leatherworking | Application History (Reply)

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leatherworking

Vera was boring in the conservative, isolated village of Pickering to the less than reputable Brooker family. Her family's bad reputation follows her for her whole life.
As a girl, Vera teaches herself to read via a traveling storyteller
As a young adult, Vera longs for more from her life. She sets her mind to leave Pickering on an adventure, but she's also in love with another Havlin that's been waiting as long to get married as she has: Derik Tolman.
The night before she leaves, he casually proposes to her, and she accepts. They have sex, and Vera leaves the next day.
Vera returns to Pickering several months later because she's pregnant with Derik's child. The village doesn't completely believe that, but shortly after their daughter is born, Derik and Vera are wed and begin a family together.
Not long after their marriage, Vera finds out about Derik's secret. While Vera was away, Derik realized that the reason that he had been putting off marriage was actually because he's a gay man. Though he loves Vera, he's been cheating on her with a man he loves, Bernard. Vera finds them and holds a bitterness towards him to the time of the story.
Skip ahead to the time period of the comic. Vera, Derik, and Alfie live a fairly peaceful life together save for the occasional strain that Derik's continued relationship with Bernard brings. They own a successful leatherworking shop, and Vera is an especially talented craftsman.
A caravan of many peoples but led by elves comes to Pickering. Alfie meets one of the human guards, Marco, and begins a relationship with him.
Vera, on the other hand, meets the leader, Alduin. Alduin asks her to make a pair of leather cuffs for his wife, but she immediately sees through his lie to know they're for him. Still, the money is good, so she agrees to make them.
When Vera delivers the cuffs, Alduin asks her to give him a handjob. Because of the very good money (and out of spite to Derik), she agrees. However, because of Alduin's masochism and her general anger, she discovers that she's really, really into dominating him.
Over the course of two weeks, Alduin commissions several pieces from her, and they have a lot of kinky sex. Meanwhile, Alfie's relationship with Marco develops as she has a sexual awakening of her own. Marco asks Alfie to come with the caravan when it leaves. She refuses. Alduin also attempts to hire Vera as his personal leatherworker, which she also refuses.
The night before the caravan leaves, there's a havlin festival, and Alfie and her best friend sneak away to drink together, but end up having a drunken, lesbian encounter. Vera stumbles upon this and takes out her biases and anger against Derik out on Alfie, which ruins their relationship.
Alfie leaves a letter telling her father that she'll be staying with his family, but this is a lie. She joins the caravan and leaves with Marco.
Vera realizes her mistake, and this prompts the first heart to heart talk she and Derik have had in many years. She realizes how her anger and bitterness gets the best of her, and also understands why Derik can't return her love, and deeply regrets being so cruel to Alfie as a result. She commits to bettering herself so that when Alfie returns from the Tolmans', Vera will be fully ready to apologize.