Extracurricular Activities

[Jirai]

Gloria can count herself lucky to have met only one drow, and for that one drow to have been in such a pleasant mood. Rhaena's experience was far less fortunate, though even the loss of her hand and what had come before could not compare to what Glenn Burnie had suffered. These are thoughts that distress Rhaena Olwak in a way that most things cannot, these days, and so she steers clear of them.

"Lessons, is it, Gloria?" Rhaena smiled at the younger woman. "Mathematics." And there is a moment's pause to figure out the seamstress' pronunciation. "Ah, Ser Duquesne, yes." She took a sip of her tea before continuing. "I can, of course, teach you what I know, sera. I know my numbers and arithmetic, as any trader must know, but if you would go past that I shall have to steer you elsewhere." She would find someone, though, if that was what the seamstress wished. A brief pause, a few quick thoughts as the gowned woman considered her days. There were Genny's lessons to consider after all, plus the hours here at the school house and other necessary tasks had their place as well. "If you were to be here when the children leave, sera, I can have some time to spend with you. Does that suit?"

[Rance]

"Mathematics," the girl said, with earnest. "I think that numbers are fascinating; they are exact but not exact, and then there is adding them, and taking them away, and doubling them, and halving them, and fractioning them--"

When she spoke, she made little motions in the air as if chopping invisible numbers right in two, or reordering them in a specific fashion. The truth was, while she had learned the basics of phonetic Standard spelling, she would not know how to write a number for her life; prices, to her, were things measured in coins, or translated by vendors at the bazaar kind enough to pick through her shillings and say, yes, this is how much this product is, and pluck the requisite amount from her dirty palm. And maybe a little more.

"Lessons. I would be most grateful, Menna Olwak; it will give me a business to attend to in the early evening after I have done my day's selling. You see? I will be here promptly when you instruct it. I might even be able to see Master Cherny in passing!"

The plight of a mirrorskin hand was forgotten, for now she waved it about as animatedly as if it were covered by her glove, occasionally adding two fingers to two fingers to find four fingers, a talkative young lady of seams and stitches absolutely enthralled by the simple idea of math.

"Yes," she said again, her cheeks brightened by her glee at the idea. "For services rendered, services rendered as payment."

The girl thrust her reflective hand across the table, flat-palmed, ready to shake. An agreement between sisters.

"And you must tell me of this dress. I promise you will not be disappointed; I am not in the business of disappointing people, Menna Olwak."

[Jirai]

Numbers were a trader's lifeblood, and Rhaena was a true daughter of her family in that respect, so this talk has the gowned woman smiling a little more, if such a thing were possible. "It is good that you like them so, it is far more enjoyable to teach a willing student. My tutors were often vexed with me, I must admit." For a moment she was grinning openly, thoroughly enjoying this conversation, in a way that she has not been able to of late.

"Services rendered indeed. Though I will caution you - I may have to be away for a time. But if I do, I shall bring you back a fine trove of fabric to make up for it."

Gloria offered up her mirrored hand and Rhaena reached out to meet Gloria's hand with her own, colors rippling like a rainbow along her fingers.

"I am sure you will not disappoint me, sera." After a moment's consideration, Rhaena would hold onto the other woman's hand a little longer, adding quietly, "Some things I do not ask, Gloria, for some burdens are easier borne alone. Others are better shared - but that is for you to decide." Then she would release the mirrored hand. "More tea?"

[Rance]

"Why vexed," the girl asked. "Vexed." She repeated it, testing the word on her tongue. "Why do you say they were vexed with you, Menna Olwak?

"And if you are away, I will work very hard on my assignments in your absence, and perhaps I will divide my time between multiplication tables and hemming, yes? Skirts are very hard to hem, you see. You pull too tightly, and they get run through with wrinkles where the thread has bunched up. You pull too loosely, and a single snag from a tree-branch can--" a snap of her finger, "--yank the thread right out, and ruin the whole piece.

"But I do not work imperfect threads. I do fine work."

Because in Jernoah, seamstresses did not do bad work. That place was not one where people skirted idly by on the faintest knowledge. Trades were adherent to merciless directives. There, she had gotten the most customers in the messa'jost, and was revered for her embroidery -- here, though, people did not seem so much to care on the streets, where she tried to dangle her pocket-bags in their faces and ask them for a few shillings, a few shillings.

