...
ORNEA CHANGES CLOTHES AND WRITES A LETTER
It was calm and silent in the room. Normally Ornea wouldn’t have cared to take off her boots, but it was different here, in this room with it’s soft wooden floor. She wanted to be careful with it so she took off her footwear and left it by the door. She walked barefoot to the canopy bed and put the backpack down, opened it and took out the newly purchased things.
She was now going to dress up for the evening and her endal friend Ruian wouldn’t need to feel ashamed of her. This went without saying. The question was only which one of her outfits that would be the best for an evening at Shooting Star Inn. Inarta clothes or lhavitian style, she asked herself while she laid her new finery out on the bed carefully.
A first attempt at logical thinking told her the lhavitian three piecer, with skirt, top and generously sized cloth shawl to drape around and over this in an elegant outer layer, would be the best if she wanted to fit in. There would mostly be lhavitians. Wearing the same layer upon layer kind of clothes as the “natives” would maybe be seen as polite, and as a sign of social competence.
She started to imagine it; visualized herself stepping into The Shooting Star Inn dressed in beautiful lahvitian clothes. It was like a dream taking place in her fantasy, a stream of pictures, seeming nearly real to her. There she was, yes, she could see it now in her inner vision. Her long red hair would be well brushed, maybe even pinned up like people sometimes did in Lhavit, and she would step in, the draped cloth moving elegantly around her, as she walked towards the table where she would have dinner with the endal. A polite waiter would show her the way, and when she arrived at the table she would greet the endal who sat there dressed in his traiditional Inarta clothes...
With a mental jolt, she exited from the daydream that had seized her, sucked her in and carried her away. She felt slightly shaken, as she always did, when she caught her mind slightly losing focus and drifting off this way. How she hated this. The random way her thoughts and attention could drift away sometimes, did nothing to improve the vague feeling of strangeness and of not fully knowing herself anymore.
Her mind had healed after the overgiving early in the year, but she constantly had the feeling of being subtly different. It felt like she was similar to how she had used to be, yet totally the same. There was an uncanny feeling that she had changed in ways as unknown to herself. The people in Wind Reach hadn’t found her any different, not that she knew of anyway; they had maybe thought her more eccentric, but still the same person. But inside herself, Ornea could sometimes feel like she was unknown territory and only time would tell what she would find there.
But there had been one good thing with it, this time. She had realized it was far more important to her to match her fellow Inarta than to match strangers in the inn. Ruian, she thought, wasn’t guaranteed to like lhavit outfits. He wasn’t guaranteed to like seeing her already start to turn more Lhavitian and turn away from the customs of Wind Reach. Wearing Lhavitian clothes could make her come off as distancing her from her own people. It opened for a backlash, if he would take it in a negative way.
The Inarta outfit was the safe way to dress. Just staying away from Wind Reach and never go there again wasn’t even thinkable. Naturally she would need to go there, hopefully every season except for the winters. And Ruian and his wind eagle was her link to Mount Skyinarta. In addition he was entitled to respect due to being of the endal caste, and besides she quite liked him.
She shifted into her new Inarta clothes, combed her hair and tied some of it back with the new colorful scarf, put on the necklace in white and green and a generous amount of the perfume oil. Then she put the other things away in closets and drawers. The room seemed looked well kempt and it seemed proper to keep it so. Being a crafter, Ornea liked to keep things in good order, tools for instance, and materials. She liked knowing where the things she needed could be found, so she didn’t have to search for them. It was about discipline and efficiency. She had learnt this from her mother at early age; crafters are well organized, or else their results will not be good.
Ornea was ready to leave now, but she was unsure of the time. Time had been troublesome the whole day. Was it still dusk rest? Or was the dusk rest over so she would need to rush to the inn? Indecisive, she looked around in the room. Well. She could ask the people who were working at Solar Wind Apartments, she supposed. Lana? Hesper ? Hesper, she thought, because she might be able to borrow parchment and a quill from him if she could find him. She could write a letter to her children and send it to Wind Reach with Ruian.
