OPEN - Pel's Yarn Shop

[mythalenaste]

WHO: Pel Ashara and OPEN
WHAT: Opening up the yarn shop
WHEN: Present
WHERE: Skyhold, near the stables
NOTES: Will update if there are any warnings.

To say Pel has yarn coming out her pointed ears is accurate--she finds little wool fibers absolutely everywhere. She saw some in her mug of tea once and just stirred it in, hoping she wouldn't notice it going down. She didn't.

She acquired her spinning wheel over a month ago and has now made enough yarn to open her shop, hoping sales can help pay for publishing her book before a new Divine gets elected. Once there's a new Divine, her book will be banned and this will all be for naught.



She sits in a chair behind a blanket with carefully laid-out skeins of yarn, organized by price. Being organized by price, of course, means being organized by color and content. If it's not wool, it's more expensive. If it's dyed, it's more expensive. If it's dyed expensively, of course it's more expensive. Unbleached undyed wool yarn is the cheapest, but it has a range of colors from creamy white to chocolate brown to stone grey. Of the colors, yellow, indigo blue, and earthen red are cheapest, with green and warm purple marginally more expensive. Scarlet is pricier, as is cool purple. There is one skein of very fine silk yarn, an undyed off-white, and a few of middling-price linen.

Among knit wares are shawls, scarves, leggings, and mitts. Some are lacy and delicate, some are thick and warm.

Come one, come all!

Comments

Imagine Bethany jumping up and down and clapping like the knitting nerd she is ...

[sunshinethroughgrey]

"Oh! Yarn."

Comes the almost breathless sigh of happiness from one Bethany Hawke, as she follows the posting on the board to here. All different colors, all different skeins, all marvelous. She carefully puts her stack of books down, and kneels down to start picking out the ones she wants.

"Did you spin these all yourself?"

[mythalenaste]

"Every last one!" Pel brightens a little at the sight of her first customer, a smile coming on that she doesn't even have to fake. She stops spinning and turns her attention to Bethany. "I even dyed some of the roving myself."

[sunshinethroughgrey]

Bethany looked up at the young elven woman, her brown eyes wide. "You did? Maker's breath, you've got talent. It looks like it just came off the sheep that way." She hums as she goes through the various colors, piling up the yarn in front of her.

"What would you recommend for making stockings? I need something warm, durable, and yet soft..."

[disgracedchampion]

He's more curious than anything else... because yarn, quite the thing to sell in Skyhold. It caught his attention do to the location being relatively close to one of his favorite haunts. Does Michel de Chevin have any particular use for yarn? Not really, he's never done any sort of yarn work before, not that it wouldn't be useful to learn something he supposed... something beyond darning his clothing now and then...a useful tool for bachelors.

He was looking at the warmer colors in wool with interest, this, at least could be useful in such cold climates...well if he had the proper skill for it, "I do not suppose there are instructional tools, Madame?"

[mythalenaste]

If she recalls correctly, that's the first person with that accent to address her with that much respect. Madame, my lady. Most Orlesians don't use a form of address with her at all. But that's not what impresses her. What impresses her, and it shouldn't, is that he's not asking her to make him stuff. He is asking how he can learn to make himself stuff. That is just fabulous in her book. Practical and thrifty.

"I can teach you how to knit," she offers.

[ombranera]

Stella.

[ Normally it's offered with a laugh or a smile, some teasing flirtation or- something. Today? It's warm still but it is strained, Zevran flitting to her side but seeming a touch distressed. Unsettled. ]

Might I steal you away for a moment?

[mythalenaste]

[One of the other merchants always keeps an eye on her wares whenever Pel takes a break. Pel gathers up her money bag and pushes to her feet, ready to follow him.]

[ombranera]

[ He takes her by the hand - something he's come to enjoy doing the more often it happens- and walks her to the Garden. Or rather a particular point in the garden. He sits, gestures for her to do the same, and slides on the ring she made for him. Once the roots weave and form about them he shifts and curls until he is able to rest his head on her lap. ]

You loved Gavin, yes?

[mythalenaste]

Yes.

[She's a woman who chooses few words over many, and allows her feeling to be conveyed in the way she strokes his hair as it falls over her lap. Her touch is tender enough to make up for all the words she does not say. He is clearly in need of it.]

[ombranera]

Did you want to, when you first began your- association? Courtship? However it is done with the Dalish.

[ He doesn't even know how it is done by humans, let alone other city elves. How is he to know what the dalish did? ]

[mythalenaste]

Want to love him? [She tucks a strand behind his ear.] There were already some feelings there. But yes, I wanted to love him.

[It's an odd question, but she'll follow the conversation where he leads. He's definitely going somewhere with this.]

[ombranera]

How did you know that was what it was? That- how did it feel?

[ He has been content with the friendships he's built, the lovers he has taken. But something in that moment the other day- something from that game of seduction turning true.

Twists a place in him he'd long thought dead. ]

[mythalenaste]

[This is getting downright confusing.]

