Solo [The Weft and Warp] A Woven Rainbow

In which Llyvi learns about the wonder of colour.

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A surreal cavern city inhabited by Symenestra where stones glow and streets are reams of silk. Cocoon like structures hang between stalactites and cascade over limestone flows in organic and eerie arabesques. Without a Symenestra willing to escort you, entrance is impossible.

[The Weft and Warp] A Woven Rainbow

Postby Llyvi on November 3rd, 2013, 4:05 am

Day 51 | Season of Autumn | 513 AV

Avarys Anthurium was peering over Llyvi’s shoulder, probing his handiwork with his careful scrutiny.

“Do you ever get bored of it, Llyvi?” The question slithered out from between Avarys’ teeth in a seductive purr, and something in his honey-tinged voice seemed to flower Llyvi’s name. Like he was going to say something particularly flattering—like beautiful, or honeybunch—and swapped in Llyvi’s name at the last moment.

Llyvi squirmed. “Bored of . . . what?”

Avarys clucked, and flicked a strand of Llyvi’s ivory-hair. “Of this. Of that.” He extended a willowy finger at Llyvi’s woven pattern.

Avarys’ pheromone-laced breath snaked down Llyvi’s neck, and he found himself fighting off the pink tone that threatened to thrill his cheeks. Not many could stand unwavering in the face of Avarys’ charisma.

“Of weaving?” The pitch of his voice rose uncertainly. He wouldn’t dare think of himself getting bored of weaving. His thoughts flickered to his father and his disconcerting obsession. He was distressed at the prospect of a life without weaving, but the fear of ending up like his half-crazed father loomed over him. That, intermingling with his innate need to impress his father, almost always left him in confusion if he surrendered to his own thoughts for long enough.

“No, you foolish boy,” he chided good-naturedly with a chuckle. “That dreary shade. Dulled white. It looks like it’s dying.”

Llyvi had never thought about the colour—he wasn’t picky about the fabrics and silks that he worked with. He was more concerned about the way the threads moved over and under each other, the way the silk shimmered in his hands, and how he could look over the fine, intricate lines with satisfaction after he cut off the last bit of thread.

“I suppose,” Llyvi mused, “different colours might make it easier to differentiate the many threads in a fabric.”

When he met Avarys’ widened eyes and the appalled shape of his lips, he confessed, “I’ve . . . never really thought about it.”

Avarys raked a hand through his golden locks and blew out a sigh, somehow managing to not look like a weary and exasperated mother that couldn’t catch up with her jubilant child.

“Llyvi,” he said, “I cannot fathom how you have never wondered how colour could brighten your work. Think about the promise of wondrous design, the endless possibility!” He gestured to his clothing—dramatic and demanding attention, just like the man that filled it.

Llyvi only stared at him. Avarys sighed again, loudly. The other Symenestra in the Weft and Warp barely spared him a glance; Avarys’ noisy antics had become a common occurrence, and were tolerated—barely.

“Here,” he said, grabbing two spools of fine silk. One was bright red—Llyvi was reminded of blood, for some reason—and a lively yellow. Both were clearly dyed, as the silk from the Ranekissra moth didn’t come in those colours, as far as Llyvi knew. “Make something of this.”

“But—” Llyvi protested, gesturing to his loom, with a threaded pattern already well on its way to completion.

In a few beats, another loom had materialized beside him. “Use this,” said Avarys. His will was of iron, and Llyvi found that he had no choice but to comply. Avarys could intimidate a lump of coal into doing his bidding.

So Llyvi took the silk and began to work.
Last edited by Llyvi on December 7th, 2013, 2:32 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Llyvi
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[The Weft and Warp] A Woven Rainbow

Postby Llyvi on December 7th, 2013, 2:31 am

Llyvi hadn’t really worked with colour patterns before. The two spools displayed two very warm and lively colours, both uncommon in Kalinor. The yellow silk shimmered and the blood red silk seemed to glow. They demanded Llyvi’s attention, and he almost couldn’t tear his eyes away from them.

Avarys interrupted his small reverie with a polite cough. He was watching Llyvi’s every move with his hands folded across his chest.

Llyvi’s eyes moved from the two spools of silk to the mini-sized frame loom that was resting on his thighs. He fought back a curl of the lip. Suddenly, Avarys’ charm was a little less appealing. These looms were the kind that Llyvi gave to his students.

With a furtive glance at the imposing figure standing above him, he pulled at the yellow silk, stretching it taut, and then compared it to the red silk. What was he supposed to make?

Another cough, so genteel that it was almost fake. “Do you require assistance?”

“No,” said Llyvi, before hastily adding, “thank you.”

Avarys pursed his lips, but he didn’t press the matter.

Llyvi coaxed his imagination with a little more urgency, impatient to get to work and show Avarys what he was able to do. Was he going to produce a twill weave? What kind? Right hand or left hand, balanced or unbalanced? Was the red going to be the weft or the warp?

No. A twill weave would probably look stupid. He was imagining it with his mind’s eye, and it just wasn’t working out. He crossed out that idea in his mind.

“You could always start warping the loom,” offered Avarys.

He could. But then arose the question: what colour was he to use for the warp threads? Would it even matter?

Llyvi, after another moment of contemplation, decided that it didn’t matter, and picked red at random. He tied the end of the silk to the top of the frame, and began to wind the warp around the frame, his steady hand keeping the length taut, but a little loose so that he could twine it a bit easier.

Once he had warped the entire width of the frame loom, he rolled enough silk so that there would be enough for tying, and then snipped off the remaining silk. The warp threads were a lot more tightly packed together, more than warps of yarn. Weaving with silk was delicate work that could only be achieved with exceptionally nimble fingers.

Llyvi, once finished, turned to Avarys. “Twine thread?”

He blinked. “Why don’t you just use the yellow?”

“Oh.” That’s right. Colour warmed his cheeks as he roughly measured a thread that was three times the length of the width of the thin frame loom. After severing the length from the spool, he folded it in half and looped it around the frame, and, after pulling it taut, began to twist and twine.

One piece of thread would go one way around a warp thread, and the other would wrap around the other way, so that when Llyvi twisted it would bring the warp threads closer to the centre. The goal was to set ideal conditions for the weft.

He continued to twine until he’d reached the end. Then it was time for more yellow.
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Llyvi
Love is something I lack.
 
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[The Weft and Warp] A Woven Rainbow

Postby Roscoe on July 23rd, 2014, 6:07 am

Rewards :
Lore:
Avarys: Uncomfortably Seductive
Avarys: A Will of Iron
Avarys: A Hard Taskmaster
Weaving: Colors Can Be Helpful
Using Dyed Silk
Weaving: Warping the Loom
Weaving: Twining

Skills:
Observation +2
Socialization +1
Weaving +1


All in all a nice little thread. Would've been nice to see it finish though. Feel free to send a PM if you have any questions or concerns about your grades.
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