Film, Faith, Filth: The Photographic Taboo in the Elflands

CHAPTER FOUR

The imperial court of Dakhenbarizhan, the Untheileneise, is serviced by two separate prison complexes: the Esthoramire, built to house those criminals considered to be of low risk to the peace, and the Nevennamire, a labyrinthine structure buried several stories beneath the court, intended for the violent and dangerous. In practice, in the time of the Varedeise dynasty and continuing into the early years of Edrehasivar VII’s reign, the Esthoramire housed the wealthy, and the Nevennamire the poor.

At time of writing, only three of the Nevennamire’s six circular layers remain. The lowest two levels have been walled off permanently, the third lowest transformed into maintenance space. Of the enduring layers, the cells on the middlemost rings have been transformed into recreational space, brightly (if artificially) lit, with a running track, a library, a small Chapel of All Gods, visiting rooms, and a commissary. Those of the inner and outermost rings have more than doubled in size. In Edrehasivar’s day, the cells of the Nevennamire were cramped enough the average man could touch both sides at once, and it was not uncommon for prisoners to find themselves unable to sleep on the hard shelf that served as a bed without bending their knees. Blankets were forbidden in the reign of Varenechibel II, for men would be found to strangle themselves from the caged windows in their cell doors.

The living conditions are not so dire now: the cell doors typically remain unlocked, and inmates make use of shared bathrooms rather than buckets stored beneath their beds. They have mattresses, and blankets, and a lamp they control themselves. Still, Dakhenbarizhan lags behind many other modern nations in its carceral policy, with the death penalty mandated for murderers and certain oath-breakers and in some principalities regularly prescribed for other crimes; inmates are often charged for their involuntary room and board, leading many—even those who work in prison manufactories—to finish their sentences in debt to the state; at trial, though Dakhenbarizhan demands a higher burden of proof for conviction than, for example, the Veriarol, the alleged holy vision of a priest can be taken as evidence. This last is an ancient precedent which had fallen out of use during the Varedeise, before Edrehasivar VII’s highly controversial decision to appoint a clerical Witness vel ama for the Dead to the matter of Varenechibel IV’s assassination brought the priest-detective back into vogue. These clerical Witnesses are often brought in in situations where a traditional judicial investigation lacks the evidence necessary to build a case.

The case against photographer Ulkeris Zhikarmened had a preponderance of evidence, including Zhikarmened’s own testimony. This was his second time giving testimony on an instance of criminal photography—he had in fact helped Edrehasivar’s favorite Witness vel ama, Thara Celehar, uncover the Cemchelarna affair (discussed in chapter two) in 1 E’has. 7. Only a year later, he would once again meet Celehar in the eshen’theilian, but this time Zhikarmened himself was the defendant. Celehar was one of the victims.

The photograph Zhikarmened was tried for is famous in the Democratic Republic of Thu-Athamar, perhaps even moreso than Solchenar’s A Ghoul on General Shulivar Street. Though the original film negatives were destroyed and interred with the photographed, the image was reproduced extensively, appearing as the front page splash image of nearly every newspaper and periodical in Thu-Athamar and as the background image for propaganda campaign posters plastered across the cities of Amalo, Zhaö, and Cairado. One of the surviving positives hangs in the Museum of Thu-Athamar. Outside the elven nations, however, it is much less well known; for a foreign audience, the cannibalistic undead illuminated by a street lamp is much more immediately recognizable as newsworthy than the mundanely gory aftermath of a public execution, a sight many in those days had seen in the flesh. What was shocking about this photograph—what made it the defining image of a revolution—was its subjects.

This text declines to reproduce nonconsensual photographs out of respect for those photographed, but Edrehasivar with the Head of Coralis Clunethar can be found easily in any number of libraries by the interested. There are five people in the frame: the corpse of Coralis Clunethar, first cousin to the Prince of Thu-Athamar, beheaded by sunblade for treason; Maia Drazhar, also called Edrehasivar VII, then-emperor of the Ethuveraz; Thara Celehar, whose posting in Amalo Thu-Athamareise nationalists characterized as imperial spycraft; Edrehasivar’s second nohecharei, Kiru Athmaza and Vara Telimezh. To those who thought Edrehasivar VII and Orchenis Clunethar unfit rulers, the photograph of the ‘goblin emperor’ with fervent allies at his back and the head of the leader of the Thu-Athamareise nationalist movement at his feet was a declaration of war. Decades later, the photographer would say,“We thought ourself quite clever. The long lens shallowed the depth of field, yet we managed to capture subjects in both foreground and midground; instead of mourning the loss of architectural detail, we treated the windows and pillars as shapes, malleable for our design. See how the blurred components of the ceiling seem to form an arc? It was a photograph for photographers, not for newspapers. For Zhikarmened, the most discerning viewer of all. We were not a warmongerer. We simply liked to climb.”1

 

Though Ulkeris Zhikarmened was tried for Edrehasivar with the Head of Coralis Clunethar, he was not the photographer. That was Lana Pershar, a fourteen year old boy in Zhikarmened’s employ. The kamera used to take the photograph belonged to Zhikarmened, and the darkroom which developed the negative was in Zhikarmened’s Dawn Court studio; several Witnesses suggested, though Pershar himself denied, that Zhikarmened compelled Pershar to take the photograph, an endeavor which not only involved committing multiple felonies, but also put the boy in substantial danger—he had snuck on top of a roof to get the photo, and might have fallen, or he might have been noticed by Edrehasivar’s nohecharei and neutralized with a maz. Zhikarmened himself agreed under oath that it was possible Pershar may have felt pressured to capture a photograph of the Ethuverazhid Zhas, which Zhikarmened had made no secret of wanting. Ultimately, the case was open-and-shut. Zhikarmened was sentenced to life imprisonment in the Nevennamire for Felony Solicitation of a Minor for a Criminal Offence, vel michen Felony Trespassing for the Commission of a Secondary Crime, and vel michen Felony Photography of a Member of the Imperial Family, under the Imperial Order to Ban the Practice of Photography of 39 V’nech. 4. This was a light sentence; photographing the emperor was, technically, an act of treason, and was punishable by execution. Camolis Ivrithar, the Witness for the Emperor, described Edrehasivar as “caught between his compassion and his obligation to uphold the law”. Were it not for later events, we might take these as empty words reassuring us of an autocrat’s benevolence, but a year and a half later Edrehasivar VII formally commuted Ulkeris Zhikarmened’s sentence.

Two days beforehand, he had paid Zhikarmened a visit in his cell in the Nevennamire. Private imperial audiences in prison cells were (and are presently) highly irregular for other Dakhenbarizheise emperors, but Edrehasivar VII made it something of a habit in the first six years of his reign, visiting his father’s assassins, his own would-be assassins, and a number of other criminals of both high and low notoriety. Of the meeting between Edrehasivar and Zhikarmened, little is known. The surviving notes of imperial secretary Csevet Aisava note that the meeting lasted roughly forty-five minutes; a letter between Csethiro Zhasan and the Archduchess Vedero refers to the dirt gathered at her husband’s hem upon his return from the depths of the Nevennamire. Of the five individuals who later claimed to be within earshot of the conversation, only two have been verified as prisoners within Zhikarmened’s sub-ward—and only these two refused to elaborate upon the visit. They would say nothing more than that their emperor had been there.

Many claim to have discovered Edrehasivar’s precise motivations in commuting Zhikarmened’s sentence, or to have identified some discrete event which pushed him at last to do so—both scholars and those who knew him. The Athamareise War of Independence was reaching its conclusion, and perhaps he meant to return Zhikarmened like a prisoner of war, suggested some. The Barazhid Dakhenavar had recently contracted the first of many fevers which would lead him to his death bed, and Csethiro Zhasan was pregnant with their eldest child, Archduchess Cheno; perhaps, then, reminded of mortality, Edrehasivar had been struck by some urge to put his affairs in order and clear his conscience of the guilt Csethiro Zhasan’s diaries describe him as carrying as a result of Zhikarmened’s sentencing. “M[aia] values himself not at all sometimes,” she wrote, “and Cel[ehar] is somehow even worse. I do not understand these men, but very well. If I am the only one willing to hate Ulkeris Zhikarmened for what harm he has done my husband, then hate I shall, fervently and enthusiastically.”2 The Zhasan was baffled by Edrehasivar’s choice, which he either never sufficiently or convincingly explained. Edrehasivar VII left behind no diaries of his own, and his characteristically terse letters did not illuminate the matter. This text will not claim special insight on the personal decisions of a long-dead monarch—whatever Edrehasivar’s reasoning, Ulkeris Zhikarmened was released from the Nevennamire on 18 Flood 2, 4 E’has. 7.

 

For the next seven years, contact between Zhikarmened and Edrehasivar VII remained limited. There are a small handful of letters in the files of Csevet Aisava charting Zhikarmened’s multiple failed attempts to return to his home in Amalo. At first, the ongoing War of Independence denied civilians on either side access to the world beyond the opposing border. Post-secession, despite Edrehasivar VII’s personal seal marking a letter of appeal sent on Zhikarmened’s behalf to the new government, in the eyes of the Democratic Republic of Thu-Athamar Zhikarmened was a convicted criminal with Ethuverazheise citizenship, and was forbidden the right to immigrate to the place of his own birth. For the rest of his life, Zhikarmened lived in a small apartment in the city of Cetho.

As the Ethuveraz became the Dakhenbarizhid Commonwealth, Zhikarmened’s connection with the Amaleise opera scene granted him work as a lighting technician in various Cetheise opera houses—a position which kept him in the arts, if nothing else. His passion for photography had not dimmed, but proximity to the Untheileneise Court limited both his activity and the scope of his work. His experiments with the medium in this period played with lighting and lifeless portraits: an ornate chair coated in a fine layer of dust, a collection of bowls and glasses half-filled with eerily stagnant liquids, a series of broken lamps. He blurred the line between photograph and film by splicing together time-lapses of leaves changing and falling with the seasons, snow piling up and growing muddy on the stoop. “An I cannot express myself through my favored subject,” he wrote to fellow photography enthusiast Paviret Delara, “I will express myself through its absence.”3

Naradezho v. Malazhar was brought to Zhikarmened’s attention early in the proceedings, by the Malazhada themselves; Zhikarmened was, after all, the inventor of the medium, and his release from prison by Edrehasivar VII had led the first generation of Dakhenbarizheise kinemeisei to hold out hope that His Serenity was more favorable to film and photography than his father Varenechibel IV had been. It was clear from the beginning that Naradezho v. Malazhar would be a landmark case, as the first time the growing mythology of ‘photograph syndrome’ was formally acknowledged and extrapolated to its logical conclusion: if a photograph did an individual harm, capturing someone’s image on film without their consent was functionally indistinguishable from physical assault. The brothers Malazhar, presuming Zhikarmened had pull with the emperor, wrote to him in hopes he would leverage this relationship in order to affect a more favorable ruling for the future of Dakhenbarizheise film and photography. There is no record of Zhikarmened’s reply to the brothers, but Zhikarmened did not write to Edrehasivar VII—at least not until the Witness for the Photographed began draping fabrics over secretaries.

The concept of a person’s name bound to a photograph must have affected Zhikarmened greatly, for shortly after Dezhu Athmaza’s second appearance in the eshen’theileian, Zhikarmened sent the following letter to the emperor:

To Edrehasivar VII Drazhar, emperor of Barizhan and the Ethuveraz, greetings.

We suppose we owe you an apology.

We do not expect forgiveness, nor do we believe ourself owed it. Our imprisonment was not just, but we did not anticipate justice from our emperor. We did not anticipate being listened to at all. Perhaps it would be wiser to accept what we have already been given and never risk your attention again—but that is the problem with paying the common folk your attention, isn't it? You have shown us once before that you appreciate candor, and now we cannot be satisfied with gratitude. Here it is then: we were correct, but we hurt you nonetheless. And for that we are sorry.

