Galahad Stormcrane’s creation of a gown for Meira is both a practical gift and a display of his magical artistry: he coaxes ancient Fortryllet fabrics into a garment whose flowing form and shifting colors evoke water. The work develops from his discovery of rare cloth in a shop into an elaborate design, but he deliberately leaves its last touch unfinished until the coronation night, when Meira herself will be part of completing it.

The Fortryllet Fabrics

While considering a gown, Galahad’s attention settles on fabrics that give off a subdued, unearthly shimmer. The shopkeeper identifies them as her only Fortryllet fabrics. They are very old, yet they neither wear out nor gather dust; no one there knows how to work with them. She cannot bear to consign them to a dark attic, believing that nothing elvish should be left in darkness. Galahad responds by asking for all three, turning the shopkeeper’s neglected but treasured material into the basis of his design.

The cloth has a delicate, yielding quality that Galahad recognizes through touch: it gives way like water. Its colors include turquoise, deep green, and stormy blue, with a changing effect of shimmer above and pulse beneath. Those qualities are not merely decorative. As he works, the fabric responds to his gestures, moving and changing shape as if its fluidity were an inherent part of the material rather than an image imposed on it.

Shaping the Gown

Galahad begins by unwinding the cloth from its board. It lifts into the air in front of him, and he takes hold of its end, winds it around his hand, flings it upward, and pulls it down. The fabric opens into a general hourglass shape; its lower edge rustles like waves caught in tidepools. He moves behind it and tightens the material until a distinct waist forms and holds its shape.

He then works around the emerging garment, refining its outline with deliberate adjustments. At the front, he folds the neckline into a straight line above the bust; the excess cloth melts into the rest, as though the fold has revealed the fabric’s true edge. He pushes the sides away from the shoulders, where they likewise melt down, leaving a sleeveless, strapless silhouette. At the back, he draws the edge into a gentle U below the shoulder blades. The sequence makes the gown seem less sewn than persuaded into existence: each change follows the movement of his hands, and the material retains the shape he gives it.

The turquoise fabric responds eagerly when Galahad turns to it, sparkling like the shallow tropical water near the port of Nerrinton, over snow-white sand. He snaps his fingers, catches the cloth as it springs from its board, and kneels beside the formed gown. Pinching turquoise against the green skirt, he works the two fabrics together as if they were oil paint. Long, tight strokes draw the turquoise upward into the green and the green downward into the turquoise. He circles the skirt, repeating the movement until the colors are fastened together and the turquoise fans out around the hem, trailing across the floor.

Color, Ornament, and Movement

Galahad consults a book bearing a full-page drawing of a spiral, halved nautilus shell. After studying it, he presses his hand to the drawing, pauses with his eyes closed, and then places that same hand against the skirt. This moment links the gown’s flowing construction to a distinct shell form without interrupting the fabric’s waterlike movement. Elsewhere in the ensemble, he rakes his fingers upward through the air, and the cape’s lower edge shreds like a torn sail, stirring as if caught by a breeze that cannot be felt.

He gives the stormy blue a focal point at the breastbone. Its colors spin and gather into one place, from which a violet inverted-teardrop jewel blooms in an antiqued-copper setting. Copper filigree branches from the stone, curves down around the bodice and waist, and drips toward an emerald in a sunburst setting. At the throat, a gold choker appears, with a fine chain reaching to the point of the neckline. A round sapphire and additional teardrop jewels, amethyst or emerald, blossom along the neckline; strands of gold set with diamonds descend from the sleeve cuffs.

For the final ornament he draws a circle above the crown of the invisible head. A delicate silver circlet appears, inlaid with sapphires that resemble captured stars. The successive ornaments transform the gown from a shifting expanse of colored fabric into a carefully composed ensemble: jewel, metalwork, and stones gather at the bodice and neckline, while the skirt and cape preserve the design’s emphasis on flow and movement.

The Unfinished Final Touch

When Galahad steps back before the fireplace, he examines the completed work from top to bottom. He still wants to add one more touch, but recognizes that he needs Meira if it is to turn out well. Rather than finish the gown alone, he postpones that addition until the night of the coronation. The pause makes Meira more than the intended wearer: her presence is necessary to the final act of creation. The gown thus remains both an accomplished magical work and a collaboration awaiting its last moment, with its final detail reserved for a public occasion tied to the coronation.