bait_backup | Family built of blood and rust, find a place because we must

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Family built of blood and rust, find a place because we must

It’s awfully white, don’t you think?

*Not that it’s any sort of a surprise, exactly. This is the third fitting in as many weeks and she’s watched in the mirror as the dress has taken shape around her: bracelet-length sleeves, the tight and shiny cuirass of the bodice, a great bloom of voluminous skirts, all blinding and brilliant white.

It was really the only choice. The wedding is to be more Esmerelda’s than either of theirs, a placatory gift to soothe her, or at least distract her, from the marriage that has somehow earned her permission if not exactly her blessing. To that end it’s to be a thoroughly Anglo wedding, of course, and the past few weeks have been a bewildering swirl of alien customs and oh-but-we-must-have’s: an extensive menu and flower arrangements and musicians and other things that Amrita has simply nodded her head at numbly. And of course the thing simply demands a white dress. Evan’s favorite pastime may be indulging her every last whim but the truth is, if Amrita is to carve out even the barest facsimile of peace with this woman, now or ever, it won’t do to rub her face in it--to add public insult to injury, to put a baldly obvious face on the scandal and stalk down the aisle in scarlet like a fallen woman in a wireless serial.

But it made a decent bluff. To that end she’d done her time at Craven and Stone and had come up with armloads of distraction: heavy books of traditional zardosi embroidery, of court paintings of Rajput and Maratha brides, each and every one one in brilliant red and gold. It had worked, and Amrita had gotten mostly what she wanted otherwise, and she is mostly very pleased with what she sees. But there’s a bit of a helpless chill, now, as she looks at the white-gowned girl in the mirror: she’s helplessly reminded of her mother in mourning at her own bedside, of every widow in her wide extended family--not an auspicious connotation by any means.

Antoinette Bertille herself is there, a stout and silly woman with a mop of red curls who is fussing over Amrita with pincushion in hand. As she makes her little adjustments here and there, the woman’s gaze flickers nervously between where Amrita stands on the little pedestal before the mirror and the chair where Esmerelda is enthroned in silence.*

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*If there is any saving grace in all this mess, it is that the girl is a worthy opponent in this sparring match. While Esmerelda was occupied with her own horror at each passing painting of brides resplendent with enormous nose hoops and red paint down her part, Amrita managed to wrestle the seamstress into zardosi instead of the clean, barely-embroidered lines of the dress that Esmerelda has envisioned. This is to be a compromise, and she knows it, but if the monstrous bride thinks she will walk the aisle draped in blood red, Esmerelda will simply cancel with St Agatha’s and try to find something in the subcontinent, where such a thing would be mostly safe from prying eyes.*

Perhaps we shall try ecru, Antoinette. It’s still not too late to alter the color.

*Pausing between pins, the woman seizes eagerly on the opportunity to break the tension, her smile just slightly overbright.

“Ecru would be marvelously flattering on your complexion.”

Antoinette is nervous and means well, but she’s also not exactly correct, and the difference between white and ecru is so not the point, and Amrita turns on her in an instant, her misgivings instantly shapechanging into snappishness. Her reply is colder than it ought to be, the silence after it stretching too long to be comfortable.*

Excuse me?

*Watching Antoinette stumble and gape like a fish is always amusing.

“I merely thought--I mean, I would never--”

But Esmerelda holds her hand up and Antoinette knows better than to continue. As if her complexion were the issue at hand.

She focuses all of her considerable attention down on Amrita’s face in the mirror. If the girl is to make a stand on the color of the thing, this is where she must do it. They’ve been dancing around it for weeks now and the time has come to show how serious she is about the matter. Her voice is not so syrupy sweet as it might be, but it is overbright and her smile is small and hard, her face perfectly impenetrable as carved marble.*

If you have a color in mind, dear, do tell us. I shan’t want you to be unhappy about your own wedding dress.

