It doesn't take us long to walk the rest of the way. Once we arrive at the market, we circle around until we pass a stall selling cloth. As I look at the stall, I remember, I've been here before. This was definitely the one I came to with Marrianne. I recognize the panels of brown cloth hanging behind the shopkeeper.
I stop at the stall. Some part of me feels like I need to know how much that cloth costs. "Excuse me," I speak up. The man just raises an eyebrow at me but doesn't say anything as he looks me over. "How much does a panel of cloth like that cost?" I ask.
"More than you can afford," he snorts.
"I know," I say, but press on. "I just want to know how much one costs."
He looks at me strangely, then answers, "five irons." I reel back in shock momentarily. Five irons, that's the same price as one of Gremory's knives. Cloth is expensive! Marrianne bought two for my dress when I lived with her. Ten thousand barr for just that cloth. Even earning five copper coins every day by taking advantage of a highly profitable method of hunting, it would take about three weeks of work to afford just that cloth. She spent that much money on me? And then I left before she ever finished making the dress... Now I feel guilty for having her waste so much money. Will she even be able to find a use for that cloth? Maybe she can make a new dress for herself instead.
I shake off the shock, and bow deeply to the shopkeeper. Of course he just looks at me strangely, so after a moment of awkwardness, I keep walking. So that's why all the shopkeepers have been looking at me weird when I bow to them... "What is it, Aria?" Emily asks after I stop at that stall.
"Ah, nothing much. Just remembering things from the past," I say.
"The past, huh..." she mutters. She probably thinks I'm referring to my secret past I can never tell her about, but I really don't feel like talking much now, so I just keep quiet as we walk. Then we arrive at the stall we're looking for, just a short distance away. They have lots of little patches of cloth. They clearly look like leftover scraps from all sorts of things, colored like they were dyed at some point. I wonder how they actually dye cloth?
While I'm wondering, we walk up to the counter. "Four patches," Emily says to me quietly. I nod, picking out four pieces of the cloth. I check to make sure none of the ones I pick aren't starting to fray.
Once that is done, the shopkeeper says, "five nuvrites each." This time, I consciously wait for the woman to tell me the price before I put the two copper pieces on the counter. At least she doesn't look at me like I'm strange. She just takes the coins and sends us on our way.
"Ah..." Emily mutters. She lowers her gaze a little. "I messed up. I was only thinking of patches earlier, I forgot to include the price of the sewing supplies you need to start with..."
"What will I need?" I ask. From seeing Marrianne sewing, I should need a needle and thread. Is there anything else? Can I cover it with the money I have left?
"You'll need a needle and some sewing thread. But needles are expensive..." She presses the back of her fist to her forehead while looking really worried.
"Come on, it'll be fine," I try to urge her on. Maybe it's the earth mana helping, she quickly nods and smiles.
"Yeah, let's go," she responds. We move down just a few more stalls to where they are selling rolls of thread. I guess they all put their places up near one another? It's amazing how much cheaper the thread is though.
We end up buying three rolls of thread. One nuvrite each. Unfortunately, those are the last of my nuvrite coins. I only have one copper and one tin left. It figures, my money didn't go nearly as far as I thought. I won't be able to afford any of the other things I thought about buying. Looking over the counter, they also have a pile of little wooden needles. I pick one up and look at it. This is what I'll need to sew. It looks... not good. The edges are kind of rough and jagged looking. Won't they catch on the cloth while trying to sew? It's nothing like the metal needle Marrianne was using, but like Gremory said, it's wood. So it's probably much, much cheaper.
"How much for a needle?" I ask.
"One copper, five nurvite," the man answers. I wince a little, I don't have enough. I briefly consider my options. Maybe if I traded the skirt back with Emily for now... but that was only four nuvrites, I would still be short. I can't afford the needle. I put it back with a sigh.
"How much do you need?" Emily asks. "I'll cover the rest."
"Wait, really?" I gasp. "You would do that?"
"Of course. You can't do any sewing without a needle, can you? Everything else would go to waste. You can just pay me back tomorrow. Besides, I was the one who messed up, forgetting you would need one."
"Th-thanks a lot, Emily." I blink a few times at the unexpected help. "I have one copper, can you cover five nuvrites?"
"Sure, no problem," she laughs, putting the coins in my hand. "Now, let's pick a good needle." I nod emphatically, going back to the pile of cheap wooden needles, and examining them closely. We both look at them, comparing them until we find one that isn't quite as jagged as the others, and choose that one. I put the last of my money, barring the one tin, on the counter, and take the needle. It turns out my sewing supplies cost nearly four coppers instead of her original estimate of two. So much for having money left over...
