![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
dreamerinsilicoFandom: Pillars of Eternity
Prompt: #027 Writer's Choice for Table 2 - "Acantha v socks," courtesy of a Tumblr friend
Characters: Acantha (Watcher of Caed Nua), Eder, Sagani
Rating: G
Word count: 379
Summary: Being from The White That Wends, where the climate is not amenable to raising plants or animals that produce spinnable fiber, Acantha never learned to knit. When she needs new socks and mentions finding somewhere to buy some, Eder is comically horrified and informs her that around these parts, pretty much everyone can and does make their own. Lessons ensue!
“This is three needles too many.”
Acantha is glaring daggers at the inch-and-a-half tube of rather unevenly-knitted fabric that will, in theory, become a sock. Eventually. Maybe. If she can wrestle these five sticks into submission.
“You said flat knitting was one needle too many when I showed you that, so I’ll reckon that’s progress,” Eder observes. Though Acantha is still getting used to her companions’ verbal tones and mannerisms, she is fairly sure that he is just barely not-laughing at her, which makes her raise her glare from the offending tangle of yarn and sticks to him.
Indeed, his amusement is twinkling in his eyes, and his own nascent sock is at least five inches long already, and has a pretty, twisted sort of pattern to the top of it that apparently involves the use of a sixth blasted needle. She isn’t sure whether she desperately wants to learn the technique or desperately does not.
“It keeps…. doing the, the…” Her fingers twitch in the air as if they might pluck out the word she wants. “The thing. The loose-stitch thing between the needles.”
“Ladderin’, yeah, you want to pull that first stitch on each needle real tight, and keep them close together while you’re workin’ it. But don’t worry about it too hard; it gets easier to avoid as you get used to going in the round.” He gives her a wry smile. “You’re doin’ fine, Icicle.”
Sagani is watching them with mild curiosity from where she is dressing a deer carcass nearby. “Your folk wear mukluks too, don’tcha? They still suit me fine here, waterproofed.”
Acantha nods, and wrinkles her nose. “Boots of skins and furs, yes, like yours. But it is too warm for those, here. Warmer still, when I lived in Vailia. Sweating, I do not enjoy, and I do too much of it as it is. The northerners’ socks are sensible, disagreeable as the methods of making them may be.”
This time Eder does laugh. “Aww, come on, I know how much you like tying pretty knots in everything you can get your hands on. You can’t fool me. You’ll love knitting too, soon as you get used to it.”
“We will see,” she huffs, and goes back to wrestling with her not-even-close-to-a-sock-yet.
(Can also be read on AO3)
no subject
Date: 2019-03-03 10:14 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2019-03-03 08:47 pm (UTC)