Extracurricular Activities

[Rance]

As she watched the children filter out from the schoolhouse, she couldn’t help but wonder what fantastic things they had learned in the day. Did they learn their one-two-threes, or the way that a rectangle cannot be a square but that a square may be two or four or six or ten triangles? Or maybe they read ed Odos – or something like it – and recited all the good morals from it, because how could a dinner party or a diplomatic meeting ever be run without adhering to the Odos?

i would like to learn the ways of mathematics and science, she said to Sister.

that is ridiculous, you are a choir-girl, those are pursuits for those beyond the Nameless’s purview.

Some of them were not much younger than she was. But they had the ears for Standard, the ability to understand it and read it at a fast pace, one greater than she could ever manage to navigate when presented with a book in their unfamiliar language. That was why they could learn as well as they did. Children were remarkable little people, with such fertile brains.

but i bet you i have a mind for them, i bet you i could do them better than most boys.

and yet you still talk like a good little fool, said Sister, when you should be working on your needlepoint.

When the schoolhouse was empty, she trudged along the winter-muddy trail to the stoop, and thereupon, the seamstress rapped her knuckles against the door. She opened it, ever so slightly, and spoke through the crack between door and jamb: “Menna Olwak,” with her voice scarcely more than a whisper. “Menna Olwak, are you present?”

She had the lady’s letter clutched in her hand, folded, a bill of purpose.

She remembered, like she remembered many things, what Catch had said.

I g-g-gave it to her.

[Jirai]

"Come in!"

The words called out almost the instant the tap at the door reached Rhaena's ears. The gowned woman would look up a moment or two later from whatever it was that had occupied her attention and once the identity of her visitor became clear would exclaim in delight: "Oh, Sera Wynsee, do come in!"

Rhaena rose from her desk, abandoning her work to welcome the seamstress. "Can I get you some tea?" Before the younger woman has a chance to respond, Rhaena is shifting a pot of water from the hearth, pouring it over tea leaves that have already been prepared in a pot. Rhaena Olwak never lacks for tea. "If we were at home rather than here at the schoolhouse I might offer you cakes or sandwiches as well, but I'm afraid I do not have much beyond tea here at the moment." The gowned woman chattered happily.

[Rance]

Come in!

So she did, the wooden soles of her shoes loudly thumping against the floorboards, the door shut behind her. As the girl followed Menna Olwak's voice, she wove through the benches and the sturdy little stools with a quiet wonder, her gloved fingers dragging themselves each over one as she passed it.

"Tea -- tea would be splendid," the seamstress said, before timidly approaching the lady's desk. Her bronzed cheeks had been pinched red by the winter's bite. "But cakes are not necessary, Menna Olwak. Your hospitality is already quite enough. I think that I can feel myself getting smarter just by being in here." The smile was genuine, youthful, but she crumpled the paper open and closed in her hand, and stood like a rigid treetrunk.

"Thank you for taking the letter from Master Cherny," she said, a knee bent in a small bow. "He is my finest friend, and he is worth much more than being just a delivery boy, but I trust him beyond any others. You see?

"I..." A sentence hung in her throat, before she gripped the side of the desk and leaned against it, a nervous distraction. "I came to you because -- because Ser Catch has said something, and I wish to know if it is true."

She watched Rhaena, with eyes that were ashamed, as if she might rather hide her gaze behind her bonnet. She looked to the lady's hands as she worked with the tea, looking, looking for anything that confirmed what Catch had said.

A hand that had been made.

[Jirai]

Once the water had been poured, the pot was returned to the hearth. The leaves must steep, yet, but the bronze-haired woman set out cups in preparation, both hands moving gracefully, both gloved. They were fine gloves, of course, lacy and delicate, but quite sufficient to hide her hands from view. Rhaena Olwak took a seat then, gesturing for Gloria to do the same.

"Young master Cherny is a good boy and well deserving of your trust. He is quite determined to better himself - and being a delivery boy is not the same as doing a favor for a friend, Sera."

