Magic Knight Rayearth Fan Fiction ❯ The Glaciers' Widow ❯ matris vestis ( Chapter 6 )

~*Matris vestis*~

*The gown of the mother*

" What?!"

A voice shouted in the last daylight. Countess Alcyone watched astonished -almost upset- her stepdaughter. Fuu was still watching the floor, being afraid to be incinerated by her stepmother's glances.

" I-I..."

" Fuu, thou don't have apologies! " Alcyone yelled she then mellowed " Fuu, my petty wren, haven't thou care of thy health? More times Arosa have told thou how long and tiring these balls art, especially for a young woman that isn't accustomed: thou have other schedules, you haven't ever been awake until dawn. Moreover we must not forget that till some suns ago thee weren't able to get up."

" I know it, mother. But I couldn't do other! I could have said no if a dame invited me, but it has been the Emeraude Princess to ask it, she has insisted so much! Refusing I would have made her a great offense. I... I assure thou that I won't stay more than the due."

Alcyone felt her anger grow and grow inside her: a Princess Emeraude's wish, it was an order for everybody. Alcyone hated Emeraude with all herself: that silly, fatuous and cheap princess dared address to her and her daughter as to kitchen maids and when they spoke, in her voice there was an impatient note of resentment and annoyance. Luckily very soon Emeraude would leave Djarjel to marry Sol Zagato. That man was an other attrition's point between the Princess and the Countess: Zagato was one of the few men in whole Sephiro that Alcyone hadn't had, and she continued to desire him even if he had twenty winters less than her. Alcyone had tried in each way to have him, or at least to part him from Emeraude without any result. And now also Fuu's annoyance.

For how a fond mother she appears, the Countess hated the Baroness of Acquaviva and with her all the Jucher and their extreme good morals: their convictions were so foolish and primitive! Besides, the Duke didn't have still forgotten his first wife, Klelia: Alcyone remembered with anger the wedding's day, when she had made notice to his husband the absurdity to hold hung on the fireplace the Baroness' portrait and had proposed to put it in the cellar. The Duke became infuriated and said that nothing and nobody would have touched /his/ Klelia's portrait.

Klelia. Alcyone also hated her second husband's dead wife, it looked as if the Baroness annoys her even from afterlife: this because they paragon her gesture, her word with the dead woman's one. Alcyone didn't admit that anybody was better than her, above all a weak and sickly woman -and Jucher in addition- as Klelia. Alcyone was a woman full of hate, hate that fed her ambitions: with Arosa queen and mother of the future heir, nobody /nobody/ would have dared to blame her the past. But the ambition required patience too, calm and a distraction: appear a good wife and an loving mother, that takes care of her stepdaughter as if she was her own daughter, was her coverage.

Alcyone was about to scold the stepdaughter again, when a red haired girl came in the tent running and laughing to throw at Fuu's neck.

" Hi Fuu-chan! I didn't see the time to be again with thou!"

" Cough, with permission."

An other girl said on the entrance. The Countess looked the two new guests and turned pale: Lady Hikaru was literally choking Fuu and Lady Umi -the Prime Minister's niece- glanced at Alcyone waiting her invitation. When Hikaru lets her, Fuu smiled to Umi and said with a bow:

" Welcome Lady Umi: please, make thyself comfortable."

The dame glanced at a second Alcyone and sat on a stool.

" Don't thou have still learned to call me simply Umi? Hikaru, how much times I must tell thee to don't choke the people?! It's so few ladylike come in without permission, in that way!"

Hikaru made a face and sat close her cousin. Fuu too sat on a stool.

" Ah, mother, forgive me if I have allowed them to come in at thy place."

" Don't worry. " Alcyone smiled mannered " Instead, it's a pleasure for me that thou have some friends. Well, I go to prepare me."

The Countess ended going in her alcove. Fuu called Presea and told her to serve the tea.

" As thou have seen," Fuu whispered, " my stepmother isn't at all an unpleasant woman, on the contrary, she has much care of me."

" I think the thing stinks."

Umi said twisting her nose. At that time Mokona jumped on Umi's head, messing her hairdo, and it then jumped on Hikaru's womb. Fuu scolded her pet:

" Mokona! Don't be rude with our guests! Apologize it, but for how much I try, I am not able to make it become more obedient."

" It's just its way to show its happiness, isn't it, li'll one?"

Hikaru said poking its nose. Umi sweat dropped.

" Thou are strange, Hikaru. Tell me, Fuu, what kind of beast is that? I haven't seen such a thing in my whole life, it seems a marshmallow!"

" Mokona is a boobon, one of the last. Lord Innova has one dappled, white and gray: Leve is a female, but I don't know what it is. It's very difficult understand a boobon's sex: not having had pups, I think that Mokona is a male, but it's also truth that it is the only in Acquaviva."

" And whoever is Lord Innova?"

Umi asked malicious.

" How 'whoever is Lord Innova'?! Lord Innova is my lady's promised husband!"

