Hey guys so for some reason chapter five didn't upload which is really weird so i'm just gonna try updating it again!!!! it's quite a long one because i didn't want to cut it off at an awkward place. Please Vote And Comment!!!
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Fabienne was awoken by her mother looming over her
“Wake up ma chère!! Today is the day of the ball and you must start to get ready!!
”. She rolled over and moaned, snuggling deeper into her blanket. “Come now, you should be excited, I heard there will be a lot of young and eligible bachelors there.”
Fabienne sighed
“Alright mama, call Idette and she will help me get ready.”
“no ma fifille ” her mother cood “Therese will be coming in to help you, I was going to help but Therese saw sense and said that you two are more alike so she will be able to cater to your tastes”. Oh well, she thought, at least she would get to spend a day with someone who actually made sense.
Once Fabienne’s eldest sister arrived she was already bored of her mother’s nonsensical chattering.
”Bonjour Maman”
Therese said pecking her mother on the cheek
“go on now, I will take care of Fabienne, you should go get ready yourself.” She grabbed her arm and lifted her off the bed where she was worrying about the paleness of Fabienne’s lips.
“mama” Fabienne whispered kissing her mother on the cheek
“thank you for worrying about me but you should go get ready yourself; I know you will be the most beautiful Person there, and beauty takes time”
“yes ma chère”
she said stroking the hair back from Fabienne’s forehead “ thank you for reminding me about that, I will leave you in the capable hands of your sister” with this she walked over to the door blowing kisses to Therese and Fabienne “au revoir mon bébé”.
That day was one of the longest Fabienne thought she had ever been through, it started off with a bath in a mix of what she thought was at least twenty oils and scents. Once she emerged from the warm mixture and was patted dry by Idette her skin felt soft and smooth and she smelt like roses and lilies. Next her hair was brushed and combed until it was a shining golden cloud which floated behind her when she walked. After this had been done she heard a knock at her door
“Entrez!!” Therese called from where she was standing in front of Fabienne’s dresser, sorting through clothes. In walked three people, two of them, a man and a woman, she recognised from the Queens entourage of colourful parrots but the third was only faintly familiar. “Monsieur Amadour, it is so good to see you, I’m so glad that you got mother’s letter!!” said Therese, rushing over to greet the strange man
“Ah!!! Belle Therese, you have grown even more beautiful then I remember, if you don’t marry soon then I will have to find someone for you!” joked Monsieur Amadour hugging her. “is this your sister who is said to have your beautiful touch” he said walking over to Fabienne grabbing her chin and lifting it so he could clearly see her face. “Hmmm” he said “she does vaguely remind me of a younger you but the blonde hair sets off her features in a different way than yours, same nose, same lips but I don’t know what else” he sniffed and then walked around to the back of her chair. “On the contrary her hair is beautiful!! I’ve never seen hair this soft and glowing” he said, astonished as the pulled his fingers through her cloud of golden hair.
“Now”
Said Monsieur Amadour
“let’s get to work”
He called over the two people who were standing at the door, they hurried over, the woman was carrying a large leather bag. “Fabienne, Therese” Monsieur Amadour said, motioning towards the man and women “these are my two assistants Madam Anouska and Monsieur Maugier, they are hoping to one day follow in my successful footsteps, I am training them”.
“They will just sit and observe, trust me you won’t even know they’re there” he said “let’s get to work” he clapped his hands Madam Anouska came hurrying forward and opened the bulging leather bag on the table in front of Fabienne. Inside it was a large arrange of hair products, accessories, hair chalks and tools.
Four hours later Monsieur Amadour was finally finished; Fabienne’s scalp felt like it had been rubbed raw. Her own hair had been pulled back into a small bun and dyed a powder pink colour, then attached to her own hair was a large cloud of hair which was the same pale pink colour as the chalk that had been used on her own. In it Monsieur Amadour had attached small fake cherries and wooden birds; she looked like she had a pink cherry bush on her head. Once Monsieur Amadour had left with his two assistants, Therese started on her makeup. She used powder to make her face pale and her skin even, next she dyed her lips dark red and outlined her eyes in black coal, she then padded on blue eye shadow above her eyelids.
“beautiful”
Therese sighed as Fabienne studied her reflection in the mirror
“I don’t know why people say you are almost as beautiful as me, you are more so!! Now I must go get ready myself, I will get Aveline to come keep you company, I’ll see you later peu de beauté!”
