POV - Azra'il
Paul had departed for Roa the previous day with the quiet determination of a man honouring a promise he had made against his own wishes and intended to honour with dignity regardless. Zenith had seen him off at the door with the smile of someone who has won a negotiation and is gracious enough not to underscore the fact. Rudeus had waved from the doorstep with the poorly concealed satisfaction of someone who had also won. I had stood one step behind them both and watched Paul disappear down the dirt path with the upright posture of a knight who does not look back.
It was, objectively, a dignified exit for someone who had been defeated by his wife and children.
The house without Paul was a house with a slightly different atmospheric pressure. Not better nor worse, simply different, in the way any space changes when a constant element is temporarily removed. Zenith seemed simultaneously more relaxed and mildly anxious, a combination I recognised from the wives of military men across at least several dozen previous lives. Lilia maintained the routine with the unshakeable precision of someone for whom routine was a means of exercising control over an inconsistent world.
Rudeus was in the sitting room with the magic book open in his lap, finally without needing to hide it in the loft, which had visibly improved his general disposition. He read with the closed concentration of someone searching for something specific, his index finger sliding beneath the lines with a familiarity that no longer required guidance.
I was at the dining table with Zenith and Lilia and a quantity of coloured thread that had transformed the wooden surface into something approximating a miniature textile market.
The sequence of events that had placed us in this position was, in retrospect, entirely predictable. Zenith had seen the embroidered shawl, spent long enough looking at the birds to arrive at a decision, and then asked whether I could teach her in the particular tone of someone who is not really asking but is being polite enough to frame it as a question. I had said I could teach the basics, and Zenith had interpreted this as enthusiastic confirmation, which was not precisely what I had said, but was not incorrect either.
Lilia had been informed of the plans with the professional neutrality of someone receiving a new item on the work agenda. But I had seen the way she had examined the shawl that day, her fingers tracing the gradation of the petals with the attention of someone memorising a technique before they even knew they were going to learn it. When Zenith asked whether she wished to participate, Lilia had said "if my lady thinks it convenient" with her customary upright posture, which was her way of saying yes without needing to say yes.
Zenith had purchased thread in the village with the generosity of someone who has no restrictions on colour or quantity. The result was a varied and mildly chaotic collection of spools in every shade available in the local market, which was not exactly the Silk Market of Hangzhou, but had its virtues.
I had begun at the only place that made sense to begin: the thread.
Not the figure, not the colour, not the subject. The thread. Because everything else is a consequence, and beginners who learn by consequence spend years correcting foundations that ought to have been established on the first day. I had made the mistake of teaching the wrong way only once, in a life when I was too young to know better, and had observed the results long enough never to repeat it.
"The thread cannot be taut when it goes in," I said, separating a length of dark blue thread into finer fibres with my fingers, slowly enough for both of them to follow. I calibrated my vocabulary to the register a three-year-old, even a prodigious one, might use without raising eyebrows. "If you pull too hard, the fabric puckers. Then the figure comes out crooked."
Zenith nodded with the concentrated attention of someone recording every detail. Lilia observed with her customary upright posture, but there was something in her eyes that I classified as genuine interest attempting to disguise itself as professionalism.
I demonstrated the entry point and the needle angle slowly, then stepped back and let both of them try.
The model was a grey wolf. Not for any philosophical reason, but because the shape required gradient work that I wanted them to learn early, and because wolves have a fur geometry that is simultaneously forgiving enough for beginners and demanding enough to be instructive.
Mine was finished. Grey in four tones built in layers, from darkest at the base to nearly white at the tips of the fur, with two eyes that appeared golden because I had mixed burnt yellow, ochre, and a strand of faded orange in specific proportions that created the illusion of metal without using any metallic thread.
It was, objectively, very good.
[For the record, that is the most enthusiastic adjective you use about your own work.]
〈Precision is a virtue.〉
Zenith and Lilia worked for a time that I respected, because interrupting a beginner before the error has become visible enough to be instructive is pedagogically counterproductive. I allowed the problems to accumulate until they were useful.
Then I looked at Zenith's embroidery.
The silence that followed was the kind that has texture.
The creature in Zenith's fabric had begun as a wolf and arrived at a significantly different destination. The legs had become thin and uneven. The head had grown in width rather than length. And there was a complete absence of fur in the region of the upper skull that I had not instructed and that had occurred of its own accord, either by the will of the fabric or by the lack of control of the person working it, which amounted to the same result.
It was a dog. A thin, scrappy dog. With two legs shorter than the others. And bald.
"It's..." Zenith began, looking at her own embroidery with the expression of someone assessing a result that was not what they had planned.
"It came out as a dog," I said, with the clinical neutrality of someone reporting a geographical fact.