We leave the counter, quickly walking out of the market. By now, I'm starting to slow down a little. With all the walking we've done, my legs are actually really starting to hurt again. I thought I'd try to stay off of them, but today has been nothing but walking...
We go up the last stretch, heading north toward the orphanage. Since I don't have a basket today, I have to carry everything I bought piled up in my arms. Emily looks worried, but I assure her I'll be fine. It takes longer than usual to make it home though, since I'm starting to have trouble keeping up my pace. With all of our shopping and diversions today, it's a little after the tenth bell by the time we get home. We head upstairs with all of the things we bought, and unload them all in our room.
I sit on my bed, resting my aching legs. "Are you sure you're alright?" she asks.
"Yeah, I'm fine, I just need to rest my legs some. They're still kind of hurt from before."
"How did you hurt your legs anyway? You didn't mention that when you talked about the monster."
"Well..." I flounder when considering telling her how it happened. But I can't keep anything like this a secret from her, she's the only one I can tell about everything. Since we're alone, I decide to explain. "After you were attacked and I drew the monster away, a bear showed up. It looked like it was going to hurt you, so I kicked it."
"You... kicked it?"
"Yeah..." I mutter.
"Why didn't it eat you?" Isn't that almost the same thing Frank said?
"I guess I scared it? It ran away," I shrug. I guess kicking it hard enough to throw it into a tree made me seem threatening enough that it didn't want to fight me.
"Uh huh..." Emily stares disbelievingly.
"Well, when Frank looked at me later, he said I dislocated all the joints in both of my legs."
"H-how hard did you kick it?!" Emily exclaims, suddenly looking them over much more closely. She touches one of my ankles gingerly. It seems like she's trying to get a feel for the level of swelling.
I bury my face in my hands. "Basically as hard as I could." I really went overboard trying to protect her.
"Oh, Aria..." she sounds halfway between appreciative and scolding, like she can't decide which way to go with it. I just hang my head.
"Oh yeah, you mentioned Frank earlier too. You said you'd tell me about him later."
"Right, I will, but... can we get to sewing first?" I ask. I don't really want to talk about that, so I think I'm kind of just putting it off. But I really do want to get to work sewing, we only have two bells' time before it gets dark, so I want to get through whatever I can by then.
"Oh yeah, sure. Let's do that," she agrees immediately. We grab our supplies from under our bed and get to work. "Do you know how to sew? Have you ever done it before?" Emily asks. She probably expects that I haven't, given how little knowledge I have of everything. I want to proudly tell her I know how, since I've done it before, but... I've only ever done it once.
Deflating a little, I say, "I've done it once before, so I think I sort of have the idea, but..."
"Right..." she grins a little awkwardly. "Let's go over the basics then..." Something about the way she's looking at me, I can just read her thoughts from her expression. 'She's going to sew strangely' is written all over her face. I frown, but just nod to her suggestion. I probably should go over the basics again.
First, she shows me how to pull thread from the roll of thread, and how to cut it with a knife. A much, much smaller, less dangerous looking knife compared to her usual one, only as long as one of my fingers. Once I have my length of sewing thread, she covers how to thread a needle. These are all topics Marrianne covered as well, but going over it again is really helpful since it's been a while since I did it last. It takes some delicate work to get the tiny ends of the thread through the little hole in the needle, but it's not that difficult since I'm really small and I can make little, precise movements like that easily.
We move onto stitching, and she shows me how you begin, how you push the needle through, how long you go from one stitch to another, how to do the pattern so the seam will hold and not pull out, and so on. More things I sort of know, but really need to practice. It takes a little while and the light coming in our window begins to dim a little bit as the sun sinks in the sky. The clouds rolling in really don't help either. With increasing frequency, they pass in front of the sun, reducing what light we are getting even further.
By the time we have covered all of the basics I need to know and really get to sewing, the eleventh bell rings. At least I can be happy that Marrianne covered everything with me that one time, whether I remembered a lot of it well enough or not. It just makes me even more thankful for everything she did.
Moving on from the lessons, the first thing we do to start is look over the clothes I've bought. The two shirts each have small holes and worn out places in three spots, while one skirt needs one patch, and the other needs two. Nine patches in total, but I only bought four.
"Look at these, see how the holes are small? If we cut the patches you bought in half, we can do eight of them." That will just leave one hole left to patch. Again, I can do that once I earn more money.
"Ok, how do we cut them?" I ask. Each patch is a square of roughly equal size, nearly the size of my hand. Of course my hands are tiny so that doesn't say much, but one or two of the holes in my new clothes are so small I could probably barely stick a finger through.