She left her apartment and started to search for Hesper. He was however nowhere to be seen. After a while she gave up and settled for finding Lana instead. This was much easier. Soon Ornea found herself seated in the kitchen, at the end of the big work table. Lana had been obliging and eager to help her when she heard about the letter to the children, so on the table in front of Ornea was now a piece of parchment and she had been given a quill, a small flask of ink and a box with sand to sprinkle on the ink after writing, to make it dry quicker.
“How old are your children” asked Lana, who liked a chat while she worked in the kitchen.
“Eight.” Ornea took the quill and dipped the tip of it carefully in ink. She wasn’t used to writing letters as she had always had all her important people nearby and no letters had been needed. She wasn’t a scholar. But she had learnt the basics of reading and writing in her yasi years. Being a metalsmith she also had a trained and steady hand and was competent at using tools for precision work, even if it wasn’t normally about writing. But it made her reasonably able to write a good enough letter for her boy and her girl back at Wind Reach.
Lana asked a few more questions. Ornea tried to explain how children in Wind Reach were raised in the yasi section once they were of age, but Lana seemed to find the whole idea absurd and hard to understand. The conversation died rather quickly. Ornea had a vague feeling of the other woman kind of disliking it. It made her feel confused, as it was natural that children became yasi. Ornea had done grown up that way herself. Kids left their parents to live their own lives. You could still stay in touch with them without being in charge of their education. There was nothing weird with this!
Holding the quill in a firm but not stiff grip, she wrote a fairly short, nice and hearty letter where she omitted everything that she didn’t find suitable for the small ones and added a lot of entertaining stuff about the wind eagle of Ruian and the journey. There were maybe a few mistakes in the letter, but nothing serious. The sand she sprinkled over the writing sucked up some of the ink and she carefully shook it off again over a garbage bin. After waiting a little bit, the ink seemed dry and she folded the letter several times and put in the pocket of her bryda.
Lana Winterflame may have seemed a bit surprised when Ornea told her she was going to Shooting Star Inn and she may have eyed the Inarta’s clothes discreetly, but she just nodded and wished her a good evening. And so Ornea left Solar Wind Apartments and started walking to Shooting Star Inn.
...It was calm and silent in the room. Normally Ornea wouldn’t have cared to take off her boots, but it was different here, in this room with it’s soft wooden floor. She wanted to be careful with it so she took off her footwear and left it by the door. She walked barefoot to the canopy bed and put the backpack down, opened it and took out the newly purchased things.
She was now going to dress up for the evening and her endal friend Ruian wouldn’t need to feel ashamed of her. This went without saying. The question was only which one of her outfits that would be the best for an evening at Shooting Star Inn. Inarta clothes or lhavitian style, she asked herself while she laid her new finery out on the bed carefully.
A first attempt at logical thinking told her the lhavitian three piecer, with skirt, top and generously sized cloth shawl to drape around and over this in an elegant outer layer, would be the best if she wanted to fit in. There would mostly be lhavitians. Wearing the same layer upon layer kind of clothes as the “natives” would maybe be seen as polite, and as a sign of social competence.
She started to imagine it; visualized herself stepping into The Shooting Star Inn dressed in beautiful lahvitian clothes. It was like a dream taking place in her fantasy, a stream of pictures, seeming nearly real to her. There she was, yes, she could see it now in her inner vision. Her long red hair would be well brushed, maybe even pinned up like people sometimes did in Lhavit, and she would step in, the draped cloth moving elegantly around her, as she walked towards the table where she would have dinner with the endal. A polite waiter would show her the way, and when she arrived at the table she would greet the endal who sat there dressed in his traiditional Inarta clothes...
With a mental jolt, she exited from the daydream that had seized her, sucked her in and carried her away. She felt slightly shaken, as she always did, when she caught her mind slightly losing focus and drifting off this way. How she hated this. The random way her thoughts and attention could drift away sometimes, did nothing to improve the vague feeling of strangeness and of not fully knowing herself anymore.
Her mind had healed after the overgiving early in the year, but she constantly had the feeling of being subtly different. It felt like she was similar to how she had used to be, yet totally the same. There was an uncanny feeling that she had changed in ways as unknown to herself. The people in Wind Reach hadn’t found her any different, not that she knew of anyway; they had maybe thought her more eccentric, but still the same person. But inside herself, Ornea could sometimes feel like she was unknown territory and only time would tell what she would find there.
