[Vignette] Frustration
Stitch, stitch - slip and prick a finger tip.
Stitch, unstitch. Follow the hem with his finger; pause. Unstitch.
Stitch.
Unstitch.
He was rapidly getting frustrated. But considering that Neraset and K'mron were in rather intimate conversation two cots over (now that those particular restrictions had been lifted) and Alleina was sitting on the floor nearby, P'traul restrained himself from flinging the straps in question across the room and instead let them slip through his fingers to bounce harmlessly off his cot to the floor.
In the back of his mind, simultaneously with the mottled brown sitting motionless on the couch kitty-corner from his cot, there was a stirring, and with the twitch of Yjimeth's tail came a steady, faint dripping, as though somewhere a pipe had finally been opened and now trickled into a glass flask.
Be patient, Yjimeth bid him, serene as usual, in his low and rumbling voice, go slow. Keep it simple.
"Easy enough for you to say," P'traul retorted aloud, to the surprise of Alleina, who turned to look at him curiously. Smiling at her a bit wanly, the Lemosian continued silently, you haven't even opposable thumbs.
An image flashed briefly, of white-gloved hands gingerly holding the leather, of a needle pinched between metallic robot fingers. And then: a set of straps. Complete. Upon a grown Yjimeth, spreading his wings for flight. But I could, if I had them. There was the distinction. You haven't even made the effort. Have you looked at the patterns they gave us?
Us. Not you. Yjimeth considered each of these projects to his primarily his own, P'traul only serving as the means to which they might be completed. Considering the lack of opposable thumbs and all.
P'traul presently looked up from his hopeless mess spread around his cot, the two needles stuck haphazardly into the sole of his shoe as he sat cross-legged, the uncut leather stacked in unsteady piles ready to tip, the thread quickly unthreading and snarling itself despite his best efforts to keep it neat. And then he leaned over the edge of his mattress to peer down at his twisted mess of half-sewn belts and fastenings, a buckle glinting back at him.
Helpfully, Alleina picked them up and offered them back to P'traul, who, with another fast look towards Yjimeth, accepted them with a second weak smile for the girl, smoothed them in his lap and tugged here and straightened there until at least they lay flat on his cot.
Yjimeth leisurely spread his wings, indolently pressing them against the air and wafting a breeze over P'traul, who frowned faintly and plucked one of those needles from his shoe. He unwound a spool of thick thread, too, but the moving air made it difficult to thread through the eye.
After a few efforts, he stared hard through the small hole in the needle at the patchwork brown. Do stop, please, Yjimeth.
Look at the patterns first, P'traul. You won't be able to do this without first getting a firm idea of what it is you're trying to do. It wasn't a request but an instruction, the insistent burble of a boiling cauldron, some curious concoction within churning over itself.
You look at them, then, Paul retorted sharply, stabbing himself once again with the needle and flushing red, as you're the one who cares so much about them.
The boiling died very suddenly down, to the cool hiss of steam of water thrown upon the fire beneath. Without the straps, P'traul, we will never fly together, Yjimeth's rumbling voice was abruptly soft and rather troubled, his wings slowing in their movement and finally neatly flipping to his back as, crossly, the boy sitting diagonally from the dragon pushed a piece of hair back behind his ear.
Do you not want to fly with me?
"Oh," and P'traul looked up from his lap, up from the leatherworking and the needles and thread and the frustration on his face melted away to shame, "Oh, no, Yjimeth, that is not what I meant at all. I'm very sorry."
Again Alleina looked up from the floor, but this time he ignored her, instead displacing the straps from his cot to move to Yjimeth's couch, climbing right up next to the brown and tucking his knees under his chin.
I'm sorry, the boy repeated, reaching out for the brown, who leaned willingly enough into the embrace, I'm just irritated with it. I'm a miserable seamstress, Yjimeth, though my sisters were very good at it.
Show me, please, Yjimeth replied, still a bit stiffly although there was a sputter of that flame returning as P'traul willingly opened his mind to allow the brown to shuffle through his memories, neat as always.
"Here, see," the boy murmured as they went, "There is Alyce. She is older than me, and Jessie, whose full name is Jessamyne -- they loved to sew me clothes and things, as though I were a dress-up toy for them. I didn't mind, although the pressed shirts chafed occasionally, but a proper gentlemen should never put his own discomfort before his appearance…"
So it went for some time, until the cogs and devices and dripping tubes and clear beakers of Yjimeth's mind had all set up again with spinning or dripping or whirring or clicking the straps were put off for yet another candlemark or so -- though not before the brown extracted a promise from the boy to seek assistance from someone later on during the day.