"I'll do it with my knife, just hold on..." she carefully places the patches on the floor one by one, drawing her knife across the fabric with slow, careful movements to split each one in half. Once she is finished, I have eight small, rectangular pieces of cloth to work with. We each get to work. She does my other shirt while I sew the one I chose. I have to pull it off to work on it, so we just sit on the floor next to the beds, using the last light from the window to work.
I use what she taught me, putting a good knot into one corner of the patch so it won't come out, then run the stitching as evenly as I can down the length to affix it to the shirt. It's slow work, pushing the needle through for one tiny stitch at a time. Not to mention I have to move it carefully, wiggling it through, or the rough edges of the needle will catch on the threads and begin to pull them apart. As long ago as it was, I still remember how much easier the metal needle Marrianne gave me was to use. Who knows how expensive such a tiny, precisely made tool would cost though...?
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All in all, it's a pretty rough job, and my stitches don't come out particularly straight. They have this odd tendency to shift from one side to the other as I go. As I work on it, I eventually figure out it has to do with the angle of the needle when I push it in. Even if it's in line on the side I go into, since it needs to go through both the patch and the shirt, if I go in at an angle, it comes out the other side out of line with the other stitches.
Once I figure that out, I try to keep the needle going in straight on, but even that is surprisingly difficult. The patch and fabric tend to slide around on one another so that it's hard to judge when they're actually lined up well. I need to keep straightening them out, which just makes the whole job even more time consuming. This is really hard! The way they slide also leads to me putting the needle through a few times when they're not really layered properly. When that happens, the thread pulls on the shirt or patch fabric, trying to get the two holes to line up. This causes the whole thing to bunch up. It's not that bad most of the time, just a tiny bit of folding in the fabric. But when it slips out of place without me realizing a few times, they're so far apart that the patch gets pulled way over in the wrong direction.
When I ask Emily, she tells me to pull the stitch out. Being even more slow and careful than before, I fix these mistakes by running the needle backward through the hole I made. The back end of the needle isn't pointed though, so it's thicker and even more difficult to push through properly. I have to go exactly back through the hole I made, or I'd just wind up making another, even worse stitch than I have already.
That part isn't too bad though, now that I've been staring at the cloth for so long, I can see how the threads all weave back and forth. The threads of this low quality cloth are thick enough that the little holes between the woven threads aren't actually that hard to get my needle through accurately. However, if I tried to do this with better fabric, I have no idea if it would even be possible.
Given that I'm fighting through all of this for the first time, Emily is clearly far faster than me. She already has her first two patches finished, and starts on the next. I'm about halfway done, having nearly finished two sides of my first patch when the sun gets so low it's hard to see what I'm doing.
"I guess that's it for sewing tonight," Emily says, rubbing her eyes a little. "Let's see how you did," she says, motioning for me to hand her the shirt I was working on. I pass it to her, and she examines the patch, turning it a little to get a better look. "This is... umm... good for your first time...?" I can see her wince. She's a bad liar even without the earth mana...
"I know it's bad," I sigh. Looking at my sloppy work just makes me feel bad. One more thing I'm bad at. I try to shake away those thoughts. For now I need to focus on what I can do better. "What can I do to improve it?" Like Gremory told me, you need to practice to build skill. But here at least, I have a teacher. If she can tell me the things I need to know outright, I won't have to figure them all out myself.
Emily nods a little and points at the corner where I started. "If you put your knot on the underside of the patch, then start sewing it to the shirt, the knot won't be seen, so it will look nicer. It'll also keep it from getting snagged and pulling out."
"Ahh, I think I get it." Of course all of the bunched up thread at the corner used to knot it in place doesn't look good, hiding it between the patch and the shirt makes a lot of sense. She goes on to point out the uneven spacing, and the way the stitches all go out of line. Even though I already noticed these problems, it still stings to have them pointed out to me. Though it does feel a little better when the solutions she offers are the ones I already came up with. At least now I know I was able to come up with viable fixes after all.
"Then here. You see how it bunches like this? It'll cause problems. It will catch on things and might pull the patch out, or rip your clothing. It also makes the patch fabric not match up with the clothing."
I blink, that one's new. "What do you mean it won't match with the clothing?" I ask, unsure of what she is describing.
As an example, she holds up the shirt she was working on. Her needle is still threaded, in the middle of sewing on the third patch. So she pokes it into the patch, then pulls on the shirt a little, and pokes the tip through there too. She doesn't push it all the way through, instead holding it up so I can see it in the last light of day from the window.