Once she had judged the wait to be sufficient, Rhaena leaned forward to pour tea into each cup, smiling at the younger woman. "What is it that Ser Catch has said?"

[Rance]

The two gloves seemed to never lose her attention. The teapot was returned to the hearth, and she followed them; the cups were placed -- tap and tap -- on the desk, and she did not look away. Yet, they spoke about a more desirable subject first, the matter of Master Cherny, and the seamstress reached out with her own gloved hand to turn the handle of the teacup toward her, aligning pointless things with pointless directions in her mind. A distraction.

"I would not know where I would be without him as a friend. He keeps my head on very straight; he is full of logic that I think most boys should be envious of."

As the tea spilled into her cup, she followed the curls of steam with her eyes, and then took it by the handle, eschewing any offer of sugar or additives, before bringing the scalding tea to her lips and sipping, without flinch, without pain. Her lips were broken, dried things, but the warm liquid did not further disturb them.

"He said that he gave you -- gave you something," she said, with a quiet voice as if she were afraid there might still be children around them, invisible, and in the seats. "A hand, one that is not natural--"

A pause, a sip of the tea, before she broke her own rules of secrecy and shame, and plunged into the subject, sprawling a black-gloved palm on the desk. Niall the spearwielder be damned. Elliot the rogue and his ultimatum be condemned. This was Rhaena Olwak, a woman she did not know thoroughly, but whose demeanor was comforting -- who, she was convinced, would know all the right things.

"A hand not made of flesh, Menna Olwak. Like mine."

[Jirai]

Rhaena lifted her own delicate cup with lace gloved hands, taking a small sip, clearly enjoying the drink. "I am pleased to see that Cherny has made a friend in you, Sera Wynsee. He is a quiet lad and doesn't seem to spend much time with the other children. It is good for him to have friends."

Gloria continued on to speak of Catch and hands, which is not a subject Rhaena quite expected, but her smile did not falter for an instant. "But of course!" She answered, setting her tea back down on the desk. "I had lost mine, you see, and Ser Catch is ever so good at fixing things." Without hesitation, the gowned woman tugged off her gloves, first one and then the other. Her right hand was normal enough (if one ignored the bronze scales edging her nails), but the left was a different story. It was a dull gray in color while still, but the moment Rhaena moved that hand, colors rippled across the surface, swirling and changing with each small movement. The gowned woman smiled happily at Gloria.

"Isn't it lovely? What of yours?"

[Rance]

Ser Catch is ever so good at fixing things.

There was a fascination in the seamstress' eyes as that second hand was revealed. Like young children watched acrobats, her mouth was slightly open, and her hands were gripped to the edge of the desk as if she might fall over. Colors, hues, they danced across Rhaena's knuckles and fingers as if they were meant to be there. And the way the woman was so proud of it, so easy to ask, it bewildered and astonished her.

"It is -- it is breathtaking," she admitted, and with no untruth.

Catch had done masterful, wondrous work that no mere needlework could ever match.

Then, and almost with a scrambling haste, the girl forgot that some secrets were meant to be kept, that some shames should not be given light in a world, but she scrambled to take off her own glove -- two gloves, she had never thought of, had never considered that it might be a more normal way to go about it -- to reveal her own hand, splaying it on the wooden bureau.

If a mirror could be turned into liquid, smelted, and hammered into the shape of a girl's hand, that was what Rhaena would see. It was pudgy and imperfect in shape the way her other hand was. The reflectiveness terminated just before her filthy sleeve, and gave way to normal, sun-darkened skin.

"I -- I thought, I must not tell anyone, and then Ser Catch, he said he had given you this, and I did not -- I did not want to be rude, or approach the matter stupidly. You see? But sometimes -- sometimes we must know that we are not so different, and that--" the words spilling out of her were breathless stammers, explaining, and also desperate to know, "--by the Nameless, Catch is the most wondrous man, that he can do these things at all for those he loves, and though he did not make mine, I might wish he had!"

She had an uneasy smile on her face, both relieved and discordant. A wetness glimmered under an eye.

"May I -- may I touch it," the seamstress said. "May I touch your hand?"

