoughts which seemed, these days, to haunt him too often. She wondered as she lay there gazing into the shadowy forest depths, cushioned by the waterlogged, fragrant soil of Utwaritace, just what exactly swirled behind that stoic mask of his, if memory of her mother ever visited him in his dreams; whether he thought of Africa at all…

It was such a long time ago that they’d shared one another’s lives as a family and so much had changed through the span of those years. Lives and homes had fallen, wounded by want and greed, crushed the savage hand of self-entitlement. Bonds had been severed and minds had been poisoned.

Something of a melancholic sigh burst from her damp smoky lips and swirled upwards in a plume of pale mist, before vanishing along with the moment of contemplation.

Shall we begin?

Ilham’s timely voice pierced her thoughts suddenly, drawing the mare free of that hungering burden. The spider had already spun a small lustrous ball, string which they’d now use to tether the seams of each bag together. The tiny spider’s silk was a beautiful textile to work with, Zahra’s favourite of all. Her soft, pale eyes admired it at length before she reached for the first fragment of the pinus amblo’s skin and then the other, from the rock upon which they’d been set aside.

Alright… her mind hummed quietly, preparing itself for the laborious task of creating. It took a great deal of focus, summoning and wielding threads of magic, but it was an art the fine weaver had well and truly mastered. The minute end of the thread quivered to life, roused to answer the call of its master, ready to do her bidding, and it danced in the light of the vibrant solar flowers surrounding before seeking out the leather it was required to bind.

The stoical mare worked like this for many solid hours, often with a single thread, occasionally summoning thrice the labouring silk when added strength or speed was required.

When the pre-woven quantity of twine ran out, her momentum slowed to accommodate the production of more; Ilham not once complained, the beloved spider companion worked tirelessly to provide all the trimming required. They were a marvellous team, adept, inspired by one another to continue long after midnight.

As the soft grey hue of another overcast Drench dawn illuminated the extravagant forest surrounding them, the weavers paused the toil at last. The bark of the walking pine had proved a challenging textile to work with, bark-like, rough, though resilient and surprisingly supple; they had secured and bound together many slivers tightly into not one, but two curious bags. Each was shaped to have a generous, bulb-like bottom and a drawstring of triply plaited silk towards the top, to secure its contents.

There was a belt of leather, the skin of their victim also, just below the tether, small loops jutting out to accommodate bottled wares (perhaps scorpion-like poisons, or the potions Zahra wished to make), and a perfectly rounded patch sewn onto the base for added reinforcement. A little pocket was fashioned at the side, quaint, and with a symbol on Eleos’s which mirrored the one tracing down beneath his eye - hers was plain. The latter seemed rather to be an impractical addition, but Ilham had assured that it would fit tiny trinkets and tokens like the pendant slung about her neck.

The final touch was a simple leather strap, long enough to loop around the head and slide to rest against the between breast and shoulder.

…and so their work was finished.

Zahra lifted wearily as the spider slipped beneath the loose folds of her greying mane to rest. The painted woman, however, could not, her mind was swimming through the swinging tide of exhilaration and she looked forward to presenting the gift to her friend far too much to appreciate the same. Stretching the stiffness from her black and white legs, she made haste through the drizzly half-light, with the strap of each bag snagged gently between her teeth.
Image


Tags:
@Eleos

Notes:
Zahra’s trial is to craft something from the skin of the Pinus Amblo. The skin was acquired here. With the generous quantity of skin left behind, she has made two drawstring bags, large enough to accommodate rummaging muzzles.