tushanshu_logs | (no subject)

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Characters: Cinna and YOU!
Date: 1-10 through whenever
Location: Alcuin's clothing threads
Situation: Open catch-all for anyone who wanted to comission clothing from Cinna. Prediscussed comissions and new comissions welcome; let me know if you want a specific starter and I'll toss one up!
Warnings/Rating: None so far!

During business hours, Cinna likes to keep the shop open, bright. Having the windows open doesn't bother him, although the walk to work everymorning is still a challenge. But once he's inside, he doesn't have a problem pulling open the curtains and letting the room fill with natural light. It looks best on the fabric, after all.

He keeps his workspace tidy. It's hard to make a room look inviting, when it's filled with work tables and dress forms and bolts of fabric, but he does his best. It will never look like a place for anything other than work, for dressmaking, but at least it's neat and airy. Pleasant. He likes it.

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If Cinna was going to do much more work for the dragons, he was going to have to speak to Alcuin about rearranging the shop. This was getting ridiculous.

He came to the window and propped it open without much surprise. It wasn't like he could miss the giant dragon descending from the sky, after all.

"Hello, Temeraire." He really did love both the dragons. They had a grace and beauty to them that was so entirely unique -- even in a place as full of new experiances as this is, they were exceptional. (And, he was getting the feeling, loved hearing it.)

For now, though, he was focused on the human members of the Aerial Corps. As he'd promised Temeraire, he'd come up with several pages of sketches, different ideas for them to review. The dragon could choose one of the designs, or they could pick and choose elements from among them.

But not all the elements. Restraint, dragon!

Temeraire inclined his head in greeting, curling himself up carefully outside the shop so as to block as little traffic as possible.

"Good afternoon, Mr Cinna," he returned, beaming down at the man. "I hope I am not disturbing you? Only I thought I might visit, and see how the designs are coming along, since I was passing through, anyway."

"Good afternoon, Temeraire." Something about the dragons made it impossible not to respond with the same old-fashioned courtesy. "You're not interrupting anything at all. I'm glad you're here, I had some designs to show you."

Cinna grabbed one of the smaller consultation tables and dragged it over to the window, so that they'd have a place to lay out the sketches. He took a chair for himself as well and sat down, laying out the sketches.

The uniforms he'd designed varied in how complex they were. For the sake of simplicity, he'd tried to make sure most of the elements were staples that could be found in any wardrobe. Then he'd embellished them with jackets, collars, sashes -- it seemed more practical than designing and producing a full set of uniforms for every member of what was, essentially, a volunteer guard.

One sketch clearly drew from the Kedan's fashion as implementation. It used a cloth-of-gold he strongly suspected would appeal to the dragons. Another, more somber design, was inspired by what Alcuin had told him of his world. It used neutral tones, charcoal mostly, accentuated with color to denote rank. A third was more along the lines of what Cinna had designed for Katniss's Mockingjay uniform. Black leather cuffs and arm bands for rank, with a high-collared jacket underneath.

None of them used jewels. Sorry.

Temeraire peered down at the sketches, his whiskers twitching with visible excitement. That the designs were fairly simple were lost on him; his eye was instead drawn to what did stand out, and he rumbled in surprised pleasure at the sight of the cloth-of-gold.

"Oh, I like that one, very much," he said, indicating it with a careful claw. "Do you think it might hold up to extended use? Only, I have never seen cloth-of-gold used in combat: Granby's coat is the only one which we have got, back home, and for some reason he does not like to wear it very often."

"I thought you might," Cinna said, a little wry. "There are several challenges there." For one, where would they get extra cloth-of-gold on the back of a turtle. Not that Cinna isn't sure he can't create a reasonable substitute.

"I'm worried about the strength of the fabric, although with a silk core, I'm sure it can be made strong enough for most use. What about the gold in flight? Will it be too distracting?"

Temeraire twitches his tail back and forth as he considers the designs. "The Chinese are known to use silk in their uniforms," he says, finally, "though I do not know how practical it is; they do not have much cause to fight, these days. In England most aviators wear leather coats over their uniforms, to protect from the cold as much as the wind, but of course something as rare as leather may be out of the question."

As for the distraction the gold might present--to tell the truth, it is something Temeraire had not even considered. "I thought rather it might be intimidating, to the enemy--a sort of show of strength, in fact."

"Mmm, actual leather, but, we could find something similar." They don't exactly have grazing land to raise cattle, but that doesn't mean there aren't hearty fabrics. The Kedan have made a remarkable variety of weaves and weights, and he's sure he can find something to simulate leather if he speaks to some of the artisans he's met.

The color, though...

"I suppose I see where you're coming from." Cinna is a master of using fashion to convey emotion, after all. "But I worry that the benefits would be outweighed by the difficulties." Also, privately, he's fairly sure that a dragon descending from the sky is pretty damn intimidating on its own.

"It seems to me that if we are to confront our enemy in open combat, he will know where we are anyway," observes Temeraire. "In that case, is it not better to show away, and show him we are not afraid?"

It is typical dragon-logic at work; despite his natural grasp of battlefield tactics, there has always been precious little room for subterfuge in his head.

Sadly, Cinna doesn't know Temeraire well enough to know how to talk around him. Or rather, how to talk him around. He can only do his best to gently nudge the dragon in the correct (read: his favorite) direction. If, of course, Temer is insistant on the cloth-of-gold, well, he did offer it. He'll just make the uniforms, and hope no one else in the aerial corps takes after him.

"What about dress uniforms? You wouldn't want your everyday wear to be too grand, of course."

Too grand? As if the concept exists in a dragon's vocabulary! But in Cinna's words Temeraire can hear, if only for a moment, Laurence's cautionary tone, and he sobers a little.

"Perhaps not," he allows after a long moment. "I suppose one must be a little more practical, when uniforms must be made to last, and the cloth-of-gold would look so very grand, in a parade."

Another long pause. Suddenly he blurts out, "It is only that--well, I should not like anyone to look down on us, when we have only just got the Corps started. In England we are not always well-liked, for a great many reasons, and it cannot only be because our captains care so little for ceremony, but I cannot help but I feel it must exacerbate the matter further. I should not wish our dress to speak poorly of us.

"Although all of your designs are very nice," he adds, hurriedly. He certainly does not mean to imply Cinna's work is of anything less than the best quality, plain or otherwise.

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