"I wish that we could just stay home," Royal Magician Lillet Blan admitted with a sigh.
This was not the usual reaction of a nineteen-year-old girl to the prospect of a Court Society ball. This was particularly the case when the girl in question was clever and personable and moreover had blossomed from the childlike cuteness she'd had at sixteen into a tall, curvaceous womanly beauty that was sure to catch many an approving eye.
"It's too bad that I couldn't have packed in some etiquette lessons when I was stuck in looping time at the Tower," she continued. If I'd had known Hiram was a prince, I'd have spent a hundred loops or so having him play tutor!"
Amoretta giggled even as she pulled the laces of her lover's dress tighter. The young women had played lady's-maid for one another, since their servant Gaff was both male and an elf.
"I don't think it will be that bad, Lillet."
Lillet sighed heavily.
"Maybe not, but I don't think it'll be good, either. I hate these things."
The problem was that Lillet had been born into the peasant class; her family were farmers. Indeed, one of the reasons she'd so enthusiastically pursued a career in magic was so that she could help support her family and pay for her little brothers to go away to school. Her eligibility to be on the dance floor instead of among the kitchen staff at the Marchioness Livingston's ball was based entirely upon her skill in magic, not her bloodline. Like Court ministers, Church hierarchs, or military commanders, Royal Magicians were automatically members of Society, and it was important to live up to that for the sake of positively presenting themselves to those with power and influence.
Lacking the years of formal training in etiquette and deportment that the highborn received, Lillet spent much of her time at social functions desperately afraid that she'd put a foot wrong. Sometimes literally, if dancing was involved, though that at least she'd gotten the hang of through practice.
She looked at herself in the mirror, taking stock of what she saw. As a little girl, she'd often imagined herself a princess at a ball, and the truth of the matter was, she still felt like that little girl playing dress-up. It didn't matter that her violet dress with black accents was done in the latest style by a fashionable
modiste. The bare shoulders and strapless neckline, the black gloves that came up past the elbow, the pearl ear-drops, they all seemed less like a wardrobe but toys, like how the child Lillet had worn a chain of flowers and pretended it was a tiara.
"You look lovely," Amoretta said. The simple statement gave Lillet a small tingle of relief; Amoretta never gave insincere compliments; in fact one of their nastier fights as a couple had come about because she'd been a little
too honest about one of Lillet's early, fumbling attempts at presenting herself to Society.
That memory sent the butterflies to flight in her belly yet again.
"Thank you, little love. You look really beautiful, too." And she did, in an icy pale confection like a frozen waterfall. Instead of gloves, she wore detached sleeves like those of her fantastical outfit from the Silver Star Tower, and her hands were bare. "And I'm really happy that you can come with me."
The invitation had been to them both, not even to Lillet "and guest," since the one giving it knew very well of the young women's relationship. The identity of the inviter was good and bad, though, because it was the reason Lillet couldn't just invent a reason to duck out of her responsibility to attend. Lady Emily Livingston, the marchioness's older daughter, was herself a Royal Magician who had been one of the primary people to help Lillet learn and adapt to Court etiquette.
Which just goes to show my point about how I'm afraid of making a mistake. Mistress Livingston spends ninety percent of her time dressed in an old gray smock and canvas apron because of all the burns and chemical spills she gets in her Alchemy laboratory,but this is all second nature to her since she's been trained for it since childhood.
That wasn't entirely fair, though. After all, the reason it was so important for Lillet to attend the ball was that Mistress Livingston
had chosen the Alchemy laboratory over the social round. Her mother had insisted that she attend the ball, though, because Emily's younger sister Rowena was making her debut this Season and it was important that Mistress Livingston attend in order to show to Society that she wasn't some kind of strange eccentric whose reputation would in turn reflect poorly in the family on a whole.
It's all so silly! And yet fortunes could be won and lost, political alliances made and broken over such trifles, things that might eventually trickle down and affect the well-being of hundreds or thousands of people affected by the actions of the families involved. To say nothing of the more immediate consequences to Lady Rowena, whose chances of making the marriage that she wanted might be sharply curtailed if her sister proved to be a social embarrassment. All because of how things went at a society ball!
