02 | OPEN

[shri]

FORM: Sending Crystal.
SENDER: Lakshmibai
RECIPIENT: Any one and everyone.
WHAT: Head of Community Outreach & Are you a rifter? Do you know how to weave? Want to turn a profit and help out the inquisition? Please inquire.
WHEN: Time is a flat circle.
WHERE: The Gallows
NOTES: nothing too serious

Greetings... It is Rani Lakshmibai.

[ Right, that out of the way. ]

I have two matters which I need a moment - [ Here we go. ] - I have recently been made Head of Community Outreach, for which I'm honoured. I wish to a little more to understand where I might be applied in helping others, but as yet many things still escape me as where help might be best applied to those that need it. If you have a moment to speak with me, in person, I would be much obliged. My Quarters are in the Gallows.

[ Onwards then, because who works and doesn't overwork? Not her. ] Secondly, and for rifters amongst us... I have spoken with Master Barnabas, a merchant here in Kirkwall, and I realised that whilst what many of us bring in terms of items here can be desirable and turn a good profit for it's... foreign nature. Such things are short-term investments. [ And that as far as she's concerned, is a waste. ] As such, I am looking for women or men, of moderate skill in weaving textiles and who can take direction easily, to join me in such work. You will be paid, though primarily, all extra earnings are to be funded back into the Inquisition. I intend to work things that no part of Thedas has seen before, and feel we are uniquely qualified for such an endeavour.

If such a thing is in your ability, please enquire.

[ Somewhere, her husband is following her about, tugging at her hair and laughing. ]

That is all. My regards.

Comments

[laurenande]

I would have to see what it is you wish to make, but there is precious little that is beyond me.

If you like, you may come to my rooms, where I keep what I have made. Else, I can come to you, but I fear I will be unable to bring my loom.

[shri]

I would be honoured. When may I come to you?

[laurenande]

You may come when you like, I am not given to bustling about to fill hours. I shall be here.

[And she provides her directions to a portion of the Mage tower within the gallows.]

[shri]

I will be there soon - as you can imagine, my day is now... rather full. I will see you then.

[ To say the least.

It's perhaps a little longer than she expected - busier than she thought. But even so, she takes time before she comes especially. To present herself neatly. Changing out of the uniform of so many of the Inquisition, to her own clothes. The saree wrapped long on her hips, the drape of the cloth around her upper body, where it roped about her. The rest is what she wants to discuss, the swatches of material she'd already taken the time to make as examples. Matters of good manners after, the plate of sweets she'd prepared. Because what was a business not blessed without an exchange of sweets to honour it?

( The brief prayer that is muttered to Goddess Lakshmi for favour and good blessing, because arrogantly calm as she might often appear, it always helped. )

Then she's there, knocking on the door politely. Waiting patiently with the plate balanced in her hands. ]

[laurenande]

[To Galadriel the passing of hours is hardly anything. She has been at work since they spoke on the network and, when there comes a knock upon her door, she pauses and rises to answer it. Her visitors are infrequent and she is yet unaccustomed to doors, so she does not think to greet her or acknowledge her arrival aloud--there is silence until the door opens.

The woman that stands on the other side would be a Southron in another world; she is beautiful and taller than Galadriel had expected. Her clothing is singular and Galadriel looks her over once before she recalls herself and smiles.]

Greetings. [She has brought a plate of food with her. Galadriel steps aside and welcomes her in with a sweeping gesture of her arm.

Her room is spartan, bare but for the loom in the center, a spinning wheel along the far wall, and a bed. There is a small table with a single chair, a few books and pages of parchment stacked near it, and a window. Against the wall by the door there are a few wooden poles with long swaths of very fine fabric wound around them. On the loom there is a piece of almost misty white gradually taking shape. It seems intangible at a distance and glitters a silver color as the candle on the floor shifts with the draft.]

Please come in, take a seat where you like. I have not many accommodations but what there is, you are welcome to.

[shri]

[ Surely, that is Mahasaraswati, she thinks a moment, utterly seized when she looks at Galadriel. As terrible as Kali, as beautiful as Sita. Inspects as she is inspected. The mantra's of a lifetime ago, that she has not bothered to sing outside of her own heart in years. One who is so fair like garlands of Kunda flowers and snowflakes.

Inhuman. Is what she thinks, not as the elves or dwarves, and certainly not as Lycan. But the sense of something so utterly beyond easy comprehension to what she knows. Tall, and that is not strange here. For certainly she and Magni were comparable, and so many people were ( what did they feed them to be such giants? ) But enough to make her look up, bewildered a moment at least, and for her, perhaps more than she'd ever want to admit, that is a great deal - and then carries on. If only because she simply must.