. With this she ran out of the room with a backwards wave to Fabienne. The remaining six hours of the day until the ball dragged on, Aveline popped in to see her at about one o’clock when she was having her lunch. She could only stay for about an hour though before she had to leave to get ready herself. The rest of the day Fabienne did little jobs around her room, since she had given her servants an hour or two off to have lunch. Finally when it was time to get ready, she jumped off her bed where she had been reading a book and hurried over to her dresser to call her maids. She rang three of the bells and in came Idette, Melisende and her newest Serving girl Claudine. Claudine was from a village in the farming district, a long way away. She had arrived a few weeks ago and was originally given to one of the queens other ladies in waiting. But after a week she complained that she did not work fast enough because she only had one arm. So then she had spent a week in the kitchens before she came to Fabienne. The three maids came in carrying the most beautiful dress Fabienne thought she had ever seen. it was a divine white with beautiful pink roses and a little pink cardigan that was made of flowing shiny silk. Around her neck Idette had clasped a thin golden chain with a rose quartz pendant. The petticoat of her dress had been decorated with hanging scarves of pink and yellow silk that had been twisted together and sown onto the dress. Once she was dressed in all the necessary parts of the dress she heard Claudine sigh
“Oh….maîtresse it is beautiful!!”
'. Fabienne looked at her new servant girl, surely she would have seen even more beautiful things like this in the palace before, then she looked down and she saw Claudine gently rubbing a silk string that was meant to go around the cardigan between her fingers
“Claudine, what is wrong. Have you never seen silk before?” she asked.
“No Madame, I have seen it a couple of times but I have never held it in my hands before, my former owners never let me touch anything precious or beautiful, they thought I didn’t ‘t deserve it, that I would make it as ugly as I was”
. Fabienne looked at Melisende and Idette and flicked her finger toward the door, motioning for them to leave; they curtsied and hurried out the door. She took Claudine’s hand and led her over to sit on the bed
“I would like you to think of me as a friend here, not your mistress. I would like you to tell me the truth about your past, and your name as well. I know that Claudine could not possibly be your real name, because who would name their child something that means lame one, be truthful, it will refresh you.”
“Alright” Claudine sighed hugging what was left of her left arm.
”a little bit of what you know about me is true, the name I was given at birth was Amandine, I was born on a small farm, I had three older sisters and two brothers, one older and one younger. I was the second youngest and sadly my mother died in child birth giving birth to my youngest brother. My father was left to raise my sibling and I until one day he brought a girl into our small home, she was barely older then my eldest sister who was about seventeen at the time. The girl’s name was Corina and it was immediately obvious that he planned to marry her. About the same time as this my father’s annual crop was the best we had had in years and because of this he was always out at the market from early in the morning to very late at night.
He would leave us children at home with Corina who was barely out of childhood herself. We began to notice that she was becoming slower as she did the farm chores and threw up often. One evening our father came to us and announced that she was pregnant, we could tell that she was overjoyed and she seemed to glow with happiness. She was short, freckly and petite with a mane of glossy, bronze coloured curls and sweet dimples on her round face. The smile that lit up her face was like the sun but we could only feel dread in our bones that this poor young girl would suffer the same fate as our mother.
As the end of her pregnancy drew nearer it became immanent that she would have twins, her belly was far too bloated to be only one baby, she looked funny with her small limbs and frame and large stomach. One night I heard her go to my sister and tell her that it didn’t matter if she survived the birth, the only thing that mattered was that her babies lived; she even already had names picked out. About two weeks later she went into labour, it lasted two days and finally we heard the sound we had been waiting for, a baby’s cry which was shortly joined by a second wail. My sisters and I ran into the room (the boys weren’t allowed in the house) to find two tiny babies lying in their cot, and our father who was almost crying with happiness kneeling next to Corina who was red faced and sweaty.
To our surprise she recovered in a day and dived head first into motherhood, she had had a boy and a girl whom she had named Abellio and Doriane. It seemed at that point that life couldn’t get any better, the babies were growing well, we always had plenty of food and money due to the good crop and my older brothers were going to Paris. Then one day, everything changed. I was at home with my younger brother, my older sister by one year, Corina, and the babies.
We heard a cart rolling toward the house and the voices of shouting men, Corina hid us in the cellar along with the babies while she stayed upstairs to confront whatever was coming for us, they were burglars. We heard shouting upstairs and the smashing of clay pots full of grain. The door of the cellar was flung open to reveal a man standing there, holding Corina up by the hair. More men came to take us to their carriage where they separated us , my older sister was claimed by a frightening looking man who seemed to be the head of the group. Corina was only allowed to stay with us because she was needed to keep the babies fed.
They took us to a rundown manor on the other side of the town where we were kept in the basement with a hoard of other children who were mostly girls and a few younger boys. We were held there for what seemed like months and every night we heard the screams of my sister who we only saw once when we had been there for about four months.
