Her Rightful Place

64: The Dresses

"Mireille, darling," Queen Généviève shrills from her daughter's antechamber, "it's time for your dress fittings!"

"I will be there in just a moment, Mother," Mireille calls back from her bedchamber, where she is frantically changing from her combat attire to a plain shift for the fittings. "Forgive me; the lesson before this ran long." She speaks true; combat training did run long, in no small part due to Neera's exceptional swordsmanship. She was trained in the Khandazarian style, which everyone present agreed is critical for Mireille and her ladies to be familiar with before attending the Midsummer's Eve Ball. Mireille, Christelle, and Monique are all of a mind to find a way to get Neera to Cloiche Fuar with them, but making that desire a reality will have to wait until after the day's dress fittings have concluded.

"Is it that time already?" Christelle grumbles as she enters Mireille's bedchamber from her own, then turns back to Neera, who is sitting on her bed. "Wait here. We don't know how long this will take, but make yourself at home. We have plans to sort out when this is over."

"You honor me," Neera replies modestly. Christelle smiles brilliantly before closing the door, and then she and Mireille rush to the Princess's antechamber, where the Queen and half a dozen Royal Seamstresses are waiting. Bijou has accompanied her mistress today and has completely enraptured Laetitia.

"Ah, there you are. What lessons could possibly be more important than dress fittings? The Midsummer's Eve Ball is but a week away!" Queen Généviève chastises her daughter.

"Nothing could be more important, Mother. The time slipped away from us, and for that I am sorry," Mireille responds. "Oh, you brought Bijou! Such a darling dog. Forgive me, but I have undertaken a bit of a project for Bijou. Clothilde, would you mind—?"

"It would be my pleasure, Your Highness," Clothilde, who had been conversing quietly with the Chief Royal Seamstress but has immediately caught on to the Princess's idea, interrupts. She does not want to spoil the surprise for Queen Généviève.

"Whatever it is, surely it can wait. Now, Mathilde, please show Princess Mireille what you have designed for her for this journey to Mordalce," Queen Généviève instructs. She is not in the mood for any sort of deviation from what she has planned. Mathilde, the Chief Royal Seamstress, obligingly pulls out a book of drawings to show Mireille. Up until this point, meetings with the Royal Seamstresses have mainly involved measuring every inch of the Princess's and her attendants' bodies and discussing preferred styles, fabrics, colors, and so on, but today they will finalize the plans for all of the gowns that will travel to Mordalce for the Midsummer's Eve Ball. Internally, Mathilde is screaming. She and Mireille have had a number of stylistic disputes in Mireille's brief time in the Palace of Roses, and she finds it absolutely maddening that Mireille alters her own clothing and that the results undeniably look better than anything she has designed herself. Still, it is her duty to obey the Queen, even if she wholeheartedly agrees with Mireille that the Princess should have complete control over her own wardrobe. It would make literally everyone involved happier and be much easier, but we cannot have that, because it violates The Etiquette! Mathilde scoffs silently.

"All right, Princess. For the journey from the Palace of Roses to Cloiche Fuar, we have this traveling dress, to be constructed in a lovely dark blue silk charmeuse, and then..." Mathilde continues, revealing that they will be arriving at Cloiche Fuar the day before the Midsummer's Eve Ball, meaning that Mireille absolutely must have not only a travelling dress and a gown for the Midsummer's Eve Ball itself but a gown for the afternoon and evening of the day before, a gown for the morning of, and additional clothes for at least two days after the Midsummer's Eve Ball.

"I had no idea we were staying at Cloiche Fuar so long, Mother," Mireille remarks, admirably hiding her internal panic at spending so much time in close proximity to Queen Bêtel.