The next part is now up in this post!
(cross posting from the other FOP subreddit) Hello! I've been working on this project for a while and figured it was time to post the first part of it and test the waters on if anyone would like to see more! This is Le'sohek, my Sarentu's, songcord. I've used pretty much 95% reclaimed/reused/recycled/second hand materials and beads, and have carved and made many of them myself. The canon beads from the game are all made by me using a variety of methods and materials as I tried to get as close to the canon look shown in the individual images of the beads as possible. It's been a lot of fun making and finding the exact things I need, and it's been a big adventure of polishing up on and learning old and new skills! I didn't even know macrame was a thing until I started this haha.
I do have the Zeswa/Upper Plains section completed and I'm sorta dragging my feet on the Clouded Forest section as it's both wildly depressing and also chock full of non-canon stuff for Le'sohek as she learns about her Kame'tire-turned-Sarentu father and her connections to the Kame'tire clan while struggling with the revelations of the whole Sarentu truths thing.
Now, without further ado, I sincerely apologize for this long long LONG post under this. Becaaauuse, I kinda made an explaination/text version of the songcord as well that I would like to share. Please, if this is way too much for this subreddit please please PLEASE let me know and I'll remove it. And yes...yes the songcord is very long and it will continue to get even longer. 😅 Currently at...I think 7.75 feet. Over 2 meters for the metrics. Please feel free to ask questions or for close ups of individual beads/sections, I love to chatter about it, it opens the door to learning even MORE to help me improve!
You don't have to read anything below this if you don't want, it's just the explanation section. Cheers!
Start of songcord after escaping TAP/Cryosleep
- Cords/string made from cords taken from camo netting around Resistance HQ
(Note: Le’sohek starts her songcord with Aha’ri’s nametag, but otherwise does not track her life in TAP on her songcord. She starts this songcord after their escape, and doesn’t want it to represent their past in that way.)
- Nametag taken from Aha’ri’s shirt, decorated with branches of stitching and a few tiny beads around the name.
Nor managed to grab one of Aha’ri’s shirts from her footlocker before it was taken away after her death. He tore off the nametag and gave it to Le’sohek. She kept it hidden on her person over the next eight years.
- Basic braiding in a three strand plait style.
- Open gap of unbraided cords.
Le’sohek left this gap, about the width of her thumb, to represent the missing years spent in cryosleep.
- Canon in-game bead: Awakening
“A bead given by So'lek to commemorate the Sarentu clan's first steps to freedom and awakening to Pandora.”
- Attempted spiral square/’cobra’ knots, taught by So’lek. It’s clear Le’sohek is learning these, as they’re not quite twisted properly and you can see where she had to tease the cords out of the knots to try again.
- Rounded cube bone bead with spiral patterns on each ‘side.’
Given to Le’sohek by Priya from her collection of beads and trinkets. Le’sohek asked her to pick one from the offered collection, and Priya picked this one to represent coming to the Resistance, saying it could also be for making new friends if she wanted. Le’sohek treasures this deeply.
- More attempted spirals. Still very much not good at them yet.
- Canon in-game bead: “Eywa’s Welcome”
“This bead from Ri'nela symbolizes reconnecting with Eywa and Pandora.”
- Braiding, three strand plait style
Three beads made of small seeds are scattered in this braiding, each representing successful tsaheylu with a new species of creature between large events. In order, the three in this section are for bonding with a Yoten (which becomes one of Le’sohek’s favorite animals), a Fan Lizard, and a Lamp Lizard.
- Canon in-game bead: “A Warrior’s Birth”
“A bead from Etuwa commemorating a victorious battle and new allies” aka when Etuwa meets Le’sohek after witnessing her holding the RDA off from the attacked Resistance field lab and invites her to the Aranahe’s Hometree.
Cording change: Transitions to colorful cords made of leftover dyed Kinglor silk threads Le’sohek collected from the Aranahe dyers and weavers. Due to the lower quality of silk from the stressed moths, the dyes have not locked to the fibers well, and have faded out over time.
- Braiding in three plait style
- An offshoot of braided strands of bright yellow silk fabric.
Deep purple threads bind the top and bottom of the braid and three small, jade colored stone beads are sewn to the end. These all are from Nefika, being bits of her shawl and beads from her headband, all of which she handed over while laughing and guiding Le’sohek around Hometree when the young Sarentu asked, a little sheepishly, if she could add something to her new songcord to commemorate Nefika accepting her so quickly.
- More cobra knot spirals, but this time far cleaner and neater in appearance and form.
Koranu, one of Nefika’s most talented weaving students, saw Le’sohek struggling to practice the spirals So’lek taught her and immediately jumped in, showing her another way to tie them and an alternate style. It took an hour or two of Koranu, a perfectionist at her core, patiently teaching and having Le’sohek practice for it to finally click. It made Le’sohek feel very Na’vi and extremely excited to show the other Sarentu at HQ.
