CHAPTER 4 – Choosing a Side

With all the options Saphienne had before her, even Filaurel thought it strange when the young elf chose tailoring as her next art. The girl had an extremely keen mind, and while there was a certain creativity involved in designing clothes, the work was far from intellectually demanding. And as for personal interests, she had never shown particular care in how she dressed herself… nor had she ever commented on what others wore.

Still, when Saphienne swapped the library for the small studio where Jorildyn made garments for the village, her first mentor concluded that it made a certain sense. The girl enjoyed book binding; perhaps what she really enjoyed was the stitching. Whatever the reason, she would only be there for another year or so, until she was old enough to study magic under the aloof Master Almon.

Jorildyn took this as a challenge. Although he was content to use the time as well as he could, and so prepared a syllabus that would thoroughly ground her in the skills of his trade, on their first day together he confessed that his ambition was to make her stay. While he accepted magic had ceaseless wonders, there was satisfaction to be found in working by hand and heart and eye, and he set out to goad her into learning it.

He was disappointed when, in response to his asking what commanded her interest, Saphienne said she wanted to focus on sewing, measurements, and the sartorial principles that went into designing flattering garments. That she wanted to do what he was going to insist that she do… well, that clearly irked him. The tailor had expected that she would be keen to design an outfit immediately, much like every other elf who had come to study with him.

But Saphienne was not like the other children. She was quite serious about learning, and Filaurel had taught her the most important rule: learn the fundamentals under supervision, so that no bad habits would creep in. Once that was accomplished, everything else could be acquired through independent study and simple trial-and-error, though an excellent student would always seek advice from those more talented than herself.

Jorildyn did not approve. Where was her whimsy? Where was her naive irreverence for the craft? How could she learn the discipline of tailoring, and thereby understand its special value, if she was already disciplined?

Saphienne was not there to be moulded in his likeness. She was there to learn how, not why, and her reasons remained her own, as did the way she studied. Whereas once she had devoted two hours to calligraphy each day, she now practised needlework. She spent the remainder of her time taking and retaking measurements of the elves who came to visit, as well as making detailed notes as she listened to Jorildyn explain the different cuts and styles available to them. She would also write down her opinions of the choices each visitor made, and then reexamine her assumptions when the outfits were completed, confronting her misconceptions and learning what worked and what didn’t work for different shapes of body.

Not that elves varied greatly. They were almost all tall, almost all thin, almost all light in build and deft in movement. The rare exceptions made for particularly interesting subjects, especially when Saphienne noticed what they all had in common.

“Jorildyn,” she eventually asked, after an unusually short elf had left, “why did you propose the traditional style of dress to her?”

Pausing in his sketches, the tailor eyed her warily from his place before the window. An indulgent smile pulled at the corners of his lips. “Whyever do you ask?”

“A low waistline contradicts what you told me about a flattering fit. She has shorter legs than most, which means a low waistline is emphasising a feature she lacks, rather than flattering the figure she has.” Saphienne flicked back through her journal, looking over her observations. “Wouldn’t it have been better to raise the waistline, contrast her skirt against her skin tone, then complement her complexion with the colour of her blouse? Perhaps, place the emphasis on her neckline, or her… bosom?”

Setting his paper down on the cushioned windowsill, Jorildyn’s smile became superior as he crossed his legs. “All of that is true. And well observed — she does have quite magnificent cleavage. But, my oh-so-studious understudy, for all that you’re correct, you’ve arrived at the wrong answer.”

“Stop teasing me. Why am I wrong?”

“Because,” he said with an affected yawn as he stretched his sleek arms overhead, “she would never in a thousand years have agreed to anything other than a traditional cut. Nor would any one of the elves who are short, or broad, or who are cursed to carry a little too much weight, whether in places they like, or places they don’t.”

“Even though it looks bad on her?”

“Even so. They are all self-conscious about their differences.” Dropping his hands into his lap, he leant back against the pane, his silhouette appearing meditative. “Conformity is the most powerful social force. Fashion exists because of it. There are rare people, like yourself, who are absolutely indifferent to the need to conform — but the rest? The rest desire to belong, and the greater that desire, the less they are willing to stray beyond the borders of acceptable conduct. Or dress.”

“But there’s no rule that says she has to dress traditionally.”

“Still, she lives by it. And isn’t that quite something? You could say it’s a kind of magic, but it’s not a spell you’ll read in any book.”

Used to his antagonism, Saphienne mulled the thought over. “Anything but a traditional dress would have made her too uncomfortable to be at ease,” she reasoned, “and anyone who isn’t at ease stands out, and anyone who stands out must either be looked up to or looked down upon, and to be looked down upon requires we either give up our dignity or be slowly pushed out from the fold.”