[Jirai]

"Oh, Gloria, how lovely! I don't see why you wouldn't want to tell anyone." Rhaena exclaimed, marveling over the hand that the seamstress had revealed. The seamstress' words, awkward as a tumble of puppies, were met with a gentle laugh from the gowned woman.

"Ah, but yours is so wonderful already, I do not see how Catch could have improved upon it. Who made yours?" Without hesitation, she offered her hand out to the younger woman. "Of course you may!"

[Rance]

When the hand was offered, she used her own silvery fingers to touch it -- hers were not near as graceful as Rhaena's, for they seemed to quiver, shudder, as if they were things that should never be given a needle for threadwork.

She had needed confirmation, though, that Catch had been the architect of Rhaena's hand, and this moment -- if both to relief and discomfort -- proved it. Rhaena did not have the same reflective flesh; she did not seem to wear the shame of it across her shoulders. How lovely, the gowned woman had said.

"I will only show those I trust," she whispered, before retracting her hand, and stuffing it away amid her stained skirts. "Those who must know, like Master Cherny, and Catch -- and you," though forgive her, showing Rhaena was a matter of discovery, yet she had nothing to fear, nothing to be discouraged about by the ever-friendly woman.

Then, she took up her tea in her natural-skinned hand, and tried to turn it into a conversation of the casual, of the candid.

"Mine was -- mine was made by the Nameless," she said. "And so I must ask, Menna Olwak: where are you from?"

[Jirai]

Rhaena does not see flaws. To her, Gloria's hand is perfect, beautiful, and she smiles as the woman touches her own hand. "As you will, Gloria." Rhaena does not hide her own hand in the same way. The gloves she wore were simply what a lady ought to wear. No, there is no shame to this, not for Rhaena. That had come when there had been no hand at all.

Rhaena drew her hand back without gloving it and took a sip of her own tea. "The Nameless?" She asked curiously before answering the younger woman's question. "Ah. My homeland is far away from here, a place of rain and sun and trees... trees so large that we build our homes in them, rather than on the unstable ground..." Rhaena gave a small sigh. "But I have not been back there in some time."

[Rance]

"The Nameless," was her repeated response, and that was all. Rhaena did not know of Them, then, and the talk of her home -- a place of rain and sun and trees...trees so large we build our homes in them -- turned the truth to hard and settled stone.

Rhaena Olwak was nothing like her; Rhaena Olwak knew her own things, not Jerno things, not Jernoah things. For a moment, the girl had thought there might have been commonality, but beyond the similarity of their hands, there was nothing -- she was a seamstress, and Rhaena was a headmistress, and suffixes be damned, these hands did not make them the same. That realization brought relief, but it did not help her to smile. No, beneath the bonnet, her lips were still as straight as a a well-carved line, and the girl in the stained dress drank her tea with a properly straightened back and her mirrorskin hand still half-hid in her dress, wanting for its glove.

"How do you do it," the seamstress asked, with an honest need to know. "Menna Rhaena, how do -- how do you look at your hand, and not feel like you have lost something?

"Oh -- oh," the girl suddenly exclaimed, on the hinges of her inquiry, as she stuffed her hand into her satchel and began to sift through it.

She then dropped a leather-bound book on the desk. Voice, Melody, and Man -- the poetry that Rhaena had left with her the first time they had met -- looked worse for the wear, having been smudged with the girl's inky hands, and some of its pages dog-eared, torn, and missing whole chunks. But there was the clear evidence of study strewn throughout its pages, too. Charcoal notes, left in a hearty foreign scrawl, lined the pages. Whole passages had been crossed out, or rewritten at the whims of a seamstress who in her dreams fancied herself quite the poet.

"I have brought you back your book that you loaned me many months ago," she said, "if you will forgive that I have quite mistreated it. I am sorry."

[Jirai]

Rhaena Olwak was far more than a headmistress. For all that she loved the school and had dreamed of it, this was a task that simply must be done until someone better could be found. Something was better than nothing until then, though, and Rhaena would do her best.

