A Light After Endless Darkness

Chapter 11

"Ah! Elizabeth, you're back!" Sydney explained, standing up from the table.

She smiled, holding the pie out in front of her. "Yes. I'm sorry, Aynna invited me over for pie, and I lost track of time."

"Well, now that you're here, I have something for you. A present, if you will."

Elizabeth perked up. Pie, presents, chickens, today just kept getting better, didn't it?

"Go into my study and look around. You'll know what the present is."

She looked at him, skeptical. "Your study," she repeated, certain that was the one room in the house she was not to enter (he hadn't said it, but it was implied heavily).

"Yes. You have my permission, it's fine," the old man pressed.

Elizabeth looked at her Master. Slowly, cautiously, she made her way to the door and opened it, gasping when she saw what was inside.

A mannequin stood in the center of the room, upon which was a gorgeous dress. The lavender silk sleeves travelled up to a white bodice, decorated in patterns of woven, gold threads that embroidered the entire thing, almost like a corset, but not quite. This fell off into a lavender, ruffled skirt that touched the floor in waves of flowing fabric.

"It's beautiful." Elizabeth whispered.

"Why thank you, I made it myself."

Elizabeth's breath hitched. "You made-?" But surprise took her final word before she could make it. Nobody had ever made her anything so beautiful before. The closest was Hagen's potato soup, and even that was an ugly puddle of slop compared to this work of art.

"Thank you." Elizabeth said after moments of gaping like a fish.

"Oh, it was nothing," said Sydney, blushing deeply. "Please, please try it on, I've wanted to see it on you for weeks."

Elizabeth cautiously slipped out of the blue dress she had been wearing since she arrived, and moved over to the beautiful gown.

The dress felt nothing like the one she'd worn to the previous ball. For one thing, she was not wearing a corset, which her ribs thanked her for. The silk was smooth, delicate on her legs, and despite the definite weight of all the fabric, she felt as if she could fly.

The girl in the mirror had clearly never been to the Twilight Realm. As she looked back at Elizabeth, she couldn't help feeling a pang of jealousy for the one trapped behind glass in a world that can never be touched.

After a few minutes of admiring how the dress looked, Master Sydney cleared his throat. "You look gorgeous, Elizabeth. I think that dress will do for the ball." He told her, feeling as if he'd been spying on something intimate and beautiful.

Elizabeth turned suddenly. In truth, she'd forgotten he was there and was suddenly very self conscious. "Master, it's wonderful... but you didn't have to make me a dress."

Master Sydney smiled. "No. I suppose not. But I have."

~

The next two days passed without much incident. Every day, Elizabeth would go pummel a tree and allow Aynna to watch, as long as she stayed a good distance away. The tiny one showed up every day without fail, and often wouldn't leave until Rei called her in for dinner.

"Rei says I gotta wear shoes to the ball," she lamented the evening before. "Says the queen needs to think of me as a proper lady."

Elizabeth had sympathized with her little friend, electing not to tell her shoes weren't the worst thing one could be forced to wear to a gathering.

However, as she lay in bed the morning of the ball, she couldn't help but wish someone would sympathize with her plight.

Don't be a baby. If you do this, then people will leave you alone. They'll move on. They'll forget.

So, she forced herself to climb out of bed and into the slip she was going to wear under the gown.

The two met up that morning, Aynna with a basket of hair supplies and already in her ballgown (simple, red with long sleeves and embroidered with pearls), and the two spent the morning tending to each other's hair.

"I hope the chickens aren't too mad about missing breakfast," Aynna reflected as she braided Elizabeth's hair with the expertise of a spider in her web. "But we can feed them before we go, right, Elizabeth-Person?"

"Definitely," she agreed as Aynna pinned the braid around her head, like a sticky bun. "And we'll bring them back something to apologize."

"A brownie?"

"Maybe," she shrugged, brushing her bangs to the side so they half covered her face. "Now sit, and I'll do your hair."

There really wasn't much to be done- Aynna's brown hair was naturally curly, and cascaded down her back in ringlets without help. She removed the odd hair decoration her little friend had chosen, tied a ribbon around the circumference of her head, and that was it.

After all was said and done, the two girls took a step back to admire themselves. Elizabeth, naturally, looked beautiful, but was genuinely taken aback when she looked at Aynna.

Without her odd hair stylings, her weird dresses or a chicken under one arm, Aynna was... pretty. Downright beautiful, even.

"Oh, Elizabeth," sighed Aynna, leaning into her friend, "you look perfect."

Elizabeth beamed and hugged Aynna tightly, feeling her heart positively swell with love for her. "So do you, Aynna-person," she said, causing her to giggle.

She looked up at her idolized friend with massive, amazing eyes that had never sparkled so in all the time Elizabeth had been here.

"Chickens?" Said Aynna, after a pause.

Elizabeth laughed. "Chickens," she agreed.