Welcome to Gaia! ::

"Collecting samples. I'm studying various textiles and their properties. Durability, fraying, weight and texture..." Simon shuffled the pieces of fabric in his arms and showed a shiny blue wrinkled piece to Hadrian. "Material like this can be quite expensive on Gaia. I haven't decided yet if it's worth the price to use it. It's certainly a quite nice effect visually."

"Yes," said Simon, impressed. "You know about fabrics?" Six months ago, Simon wouldn't have known the difference between satin and muslin. It was amazing how much could happen in the space of a mere six months.

Simon started to go into his whole feien biology spiel but decided against it. "What sort of a shop does she have? I'm hoping to open a store of my own soon." Secretly he hoped Hadrian had some sort of great insight into the role of the small business owner, though a workshop did not mean Hadrian's bond actually sold anything.

Simon flushed slightly. Despite so many months of preparations and study, experimentation and work, he still had not yet come to terms with the actual thought of doing what he'd set out to. He was almost embarassed now. He knew what he was doing was totally superficial, that it filled no real requirement in the feien universe, and that Corvus would laugh if he found out.

That thought more than any other had driven Simon underground with his work, kept him determined to stay away from all the other feien, and made him work without any real purpose. He liked what he was doing and while he said he intended it to be a shop, intended for someone to wear what he was designing... but it was a lie, a conscious one. He didn't really want to sell clothes, did he? If he did the other feien would laugh. Even if they weren't Corvus they would probably laugh. Fairies didn't wear clothes, and apart from Julius, Simon had never met any feien who'd shown even the smallest interest in clothes.

(Simon could not in good conscious count Corvus's occasional ragged black cloth coverings as anything akin to clothing, except perhaps for the toga, but that had been short-lived.)

Hadrian was looking at Simon with such eager curiosity that the taller feien knew he had to say something. "Ih-- ah, it's not important." He shrugged. His hands tightened just a bit around his bundle of fabric.

It was a little hard to disguise what you were going to do while you were holding the materials for it. Simon looked down at the fabric. "Make clothes," he admitted, somewhat sullenly.

Simon took a mental step back in surprise. "No, I don't need a machine," he said, bending to put the little cloth bundle down. The bottom scrap was just a protective bit of muslin so it was fine to put on the ground. Simon pulled one of the larger scraps out from the stack, a stretch of soft periwinkle material, and held it up in front of him. He considered it a moment, running his hand along it, and then folded it in half.

Pinching the material, Simon ran his fingers across the top of the cloth, pressing the two sides together. When he reached the corrner he released the fabric. The two side now stuck together. Simon repeated the motion a second time, shaving off the top of the mend and making the edge clean. When he opened the cloth back up, it was connected on two sides, only a small crease present where Simon had worked his magic.

"It's a simple process involving the weaving of small bits of similar matter together, bending groups of molecules together into loops or hooks..." Simon trailed off when he realized this wasn't quite what Hadrian had meant. "Highly dextrous feien can weave materials together almost seamlessly by manipulating the force of magic in their hands. Cloth is fairly simple to do, though I'd have to go over it a few more times to make the bond strong enough to withstand re-tearing."

It was a bit easier of an explanation, but not by much.

"Um, yeah," said Simon, sheepishly smiling. "It's skill that merely requires a lot of practice with the hands, making things. As you become familiar with manipulating various materials you learn to enhance your knowledge of the material with your innate magical sense. In a way, magic is like a seventh sense, and additional way to observe and with practice modify the world." He knew that was probably still a little on the technical side, but it was hard for him to pare down his statements into any semblance of simplicity.