Jorildyn stared. “…Precisely.” He seemed at a loss for words, and then annoyed by her, which he tried to cover for by standing and reasserting his authority. “Well, since you’re full of sharp insights, perhaps it’s time I taught you how to use a pair of fabric shears…”

* * *

Saphienne stayed with Jorildyn for only four months, during which time she mastered – to his begrudged acknowledgement – the fundamentals required for tailoring. He made a point of telling her that she would make an adequate tailor, if she ever felt so inclined, but that she would never be a truly great tailor.

He was upset when she simply agreed.

Still, she learned quite a lot from her time with him, especially about how she was received by others. Saphienne started to consider what her style of dress said about her interests, what story about herself she was telling with how she clothed herself. She was still in the awkward transition between childhood and young adulthood, gangly and perpetually swaying around herself, so she decided to portray herself as more oblivious than she was. She continued to dress as a child would dress, but added a satchel stuffed with books and writing implements, and when out and about she walked with purpose, absorbed in thought. When forced to speak she would bring the conversation around to whichever topic she was exploring, pretending that she was wholly preoccupied by the search for her chosen art.

In short, she made clear to the village that she didn’t fit in, but that all was well, as she was working hard on finding her place in life. And that earned her a great reprieve from the judgement of others — especially her mother.

As for her further studies?

Next she pursued the art of jewellery, learning how to shape raw gems and crude metal into minor wonders. Eletha was reluctant to take her on at first, being a deeply private person who spoke little and kept her opinions to herself. Rather than press her, Saphienne asked for permission to watch her work, then kept her mouth shut and listened as Eletha sung to the treasures of the earth. After the first few, mystifying days, the jeweller made the unusual choice to make a simple silver band, and then another, approaching each with different techniques so that Saphienne would see and learn. From there she worked increasingly complex pieces, subtly highlighting to her young observer the ways in which the fundamentals could be reinterpreted and repurposed.

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After a month, Eletha broke her silence, and asked Saphienne what she had learned. She had only a few misconceptions that needed correcting, and the taciturn elf made Saphienne learn by doing, only speaking whenever she made a mistake. The two found awkward common ground in their shared art, and the remaining three months blurred together in endless days and nights of murmured words, sung to the delicate beat of bellows and precise hammering.

When Saphienne announced that she had learned enough, Eletha nodded. “You’ll be a jeweller one day,” was all she said.

Later, long after departing, Saphienne realised that she knew almost nothing about her third tutor.

Not so her fourth tutor. Ninleyn was extremely talkative, never silent, and Saphienne came to understand that the shoemaker only wanted an audience for her endless chattering. Learning from her was much harder than any of her predecessors, both because of her meandering speech and because, infuriatingly, she gave little thought to how she would teach. By the second day Saphienne gave up trying to write everything down, and by the second week she nearly quit her studies, unable to so much as ask a question. The workshop was crowded out by whatever caught Ninleyn’s attention.

Nearing despair, she asked Filaurel for advice, who laughed for a solid minute at her predicament and then gave her a commiserating hug. “She’s just starved for attention,” the librarian said, “and she won’t stop talking unless you talk over her. So when you see her tomorrow, force yourself to talk, and keep talking, and compliment her on her knowledge and skill with whatever particular thing you want to learn, and tell her how interesting you find her when she talks about it, and ask her to share. Then, brace yourself.”

Alas, that approach worked too well. To her credit, though, Ninleyn gave Saphienne the most thorough introduction to the high art of shoemaking imaginable. Their time together lasted only three months, but felt like it had been a year, and Saphienne knew everything there was to know about Ninleyn by the end of it.

Sculpture was to be her final subject before she petitioned Master Almon, and when she asked around the village for who might teach her, the looks of surprise and then realisation were all alike. Why, now her studies made perfect sense: the bookish elf simply had to understand things before she could do them, and so of course she would spend a year studying clothes, jewellery, and footwear before she tried her hand at statuary. When word got back to her mother, even she was delighted, proposing that she one day sit as a subject for Saphienne to study in stone.

At last, everyone had made sense of the odd young girl.

Except for Filaurel, who knew better than to assume.

Regardless of Saphienne’s reasons, no one in the village had practiced sculpture to the extent that they could teach her, and so word was sent out to the other settlements, inviting anyone with the talent to come and visit. Within two weeks a suitably qualified artist arrived, smiling lightly as they knocked on the door to her family home. In this way, Saphienne met her penultimate tutor and – after a short conversation, to be recounted another time – she was accepted as Gaeleath’s student.

They agreed she would study until the following spring.