There is a careful look for the younger woman's expression, but Rhaena does nothing more than smile at the seamstress - a smile that widened as the much-abused volume is returned. "I am glad to see that it has been of such use to you." She responded, sliding the book slightly towards her with the tips of scaled fingers. Polite, always polite. Besides, the preceding question had been more interesting, and she answered it after a moment.

"Gloria, I had lost something when I looked down and saw nothing there. How could this be worse than that?"

[Rance]

"I must tell you: I did not find the poetry enjoyable, Menna Olwak, but that is a matter of taste. Standard is a soft, tonguey language prone to too much abstraction. You see? It does not have the hardness and precision of Jernoan.

"I will pay you back for your book," the seamstress said. "And for your kindness, for letting me read it, as I have perhaps learned more of Myrken through reading it than through any other source."

In Rhaena's bright and budding presence, the young seamstress felt as if she were a sour and miserable creature. It was not so much that she was, but that the gowned woman was of such resplendent happiness, it dulled her own sense of cheer, made her wish she might purchase a tiny shard of Rhaena Olwak to keep in a pocket and encourage her on harder days.

"I suppose that it is not worse," she considered, before looking to her own hand again, and--

--glour'eya hold it out very nicely just like that, don't shake, don't--

will it hurt, will it--

"I suppose," she said, taking a hearty gulp of tea, so much that it burned her tongue and throat, but she never flinched, never turned away. "Was it -- was it taken from you by force, Menna Olwak?" she asked, quietly.

"What terrible creature would do such a thing to you -- what person would do that to someone who shines as you do?"

[Jirai]

"Oh, there is no need for that, sera Wynsee." Rhaena exclaimed at the mention of paying. "I am glad that you learned something, even if the poetry did not suit you." And then Gloria asks her question, a question about something Rhaena has done her best to forget. Her smile faltered for a moment.

"...Drow." She said quietly. "...I don't care to think on it, Gloria." Couldn't think on it. Her mind simply veered away from those memories. They were there, but safely set aside. "I had hoped I might hire you to make me a dress, sera." She changed the subject, smile back in place.

[Rance]

Drow.

In Jernoah, they did not have drow. Drow were not something in their stories; drow, to the young seamstress, was a single creature, one she had met late at night at the Broken Dagger, whose motions had been stiff and whose words, however amicable, had been tense. It had taken some time for the seamstress to encourage her to show her weapons.

Brandy's weapon had been her black skin. And the seamstress thought it one of the most remarkable things she had ever seen.

"I -- I am sorry," she said, again with an apology. She touched steepled fingers to her lips and dipped her head forward into a small bow. "I understand that it is -- it is hard to talk about those things. As it is with me. As it is with mine."

And while she had not come to talk of dresses or seamwork, she could not refuse the offer. Her pockets were growing thirsty for coin, and she had thought to entreat Menna Dulcie more than once for an extension -- just a few days, here and there -- to pay for her room at the Broken Dagger.

"Of course, Menna Olwak. I will be very happy to. Governor Burnie put me in touch with a trader some time ago for some very particular fabrics -- I am a seamstress, which does not constitute tailoring, but I am Marshall Emory's official uniformess, and have learned very well -- but the trader, he has not returned my letter.

"If you would be willing to forward me a modest amount of coin for your desired fabric," the young woman said, leaning forward, tapping her shining fingers on the desktop, "I will gladly acquire it, and discuss measurements with you. And, I will reimburse your coin when I receive my payment from the Marshall."

Yet, why? Why the offer of reimbursement, if Rhaena were simply being asked to pay for the materials of the dress-in-question. The seamstress, with her dirty cheeks and her crumpled bonnet, spoke with shameful leather and sand in her voice. Her finger traced timid circles on the desk.

"Mathematics," she said. "I would -- I would like to learn better mathematics. You see? I have entreated Messa Dookwisnee at Darkenhold to teach me the art of oratory, and yet I wish to have a mind for numbers.

"Lessons," the girl said, finally looking up. "Might I have lessons, in return for the dresswork?"