Please understand, we would not risk you believing we have learned nothing from experience if we did not think our opinions reflective of the one and only truth. Surely as a devotee of Cstheio, Your Serenity will value the truth. After hearing of the current business in Zhaö, we are even more convinced of photography’s power—and of its need to be regarded with the same seriousness as any other artform. More seriously even, for if a photograph does indeed retain a fragment of the soul (which is what we believe the Witness for the Photographed to be implying even though it tells us more about names than souls, two concepts which could only be so conflated in a city such as Zhaö, but here we digress most egregiously) then we would rather see the medium understood than feared.

The simple fact of the matter is that photography, unlike illustration, is able to show the world as it is. Serenity, we regret how Pershar’s photograph harmed you, and with this news out of Zhaö we have grown convinced that measures should be taken that no regular citizen, whose action or person is not fundamentally newsworthy (imagine how a photograph might evidence a crime!), be photographed without his consent. So saying: how many of your citizens knew your face beforehand? How many had sincerely thought you a walking caricature? How many saw the etchings made of your coronation and presumed you the very image of your late father? The kamera is a Witness whose candor cannot be called into question, and through its testimony your subjects may see you for the man you are.

We recognise we invite the reveth-atha with this letter, but if lives are already at stake then we suppose ours is worth comparatively little. If photography is to be a weapon, let it be your weapon, Serenity. Let its hilt rest in your hand—for you are the first to care about those who will be most harmed, and you could easily be the last.

With All Sincerity,
Ulkeris Zhikarmened, photographer.4

Irregularly for Zhikarmened, who kept meticulous files of his correspondence, Edrehasivar’s response—which Zhikarmened’s diaries note as received on 12 Harvest 1, 11 E’has. 7—does not survive, but fortunately for this text, we are not left entirely in the dark as to its contents. Within the week, Zhikarmened’s name appears on several copies of the internal schedules kept by Aisava. For an entire month, Zhikarmened attended at least three meetings a week in the small audience hall directly without the emperor’s residence. Later on, he would also appear at private luncheons and, even later, the occasional dinner party.

Despite the fact Zhikarmened spent nearly as much time in Edrehasivar’s orbit as a member of his Corazhas, mutual respect never became friendship. In a letter to a fellow filmmaker, Zhikarmened wrote: “[Though His Serenity] so clearly hates it when people hug the floor in front of him, it would be no real surprise if he were to make an exception for me.”5 For the remainder of Edrehasivar VII’s reign, Zhikarmened’s correspondence would frequently make joking reference to his ‘inevitable’ execution, and directly address parentheticals to Csevet Aisava’s intelligencers. Csethiro Zhasan’s writings suggest the enmity was not wholly imagined.

Those early audiences—also attended by Prince Idelis of Thu-Cethor and, from the Corazhas, the Witness for the Prelacy and the Witness for Laborers (the latter an office of Edrehasivar’s making)—were the stage for a debate whose impacts on Dakhenbarizheise kinema law are felt to this day. Though it is impossible to say how much Edrehasivar’s mere presence in the room influenced the shape the law ultimately took, he was not directly involved in writing them. Whether his choice to sit in on the debates he arranged was simply personal interest in their outcome or calculated to sway Prince Idelis’s decisionmaking remains hotly debated.

What is certain is that Edrehasivar’s was the most conservative opinion in the room by far: his sect, the Zekhetneisei, hold everything created by divinity to be ensouled, which for the emperor introduced concern not only for his elven subjects, who certainly could consent to be filmed, but for the voiceless mountains, sky, and field.6 The Witness for the Prelacy, a divine of Akhalarna, did not share this belief; he took moral issue only with photography of the unwilling and those too young to take oaths. The Witness for Laborers was even more pragmatic, and as the inventor of the motion picture, Zhikarmened served as kinema’s fervent spokesperson and defender. Prince Idelis, never particularly devout and “pathologically incurious” according to his wife, apparently held no opinion on the matter of photography until these meetings took place.

Ultimately, the rulings—discussed in our previous chapter—focused on the matter of consent. Being familiar with nearly all the kinemeisei in Dakhenbarizhan, and with the ways their sets were being run, Zhikarmened, with the help of the Witness for Laborers, was able to pinpoint critical weaknesses in the drafted legislation. And if Pel-Thenhior is the father of Thu-Athamareise kinema, then Zhikarmened holds the same honor in Dakhenbarizhan, for his impassioned argument that the ‘responsible kinemeisa’ could turn the tide of public opinion to great positive end ultimately swayed Edrehasivar VII to an uneasy patronage which would continue for the remainder of his reign.

 

Zhikarmened would release Silkmaking in the Spring of 14 E’has. 7, with funding from the Drazhada. With a runtime of one hour and forty-five minutes, Silkmaking was considered a short film7. Its brevity would soon prove advantageous—“At that length, there is little excuse for not watching it,” wrote an anonymous author in the underground bulletin Notes From Merrem Boronaran. Newslets such as Merrem Boronaran, distributed through limited mailing lists to evade the newspaper ban, were instrumental to Silkmaking’s initial traction among an audience of wealthy commoners. Meanwhile at court, the film was pushed by Csethiro Zhasan and Edrehasivar’s sister, Archduchess Vedero, both of whom had established themselves as politically-minded and well-connected individuals prior to Edrehasivar’s arrival at court; now a united front with the emperor, the two women leveraged their reputations to great success.

The film was itself a product of the imperial audience chamber. In a letter to a fellow filmmaker, Zhikarmened presented his idea for a “gamble of a project” shortly after describing having witnessed the emperor, the imperial secretary, and the Witness for Laborers “complaining of the Corazhas, who know nothing of the true cost of a single bolt of sharadansho—measured not in muranai but in blood.” He went on to write: “How terribly [Edrehasivar] wished for someone to make [the Corazhas] understand. ‘If only one could show them,’ he said. Oh, if only! The solution very literally sits before him, and yet!”8 Thus inspired, Zhikarmened began research that same day. Though he could not yet access the silk manufactories, he could trace the path of their damage. “The asylum in Northside has accepted victims of snowblindness and permitted me to speak with them so long as I did not disturb the other residents... I know His Serenity is aware of what [the silkmakers] face; the trick now is to convince him to let me make the world aware."9

He succeeded: Edrehasivar VII afforded him 15,000 muranai (1.2 million drammarks in today’s money) and a statement of support on imperial letterhead to facilitate the project, which Zhikarmened would later credit as the sole reason the distribution of unfaced kinema was not criminalized. The result was a stark and unflinching portrayal of the heinous living and working conditions of the nation’s sharadansho silk producers. This was in contrast to the exorbitant luxury associated with the material, a dichotomy which Zhikarmened took full advantage of at every turn. At one point in the film, he intercuts a sequence in which a manufactory owner and his wife don sharadansho overveils and dance together with shots of an artisan in his employ rifling through a teahouse’s refuse for food. “Sharadansho is my greatest pride,” the owner claims from behind his polished desk. “Sharadansho is the noblesse of the empire!” A year later, Edrehasivar’s Corazhas would at last pass his proposed reforms.

 

As a documentarian, much of Zhikarmened’s career followed in the same vein as Silkmaking. Though his projects would vary in approach, all retained consistent focus on bringing visibility to labor abuses and other eleemosynary concerns in the Commonwealth. In the end, threats received from chemical manufactory owners in the wake of the film Poisonmaking (5 E’has. 8) pushed him into retirement—though whether he truly ceased all work for the industry or merely took on work behind the scenes is a topic of debate amongst kinema scholars.

He would also not be the only documentarian to gain the support of the Drazhada. In later years, social activism-oriented photojournalism and educational documentaries alike received funding from the imperial coffers; in contrast to the kal’operai of neighboring Thu-Athamar, the foundational genre of Dakhenbarizheise film might be best defined as “nonfrivolous”. This is fitting for a nation whose film industry developed under Zekhetneise rulers; while not strictly aniconic, this sect traditionally spurns ‘art without purpose’, teaching that the act of creation is a sacred gift to be honored with the making of only useful things. The useful may also be beautiful, such as the skillfully carved tangrishi on Edrehasivar VII’s Wisdom Bridge, but perhaps an opera put to film seemed to him no different from sharadansho silk: extravagance for the sake of extravagance, and impossible to separate from the exploitative nature of its creation.

To this day, both documentary and historiography (including the fictionalized biopic) remain genres of significant importance to the culture and economy of the Elflands. Illiteracy rates remain high compared to other similarly-developed nations, resulting in a general public which embraces visual media as an accessible alternative to print. The Drazhada have clearly recognized the efficacy of the medium as propaganda, to both negative and positive end: surely, films like Silkmaking and Poisonmaking proved to greatly improve the daily lives of Dakhenbarizheisei by drawing attention to matters putting the most vulnerable at risk.

Unfortunately, these films draw the attention of more than just their intended audience. Lacking context and at times care, foreign viewers will fail to understand that a given documentary is one piece of a much larger information ecosystem. They will never see the positive impacts fostered by the state-sponsored exposure of injustice. What is there to know about Dakhenbarizhan except what is so bleakly painted on screen?

—

1 Lana Pershar (Photographer of Edrehasivar VII), interview by Themeian Nelin, 14 Winter 2, 18 E’has 8, University of Amalo Archive

2 Csethiro Drazharan Zhasan, Diaries, vol 5 (11 E’has. VII): 112-114

3 Zhikarmened to Paviret Delara, 17 Flood 2, 9 E’has. VII, University of Amalo Archive

4 Zhikarmened to Edrehasivar VII Drazhar Zhas, 9 Harvest 1, 11 E’has. VII, Untheileneis’archive

5 Zhikarmened to I. Pel-Thenhior, 23 Harvest 1, 11 E’has. VII, University of Amalo Archive

6 For a much more in-depth examination of the Zekhetneise sect, see Ema Bralevezhed’s Seven-in-One (22 E'csen. I).

7 Unlike fiction films, Dakhenbarizheise documentaries were not born of the operatic tradition and favor shorter runtimes.

8 Zhikarmened to Senet Marilar, 12 Winter 1, 13 E’has. VII, University of Amalo Archive

9 Ibid.

From: b.qentak@up.edu

Subject: [HH285] Essay #1 and lots of letters!

To: s.tid18@up.edu, CC +23

Attached: Zhikarmened_PT_letters.pdf (11 KB), Csethiro_Zhasan_letter7.pdf (3 KB), Sehalimezho_letter.pdf (4 KB), Essay_1.doc (3 KB)

Hello class,

Several attachments today! Since there was so much interest in Ulkeris Zhikarmened's time at court last week, I've collected a few excerpted letters that may be of interest. There is also a letter to Edrehasivar VIII from his sister the Archduchess Cheno which might provide some more insight into Edrehasivar VII's approach to the film laws. None of these letters are required reading, don't worry.

Also attached is the first essay assignment. Please do read this.

As a reminder, our screening this week is "Teamaking", which was an amateur documentary produced by a tea company in Thu-Evresar just a few months after faced films were decriminalised in the Commonwealth. It's particularly interesting because its target was foreign audiences. Much like other making-of documentaries, its runtime is pretty short by Dakhenbarizheise standards, so we will have plenty of time in the second half of class to talk about the essay assignment and workshop your topic proposals.

Best of luck as we approach midterms.

- Mm. Qentak

23 Harvest 1, 11 E’has. VII, which is 8 A’mur. I
(for the sake of thy records)

To Pel-Thenhior the over-eager, fond greetings.

As always I thank thee for the privilege of thy letters—and on that matter I will speak no further, lest thy ego outgrow the limits of thy frame. 

