Solo The Webs We Weave

[Dravite]

77 Fall, 515 AV
9th Bell, Morning
Endrykas, Cloudy

"You're not going to make me ride are you?" Fara asked, watching Dravite groom one of his mares.
He drew the brush down the length of Sabah's neck, combing out the lose hairs that had grown thick in preparation for the winter, "no," the man smiled fondly, remember how good Fara had been at riding when they were younger, "I think we can walk, it's not too far?"
"Good," she smiled and bumped his shoulder with her own.

Dravite continued to brush his mare with one hand and picked old grass and twigs from her mane with the other. They were both dressed quite heavily for a cloudy day but as the ground was still covered in snow and the air was relatively crisp, their long pants, lined jackets, and winter boots all made sense.
"Come on then," he encouraged, quick to recognise how impatient his old friend could be, "let's get on the road."

The watchman returned the brush to the grooming kit and left it just inside of camp before setting off on foot. Once they reached the Wind Knotted Gates, Fara held her hand out, encouraging Dravite to take it in case she slipped in the snow. He did so and hand in hand they made their way over to a large bush of flax he had caught sight of one day while on his way out to do some hunting.
"Have you got the knife?" Fara asked as they approached.
"Always," he smiled, taking his hunting knife from its keep on his belt to crouch down and start cutting at the base of the flax, handing the pieces he pulled away to Fara, who shook them free of snow and set them down on a pelt she had laid out.
"Try and get the longer ones," she pointed out a few.
Dravite cut them away carefully while making small talk, "do we need to dry them out before we divide them up and use them to start weaving?"
"No, they do that by themselves," Fara admitted, having used flax before, "they shrink a little once they dry out, but if you weave them tightly enough, you won't even notice."
"And they change colour?"
"That's right," she nodded, "it all starts the colour of spring grass and turns a summer gold before long."

Once they had gathered enough flax, Dravite looked back at the pile and scoffed playfully, "you expect me to carry all of that back?"
Fara giggled, "That’s why I brought you along."
"And here I thought it was my rugged good looks," he teased.
"They may have helped to persuade me," she laughed then.

Dravite tied some rope around the large pile of flax they had gathered and hoisted it up onto his shoulder. The trip back to camp wasn't quite as quick or sure footed, but they managed to make it home in good time. Fara followed Dravite into the main tent and the two of them sat down around the fire pit, the flax settled between them to start drying out while the horse lord added wood to the choked flames, buried under ash and coal.
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[Dravite]

Fara picked up a length of flax and Dravite followed her lead, tearing the pieces length wise in thin strips that were no more than half an inch thick. He held the last piece up to the next in order to use it as a means of measurement before tearing away another piece of the green flax. Slowly, they worked their way through the large pile, doing the same to each strip until they were ready to use for weaving.

The watchman knew how to start a basic weave, but it was Fara who had the majority of the experience he was hoping to draw from in the art. She worked at a moderate speed with two pieces, slowly adding others into the mix as she needed them. Dravite watched her for a time before he felt he had the idea of it all and then slowly threaded two pieces together, adding a third and fourth piece, and then two more, repeating the pattern along the length of one side before he tackled the other.
"Now I fold these ends and tuck them into the next piece?" He inquired.
"That's right,” she smiled, “you fold them backwards, it should work to hold them in place."
"Have you done this a lot?"
"Not so much in the beginning," Fara explained hesitantly, she didn't like talking about her experience with the Ironhide pavilion, "but towards the end they treated me no better than one of the slaves, and so, I learned a slave’s trade."

Dravite worked quietly for a time after that, his teeth closed together tightly; how different life might have been for her, for both of them if they had managed to run away when they were younger. Weaving he found difficult and didn't know if he would ever get the hang of it, though it was a handy skill to have and had many uses within their culture. He used the pointed ends of the flax a lot like the end of a needle, threading it through the folds he had already made to guild the rest of the piece through and hide the messy ends.
"You need to weave a little tighter," Fara smiled encouragingly, "or you will have big gaps in your work when the flax finally dries out."
"Makes sense," he agreed with a nod and pulled the pieces closer together.
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[Dravite]

While Fara continued to work on the flax, Dravite put a pot over the renewed flames and poured some water from one of the skins into the pot to boil. He added some wild tea leaves and a pinch of shredded herbs to the concoction before sprinkling in a sweet spice Belkaia enjoyed adding to her tea, something akin to cinnamon. While the tea was steeping to soften and allow the flavour time to extract and infuse itself through the broth, he picked up the start on the woven mat he had made and continued from where he had left off, threading a new piece of flax into the mix to work with.
"Do you still sing?" Fara smiled.
"Sing?" He laughed, "I never did that did I?" Of course he remembered singing for her, but hadn't really kept it up.
"All the time," she beamed, "Löwe is just the same you know? He loves to hum away to himself all day."
The watchman smiled, "not anymore I don't."
"Oh please, would you; just this once?"
"You know, I haven't really sung since your brother left," he admitted.
"And what did the two of you like to sing about?"
Dravite smiled and looked down at a mistake he had made with his weaving, undoing the fault slowly before attempting to fix it, "of adventure and treasure," he grinned, remembering.
"Share one with me?"
Dravite sighed and tried to think back.

