moonshadows

After Joshua has left, she occupies herself with the intricacies of preparation. If she is to properly demonstrate what she is capable of, then she wants to have a brand-new design ready to execute. She brings up the basic embroidery border matrix and stares at it for a while, trying to decide on a design. Something that demonstrates her skills, both magical and mental. Something that blends her past and her present. She strings together the Nathrezim runes that spell her name and her father's and mother's names - lineage declaration is an ancient and traditional fallback - and then improvises 'champion' and strings her Lord's name after it. The flow of shapes is awkward, and she frowns before moving her name and lineage declaration after the champion declaration. That doesn't help. More tweaking follows, playing with terminology and order until she has an aesthetically pleasing flow that doesn't read like a child's stuttering. For the actual border design, she loops the runes in whorls and short, jagged lines like the ones she remembers seeing on his chest and arms. This lets her play with arrangement even more, and by the time she leans back in satisfaction, nearly two hours have passed.

She drinks in electricity while she contemplates colors. Bold? Pastel? An inventory of the cloth and thread she has available results in a brief, adolescent temper-tantrum wherein clothes and pillows are flung against the wall until they form a pile big enough for her to flop on. What's she going to embroider her new design on? It would be extremely forward of her to embroider something for him - she hasn't yet earned his trust, much less worked her way to a position where she could even present herself for consideration, forget actually being considered, which is the point at which it would be proper for her to embroider gifts for him. So, something for him is out. That leaves something for her. Would that be improper?

Tantrum forgotten, she sits up and sorts through her clothes. Normally, wearing anything marked with his name would be a breach of propriety since she hasn't presented herself and he hasn't accepted her for consideration, but...

She pauses, holding up a light-purple shirt, then dismisses it as being too close to her natural skin tone.

He accepted her into his service. It would be pushing the boundaries of social convention to declare her station so boldly - if anyone on this world could read the runes to know that's what they said. Wearing proof of her devotion would ease some of the burning drive to serve him that had been gnawing at her since she first touched his astral form. A white shirt she hadn't finished altering to account for wings catches her attention, and her decision is made. She has a whole spool of the lavender shade that matches her skin; it never gets used because human skin requires a completely different color scheme. If she can finish altering the shirt, it will make the perfect blank canvas for her new border pattern.

Shirt clutched in one hand, she dives for her needles and thread. Does she have enough white? Yes, she does. Will the rune border design be too plain? What other colors does she have? A halo of light blue would set off the lavender nicely, but no - there's not nearly enough of the light blue, and the turquoise overpowers it. Pink? Too pale, same with the yellow...but wait. If she limned the runes with that lime green, and then limned the green with the pale yellow...yes, that would give her a glow effect and soften the lime green at the same time.

Decision made, the chosen spools are lined up on the desk and she settles down on the couch for a long night of sewing. She won't actually start the embroidery until he gets back, but she wants to make sure the shirt is prepared.