*She holds Esmerelda’s gaze for a moment, and then returns to her reflection, capitulating.*

It is lovely.

I do think the shoulder can come down just a hair.

*As the woman practically leaps to address it, Amrita holds properly still, but she’s still frowning slightly into the mirror, considering herself, her head tilting to the side.*

*The head-tilt and the little frown makes the poor thing look so much like a confused corgi that Esmerelda almost wants to offer her a biscuit and a pat on the head. Instead, she offers a concession of her own.*

Might you prefer a cool grey to a warm tone like ecru?

Antoinette, let’s see both to find which we prefer.

*With a hesitant wave of the woman’s wand, the dress cycles through a series of cool greys and a few varying shades of ecru. Amrita smiles politely through it but when it’s finished she gives her head just the tiniest little shake. Half-measures won’t do.*

*Esmerelda gives her wrist a little rotation. It’s become a habit since Evan broke it. Despite her own prodigious skill as a healer, and despite access to the very best in medical care, it still gives her pain on occasion.

Using it on the arm of her chair, she levers herself to her feet and draws her wand. Esmerelda doesn’t even speak to Antoinette; the flick of her wand is half gesture, half spell, and one opens the door for the woman to exit and the other indicates that she should do so silently and speedily and wait to be called upon again. The seamstress and her nervous, bustling energy, quite literally all pins and needles, finally leaves, and the heavy wooden door shuts behind her with a profound click.

The silence that falls is a heavy one, but at least it is silence, smooth and even as the glass in the mirror. Esmerelda takes two steps closer, still giving the girl a decent berth on her little pedestal, as one might a leashed and unpredictable dog.

With a wave of her wand, the dress turns brilliantly scarlet.*

Surely you see why this is impossible.

*Despite all her victories over Esmerelda--not least of which that they are in this room and having this conversation in the first place--she’s still a little frightened as the door shuts, as the woman raises her wand to her, but the dress changes color and that is all.

She allows herself only a quick and longing glance at the mirror--only a moment to imagine Evan’s face at the sight of her in it--and then she makes a small noise of assent.*

*The problem is that Esmerelda promised her son to make the hateful wretch happy, and the little glance, the little noise she makes in her throat all tell her that she can’t quite entirely let this desire go unaddressed for fear of complaints. The girl is a brat and Evan is wrapped around her little finger.*

You are meant to honeymoon in the subcontinent. This--

*She moves her wand up the length of the still-red dress to indicate the whole thing, not just the color.*

--is what they’ll be expecting over there, isn’t it?

Not exactly.

*The red, certainly. The ballgown, not so much. She shrugs.*

We won’t be having anything indecent.

. . . However, the dress could be enchanted to change its color. At midnight, when you are to enter the vanishing cabinets.

*She gestures back to the mirror, as an invitation to possibility rather than a tease. There is a question in her tone, though she doesn’t actually ask anything.*

I would do it myself, naturally, to preserve the surprise.

*And make sure no one else knows about it, just like so much else, but the girl can infer that for herself. It’s just as much of a gift to Evan as it is to the girl, but as hard as it is to accept, he clearly cares for her happiness--and she for his. This serves them in both respects. They will become a feedback loop of happiness and, finally, Esmerelda hopes, there will come of it some amount of proper gratitude and respect for her own role in facilitating that happiness. She knows her son.*

*As she catches on, Amrita looks startled, almost touched--almost--and when she speaks it’s slowly, as if to a mantling hippogriff that has offered her a biscuit.*

That would be. . . lovely, actually.

Thank you.

*It feels strange in her mouth, and she rushes on quickly: in the next moment she’s pinched a generous fold of material at the waist of the dress and her voice has sharpened to something almost weaponized.*

Best wizarding atelier on the Continent, you’d think they could manage something as simple as not too big, this is the third time now she’ll have to take it in.

She must have heard the gossip.

