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Marion kept a weather eye on Essek. He was one of Jester's most beloved friends and so there was no question that her home was welcome to him. He had arrived in the dead of night, some of the Nein with him, carrying a few crates and boxes. Whatever misdeeds had put him on the wrong side of the Dynasty had finally come to a head and he had taken the liberty to clear out his towers (and his bank account), escaping before the noose tightened. She had felt how tense he was when she gave him a warm hug and told him he was welcome to stay at the Chateau for as long as he wanted. His courtly manners never faltered, but his eyes shimmered with unsaid emotion.
That had been three days ago.
Essek wasn't moping, per se. He was friendly and polite, the perfect guest, but it was plain to see that he was at loose ends and unsure what to do with himself now that the shoe had dropped. Nodding to herself, Marion gave Blud a small list of items to purchase at a nearby shop and then asked Essek to tea.
When Essek stepped into her chambers, he was confused to see that the low table in front of the couch in her parlor had been set instead of the big round table he was used to. He recovered admirably, a polite but hallow smile on his face, as he inclined his head to her. Marion patted the seat next to her, a woven basket made of sea grass on her lap.
"This is very... cozy," Essek said, lilting accent tempered to betray his confusion. Marion smiled at him and poured them both cups of fragrant citrus tea.
"I have a little gift for you," Marion said as Essek sipped his tea. He looked askance at her.
"Your kindness is even more renowned than your beauty, but I do not think I can accept another gift when I have already been given so much while I stay here."
Marion tutted at him. "You must trust me, Essek. This is a gift you will have to work for." She put the basket on his lap and let him look it over before giving in to curiosity and opening it. Essek looked at the contents with even deeper bewilderment, pulling out a ball of bright, tropical orange yarn, knitting needles, and a small wooden box containing colorful rings and dangling charms.
"I don't understand," Essek finally said, looking back at her. Marion smiled and took his hands in her own. He looked down at his lavender hands clasp in her delicate deep red ones. Touch was still so foreign to him, it always took him by surprise.
"Essek, you are not the first wizard I've ever known. Many have been through these doors. In fact, back in the day I used to know Yussa Errenis very well. I saw in him what I see in you. Wizards can never be still. They fidget and flit from project to project like hurried bees. I know how much you need your hands to always be busy, how even a simple craft can keep the mind sharp and things like panic and anxiety at bay. I've been knitting for years and I find it to be very relaxing and very rewarding." She let his hands go, turning to pour more tea. "When I was much younger I worked as a showgirl. There was so much downtime backstage. Many of the other girls had little hobbies. They'd play chess or sew for some extra money. It kept you out of trouble. Our wardrobe mistress at the time, an old dwarf woman, taught me to knit. She said I had the hands for it."
Essek looked back down at the yarn on his lap, at a loss and unsure what to think. Knitting was a well known craft in the Dynasty and Essek had seen the Skysybil do crochet during meetings with her clever goblin hands. Handicrafts had never been a concern of his, of course. He had spell work and research to concern himself with. Now, without any of that, he was realizing he didn't have any other hobbies. Even Verin had those lights damned little soldier figures he painted, or whatever they were. Or at least he had when he was younger. Essek once again felt a stab in his chest at how he'd never know his brother again, how it had been decades since they'd spoken. Another regret to add to the towering pile. One wrong move and Essek was convinced that pile would topple and bury him.
"You think I have the, er, hands for it?" Essek asked, looking back at the beautiful tiefling. She smiled again, calm and patient and motherly.
"I do. I believe your hands have the capacity to create beautiful, wonderful things, Essek." He shook his head, unable to think of his hands as anything other than covered in the blood of thousands. They had been used to destroy, to bring ruin and death and shame, how could they ever be anything else? "None of that now," Marion said, seeing the look on his face. "I know you like a challenge. This is just something new to master."
Essek sighed and shrugged, almost helplessly. "If you insist, I am grateful for your gift and your tutelage." He paused. "And you said Archmage Yussa Errenis knits as well?"
Marion laughed, delighted. "Archmage Yussa Errenis enters his macrame in the Nicodranas Craft Fair every year under a fake name and gets hilariously upset if he does not win a blue ribbon."