"See how you only cover a little bit of distance on the patch, but a lot on the shirt? Now the distances don't match up. It'll cause the shirt to bunch and fold, and nothing else will line up correctly anymore. If it gets really bad, it'll pull the fabric so much that it won't fit right anymore."
I listen to her words, look at the example in front of me, and immediately understand. "That's it. That's what I need to do."
"Umm?"
"Ahh, sorry. I think I just got some sort of inspiration from this."
"From... not messing up so your fabric bunches?" She tilts her head, clearly having no idea where my head is now.
"No no, kind of the opposite actually. I figured out what I need to do with those skirts." But then reality sets in again, and I sigh. "Well, once I've gotten good enough at sewing anyway."
"Ok..." she mutters. "Well, let's work on that once you get... just a little better at sewing." She puts so much emphasis on the word, it makes my heart hurt.
"Yeah," I respond dejectedly. I have a long way ahead of me.
Then a small, unwanted reminder in the back of my head pipes up. If I don't die soon.
I force myself to ignore it, and just keep listening to Emily as she points out each of my mistakes, offering suggestions so I can learn from them.
It's very dark now. Somehow, it feels darker than usual. Finally, the twelfth bell rings through the town. The sparring whistle follows shortly as always, and I ignore it as always. With the bells as our cue, we start putting everything away. I yawn a little. We did a lot and I didn't even take a nap today. But it's time for dinner, so we head downstairs.
While we wait, I rest my head on the table drowsily. Emily just leaves me. The silence between us feels comfortable. There's nothing much we really need to say right now.
While I rest, I begin converting the lightning mana. I know I need to get rid of it since it'll wreck my sleep otherwise. But it's really easy, unlike earth mana. Since it doesn't really stay together on its own like the other types, I just break it all up and mix it with my colorless mana. Sure, it kind of moves around a lot, but it all mixes in without much difficulty, losing its color. It's quick and easy, I can do it while I'm half asleep like this. Hardly trying, I'm done before they even serve dinner.
I am vaguely aware that I should start pulling more of Emily's earth mana though. I'll deal with that a bit later. For now, I just want to rest.
But that rest is short lived. They arrive with the food what feels like moments later, and after my usual check for lele fruit, we start eating. I carefully sniff at the food, trying not to draw too much attention this time, but I don't notice anything out of the ordinary. Was it just the way they cooked lunch? Did hobin fat make that much of a difference?
I can't wrap my head around it. I just keep eating while kind of sleepy. Thoughts from today roll through my mind. Things I learned about other countries, and sewing, and shops too. It's all a little jumbled together, but I enjoyed learning all about them.
However, a few unpleasant thoughts surface as well. The contest at the market, and how the whole crowd turned against me because I called out the shopkeeper. It wasn't even my fault, it was his mistake, and he refused to fix it, just because he knew no one would believe me. What a jerk...
And of course, how I missed my chance to talk to Reena. I don't know if I'll get another chance, all I can do is wait and see if we get called early or not. In the meantime, I need to learn even more and test anything I can.
For that I'll need more money. I can't do any lightning energy testing without copper, and I can't even test different types of mana without nuvrite. Mollite can at least be used to activate each metal's special effects, but it burns up almost all of the mana I push through it. Using it to convert mana would be insane.
I bite into a vegetable, chewing slowly while I think. We need to go out again tomorrow so we can earn more money. I'll pay back Emily and get the coins I need to continue my experiments. We finish dinner while I'm lost in my wandering thoughts, and finally head back upstairs.
I wonder if Emily will tell me another story tonight? I'm pretty tired, so I lie down in bed when we get to our room, just wondering to myself without saying anything. I mindlessly start to run my fingers through my hair like usual, but stop when it completely fails to work. Right, my hair is still braided from this morning, I realize after a long delay. I shake myself awake a little bit and sit up.
"What is it, Aria?" Emily asks.
"I just realized my hair is still braided," I answer.
"Oh. Wait!" she exclaims quietly. "Weren't we supposed to ask Helen about your hair today?"
"Oh that's right, we were," I completely forgot until she mentioned it. So did she, by the sound of it.
"Hey Helen, are you awake?" Emily asks.
"Yeah, what is it?" her sleepy voice comes back.
"We were wondering if you could do Aria's hair."
"Ooh, really?" she suddenly sounds much more awake.
"Yeah, I want to change my hairstyle, but I don't really know what to do," I explain the idea to her.
"Sure, I'll help. But... I'll have to do it tomorrow, when I can see." Oh, that's right, it's really dark now. I'm used to it being dark at night, so I hardly thought about that when it came to doing my hair. Of course she can't when it's so dark.
"Then could you do it in the morning? Though I'm not sure how much time we'll have..." I mutter.
