Seated by the pond behind her shop and house, Sareva flipped through three pages of her book. Her hands freshly cleaned in the waters before her after planting the cutting she’d been given permission to take from Arthionn’s bush, the paper felt soft on her fingers. She hoped the strange, beautiful flowers would grow healthily, and perhaps they’d be a replacement for the hydrangeas she had intended to put where they now were.
Three pages, three birds, three people she had met that inspired designs. The first was a raven. Ravenhart was the man’s name who inspired it, and the nickname seemed fitting. The person her design was loosely fitted about had no features, as with all her drawings, but she wondered what it would look like taken from the page into reality. A long, black robe with faint silver embroidery, with dark bluish-grey trousers and a tunic underneath cut a strikingly noble figure. About the shoulders was clasped a black capelet with a high collar and an edging that resembled feathers, the underlining of which would be a deep purple, only peeking out from beneath the black. How she wished she had skills with paints so that could be seen in the drawing, but alas, the color could be seen only in her mind.
The second, inspired by a certain Hawke. He seemed to be a somewhat flighty person, ever moving or chirping in with an opinion. This outfit would be more form fitting, keeping the wearer light and nimble, and meant for a more urban environment and tight spaces. It would be brown with little bits of white: an undershirt peeking through the vest, on the belt, accents on the sleeves and pockets, and a white feather embroidered around the bottom of each pant leg.
Flipping to the third page, she grinned. “How did the old rhyme go? Little Robin Redbreast sat upon a tree…” He might not have had the name of a bird like the other two, but the picture certainly fit, remembering Aallan perched high above, dressed in bold red, staring at her down below as he invited her up. The outfit inspired by him was more of an all-around use kind, mostly suited to the outdoors, balancing sturdiness and maneuverability: brown leather calf high boots coming up around the brown and black pants, accents of red around the waistband that transitioned to the mostly red shirt with brown and flecks of white on the sleeves, a brown fabric as a cross between a cowl and a capelet around the shoulders with feathers embroidered upon the shoulders, and finally hood of red that came up and out to a point. While all her figures were featureless, merely human shapes on which her designs were displayed, she couldn’t help but put a little, sweeping mark on this one’s face, a small smirk. Again with this design, she longed for a skill with paints, but those were expensive and she didn’t have the time to master it. Besides, if someone liked a design, she wanted them to be able to project their preferred color onto it; her intended image would remain in her mind’s eye.
She closed the book and brought it in with her, placing it in her bag and collecting pile of folded shirts, trousers, two dresses, an apron, and a cloak, placing the items in a basket that would go on the side of her saddle. To Bree again, delivering the things she had made or mended, then to stop at the inn for a rest, and finally to grab some groceries before she would head home. As she loaded up her things onto the saddle, she wondered what encounters the day would bring.