The first matter of business is that thou hast done me a terrible disservice in not mentioning that Veschar did ultimately cast his brother’s scorned mistress as his heroine! My well-meaning friend, when I tell thee I have no interest in gossip, please remind thyself in the future that I make an exception for gossip which better allows me to imagine the performances. I do still believe Veschar to be incompetent overall, find it a great tragedy of history that it is he who will surely take the credit for the longform kinema-tale, and so on and so on thou knowst the rest, but I must admit him at least momentarily brilliant for that one. Ah, but I do hope he is bored to tears after his second and third films have failed to garner the same success as the first. 

I also hope thou knowst I intend to grill thee thoroughly once thou hast seen Losotha’s Insolvency. If didst in fact intend to avoid my endless questioning by not mentioning the title in thy last letter, art a fool, for I have discovered through my other correspondences and now I will interrogate thee extra. For instance—if it truly is an adaptation of Hedathezh’s road novel as I suspect (and as would make sense given Losotha’s taste), thinkst they will attempt double-exposing the reels for the scenes in which Hedathezh describes a memory occurring at the same time as the plot? Or will Losotha finally take thy advice about the mirrors? Or perhaps he will choose the easiest route and simply crosscut between the two scenes, but then again, why even adapt a Hedathezh work if you are not willing to explore more interesting options? Losotha was a fine enough photographer, I do so hope he has not been ruined by the success of his peers (he says, not bitterly in the slightest). 

My work with the Emperor continues to be the most worthwhile thing I could discuss with anyone—and the very thing I must take most caution in divulging to thee. Would that I could stand on one side of the border while thou wert stood across from me on the other. Ten spoken minutes could likely accomplish more than even ten pages, I am sure of it! What I can say is that I am amazed at his ability to be so infuriatingly incorrect without ever truly being wrong. It is like speaking to one of thy mother’s more ancient zhornuzai, the ones who hold themselves with the knowledge that they possess more understanding of the world itself than you ever will—only there is not one age-bleached hair on that head of his (and if there was ‘twould be frighteningly premature).

Returning to the point.

He listens; if I ever claim he does not, our correspondence has been compromised. He is also frighteningly patient, as his choices so frequently remind me. In a moment of misplaced passion, I nearly found myself retreading that same old argument of whether an individual who is past childhood is able to consent to being photographed (I know, I know, no sense of self-preservation, needst not remind me, Mer Director). For several minutes, he sat in complete, expressionless silence, hands folded neatly in his lap. I ranted, raved, made an incomparable fool of myself—all for him to reply to my question of “And whose business is it anyway should a man choose to do himself harm?” with the sharpest little remark I’ve ever heard: “The man paying him to do so.” Pel-Thenhior, my friend, I could have performed a stunning butter-knife revethvoran right then and there! 

And what did he do then? Why, he continued the conversation, of course! Before I could even wrap my head around the idea that surely, I would now have to cast aside what little dignity I still possess and throw myself at his feet, he returned to the matter of alternative employment as tho I had not said a thing. Which, truthfully, I really ought to thank him for—tho he so clearly hates it when people hug the floor in front of him, it would be no real surprise if he were to make an exception for me. I beg thee pay close attention to the manner in which I am eventually found dead, for I am certain it will be arranged in the cleverest and most poetically satisfying way possible, such that I do regret I will not be around to learn of it. (Put down the report, Mer Courier! I am praising His Serenity. Your employer will agree with me.)

Speaking of alternative employment—we have made great progress on that front. It turns out that after all our discussion, we never disagreed much on this specific issue to begin with. I expected he would try and take it upon himself and his government to offer alternative employment to those actors who have achieved the age of thirteen but not yet met their majority, and I believe he expected me to remove all responsibility from the filmmakers. To think, all those hours spent debating the role of government in the arts, only for us to both believe that the production companies should bear the weight!

On another matter altogether, thy prelate came to court a few days previous, apparently to visit Edrehasivar (on this matter or another, I know not, but he has not attended any of our meetings). I have been trying for thy sake to run across the man, but he has continuously evaded me—by now I am forced to wonder if Edrehasivar locks him in some Alcethmeret closet sometime in the hour before my arrival. I do believe I have met his guard, for as I traversed the Alcethmeret’s lower levels, I found myself hounded by a man with fiery eyes, a soldier’s topknot, and the sharpest scowl I’d seen since the Nevennamire. It is for this reason that, tho I cannot confirm Celehar’s health, I can certainly confirm that he is well cared for. Really, Iäna, thou must either permit thy mind some rest or actually write to him. I’m sure canst manage an apology (whether it is truly thy fault or no!). 

Please deliver my best wishes to the Amaleise bunch. Yes, I am including Nathomar in that, for I am in a forgiving spirit (at least until I have proved my point to thee). And remember to treasure thy mother’s cooking, which fate itself continues to deny me. In fact, maybe see if any of Aisava’s boys can be bribed into delivering me one of the Torivontaram’s day-olds along with thy response. 

Ever thy friend whether thou likest it or not,
Ulkeris Zhikarmened

*

2 Harvest 2, 11 E’has. VII

To Zhikarmened the gradually-less-cynical,

Full glad am I to find thou remainst as difficult and vain as wert in last week's letter. Keep thy spirits about thee! Perhaps next time thy cell will come with carpeting.

Foremost: yes yes I will sit through Losotha’s exercise for thee. Art correct in assuming that it is an adaptation. Art also correct that Hedathezh’s work should require a certain amount of forethought in its execution. Where I must correct you however is that Losotha has grown ambitious in thy time away—and we are all the worse for it. I will be surprised if he settles on a single method rather than some bizarre amalgam of both secondary exposure and some mirror tricks (which I assure thee he will in no way tie back to myself if only because he will never admit to having taken the advice of another). On that note thy wish is granted!; he would not rely on crosscutting for that might grant credit to an editor. Which is a shame, all his editors are lovely women with strong production rhetoric. 

Before I forget: to be clear I did not omit reference to Insolvency nor to Veschar’s casting of Min Esathin intentionally, though it is a marvelous idea and I do think I will start leaving out rather important details for the sake of driving thee mad. Unfortunately I am simply overrun as the Vermilion’s season comes to a close. Grateful as I am that I am thus far able to keep the old mistress in her preferred silks even as the new one seeks to run both my time and my pockets empty, I do find myself wondering how much longer I can continue dealing at both tables. Ah but both women and gambling are terrible metaphors, for the Vermilion will not get a next season if I do not create value for the kinemeisei and the kinemeisei will surely weary of me once I am no longer tied to a rentable building. (Or perhaps a pair of mistresses do in fact communicate the issue well enough and the problem lies in the fact that they are more interested in one another than in me. And of course it does help that just like a pair of sweet and witty girls, thou wilt have neither, my sorry friend!)

But my own troubles aside I really am grateful to hear of thy work with Edrehasivar. Thara preferred not to speak of the man and of course I did not push him on the subject but how could one not grow curious regarding the character of one’s emperor? Or well the emperor that once was his I suppose, but knowst what I intend to say. Either way I will say once more it is a great shame that it is Edrehasivar thou dealst with, if only because he is perhaps the first emperor who would notice were we to trade places, one grey face switched for another. Well—assuming that he does not consider grey faces that are not his own interchangeable.

Truthfully I am still amazed that Chenelo Zhasan managed to raise him a Zekhetneise iconoclast, of all things! I would have thought his father would have—but then I suppose from his accent (does he still sound Urvekh’eise or have the elves finally wrung those Bs out of him?) he must have been allowed a dav. Perhaps then I am uncharitable to wonder if he thinks us all of the same mind—or I suppose even then ‘twould be that he thought it, in the past tense, now having met thee. And I say this with all the love in my heart but I could roll up thy letters and smack thee with them for all thou hast made it so he will never speak to thee of religion. AND I cannot ask Thara (even if he were responding to my letters at the moment) for I think the question of whether Edrehasivar really is one of the mountains-first Zekhetneisei or if that stunt of his at the trial for the dragons was pragmatic would send my poor Othala into a fit of somersaults. Must learn to be kinder to thy emperor (no matter how infuriating thou findest him) if only for the sake of thy long neglected acquaintances and their interminable nosiness!

Ah well. Perhaps it is for the best that he got thee instead of I, inconvenient as it may be. As an opponent I am much less exciting than thee, and besides as Thara’s hearts-brother I expect His Serenity would be obliged to quarrel with me, which is not so satisfying as coming by a feud honestly. If nothing else I will be glad to know that he hates thee not for the fact of thy race nor on behalf of another but for thy refusal to behave agreeably in any scenario. It will be something he and I can hold in common, how exciting!

Anyways I did deliver thy regards to all of thy friends, and then to thy acquaintances, and then to a few thou wouldst likely have preferred I not speak to on thy behalf, but canst exactly stop me, can thee? I did also take up thy challenge and speak to Nathomar as well, if only so thou wilt not be so bold in the future if dost not truly mean it. Alas he was in good spirits at the time and rather sporting about the whole thing and so I have nothing actually interesting to tell thee. He believes to have found the source of his recurring bronchines to be a particularly tenacious type of mildew that has recently become popular in many of Cemchelarna’s older buildings and is now in much better health. He had many questions about thy own wellbeing, all of which I answered to the best of my ability. Wilt receive a letter from him shortly I presume. Please be at least vaguely affable, I think he genuinely misses thee.

Finally and on that note there is no need to go chasing after Thara, he will only become more difficult to find, and anyway I did not ask. He can write to me whenever he sees fit. It’s only been two months or so since the last time I received a letter from him, canst not believe me SO terribly wounded. I’ve practically forgotten what caused this newest quarrel to begin with. No, I will not run after him and shouldst not do so on my behalf, that’s the guardsman’s job and neither of us have the free time to pursue yet another source of employment. But here I have come across as ungrateful, so I will end this by thanking thee for thinking of me, even if it is not necessary.

I have spoken with Mother about whether we can send something that will keep in thy direction and now she is looking into how much she can have delivered to thee before it incurs a tariff. If didst make the statement in jest, must tell me now. Keep healthy and please do thy best not to pave thy own path towards the reveth-atha.

Still fond of thee despite thy best efforts,
Iäna Pel-Thenhior

*

8 Harvest 2, E’has. VII, which is 8 A’mur. I

To Pel-Thenhior, greetings once again (with feeling),

An hast received two letters, read the other one first. An hast received only one, well, it surely is not this one. 

To briefly retread the ground of the other letter’s retracted portion: I must correct thee on a few of thy assumptions, if only because Edrehasivar the man holds thy beloved friend so dearly. Once more there is so much I would say if only we were stood face to face, but find I cannot put in a letter which is as surely being read by thine emperor’s men as it is by mine. Suffice to say, criticise him as I may, at day’s end I do truly believe him to be a good man, trying to do right by his subjects. He is dangerously misguided, but he does mean well. As such, it is not entirely useless to advocate our cause as it would be with a ruler concerned solely with control. (‘Tis still mostly useless, tho, for Edrehasivar is hopelessly stubborn.) And over a nightcap it is difficult for me to remain too angry with him for his more foolish opinions, for he is still very young and his reasons for thinking how he does—presuming I have done the math correctly—are understandable.

Responding to thy question of whether he yet maintains his accent: yes, stubbornly. Art as right to note it now as thou wert eight years ago, tho I can assure thee quite firmly he was never permitted a dav. In fact, unwind whatever it is that hast spun which might imply Varenechibel permissive—tho I know admittedly little about His Serenity’s youth for certain, what I do know is that he spent most of that time hungry and alone, and that he and his mother were forbidden on pain of separation to speak Barizhin, a fact I know because he could barely hold a conversation when he visited me in that wretched cell (I feel obliged to do His Serenity the credit of noting that these days he speaks the language more fluently than I do). I am uncertain if Edrehasivar affected his mother’s accent as a child out of stubbornness, or if hers was the only voice he regularly heard.

That Chenelo Zhasan ‘managed’ to raise him in her sect, as thou sayest, is remarkable. I think His Serenity must take after her very closely in disposition, for his fervent defense of his beliefs must have been matched by his mother’s fearlessness to impart them to begin with. I can only assume her husband forbade that as well. 