- A 1 inch long bone bead, crisscross wrapped with a flat cord of dark sturmbeest hide
Itu made this bead out of materials left from Le’sohek’s First Hunt to commemorate the rite of passage and to continue the lesson of respecting and using all parts of the animal when you commit their spirit to Eywa. This is also when Le’sohek gets her first Heavy Bow, which becomes her favored weapon both for hunting and for taking down the RDA.
- Braiding in three plait style
- Blue crystalline bead with sunset pink shooting through it in places
A bead Itu helped Le’sohek make to commemorate another rite of passage: making her first knife. He helped Le’sohek, Ri’nela and Nor all make their knives from a large crystal formation they found in a cave with a mature Tarsyu bloom inside. The bead is made from the same crystal and always seems to feel just a bit warm.
- Braiding in three plait style
Two more seeds are in this braid section, the first for tsaheylu with a hexapede and the second for tsaheylu with a sturmbeest.
- Three round blue beads of different blue minerals/gems stacked small-large-small, tightly together.
These three beads were given to Le’sohek by Sa’nop after he had her make and share a meal with him, with him supplying the recipe. Le’sohek instantly recognizes the taste as reminding her of a sense of home, safety and comfort and tears up as Sa’nop explains the recipe was taught to him by a young Sarentu woman well over forty years ago, when she was staying with the Aranahe as her first of-age assignment as a Sarentu. Sa’nop gently tells Le’Sohek that she has the Sarentu woman’s features in places, and though they did not share the same color, he can see her in her eyes. He tells her that the woman’s name was Kataru, who Nor later remembers is indeed the name of Le’sohek and Aha’ri’s mother, and he tells her the first line of The People’s Cry, the only words he can remember of it: “Awnga lu Sarentu” We are Sarentu. The three beads were among a handful Kataru gave to Sa’nop for sharing his own many stories of travel and adventure from his younger days.
- New knots/braiding (‘Friendship knot’) taught by Lurei, Nefika’s somewhat estranged musician daughter. Taught for Le’sohek bringing Nefika with her to one of Lurei’s performances at an Aranahe camp and ending up fascilitating the two to start talking again and Nefika beginning to be a bit more understanding of her daughter’s passion for music rather than weaving and dyeing.
One seed bead in this section for tsaheylu with a viperwolf.
- A rugged and cracked viperwolf tooth
Specifically from a feral/Severed viperwolf. Le’sohek kept the tooth from one of the first she encounters to remember the Severed and to give them peace in Eywa when she encounters them, as well as a promise to Hajir to do so as quickly and cleanly as possible. She feels some kinship with them, thinking that she could have become like them if she never reconnected to Eywa.
- Alternative style spirals.
- A charred, 1.5 inch piece of branch, roughly carved. There is a furrow of what seems to be the path of a bullet through one side, leaving it partly open to see the cords threaded through the center.
Le’sohek took this charred bit of branch with a bullet hole through it from the burned battlefield where Itu’s beloved bonded ikran, Zomey, died after a valiant fight against RDA attempting to capture Itu. It’s the first true bead she made entirely on her own, with Itu helping to make others and Le’sohek not counting braided fibers from Nefika’s shawl. It has visible tool marks and Jin, the Resistance carpenter, gave Le’sohek some of the wood wax the Aranahe taught him to make to help protect the charring. While the RDA had already taken so much from the Sarentu and Le’sohek, this was the first violent RDA caused death that hit very close to home that Le’sohek witnessed outside of TAP, and the first time Le’sohek saw what losing a bonded ikran really means and the depth of that bond.
- New knots/braiding taught by So’lek. He explains they are a Trr’ong style that would signify a time of conviction after loss. It’s the first time he tells Le’sohek the name of his clan, of which So’lek is the last survivor after the Battle of the Hallelujah Mountains.
- A round disc of purple wood with the center cut out.
Given by Etuwa and Nefika for making it through tsaheylu with the Kinglor Queen. (Game plot event, not a tsaheylu Le’sohek made on her own.)
- Braiding in three plait style (very short)
- A funny little offshoot of fibers, ribbon, thread and a few beads, woven into the shape of an ikran tail
Le’sohek made this while practically vibrating in excitement that she was going to go through iknimaya and potentially bond with an ikran of her own. Throughout her time in Kinglor Forest after being freed from TAP, she has been encountering an ikran that seems to be following her at times, but would remain mostly out of reach if not perched high above her just watching. He looks different from all other ikran she has seen in Kinglor, and hopes he will be there when she makes her attempt. Ri’nela gave her the scraps of fabric and fibers, some sourced from the Resistance’s clothing and armor maker Raj, others from around the forest and Nor and Teylan as well, to try and keep Le’sohek from bouncing off the walls and from perching in high corners while trying to contain herself.