***
They spent the afternoon together, Marion patiently teaching Essek all the basics of knitting. They cast the yarn onto the needles, using a method almost like a cat's cradle that Essek recognized from one of Caleb's spells. She showed him how to knit and how to purl, demonstrating the various ways the yarn could move from one needle to the other. Despite himself, Essek realized he was having a lovely time. Marion had been right, it was a relaxing diversion and he enjoyed the new challenge. His hands, already deft and dexterous from decades of fine spell casting, took to the craft quickly. What began as lumpy, uneven stitches soon became uniform and neat as he flicked the yarn from his right hand around the needle with practiced ease. She showed him how to use the colorful rings to keep count of his stitches and the little charms, a trio of sun, moon, and a star, could be used to tell the difference between which side of the yarn was knit or purl. Before he knew it, he had the very beginnings of a scarf started. He couldn't help but look upon his progress with a pride he hadn't felt in a very long time.
It scratched the same itch in his brain that spell creation did. He felt at ease, engaged, and excited. How odd that such a simple little craft could make him feel so much better, at least for a short time. Marion praised his progress like a proud mother, calling his work a "respectable stockinette stitch" and giving him a conspiratorial wink that perhaps that nice Zemnian wizard might like a handknitted scarf for a winter present. Essek felt the tips of his ears go warm at the very idea and made a noncommittal little noise in response.
After that day, Essek took tea with Marion in the afternoon and they knit together. It felt cozy and homey, a feeling utterly foreign to Essek but one he was learning to enjoy. Marion helped him as he panicked over dropped stitches, laughed as his ball of yarn fell and rolled all over the room, and showed him her progress on a sweater in a deep navy blue for Fjord. Jester had asked if she'd make him one and Marion could never refuse her little Sapphire anything. She showed Essek how to knit cables and in turn he told her small things about the Dynasty. Little stories about his brother, about the Court, about what it had been like to sit at the right hand of a Queen.
Essek knew, distantly and intellectually, that he couldn't stay at the Chateau forever but that day came much sooner than he was emotionally ready for. Jester messaged him out of the blue, telling him of a rumor about Kryn mercenaries in nearby Port Damali that Beau had heard about. Perhaps they had found his scent. Perhaps it was nothing at all. Either way, he quickly packed a small travel bag and said a sorrowful farewell to Marion. He thanked her for her hospitality and begged her to be safe. She kissed his cheek and hugged him tightly before handing him his little knitting basket. He hugged her back, perhaps more tightly than he had ever hugged another person before in his life, before dropping the basket into his wrist pocket and running away.
***
Jester had arranged with a friend of the Mighty Nein to give him lodging in Uthodurn. The city was deeply unfamiliar to Essek and the underground nature of it gave him nightmares for days when he arrived. He felt oddly trapped here, unable to escape if discovered. Reani had been gentle with him, dropping a flower crown on his head when he walked into her home and showing him around the city with all the verve of an enthusiastic tour guide. He couldn't help but stare at her when she wasn't looking, taking in the bright halo over her head and feeling a shiver whenever she spoke excitedly about eradicating evil. Was he evil? Essek didn't even know anymore. He hadn't felt evil before but everything had changed so suddenly that night in the belly of the Nein's ship. He wisely kept his thoughts to himself.
Reani often left him alone in her home for days at a time, out on assignments to aid the city and its citizens. He could easily see how she had befriended the Nein. She was exactly their kind of benevolent chaos.
Alone and with nothing to do except pace a hole into the floor, Essek returned to knitting. It kept his hands busy and emptied his mind, keeping worry at bay. Perhaps this was the meditation so many Luxon priests spoke of? Essek didn't realize the bright orange yarn was running out until the tightly wound ball became a squiggle of loose loops. He looked at it in horror, utterly unsure what to do next. It felt like a terrible metaphor, how his life unraveled with the ball of yarn and that perhaps the end of his own life was next. The thought jolted him so badly than he threw everything into his basket and hurried out into the unfamiliar city, looking for anything that would help.
He walked for an hour without any luck, despair gripping his every breath as the minutes wore on. He had no idea why this had suddenly become such a pressing life or death task but he knew he wouldn't sit with himself a moment longer without something with which to keep busy. With a sigh he ducked into an alley to recast his disguise and came face to face with a tiny hole in the wall shop with a chipped and faded wooden sign of a ball of yarn with two needles poking out of it at a jaunty angle.