Zenith looked at the embroidery. Then at me. "I know it came out as a dog."
"A dog that has been through difficult experiences," I added, because precision demands completeness. "The problem was here." I indicated the base of the head. "You pulled the thread sideways when it should have gone downward. So the head kept growing outward instead of keeping its proper shape." Then the legs. "And here you changed how you were holding the needle partway through. That is why they came out uneven." A final pause. "The baldness I cannot account for."
Zenith blinked. Then she laughed, the kind of laugh that arrives before the person realises they are laughing, the involuntary laugh of someone caught entirely off guard.
Then we both looked at Lilia's embroidery.
The general shape was more compact than Zenith's, which had preserved something of the body's proportion. But the face had suffered a geometric accident that had transformed the elongated snout of a wolf into something shorter and rounder, with two eyes of notably different sizes.
It was a cat.
A cross-eyed cat.
Lilia looked at her own embroidery with the expression of a woman who possesses professional pride and is actively processing the dissonance between that pride and what lay before her.
"It came out as..." she began.
"A cat," I said.
"I know it came out as a cat."
"With one eye larger than the other." I indicated the relevant area. "You were too quick there. The thread was still under tension when you made the next stitch, so one eye came out larger." Then the snout. "And here the stitches were too small. That is why the snout contracted and became a cat's snout rather than a wolf's. Had you waited a little longer between one stitch and the next—"
"How long?" said Lilia, in the tone of someone memorising an instruction they had not asked for but intended to follow regardless.
"Two seconds. Only two." I stepped back and looked at both embroideries side by side. Then, because omitting the true part of an assessment is a form of dishonesty I had abandoned enough lives ago to no longer remember when: "But for the first day, it's not bad."
Zenith and Lilia looked at me with the expression of someone who has received criticism and praise in swift succession and is still integrating both pieces of information.
"Yours," I said, pointing to Zenith's embroidery, "the body came out the right size. You understood the hardest part to get right." Then I looked at Lilia. "And yours blended the colours well. That is harder than it looks. Most people cannot manage it on the first day."
Both of them continued looking at me.
"With practice," I concluded, returning to my own embroidery with the finality of someone closing a subject, "you will improve."
[You have just praised two people consecutively.]
〈Do not grow accustomed to it. But I am honest in my assessments.〉
[Of course you are.]
"I shall put the kettle on," announced Lilia, rising with the air of someone who had found a convenient exit in which to reorganise her feelings regarding the one-eyed cat.
"Lemon balm," I said, before she reached the door. "Not too much, or it turns bitter. Dried rosehip, only a little. Ginger, one thin slice, if it's thick it overpowers everything else."
Lilia stopped in the doorway and turned slowly.
"And vael'dra," I continued. "The silver-leafed kind that Mother bought last month. Two petals. Not three."
"Two," repeated Lilia.
"Three changes the taste. It comes out different." I looked at her. "And sirith powder. Just a small pinch."
"And the water cannot be boiling when it goes in," I continued, because Lilia already had the expression of someone accumulating more information than they had anticipated and it was best to finish promptly. "Wait a little after taking it off the heat. And pour slowly. If you pour it all at once it turns unpleasant."
"Slowly," repeated Lilia.
"And the vael'dra goes in last. After taking it off the heat." I returned to the embroidery. "If it goes in when the water is too hot it loses its flavour."
Lilia watched me for a moment with the expression of a woman reconsidering her decision to offer tea.
"That is a great many instructions for a three-year-old to have about tea," she said, in the very dry tone of someone who is not precisely complaining but is not letting it pass either.
I looked at her. "I simply know how it ought to taste."
Lilia looked at Zenith. Zenith made the small gesture that meant "this is how she is, I have made my peace with it, you will make yours." Lilia exhaled through her nose with the admirable restraint of a woman who had decided to make the tea correctly without confirming aloud that she had agreed to the instructions, and disappeared in the direction of the kitchen.
Zenith was looking at me with the smile of someone who finds something amusing and is being polite about it. "Have you always been very fond of tea?"
I considered the question. "I have always known how to make it properly," I said, which was technically true and explained nothing.
Zenith laughed softly and returned to her embroidery. "Rudy!" Zenith's voice carried across the room with the warmth of a summons that is not quite an order but is not optional either. "Come and have tea with us!"
A long sigh came from the sitting room, followed by the sound of a book closing with the resignation of someone interrupted mid-thought.
Rudeus walked to the table with the book under his arm and the expression of someone who had come because they were called. His eyes swept the table, passed over the spools and the embroideries in progress, and then stopped.
On my wolf.
He stood looking at it with the expression of someone performing calculations they had not expected to need to perform that afternoon.
"You made this?" he asked, in the tone of someone confirming a hypothesis they do not entirely welcome.
"Of course I did."
