The Prophecy of Water | ✔️ 🎖 [2018 Wattys Shortlister]

CHAPTER 6-The Kitchens

I am such a silly person. It can't be improved. I was going in the wrong direction. I must focus on the new and leave ameliorations for the lesser minds.

LoG, 174

Nalina waited for the girls to lay the fabric over her now clean, fragrant body. Then she followed them without words, leaving The Lavatory. Countless times, she thought how glad she was that her servants knew the way back to her bedchamber.

Her face glowed with a joyful idea.

If it were up to me, I would most certainly get lost. Why doesn't someone place signs all over The Mushroom? It would really be helpful, for example, to take one corridor, and suddenly see a wooden signpost that says "The Dining Room" or "The Lavatory." So I would definitely not lose my way, and poor girls wouldn't have to keep me company running around with me everywhere. Oh, or even better! 

I only ever go to The Lavatory, The Kitchens, The Dining Room and my bedchamber. So, four different coloured thick threads should be placed along the corridors, and they could lead me to those rooms. I wonder if I should suggest that to my mother.

"Your Highness, we have arrived," the girls said in unison, and thus interrupted yet another of her associative strings of mental images.

"Yes, I'm sorry, I got lost in thoughts," Nalina replied and walked behind them into the bedchamber.

In there, every power they had over her stopped. No matter how hard they tried, the servant girls never managed to be the ones to dress Nalina.

A tiny smile danced around her lips. Such small victories make my day, she laughed, putting on a simple green dress and soft dark-green satin shoes.

Then, however, Nalina patiently sat before the boudoir. She allowed them to properly comb her hair, which still showed signs of dampness.

"Hairdo, Your Highness?" desperation could be heard in the voice of one of the girls.

"Oh, don't worry, leave it to fall freely. I don't want any special hairstyle," Nalina took advantage of her status to issue this order.

"As Your Highness Commands," the maid replied sourly. The other servant spoke next.

"Make-up, Your Highness?"

Nalina shook her head once. The stubborn girl was resolved to enumerate all possibilities to her like she did every Light.

"Skin bleach, eyebrow painting, eyeshadow, blush, lipstick?"

Nalina shook her head sharply five times.

The girls' fingers then scattered all over her face like tiny mud crabs, and both of them attacked Nalina's eyebrows with tiny wooden pincers.

The torture lasted for a few minutes until they finally let her go.

"I suppose I couldn't say no to the arranging of my eyebrows," Nalina said in a grievous voice, casting an almost imperceptible smile to one of her maids. "Thank you for everything you did for me this Light. See you tomorrow!" She waved them goodbye.

Fortunately, they didn't have to remove the hair from my entire body this Light. Of, how that hurts.

"Your Highness." The girls retreated from her bedchamber walking backwards, bowing all the time.

When she was left alone, Nalina threw herself on a vast bed and ridiculed the absurdity of the situation as she did every Light. "All right, maybe we made progress here. Or not." She said out loud, without caring if someone could hear her.