A Good Eye for Color

Writers: Devin, Estelle
Date Posted: 25th April 2021

Characters: Talryne, R'ayl
Description: Furayl helps Talryne choose colors for a tapestry and discovers who her weyrmate is...
Location: Dolphin Cove Weyr
Date: month 8, day 26 of Turn 10

Talryne

Talryne frowned as she looked through the selection of thead. This
wasn't quite the right green. Maybe . . . no, not that one either. One
would think, with their supply coming directly from the Weaver Hall,
that the shade of green she wanted would be in here somewhere.

Behind her, a young boy peered nervously around the door into the
weavers' workroom. Since he had a craft, Furayl had been told he could
come here to work in the morning instead of chores, even though he'd
only been at the Weaver Hall for a little more than a month. Although he
was relieved to be assigned somewhere where it wouldn't matter so much
that he was small and weak, he remembered the classes back at the Hall,
how the masters could pierce you with a look and how the other
apprentices had taunted him.

In the end, fear of getting into trouble with the Headwoman outweighed
his doubts. He tapped lightly on the door, then took a cautious step
into the room.

The sound startled her a little. People usually just came in if they
wanted something. Turning to see a boy with Candidate knots, she
wondered if maybe he had a message or something. "Um, yes?"

The boy gulped. "Oh - sorry, ma'am. I was told I should come here. To
work on my craft?" He looked around to reassure himself that he was in
the right place, seeing looms, shelves with bolts of fabric and bundles
of wool, and trays of needles and thread.

Talryne glanced around. "Oh, there should be a journeyman here to help
you but . . . they must be out. I'm sure they won't be long." She
spotted a chair next to a clean table. "Um, you could wait here."

"Okay." Furayl perched on the chair and settled down to wait, trying to
take in every detail of the room so that he could describe it to Master
Shuvan later. Even to his untrained eye, the shelves looked well stocked
with fine quality cloth, nearly as good as the Hall itself. He'd never
seen such rich colors and fabrics before he'd left home.

After a while, no journeyman had appeared and Furayl began to fidget,
unused to being the only person in the room not working. He looked over
to the young woman from before, and spoke hesitantly. "Excuse me, ma'am.
Is there anything I can do? To help?"

"Oh, well . . ." She looked over at him. At that age, he might get
into trouble if she left him to his own devices. "You could help me
look for the right shade of green? I'm trying to find one that's
bright but also dark. Similar shades are mostly organized together,
but there's not always room when we get a new shipment or someone dyes
a new color, so they can be jumbled up on the extra shelves at the
end."

"Okay." Furayl hopped down and walked over to the shelves she'd
indicated. There were a few boxes there and he stood on tiptoe to peer
into one. "Um, what kind do you want? Embroidery thread, or thicker, for
mending and darning?" He remembered learning about that in one of his
first classes, though back home they'd just used whatever they could get.

"Embroidery," she said absently as she bent down to check a lower
shelf. She knew in her head what she wanted, but she started to wonder
if she'd have to settle for something that was close enough.

"All right." He stood on tiptoe and pulled down one of the boxes from
the end shelf, then replaced it and checked another. As she'd explained,
they contained a mixture of threads, samples of cloth, packets of
needles and scissors and pins. He kept looking until he found one
containing embroidery thread. Carrying it over to the table where he'd
been sitting, he began to sort through the contents, carefully
separating the bundles into different colors and lining them up by shade.

After a while, he became so absorbed in his task that he nearly forgot
that he was looking for one color in particular, and it was only when
the box was empty that he remembered. There were a few darker greens,
but one was a more faded, grayish-green and another two were very dark.
He picked up two of the brighter, vivid threads and another lighter one,
just in case, and cleared his throat. "Ma'am, would any of these do?"

It was a little amusing to be called "ma'am" Talryne thought as she
turned back toward the boy. "Oh." She was surprised to see the table
full of neatly sorted colors. "The Journeyman is going to love you,"
she said as she stepped closer. Talryne examined the two different
threads he was holding. "Hmm . . . This one is actually . . . Yes,
it's almost perfect." She took one of the vivid greens and studied it
closer.

Furayl looked worried for a moment, as if he'd not been expecting the
praise. He glanced at the table, wondering if he'd made a mess. "I'm
sorry. I can put them all back how they were."

Talryne blinked. "After you organized them?"

That only seemed to make him more nervous. "I know you didn't tell me
to. I just thought it'd be easier to find the right one..."

"Do you think organizing is a _bad_ thing?" Where on Pern had this boy
come from?

"N...no?" Furayl turned over the remaining green thread in his fingers.
"Should I put them on the shelves, where you were looking before?" He
could see the thread there was sorted into boxes of different colors.
Maybe that was the way to clear up the table. The tightness in his chest
began to ease a little.

"If there's room, you can add them." She glanced over to see there
were at least a few spots on the main shelves. "When you run out of
space, you can put them on the extra shelves at the end, near where
you got the box." She looked at the boy for a moment. Newly arrived,
and he seemed so uncertain about everything. "I'm Talryne."