"I'll make time!" She sounds unbelievably excited. Does she like hair that much?
"Ok..." In any case, I'm tired and need to get some sleep, so I curl up in bed with Emily, I guess bed time stories will wait for another day. I slowly let myself drift off. With the lightning mana gone, I shouldn't be so afraid of my nightmares. I should be able to sleep through the night again.
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Or... so I thought. After clinging to Emily and sleeping restlessly for some length of time, I wake up. Not because of my nightmares this time. It's a lot more basic.
I have to pee. I grumble as I fumble out of bed. Normally I don't need to go in the middle of the night, so it's annoying to get up when I'm already so tired. I wobble a little as I walk sleepily. I open the door quietly to avoid disturbing my roommates, and step into the hallway. Then stop dead.
It's dark. Really dark. Was it always this dark? I blink a few times, but I can't actually tell. Nothing changes when I close my eyes. Have my eyes not adjusted to the dark yet for some reason? I stumble back through our room to the open window. Since our room faces the back of the orphanage, all I can see is some of the northwest district, and the northwest portion of the wall.
Or I should say, that's what I can see normally. Because right now, I can't see any of it. Clambering up onto the high windowsill with both arms and leaning forward to see outside, all I can spot are a few tiny specks of light. A handful of spots out in the distance. Faint little orange glows that stand out against the darkness. Probably anyone who needs to walk around, like the guards, holding lanterns or some other light source. Strong, cool winds blow into the window around me, rustling my hair, but when I turn, I can't see my hair either.
Besides those dots of light, everything else is black. It's not like the sickening blackness from my dreams. It's simply complete darkness. I look up toward the sky briefly. I have no way of telling time at night, so I don't know if the moons should be visible in the western sky yet. I search for them anyway, but can't find them anywhere. Even if they are in the section of sky I can see, today is the day of the dark moon. I slowly realize that as I gaze upward.
The day of the dark moon. Like Emily told me. Instead of being full and completely lit up, the small moon will be totally dark on this day. The same day the large moon does not provide any light. It reminds me about when Emily taught me. She said the small moon represents darkness.
Seeing the effects for myself, I can completely understand why. Without the large or small moon providing any light at night, it is simply impossible to see anything. It's not like when I was kidnapped and locked in that room. In there, the light outside was blocked out. Now, there is no light whatsoever. None inside, outside, or anywhere else.
It makes my skin crawl a little, knowing that there is no light anywhere. I still need to pee though, so I slide off of the windowsill. I could probably make my way to the chamber pot in the darkness, but I have no idea if I'll walk into things, or end up knocking the chamber pot over in the dark. I need some light...
The obvious solution is tin, but I don't really want to use my mana carelessly in case anyone sees. So I instead think of how the spots of light outside were probably lanterns or something. I don't have one. Maybe a candle? No, I don't have one of those either. What is the closest thing I do have?
Well... lanterns and candles work by lighting something on fire. It burns slowly to provide light. I sold the wood I collected, so I don't have any sticks. All that's left are some little twigs and bits of bark under my bed. I could try those, but they burn too fast. I'd need to smother it quickly, or I'd end up burning myself, or the house if I dropped it...
Clearly not an option. I don't have anything like a candle that could burn slowly, for long enough that I could use it to go and come back.
So I guess my only option is tin after all. I dig blindly under my bed until I grasp the cloth I used to tie up my money. The only thing inside now is the one little tin ball though.
With tin in hand, I leave the room. I light the tin as dimly as I can. I really don't want anyone to know what I can do with it, but it should be fine. Probably.
If there's anyone else up and about this late, they would need some light themselves. I would be able to see them coming by their light and extinguish mine. At least that's my plan as I carefully walk down the hall toward the chamber pot. I keep the light as dim as I can, so it's still very hard to see, but at least I can sort of make out the shape of the walls and floor around me.
When I get to the chamber pot, I crouch down, but stop. I'm not wearing my robes like before. I just lifted those out of the way. Now I have a skirt and underwear...
Well, it's simple enough. I just pull down the underwear and lift up the skirt like I did with my robe so I can relieve myself. I use a little water from the bucket next to it to clean myself, then shift my clothes back into place.
While I make my way back to my room, I silently thank the darkness for waking me up so I didn't do that while half asleep. I might have forgotten about my new clothes, and that would have been a disaster...
I make it back to my room, luckily not encountering anyone on the way, and slip back into bed with Emily. My little adventure woke me up, but as soon as I slip under the blanket, snuggling up against Emily, I relax and begin to drift off. Emily mumbles a little and wraps her arms around me too, not long before I'm asleep again.