Enigma Watkins - Seamstress

Name: Enigma Watkins

Role: Seamstress

She awakens, only to find herself confused. Has she experienced a tragic event and her mind has shut down? She cant remember who she is or how she got to this place. She staggers off the ship, lost and frightened, not even knowing her own name.
They now call her Enigma, for it is a mystery, a puzzle, how she was sent here or where she even came from. for even she has no memory of it. why she behaves as she does, she knows not, yet she knows she is a handful to many. Most men can't tame her or tire to easy trying. She sees them as weak. Deep in her heart she knows she was tender hearted at one time, and hopes one day someone can break through.

Time passes and the memories come and go in flashes under the heavy hands of crude and brutal Masters. She sees her former village in flames and feels the rough hands of raiders on her young untried flesh. The smell of the sea as she wanders through the teaming city of Ireem, her new home, brings back images of the boat, packed with the other slaves on her frightful voyage to this place, memories she had forotten till now. She pauses before the open door of a seamstress cutting patterns and stitching a fine ne silk dress. She watches the woman's hands, the deft dip and pull of the thread to make a nearly invisible seam and another deeper memory stirs. She sees herself as a young girl at her mother's knee helping with the fine embroidery on her older sister's wedding gown. The stitches are known to her, the patterns she cuts are familiar. She touches a fine dress and runs her fingers along the silken sleeve letting the cool material slip through her hand. It was then that she made her decision and enquired of the seamstress if she needed an assistant and began spending her free moments in the shop, relearning her skills that she thought had been lost. She saved her coins, stashing them away in a hidden place in the city wall where no slaver could find them should she be captured again.

As the months went by she returned to the little hole in the wall covered by brick and found it overflowing with gold, enough to begin her own store and start a new life. She thanked the seamstress and following her ambitions left to open her own dress and silk shop in the city, never forgetting where she came from, and still hoping that her heart, hidden behind its walls, might be set as free as she is now.

(profile by Enigma Watkins)