Lessons at this age?! [Jisralna]

Someone, Faranth knew who, appeared to have found out about Volfetti's constant chore swapping when it came to clothing. She had been assigned to not just chores, but lessons on how to mend and make basic clothes. Something about 'learning more skills now that she couldn't Stand'. Suffice to say, she wasn't a happy camper at that news.

As a consolation to herself, Volfetti had spent lunch eating a platter of seafood she had helped net earlier that day. Amongst it was a small octopus, a rare catch for the relatively shallow net she had put out. This she savoured, spending as long as she could eating it. No, she wasn't putting off her sewing lesson. Of course not. She was savouring the beautiful food she was trained to catch.

With a sigh she pushed the now empty plate away from her, pursing her lips. Standing, she took her hat and tugged it onto her head. She stared at the plate for a moment, having a small morality argument with herself. Were this a real Weyr, there would be drudges and kitchen staff to clear the tables. If that were the case, she would have no qualm in leaving her plate on the table this one time. However... this was not a real Weyr. Tugging at her hat she let out a little grumble before she leaned over and picked the plate up, taking it to the large tables where used crockery and cutlery were collected from for washing. Dropping it, perhaps a little harder than needed, she turned on her heel and strode out.

Her walk to the craft hall was a slow and leisurely stroll, her beige skirt swirling around her ankles. It created a draft around her legs and while it wasn't cool, it was at least relieving in the Katilian heat. As she walked her hat was tugged in every direction, first left then right, then back and forward. Sadly, the walk couldn't be long enough for her and the craft hall loomed up before her. She narrowed her eyes. This was stupid! Why did she have to learn to sew?

Despite all her grumbling she walked inside, heading to the room she had been told to go to. She knocked on the door, more out of politeness than anything as it was already open, peering inside. Bundles of brilliant red hair caught her eye immediately and she frowned for a moment. There weren't many redheads around and it didn't take long for her identify who it was in the room.

"Jisralna?" VOlfetti stepped into the room, taking her straw hat off with a sweeping motion. "I believe you are here to teach me..." She struggled for a moment to wipe the scowl off her face. "...How to sew."

Life had fallen into a routine--if a bit uncomfortable due to the heat--that suited Jisralna quite nicely. She got up early in the morning to beat the sun and attempted to get as much of her laborious chores done as possible. After breakfast she gathered the clothing that needed washing and mending and brought it into the crafters hall--sack by sack by sack--to be sifted and sorted through. Garments were all washed and then sorted through. Ones beyond redemption were sent to the scrap pile and replaced with something similar while those needing mending were sent to a separate room.

It was in this room that Jisralna had found herself spending more and more of her time when she wasn't dragged away to do some obscure chore like helping in the gardens or attempting to cook--she wasn't horrible but she was much better at eating than she was at cooking. The main reason for this was that she wasn't too keen to be seen out and about in her present condition. But it wasn't exactly a chore; to her, sewing was as natural as breathing. It was relaxing and far more enjoyable than chasing animals that made her nervous about in pens.

Lunch had been a welcome break in her morning routine but the dining hall was almost unbearably warm and crowded and the heat seemed to elevate tempers which lead to shouting and general discord that had the woman slipping out before a majority of the others and walking from shadow to shadow back to the craft hall. She wasn't the only one there and as she stepped in she was flagged down by one of the elder weavers and promptly informed that she would be giving lessons to one of the other crafters that day.

A bit startled she lurched away as the middle-aged woman shooed her away from the looms and back towards her little room. It was the first time that she'd been asked to teach a crafter. She'd given a few basic lessons here and there to the older weyrbrat girls but never at the behest of one of the senior weavers. For a moment she remembered her failed attempt to be applied for Mastery back before the dragons then shook her head as she settled onto her cushion and pulled the next batch of clothing into her lap.

She'd just finished repairing a split seam and was snipping the trailing end of the thread when someone knocked on the door. For a moment she looked startled, her seemingly perpetually sun-pink face turned up and gray eyes wide. Abruptly a welcoming smile took control of her lips and Jissy set her work aside, she pushed herself to her feet to usher the woman into the room. "Yes, that's me. I was told to expect you. Volfetti, isn't it?"

Trying not to be disheartened by the woman's scowl, she went to fetch another floor pillow for Volfetti and urged her to sit with gestures. "So how much do you know? I little bit, surely." It was completely unfathomable to her that a woman might not know at least the basics about sewing.

