SCARVES FOR THE POOR ; job

After leaving the Crystalli Concertium, Valeria folded and pocketed the detail sheet for the job and read over the details of the second job one more time. People had started to leave the Concertium, so she made way for others to exit while she walked slowly and took in the job information. It did not say anywhere on the sheet which day the well-known knitters were going to be there, so she assumed it was today. She figured the reason the job was posted on the board today was because the knitters would be there today. Maybe she was wrong, but there was only one way to find out. So the sorceress began wandering around Crystalli, imagining she would find a group of people with knitting materials all gathered together to start a grand knitting session. However, unlike most days, Crystalli was a little bit empty today, and being the positive noodle she was, Valeria assumed it was because everyone was either with the knitting group or at the Concertium. In a while, though, Val realised that something was definitely wrong, and so she headed over to the nearest group of people and asked about the knitting thing. None of them even knew what she was talking about, so she moved on to another pair of guildmates. Luckily for her, the two had heard of it and directed her to where the knitting party was happening.

Although Val was still getting the hang of finding her way in the ship, she finally arrived at the location she was directed to. It seemed like everyone was already starting, so she picked up her own set of knitting materials and started knitting just as instructed. Since she was fast learner, she did not have much trouble trying to keep up with the lesson. The instructor was quite nice and patient, waiting for everyone to be at the same pace. She had some assistants as well, who were always looking to see if anyone needed help, and there were a few who did need help like there were people who were messing things up (not on purpose, of course). Valeria waited patiently for the others who needed help and practised in the meantime. The instructor did not pay her much attention since she was in the back and pretty quiet while she was knitting on her own. After a while, the lesson was over and it was time for everyone to start knitting on their own. Valeria got up to go to the restroom for a bit. On her way there, she tried to decide on what she was going to knit. Blankets, or scarves? She still could not think of what she wanted to knit when she got back. She wanted to knit something that would be of use and she could not decide which was more useful. Valeria returned from the restroom and picked up her knitting materials again. She looked around her. Scarves. Yes. She was going to knit scarves.

Valeria was very fond of colors that were dull and pastel-y. She did not want to make scarves that were going to be hard to pair with most colors, so she used threads that were either dull or pastel-y in color. Since she found some extra time, she asked one of the assistants to help her create patterns on the scarves. It had been almost an hour since she got here and minus the time that was used for learning, she had spent approximately fifteen minutes just making scarves. Might as well make them pretty, she thought. Quite obviously, Valeria was very fond of pretty things and because of that, almost out of habit, she wanted others to have pretty, nice things as well. The assistant showed Valeria a demonstration of how to make patterns. Heart shapes, stars, colorful flowers, all of those basic girl things. The sorceress followed the instructions given to her by the assistant, step by step, being extra careful not to mess up because she simply did not want to start back from scratch. After some time, the assistant decided that Val was ready to continue on her own and no longer needed her guidance. Valeria thanked the assistant. Through the clear, glass windows, Valeria saw that the sun was starting to climb up the sky to take its place right overhead. It was almost noon.

Looking down in her lap to see how many scarves she had already made, an excited grin crept onto her face. For the past few minutes she had been knitting nonstop, as if she was a machine or something. Five neatly knitted scarves sat in her lap, with different patterns on each of them. She used faded shades underneath slightly bolder shades that were used for the patterns. The assistant who had been helping her earlier came over to check on how she was doing, which was really nice of her. Valeria folded the finished scarves and placed them, next to where she sat, in a neat little pile. After the previous one, she had six done in total now. That was probably enough for now. She could probably come back later to make more or something. Now it was time for her to distribute it to the homeless people on the ship. She was told to keep one for herself as well, but Valeria felt like she did not really need a scarf. Getting up from her seat, Val patted her behind to remove any debris that was clinging to her skirt, then picked up the pile of scarves she made. She said goodbye to the instructor as well as the assistant and headed out to start giving away the scarves. After walking away from the group, a thought came to mind. She realised she had been working on her own this whole time. “I should look for a partner to work with,” she mumbled. Val used to be super shy, but she was getting less shy now and felt like making more friends.