‘Would you like to do your daily exercises, my lady?’ said Lucy, proffering a small white lump.
In this unfamiliar world, Ari flailed and clung on to this one familiar word. Exercises. She knew all about exercises. Even as Becky, she’d kept up her cardio and lifting. Pull-ups, push-ups, sit-ups: those were all friends of hers.
She took the lump, which was regrettably light for lateral arm raise holds, much less deadlifts.
~It’s for eating! It’s just sugar!~
Ari let the sickly sweetness assault her. At least it gave her a burst of energy. Perhaps there was still hope of toning this flimsy body. She’d have to start with strengthening Claribel’s core. Did wobble boards exist in this world?
Claribel’s three chambermaids lined up, and Lucy – the only one whose name had been revealed to Ari, though would no doubt be forgotten by evening – cleared her throat.
~You need to raise your head.~
Oh. Was it just some neck stretching exercises?
~Then you… you need to raise your lips to the ceiling. Pretend you are attempting to kiss someone really far away. Maybe you are standing at the bottom of the balcony, and he is peering down at you, shining in the moonlight. Yes, like that. And now you want your mouth to be a wide circle… like… lips back down, but mouth open a bit, and really round.~
~Yes, that’s it, though can you please refrain from insect imageries? They are awful and disgusting and shouldn’t exist in this world, although I suppose they have to, because I don’t want the birds to die. Just… imagine you are faced with the knight of your dreams, and you… um…~
<…have to make an o-shape with my mouth for unknown reasons.>
~Maybe… stick with the water strider. Now repeat it twenty times.~
Ari could feel her jaw click. From the corners of her eye, she could see the three chambermaids doing their best fish impressions too.
~It’s going to give me… us… a sharper jaw when people see us from the side, which makes my…our neck look longer.~
This was it. If there was rhyme or reason for her taking over another person’s body instead of having her own conveniently transported into this brand new world, it was to take an untrained rack of muscles and level it up to 999. All the problems that a beginner might face? Not knowing when to push through? Starting to slip up on posture at the end of a rep? Instantly solved.
~I… think you should focus on getting dressed now.~
*
On went the cream silk stockings: one, two, pulled up by the two chambermaids who wore the same light blue dresses and embroidered aprons as Lucy. Now that she had time to study them instead of the ceiling, she noticed that though all three wore silver raven pins on their dresses, only Lucy’s had a turquoise gem for its eye.
The taller of the other two, whose name was Wini, and whose brother also had a name, William, bent down to tie a blue garter embroidered with ravens and gold vines, just below her knee.
‘William’s so excited about seeing Sir Dagon up close,’ she chattered on. ‘They say some princess from Rernin fell in love with him at first sight when she went on her pilgrimage. Can you imagine that? She sent him a cream courser that’s closer to the colour of pale gold.’
‘I heard they braided the horse’s tail like a lady’s hair,’ said Lucy, brushing out Claribel’s hair and re-plaiting it with threads of pure gold. ‘Though yours will surely outshine the hair of any horse,’ she added quickly.
Ari took a deep breath and thought of Mrs Hart. Breathe in their thoughts, and once you understand the heart of the person you need to be, there you are: undercover. She’d never been a natural at stepping into another person’s shoes, which was why she was a Red, not a White. It was one thing to become a Becky, a woman of her own invention, but a complete other to wear a fully-formed character’s skin. She tried to reach out and touch Claribel’s heart. A prideful aristocrat with a touch of flightiness and naivety who liked to be a little playful with her chambermaids, and… something else. Hidden.
‘Of course mine will outshine the horse’s,’ Ari tested out her words. ‘Any lady’s would with you to braid it.’
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She tried not to cringe at her own words. Did that sound like Claribel? Or did that sound more like an alien pretending to be human?
~Umm… I could say something like that, I guess?~
The third chambermaid, Patricia, gently guided her to a chair before laying out a gigantic cobalt-blue hooped skirt in front of her. With a tug, she worked with Wini to tie it front and back.
Next, they lifted a floor-length pinafore dress over her head, both with a naturalness that made them unlikely to be Miri. Or did it? After all, with more than six months of practice, Ari could dress a noble lady too. Wini held a bronze needle in between her lips and sewed her into the dress on either side. There, on her neckline, sat jewels that looked like real sapphires and pearls, set in gold.
~Yes, they are real. They are pearls from the Taurian Sea, right near the Rock of Rebirth. That’s why they look bluish in the sunlight and they glow in the dark.~
~We’re not even half way done, my friend.~
Right on cue, Lucy grunted; her sleeves rode up from the effort of lifting the next item of clothing to reveal a simple bracelet made from rosary peas in the same bright red as her hair. The culprit was what looked like a very expensive apron: expensive, because it was covered in gold embroideries of ivies, and each leaf was beaded with tiny gemstones that looked like diamonds, so probably were.