I do not begrudge him his faith. I do begrudge him allowing it to influence his policymaking. (An there is only one thing for which Varevesena can be praised, let it be refusing to hear clerical Witnesses; I know tolerance was quite the opposite of his intention, but there are too many different sects in our nation for religion to have a place in the matters of state.) Moreover, I begrudge Edrehasivar his inability to see past his hatred of the kamera—and it is hatred—to recognise its potential. It is an unfortunate fact that we have yet to devise an innovation that is not immediately put to work by the worst of us to exploit the most vulnerable, and photography is no exception. Should we ban the loom because a starving child might be compelled to take up a shuttle? Of course not! But personal bias clouds His Serenity’s vision, and he refuses to see these matters alike as they are. While I am not so monstrous as to lack sympathy for those who have been made victims within the kamera’s gaze, the fact of the matter is that kameras do not, cannot, exploit the vulnerable. Men do. I will always take issue with any person who places responsibility on the tool and not on its operator for the harm that was done. His Serenity is no exception; surely he can be excepted least of all.

Mer Courier, brace yourself, and know that this next criticism is no sign of disloyalty, nor ungratefulness to Edrehasivar, and I would neither say these things to his face nor to any subject of his; I mean to vent my frustrations to an uninvolved party, nothing more. Surely you have complained of your taskmaster? But Iäna, isn’t it so very fitting that the man should pretend the agency of the tool, when that is the argument which absolves himself of blame? I speak of course of this whole farce, these meetings to decide the law of Thu-Cethor. ‘Tis Prince Idelis’s choice, His Serenity proclaims, and I am here to give the photographer’s perspective, to explain when and why a proposed solution might fail in the implementation. This is the purview of princes and governors, Edrehasivar says, for they know the needs of their communities best. Eminently reasonable, were it at all true!

Oh, to be sure, it will be Prince Idelis’s seal upon whatever result, but to pretend the new law will not speak in His Serenity’s voice is laughable. “We have no intention to impose our will in this matter,” he says, then spends half the meeting engaged in whataboutism and expounding on what he sees as the evils of our medium. As if it is not perfectly clear what he would like to see done in Thu-Cethor! The prince’s heir is only two years older than Archduchess Cheno, as Prince Idelis has mentioned more than once (the young lady always awaits without with her nurse to clamber into His Serenity’s lap the moment our meeting is thru), so I cannot hope he will make an independent decision. Thus, when I ought to be convincing the prince, who in this matter is far less conservative, truly I must convince Edrehasivar. 

An I drink myself to death, my friend, now thou knowest why.

In tireless pursuit of the reveth-atha,
Ulkeris Zhikarmened

4 Harvest 2, 11 E’has. VII

Vedero,

Forgive my cutting straight to the quick, my dear, but I am writing to let thee know I will be unable to visit thee next month as we had planned. Last week we noticed that Vedru had taken it upon herself to feed Idris as though he were once again only a year old, at which point we discovered that she has been handling many tasks which would require the use of his hands for him, going so far as to dress his toy soldiers and move his horses through their miniature obstacle course, and so we called for Kiru immediately and she has observed him for several days but yesterday morning she at last brought to us her conclusion and oh, Vedero, it is exactly as we feared.

He seems not to be in any pain yet, for which we are thankful, but we must nonetheless prepare for the day. Bless her, but K has come out of retirement of her own volition to put together a care team for him. She believes it a fair sign that we have discovered the issue so early, prevention being a simpler task than attempting to restore function already lost. With the proper support, she says she sees no reason Idris will not live to adulthood. I must hope it is an honest estimation, and that she does not mean only to spare M the worst.

M is distraught. He blames himself, of course, and will not hear sense. If one of us must bear responsibility for our son’s condition, would that it were me; would that he would let me take it from him. I at least do not have to be Edrehasivar.

And what a time it is for one to have to be Edrehasivar! Hast heard of the ordeal in Zhaö? May these filmmakers meet with even a fraction of the distress their carelessness has brought my husband. A mere hour sat with the grief this trial has wrought in him would grind their miserly bones into dust. Let them be the ones who must sit in impassive silence while the rest of the world attempts to bash their heads in—let them be the ones who cannot flinch in public, who cannot so much as frown without the entire nation taking notice! But here I am taking my own frustrations out on thee.

We all miss thee terribly, V. Art doing tremendous work with the University, and I would never ask thee to remove thyself from it for even a second, but selfishly I wish I could have my sister. An thou’rt in a place to join us in the weeks leading up to Winternight, thy presence would be most welcome. The girls ask for news of thee every time they see me holding a letter (which, as might imagine, is often), and thy little nephew still recalls thy name and announces it proudly whenever he passes by the tapestry that charts out the constellations on the night of my wedding to M. Until such a time as art able to visit, I ask thee to pray for my husband. He needs whatever support he can muster, but he cannot ask for it himself.

With all my love,
Csethiro

28 Flood 1, 1 E’has. VIII

To Edrehasivar VIII Zhas, greetings.

After receiving thy letter this morning, I have spent the entire day attempting to convince my present minders that I am well enough to take the leap across town. Physician and midwife are in staunch agreement that I am not yet recovered enough to walk over to the next room (let alone the Untheileneise) and, though it pains me to admit defeat in thy time of need, from the effort it took to leave my bed for the writing desk, they may be right. At the moment, the physician estimates I will need the better part of two weeks before it is safe for me to adopt a new environ, but know that I intend to fight his assumptions at every turn. I will not see thee abandoned, Idris. I will get to thee as soon as I am physically able.

For the time being—dost recall how our father went about convincing the Dean of Students to allow Kira into classes with me? Wert newly thirteen, so I will not fault thee if the details have been drowned out by all else that occurred as a result of thy entry into the ceaseless mire that is court politics. Either way, wilt perhaps remember that our father never once took it upon himself to insist upon it. He did not need to; after Mother paid special attention to the Dean’s wife across various social gatherings, many of which ended with the pair enumerating the merits of permitting female students to bring their children along for lectures, the Dean was prepared to present the idea as though it had been his own.

Remember, Idris, that even when thy court does not look upon thee favorably, all are eager to please the emperor. This is, perhaps, as strong an advantage as wilt ever have—so long as they believe thy interests to be aligned with thy own, wilt rarely have to convince them of much else. It is this principle which allows a true leader to separate himself from a dictator; whilst a dictator imposes his will upon his subjects, a leader has his subjects believing they always wanted that which he wills. An he is especially crafty, he can arrange matters so in achieving his ends his adversaries believe they have won concessions of him. Knowest as well as I do that our father was rarely in agreement with the old cranks on the Corazhas, but he fostered his alliances among them carefully. He did not do so by alienating them.

Idris, I know how deeply thou wishest to uphold Baba’s legacy, but wouldst do him no honours and thy own self no favours by attempting to champion that which he did not manage to express in life. I too wonder what he would have accomplished, had he the time; unfortunately, all I can do is assume that if he did not bring the matter up as the emperor, it could very well be that such was his preference; that the matter was better handled not by the emperor directly, but through his network of support. 

Give our siblings my love. Veris sends his love as well, though his is of course less important than mine. I will write to you all with much nicer news about the baby soon enough—early as it is, I can say with confidence that Kira treats his new brother much better than I ever treated thee. Hopefully, I will see thee soon enough that more than one or two more letters will not be necessary, but I will write to thee as often as wouldst have me write. I love thee dearly. I wish I could descend upon the Verven’theileian myself and demonstrate how a dictator might actually appear. Until my sleeplessness drives me well and truly mad however, must manage without the comparison. Hold thy head high and remember whose son thou art.

With full confidence in thy ability,
Cheno Sehalimezho, Archduchess of Cetho

HH285 — INTRODUCTION TO DAKHENBARIZHEISE CINEMA
Essay #1

  • Assignment
    • After selecting two films from the syllabus which have already been covered in class, students will examine their selections through a single technical or thematic lens of their choice (for example: shot composition, costuming; race, censorship). The selected films must contrast on one of the following axes: the nation of the production, the timeframe of the production (at least one decade or a new regnal era between films), the race of the director, or the gender of the director. See Notes for further details.
  • Timeline
    • As stated in the syllabus, this assignment is due by class time on 2 Nay’Poq.
    • Recommended milestones include:
      • Paper topic determined and research strategy outlined by 23 Xan’lahr
      • Paper topic refined based on initial research and thesis statement drafted by 27 Xan’lahr
      • Research completed and outline (including to-be-cited text) formatted by 36 Xan’lahr
      • Initial draft completed by 43 Xan’lahr
      • Final draft completed by 1 Nay’Poq
    • Timelines are best enforced by multiple individuals. Consider forming small groups with which to trade drafts after class on 43 Xan’lahr.
  • Notes
    • This paper must:
      • Contain a minimum of 3500 words
      • Utilise at least three sources from outside of class (and cite them appropriately)
      • Demonstrate a course level-appropriate handle on Pencharner
    • This paper should:
      • Use specific formal terminology in order to support a credible and convincing argument
      • Narrow discussion of relevant films down to individual scenes, sequences, and shots
      • Avoid unfocused plot summary
      • Avoid reiteration of class discussion which borders on recitation

ZHA ATH (7 E'HAS 9) SCRIPT - PENCHARNER TRANSLATION

DISCLAIMER

THIS PENCHARNER-LANGUAGE SCRIPT OF ZHA ATH, AS WITH ANY OTHER SCRIPTS ON THIS WEB-BULLETIN, IS INTENDED FOR INFORMATIONAL PURPOSES ONLY, TO ENABLE THE AUDIENCE TO APPRECIATE DACHENVERAZHID FILMOGRAPHY WITH GREATER CONTEXT AND TO FACILITATE INTRODUCING THE MEDIUM TO OTHERS, IN COMPLIANCE WITH TITLE 17 OF THE PENCHARN CODE, THIS SCRIPT MAY BE EXCERPTED FOR DISCUSSION, PROMOTION, AND OTHER NON-PROFIT PURPOSES AS LONG AS NO ALTERATIONS TO THE CONTENTS ARE MADE. THIS SCRIPT IS NOT INTENDED AS A COMPETING PRODUCT TO ANY COMMERCIAL RELEASE OF THE FILM, AND ALL COMMERCIAL USES OF THIS SCRIPT ARE EXPRESSLY PROHIBITED.

USERS OF THIS SCRIPT ARE RECOMMENDED TO PURCHASE THE COMMERCIAL RELEASE DISTRIBUTED BY SECOND FIDDLE CINEMA, TONG VEY, PENCHARN.

 

TRANSLATOR'S NOTE

THE MAJORITY OF THE NARRATION AND INTERVIEWS IN ZHA ATH WERE RECORDED IN THE DIALECT OF VERAZHIN SPOKEN IN AND AROUND THE CITY OF AVEIO, IN THE WESTERN ORCHORENS OF THU-EVRESAR PROVINCE, WITH SUBTITLES IN NI-CELVAZ (TRANSLATED BY DOCUMENTARY SUBJECT ORAVO NEDANEZHEN) BURNED IN. THIS SCRIPT IS A TRANSLATION OF THE OFFICIAL NI-CELVAZ TEXT, NOT A TRANSLATION OF THE VERAZHIN OR OF THE CORRECTED NI-CELVAZ TRANSLATION CREATED BY CMFFD (THE CELVAZ DACHENVERAZHID KINEMA TRANSLATION PROJECT).

THERE ARE A LOT OF VERAZHIN WORDS LEFT UNTRANSLATED IN THE SUBTITLES, MOSTLY UNITS OF MEASUREMENT, CURRENCY, AND TEA VARIETIES. I LEFT THESE WORDS AS-IS.

