Day 51 | Season of Autumn | 513 AV
Avarys Anthurium was peering over Llyvi’s shoulder, probing his handiwork with his careful scrutiny.
“Do you ever get bored of it, Llyvi?” The question slithered out from between Avarys’ teeth in a seductive purr, and something in his honey-tinged voice seemed to flower Llyvi’s name. Like he was going to say something particularly flattering—like beautiful, or honeybunch—and swapped in Llyvi’s name at the last moment.
Llyvi squirmed. “Bored of . . . what?”
Avarys clucked, and flicked a strand of Llyvi’s ivory-hair. “Of this. Of that.” He extended a willowy finger at Llyvi’s woven pattern.
Avarys’ pheromone-laced breath snaked down Llyvi’s neck, and he found himself fighting off the pink tone that threatened to thrill his cheeks. Not many could stand unwavering in the face of Avarys’ charisma.
“Of weaving?” The pitch of his voice rose uncertainly. He wouldn’t dare think of himself getting bored of weaving. His thoughts flickered to his father and his disconcerting obsession. He was distressed at the prospect of a life without weaving, but the fear of ending up like his half-crazed father loomed over him. That, intermingling with his innate need to impress his father, almost always left him in confusion if he surrendered to his own thoughts for long enough.
“No, you foolish boy,” he chided good-naturedly with a chuckle. “That dreary shade. Dulled white. It looks like it’s dying.”
Llyvi had never thought about the colour—he wasn’t picky about the fabrics and silks that he worked with. He was more concerned about the way the threads moved over and under each other, the way the silk shimmered in his hands, and how he could look over the fine, intricate lines with satisfaction after he cut off the last bit of thread.
“I suppose,” Llyvi mused, “different colours might make it easier to differentiate the many threads in a fabric.”
When he met Avarys’ widened eyes and the appalled shape of his lips, he confessed, “I’ve . . . never really thought about it.”
Avarys raked a hand through his golden locks and blew out a sigh, somehow managing to not look like a weary and exasperated mother that couldn’t catch up with her jubilant child.
“Llyvi,” he said, “I cannot fathom how you have never wondered how colour could brighten your work. Think about the promise of wondrous design, the endless possibility!” He gestured to his clothing—dramatic and demanding attention, just like the man that filled it.
Llyvi only stared at him. Avarys sighed again, loudly. The other Symenestra in the Weft and Warp barely spared him a glance; Avarys’ noisy antics had become a common occurrence, and were tolerated—barely.
“Here,” he said, grabbing two spools of fine silk. One was bright red—Llyvi was reminded of blood, for some reason—and a lively yellow. Both were clearly dyed, as the silk from the Ranekissra moth didn’t come in those colours, as far as Llyvi knew. “Make something of this.”
“But—” Llyvi protested, gesturing to his loom, with a threaded pattern already well on its way to completion.
In a few beats, another loom had materialized beside him. “Use this,” said Avarys. His will was of iron, and Llyvi found that he had no choice but to comply. Avarys could intimidate a lump of coal into doing his bidding.
So Llyvi took the silk and began to work. |
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by Llyvi on November 3rd, 2013, 4:05 am 
