Borgarsandr, day 6
Clothes
Of course, Iselin would follow my wish to not be woken up as she usually does after we have spent a night, but I should have expected her to turn it to our advantage, so instead I wake up to the vision of a sinful smile when she see I've woken up, and she have just started putting on a condom. She just smile and continue, before she gets comfortable and starts to ride me, staring into my eyes while we kiss each other as I help in her rhythmic movements and I let my hands wander on her body. She really loves riding, and I really don't mind letting her.
Christ I love her.
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The day is otherwise about what I expected with a few of hours of work to finish the maps to the King when the light is good, but much time is a lesson where Kari use my large wood-framed slate board as the classroom blackboard, and she has an attentive class. Some of us need to learn the runes, because both me and Ciara are used to other letters and the others read but not particularly fluently although Bodil is the best. I take a lot of notes in my own Swedish language, which Kari understands. I think Kari understands more than I would have preferred. She definitely seems to be using the gray matter between her ears, and she has received a lot of knowledge and lessons.
Kari brought two books with her, and it's a good exercise to try to sit and read. Not only how runes are different letters and they are all the same size with bad spacing, but also how the pronunciations are different. Not to mention that words and phrases are harder by the fact that most things are written as they are pronounced, and people have dialects. This will take ages.
The world I come from has lots of modern words that they obviously lack, but they have many words that I don't have, and with several different pronunciations. There's no option but to memorize. To make that easier I write a vocabulary of words to pronounce, and I use paper. Plenty of paper. Ciara seems to learn a bit too, and when the lesson is over, it warms my heart to see Alith try to continue to help and give Ciara extra studies while Bodil helps them both. It feels good that they seem to have a growing friendship. I should create a Norse dictionary, not only to explain words I introduce, but also to serve as a reference for spelling words and meaning, because it's a ridiculously big problem when people spell as it sounds, and so many dialects. Yay for standardizations. If I can do a printing press and mass-produce books, it will do a lot to standardize the language and writing. Dialects will still happen, but the spelling might become the same.
I give another lesson in numbers and math. Many lessons will be needed, but there's only ten different symbols to learn and easy rules how you combine them, then you can read or write any number. Their system is so much worse, and they only have fractional values and no decimals. Both fractional and decimals have their usages, and they're so impressed with better numbers, and especially Kari seem really focused on learning it. I will introduce power of ten in the future. I actually found a Math book in the mobile phone but it's much higher than the basic math where we are, and they're still learning positional math.
Most unexpected, however, is Ciara's question of what the text on my t-shirt means. When I manage to explain the words and what the whole expression means, I'm rewarded by Ciara's first real giggling laugh. We're both far away and lost, so the absurdity of it seems to resonate with her as well. I also had to explain what a snowboard is. Real slalom or carving skis with their boots are probably impossible to make, but a snowboard might be made. A simple horse driven button ski lift should be possible to make. Ciara stares at the t-shirt and reverently touch the print, and I offer Ciara to wear it until we go to bed. Ciara gets a little embarrassed and insecurely starts to loosen her dress and I don't understand why, until I see Alith's meaning look while intensely pointing at her pants, and I realise that Ciara of course doesn't have any, because everything she owns I have bought her, and it's not much. She was going to walk around naked in my t-shirt. Damn, both she and Iselin only have a couple of dresses each. I curse my brain a little when it jumps on a tangent that I'm surrounded by a world full of beautiful elf women, who all 'go commando', and dresses are the norm. Stupid brain.
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I give Ciara a kiss on the cheek while I stop her with a hug, and say she can borrow the t-shirt tomorrow night instead, when she will have a pair of her own pants, because tomorrow they will all buy more clothes in the town. We have bathed in our own bathroom so we doesn't have to go to the town for that. I ask Kari about what clothes cost, and if its not rude, what a garment like her dress costs. 3 ounces of silver is no joke but I should have expected something like that, and the looks from the others underline the value. It's 12 sheep or more than one cow, and three months salaries for Alith and Bodil. I ask how much clothes Alith and Bodil really have and if they don't think its rude, the quality. Would they each like a dress, or do they prefer pants? As guards, they prefer pants that you can fight in, but both have dresses too. Dresses are too restrictive and long, and there pretty much isn't any short dresses since they don't protect the legs from branches and such, and will be cold most of the year. Apparently most dresses are long, and if you as a woman only have a few dresses, it kind of makes sense, especially in a Nordic climate where the summer usually isn't warm or long. Since they also usually wear an apron style dress over it fastened with a pair of brooches, it can be quite warm. It's also a fashion thing, and between the brooches they might have a necklace and they might hang things from it since they don't have pockets. It's an older fashion, but very common.
Aha! To the batboard!
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It becomes an interesting evening where I explain how a dress can be mobile without being wide, what underwear is and it can also help to keep something absorbent in place certain time of the month. Apparently there is no taboo at all in showing legs or even complete nakedness, just the fashion and lack of underwear that made it the way it is. Tradition says that shieldmaiden and certain other women as sailors should have trousers, and women with status have nice dresses and jewellery, and while cleavage is very okay, they don't expose their female parts to the rabble, which of course has sunk into the lower social classes as everyone wants to give the appearance of having a higher status. Clothes is of course an expression of wealth.
A high slit dress will immediately attract attention since it will show thighs, even though it won't be considered shameful or vulgar, and can be cooler in the summer. We discuss how the placement and height of the slit affects how the dress will move during different movements, and that overlapping fabric can mean that there is no big display of legs if desired, and how tight and body-flattering a dress can be with a slit slightly above the knee and lacing in the back, front or sides that some already have. Buttons are basically unknown because they use brooches or buckles, but it is easy to show on my pants and clothes how practical it is. Iselin and Ciara have also seen and heard my zippers on the backpack and its pockets, but I don't show that. Iselin just loves how magical zippers are.
Had someone told me three weeks ago, that I would stand on a Viking farm and explain to a group of Elvish Viking women, from slaves to nobility including shieldmaidens, what panties and small absorbent things (with wings) are... Crazy had not even begun to describe it.
The rest of the linen fabric we have is used for a couple of prototype panties. Lack of stretch fabric in this world is a problem, they have something that is a bit stretchy according to Kari which may be enough, but it is possible to design around the material problem. Thongs are an option that they themselves bring up if the purpose is just to keep something in place and protect the vagina, and we talk about a bikini solution with lacing on the side, but I can imagine it's uncomfortable, especially for a shieldmaiden with a belt that can make the knot a pressure point. But the knot can be moved.
Wonder how big my perverted side is, since I have to admit that with the right fabric and a little different cut, 'Valhalla' has a companion. Each side is a string or thin flat fabric that runs across the hip, loops through a loop on the front piece and is tied together with the other side string, or with itself, so there will be one or two small bows. It's also possible to make a strap lock of two small rings of the same type the life preserver has, or just a fabric version of it. I may see it as sexy but since the bikini covers instead of the woman being naked as normal, they see the creations as quite chaste. But they seem to think that about the thong too.
Tomorrow when they go shopping for food, fabric and clothes, they will also go to the seamstress guild again and try to make an agreement on the design of dresses and underwear. It's with confidence that I leave it to Iselin to negotiate that, and they all come up with their own ideas and suggestions about dresses and underwear. I kind of want to giggle each time I hear 'the seamstress guild', since I can't avoid thinking about the Ankh-Morpork version.