"With ordinary thread."
"With the thread from here, yes."
He looked at the wolf for a few more seconds. The eyes that seemed golden without being so. The fur with a depth that ordinary thread should not possess. Then he asked, quietly, "Does this have something to do with the Japan with superheroes?"
"Not exactly."
Rudeus looked at me. I looked back at him with the most neutral expression in my repertoire.
"All right," he said, in the tone of someone who has filed the information away and moved on. He pulled out the chair and sat with the naturalness of someone who is not going to admit they were curious.
The tea arrived in four cups that Lilia set on the table with the posture of someone delivering the result of a more laborious process than it ought to have been, but who had executed it with precision regardless. The steam rose with the pale golden hue that the vael'dra gave to the infusion, and the scent that filled the room was precisely what I had calculated: the freshness of the lemon balm, the nutty undertone of the sirith, the hint of ginger, present but well-mannered.
Lilia and Zenith picked up their cups with the air of someone testing the outcome of instructions they had followed without fully understanding why.
Rudeus picked up his with the expression of someone without particular expectations.
He went quiet after the first sip.
He looked at the cup.
He took another sip.
He continued looking at the cup with the expression of someone having a difficult internal conversation.
[Specimen Rudeus is in conflict between the current sensory experience and the pride that prevents him from verbalising an honest assessment. Estimated resistance: thirty seconds.]
〈A generous estimate.〉
It took twenty-two.
"It's good," said Rudeus, in the flat, contained voice of someone delivering a costly concession.
"I know," I said.
"You didn't need to say that."
"You also didn't need to take a second sip before deciding what you thought. And yet here we are."
Rudeus looked at me with the expression of someone who has been observed with more attention than they had calculated. Then he looked at the cup. Then back at me.
"You are a little old lady," he said, in the tone of someone who has arrived at a conclusion following serious analysis. "Embroidery, tea with a list of ingredients, opinions about water temperature." He tilted his head with the expression of calculated mischief that was his version of deliberate provocation. Then, more quietly, in the voice of someone who finds the question hilarious: "How old were you when you died last time? Eighty? Eighty-five?"
I looked at him.
He looked back at me with the smile of someone pleased with their own provocation.
"The last time I died of old age," I said, with the composure of someone remarking on the weather, "I was four hundred and seventeen. And I still embroidered better than anyone in this room will manage in this entire lifetime." I took a sip of my tea. "But thank you for the comparison. It is rather flattering."
Rudeus's smile moved through several stages before arriving at its final destination, which was the expression of someone caught between involuntary admiration and regret at having started that particular line of reasoning.
"Four hundred and seventeen, you must be joking again," he said slowly, without quite believing it.
"It was a long life. The climate helped."
Zenith was watching us with the smile of someone witnessing something they do not entirely follow but find genuinely entertaining.
"You are impossible," said Rudeus, returning to his tea with the restraint of someone closing an argument they had not won.
"I am consistent," I corrected. "They are different things."
The afternoon continued with that particular quality of afternoons without urgency: the tea cooling slowly, the spools scattered across the table, Zenith and Lilia returning to the embroidery, Rudeus opening the book again but without his earlier closed concentration, glancing at the table occasionally with the expression of someone paying attention to something that is not the book.
He made a remark about Zenith's bald dog that made Zenith laugh and made Lilia look away towards her own embroidery with the corner of her mouth lifted. Then Zenith made a remark about Lilia's cat, and Lilia responded with the wounded dignity of someone with professional pride who is not going to yield without resistance, which made Rudeus laugh properly, the kind of laugh that is not performative.
I observed.
There was something in the scene that I had seen variations of in other lives. The dining table with cups. Hands occupied with small work. Voices overlapping without urgency. The kind of afternoon that is going nowhere in particular and for that very reason goes exactly where it needs to.
Rudeus had probably not had many of those.
I was not going to remark on that. But I noticed.
By the end of the afternoon, Zenith and Lilia displayed their revised embroideries after the corrections. The bald dog had acquired fur and more reasonable proportions. It was still not a wolf, but had advanced to the category of unidentified canine with some dignity. Lilia's cat had lost its squint and gained a more appropriate snout, the two eyes now agreeing on size within an acceptable margin.
I looked at the two embroideries.
"Acceptable," I said.
Zenith and Lilia looked at me.
"For your level," I added, because precision is a virtue, "it is acceptable."
Zenith smiled with the particular brightness of someone who has understood that they have just received something worth more than it appears. Lilia adjusted her posture with the contained satisfaction of someone who has received praise from an exacting source and will keep that close without making a scene of it.
〈Eos. They understood the weight of a compliment from me.〉
[Shall I note that you said "acceptable" in a slightly different tone from usual?]
〈No.〉
[Already noted.]