But there had been one good thing with it, this time. She had realized it was far more important to her to match her fellow Inarta than to match strangers in the inn. Ruian, she thought, wasn’t guaranteed to like lhavit outfits. He wasn’t guaranteed to like seeing her already start to turn more Lhavitian and turn away from the customs of Wind Reach. Wearing Lhavitian clothes could make her come off as distancing her from her own people. It opened for a backlash, if he would take it in a negative way.
The Inarta outfit was the safe way to dress. Just staying away from Wind Reach and never go there again wasn’t even thinkable. Naturally she would need to go there, hopefully every season except for the winters. And Ruian and his wind eagle was her link to Mount Skyinarta. In addition he was entitled to respect due to being of the endal caste, and besides she quite liked him.
She shifted into her new Inarta clothes, combed her hair and tied some of it back with the new colorful scarf, put on the necklace in white and green and a generous amount of the perfume oil. Then she put the other things away in closets and drawers. The room seemed looked well kempt and it seemed proper to keep it so. Being a crafter, Ornea liked to keep things in good order, tools for instance, and materials. She liked knowing where the things she needed could be found, so she didn’t have to search for them. It was about discipline and efficiency. She had learnt this from her mother at early age; crafters are well organized, or else their results will not be good.
Ornea was ready to leave now, but she was unsure of the time. Time had been troublesome the whole day. Was it still dusk rest? Or was the dusk rest over so she would need to rush to the inn? Indecisive, she looked around in the room. Well. She could ask the people who were working at Solar Wind Apartments, she supposed. Lana? Hesper ? Hesper, she thought, because she might be able to borrow parchment and a quill from him if she could find him. She could write a letter to her children and send it to Wind Reach with Ruian.
She left her apartment and started to search for Hesper. He was however nowhere to be seen. After a while she gave up and settled for finding Lana instead. This was much easier. Soon Ornea found herself seated in the kitchen, at the end of the big work table. Lana had been obliging and eager to help her when she heard about the letter to the children, so on the table in front of Ornea was now a piece of parchment and she had been given a quill, a small flask of ink and a box with sand to sprinkle on the ink after writing, to make it dry quicker.
“How old are your children” asked Lana, who liked a chat while she worked in the kitchen.
“Eight.” Ornea took the quill and dipped the tip of it carefully in ink. She wasn’t used to writing letters as she had always had all her important people nearby and no letters had been needed. She wasn’t a scholar. But she had learnt the basics of reading and writing in her yasi years. Being a metalsmith she also had a trained and steady hand and was competent at using tools for precision work, even if it wasn’t normally about writing. But it made her reasonably able to write a good enough letter for her boy and her girl back at Wind Reach.
Lana asked a few more questions. Ornea tried to explain how children in Wind Reach were raised in the yasi section once they were of age, but Lana seemed to find the whole idea absurd and hard to understand. The conversation died rather quickly. Ornea had a vague feeling of the other woman kind of disliking it. It made her feel confused, as it was natural that children became yasi. Ornea had done grown up that way herself. Kids left their parents to live their own lives. You could still stay in touch with them without being in charge of their education. There was nothing weird with this!
Holding the quill in a firm but not stiff grip, she wrote a fairly short, nice and hearty letter where she omitted everything that she didn’t find suitable for the small ones and added a lot of entertaining stuff about the wind eagle of Ruian and the journey. There were maybe a few mistakes in the letter, but nothing serious. The sand she sprinkled over the writing sucked up some of the ink and she carefully shook it off again over a garbage bin. After waiting a little bit, the ink seemed dry and she folded the letter several times and put in the pocket of her bryda.
Lana Winterflame may have seemed a bit surprised when Ornea told her she was going to Shooting Star Inn and she may have eyed the Inarta’s clothes discreetly, but she just nodded and wished her a good evening. And so Ornea left Solar Wind Apartments and started walking to Shooting Star Inn.
- but I kind of liked it just because of that aspect.