Are you asking how I knew I loved him?

[ombranera]

I- yes? No. I am not certain what it is I am trying to ask, forgive me.

[ For a long moment he stares up through the weave of roots and leaves, trying to arrange his thoughts. ]

It does not count with me- the laying with another. It is a pleasing diversion, great fun, quite enjoyable but it is...without sentiment. Without meaning. It weighs nothing. I have been content with this for years but I wonder now if perhaps I should not find someone with which there is weight? Not that I have felt unfulfilled or dissatisfied with my lovers, this is hardly the case.

I am not making much sense at all, am I?

[mythalenaste]

You're making perfect sense.

[She offers him a little smile. She doesn't offer her smiles to just anyone. She's too self-conscious about them, and how dopey they look because of her underbite.]

It's not about sex. Or about discharging some duty or expectation. Do you want this because you've been told it's what adults do and it's best time you grow up, or because you want to love someone and be loved in return?

[ombranera]

I am quite grown, Stella, and you know this.

[ He snorts a soft laugh, reaching up to trace her cheek gently with his fingers. Her smiles are rare and sweet things- something she should do more often without feeling quite so wary of them. ]

I want this because I miss it. Or... I think I miss it. So long it's been since I last-

Since I ever...

I do not know how it feels for there to be sentiment and meaning.

[mythalenaste]

[Okay, that was her bad, thinking about Gavin again. His touch makes her smile more, forgetting a little more of her self-consciousness.]

With Gavin, it...we were both terrible at it. Of course I'd never been with anyone else, so I thought it was magical. But sentiment does make up for a lot. You...

It's...metaphysical, when there's sentiment. It's more than the mere act itself.

[She captures the hand on her cheek with her own hand, and turns in to press a kiss to his palm before nestling against it.]

You...loved someone. And never had that?

[ombranera]

I have forgotten if I did. I think I might have. It's been years and the way things ended cast a shadow on what joy I found in them.

[ His eyes darken somewhat, lips twisted in a smile that is bitter sweet more than anything else. ]

...her name was Rinna. And she was a Crow.

[mythalenaste]

[That is sombering. The past tense, the profession. They were colleagues and at least one of them was in love, in a world full of the same kinds of people who captured, tortured, and mutilated him just two months ago.

She goes back to stroking his hair.]

Did she love you?

[ombranera]

She did. We were...I must start at the beginning, I suppose, to explain.

[ He curls his fingers in hers, eyes drifting closed as he spoke. ]

I was purchased at seven from the brothel for three sovereigns by the Crows. At the time I was put in a cell with about fifteen other children, one of which was a Tevinter slave named Taliesin. He was all I had until we met Rinna. We trained together, slept together, protected one another. I thought that it was how things went. I was what he wanted when he wanted it and in return? I was left alone by the other Crows out of fear of his temper. I was his and he, in some way, was mine.

Rinna was brought to us when we were somewhere between sixteen and eighteen. Things had become...complicated, as you can imagine. But Rinna was- she was a marvel. Hair like blood, a smile like a dagger. Beautiful, clever, wonderful. A better assassin than Taliesin or I at the time. She became a part of what we had. She became ours and we hers- at least until I became hers and she mine. We do not- we are trained to harden our hearts against the kill. As a child I was raised among those who sold the illusion of love and Sentiment. I had never known the feeling.

[mythalenaste]

She was a kindness. [Pel's life wasn't nearly as nightmarish as Zevran's, but she understands. Gavin was the first one to see her as a woman. The first she didn't need to be First around. He was kindness in her life, or life's kindness to her.]

[ombranera]

She wanted me without wanting to own me.

[ The words come slow, cut from some deeply hidden and wounded part of an old ache he's ignored for the better part of a decade. Putting words to what Taliesin was, what he wanted, what he did-

It is slow coming. ]

We would sneak off sometimes- not to make love but just to hold one another. To sit like this.

[mythalenaste]

[To sit like they are sitting now? Admittedly, it's the sort of thing she and Gavin used to do.]

Those are the best times. When it's just the two of you and the world falls away. Nobody can blame you for being happy and at peace if nobody can see you.

[ombranera]

Exactly so.

It went on like that, the three of us, the two of us, until just before I met The Warden and Alistair. The way it ended...is a large part why I met them. There was a job in Denerim, a Merchant. We had become a skilled team- one of the best in all of House Arainai if not most of the Crows. We would brag of our skill and prowess, the contracts we brought in and completed. Before being sent to Ferelden we'd never left Antiva.

But we took the job, we came and there was a mole leaking information to the mark. A traitor either among us or the supporting Crows we were given for the mission- and to turn traitor? Is to die.

Taliesin...convinced me Rinna was the mole.

[mythalenaste]

[Pel remains silent. No assumptions, no guessing games. She won't pretend she knows the rest of the story. But she can tell where it's going. So she lets Zevran speak of it at his own pace, never ceasing or slowing her affectionate touches.]