WHEN SOMETHING IS UNDERLINED IN THE SCRIPT, THAT MEANS IT'S A NI-CELVAZ LOANWORD. FOR EXAMPLE: IF YOU READ "TEA" THAT MEANS THE SPEAKER USED THE VERAZHIN WORD "ZHA"; IF YOU READ "TEA" THAT MEANS THE SPEAKER USED THE NI-CELVAZ WORD "BAELVA".

OBSERVATIONAL: A cotton-gloved hand puts a five-zashan piece into the slot of a gas stove of the style common to rented apartments across the Elflands. Flames lick the bottom of a pot of water.

NARRATOR (V/O): Every day, almost one hundred crore cups of tea are consumed worldwide. Dachenverazheisei drink about half of them.

OBSERVATIONAL: Beside the stove, the hands unwrap a palm-sized cake of dark orchor from a square of undyed cotton cloth. With a knife, the hands break off a small section.

NARRATOR (V/O): Nearly every cup of tea begins its life in Dachenverazhan. The nation grows more than 75 ½—or 97%—of the approximately 78 crore zhin of tea leaves sold every year.

OBSERVATIONAL: The hands place the chunk of orchor into a clear glass bowl with a wide lip and a flat-knobbed lid. They ladle now-boiling water into the bowl and cover it with the lid, swirling the water around the bowl for a few seconds to wash and loosen the tea. Then they pour the water out, careful to use the lid to trap the tea leaves inside. The hand ladles more hot water into the bowl, now letting it steep. Through the clear glass, we watch the tea liquor grow darker and darker over the course of some 45 seconds, until it is almost black.

NARRATOR (V/O): This 130 crore muranai industry accounts for twelve percent of Dachenverazhan's gross domestic product—a staggering number considered alongside the textile and manufacturing industries—and employs twenty lakh Dachenverazheisei, most of whom are women.

OBSERVATIONAL: The hand steadily pours the tea from the bowl into a ceramic cup. The dark orchor inside the bowl has expanded considerably during the steeping.

NARRATOR (V/O): We invite you today to come with us zhaoi at the Foundling Girls Orchor Factory, whether you are Dachenverazheisei or foreigner, to see the work that goes into a cup of tea: the growing, the picking, the many stages of processing, the packaging, the selling, and—of course—the making.

OBSERVATIONAL: The hands lift the cup of orchor, and the kamera pans up to follow it as it rises. The pair of hands belong to an elven female figure: daintily beaded cotton belt, pristine shirtwaist with puffed gigot sleeves, a green veil printed with the outlines of assorted leaves held in place beneath a half-mask of pale wood.

NARRATOR (V/O): The drinking, you can do while you watch.

OBSERVATIONAL: She holds the cup of orchor with outstretched arms, as if offering it to the kamera. Unreadable beneath veil and mask, her head tilts to the side; angles slightly up.

B-ROLL: A crowded convention hall full of rows of tables, seated staff on one side and standing customers on the other. There are only a few elves among the throng.

(MURMURATIONS OF THE CROWD)

OBSERVATIONAL: A sign board reading:

"CELVAZ TEA EXPO →
REGISTRATION →"

NARRATOR (V/O): Let us begin at the end of our journey, the Celvaz Tea Expo. Held every year in Seleya, the expo is where distributors like shops and restaurants make connections with tea producers. There are workshops and tastings, and a competition, if a tea producer is brave to put her blend to the test. Winning in your category makes very good business.

OBSERVATIONAL: A booth staffed by three elven women, two in full mask and veil, one bare-faced. The booth is merchandised with an assortment of Edrehasivareise Revival style glass tea-jars, and one of the employees—the green veil wearing woman from earlier—is pouring samples for customers. The banner behind their booth reads, in ni-Celvaz and Ethuverazhin, Foundling Girls Orchor Factory.

NARRATOR (V/O): The Foundling Girls Orchor Factory is the only Dachenverazheise woman-owned tea producer attending the Celvaz Tea Expo.

OBSERVATIONAL: The faced employee, a white-faced and green-eyed woman with plain metal hoops in her ears and simple wooden tashin sticks in her braids. She is around forty years old. She sits at a two-seat tea table with various accoutrements, including a jar of Foundling Girls Orchor Factory branded tea, and holds a cup of a pale golden tea in her hands as she speaks.

OVERLAY: "ORAVO NEDANEZHEN / Head of Global Marketing"

ORAVO: (IN NI-CELVAZ) We were the first Dachenverazheise company to attend CTE. We—that is, we myself—might make enemies saying it, but it is true. There are other companies who do almost everything in Dachenverazhan, not just growing and drying but all of the processing and packing for sale, and maybe you want to call this company Dachenverazheise, but it is not really, because the packaging was designed by a foreigner, the tea is all processed and blended for foreign tastes, it is not sold at home or only a very little, and the company is a business partnership between Osmer So-and-so and a foreigner who says he handles marketing. So really it is no different from any company which buys raw kol leaf from Dachenverazheise gardens and makes Celvazhid tea here, for Celvazheisei.

KAMERAMAN (O/S): (LAUGHS) Needst not insult them, Oro.

ORAVO: I am not insulting!

ORAVO: (IN NI-CELVAZ) This is fine, of course, to make your tea to your tastes! It is just not really Dachenverazhid any more. At the Foundling Girls Orchor Factory, we are all Dachenverazheisei, from gardeners to ni-Celvaz copy writers.

OBSERVATIONAL: She waves.

ORAVO: (IN NI-CELVAZ) We are very proud, that we ourselves do all this, and do not make concessions. Powder tea or resin tea is very popular with foreigners, but it is not drank in Ethuveraz—in, in Dachenverazhan. So we do not produce it.

ORAVO: (IN NI-CELVAZ) We started selling just orchor, just traditional, authentic high-mountain orchor from Thu-Evresar, but we saw when we came to CTE, a... lacking in what is available outside Dachenverazhan. No one was selling kolveris spices, no one had a boronat, really...

OBSERVATIONAL: Oravo unlatches the amber lid of the tea jar in front of her, and spoons out some loose tea into a small bowl, and holds it out to the kamera.

ORAVO: And so we expanded from orchor to a wider range of traditional Dachenverazhid teas, including isevren and an isevren blend we are introducing this year for the first time to the Celvaz Tea Expo, which we are all very excited about.

OBSERVATIONAL: Close view of the tea, which has pale yellow leaves blended with pieces of dry fruit and nuts.

OBSERVATIONAL: Oravo goes about making herself a cup of tea. She opens the hinged lid of a small ceramic pouring vessel like a creamer, and puts leaves and water inside, then flips over a sand timer.

ORAVO: Three minutes.

ORAVO: (IN NI-CELVAZ) We also partner with local soleisei—glass-makers, painting-makers, pottery-makers and such—for our jars and other packaging, and a line of teaware for brewing and drinking the traditional way—that is, the fancy way—but also the convenient way, how we make it every day in Aveio, in Cetho, in Urvekh'.

ORAVO: (IN NI-CELVAZ) At the Foundling Girls Orchor Factory we're very passionate about bringing high-quality artisan-made Dachenverazhid products to the wider world.

OBSERVATIONAL: The timer run out, Oravo pours herself a cup, the tea leaves remaining inside the pouring vessel without her having to do anything. She sniffs the pale golden liquor with a satisfied smile, then takes a sip.

OBSERVATIONAL: The FGOF booth at the Celvaz Tea Expo. Oravo, at far left of frame, is speaking animatedly with a Pencharner man; the two masked and veiled employees wave gloved hands to the kamera. Text overlay in a handwritten bilingual scrawl, arrows pointing to each woman.

OVERLAY: ORAVO, HEAD OF GLOBAL MARKETING. Getting a distribution deal with a luxury greengrocer in Tong Vey.

PARU, TEA BLENDER. Her first time out of Dachenverazhan.

EMERO, EXPORTS COORDINATOR. Bravely nursing a hangover.

PARU: It's so satisfying to see it all come together! Look, look—

OBSERVATIONAL: Paru, in the green veil and half-mask, shows off the merchandise display to the kamera.

PARU: All of the packaging is so pretty, with the glass all sparkling under the lights... We do not have space to show everything we're selling on the table at once, we have the catalog for that, but here we have out our most popular. Here is the classic golden orchor, and the dark orchor—both of these are pure kol leaves, the different flavor is just in the processing—and then is the kolveris blend... 

OBSERVATIONAL: She opens up an amber glass jar whose label reads "KOLVERIS SPICED TEA BLEND", showing off the blend of golden-brown leaves, course-ground salt, peppercorn, pieces of nuts, cinnamon bark, and citrus peel.

PARU: I made this one! It is so strange to see it like this, all loose leaves and spices like how it left my table.

PARU: For foreigners, they don't like the cakes, thou see'st. They don't know what to do with them! And Oravo says it is better when they have a souvenir when they have finished, not just a paper wrap. But, ah, anyway, then there is the new isevren blend, this was a very interesting tea to work with. I said to thee before already—oh, but thou knowest, Csesa, but the film is backwards, isn't it! So I shall say it again, for you watchers in the future.

PARU: Our gardens grow kol, small-leaf tea, this one right here.

OBSERVATIONAL: Paru stretches out a part of her veil and points at one of the leaves printed on it, narrow with a smoothly tapered pointy leaf-tip.

PARU: Kol is traditionally processed into orchor and kolveris, and sometimes the milk teas, eladriät and so on. I grew up at the foundling school, so I've been working with kol ever since I was... ten, eleven years old? First as a picker, then a sorter, and then I began training to process the tea when I was fifteen.

PARU: I know our kol very, very well. How it behaves when it is grown in sun, when it is in shade, the difference between the high mountain gardens and the gardens down in Aveio proper, the flavors that come out with different oxidation levels, what botanicals and fruits and spices will bring out the best qualities in the tea.

PARU: With isevren, I know none of this.

OBSERVATIONAL: She points to another leaf printed on her veil, this one still small but almost oval shaped.

PARU: Isevren is not just a different cultivar, it's a separate subspecies altogether, and its likes, dislikes, these are a mystery to me. Like men. (SHE LAUGHS)

PARU: Our isevren, we spent a lot of time taste-testing from different gardens before we decided to work with Osmer Mila Zhelenar. The Zhelenada have operated a smallholder isevren garden on the city limits of Zhaö for almost eighteen hundred years. It is very, very good tea, and we are pleased to be able to share it with the Celvazheisei.

OBSERVATIONAL: Opening the two jars of isevren, one full of pale tea-buds covered with fine hairs, the other a combination of these and a handful of other flower buds and dried fruits.

PARU: Isevren is usually processed and drunk as a pure tea, without any botanicals, but Osmer Zhelenar worked with us, myself and my colleague Iman, to put together a blend well suited to uplift isevren's unique characteristics. The result of months of experimentation with different ratios and processing methods, our 'Zhaö By Starlight' isevren blend is a modern twist on a classic cup.

EMERO: (UNDER HER BREATH) Didst remember to say it after all! I had my doubts.

PARU: Oh, hush!

OBSERVATIONAL: Paru swats at Emero with the back of her hand.

OBSERVATIONAL: The women packing up their merchandise for the night; loading it onto carts; bringing it upstairs to their hotel room.

(UNINTELLIGIBLE CHATTER)

OBSERVATIONAL: The women settle down to a meal, ignoring the bar-height seats at the kitchenette in favor of stacking plates and cups atop a small piece of luggage.

OBSERVATIONAL: Emero brings a copper tea pot over from the kitchenette. Paru pats the ground at her left.

PARU: Csesa, come on!

CSESA (O/S): One moment, let me veil first.

OBSERVATIONAL: The kamera jitters as it is set down to keep the meal in frame. Csesa comes into frame from the waist down in a jacket, waistcoat, trousers, and heavy workman’s boots. Fabric falling into frame as he throws on a dot-print veil.

EMERO: Oh, very handsome.

OBSERVATIONAL: Oravo, still unveiled, begins pouring tea for everyone at the makeshift table, beginning at her left-hand side and pouring for herself last.