As for why
Lillet needed to be there, well, Mistress Livingston needed support. Part of it was just personal: obviously, since she'd gone to work as a Royal Magician, most of her friends and close companions were themselves magicians, and friendly faces always helped. More than that, though, was the fact that other Royal Magicians would in turn reflect well on the position itself, on the respectability of the Royal House of Magic as an institution and therefore upon Lady Emily's choice. Royal Magicians had the status brought by their position, but Society wasn't entirely sure if they were
respectable or not.
Lillet sighed and said aloud, "I just can't see how a farmer's daughter is the best choice for showing off the Royal House of Magic's claim to social respectability."
"
Lillet," Amoretta said firmly, "there are very good reasons why you are the perfect person to be the face of magic. You are a beautiful young woman, and you're intelligent, personable, clever, and kind. You are exactly the kind of person who makes a good impression, and helps convince people that magic itself isn't frightening or evil."
"I...don't know what to say."
Amoretta closed her arms around Lillet's waist from behind. The slender woman's warmth seemed to flow through her soothingly.
"You're just frightened, dearest. I know that this isn't something you're comfortable with, but I'm sure that you'll be fine. I know that you're nervous because you're not as comfortable with formal society as you are with magic or casual conversation, but I also know that you have all the knowledge that you need to be everything Mistress Livingston needs from you."
"I wish I had as much faith in myself as you have in me."
"Well, it's not hard for me to have faith in you when you've already saved my life twice, by rescuing me along with everyone else at the Silver Star Tower from the Archmage and Grimlet, and then by giving me a reason to live. What are a few over-proud lords and ladies next to that?"
"At least with Archmage Calvaros, I could feed him to a demon," Lillet snarked. "I can't do that to those society folk."
"Do
they need to know that?" Amoretta said, smiling softly. Seeing the expression in the mirror, Lillet turned and smiled back, sliding her fingertips along Amoretta's cheek, following the slightly sharp angle of her jaw.
"Why, Amoretta, you're not suggesting that I deliberately deceive them, are you?"
Amoretta let out a little gasp, eyes widening.
"Lillet, you know I wouldn't say that!" She then broke into a blush, looking down. "I just thought, well, it's like tact, isn't it? I don't think that anyone is likely to
ask if you'll turn them into a toad for being rude to them."
Lillet chuckled.
"You must be really concerned for me if you're willing to suggest taking advantage of a lie by omission, even if it doesn't involve me actually omitting anything."
"Of course I'm concerned. I love you."
"I know you do, and I love you, too."
It was interesting, in that Amoretta could literally feel the sustaining force of Lillet's love, but she liked to hear it in words as well. Lillet thought there must be a message there about communication, but wasn't sure exactly how. But she was more than happy to tell the homunculus how she felt a dozen times or a hundred times each day.
Sometimes, the truth was easy.
Lillet looked at her reflection in the mirror again.
"Do you think I'm ready, then? I feel kind of naked without my hat." She suppressed the urge to reach up and touch her hair, for fear that the slightest pressure might knock several pins loose and send the whole mass cascading down over her bare shoulders.
"Hmm, I think with your hair up, it draws attention to your neck and shoulders," Amoretta decided after a few moments' study. "Some kind of jewelry would help break up the plainness of it, I think."
Lillet studied the effect in the reflection and decided that her lover had a point.
"I see what you mean, but I don't have any jewelry, at least not suitable to wear to a society ball. I could let my hair down and change the style so it doesn't emphasize my bare neck as much."
"No, wait, I have something."
Amoretta went over to their wardrobe, opened it, and from her side extracted a small wooden box. She brought it over to Lillet.
"May I?"
"Of course."
"Close your eyes."
Obediently, Lillet let her eyelids drift shut.
Amoretta turned Lillet back towards the mirror, then took something out of the box. Her fingers lightly stroked Lillet's neck, her touch cool, and the Lillet felt a satin slipperiness move into place, sliding across her flesh in what was almost a caress. The cold touch of metal followed at the back of her neck as a buckle was fastened, securing something in place with a gentle pressure encircling her throat.
"All right, you can open them now."
Lillet opened her eyes and looked into her reflection. What Amoretta had put around her neck was an inch-wide black satin ribbon, edged in pale violet lace that matched the color of Lillet's dress. Set at the front was an amethyst in a thin gold setting, delicately cut into a cameo of a woman's face in profile.
"It's lovely, Amoretta!"
"I originally bought it for you as an anniversary gift, but then I decided you could really use it for the ball."
