Saira hated dresses.
As a child, her mother dressed her in the most frilly, girly dresses a child could get away with. Her aunts also gave her dresses and bonnets, small-heeled shoes and be-ribboned socks. And they would coo and fret on how cute she looked, a little lady; her brothers would laugh her disgruntled expression; and she would smile politely and indulgently turn for their benefit. At least, the dresses weren’t pink.
Saira hated dresses.
Few girls were born to the Trevelyans so they tended to spoil them a bit. She was the first girl, in direct descent, to be born. Her cousins would hover around her during parties, while her brothers played knights who guarded a princess in the tower, still teasing her of course. She had little patience for it all and when it became too much, particularly when Henry pulled her ribbons, she would chase them all over the estate which always culminated in mud-wrestling. When they were called in, her mother dismayed at their state –she, slathered in mud, her hair dirty and wet and her beautiful dress ruined. She was ecstatic, not only because Henry got his mouth full of mud but also she would never wear that dress again. It was itchy.
Saira hated dresses.
She was twelve years old when her mother passed away. Her dying wish, whispered to her husband, was that her daughter would never know the life of a Circle mage. The bann, who was just as in love now as the day of their wedding, promised. Her magic developed late, years after her brother and, then, it wasn’t enough to warrant the attention of the Circle. They buried her mother in the family mausoleum carved into a hill overlooking the Waking Sea. Her mother always loved the water, she mused as a sea breeze ruffled the capped sleeves of her black, mourning dress. She burned it that night.
Saira hated dresses.
But she tolerated the robes required to be worn by those who study in the Circle. They were swishy, loose, not itchy and she could wear them over her tunic and pants. She could still kick the mage boys who got too touchy-feely. Then again, Maxwell could always fry them. Her father couldn’t fully fulfill his promise to her mother. It was probably the emotional loss, but her magic eventually grew steadily after that windy day on the hill. It was just a different bit of magic than the traditional signs the templars looked for that it wasn’t acknowledged at first, even by her Uncle Nicky. When Uncle Nicky did find out, he and her father had a terrible row. Uncle Nicky loved his niece. The Ostwick Circle was the most lax of all Circles but he still acknowledged it as a prison for those gifted with magic. His nephew, Maxwell, seemed to thrive in it but he was more even-tempered than his sister. Modest in temper was the part of the family motto that she struggled with. But untrained magic was more dangerous than an unknown one, therefore Uncle Nicky and her father, who was adamant to keep his promise, compromised. She would study and board at the Ostwick Circle, as a scholar, her magic hidden, during the weekdays and would be at home on the weekends. The dresses were locked in a trunk and robes and pants and tunics dominated her closet.
Saira hated dresses.
They certainly weren’t practical when training with things with pointy ends. Her mother used to despair during her lady lessons, since her attention was always out the window on the castle grounds where her brothers were training with their swords and bows and arrows. Embroidery, which she was horrible at, was all well and good, but she would always pay Henry a silver to create a distraction. The moment the big bag of horse manure was dropped in the hallway leading to the drawing room, she opened the window and jumped out to the veranda. Her morning dress was slipped off and she would snatch the daggers from Cedric’s hips. During her years at the Circle, she continued sticking things with the pointy ends of the daggers gifted to her by Uncle Bryce.
Saira hated dresses.
She thought her mother and her Trevelyan aunts were the only ones who insisted on making her try even just one dress. Auntie Eleanor delighted in dressing her in fashion – those dresses with long sleeves that molded to her upper body and a narrow skirt that hung straight down. She tolerated it at best. She understood the novelty of dressing a girl for a change instead of her two boys. Auntie Eleanor relished the time whenever Saira’s mother brought her two youngest children to visit her brother in Highever. Fergus and Aedan, with Maxwell in tow, were always off with the teyrn’s soldiers and Auntie Eleanor would gossip with her sister-in-law. She, on the other hand, would sit quietly and devour Brother Genetivi’s Travels of a Chantry Scholar which the library at home didn’t have beyond the first volume. At least, Fereldan dresses were not itchy.
Saira hated dresses.
The teal dress Auntie Eleanor loaned her was not itchy but the bodice was still restricting air to her lungs and she regretted ever sleeping in it. She regretted ever wearing it at all, even when it pleased Auntie Eleanor during Lady Landra’s visit, when she tripped on the skirt in her haste to get off the bed. Shouts were heard outside her door along with pained cries and the incessant barking of Barkspawn. She cursed colorfully, when she couldn’t get to the row of buttons on her back. She took a dagger from under her pillow and proceeded to slit the dress from collarbone to waist.
Fuck dresses.
No comments:
Post a Comment