“Never judge things solely from appearances.” - Old folk saying.
“This is much harder than I thought,” admitted Eilonwy as she sucked on her finger after having accidentally pricked herself with a needle for the tenth time in the past quarter hour alone. She was trying to do embroidery like what some of the orcs were doing together with her other siblings and Kino, who were seated around her.
“You were never much for arts and crafts since we were little kids, Eilo,” noted Áine as she giggled at Eilonwy’s disappointed look. Unlike her younger sister, Áine was already halfway through forming a flower-patterned embroidery on the piece of fabric she was practicing on, her long, slender fingers deftly maneuvering the needle like it was an extension of her body.
“Always more into stabbing people with bigger pointy things, indeed,” said Rhys as he joined in the teasing with a chuckle. He was visibly less skilled than Aine and made simpler geometric patterns instead, but he too showed little difficulty with the needlework.
“Come on, you two. Some of us are just poorly built for this sort of work,” countered Kino, who actually had the most trouble early on until she learned to carefully use her claws to help with the thread. At the moment she had also started showing some results on her practice piece, though not as far along as Rhys or Áine was.
“Well, unlike you, we are built for this sort of work, though,” replied Áine with another giggle. “Most elf I’ve met so far seem to have a knack for this sort of needlework. Just our little sister here seems to be the exception,” she added teasingly while wriggling her long, slender fingers as if to show them off. Indeed, elves generally possessed hands with long, slender, and nimble fingers that made them suitable for such finicky arts and crafts.
“What I want to know is how they make it look easy,” said Eilonwy with some frustration as she looked over at several orcish warriors – young honored ones – who were working on embroidering new images and patterns. “Her fingers must each be at least twice as thick as mine! His are probably three times or more thicker!”
Indeed, compared to the long, slender, and almost dainty looking elven fingers, the fingers of the orcish youths nearby looked thick and unwieldy. Unlike elven hands, which had nearly identical structure to human hands, albeit with an overall elongated form, orcish hands had four fingers of equal size and length and an opposable thumb nearly twice as thick as the rest, each capped with thick fingernails..
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Even the smallest of the fingers on the hands of the young orcish warriors nearby was still thicker than Eilonwy’s thumb.
Despite their clumsy and unwieldy appearance, though, the orcs were unexpectedly nimble and dextrous with their hands. The orcish youth nearest to where the siblings saw was even working on a very fine piece of embroidery, one done with colored threads as thin as hairs and a tiny needle to produce a very detailed image.
His thick fingers manipulated the miniscule needle and fragile thread with practiced ease, the needle held between his second and third fingers with confidence while he used his other hand and remaining fingers to shift the piece of fabric around bit by bit. The young orc gave his all to the piece of embroidery, working in a fugue state where he was barely aware of his surroundings.
As such, he had not overheard the conversation the siblings were having, but another of his fellow youths did.
“Well, as you said, it is not easy. Some of us got the knack for it pretty quickly, but not every one of us are that lucky,” said a young female orc from the group of youths with a sympathetic look on her face. “Tibor there has always been good with the needle since he was much younger, made his first work at seven or so I think. The rest of us? There’s a reason why traditionally, the first embroidery we complete was done with red-dyed threads. This one is mine, by the way,” elaborated the young orc as she pointed at a bird-like pattern on the tent beside her, done in dark red.
“Don’t tell me…” muttered Áine as she had a premonition in her mind.
“Uh-huh, the threads are dyed with blood from all the times we pricked ourselves with the needle. You can tell who’s got an innate knack for the craft just by seeing their first work,” said the orcish woman with a wide, toothy grin. “If their first work is not in red, they’re one of the gifted ones like Tibor here. Most people’s first work is in red, though.”
“You do get better at it, even if it would involve lessons you pay literally with blood,” continued the orcish maiden. “Then again, that’s how all good lessons are, wouldn’t you agree?”
“Can’t argue with that, though it’s best when the blood is someone else’s if you can help it!” replied Eilonwy with a bark of laughter, which the young orc reciprocated. “I guess I’m just surprised that out of all people it’s your warriors who turned out to be responsible for all that embroidery I see. Some of those rugs had finer patterns than ones I’ve seen in the palaces of sultans in the south!”
Aideen smirked at that comment because she knew that some of those very same rugs Eilonwy had seen in the south were also orcish handiworks. While most of the orcs in the south had assimilated into the local culture and societies, many of them still kept parts of their old traditions, and a few in particular made good money by relying on weaving and embroidery skills passed down their lineage.
That said, she did feel that there was something missing to their creations at times. In the north there were still strict traditions about the embroidery made by the warriors. Each of them would only jot down patterns related to their own personal feats, whereas patterns that represent the clan as a whole would only be created by the hands of the chieftains or shamans of the clan.
Perhaps it was those limits that lent them a certain weight she felt missing in the creations of those in the south who had used their skills to more economic pursuits.