Placeholder To Arms!

[Amelia]

61st Spring

It was a quiet day in the Silk Palace, one which featured a bored Amelia currently sitting at her desk, inspecting her nails.
 
Is that a piece of dirt?
 
Leaning closer to her hand, which was splayed upon the tabletop, Amelia glared at the dark speck in question. With scientific precision and a grimace, she flicked the speck from her otherwise flawless skin and gave a great, exhausted sigh.
 
I am so bored.
 
The sound of the front door opening and closing sparked an explosive action in Amelia. She jumped to her feet, hurried over to the main storefront of the shop, and just had enough time to sweep a golden strand of hair from her eyes before she greeted the customer. “Welcome to the Silk Palace. I’m Amelia, one of the seamstresses here. Is there anythi-ing—” Amelia’s voice caught in her throat as she finally took notice of the male standing in front of her.
 
He was incredibly attractive. His skin was dark and rich, his eyes the colour of treacle. But though his natural features were impressive, it was the subtler details that Amelia truly appreciated; his long eyelashes, the faint line of kohl that framed his eyes, the smoothness of his complexion.
 
She was both attracted to him and envious of him.

His four additional arms were not noticed by Amelia until a tick later, and even then she barely registered them. I have to learn his skin care routine…

“I need a new shirt.”

Even his accent was to die for! The words were twisted, lilted in a way Amelia had never met before. His eyes flickered from her face to the store and materials around them both. For once in her life, Amelia found herself gazing at someone who was significantly higher on the social ladder than she. Every one of his actions had the slowness of a man who was always waited for, who had never been in a rush once in his life. His stance was proud, commanding.

“You’ve come to the right place!” Amelia said enthusiastically, almost drunk on his class and elegance. Then, realising that she had sounded far too excited and eager, she added more casually: “I’d be happy to help you. Please, come this way.”

He grunted a reply, but unlike all the other men Amelia had met in her life, the wordlessness of the sound did not sound lazy or piggish. He sounded refined even in silence: I do not need to speak, and so I will not.

She led him to the rear of the store, where she was pleased to see no other customers lingered. Gesturing to a luxurious chair, Amelia watched her enticing client sit down before perching on the other seat beside his. “Tell me what you want from this shirt. Colour, material, occasion. The more details, the better.”

He watched her with his dark eyes, his expression frustratingly neutral. Amelia squirmed under his gaze, not used to being on the other side of such a steely critique. Eventually, after what seemed like bells but more likely were ticks, he seemed to deem her acceptable. But Amelia’s question was ignored. “My name Rashat re Ahnatep. I am visiting Lhavit to extend my business clientele. I am a jeweller, you see.”

Amelia almost melted just by listening to him. That accent! That name! That profession!

A jeweller! He worked with jewels! He worked with pretty, beautiful things much like Amelia did. She blinked, realising that Rashat was waiting for her to reply.

“I see.” She slurred, altering her posture to straighten her spine and show her own high upbringing. “I hope you have found Lhavit a pleasurable and beautiful place to visit.”

“It is. Beautiful, indeed.” His stare was unblinking and intoxicating.

Was he talking to Amelia, or about her?

[Amelia]

The seamstress felt her cheeks flush with pink, and she averted her gaze away from his amber, intoxicating eyes. It was all she could to concentrate and focus on her writing as Rashat described the exact garments he desired. He requested the highest quality silk – Amelia had suspected nothing less – and when he described that he wanted a shirt that would fall in line with the latest Lhavit styles, Amelia’s mind was immediately filled with wondrous designs.

“Please, wait here.” She breathed, raising from her chair and trotting elegantly back to the main floor of the shop. She brushed past rolls of fine cottons and linens. They were perfectly acceptable materials in their own right, but Rashat required – no, deserved in his own beautiful right! – the very best the Silk Palace had to offer. The part of the store Amelia stopped at was typically reserved for brides and grooms being fitted for their wedding outfits, or indeed the wealthiest clients in Lhavit. Liquid-like silk breathed through Amelia’s fingers as she examined every specimen with utmost care.

Rashat’s face was etched into her memory, perfectly unforgettable, which certainly helped her decision process. Pale blue and lilac were both dismissed immediately; they would wash out his cinnamon complexion. Maroon, navy and dark green, however, were all salvaged and the giant spools of silk were removed from their wooden holds.

She returned to Rashat breathless with excited anticipation. He watched her silently, that patient gaze giving very little away as Amelia held each material sample to him to examine closely.

“I wasn’t expecting the silk to be so soft.” He said gently, and not unkindly. The faintest of smiles pulled at his lips, and once again Amelia wondered at the perfection of his skin. There wasn’t a single wrinkle that she could see, and the seamstress thanked the Gods that they had gifted her with a smooth complexion also – and a flawless skincare routine to boot. “It is almost like the silk from my home,” he continued, rubbing the navy sample between his forefinger and thumb, “almost.”

Amelia said nothing, instead she was busy drinking in his entire being; his face, his voice, even his scent. He smelt unlike any other man she had met; clean and yet with a hint of spice, like nutmeg or ginger. She felt heady, a little drunk, faced with such a foreign spectacle of beauty.