(VOLUME DUCKS, CONVERSATION BECOMES UNINTELLIGIBLE)

OBSERVATIONAL: Paru and Csesa swap a single cup back and forth, the motions awkward underneath the veils they wear for the kamera.

NARRATOR (O/S): Tea is a part of daily life in Dachenverazhan, with a place at the breakfast table and the pilgrimage site. Courting couples often share a single cup of orchor, a very old tradition from Thu-Istandaär that had almost died out before Iäna Pel-Thenhior's film Salt Upon Stone famously depicted it.

B-ROLL: From the "cup passing" sequence in Salt Upon Stone: while chaperoning his sister and her intended, protagonist Herta watches the pair from across the parlor. We see the exact moment of exchange, when the cup connects her hand to his; Herta sits alone. He runs a thumb along the chipped rim of his own cup. Through the window, he looks out at a memory of himself and the late Edis sitting in the grass. Edis takes a sip from a small cup with a diamond pattern along the rim–the very cup which Herta holds now. Edis smiles from behind the cup; eyeline match to present day Herta as he holds the cup to his lips. He does not drink from it. 

NARRATOR (O/S): But what is tea? In ni-Celvaz, the word 'tea' actually means 'from the elves'. When we borrowed it back as 'belva', it came to mean any hot drink, whether that's tea or a tisane or a drinking soup. We even have a 'belva Celvazheise', or c'elva—that's what we call copeä berry tisane. 

(TRANSLATOR'S NOTE: Pneumapedia and my bilingual dictionary both proved unhelpful here, but I think she’s talking about coffee.)

NARRATOR (O/S): Neither is 'tea' easily defined, lest you be an agronomist or botanist. Around the empire, perhaps it varies, but in Thu-Evresar, if someone asks if you want tea, what they mean is, will you let them pay for dinner at a teahouse? A warm cup or three is assured, but so is a hearty meal. Zhaö—the nymph, not the city named for her—is, after all, known for the generosity she showed Enceda, feeding him when he was starving with the fruit of her own body.

B-ROLL: A tea stall at a street market in Aveio, Thu-Evresar, its hand-written signage all chalk-on-slate in an Ethuverazhid script. The Foundling Girls Orchor Factory logo is visible on the paper wraps of several tea cakes of varying sizes, from tiny cakes sized for a single pot to platter-sized blocks. There are also tea cakes from other producers, as well as large jars of loose chamomile and other flowers, whole coffee beans, and other dried herbs. Figures visible onscreen are either veiled or carefully cut out. Those cut out reveal more b-roll footage of carefully tended tea gardens beneath their silhouettes. 

NARRATOR (O/S): Botanists recognize more than a dozen subspecies of the zhaö tree, but only three are cultivated to make tea: aika, kol, and isevren. Within these subspecies are dozens if not hundreds of kultivarsin. Some zhaoi also produce 'wild tea' from untended zhaö trees, including those of different subspecies than the traditional three, but this makes up only 4% of tea processed in Dachenverazhan.

OBSERVATIONAL: Within the Foundling Girls Orchor Factory. With their figures shrouded, it is impossible to gauge the ages of the girls sitting on small stools with enormous bags of loose-leaf tea between their legs, scooping tea into the glass jars that will later sit out for sale at the Celvaz Tea Expo. Each girl has a different kind of tea blend, one with very bright green leaves curled up tightly and mixed with chunks of dried ginger; another with straight, narrow leaves so dark they look almost black; a third is the kolveris we saw earlier.

NARRATOR (O/S): Aika grows best in the south, as it does poorly with frost. It was first cultivated in the Khelanra region of what used to be Barizhan. Kol and isevren are both heartier plants, originally cultivated in Thu-Evresar and along the banks of the Athamara respectively. 

NARRATOR (O/S): Orchor, the fermented tea for which the Foundling Girls Orchor Factory gets its name, is grown in the Orchorens from kol leaves; fermented tea made of aika or isevren, or in kol from a different terroir, is called 'black' or 'golden' tea, depending on other aspects of its processing. Fully oxidized teas are called 'red tea'; partially oxidized teas including vezvaishorisevren are called 'blue tea'; unoxidized teas are 'green' or 'yellow' depending on the other particulars; tea that has only been air-dried is called 'white tea'.

OBSERVATIONAL: There are six girls working in the dingy room: three pack jars, and three take the newly-packed jars and brush hot wax around the lids to seal them.

OVERLAY: Names and arrows. BENU (attending history classes at the University of Aveio), MALEÄN (marrying next month!), and IÄRO (has forgotten all her interests) pack tea. LELO (adventure novel enthusiast), CSETHIRO (aspiring judicial Witness), and HELAN (loves tending her flower garden) seal the jars.

MALEÄN: An thou wert a vegetable, what vegetable wouldst thou be?

CSETHIRO: What?

IÄRO: Okra, I think.

HELAN: Thou'rt hardly slimy enough to be okra.

BENU: Helan is a potato, to be certain.

MALEÄN: I can see it. Very hard-working vegetable, a potato.

NARRATOR (O/S): Packing the tea for sale is time consuming work, and at the Foundling Girls Orchor Factory, like many other small tea producers, the work is done entirely by hand. 

OBSERVATIONAL: Close on Lelo, working as she's interviewed.

LELO: We chat, mostly. It is a lot of busy work with your hands and not much thinking, so we gossip, or talk about gentlemen... Some of the girls, the older ones, are married and don't live at the foundling school any longer, so they're always talking about their gardens or their children. Csethiro and I both spin, though she spins drop and I use a treadle, so half the time we're talking about dyeing and boring everyone else to tears. If someone is a good storyteller, we'll probably set her to recounting a book until she gets sick of it. 

CSESA (O/S): Do all of the girls who work here live at the foundling school, or used to?

LELO: Not everyone, but most of us. All of the grunts, certainly. Packers and pickers.

CSESA (O/S): Do you like it here?

LELO: Why wouldn't I? It's good work, and the school gives us food and beds and warm clothes, and Osmerrem Acranaran—that's the woman who funds the foundling school and the company—went to university, so she insists we're all taught to read and write and do sums, which means if we don't want to stay in the tea industry after we turn sixteen we can make better entry rates and needn't pay out of pocket for literacy classes.

LELO: You won't lose a hand processing tea, neither, and you certainly can't say that about some of the other manufactories. The worst I've ever gotten was a wax burn. Airships explode!

OBSERVATIONAL: An assortment of posters pinned to the wall. One reads ALL WORKERS HAVE A RIGHT TO: A SAFE WORKPLACE, REPORT WORKPLACE SAFETY VIOLATIONS TO THE THU-EVRESAREISE WORKER SAFETY COMMISSION, ACCESS MATERIAL SAFETY SHEETS IN A LANGUAGE ACCESSIBLE TO YOU, et cetera. Another: YOUR EMPLOYER CANNOT COMPEL YOU TO: TAKE MAZ-BOUND OATHS, WORK FOR MORE THAN FOURTEEN HOURS PER WORKDAY, OR MORE THAN EIGHT HOURS WITHOUT A BREAK, OPERATE MACHINERY YOU DO NOT HAVE A LICENSE TO OPERATE, et cetera. A third: THE RIGHTS OF CHILDREN IN THE WORKPLACE...

NARRATOR (O/S): Working conditions have come a long way since the days of the Varedeise emperors. Edrehasivar VII's labor reform act focused on implementing safety protocols around fire, dangerous chemicals, and machinery, improving sanitation, air quality, and lighting conditions on the manufactory floor, raising wages, shortening the work day, and protecting the interests of working children.

NARRATOR (O/S): But many important jobs cannot be made perfectly safe. Workers in dangerous professions are well-trained, well-paid, and well-supported should the worst happen, but many prefer to earn lower wages for little to no risk—and foundlings, like all working children in Dachenverazhan, must be employed in safe environments.

B-ROLL: Tea cake wrappers (in Ethuverazhid script) and labels for the glass jars (multi-lingual) are stamped by disembodied hands, a multi-step process taken one color at a time.

B-ROLL: Molten glass coming out of a furnace, then fitted and blown into a mold.

OBSERVATIONAL: Oravo again, this time stood against a brick interior. Despite the lighting’s best efforts, half of her unveiled face is in shadow. 

ORAVO: The Foundling Girls Orchor Factory is not the only foundling school that puts its girls to work in the tea industry, but it is unique in the care it takes both in producing quality artisanal teas and training up the girls in its charge both with a strong, well-rounded knowledge of the industry they're employed in and with a generalist education.

OBSERVATIONAL: A plain brick building with a sign out front reading ACRANADEISE SCHOOL FOR FOUNDLING GIRLS. The figures of girls and young women are cut-out, with fresh tea leaves again beneath.

ORAVO: They learn to read, to write, to do sums and algebra; there is a small library at the school and Osmerrem Acranaran made an agreement with the University of Aveio that the girls may use the university library, free of charge—her brother is on the board of directors there, we believe? 

ORAVO: The girls have access to a few typewriters, if they're interested in learning that skill. 

B-ROLL: A classroom within the Arcanadeise school. A whole pack of cut-out figures crowd around one girl’s desk as she demonstrates her typing speed.

ORAVO: There are vegetable gardens on the grounds, so the girls are taught to tend them, and they're encouraged to take up other interests. 

B-ROLL: An older, veiled girl directs two of her juniors (themselves cut-out) in pulling weeds from a small patch of vegetables.

B-ROLL: A veiled girl works carefully at a table-loom. She pauses her work to take down notes.

B-ROLL: Supervised by a veiled woman, a girl with protective goggles over her mask uses glass-blowers’ shears to trim away excess. 

ORAVO: One of the glassblowers we contract with, to make the jars we sell to foreigners, is actually a former student of the foundling school, who took up a glassblowing apprenticeship while she still lived at the school, supported by her earnings as a picker.

ORAVO: We—that is, we myself—have worked with the Foundling Girls Orchor Factory for five years now, and it really is a wonderful environment. We believe in the mission, we see how well the girls are treated.

B-ROLL: Several girls, some older, some younger, and all veiled, sit in a circle on the grass. Each one pursues her own fiber-craft; some knit, others embroider, others chain knots into bracelets or bookmarks. One girl drapes the hat she is making over her friend’s head. The friend bats the other away until they fall over together, laughing.

ORAVO: Food, clothes, sanitary products, everything they need they get from the school, and they still earn wages. More than the company is required to pay them. If we had had the option as a girl to live and work somewhere like this, we would have loved it. 

CSESA (O/S): You were a foundling? 

OBSERVATIONAL: Back to Oravo in front of the brick interior.

ORAVO: Our father couldn't support us or our sister. The foundling school we were sent to just chopped off our hair and set us to work as domestics-for-rent. We became a courier at thirteen; we had the head for it, luckily.

CSESA (O/S): What of your sister?

ORAVO: She became a prostitute. Many foundling girls do. When one hasn't a name or an education, hasn't a dowry or the funds to support an apprenticeship or novitiate, where else does one go but the procurers? 

ORAVO: That is why places like this are so important. None of these girls will be forced into that work. An they join the ranks of the demimonde, be it as prostitutes, operaneisei, kinemeisei, or whatever else, it will be their own choice. They have resources enough from their upbringing that they will not fall prey to men pushing them before a kamera in order to earn their keep.

B-ROLL: Two girls, masked and veiled, dig through a costume chest. They take turns choosing pieces for one another—a crown of worn silk flowers, a knit shawl decorated with chipped glass beads, a scarf of hand-quilted leaves. The girls sit on either side of a table. They fan themselves with folded paper and mime sipping tea. 

B-ROLL: Oravo and a third girl sit at a distance. The third girl talks silently to Oravo while working on a charcoal sketch of her costumed friends. Now we see the sketch itself. The artist, though clearly a beginner, shows promise. Oravo smiles and nods along. She laughs at something the sketch artist has said.