Volfetti gave Jisralna a small smile. It was clear she enjoyed her work from the way she sat there cheerfully sewing while heavily pregnant. She remembered her own Katilian pregnancy and how simply touching any additional fabric to the ones on her body had felt like fire, hell even her clothes felt that way sometimes. Katila was hot enough without extra fabrics involved, neverind a growing child elevating one's temperature.

"Mm, yes." Was all Volfetti answered with. She watched Jisralna curiously as she fetched a large pillow like the one she had been sitting on for here. She did as she was bade and sat, crossing her legs and pulling her skirt into a more comfortable arrangement. Placing her hat down beside her she couldn't help but laugh at the weaver's comment.

"Give me a rope or a line and I'll thread you a sail and a fishing line. That's it." She held up her heavily calloused hands and wiggled her fingers. "These are sailor hands, not pretty little weaver ones." Her voice was light, not insulting Jisralna but more expressing the hopelessness she felt towards this task. She had grown up learning how to fish and build boats. Having chosen to go into netting and trapping as a speciality, she hadn't even handled a needle in her life, which she potentially would have had had she gone with her second choice of ship building. Even then, the sails were usually dealt with by weavers that lived in the hold, not the seacrafters themselves.

"My mother was a cook at our hold, what little stitching she did I kept out of it. She told me I was quite keen to knot thread around the needles and then tie the thread to a stick and pretend I was fishing. I'm afraid you have a mighty task ahead of you." Volfetti shrugged, dropping her hands but she still smiled. Katila Weyr was a lot of things that Volfetti didn't like. After six years, she had come to accept that they were going to keep making her do things she didn't want to do and it was just easiest to let them do it. She certainly couldn't blame Jisralna, she herself had been abducted from her home and family too, it wasn't her fault she had been told to teach the seacrafter to stitch.

Volfetti reached over and picked up her hat, twirling it in her hands. Was that nerves showing through? It had been a long time since Volfetti had been told to do something so foreign before. At Katila it was 'Have babies! Raise babies! Get more fish!' predominantly. Even when it came to cooking she had quickly convinced them she was a horror at it.

Wait, was that what they had planned next? Cooking?!

Jisralna smiled as the woman wiggled her fingers and inwardly winced at how rough they appeared. Certainly not the type of hands anyone would want working on fine fabrics. Looking down at her own hands, she realized how very different they were from the other woman's; she didn't do much rough work and when she did she tried to wear gloves. But at the same time they were a great deal rougher than they had been before she'd come to Katila. Life wasn't easy here by any means but Jissy liked to think that she'd adjusted rather well for the most part. Sure she still had massive anxiety over the fact that she wasn't married and about to have a child...nor was she even in a relationship that might head in that direction. Then there was the awkwardness around the men of the weyr.

Shaking her head slightly, she looked over at Volfetti. "Well, aside from fishing lines, have you ever repaired a sail?" It was something that Jissy herself had never done, specializing in clothing as she did. She imagined that it had to be much the same though sail cloths were generally of a thicker weave and so the thread and needles were comparitively larger as well.

Setting about gathering her sewing supplies between herself and her student for the day, she paused when the babe in her stomach shifted and what might have been an elbow or a foot shoved. Hopefully the babe wouldn't get restless during her lesson or she'd be running to the latrine every ten minutes which would be less than productive. Thankfully the movement settled and she could concentrate on figuring out where to start and hoping she wouldn't sound condescending. "Can you thread a needle?"

Volfetti paused at the question. At her hold the sails had usually been turned over to the women to repair, but being one of the few who worked the rigs and boats Volfetti had been excluded from that. Katila was a different situation however, with such a mish-mash of skills amongst them.

"When I was brought here, I had to request for sails to be stolen as they had no suitable cloth to use for making them. They found horrendously ripped ones, clearly discarded for their uselessness. As a trapped woman I had little choice but make do. I spent weeks trying to fix them. In the end I had to get another stolen woman to help me." Volfetti cringed at the memory, she had pricked herself countless times with the needles and had to attempt to rethread the needle even more.

She watched with interest as Jisralna gathered and sorted out her sewing supplies between them. At her pause, Volfetti gave her a kind smile. "Is the babe being a nuisance?" She asked gently. Volfetti had no idea this was Jisralna's pregnancy, instead she assumed it must have been her third or fourth by now. Such a pretty dainty woman, that was the type that the men clamoured for. Volfetti was nice enough to look at, but they never appreciated her determination for work nor her calloused skin. Heavy muscles was also not on the checklist of 'the perfect woman'.

