Japanese dragon full sleeve

The river has turned the colour of the dragon's scales again, and the harbour master has sent word that the Emperor of Ashkeld wants his sea-wall painted before the spring tides. I told him I would send you the pigments myself, since you are the only one who can mix the teal without it going muddy. Mother says the kiln was cold for three days, but I lit it again this morning with the last of the driftwood.

Remember the story Grandfather told about the dragon of the Sunken Reach, who grew so angry at the fishing villages that she coiled herself round the bay and would not let the tide go out. The villagers could not shift her, so they painted her onto the cliff with peonies at her shoulder, to make her think she was being honoured rather than caged. She stayed put, the story goes, and the water stayed high, and the fishermen learned to read the swell instead.

Last week a woman came up from the coast road with a linen bundle and asked me to copy the same dragon onto her brother's arm. He had sailed out with the herring fleet and not come back. She wanted the waves drawn heavy and grey so he would know which way to swim. I did not tell her the story was only a story. I charged her half the usual price and took the wave-lines from the cliff sketch you left on the bench.

Come home when the ice goes off the wall. The dragon's eye still wants a second coat of red, and my hand is not steady enough to do it without you.

Your sister, Ilse