*She raises a skeptical eyebrow at the blank look Amrita continues to give her.*

You do understand the story that everyone has decided upon in society regarding the speed of this wedding, dear? Or has my son preoccupied you so that you haven’t made it out just yet?

*She’s so disarmed by the first bit she can barely muster a nasty look for the rest.*

I’m sorry?

Oh, dear.

*She touches her fingertips to her lips.*

Darling, they think you’re with child.

*She takes her fingers away and lets out a real laugh, though there’s no shortage of bitterness in it. Of course, it is Esmerelda herself who has planted this rumor, but it’s a natural conclusion nonetheless, and she’s heard back about it in several forms.*

They think that’s why I’ve been forced to put this whole affair on with such ridiculous speed. The idea that my son is an impatient idiot hasn’t even crossed their minds.

What--what--but--but that’s--

*Her voice has risen an octave and she’s covered her open mouth with her hands, looking more like an affronted old matron than any twenty-one-year-old in a scarlet dress has any right to.*

--that’s absurd and I am perfectly trim and Evan is not an idiot, we are very much in love and there’s--there’s a war on and--that’s just--

Yes, I know, but that’s not the story that’s making the rounds.

*Esmerelda’s closed the distance between them and reaches out, using her flurry of affronted movement to find places where the dress still fits poorly. The waist, obviously, but at least the hip is finally correct, and so is the bust. One of the sleeves looks just the tiniest bit short on her wrist, though. She tugs at it gently, frowning.*

It’s a boon, dear. When you don’t come out with a child nine months from now, or look big as a boat seven months from now, they will think you’ve miscarried and then no one will speak more on it due to the tragedy of the whole thing.

*She’s dropped her hands, automatically keeping very still as Esmerelda adjusts her this way and that, and it’s only after an indecorous few seconds that she remembers to close her mouth.*

I--well.

It’ll be all pats on the head and sympathy flowers, and that will be that. You’ll be sequestered for a bit, but it’s more boring than it is anything else. I can walk you through it.

*She purses her lips, and she must know, but it will have to be an exchange of information. So: she has something to offer, her own little tragedies, in exchange for what this girl thinks of heirs and grandchildren, or if she intends to take that from Esmerelda as well. Certainly Evan can no longer be trusted to be sensible about things.*

I should have learnt my lesson after the first two times and had Evan and a sister for him grown in a cauldron.

*Instinctively she shies away from oh-I’m-sorry or whatever polite little platitude is supposed to go here, but her face softens, almost despite itself.*

That’s the idea, I think, for us. Or a surrogate.

...It won’t matter if it’s not mine. If it’s Evan’s, I’ll love it.

*Amrita says it oddly fiercely, as if Esmerelda had expressed doubts--she sounds more than a bit like a child herself.*

Good.

*The pronouncement comes with a sharp nod.*

I know the appropriate people to speak with about it. When the time comes, I’ll make introductions for the pair of you. I would have done it myself if Dearborn hadn’t been so set against it. I’m sure you can imagine.

Won’t he disapprove, then?

*It’s more curious, more shrewd, than worried. Now that the wedding is a done deal( and coming on awfully quickly, now--is it really only a week--however did that happen?) Amrita has begun gauging how the marriage will go. How, on the far side of the 27th of June, she is to fit into this family, as she inevitably must.*

In this particular case, what Dearborn doesn’t know can’t hurt him.

Fair enough.

Perhaps we ought to--

*She gestures at the dress, a little awkwardly--her wand is on a little table out of reach.*

*She waves her wand, and the dress goes stark white once more, but the interrogation isn’t over, not by any stretch. They’ve finally reached an understanding and Esmerelda is going to cling to it as long as the girl lets it last.*

And you feel comfortable raising children despite Evan’s . . . hobbies?

Evan and I have a good deal in common.

Do you now.

I should hope so, we're to be married in a week.

*And it begins to fall into place.*

Tell me, precisely how much have you . . . shared.

Everything.

I see.