CSESA (O/S): You're opposed to the kamera, then? I assumed...

ORAVO: 'Opposed' is a strong word. We grew up Adaneise, and we do not know if we believe what the Ulineisei preach about photographs and the dead, or if it matters an they're correct. A person's choice is a person's choice. But our sister had no choice but to pose for photographs an she wanted to keep her room at the brothel, and... wherever she goes, in the end, we would go with her. 

B-ROLL: Some time later, the costumed girls stand behind Oravo and the artist. They jump up and down, excited to see themselves depicted in a friend’s hand. Close on Oravo. She watches the three younger girls fondly. 

ORAVO: Now His Serenity Mahar'avar has ordered the selling of faced films permissible, our selfishness is put to good use. It is easier to forget there is a person behind a veil, and what we want—what all of us here at the Foundling Girls Orchor Factory want—is to show the world the people behind the products they consume.

ORAVO: A lot of skill, a lot of time, goes into even the making of mass-produced manufactory goods like airship parts and motor-loomed fabrics...

B-ROLL: A veiled trio focuses intently on sorting refuse out from viable leaves. A set of gloved fingers quickly picks a series of bug-eaten and discolored leaves from the pile. The contents of the refuse bin grow leaf by leaf. 

ORAVO: ...and the quality of our work, Dachenverazheise work, is clear in that foreigners seek it out to buy, but the whole country becomes a big manufactory to them, like we are machines and not artisans. We want to change that perspective! We do not want foreigners to associate our country with... with Zhelsu and sharadansho.

B-ROLL:

B-ROLL: A short clip of the opening sequence from Pel-Thenhior's Zhelsu in which a line of manufactory workers toil miserably away at the same metal sheet. The Overseer’s shadow stretches across the screen, consuming the workers. Backlit, the Overseer’s face is barely visible save for the cold glint in his eyes. 

B-ROLL: A second clip from Zhelsu; in this one, Zhelsu keeps her chin held high in defiance of the Overseer. 

B-ROLL: A clip from the BTS footage of Zhelsu in which Zhelsu’s actress is happily embraced by one of her fellow actresses. The pair grin wildly. 

ORAVO: A lot has changed in the last forty years! Dachenverazheisei produce luxury goods with a high standard of craftsmanship in good conditions. 

ORAVO: Our country has a bad habit of putting only the very worst of us in front of the kamera. By sharing stories from the girls whose educations a purchase from the Foundling Girls Orchor Factory supports with every jar of tea—by making this film!—we hope to show tea-making personalized, and help change how people think of women's labor, girls' labor, and how foreigners think of our nation.

OBSERVATIONAL: Seated around a low, northern-style table, several veiled women glue the colorfully-printed and designed labels onto the glass jars for foreign sale. 

OVERLAY: Arrows point out TEVO (woodcut artist), MARAN (widowed mother), RECSU (wants to visit Pencharn one day), CORAN (everyone's favorite), and LEILAN (loves Thu-Athamareise cal’operai).

NARRATOR (O/S): Few of the girls are as bold as Oravo to take off their veils before the kamera. 

TEVO: I can't say I've thought much about Ulis's opinion, but I want to marry one day, and I won't have my husband's family thinking me loose because I've been on film.

CORAN: (LAUGHS) That shan't be why they think thee lo—(SHRIEKS)

OBSERVATIONAL: Tevo flings the cup of water the girls use to wet their paintbrushes at Coran.

OBSERVATIONAL: A brightly lamp-lit room with tiled floors and walls, with shelving on two of the visible walls. One holds enormous bowls, scoops, ladles, and whisks, and large wooden crates full of empty drawstring bags; the other wall's shelves hold those drawstring bags full to bursting, with hand-written tags on their cords. A small all-metal console desk beside a large stone-topped table holds a clipboard with a sheaf of papers, a pen, and a long, skinny length of fabric.

PARU: I don't usually do this veiled. Um...

OBSERVATIONAL: Her back to the kamera, Paru unfastens the cord holding the back of her wooden half mask in place, setting it down on the table, then carefully folds her veil back so it rests atop her head. 

CSESA (O/S): The veils we use on set for the crew have an extra band sewn into the inside that ties around one's forehead and at the nape of the neck, so the front of the veil can flip back.

PARU: That sounds so much easier! Ah, anyway, I'm putting on more layers because when we're blending tea, there are a lot of small particles of tea dust that will come off of the leaves and other ingredients in the blend. If you inhale a lot of the dust, it will make you cough, or it can even make you sick with a bronchine over time. So you want to keep from breathing it in.

OBSERVATIONAL: With a gloved hand, Paru reaches for the length of fabric, and tightly winds it around her face and over the loose veil, twice over her nose and mouth and once over her forehead. Knotting the ends together secures both veils, and then she ties her mask back on. 

PARU: All right, I think I've got it.

OBSERVATIONAL: She turns around and gives the kamera a little bow.

CSESA (O/S): Wonderful! Good job.

PARU: I look a right fool, don't I.

CSESA (O/S): I'm not fool enough to tell my girl any such thing, thankee. 

PARU: Good boy. I've trained thee well! Now, ah, in order to meet our targets, I'll have to blend 100 zhin of tea today, though I'd like to get 140.

OBSERVATIONAL: With a wet rag, Paru wipes down the table and the pen, then follows with a dry rag. 

CSESA (O/S): How many more batches of tea is that?

OBSERVATIONAL: She takes down one of the bowls. Made of steel, it's so large around that it's hard for her to get a grip on it. Several smaller bowls are nestled inside.

(CLANGING OF METAL)

PARU: Oh, just two. 20 zhin is about the point where the tea is too unwieldy to blend by hand. 

CSESA (O/S): It's all done by hand?

OBSERVATIONAL: The bowl goes atop the work surface, beside a large tabletop scale. Another bowl, much smaller, is placed on the scale. She tares the scale with a dial, then pulls down a stack of large scoops.

PARU: 'Tis! The larger factories, they're machine work, but everything here is hand-blended, hand-sorted, hand-picked. The price is higher, but so is the quality, and no one is getting her braids caught in a rotary. 

OBSERVATIONAL: Next, several of the full bags from the left wall's shelf are pulled down and lined up against the wall on the work surface.

PARU: Now everything is prepared, I can get to blending. This is a batch of Zhaö By Starlight, our new isevren blend that will be premiering at the Celvaz Tea Expo.

CSESA (O/S): Wilt walk me through through it?

PARU: Oh, yes! Here we have the ingredients, which we pack down into these bags to make them a bit more manageable for blending.

CSESA (O/S): How much is in a bag?

PARU: That depends very much on what it is. Some things, chamomile flowers for example, are incredibly light, and one of these bags will only hold one zhin. Tea leaves might be three to ten zhin, depending on the way it's processed. Roots might be ten, fifteen zhin to a bag. 

PARU: Once we have the ingredients, as we do, the first step is paperwork.

OBSERVATIONAL: She holds up the clipboard for the kamera. As she speaks, she scribbles things down, flipping through several pages on the clipboard and also checking the tags on the bags on the work surface.

PARU: For each ingredient we mark down the lot number—one must never mix two lots—and confirm that our certificates are all in order from the supplier, if it comes from outside. Basically, are they using the correct pesticides, has it been tested for molds, was the whole production process during a timeframe while the supplier was certified to be in compliance with the Farm Workers Wages Act, which is mandatory in order for us to keep our government subsidies... I know it is boring. Everything here is in order, so I can initial and date everything and fill out all of the lot numbers.

PARU: After that, we begin weighing! I cannot show thee the ratios, I'm afraid 'tis a secret.

OBSERVATIONAL: Paru opens the bag of isevren, and begins to fill the bowl on the scale with heaping scoops of tea leaves. Once she is satisfied with the amount, she empties the smaller bowl into the large mixing bowl. She repeats this step six times.

PARU: First the isevren... This comes from the Zhelenada, whose tea garden is just outside Zhaö. They were so wonderful to work with on this project. Iman and I—Iman is our other blender, but she didn't want to be on kamera even veiled—went down to Zhaö last harvest and we worked with Osmer Zhelenar using the harvest flush to test out different processing methods before we landed on the perfect marriage of what the Zhelenada and we Acranadeisoi do best. 

PARU: This, the final tea, is from the second flush, of course. And how we do it, well, that is a secret. But I will say the resulting cup is a little bit blue. 

OBSERVATIONAL: The next ingredient, delicate flower buds. Once weighed out and added to the mixing bowl, Paru begins to toss the mixture of isevren and jasmine with her gloved hands.

PARU: After the tea, jasmine flowers, and one can wait until every ingredient is added before mixing, but I find it easier to blend in stages, so I'll mix these two until it is reasonably homogenous. 

PARU: Next by volume, there are these... oh, I honestly don't know what they're properly called, but these sour berries that grow everywhere in Aveio. These are from our own gardens, and we dry them and break them down to go into blends like this. It adds body, and it's a bit tart, it's very nice. 

OBSERVATIONAL: Small chunks of a deep purple berry. Paru once again portions it out with a scoop, then measures and mixes. 

PARU: Then nannari root, which is naturally sweet, so don't go adding any honey to this! You listen to me, no honey! You do not need it!

OBSERVATIONAL: A light brown, crumbling ingredient, chopped into pieces about half the size of the jasmine buds.

PARU: The last ingredient in this blend is a kind of mint, just the smallest of portions. It acts like salt in one's baking, bringing out notes which otherwise go unnoticed. It is very bright, mint.

OBSERVATIONAL: Crumbled, bright green leaves, not even one full scoop for the entire mixing bowl. With all ingredients added, Paru mixes them for an extra long time before she seems satisfied.

OBSERVATIONAL: She takes down four empty cloth bags, and starts scooping the tea into them, one scoop to each bag in sequence.

PARU: Now, I am weighing everything and marking them down as I go, so once it is all blended, it is time to pack them in bags again. This tea fits into four bags, five zhin apiece. It is very fluffy!

PARU: I mark the blend, the lot number, the date and my name, and then I tie off the bags and it is time to clean everything up and start the next blend!

CSESA (O/S): Will those be packed straight-away?

PARU: No, no. Tomorrow one of the managers will double check my paperwork and make a cup to test that everything is in order and I haven't put the wrong ingredient in.

OBSERVATIONAL: Once full, the bags are tagged, tied, and set up on the shelf.

CSESA (O/S): Has that ever happened before?

PARU: A few times! We have actually had some happy accidents that way. But I haven't done it yet, and I shan't be upset if I never do.

OBSERVATIONAL: Under a corrugated metal awning on a sunny afternoon, an unveiled girl in her late teens with pale skin, black eyes, and silvery eyebrows sits on a stool in front of a large wooden crate, straddling it with her bare feet leveraged against the crossbraces. She wears brightly patterned high-waisted trousers and a coordinating shirtwaist with rolled sleeves. Her hair is mostly covered by a scarf in another colorful pattern, coiled into a thick bun at the back of her head and pinned into place with a pair of tashins. Wood-and-copper jewelry hangs from her oxidation-stained ears. 

OVERLAY: A subtitle introduces us to MIRO / Foundling Girl & Aspiring Jeweler

NARRATOR (O/S): While almost all of the kol the Foundling Girls Orchor Factory sells is picked and processed right here in Aveio, some of the ingredients used in our blends, like these jasmine buds, come from other parts of the Commonwealth.

OBSERVATIONAL: Miro leans down into the open crate with one of the cloth bags we saw in the blending room, skimming the crate's contents (thousands upon thousands of tiny flower buds) like a fishing net.

MIRO: This crate holds 100 zhin of jasmine flowers, which is about... thirty-five bags? We get all of our bulk ingredients delivered by cart, and they'll drop them off out here because it's easiest. We pack down the material into more manageable portions and warehouse them.