“I like the green.” He concluded eventually, the words as slow and careful as everything else he had said so far. “And which is your favourite, Amelia?”

The way he mispronounced her name, with the emphasis on the last two syllables rather than the second, sent shivers down her spine. If anyone else altered how to say her name, Amelia would tut and correct them sharply, but with Rashat, she felt utterly unable to ever disagree with him. “The red. I think it would compliment your skin tone well.” She said, her voice sounding far more confident than she truly felt.

“The red, you say?” He seemed surprised by her suggestion, or perhaps his surprise was more to due with the fact that Amelia had shared an opinion different to his own. Rashat pursed his perfect lips, but eventually he nodded. “I’ll take both, then. The red and the green. Now- what buttons do you have?”

[Amelia]

It took twenty chimes for Rashat to decide on a set of eight mother of pearl buttons for each of his shirts. Amelia, normally lacking in patience for indecisive customers, waited and watched silently as the six-armed male weighed up his options.

Now the details of what Rashat desired were known to her, Amelia had the task of taking her customer’s measurements. This was her least favourite part of her job; customers became awkward and shy at the sight of the tape measure, and Amelia felt under pressure to do her calculations swiftly, without quill or paper. From what she had seen so far, Amelia did not expect Rashat to be insecure about his physique. Not only was he tall and lean, but the Eypharian held himself with unslappable confidence.

Amelia, however…

She had never took measurements from someone with more than two arms. Amelia hadn’t yet worked out whether his additional four arms meant that his midriff was longer than a human’s. Once again, the seamstress chastised herself for failing to prepare properly for this challenge; why had I never paid attention in biology?

Nevertheless, a Trisswell never backed down from a challenge, and Amelia indicated for Rashat to stand before the three angled mirrors in the fitting rooms. ”Lift your – urm – upper arms outwards, please. Like this.” Once he was in the desired position, Amelia wrapped the tape measure around Rashat’s chest, holding the marked piece of material under his armpits and over where she presumed his nipples to be (do Eypahrians have six nipples? Good grief!) to capture the widest part of his torso.

The shoulders were next: for this Amelia instructed Rashat to stand tall, but with his arms at his side. She aimed for his collarbones, holding the tape measure an inch or so below them and making a note of this figure.

“You are very methodical.” He noticed, a strange smirk on his lips.

Amelia said nothing, allowing the pink of her cheeks to speak for her.

His natural waist was next – that is, the narrowest part of his midriff. In order to make the fitted shirts that Rashat had requested, Amelia also measured two or so inches lower, crossing his bellybutton.

She finished with a measurement of his hips, neck and upper body length, the latter of which she also measured the intervals where his arms protrude from his body. Before too long, there was nothing else for Amelia to measure but those dreaded arms.

Once again she asked Rashat to stand with his arms extended outwards and parallel to the ground below. She measured from the curve of his shoulder to the wrist bone for each arm. It was a respective task, made even more so as Amelia took each measurement twice for the sake of reliability.

[Amelia]

Armed with her measurements, designs and equipment, Amelia set to work creating Rashat’s first shirt. They agreed that he would collect the finished garments the following day – a tight deadline for Amelia to adhere to, but one she felt that she couldn’t possibly extend. The idea of disappointing Rashat was inconceivable to her, and it would take Amelia quite some time to realise why.

In the meantime, she set about creating the pattern of his shirt. The Silk Palace owned several garment patterns, made out of thin parchment that could be used as a guide to cutting the initial shapes out of a piece of material. For a man’s shirt, the sewing pattern consisted of seven peculiar shapes that looked nothing like a piece of clothing. For Rashat’s custom-made shirt, Amelia would need to cut out eight additional pieces – two for his each of his four extra arms.

With a sigh, the seamstress came to the eventual conclusions that she would need much more material that she initially had thought, and that she would work late that night.

With a piece of chalk, Amelia drew a faint outline of each section of the sewing pattern directly on the reverse of the silk. Sometimes she deviated from the pinned-on paper guide, taking into account Rashat’s six arms and elongated torso. After half a bell of tracing and sketching, Amelia had finished preparing her three feet of maroon silk.

Next, she cut out the pieces of the sewing pattern, taking care to leave an inch-wide gap between her chalked lines and where she was cutting. This, she had learnt over time, would give her plenty of room to neatly hem in any free edges.

Soon she was surrounded by a collection of strange-shaped silk. She was a petite island in the middle of a red sea that would surely drown her by the end of the day.

Whilst she folded away the paper sewing patterns, Amelia considered whether she would sew Rashat’s shirts by hand, or by The Silk Palace’s one and only sewing machine. The device worked by it’s user attaching a threaded needle onto the front of the machine, beside another tool – a stitching awl – that would poke a hole through the material in preparation for the needle to bring the thread through. The operator would then, with one hand, turn a crank that would lower the awl and needle, and with their hand push the material from the right to the left. The end result was a simple chain stitch, and bells of saved time.