*Esmerelda takes a few steps around the girl, surveying the dress from all possible angles, as if some seam or bead should have shown the fact that Amrita is a killer as well.*

It's not all fun and games, you know. Evan has duties to fulfill in that arena. If he has truly shared everything with you, I'm sure you know what I'm referring to?

*She resists the urge to turn, to track Esmerelda over her shoulder, and instead looks evenly into the mirror.*

I do.

Dearborn shares those duties, but if you were widowed, you would be in a very different situation than I would be in, I think. Have you given that any thought?

*She’s gone very still, now, looking again at the white-gowned girl in the mirror, and for a moment she wants very badly to take it back, to issue ultimatums and throw tantrums and force Evan to intercede until she gets what she wants: a ceremony she knows and understands and precisely the right thing to wear, not this widow’s mockery. But the moment passes, and she speaks quietly into the mirror, not meeting Esmerelda’s eyes.*

I have.

*She keeps her eyes on the girl, sharp and unblinking.*

This entire family stands with Him. Myself included, though I am not part of the army itself, as a means of protecting the business if anything were to go--awry. By joining the family, you join Him. You may be called upon in service, as would any children you might have.

And if I have already, in one way or another? You’ll notice he’s in possession of both arms.

*Esmerelda starts.*

He didn’t say--

*She shuts her mouth, narrowing her eyes.*

Tell me what happened. Was it the most recent excursion?

*Excursion. That’s certainly one way of putting it. Her stomach does a little flip-flop and she lowers her eyes from Esmerelda’s.*

The ninth. I was waiting up, and--that was all. He’s fine now, obviously.

*It’s not obvious, but--fine, she’ll trust the girl’s judgement. If anything, she has more invested in Evan’s well-being than Esmerelda herself.*

Clearly I underestimated you.

But you see what I mean. Another bride, from a related family--they would already know, I wouldn’t have to ask. If you weren’t aware, or if your allegiances lay elsewhere, there would have to be arrangements to ensure my family’s safety, if you find such loyalties too compromising. Weaker women might shy from such things.

*She pauses, and tugs on the sleeve again. It’s as close to an apology as she’ll ever come.*

I’m glad he’s involved you. It’s best to be involved.

--does it help? With Dearborn, I mean. Aren’t you--

*The word she is trying to say is worried, but it is so pathetically inadequate that she can’t even manage it, and she has no idea how they ended up having this conversation in the first place, and all in all she almost prefers sniping at one another over lace versus zardosi and the size of the crinoline to the bewildering frankness that is suddenly coming out of Esmerelda--or herself, for that matter. Regretting having said anything at all, Amrita just lapses into a fidgety silence.*

Of course I worry. But at least I know when and where to worry instead of constantly. I wait up as well, and the rest of the nights I sleep soundly. Don’t you?

*She only shrugs. The answer, of course, is no--she doesn't sleep through the night very often at all--but that is neither here nor there.*

Dearborn has been in the service for years and years and he’s always managed to limp along home to me.

*She plucks at the shoulder of the gown again, but it’s more of a fussing, motherly motion this time than one intended to criticize the dress and the woman in it.*

We should get Antoinette back in to fix this. It’s a mess, for being so close to the wedding.

*Amrita seizes on the change of subject with obvious gratitude, speaking acidly.*

It certainly is.

*She rolls her eyes and looks the dress over again.*

They produce lovely work here--it’s beyond compare--but their precision is oft enough found wanting. I have a Russian tailor who is much better getting the fit perfect, if that’s paramount, but I think we need the kind of creative vision this place will give us for your dress. I find that right around the third fitting it all just comes together. But, of course, one must find the time for three fittings--

*Esmerelda points her wand to the door again. The woman waiting outside, slouched against the opposite wall with her heap of measuring tape and pins, starts and then steps back into the room.*

We’ve come to a decision, I think. We will stay on white. But the fit about her middle is still abominable.

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Family built of blood and rust, find a place because we must

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