She walked down into the basement with our captors arm draped over her in a very possessive fashion, and to our horror we could see that she was pregnant, and she was so young that it seemed that there was no chance of her survival. We were fed so little that some of us were starved to death, eventually Corina ran out of milk and sadly my little brother Abellio starved to death. After that Corina sank into deep depression, she refused to even look at Doriane who managed to transition onto the sloppy porridge they gave us pretty quickly.
Finally after a year of captivity my little brother, Corina and Doriane and I were taken out of the basement and put in a rickety wooden cart on our way to Paris. On the road I became dangerously sick, so much so that I was almost always asleep and had begun to cough up blood. I remember the night as if it only happened yesterday, Corina had asked that I be put up the front of the carriage next to the driver so I didn’t get them sick as well and the man who was supervising us agreed, he seemed to like Corina and was constantly whispering in her ear and making her giggle and blush.
The driver was an old crippled man, with a hunched back and a scrawny grey beard, he was not perfect company but at least he didn’t bother me. I was getting drowsy as it came to night but I was trying my best to stay awake, finally I knew I couldn’t hold out any longer so I let my head droop back onto the seat and my eyes close. The next thing I knew the carriage went over a bump and I flew forwards onto the road in front of the two strong black stallions that had been hauling us along.
I don’t remember much after that, apart from Corina’s screams and the most intense pain I have ever felt. I woke up a week later with only one arm, apparently one of the horse’s hooves had ripped my arm open and the cut had become infected, the arm had to be amputated at the sholder. After that my captors knew that my price in the slavery market would go down considerably so they gave me away to a farmer that we encountered along the way to the city. He was a kind man, he let me rest when I got tired and he gave me three square meals a day.
His wife, however, despised me. She was a tall middle aged women with a cruel streak to hear calm persona, sometimes when she came upon me eating she would pick up my plate and empty my food into the pigs trough. I was constantly thinking about what would happen to me when the farmer died and how his wife would treat me when he was not there to feed and protect me. One day when I was out in the fields sowing corn seeds, I heard my masters scream coming from the inside of the barn. I ran to him, throwing aside my bag full of seeds and my apron. When I arrived at the barn my master was lying on the floor inside one of the horse’s stalls, his wife kneeling over him.
“He Is dead” she said “The horses kicked him to death, see the hoof mark on his head, come here girl and help me drag him out of the stall” I obeyed her and helped to drag my bloody master out of the hay and onto the cobble floor of the barn. “now, I would like you to go up the road that leads up from the house and wait there, my husband is the one who wanted you here but I do not want crippled scum like you so someone will come and pick you up soon” she demanded turning away from my master.
I did as she asked and went up the road and waited, it felt like I was waiting there for hours before finally a large black carriage stopped and a finely dressed woman stepped out and spoke to me in a cold voice “Your name is Amandine? Is that correct”, I nodded and replied to her “yes Madame”. “You will no longer go by that name”, she told me as she dragged me into the carriage which smelt like mould and wine “Your new name shall be Claudine, a pretty little name like Amandine is not fitting for a crippled hand maid. I am taking you to the palace; you will be a cleaner in the kitchen”.
This shocked me so much that I did not talk for the rest of the trip here. When we arrived here she sent me to the kitchens, it is horrible down there. They don’t feed you and everyday your body aches from the sweeping and the cleaning. Finally after weeks down there I was called into service by a lady. She was horrible and she was always complaining of me being slow and useless, so one day I was just sent away. And here I am, my life has not been a very easy ride. But I was foolish to read stories about true love and princesses when I was little, girls born in my class have no future.”
Fabienne was in shock, she just looked at the tiny girl sitting across from her and wondered how even though she had been through so much, she still had flawless beauty. She was tiny and skinny with pale, almost transparent skin. Her hair was such a light blonde that it was almost white, at the moment it was hanging around her face hiding her features.
Fabienne had an idea, she remembered years ago meeting her cousins on her father’s side. They were all small with the same blonde hair and blue eyes that seemed to run in the family, but Fabienne distinctly remembered that their features all seemed to be one shade lighter, their eyes a bit paler, their hair closer to white than blonde and blue vanes popping out of their almost translucent white skin. She looked at Claudine and reached her hand out to lift her chin up, she saw the surprise in her eyes but she was completely still as Fabienne examined her. Pale grey eyes, red lips and white skin.
“I have a plan”
she said letting go of Claudine’s chin and holding her hand “I will explain it to you after the ball, because for now we must focus on getting ready”. She was glad to see the faintest smile playing around Claudine’s lips as she walked away.