Essek swore in Undercommon and hurried inside without pause, the door jingling as he stepped in. The shop was small but cheerful, the walls lined with shelves of yarn and knitting accessories. He almost felt like weeping. A blonde half elf woman walked out from a door in the back and looked him over in surprise.
"Can I help you?" she asked carefully, taking in his wide eyed shock and the anxious set of his spine.
"I ran out of yarn and I don't know what to do," Essek managed to bite out, his voice thin and strained. The woman smiled at him.
"New to the needles, are you?" she asked, walking over to him. Essek nodded, opening his basket and pulling out the progress he had made on his scarf. "Oh, but you're doing well, my dear. Your tension is perfect. And this yarn is such a lovely color."
"Thank you," Essek said, trying to return her smile, already feeling that stark panic drain away. "Can you help me?"
The half elf led him around the shop, picking up a few different types of yarn until she found one that was the same kind and weight. He had a dizzying selection of colors to select from and after much deliberation he settled on an aquamarine blue that matched the orange in a complimentary way. He didn't care how much it cost, he needed that yarn more than he had ever needed any spell component.
He watched as the woman put the yarn on a huge wooden contraption and spun it, almost magically turning the skein of yarn into another tight ball. Once finished she asked if Essek knew what to do next and, when he shook his head tightly in ill-disguised shame, happily showed him how to start knitting with a new color and how to weave in the ends of the old yarn so it was a clean transition. At her urging he bought a pair of sharp black sheers and a large blunt tapestry needle, adding them to his basket. On his way out he noticed a display of little charms, just like the knitting notions Marion had given him, and found himself unable to leave without purchasing one in the shape of a little cat. He tramped down how foolish he felt as he added it to his little collection.
Essek returned to Reani's home and collapsed on the couch, trying to figure out what had come over him. The earlier panic already felt miles away and he ran his finger over the charming new aquamarine blue yarn that now joined his scarf. Perhaps he was going mad. Perhaps he didn't care. He made himself a fresh pot of tea, settled in with a blanket, and hummed to himself as he took up his needles again.
***
It slowly became a bit of a tradition. Every new place Essek went he'd sneak out and find a little yarn store. He'd buy a new skein of yarn for the scarf project and pick up a new little notion for his collection. It started to become an unconventional journal of his travels and the scarf grew longer and longer. He began to wonder what the yarn was like back home in Rosohna and cursed himself for his exile. He'd never again be able to wear his own face, never again walk under the blissful darkness of the city. He knit harder whenever he thought of it, desperately trying to push the thoughts away.
Winter set in quickly and Essek counted down the days until the holiday party at the Chateau. Jester had enthusiastically shaken him from his trance a few days prior with a sending and shouted gleefully that he was invited. He could just envision her eyebrow wiggle as she used her last few words to tell him Caleb would be there.
"Of course I will be there, Jester," he said, unable to keep the smile off his face, "I am grateful to be invited." He laughed softly knowing the unused words would drive the blue tiefling mad. She didn't reply back, perhaps out of spells for the day, but it gave Essek a brief bit of joy to know he would soon be back around those he had the audacity to call friends.
He got up the next day, invigorated and ready to finally finish the scarf. It had been with him for months and had travelled all over Wildmount. Essek would miss it when it was gone. He measured what he had completed and nodded to himself. One more color ought to do it. It was nearly the length of the scarves Caleb often wore. One last trip to a nearby yarn shop yielded a soft yarn all the way from Rexxentrum in a creamy white color and Essek couldn't refuse. He watched as the skein of yarn was turned into a ball (he refused to call it a "cake", what a foolish thing to call yarn) and then hurried home to get to work. Essek knew he would be cutting it close and he knit with a singular purpose to get it finished in time.
Essek arrived at the Lavish Chateau a few days later, fingers and wrists aching. Jester, Fjord, and Kingsley were a day late, a storm blowing them just enough off course to delay them. Marion greeted him instead, pulling him once again into her arms like a mother seeing a wayward child after many long months.
"I am so relieved you are well," she said, the embrace warm and loving. Essek returned it stiffly, still learning how to show affection in such a carefree way. "I worried for you often. I know it has been a difficult time."
"I am as well as I can be," he replied, shaking his head. "This is a self inflicted wound. I must learn to live with the consequences."
"The Dynasty doesn't realize what they have lost," Marion said as they sat and she poured them tea. Essek gave her a wry smile and changed the subject.