When their hands met in that shake, she was transfixed by the shifting colors, the way the light seemed to catch Rhaena's hand like slick, reflective oil one moment, and like a sheet of mail the next.

"I will never turn up my chin at the offer of fabric, Menna Olwak. And what business have you, if it is alright I ask? If it is private," she said, holding out her cup, "I do not mean to offend by asking, but am simply curious. Where are you going? Will you be traveling for -- for business, or for leisure? And yes, more tea would be lovely."

Some things I do not ask, Gloria, for some burdens are easier borne alone. Others are better shared - but that is for you to decide.

When she smiled, she showed just how uneven her teeth were, how poor their care had been. As yellow as old bones. But it did not diminish her cheer -- did you know you were infectious with it, Rhaena Olwak, like it was some imperative when around you to forget burdens altogether--

"Some things you do not ask? If I am to be your student -- and I will be a fine student -- then I am at your disposal. For enough tea, Menna, you may ask what you wish of me."

[Jirai]

Rhaena laughed merrily at Gloria's question. "Well, I was not a particularly good student, sera. I much preferred daydreaming to my lessons." She'd learned, of course, when she had reason. Like when her brother finally agreed to take her on a trading trip. Perhaps he regretted that, now. She didn't.

"Business and leisure are not entirely exclusive. I am thinking of travelling to Razasan. I am still hoping to entice someone to come to Myrken, someone who could teach at the school and have that be all that they do. I cannot give it my full attention, and it deserves someone's complete focus." But enticing someone to come live in Myrken? That was a challenge indeed - though perhaps Rhaena might manage it, one way or another.

"If you are my student, Gloria, then you are 'at my disposal' for mathematics, but not for everything."

[Rance]

"I think you are being modest; I think that -- I think that I would like to be as good a student as I am sure you were! I will not daydream too much."

When Rhaena discussed this Razasan, she was forced to remember her conversation with Descant, the bard, when he spoke of that place. The name stuck between the folds of her brain like molasses, as many things did -- to learn was to not forget, commission to memory a matter of requirement in Jernoah. She sipped her tea, and then tapped the base of the half-filled mug upon the side of the desk, as if trying to knock free her thoughts like davish fruit from a vine.

"What will you do if you do not teach, Menna," she asked. "Is -- is Razorsand your home? And do you know the song-writer Descant? If my memory serves me right, he is from there, though I imagine the place is large. Yes?

Then, a pause, as she leaned forward, her voluminous skirts bunching around hips and knees, the points of her wooden shoes tilting on the floorboards.

"Your hand," she whispered to the woman. "How long have you had it?"

For some curiosities could not be so easily sated, and some questions had no polite way of being asked.

[Jirai]

"Oh, all the other things I already do, sera. I shall simply have time for them." She smiled. "Razasan. And no, it is not my home, not at all. It is a very large place, and one can find the best trade goods there." She took a sip of her tea before continuing. "Though 'Nela does seem to have inherited Cambree's ability to obtain excellent tea even in Myrken Wood along with the Tea House. Have you been there? You really should go. Quite a lovely place."

She took up her teacup again with the hand in question. "A year or so." She answered softly. "And two without it, before that." Her head tilted slightly to one side. "Your own?"

[Rance]

"Razasan," she said, repeating the specifics. "Razasan.

She could only imagine what kind of wondrous trading goods were available: bountiful bowls of colorful fruits and nuts, cuts of exotic meat, colored sands for decorative bottles, sticks of incense to be burned for the most wondrous aromas, and--

"Tea." She looked up from her mug, and raised her eyebrows to Rhaena. "There is a house at which to buy tea in Myrken Wood?" Tea was, after all, the sign of a refined person, the lubricant of poetry and prose, a customary rarity in Jernoah, for in a place with few leaves, there were few teas to brew. "I must absolutely go. I will do this, on your recommendation."

She tilted her mug for more tea, letting it hang at the whim of her silver-edged fingers.

"You went two -- two years, without a hand?" the seamstress asked, with a gentleness that feared it might disturb the gowned woman's comfort. "I could not imagine how difficult it was, Menna Olwak. Sometimes, do -- do you sometimes dream about the moment, like you cannot get it out of your head, like you are--"

She stopped, though, and sucked in a breath, to keep the curiosity from overflowing her sensibilities.