"You're right, and I adore it." She brushed her fingers over the stone, which was her favorite color. "Do you know, with a little imagination, I think the cameo looks something like you."
Amoretta smiled shyly at that. Lillet had the feeling that her lover liked the idea that Lillet was wearing something that reminded her of Amoretta.
"Well, then, little love, shall we be off?"
She offered her arm, and Amoretta took it, sliding her hand along Lillet's gloved forearm as she did.
"We shall indeed."
They picked up their cloaks and left the suite. Gaff, the elf boy who was Lillet's servant, was waiting outside. He stared at them, his ears even going a little red.
"You...you look nice, both of you," he stammered out, making it plain that he thought they looked a lot better than "nice" but was too embarrassed to gush.
"Thank you, Gaff," Amoretta said.
"Yes, thank you," Lillet said. "Is the carriage ready?"
"Yes, Lillet. It's No. 4 in the mews."
As a Royal Magician, Lillet would have been entitled to take a carriage from the Palace mews while on official business. But since there were rarely enough carriages in service to keep the drivers busy at any one time, they would often hire themselves out to Palace residents who didn't keep a carriage of their own. It was a little more expensive, but considerably cleaner, more comfortable, and more reliable than a hackney cab. The carriage was waiting for them just as Gaff had arranged; as the two women approached, the driver stepped away from the horses, his many-caped greatcoat flapping around his ankles, and opened the door. He flipped down the step and prepared to help them in, but Lillet climbed up by herself, using the door-handle for support, then turned and extended a hand to assist Amoretta. They settled themselves on the seats, facing opposite one another.
"Glenmorrow House, please," Lillet told the driver. "In the New City, on St. Valin's Circle."
"Yes, Mistress Blan," he said, touching the brim of his high hat at her, then closed the door. In a moment, they heard the creak of him climbing up into his seat and the snap of the reins before the carriage jolted into motion.
"So, we're on our way," Lillet said. The butterflies in her stomach had receded a bit, soothed by the warming sensation she'd gotten from Amoretta's closeness and her gift, but were starting up again. There was, she supposed, no permanent antidote possible to her nerves. It was like magical combat; only experience, familiarity, and success made it something where logical risk-assessment and calm analysis replaced fear.
Hopefully, it won't take centuries' worth of recurring time loops for me to adapt to this.
Amoretta leaned forward and squeezed Lillet's knee.
"It's going to be all right, Lillet, really it is."
The carriage rattled across the cobblestones, wheel-rims echoing and banging. Luckily, the Palace mews kept its vehicles in top condition; each machine was well-sprung so very little of the bouncing was transmitted to the occupants.
"I'm sure that you're going to have a wonderful time."
She held Lillet's gaze for a long moment while she said it, and her fingers continued to exert gentle pressure, lingering for a bit more than the reassuring gesture required. Too, she had leaned a bit
too far forward, more than it would take for her to reach out comfortably, and it caused Amoretta's pelisse to open, which simultaneously left Lillet with quite a direct view of the way her décolletage framed her high, firm breasts.
In the next moment, Amoretta sat back up, composing herself on the seat once again, but Lillet was left with the lingering memory. Had Amoretta been deliberately flirting with her? If so, it had worked, leaving a different kind of nervous tingle in Lillet's belly.
She thought at first to respond, but after a moment's consideration decided not to. If Amoretta had meant it as an invitation to suggestive banter, it would have been more obvious, without a question. As she hadn't, she'd had something else in mind—or Lillet was completely misinterpreting her gesture and she'd meant it only to reassure.
Lillet hoped that that wasn't the case. It was only to be expected that she'd appreciate her lover's appearance, savor her touch, let her eyes linger on the curves of her body. That was part of
being lovers, to
be attracted to one another, the sensual memories they'd made together part and parcel of the love they shared, the relationship they'd built between themselves. But she didn't like to ascribe motives to Amoretta and then be wrong about them, particularly of that kind.
They'd been together for over three years now, after all. Even though Amoretta's actions weren't always what a human's would be, Lillet still ought to be able to tell if her lover was flirting with her!
Amoretta uncrossed her legs, then recrossed them with the other leg on top. She wasn't looking directly at Lillet, but instead giving her a sidealong (
teasing?) glance.
"I meant to ask this earlier," she said, "but is there anything important that you think might happen tonight, or that I need to be aware of?"