"I wanted you to be the first to see. Look, I finished it," Essek drew his knitting basket out from his wrist pocket and pulled out the long, long knitted loops of scarf. Marion took it carefully, looking it over with a practiced eye.
"It's beautiful," she said, joy and pride evident on her face, "your work is stunning. You've done such an incredible job."
Essek took the scarf back, holding it in his lap and running a hand over it. "You were right," he said. "It helped. It helped so much."
Marion reached over and hugged him again. "I'm so glad."
***
Caleb arrived later that evening, bringing Beau and Yasha with him. Everyone caught up over a late dinner and Essek was delighted to hear Caleb would begin teaching in the spring. Beau and Yasha turned in early, knowing that tomorrow would be a long day once the Nein were finally together once more, but Essek and Caleb couldn't help but stay up into the night talking. Making up for lost time.
"So, Marion said you have taken up knitting?" Caleb asked, pouring the last of the wine into their glasses.
"I know it sounds strange, but I am enjoying it immensely." Essek swirled the wine in his glass, feeling pleasantly warm and light from the fine vintage. "It is good to keep one's hands busy. Especially when you are a wizard. Marion almost insisted. I am glad I listened."
"I think it is a wonderful idea," Caleb said. "I remember the peace that would come over me when I helped my mother with the sewing." he looked far away for a moment, a lock of his wildfire hair falling against his face. "There was a quilting circle she would go to and if I was very good she would let me come and help. Ach, but they did gossip."
"Perhaps you should take it up again." Essek said, wanting that same peace and fulfillment for him. If anyone deserved a moment of calm it was Caleb.
"Perhaps I will." he replied. "But enough about me, I wanted to give you something."
Essek shook his head, earrings jangling faintly. "Caleb, you have given me so much already. I can hardly accept anything else."
"Nonsense." Caleb said, pulling out a small piece of amber and unlocking it with a whispered "Una". A parcel wrapped in silk patterned with constellations leapt out, landing onto the table between them. Essek looked at in shock. That was Xhorhasian wrapping. It was traditional to wrap gifts in expensive fabric that could be reused and a lump lodged itself in his slender throat as he stared at it. A raw homesickness tore at him, leaving him feeling oddly brittle. He never thought he'd see something so purely Xhorhasian like that again.
Caleb set it before him and Essek stroked the silk in awe. "Open it, schatz."
Essek carefully untied the knots in the silk, pulling it back gently. His fingers brushed against the contents inside and he gasped. Nestled delicately inside was a collection of Xhorhasian yarns, each wrapped in a small label describing the dyes used and the yardage of each skein. There were dreamy midnight blues, dusty lavenders, bright violets, and other traditional colors. Underneath them was a book in Undercommon about knitting, detailing Dynasty patterns and methods. Essek flipped through it, seeing instructions on everything from simple shawls to complex Xhorhasian lace.
"Caleb, this is... these are... I'm speechless." He said, voice thick with emotion.
"I thought you would like a bit of home to work with," Caleb said. "Perhaps you can come visit me in Rexxentrum sometime and I will find you a book on Empire knitting. You can compare them."
Essek looked at him, feeling almost delirious with how much he loved this man. He managed a smile. "I'd like that. I'd like that very much." He paused, considering, before moving his hand in the air to cast. "I was going to give this to you tomorrow, but I think I want you to have it now." Caleb cocked his head as Essek opened his wrist pocket and withdrew a small parcel wrapped in pale gold colored linen. Caleb looked at him fondly and opened it slowly, pulling out the scarf Essek had spent months knitting.
"Did you make this?" he asked, turning to look at Essek, amazed. The drow nodded, feeling a blush already heating his face and ears. "Oh, Essek, it is stunning. Look at all the colors." Caleb looped it around his neck, running a hand reverently over it. "I will wear it every single day."
"You don't have to. It's not very good. I'm still learning-"
Caleb took Essek's face gently in his hands, leaning forward until their foreheads touched. "Essek, it is beautiful. Just like the man who made it." He brought their lips together, the kiss soft with love and longing. Essek melted into it, one hand against the scarf and the other against the scruff of Caleb's cheek.
If a scarf got him a kiss, he wondered vaguely what an entire sweater would get him. He couldn't wait to cast on some yarn and find out.