Presea answered with a leer serving the tea. Fuu blushed:

" Presea, what art thou saying?! Innova is just a dear friend."

" Yes, but thy grandfather would want that thou two got married. Tell me, where could thou find a young man so kind and refined?"

" Stop it Presea! Ever wanting I would not can: I... I must keep the promise that I have done to my mother."

Fuu whispered looking the fuming liquid in his cup. Presea sighed and in the mind scolded herself: those words had made remember a disagreeable event of the Baroness and the nurse's life. Hikaru didn't understand the reason of the sudden silence, and seeing Fuu so disturbed, saddened her. After have exchanged a glance with Umi, Hikaru said:

" Fuu-chan, we were about to forget it! We have come to take thou: seen that thou don't have a dress for the party, we will lend thou one of ours and..."

" No! Absolutely no!" Presea exclaimed, " A Jucher must dress like a Jucher!"

" Nurse," Umi said " thy mistress doesn't have proper clothes: the Princess told me to lend one of ours dresses to the Baroness!"

" No, a Jucher couldn't dress like a Miargios! Luckily the Baron is a provident man and has asked me to carry all the required: dresses, jewels, shawls, everything. In half hour I could dress and arrange my lady."

The three young women looked shocked the nurse. After a quick consultation, Umi and Hikaru decided to wait that Presea dresses Fuu and went with them in the tent's angle reserved to Fuu.

Hikaru and Umi saw the shadow of the two women project on the screen's cream silk: Presea pulled drawstrings and tightened knots, she arranged laces and pleats, she arranged hair and she gave a light veil of powder on Fuu's face. After about twenty-five minutes, Fuu showed. She wore the Jucher women's traditional dress, a shirt with wide sleeves that covered her hands and a skirt, both of white fine linen hemmed with white pillow-lace; a forest green cashmere gown also hemmed with white pillow-lace; two curls framed her face, while a thin braid decorated by velvet edelweiss wrapped her head and the hair was picked by a white cotton crotchet net with four-leaf-clovers; her lips were a delicate cerise and her face made whiter by the powder. Hikaru clapped her hands and exclaimed:

" Wow Fuu-chan! Thou art indeed gorgeous: thou'll be the ball's more admired lady! Won't she, Umi-chan?"

Umi looked amazed the friend and admitted:

" Yes... I am surprised, Fuu: I had heard about the beauty of thy cloths and laces, but... but I wouldn't ever have imagined that. Hikaru is right: thou'll be this evening's more admired lady, even more than me!"

Fuu looked her friends with wide eyes and she then laugh with them. Few after, the Duke called the three girls and they reached him chatting happily as old friends. Duke Dessin addressed again to the girls urging them to hurry, he turned and he turned pale seeing his daughter.

" Kle-Klelia!"

He exclaimed grabbing Fuu's shoulders. Fuu looked surprised her father and asked:

" What happen, father? Thou art... thou art so pale."

Dessin opened his mouth to say something, and then closed it again and finally he answered caressing his daughter's cheek:

" Nothing Fuu-chan, it is only that... thou are so charming this evening. And then this dress... this dress was the same that thy mother wore the first time she went at the Sephirian court: so... so for one instant It has seemed me to see her again. Don't worry, I want that this evening thou'll have fun."

The father ended kissing Fuu's temple. Alcyone looked disgusted the scene, and it didn't escape her Umi's sneer.

The small group talked quietly while they reached the central open space, where there would have been the party: more and more often they met people, and everybody asked whoever was the pretty young girl in green.

" My goodness, she's my girl!"

Duke Dessin replied proud while his friends praised Fuu's beauty. Alcyone must stop Arosa, whom didn't like the admiration often addressed to her stepsister: the Countess must convince her daughter that that behavior bore from simple curiosity and not true admiration.

Hikaru, Umi and Fuu spoke about the dances; Umi was disposed to introduce somebody to Fuu with whom dance and she was pointing out one of her friends to the Baroness, when Hikaru said to the Duke:

" I hope that thou don't mind if Fuu-chan dines at our table, Duke Dessin."

The Duke looked shocked the girl, and more surprises were Alcyone and Arosa: in all the years that they had lived in court, to them it hadn't ever been granted to eat at the royal family's same table, even if Arosa and Ferio were joined by a marriage's promise! Arosa was about to express all her anger, but her mother anticipated her saying honeyed:

" What thou say, Lady Hikaru: these art a child's whims. Thou know very well that to nobody it is allowed to eat at the royal table without the King or the Prince's permission: Fuu will dine with us, but don't fear, thou'll spend together all the time that thou'll want."

"Thou art wrong, Countess: it is a /Princess Emeraude/'s wish to have Baroness Fuu at our table, and Prince Ferio has /already/ given his consent."

Umi spook quickly emphasizing the words "Princess Emeraude" and "already." Alcyone felt the anger grow even more inside her, but the calm was necessary: therefore she smiled, and she was said herself happy for her stepdaughter with her usual affectation.