She lowers her head, respectful in greeting, the gold and gems of the nanth that swings from the piercing at her nose when she moves her head. ]

Greetings.

[ Because at least, manners are easy, stepping in when she is invited. To do as offered, taking a seat, mindful not to disturb her weaving and work. ] Pay no mind to it. I keep myself similar.

[ Because after half the mess this place could be, it is at least a nice respite to see someone else that kept everything sparsely neat. Carefully she sets the plate down, mindful where she does so, just as much. ]

[laurenande]

[Galadriel retakes her seat at her loom, largely because it is central to the room and she can face her guest regardless of where she is. She smiles as she does and takes a moment to look over the fabric she has folded and draped about her. The pattern is truly remarkable as is the arrangement.]

Is this what you wish to recreate? I have never woven something so deeply patterned; it was never the fashion among my people.

[shri]

It is one of them, we call it Chanderi silk, it is cotton and silk, blended -

[ Her hand smooths down the drape of material over herself. To where she has neatly folded it and pinned it at the shoulder to keep it in place and from moving about. Something complicated and simple to it, all at once. The thinness of the fabrics perhaps, not so different to what Galadriel herself weaves. ( and credit to Galadriel, no one could beat the weavers of Delhi and the Muhgals in how they made such fine Muslin, not outside of her homeland, but here, in front of her, she sees something just as fine for the first time in near thirty years.) The point of it - plain in summer, light, airy, and lets it be possible to do as she has done, pleated a good foot of it at the centre of her hips, wrapped it fully around herself twice, and then brought it over herself again.

When she takes her seat, it is near to Galadriel, no more than what is respectful, proper, to stop either of them having to reach about. ] - Only, I do not mean it in mockery. This is not so intricate at all, not to my people. But... I think that will make you a good test, if you are not used to making or seeing such things, as I do not think anyone else is used to it here, either.

[laurenande]

My people have long favored embroidery and bead work. This is not because the result is superior by nature, but rather because there is more time required in the working of it.

[She looks back at the cloth on the loom--it was a simple piece meant to become a shirt, nothing more. She could remove and unstring it but it would take many hours to arrange threads for this Chanderi cloth. She was not so far along that it could not be re-purposed to that pattern, but she has no idea if the color is of key importance.]

When one is very long-lived, they must fill the hours somehow, and the Eldar are very given to crafting.

Please, tell me more about this cloth. What colors should I use or avoid? Will finely worsted wool suffice in place of cotton? How long a piece is required to make such an arrangement?

[shri]

[ That makes her smile, pleased to hear so. ] As do mine. We value vibrancy in all things.

[ Carefully, she takes out from a small bag a series of folded squares of cloth. Mock-ups of patterns, weaves and fabric. Things she has poured over making for hours upon hours even for so little.

Because if what she wears now is vibrant, what she holds in her hands is a riot of colour. Fabric is woven densely into tight, geometrically interlocking patterns, others are not patterned except for wide borders of gold, but instead is one block brilliant colour that is tightly packed with the same gold, that as it moved, it shifted between light and dark hues like water shimmering, two colours all at once. The material below it, the same bright purple, but this one woven with patterns that varied in size.

The last of the set, she fishes out is a different sort of design again. But that one, in particular, she has gone even further - the patterns in sections were lifted up - woven in mirrors that shimmered and reflected the light. Embroidered as she said - not in gold thread, but in fine metal that is beaten flat, in places worked with beads.

All of it vibrant, no one colour made to be lesser, softened or the edge taken off as she holds it between her battle-scarred fingers. ] There are many more, and with some time I could make them. Nor am I the most skilled in all of them, and I have been at war too long to be truly deft in the art as I once was, but... these are but the kinds I was taught to make. My husband had... elegant tastes. I did my best to provide for them.

[ It's a little fond, that clear image of her husband still after all these years. A proud, well-dressed man. In brilliant gold, white and blue. Stung with pearls, holding the sword of the state against his side as he talked to her in her mind's eye. Truly cosmopolitan and possessing of a self-respect that let him move with a deft hand. ] I hope you can understand from seeing this why I say that my homeland's fabric is sought all the world over by Kings and Queens. I do not think it will change much here.

[ A little play, as she tries not to bite at it, nobles did not change much, it seemed. ]