He bowed his head politely. "Pleased to meet you, Talryne. I'm Furayl. I
was at the Weaver Hall before, but not for very long. I'd only just
started." He blushed. "I only really know the stitches my Mama showed me."

That would explain why he looked so small. The boy was barely old
enough to Craft. "I think you'll do well here. You're polite and you
have a knack for organization." And he was _quiet_ unlike most boys
his age.

"Thank you, ma'am." Furayl felt a warm swell of pleasure at the praise.
No-one at the Weaver Hall had ever said he had a talent for anything. He
picked up a handful of the bundles of thread and started looking for
empty places on the shelves.

Usually he wouldn't have dared say anything to an adult he didn't know,
but he remembered how kind Enamra had been to him when he'd first
arrived. Maybe they didn't mind so much here. And he did need to find
out more about the Weyr. "If you don't mind me asking... Have you always
lived here, at Dolphin Cove?"

"No, I came here from Dragonsfall with my weyrmate. I'm originally
from the Healer Hall. Most of my family are healers, though that
wasn't the craft for me."

"Oh. I'm from a cothold. My family are holders." Furayl began to feel a
little more confident. She'd come from outside the Weyr, from a
Crafthall like him. He wondered if she'd been a Candidate too, but
wasn't sure if it would be tactful to ask, since she wasn't any more.
"Is your weyrmate a dragonrider?"

"Yes." She hesitated. Sometimes people got weird when they found out.
"He's the Weyrleader."

The box of threads Furayl had been holding nearly slipped through his
fingers at her words, and he had to grab for it, his heart suddenly
racing. The Weyrleader. The one who'd sentenced his brother to the
mines. If he found out... What if she told him?

**Don't be stupid. The Weyrleader won't be interested in a Candidate,**
he told himself, but he was grateful that he was facing the shelves so
she couldn't see the horror on his face. **Just keep quiet, and hope she
isn't here the next time you have craft duty.** But he had to say
something. Master Shuvan would want him to find out more. **I can be
brave. Like Grevan.**

"Oh. Uh..." He tried to think of something sensible. "He must be
very...busy."

"He is. It's hard sometimes." Talryne looked for the next color she
needed, which thankfully was one commonly kept in stock.

"It must be." Furayl fell silent, trying to think what else he might
ask. Did she know the Weyrleader had sent a young holder to his death?
Did she care? His mother had said it was an accident, but did either of
them feel any guilt about what happened? Maybe she hated his family,
too. Or maybe they weren't important enough to matter.

In the end, he was too scared, and a little too angry, to pursue the
subject. Instead, he focused on putting away each bundle of thread into
the right place, and watching as she chose different colors. Their craft
- that was something safe. "Ma'am, can I ask what you're going to make?"

"A small tapestry." She should really be working more on sewing, but
she wanted to try practicing with increased detail and shading in
tapestry.

"Will it be a pattern - or a picture of something?" He wondered if the
green thread was for a dragon. A tapestry sounded hard; he'd never got
as far as that at the Hall.

"It's a landscape, with crops and trees on a rolling hill." She picked
out a brown for the tree trunks.

Furayl picked up another handful of threads to put away. Her words had
made him remember his home. The little stone-built cothold, the faded
paint under the eaves and the patch of new tiles where his brother had
mended a hole in the roof. The shape of the dilapidated old barn, where
he was too afraid to go. The fields, bare earth in winter and turning
green and then gold as harvest approached. The darker patch of green
that was a nearby stand of trees, though there were no hills, the land
had been flat and open...

His throat felt tight with longing for his home and his family. If only
Grevan had never left. He wouldn't have minded feeling ill and tired
again, or hungry. He'd have traded it all to have his brother back.

He put a bundle of bright yellow thread into its place, and ran his
fingers lightly over the colors next to it, shading to a deeper gold.
"These ones here...they're the color of crops. At least, the ones near
my home." He wasn't sure why he was helping the Weyrleader's weyrmate -
but it was his craft, and it was only a tapestry.

She went over to look at the threads. "Yes, these will do nicely.
Thank you. You have a good eye for color."

"Thank you, ma'am." He handed over the thread, but with the sense of
pride came caution as he remembered Enali's words of warning about the
weyrfolk.

**They'll pretend everything is going to be wonderful... Don't believe
them.**

Even though the crafters here seemed so much kinder than at the Hall,
Furayl didn't know if he could trust them. He turned back to his
sorting, remaining quiet until the journeyman returned to question him
about how far he'd progressed at the Hall, then gave him some spare
cloth and stitches to practice until it was time for the noon meal.

He had to remember that he wasn't here to make friends, or win praise
for his crafting. He was here to make right the wrong that had been done
to his family. But sometimes, the Weyr made it easy to forget.

Last updated on the July 21st 2021

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A Good Eye for Color