Silent Pain

24

"Donna? It's almost 2 in the morning, what are you doing?" Marie rounded the corner to find Donna in front of three body stands, each one had a nice red and green cloak attached to it. "Trying to get this done so I can send them to the girls." Marie looked at her curiously, "What are they?" She asked gently running her hand over the soft, heavy, and warm material.

"I'm making cloaks for Alcina's daughters, it's for Christmas.. which believe it or not is when the three girls woke up, so technically it's their birthday." Marie hummed as she looked at the beautiful broaches at the neck, connecting the two sides to keep the girls warm.

"Yes but... honey you should sleep, you haven't been getting good sleep here lately." Marie tried to reason with her until Donna stepped back and looked at her fiancee, "Only because I was working with this and this."

She pulled out a tall dummy with a wide-brimmed white hat with a black feather and some berries and a tall dress only made for Lady Dimitrescu, it was green and red which hung across her chest and showed her shoulders off. The material was velvet and soft, and across the shoulders was a beautiful fur scarf that had different colors and fit well with the dress.

The second dummy was slightly taller than Donna with a gold and white crow mask, her dress was white, green, and red. A darker red ribbon wrapped around the waist tied into a bow and it had long white feathers adorning the neck, wrists, and feet. Marie felt the texture and hummed, definitely something Miranda would love.

"These are beautiful dear but what is all this?" Donna looked up and sighed "For the Christmas celebration. The entire village will be there, well kinda." Donna shrugged "It's different... we do it mostly outside, however, since the girls can't celebrate because it's cold and snowy when we do gifts and food we move to the castle."

Marie sighed and sat down, Donna worked on the end of the cloak as she measured it out. "So if these are for the party... what about the presents?" Marie asked, "I have them prepared, they aren't wrapped though. Could you do me a favor and get boxes tomorrow while you're out?" She looked at Marie who nodded, "Of course. Anything else?"

Donna grabbed a list and handed it to her, Marie sighed and leaned back. "So what did you get Alcina?" Donna smiled "I got her some more paints, and canvas, as well as a personally designed, picked-out fabric and color then created her new gloves that would work with her claws." Marie hummed, "Mother Miranda?" "Something to help groom her feathers, some shiny jewelry, and even polished something she gave me a long time ago."

Donna pulled out a plaque with writing, "I also did something nice with the graveyards around here. I paid one of the helpers to clean them up, plant some non-hallucination flowers around them, and especially had them fix up Eva's grave for her." Marie hummed, "That sounds nice. What if she sees it?" "She won't, they won't get it done until Christmas Eve night, for now, it looks like they are just cleaning the leaves, blood, and whatever else is on the ground up."

"So if you got something for Miranda and Alcina, what about Karl and Salvatore?" Donna hesitated and sighed, "I made Karl a new trench coat, leather instead of hide with a warm inside and pockets on all sides. Sal I made him some shoes... he once told me that his feet hurt so I stuck it out, measured him, and made him some horsehide shoes."

Marie grimaced, "What about the girls?" "Bela I got more books, a cabinet she can put some things in, and some trinkets she would like. Cassandra is getting an upgrade once the armorer in town sends me the tools for it and Karl and I are building her a new sickle, her old one is getting rusty. I made her a nice corset for her dress. I created Daniela a tapestry with the woods, moon, flowers, and bunch more stuff."

Marie nodded thinking for a moment "What about Angie?" "I got her a new table so she can draw, this one is nice and she can't scratch anything into it, as well as some coloring books and dress-up stuff." Marie nodded and sat at her desk.