OBSERVATIONAL: Once the bag is filled and tied off, Miro bites off the cap of a pen tied to the neckline of her shirtwaist and writes on the bag's tag: ingredient name, manufacturer, lot number, date, and her own name. She tosses the bag into a growing pile of filled bags, then leans down with another bag.

MIRO: The most important thing with the storage is making sure that it is not too humid in the warehouse. Too humid—more than about seven or eight percent water content in the plant matter—and mold can begin to grow. Obviously, we do that on purpose when we make dark orchor! But for most things, it will make a very bad taste, and might even be dangerous. 

B-ROLL: Several glass bowls of tea steep side-by-side, their liquor ranging from almost perfectly clear to so dark it is nearly black. They are not arranged in a gradient.

OVERLAY: Arrows point to white isevren, vezvaishorisevren, steamed green aika, roasted green aika, blue kol, golden orchor, dark orchor.

NARRATOR (O/S): Dark orchor is one of the most popular kinds of tea in Thu-Evresar. Traditionally made here in Aveio, it makes up 70% of the tea sold by the Foundling Girls Orchor Factory every year. Would you like to see how it is made?

OBSERVATIONAL: Exterior of a large warehouse. A veiled woman stands just outside the closed door. One section of her veil is embroidered to match the floral pattern of her walking-skirt.

OVERLAY: ULIVAN ACRANARAN / Fermentation Specialist

ULIVAN: This is the heart of the operation. Come on, we'll show you.

OBSERVATIONAL: She opens the door and leads inside. 

ULIVAN: Welcome to the wet pile room. It is here that golden orchor becomes dark orchor. 

OBSERVATIONAL: The warehouse is empty of shelving or furniture: against the wall are a number of shovels and picks, and large, folded tarps are piled in one corner of the cavernous space. On the floor are several evenly spaced, enormous tarp-covered mounds about knee high, as long as four people laying tip to toe and as wide as two. 

ULIVAN: All orchor is fermented, but dark orchor has a much higher degree of fermentation and very quickly. Golden orchor slowly oxidizes and slowly ferments while it is being stored. It's something of an acquired taste when it's young, and it's very expensive when it's old. Dark orchor cuts out the decade or more of fermentation considered optimal for a cup of orchor.

ULIVAN: Using a technique called 'wet piling', we take new leaves of golden orchor and speed up the process of fermentation in a controlled manner. The result is a redder, smoother tea with the earthiness we expect from a good cup of orchor in only a fraction of the time.

OBSERVATIONAL: Ulivan comes up to the nearest mound and crouches beside it, lifting the tarp to reveal the mountain of tea beneath. It is very dark, looking almost like wet mulch.

ULIVAN: This pile is almost finished, it has been fermenting two months now, and as you can see it is very dark. Wet piling is something of a new process. The Acranada have been using it for only four hundred years.

OBSERVATIONAL: As she speaks, Ulivan scoops up handfuls of tea, showing the leaves to the kamera, breaking them apart.

ULIVAN: How it works is, we wet the leaves and pile them, like this, which allows fungus on the leaves to propagate and ferment over a period of weeks or months, depending on the specific character of the orchor we are trying to achieve, a redder orchor or a darker orchor. There is one ton of orchor in each pile.

OBSERVATIONAL: She rises, and covers the edge of the mound with its tarp once again.

ULIVAN: We carefully monitor the temperature of the piles, as the activity, the growth of the fungus, makes it become very hot. If it becomes too hot, it will sour the tea. So we mix up the piles every few days to keep them at the most desirable temperature. 

OBSERVATIONAL: She walks through the cavernous space as she speaks.

ULIVAN: When we are satisfied with the result, then the orchor will be allowed to sun-dry, and then it can be compressed into a cake for domestic sale, or jarred for the international market.

NARRATOR (O/S): Before the orchor goes into the pile, though—or, in the case of golden orchor, moves on to be blended or pressed into cakes—it first visits the one and only machine in the factory: the roller.

OBSERVATIONAL: Close on a woven basket full of yellow-green withered leaves.

NARRATOR (O/S): Rolling the tea breaks apart the surface of the leaves, releasing certain enzymes which aid in the oxidation and fermentation processes and make the tea more permeable to water, which allows for a faster steeping.

OBSERVATIONAL: A veiled-and-masked woman, heavily pregnant, empties the basket into the mouth of a contraption which consists of a frame sitting atop a large textured plate, with a second, smaller plate on a corded dowel above. Once the tea leaves are inside the frame, the woman lowers the upper plate to compress the leaves, and then flips a switch. The frame moves over the large lower plate in a circular motion.

OVERLAY: An arrow indicates the woman: INO, looking forward to maternity leave. Another arrow indicates the contraption: ROLLING MACHINE.

NARRATOR (O/S): This process is traditionally done by hand, but machines are much better at doing it reliably, with the same amount of pressure, and like everything with tea, the amount of time rolling the leaves and the pressure used while doing so has a great impact on the character of the tea.

INO: We want a light touch here. Rolling the tea makes the leaves more water permeable, which is why it helps with fermentation, but it also makes steeping faster. Too much pressure, and all of the flavor in the tea will extract into the water at once when you brew it. This is good for kolveris, which you usually make a great big concentrated samovar of for the whole house or office to drink throughout the day. You aren't steeping it multiple times, you're just watering down the very, very strong tea with hot water. 

INO: With orchor, though, you're sitting with a bowl and a cup... and perhaps a book, a friend, or a lover... and you are making a small amount of tea, savoring it, and then reusing the leaves several times, so you do not want it all coming out immediately. You want to experience all of the stages of the tea.

OBSERVATIONAL: The kamera pivots from Ino and the rolling machine to the other side of the factory floor, where along the wall are several enormous round metal bowls inset into a counter. Pipes and dials make clear that this is an enormous, specialized gas range.

NARRATOR (O/S): Before the leaves are rolled, there is a very important step called "killing the green". There are many ways to do this, and different methods will create teas with different qualities. For most orchor, wilted tea leaves are put inside these enormous pans and are tossed at a particular temperature until they are oxidized to the level we are looking for.

OBSERVATIONAL: Three of the pans are in use right now, with two veiled women and a third, dark-skinned woman who is unveiled, but has her hair covered by a kerchief. All wear very heavy gloves that reach up to their elbows, as they toss the tea in the pans with their hands.

OVERLAY: Arrows indicate the unveiled RAIAN (plays elesthwood flute) and veiled SERO (can recite the dialogue from The Third Ship by heart) and CHELANU (number one pneumatic-whisperer).

RAIAN: It's very important we don't heat the tea too much, because too much will fix it at this amount of oxidation, killing off the enzymes which make the tea darken over time. Instead, when we are making orchor we always want to begin the oxidation process, and then cut off most of it. That way, a golden orchor will very slowly oxidize as it ages, and a dark orchor will oxidize as it ferments. 

RAIAN: At the same time, heat is what enables quick oxidation, so it is a careful balancing act between heat and the amount of time we cook the leaves. The best temperature for an orchor is—oh, should I say that?

CHELANU: Probably not.

NARRATOR (O/S): Good catch! Competition between tea factories can be stiff.

OBSERVATIONAL: Time skip. The women continue to toss the leaves, which have changed in color significantly. Chelanu scoops out her leaves, and replaces them with a new batch acquired off-kamera. The women chat amongst themselves almost as if they have forgotten the kamera.

CHELANU: —turns out that Csenis has been putting out cans of sardines for her every day, which does at least explain where our sardines have been going. But now she just stands without the window and stares at me.

SERO: And hast not let the poor thing in? Thou monster!  

CHELANU: I don't want a pet cat!

RAIAN: Seems a bit late for that, dear. And—kinemeisa, here, this is looking right. 

OBSERVATIONAL: Close on Raian's pan, where the leaves look as she describes.

RAIAN: See how it is a more yellow-green now? The stems oxidize faster—it's normal to see them darker in comparison to the rest of the leaf.

OBSERVATIONAL: We pull back to see her scoop the batch of tea into a basket, tossing it a few times to evenly distribute the leaves inside. Then, the kamera follows behind Raian as she walks to a shelving unit full of baskets of bright green leaves. She takes down a basket and begins walking it back to her station.

NARRATOR (O/S): These leaves are freshly withered. What that means is they have been allowed to rest in the shade for a few hours. This makes the leaves less stiff, and easier to work.

OBSERVATIONAL: A disembodied pair of hands hold up two bright green stems. One stands straight, freshly picked. The other's leaves are drooping, slightly wilted.

NARRATOR (O/S): Wilting is the very first thing we do with freshly-picked tea leaves. And that means it's time for you and I to climb a mountain.

OBSERVATIONAL: The tiered tea gardens of the Foundling Girls Orchor Factory, verdant and picturesque in the heart of the Orchoren mountains. The tea plants grow in even, well-trimmed rows like hedges. They come to about hip height on the taller pickers working in the field. Most of the pickers have been carefully cut out of the frame, and B-roll of fully processed dark orchor plays beneath their figures.

NARRATOR (O/S): This is our primary tea garden. About 90% of the tea we sell is produced with the crop from these cultivated kol plants. The remainder comes from wild kol trees up on the mountain. A wild tea plant can grow to be five times the height of a person—

OBSERVATIONAL: A downed tree leans at a steep angle against the branches of an enormous kol tree. A girl, approximately fourteen, climbs up the downed tree with her arms outstretched and a basket strapped onto her back. Her skin and curly hair are pure white, and she has a birdlike face with big hazel eyes and a pointy chin and nose.

NARRATOR: —which makes it very tricky business to harvest from them! These wild plants propagate naturally, too, which means their flavor is unique from batch to batch. In the gardens, we grow new kol plants from cuttings, so they're completely identical to the plant we started with, and we'll always know exactly what to expect from the crop, assuming everything else goes well!

OVERLAY: A hand drawn arrow reaches out to CSORO ACRANIN, your friendly narrator!

OBSERVATIONAL: Back in the tea garden. Csoro, no longer wearing a tea-picking basket, plucks a bud and the first two leaves from one of the kol plants.

CSORO: This is what pickers are usually after, the very tip of the plant. That's the newest, freshest growth, and it tends to make the best tea. Some types of tea prefer older leaves, but mostly we pick them to make tea that goes home with us at the end of the day.

CSORO: The most highly prized tea comes from what's called the first flush, picked at the very beginning of Spring. Unlike other tea producers, though, the Foundling Girls Orchor Factory never sells our first flush tea. Some of it is saved for special occasions—for Winternight, or when one of the girls gets married—but almost all of it is reserved to be sent to the Untheileneise Court, for the emperor himself to enjoy.

CSORO: Our family, the Acranada, have been growing and producing orchor for over a thousand years, but for a long time we were just a family farm. We expanded and became the Foundling Girls Orchor Factory in the reign of Edrehasivar the Seventh. He created subsidies to help fund the upkeep of foundling schools that taught a vocation—and my great-great-grandmother answered the call. Now the foundling girls are family, too!

B-ROLL: The pickers move slowly but steadily through the rows in four-times speed as the sun rises and sets.

CSORO: We keep harvesting tea throughout most of the year, from the beginning of Spring right up to the very end of Harvest. Right now we're picking an early Harvest flush, which makes an affordable but deeply aromatic tea, sometimes used for dark orchor and sometimes used for boronat.

OBSERVATIONAL: Csoro stands in the bed of a motor-cart, filling bags with the freshly-picked tea leaves from open-topped baskets lined up by the tailgate. The bags slowly fill the bed of the cart.

CSORO: It's hard work, and it gets very cold up here on the mountain when we start picking just after dawn, but we love what we do, and we're so happy to get the opportunity to share our tea with you, whether you're in Cetho, Amalo, or even Estelveriär.

OBSERVATIONAL: The winding mountain road, seen from the back of the moving cart. Csoro's loose braids rustle in the wind as she sits among bags of tea as large as she is.

  

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