As soon as she managed to tie it at the back, the other two chambermaids set to work, pinning the apron to the dress all the way down either side.
The flighty, carefree lady in a white linen shift was no more. This weighed more than a belt-full of Glocks.
Next came a longline cardigan of cobalt-blue velvet, lined with cream fur. The sleeves reached beyond the ends of her hands. Lucy tugged at the bodice and threaded through the eyelets at the front of the cardigan. Even the silk ribbon that she used was embroidered with golden ivies.
Glocks were out of the question in this world, but would she be able to hide a war-hammer in those oversized sleeves? She’d always wanted to swing one of those, and weapons were a must for the completion of all her missions so far. Although this time, with this much gold at her disposal, she could throw it at some artists and ask them to come up with a facial composite of Miri, then paint thousands of wanted posters, and have her found in no time. Mission complete, without the need for a war-hammer. Maybe she should get two anyway, just in case, and it’d be easier to walk with the same weight strapped to her waist on each side.
~Focus!~ There it was: the something else in the real Claribel. Ari’s hackles went up. Should she end the spirit, or should she carry on their symbiotic relationship? ~Today is important. There’s no time to figure this out, so I need you to do this right. Lucy’s used the wrong ribbons. She needs to use the ivy ones.~
~No, no, no… Look at it! Those are the honeysuckle ones. I know you can’t see many flowers, but still. Honeysuckles symbolise happiness. We need ivy to start with. Ivy, for loyalty and devotion. Lucy’s accidentally mixed them up. We do need the honeysuckle for later, but we’re starting with ivy today!~
~I… well…~
‘Lucy, can you swap the ribbons? That one goes with the honeysuckle,’ said Claribel. ‘I need the top bit of the ribbons to peek through the velvet once you’ve pin that on.’
‘Oh! I’m so sorry, my lady, I mixed them up, I…’
‘You’ve managed to get Tarry’s girls to embroider the ribbons I’ve asked for on far too little time. That’s what you’ve done. Thank you for always bending to my whims.’
‘Oh my lady! I only try to help. I know how important it is to make a good impression on Sir Dagon.’
‘And Sir Beren. When you don’t know which one, go for both! Cast your net wide and haul in the whole ocean.’
The chambermaids giggled. The stiffness that they had within them when Ari had been in Claribel’s body melted into a soft and gentle flow. It was as if they could sense their beloved lady return.
Lucy weaved in the golden ivy ribbons, then pinned a triangular piece of velvet over the front, allowing only the gems in the underlayer near the neckline and a peek of the ribbons at the top glint through.
The others got out a giant golden open-top sunhat… or two, but instead of putting it on her head, they pulled her arms through each. They rolled the sleeves back to reveal a soft, blond fur lining inside, then pinned these to her biceps. It was nice to see her hands again. Just in time too, as Lucy pressed a jewelled tube into her palm. There was a raven on the twist cap, which was left open. Ari peeked inside. A strong smell of ginger and cardamom wafted out.
Was she on a timed mission in more ways than one? The body she inhabited did feel uncomfortably weak and frail.
~I’m not weak! It’s just for keeping my wind magic stable.~
‘It’s stormy over the Clarion Sea today,’ said Lucy. ‘Hubert’s report said you’ll need to hold steadfast from Kalais to Zete, so I’ve set aside ten pills for you today, my lady. There are only thirty left, so I’ve sent a message for the apothecarist to visit in two days’ time.’
Ari nodded and thanked her, but gazed out of the window, where the sunlight peeked in, and a warbler flitted past, flashing its sun-yellow feathers.
~In Aquilon. Back home. We’re in Eirene now!~
Eirene. That rang a bell. Wasn’t that the capital city of Ventinon, where the main character Rosalind showed kindness to a young, blond-haired apprentice in an apothecary?
Lucy clipped a belt of jewels around her waist and threaded a jewelled pouch into the belt. In went the tube of medicine, and on went a necklace with a pendant sapphire surrounded by diamonds, and earrings to match.
Wini pinned her braids up and draped a web of diamonds, pearls and sapphires over her hair while Patricia dabbed her lips and cheeks with some red liquid that smelled of strawberries.
As a finishing touch, Lucy pinned a golden raven that held an eye-symbol in its mouth next to a medallion of a four-pointed compass-like star onto the front of her dress. A grey-tinged diamond as large as an eye draped around her neck, oddly plain next to the sapphire pendant. The black metal bracelet that had sat at the foot of her bed snapped onto her wrist, and lay tucked away beneath the rich blue silks.
Ari stepped into a pair of gem-encrusted shoes, shoes littered with diamonds that will be hidden under her dress. The morning sun streamed into the room, throwing sparkling shapes all around her, shimmering and shifting with her every step. She had become a constellation of stars.