"Every Strand" author commentary pt. 6

[allekha]

Chapter 21:
He suggests a red-purple that is rich (and expensive)
The famous "Tyrian purple" is often a very reddish or red-purple color in depictions. I didn't intend for Voryn to be wearing something quite that expensive, but it seemed like a nice shade for an expensive dye. Maybe it's made from bugs instead of snails, like cochineal.

She said, some of your clan even have ancestry from them, how very different you are to the other Houses.
I do enjoy the headcanon I've seen in some fic/art where the Dagoths intermarried with the Dwemer, but this wasn't necessarily intended to mean that she was correct in her assessment here. (Both my partner and I have gotten multiple comments asking if we're of X ethnicity that is from nowhere near where our ancestors lived, lol. I don't think people on the whole are as good at guessing family backgrounds as a lot of people think they themselves are.)

Someone refused me, and I don't feel like trying with someone else yet
In my initial conception of the story, when everything was much more vague and I still thought it would come in under 100k, I didn't pay much attention to how those not involved in the romance would notice the drawn-out hidden drama... but by the time I got to writing chapter 18 to break everyone's hearts, I had to start to think about how Voryn might react to the reactions of people like his brothers. Shut up and say nothing would only work for so long. We'll see how long half-truths to those he doesn't want to lie to works.

beautiful fields of blue and purple flowers
Not an entire field, but I did see a beautiful mixture of blue and purple wildflowers while out and about shortly before writing this.

The red-purple is edged at the hems in a narrow band of turquoise, stitched with goldwork
In looking for inspiration for this outfit, I came across this very cool very early color image of Uzbekistani clothing. Hence the edging in another color.

auspicious eyes in tiny goldwork
Given that eyes are a prominent motif in 3E House Dagoth and the role I've set up for them in this fic, it seemed like a fitting decoration for their House leader.

On his cheeks, a subtle curve below a half-circle leading to another subtle curve
Appropriately enough, this was inspired by a nifty-looking beetle that another DW user posted photos of.

Above his eyes, he paints a teardrop, from which emanates waving lines.
The depiction of a third eye is usually done in Morrowind and related art as either one plonked on the forehead or, as is common in south/east Asian art, turning the eye on its side. However, there are other ways of depicting it as a swirl or teardrop shape. (I am not knowledgeable enough to know if there's any reasons behind the differences, and my Friendly Local South Asian Art Expert did not get back to me when I asked, lol.) See for example this Buddha statue or this myō-ō (wisdom king) sculpture. I wanted to reference the idea, but having him explicitly draw a third eye on felt a little on the nose.

parade-armor pauldrons – decorative but still worked with glass
A little nod to her outfit in the game.

among those rare few who have picked up more spiritual aspects of Chimer culture. It has happened among those who have married Chimer, he knows, though probably in quite small numbers.
Always fun to make cultures a little less monolithic.

There he leans into the column again, half in shadow, half in the silver moonlight, and peers out at Nerevar, like this is some coy game.
The beginning of this scene was a very strong mental image for me.

It's not like Azura gave me a map to win the war, either, but – I'm having trouble finding the path I need to take this time.
But this time, you can't find the strings to pull to cause what you want to happen.
This discussion between them came about in part from me contemplating how someone like Nerevar might, say, still have struggled to navigate complex personal relationships with the same success as he apparently did his more famous accomplishments.

Chapter 22:
One healer tells me that I haven't even reached the age of highest fertility for elves
From what I've run into, some people think that human fertility is high at a young age and goes down quickly as we get older? It's actually pretty flat for a while, but the peak seems to be well into adulthood. TES lore is very inconsistent about elf aging - especially when looking at the ages given in the games vs the writing - but given that we know the 1E characters lived for about three hundred years after they were already adults and the only indication we have of any of them maybe be slightly old at that point is that Dagoth Ur's character model has a bit of graying in the hair, idk, maybe with elf ages and fertility that healer was on to something. (TES demography is also a bit of a mess. That quote in The Real Barenziah about how elves rarely have more than two children at most makes zero sense, even if you assume that magic and whatnot means they have extremely low infant mortality, with the fact that their populations seem to be doing just fine over thousands of years. Maybe elves tend to spread out their children more because they can and it's easier to only have a couple small children running around at a time, and since the in-game writer was of another race he misinterpreted? Interestingly, them having different numbers of children from humans is also not really borne out in the game setting.)

His first thought when he sees them in the outer palace is exasperation that they look too much alike to the Chimer.
Not precisely a headcanon, but I've written a previous fic where Dagoth Ur actually prefers their form as Dunmer because he thinks it better suits Red Mountain and his House.

Nerevar signed it with a moon-and-star instead of his name.
This was inspired by me watching a video about the oldest signatures we have record of and the debate about what counts as a signature for that metric, because it was not uncommon for medieval European rulers to sign with a kind of monogram instead of what we think of as a conventional signature. (Obviously doesn't apply to Nerevar, but those rulers may well have not been fully literate and used to writing, since they had scribes to take dictation for them.)

Chapter 23
rust salt, a rare salt produced in a few volcanic areas. This batch might have come from a coastal area of Molag Amur in Voryn's own territory. Tasting it makes him think fondly of the stunningly blue and yellow sulfur pools in the area.
Inspired by the rl "black salt".

Then he leans in again and adds a cliff racer in the sky. For verisimilitude, Voryn assumes.
Couldn't resist adding this line.

Most of my thoughts for this chapter are more general and also spoilery, so maybe in a wrap-up!

Pull his thoughts away from watching too closely when Almalexia spars or loop-braids with one of her Hands
Loop braiding is an ancient form of braiding using, uh, loops of thread/yarn/floss. It's pretty fun and easy to pick up the basics to make friendship bracelets or a decorative cord for something. Although nowadays you would probably do it on your own, because it's not a well-known craft, there are illustrations and instructions for making braids with two or even more people - either with one person helping to tighten the braid while the other weaves, or weaving together to help manage a large number of loops. I imagined one of her Hands needed a clothing cord or drawstring for a bag or something.

he should let someone else desire him; he should—
Voryn trying to figure out what he should do with Corimil's flirting was written waaaay before the rest of this chapter. It always ended mid-sentence here.