Chapter 26: Chapter 26
If Shia thought her encounter with the man by the dirt road was bizarre enough, she did not know that things would only just turn stranger and more irritating as her day went by.
Shia and Khailis were each able to heave a sigh of relief as their carriage finally drove out of the manor’s front gate. Shia didn’t go down from the carriage to bid her goodbye to the duchess and the baroness and only looked at them from the small carriage window to avoid any questions that may arise from her ruined dress. It was a bit unconventional, but thankfully, they bought her excuse that she was too excited to see her dress for her to crawl back down from the carriage and properly say her good bye.
Thankfully, Khailis did have a cloak inside her carriage that can be put over Shia’s dress. Upon closer inspection, however, Shia could not decide which one is filthier: her dress or Khailis’ cloak that she admitted to have kept in the carriage’s storage box for more than a year without any attempt to put it in the laundry.
“Ugh, the smell is killing me!” Shia remarked.
“Maybe this will help,” Khailis said, producing a tiny bottle of perfume from a small pouch that she had carried with her. Unfortunately, the perfume has all dried up, and only a faint aroma of violet scent came out of it as she sprayed the bottle.
“I have an idea,” Shia said in a low voice. With a wave of her hand, leaves and vines from the violet plant emerged from the empty bottle. Soon, flowers also sprung forth from it, which Shia picked up and rubbed against the cloak to quell away some of its nauseating, mouldy odour.
“That’s truly amazing!” Khailis muttered silently but excitedly as she also took some of the flowers and rubbed it against herself. “Can you make any plants appear like this at will?”
Shia eyed the carriage driver and quietly replied “If it is coming from the earth, I can make any plants come up, but if it must come from other sources, I can’t. I can only produce plants from which the material was originally made of, like in this case.”
“Cool!” Khailis said again in a low whisper. “You must still be extra careful, though. Even if we are far away from the Capitol, you know how ‘special people’ are still looked upon around here...”
Shia understood her worries and took the plant away with a flourish of her hand. Wherever it may be in Gascone, it was always a dangerous place for cursed ones. No matter how influential Langrion might be, his position and power will not be enough to save Shia from a death sentence should she be caught using it. It might even put his life at risk if rumors that he is engaged with a cursed one should ever spread.
Shia cleared her throat and began to ask, “why are you all dolled up today? I thought you said you had an errand to do in town?”
“I do,” Khailis said, “and that task involves putting on the pretense that I am gentle and feminine. What do you think?”
Shia looked at Khailis’ shockingly red, fancy dress and at her even more shockingly colored cheeks, eyes, and lips. It looked to Shia as if she will be part of some sort of circus.
“Um, you do look feminine, but your face does not seem too gentle...”
“It doesn’t? Ah, I overdid it, didn’t I?” Khailis said sighing deeply. “Is it the eyes or the lips? Which one did I colored up a lot?”
“A little bit of both. Here, let me remove some of it for you.” Shia began wiping some of the colors away from Khailis’ face, and Khailis looked much better after Shia was finished.
“Thanks...Ugh, I really do hate this part of being a woman! Why must we doll up for a man?”
“So, you are meeting a man today?”
For the very first time, Shia saw the dignified Second-in-Command of the Imperial Guard blush.
“I-I will... I am going to ask out the person I like to be my escort at the ball.” Khailis clasped Shia’s hands. “But please do not tell anyone about it, alright? Especially Langrey. I can’t imagine how much he’d make fun of me if he knew.”
“I won’t. It will be our secret,” Shia said, smiling back at her.
“Since I will be doing this very important ‘covert’ task, I need to ask you a favour. Can you pick up my dress and my shoes and wait for me at the shop while I am busy? I’ll drop you on the way to Master Dredsell’s boutique, and then I’ll pick you up from there after I finished.”
“Alright. That’s okay... I guess.”
The truth was that Shia was looking forward to going into town with Khailis. Since she had lived a nomadic life until now, she had never been around so much people, and she was a little afraid that she’d get lost and do all sorts of blunders on her own. However, she can see how important this ‘task’ was for her, so she conceded. After all, what sort of thing can go wrong at a dress shop?