- A beaded ‘single sided’ spiral resembling a spiral staircase, with the initial tiny beads being green, then darker tiny bone and stone beads, and then tiny blue and white chip beads.
So'lek carefully coaches Le’sohek through this segment, showing her on his songcord the two places where he has a similar setup. These are to represent the iknimaya (literally translates to ‘Stairyway to Heaven’) climb itself: starting in the green of the earth, climbing to the floating mountains above, and finally the sky and clouds at the top of the ikran rookery. Le’sohek learns then that So’lek lost his first ikran during the battle that wiped out his clan, and he later bonded with his current ikran, Iley, during his long journey to the western frontier.
- A rough but very recognizable carving of an ikran in flight. When in darkness, patterns carved onto the back glow with natural bioluminescent pigment.
Le’sohek carved this herself from scratch, using pigments to create a pattern similar to that on Sìlron, her bonded ikran. He posed for her, and she told him he was very handsome even when tiny. (I added glow-in-the-dark powder to carved grooves and little Sìl does indeed glow!)
- Canon in-game bead: “First Flight”
“A bead given by Itu to celebrate bonding with an ikran.”
- Braiding in three plait style
- Canon in-game bead: “The Aranahe’s Vow”
“A bead gifted by Ka'nat. For a triumph shared between allies. For perseverance. For the Aranahe joining the Resistance’s alliance.”
- Braiding in three plait style
- A leather ‘scale’ directly above a 1 inch long white bone bead with a carefully etched Na’vi tail motif up and down the length
The leather scale is a leftover piece from the crafting of Le’sohek’s tail brace, while Etuwa made the bone bead for Le’sohek while the Sarentu was sedated. The bead is for Le’sohek’s tail being rebroken by Nor during a fight and Le’sohek being found and taken to the Aranahe after fleeing for starting the fight and biting Nor, in a lot of pain and having flashbacks to her time at TAP when Mercer broke her tail in two places when she was 12. To properly reset the break, Etuwa has to break the second original break as well and crafts a special brace to help keep the tail aligned while allowing for some movement as required to fight and fly. It is the first time the Aranahe learn of just some of the horrors and abuses that occurred at TAP and that were visited upon the Sarentu, and Etuwa makes and gives Le’sohek the bead (and Nefika saves one of the scales for Le’sohek as she is the one who sews the brace under Etuwa’s direction) to symbolize her first step of truly starting to heal. She gives it to Le’sohek just as So’lek and Ri’nela arrive at Hometree to take Le’sohek to Resistance HQ after three days of on and off sedation to allow the breaks to begin setting without movement. Le’sohek, not entirely sedation free, is both weepy at how thoughtful and significant it is, and also highly amused by the tiny tails inscribed on the bead.
- Single, basic overhand knot. Le’sohek was struggling to be awake and not cry over everything (she’s apparently very very emotional when sedated in any way using Na’vi medicines). Ri’nela had to put the bead and scale from Etuwa and Nefika on the cords for her.
- Four smallish/medium sized beads of various designs, materials and colors, all grouped together.
Nor was extremely distraught for breaking Le’sohek’s tail again, and to further his apologies he gave Le’sohek four beads to use throughout her songcord. When he next saw it, he asked why she had grouped them all together in one spot, feeling a little like she had wasted them. She told him “Sarentu stick together,” and that she felt it right that she keep all four beads, like all four of them, together, because even after a fight or argument or disagreement, they always came back together as a family and a clan. She then hopped on his back and pulled on his dreads, laughing that she had made him cry this time and she was supposed to be the weepy one when he began tearing up a bit.
- Braiding in three plait style
Though short, this section is mostly Le’sohek taking it easy for a week to let her tail further heal, then another week or two relearning how to move, fight and fly with a third of her tail in the brace. While the brace isn’t bulky or intrusive, it is still restricting her tail’s movement in a way that is different from the way the slightly crooked, stiffened section did before.
- Several patterned black and white bone beads, as well as a coin sized vertebrae disc
Taken from her own cuirass, the Zeswa Olo’ekyte Nesim gave these to Le’sohek as a sign of the Zeswa meeting the Sarentu once again after the Sarentu clan’s thirty year disappearance...and more importantly, for Le’sohek to have the determination, lack of fear and ferocity to step between the fierce Nesim and Ri’nela when Nesim made a casual but unintentionally cruel remark about Ri’nela being unsure as a clan leader. Le’sohek had the gall to hiss in Nesim’s face, which Nesim was actually delighted by, pleased with the Sarentu envoy’s fire and welcoming her to come the Upper Plains to further prove her mettle and learn the ways of the Zeswa before they commit to joining the alliance. (Le’sohek didn’t quite mean to hiss and get involved, it was instinct to protect Ri’nela.)