The Foreign Way

The morning sun cast long shadows across the courtyard of the Workshop as another apprentice, a young woman named Kesh, came across Talan’s handiwork.

She stopped, her brow furrowed in confusion. The trellis, which had been splintered and broken the day before, was now whole again, but not in the way she would have expected.

There were no clean, precise joins, no sign of the Workshop’s signature perfection. Instead, the broken pieces were woven together with vines and supple branches, the repair following the natural lines of the wood in a way that was both artful and organic.

She found Talan by the reflecting pool, not working, but simply watching the light play on the water.

‘The trellis,’ she said, her voice quiet. ‘How did you mend it?’

Talan looked up, a faint smile on his lips. ‘I didn’t mend it,’ he said. ‘I listened to it.’

Kesh was silent for a moment, her gaze drifting back towards the trellis. She had been trained, as they all had, to impose order, to perfect, to control. The idea of listening to the material, of following its lead, was a foreign concept.

‘Show me,’ she said at last, her voice barely a whisper.