"Four months before I came to Myrken Wood," she said of her own, flexing the knuckles, questioning not how it worked, how it could move so naturally. She could still, though, work a seam, and that was what mattered.

"I do not like knives at all, Menna Olwak. I hate them. I think they are awful," she whispered, before tracing her eyes along the desk, and humming with thought.

"Might I have another cube of sugar?"

[Jirai]

"One may go there to drink tea, sera, and enjoy some excellent conversation." One may go there for a great many more things, but Rhaena Olwak appears oblivious to this. She refilled both of their cups. "I am sure they have some other sorts of poetry as well, perhaps you will find something that better suits your taste."

Another cube of sugar for the seamstress before Rhaena replied. "I do not like to think about the moment. I should not like to dream of it, either." Rhaena Olwak does not have such nightmares. No, her dreams are quite pleasant, as long as they are her own. The fire-dream had not been her own.

"I do not much like knives either, sera Wynsee."

[Rance]

Tea. Excellent conversation. Oblivious, too, only that she did not know any better -- but a house for tea could be no different than a house for coffee, could it? Where the men gathered to crush their beans, brew their drink, discuss the latest pamphlets, practice their debate, roll high their sleeves and discuss all nature of things. Nela. She committed that name to memory.

"I wish that I had your strength of mind. Is that natural, where you are from?" the seamstress said, as she shook the cube of sugar around within her teacup. "I could say Gloria, do not dream about those things, or Gloria, those are old things, just get them off your mind, and yet it does not happen.

"That is the danger of a place like Jernoah: you spend all day memorizing things, like Good Songs, and prayers, and running stitches, and you cannot help but put everything inside of your brain." She knocked a silver finger against the side of her head, and then sought out false prophecies inside the cup clasped in her other hand. That is what they said, was it not: that futures could be told in tea-leaves? "You keep everything, because it simply comes natural, like keeping poems in your head, or choir-songs. Even the things that hurt."

Even the things that hurt others.

"I cannot thank you enough for the tea, Menna Olwak."

And she realized in those moments, as she looked at her mirrorskin hand, as she looked over to Rhaena's own, and her ever-present smile, that the woman was nothing like her. They had different lives, dissimilar pasts, and though they were connected by a like for dresses and a love for mathematics, that was--

--that was it.

[Jirai]

Strength of mind. Oh, Gloria is new to Myrken - it is likely that comment is entirely innocent of the connotations that it might carry coming from another. It did not really matter, either way.

"In a way. My brother shares some of my skills in that area." She considered the seamstress for a moment over her teacup and smiled gently. "To remember everything, the bad with the good, Gloria, may be a trial at times - but in forgetting you may lose the good along with the bad.

"No thanks are needed for the tea, sera. I am afraid, however, that you must excuse me. If I wish to not be late for my next meeting, I must leave quite soon. I shall see you for your lessons as soon as you wish them to begin."

[Rance]

In forgetting you may lose the good along with the bad.

As Rhaena excused herself, so did the younger woman. She timidly found her glove, slipped it across her mirrored fingers, and hid them from view of the world beyond the schoolhouse doors. She finished her tea, then scrambled to her feet and dipped low into a bow, clutching skirts, bonnet almost grazing the floor.

"I will -- I will return this time next week, for mathematics," she said, not trying at all to hide the shrill excitement in her voice, or the widening smile that the idea brought with it. Fresh knowledge. Mastery over something she was unsure about. Multiplication. Taking oranges from apples, and what do you have left? A king has two servants, a queen has fourteen, but their properties are one, though the State owns stock in three-and-a-half of their slaves, how many servants do they have, a whole world of numbers dancing in her mind.

"I will fit you for your dress next week, then; I will bring my tapes and my pins. Thank you, Menna."

And in a twirl of stained skirts and muddy petticoats, the girl was gone from the schoolhouse, counting excitedly on her fingertips, over and over again, as if just the idea of powerful numbers made her understand them better already.

She would return the week following, gloveless, satchel stuffed to its brim with her tools, charcoal in her fingers, ready to learn.