“Here we are, Lady Shia,” Khailis cheerily said as the carriage made a halt. She took both Shia’s hands into hers and said fervently, “I will forever be grateful for your help today. I’ll make it up to you soon, alright? See you later, and wish me luck!”
“Good luck!” Shia shouted to the quickly moving carriage of her friend as she was left standing in front of Master Dredsell’s boutique.
When she entered the shop, Shia was greeted by the round, energetic figure of Master Dredsell. She had already met the jovial, gentleman a few days ago when the baroness called him over to take her measurements. He quickly showed her into a comfortable arm chair and was served some tea while she waited for their dresses to be prepared for the fitting.
The baroness asked the kind Master Dredsell to make two dresses each for Khailis and her to wear to the ball. Since Khailis was not there, the master dressmaker instructed the servants to pack her dresses and shoes neatly in a box, but in Shia’s case, he asked her to don the dresses to see if they fit.
Shia tried on the first dress. It was made of a snowy white fabric that sparkled as she moved around. This will be the dress that she shall wear as the debutants are called and presented according to their houses and also the dress she will be wearing as they make the first dance at the hall.
Next, Shia was made to try on a fuschia-colored evening gown that had feathers on the rim. It showed her lovely collar bones and the roundness of her full bosoms - perhaps even too much of it! Shia was surprised that the baroness and the duchess would choose this dress from the catalogue since it seemed to expose so much of her flesh. Looking at it now, she was more than positive that they had made a mistake as it looked more revealing than it really was in the catalogue.
“C-can we do something to cover this part a little?” Shia awkwardly asked, pointing to her chest that so generously showed in her dress.
“Sure, my lady. We can add some cloth in this part, don’t worry,” one of Master Dredsell’s assistant said.
After the fitting, Shia was showed again at the waiting area in front of the shop as the master dressmaker’s assistants mended her second dress.
While she was getting dressed, the master saw the spoiled condition of Shia’s clothes and offered to lend her one of the dresses from the shop, but she declined. He then began to offer him to clean her clothes while she waited, and although Shia refused his pleadings, she was eventually won over by the kind man’s insistence.
“Please wear this dress while you wait, my lady,” Master Dredsell said pointing to one of the dresses on display in the shop.
Not wanting to trouble the dress master and his servants even further who seemed to be too busy packing her and Khailis’ dresses, Shia declined. “That’s okay, I will just wear this cloak on top of my under dress. It’s quite comfortable enough for me.”
After some more refusals from Shia, the kind man finally left her at the waiting area and went to the back of the shop to get her dress cleaned.
As she waited, Shia flipped through the dress catalogues and looked at the different dress styles that fashion experts recommended for the upcoming debutant ball. To Shia’s eyes, all the dresses looked too bright and flamboyant. But then again, she did not know much about fashion. In the deserts of Soccora where her family had mostly travelled about, Shia simply wore a hanging upper garment and either a thick, short skirt or an equally thick, long skirt that had side slits running all the way up to her thighs. They were nice and comfortable enough for hunting and moving around. She did not have to care whether the color suited her skin tone or made her more appealing and charming. She just needed some garments to keep the cold wind at night away and to suit her during the warm mornings.
As she flipped through another magazine to while away her time, Shia looked up and saw a budding commotion in front of the dress shop. Curious, she went outside and took a peak between the crowds of people that had gathered around the avenue, right in front of Master Dredsell’s place.
“You filthy thing!” Shia heard someone said. She took a closer peek and saw that the voice came from a golden-haired maiden in a light green dress. She was standing in front of a small child who had fallen on the street. A box and several apples laid sprawled on the ground, and the child looked as if he was about to cry from fright.
“You ruined my dress! How are you going to make up for this?” the maiden fumed in anger.
The boy was crutching down on the lady’s feet. He began to cry and beg for her forgiveness. “I’m sorry. It won’t happen again...”
“Is that all you can say, you imp!”
The maiden raised her hand as if to strike the little boy’s face, but a hand that could not resist itself from helping other people held the maiden’s wrist tightly to stop her. It was none other than Shia’s.