Lillet thought it over. Any major Society event was guaranteed to involve by its very nature any amount of political maneuvering. The Season wasn't just an opportunity for the young and eligible nobility to meet one another and perhaps ally themselves with an equally eligible match, but for all manner of alliances and factions to be shaped, the future of the kingdom shaped. As the saying went, their battles were fought at the ball. But that was in general terms only, not in preparation for anything specific.
"Lady Emily didn't mention anything that I needed to worry about, so I don't think that you have anything to be concerned with." She smiled and added with genuine relief, "I'm glad of it, too! I'm nervous enough without having any specific objectives."
"Thank you. I didn't want to accidentally create any trouble."
"I don't think you'd do that. Honestly, Amoretta, you're better at this sort of thing than I am. You're no more ignorant about the rules of Court Society than I was, and you remember them better, plus you're a lot more graceful at dancing."
"Even if I do always want to lead?" Amoretta said, and this time Lillet
knew she was teasing.
"Well, you know that I don't mind when the girl I love wants to direct things." This sally drew a blush, and Amoretta shifted slightly in her seat. "But mostly," Lillet returned to the topic, "I think it's because you don't care as much. I mean, it really doesn't matter to you personally, so you just go and present yourself as you are and that's all there is to it. It doesn't really matter to you, not really, if they accept you or not except for my sake, so you're more comfortable with it all."
"Why does it matter to you?" Amoretta wondered. "I understand about wanting to present the right impression for magicians, and to help Mistress Livingston, but I'm not sure that I see why it is that winning their approval is important to you for yourself."
Lillet shrugged. It wasn't actually a hard question.
"Because I'm a peasant girl dressed up among the rich and powerful. Without my magic, I'd never get the opportunity to walk through the door unless I took a job as a serving-maid. Nothing in my life ever prepared me to expect something like this. And as for my magic, everyone thinks of me as a genius prodigy, who can do things no one's ever imagined, and the reality is that I'm not a prodigy; I've just had centuries longer to practice."
Amoretta looked at her for a few seconds, then nodded as if coming to come conclusion, leaned forward, and flicked the tip of Lillet's nose.
"Ow!"
"I told you to stop saying that. It's good that you don't get puffed up with pride about your abilities, but false modesty is just as bad as arrogance."
Lillet rubbed her nose.
"It wasn't false modesty. I wasn't pretending to be humble."
"It's false because you're wrong. If you hadn't had the potential to be a great magical talent, you would never have been approved to go to the Silver Star Tower in the first place. You've had advantages in developing that, but you had to use them yourself, and if you had the opportunity, then you had to make use of
that to work and to practice and to study and to
earn every bit of that knowledge and power under conditions that I can't imagine that any person could conveniently understand. I scarcely comprehend how you could have kept your sanity, let alone to be the wonderful person that I love!"
Her eyes were flashing scarlet, and Lillet actually recoiled back into her seat at the sheer forcefulness of Amoretta's words.
"So no, perhaps you are not truly a genius prodigy who mastered magic to rival the Archmage's befofre turning twenty, but that power and that magic are real, and they're yours honestly, not gained through some trick or fraud. I don't like it when you don't give yourself enough respect."
"Amoretta, I...I don't know what to say."
"I would suggest that you apologize, and promise to pay more attention next time. It really upsets me when you talk that way about yourself."
"I'd like to, but...I promise that I'll try, at least. It's not always easy, especially when I'm not dealing with magic directly, but just society. I'll try as hard as I can, for your sake, though."
"It's for
your sake that it's important to me, Lillet."
"Well, for my sake, too, then." She grinned, and wriggled her nose. "At the least, I'm sure that you'll be there to remind me when I go wrong again."
Amoretta smirked, something that she did perhaps once a year (she was really more of the matter-of-fact type when she was right about something rather than the smug sort), so Lillet returned the look.
"So, then," she quipped, "at least I got treated to something rare."
Smugness was replaced by surprise on her lover's face.
"What do you mean?"
"Mmn, that's a secret, little love," Lillet teased, and fending off Amoretta's attempts to find out what she meant kept her nerves at bay right up to the gates of their destination.
~X X X~
A/N: The line, "their battles are
fought at the ball," which I paraphrased here, was originally from Masquerades
, by Jeff Grubb and Andria Heyday. It clearly stuck in my head, because I thought it was a more famous quote, but I didn't find any other attribution.