At the question Volfetti gave a little sigh. "I was taught when I had to mend the sails here, but that was over five years ago now. I honestly don't remember how. I probably did it wrong anyway." She gave the weaver a wane smile. While she came with a somewhat blank slate to teach, at least she would throw her dedication into learning the skill. She'd be damned if she had to have extra lessons! She'd prove she could sew with just a few.

Stolen; the word caught Jisralna by surprise. She'd been at Katila for a few months shy of three years and having adjusted so readily to life there that she often forgot that not everyone had. She forgot that some harbored resentment for being uprooted from their lives and always would. Yes, there were times when she missed her family--her mother and step-father--especially now, but the gift of dragons, knowing that she was helping to sustain the ones that would one day protect Pern, the friends she had made were enough to leave her feeling content most days. Though the more and more Volfetti said--each time she used the word stolen or trapped--the more uncomfortable Jissy became.

When Volfetti moved onto another topic--though the new one was almost as discomforting--Jisralna grasped the subject change and returned the woman's smile, nodding. "It happens from time to time, though not enough as to be unbearable. Perhaps that why I think the babe might be a girl." For all that her circumstances were less than desirable, Jisralna was still excited to know that soon she would be a mother, however, had she been privy to the other woman's private thoughts she might just have burst into tears to know that someone thought she was the sort to have multiple children out of wedlock and with more than one man. Thankfully Volfetti didn't share her thoughts or the lesson might have been over right then and there.

"Oh, I doubt that. It must be something like threading one of those hook things for fishing, yes?" Friendly and encouraging smile in place, Jisralna pulled out a bit of thread and a needle and held them out to Volfetti

Volfetti didn't notice Jisralna's discomfort at how she spoke about being stolen, or if she did she certainly didn't show it. She knew some of the stolen Northerners seemed to settle well and adjust to their new lives, with some even finding Katila a better life for them than what they'd been ripped away from. Yet she didn't really believe any of them were happy with their new lot in life, dragon or no dragon. It was something she could never quite wrap her head around, that being taken from your family, friends and home could, for some, be a positive thing. She had never seen outright cruelty for the sake of cruelty and had grown up with an honourable family and hold. Or so she remembered it being, anyway.

She laughed a little at Jisralna's comment about why she thought the babe would be a girl. "Oh I wouldn't be so sure. I think it was a game for Iriya to see how hard and often she could kick. Benden, meanwhile, was the laziest little thing when I carried him. Mostly rolling around if anything." She smiled. It was hard not to smile at the thought of her children, even though she hadn't seen Iriya for six years. One day, she would see her again, even if it would be the very last time.

When offered the needle and thread Volfetti's smile became wane. "I daresay a fishing rod is easier to thread than a needle." She took the items and held the needle up and peered closely at the tiny eye she would have to thread. "The eyes on a rod are never this small." Despite this she still began her attempts to thread the needle. With one eye squeezed shut and the tip of her tongue jammed between her teeth she poked the thread at the needle over and over until it went through. Excited to have succeeded she gave a jubilant cry and jerked the needle up, causing the thread to fall out in the process.

"Shards." She glared at the needle. "Got any tips?" She asked, picking the thread up and looking at Jisralna somewhat desperately.

Happiness and contentedness were two very different things. A person could be content without truly being happy. It was probably the state that many of the stolen candidates found themselves in. Certainly Jissy herself was content; not happy. Her current pregnancy wasn't ideal, certainly, but at the same time she found herself excited to be a mother. Of course as Volfetti spoke she found herself doubting the gender of her child. Would she have a boy? Would that be such a terrible thing, to have a little boy who looked like his father? After all, Echlerov was rather handsome. "I will keep that in mind."

A gentle smile curled her lips as they returned to the task at hand and Volfetti voiced her doubts about her own abilities. Jisralna chuckled softly then watched patiently as the older woman attacked the needle she'd given her with the end of the thread before finally succeding. Of course as she got a little overly excited and the thread fell out as a result. Her smile transformed into a grin and her eyes sparkled with laughter which she made certain to keep silent. "You did well. I do have a little trick if you'd like me to show you."

Picking up a needle and thread of her own she leaned forward slightly and held the needle away from herself so that the other woman could see it better. "You make a loop around the needle with your thread." She did so then pinched it tight and slipped the needle out. "Then pinch it and slip it through the eye." She turned the needle slightly with nimble fingers and slipped the thread through the eye of the needle and pulled it through so that it had a several inch long tail. "And make sure you pull it through far enough so that it won't accidentally slip out.

"Did you want to try again?" She set down her needle and smiled encouragingly. "I am sure you will get it. It just takes a little practice."