But as time-efficient as the sewing machine was, with a material like silk there was little room for error. The chain stitch was ideal for leather, cotton or other heavier materials that had less give in them. Silk, in comparison, was liquid-like and sheer. She would need a stitch that was both secure and neat… and done by hand.

Taking her position at a sewing table, Amelia decided that she may as well begin with the sleeves. Hai, she had enough of them to work with, after all. Neatly manicured hands threaded her needle with silk thread, and Amelia selected the two piece of material that, when sewn together, would create a single sleeve.

She used a blind stitch to bring together the two halves of the sleeve. The stitch, whilst time-consuming, would result in an almost seamless joining of the two halves. After knotting the end of the thread, Amelia dropped her needle into the tip of the sleeve, where she had already laid the two silk swaths on top of each other. She placed a few miniscule stitches to hold the two parts together, then Amelia began to run the blind stitches down the length of the sleeve. She passed the needle between the two pieces of material, making a careful effort to keep her line of stitches close to the edge and as straight as possible.

After she had finished one side of the sleeve, Amelia repeated herself along the other side, creating a tube of silk.

[Amelia]

Armed with her measurements, designs and equipment, Amelia set to work creating Rashat’s first shirt. They agreed that he would collect the finished garments the following day – a tight deadline for Amelia to adhere to, but one she felt that she couldn’t possibly extend. The idea of disappointing Rashat was inconceivable to her, and it would take Amelia quite some time to realise why.

In the meantime, she set about creating the pattern of his shirt. The Silk Palace owned several garment patterns, made out of thin parchment that could be used as a guide to cutting the initial shapes out of a piece of material. For a man’s shirt, the sewing pattern consisted of seven peculiar shapes that looked nothing like a piece of clothing. For Rashat’s custom-made shirt, Amelia would need to cut out eight additional pieces – two for his each of his four extra arms.

With a sigh, the seamstress came to the eventual conclusions that she would need much more material that she initially had thought, and that she would work late that night.

With a piece of chalk, Amelia drew a faint outline of each section of the sewing pattern directly on the reverse of the silk. Sometimes she deviated from the pinned-on paper guide, taking into account Rashat’s six arms and elongated torso. After half a bell of tracing and sketching, Amelia had finished preparing her three feet of maroon silk.

Next, she cut out the pieces of the sewing pattern, taking care to leave an inch-wide gap between her chalked lines and where she was cutting. This, she had learnt over time, would give her plenty of room to neatly hem in any free edges.

Soon she was surrounded by a collection of strange-shaped silk. She was a petite island in the middle of a red sea that would surely drown her by the end of the day.

Whilst she folded away the paper sewing patterns, Amelia considered whether she would sew Rashat’s shirts by hand, or by The Silk Palace’s one and only sewing machine. The device worked by it’s user attaching a threaded needle onto the front of the machine, beside another tool – a stitching awl – that would poke a hole through the material in preparation for the needle to bring the thread through. The operator would then, with one hand, turn a crank that would lower the awl and needle, and with their hand push the material from the right to the left. The end result was a simple chain stitch, and bells of saved time.

But as time-efficient as the sewing machine was, with a material like silk there was little room for error. The chain stitch was ideal for leather, cotton or other heavier materials that had less give in them. Silk, in comparison, was liquid-like and sheer. She would need a stitch that was both secure and neat… and done by hand.

Taking her position at a sewing table, Amelia decided that she may as well begin with the sleeves. Hai, she had enough of them to work with, after all. Neatly manicured hands threaded her needle with silk thread, and Amelia selected the two piece of material that, when sewn together, would create a single sleeve.

She used a blind stitch to bring together the two halves of the sleeve. The stitch, whilst time-consuming, would result in an almost seamless joining of the two halves. After knotting the end of the thread, Amelia dropped her needle into the tip of the sleeve, where she had already laid the two silk swaths on top of each other. She placed a few miniscule stitches to hold the two parts together, then Amelia began to run the blind stitches down the length of the sleeve. She passed the needle between the two pieces of material, making a careful effort to keep her line of stitches close to the edge and as straight as possible.

After she had finished one side of the sleeve, Amelia repeated herself along the other side, creating a tube of silk.

[Wymez]

Amelia

Skills

● Cosmetology - 1XP
● Observation - 3XP
● Socialisation - 2XP
● Interrogation - 1XP

● Fashion Design - 3XP
● Drawing - 1XP
● Logic - 1XP
● Sewing- 1XP

Lores
● Rashat re Ahnatep: Client, beautiful and regal jeweller
● Rashat re Ahnatep: Six-armed, heady spice-scented Eypharian
● Fashion Design: Choosing the right colour of fabric
● Fashion Design: Taking an Eypharian's measurements
● Fashion Design: Measuring twice
● Sewing: Silk garments are best sewn by hand

Comments

Thanks for the read! Not sure if you meant to double post at the end but still another enjoyable thread. Do let me know if you have any questions or concerns regarding your grade and don't forget to delete/edit your request in the grading queue.