"A loveless man on strider strode across the gold sea,
In search of better lands he told where true love waits for me.
They waved him off and gathered up the last of his good stock,
For fifty gold and a barrel of grog he swiftly sold the lot.
A tavern wench was there to greet him at the stony gates,
She fed him up and warmed his bones till light of dawn next day.
When he awoke two copper and a note from the old maid,
True love is but a dream my boy like gold it will not stay."

Fara laughed, "My brother made that up?"
"No," Dravite smirked, "he just suffered through it and many more."
She smiled slowly, "I bet the two of you had a lot of fun."
"He was good for a laugh," Dravite agreed before turning his attention on the job at hand once more, counting out the pieces of flax he had already woven together in other to find the place he had left off and continue on from there.

He took up another piece of flax and wove it into the growing square he had created, hoping to craft a mat from the flax for winter, something they could put down over the tarp to insulate the tent a bit better and stack between the ground and their beds in order to keep everything dry and warm. As he slowly thread the new piece in with the old, Dravite glanced across to see how Fara was doing with her mat, which must have been at least twice the size of his, "stop distracting me," he teased, "I can't keep up."
"You're doing just fine, my lion" she smiled and went back to weaving and humming the tune of his song.
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[Dravite]

After a while, Dravite was starting to get the hang of adding more flax to the simple mat weave and folding the ends away when they became too short to work with. There did seem to be one glaringly large issue with his work, however, that being his inability to weave the mat tightly enough that it would not look a mess in half a season's time when all its life had fled the long green strips. Determined to push on and not have to go through the torture of undoing it all, instead of pulling the slightly uneven blades of flax closer together, he reinforced them with a second piece every now and then where he noticed a gap, hoping that would do the trick.

Fara soon caught on to what he was doing and slowly shook her head disapprovingly, and as amused as she was by the sight, she still found the courage to put him right, "that won't work," she grinned, "undo it all, start again; make it tighter."
Dravite didn't quite have the patience his friend did and tossed the half finished mat on the flames beneath the cooking pot, "I would rather start again," he shrugged, watching the flax smoke away before it caught alight.
"That was wasteful," Fara scolded, "you shouldn't be so wasteful; what would your mother say?"
The horse lord's shoulders dropped a little, "that waste would not impress Caiyha, and how should I ever win her favour if I care so little?"
Fara raised a dark brow at the man, "she's right you know."
"I thought the gods had no time for us," the man said, repeating the woman's words just as she had spoken them some days before.
"Not quite the same," Fara grinned.
He watched her for a time, the way she worked slowly, ensuring that each piece of flax was tightly packed against the next, "you're so good at that, perhaps I should leave you to do it?"
"Get to work," she hissed playfully, "these mats won't make themselves."

Dravite smirked and picked out another two pieces to start with. This time when he started adding new strips of flax he made sure they were knit as close of possible to the existing pieces in the weave and worked quietly until they were both out of flax. By the time they had finished, the two of them had each managed to make a flax mat, big enough to place under a bedroll and keep it off the tarp.
"We only need to do this about twenty more times," he laughed.
Fara sighed, "One at a time I suppose, shall we go and get more flax?"
"Tomorrow," he offered, "I had fun, why ruin that by turning this into work?"
The dark haired mother of his first born smiled warmly, "agreed."

Dravite stirred the tea and brought a spoonful of the broth to his lips in order to taste it. With tea he found the longer it was left to steep, the better it tasted. He would let the fire die down a bit as the brew in the pot had been bubbling away for some time and could probably do with a bit of cooling down before they would be able to drink it. When he was satisfied with the mix, he took two wooden mugs and spooned out a small helping of honey from his jar into each before adding the tea.
"The honey sweetens it a little," he explained as he offered one of the mugs to Fara.
She quickly took a taste and agreed with a curt nod, "It’s very nice, thank you."
“I’m glad you approve.”
Fara nudged him with the toe of her boot and smiled.
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[Graham Whipmane]

GRADE!

Dravite :

XP: Weaving +3XP
Cooking +2XP
Animal Husbandry +1XP
Bodybuilding +1XP
Singing +1XP
Foraging +1XP

Lores:

✦ Weaving: Flax Shrinks
✦ Weaving: Keep it Tight!
✦ Singing: Adventures and Treasure
✦ Fara: An Old Friend
✦ Fara: A Skilled Weaver
✦ Cooking: Honey Sweetened Tea

Notes: Hope it's all okay! Again, PM me if I've missed anything!