"No!"
I batted away Tinsley's welcoming arms as I waddled away as quickly as possible without falling on my face. Surprisingly, everything hurts much more when you're in a body whose bones could probably break if the wind changed direction too quickly. A month ago, I had upgraded from babbling houseplant to mobile, can-say-a-few-words houseplant... which is a fucking terrifying image.
Tinsley tried to coax me over again, this time with my favourite toy. The only reason I even like it is because it makes a funny noise. I kept waddling away, refusing to let her touch me. The four of them, Tinsley, Mari, Siena, who was an elder woman, and Delayza, who was a biracial woman with short curly hair, were putting in a collective effort to get me dressed.
I sat through the overly pampered baths peppered with freshly picked roses, their almost anti-vaxxer amount of essential oils and enough perfumes to give Usain Bolt an asthma attack, and I'm done with it. You must be fucking insane if you even think I would even consider going through more of that bullshit.
Delayza had already successfully styled what little amount of hair on my head with the help of heat and air magic but she only got as far as to put one hair clip in. At first, I was excited since I wanted to see how I would look with the beautiful jewels she had presented to me. The one she picked out first was a small, star-shaped lapis lazuli bead. She threaded it through the tiniest bit of hair and the small golden clamps made it stable.
Not that bad, right? Wrong! Very fucking incorrect. As it was a relatively heavy gem pulling on about three strands of my hair, it felt like it was going to rip my hair out. That was the last straw.
Now I have been hiding under tables and running around chairs for the past few minutes to avoid them from putting another one of those things in my hair.
Of course, just as that thought was reinforced in my mind, Siena had scooped me up. Despite all my squirming and shouting, she held me down firmly in the chair and nodded at Delayza.
"Princess," Siena began. She had celebrated her seventy-sixth birthday a week ago but her age definitely didn't show in the way she acted. The woman, who I initially thought would be a sweet, fragile old lady, had the energy of the sun itself and the wrath of one too. "You must remain still. You are scheduled to leave in three hours. I would like to keep my head today and not make his majesty wait."
Lady. It is six in the fucking AM. Why would I even take you three hours to throw a dress on me and a bow or something? What is the need for putting enough decorations on me to rival a Christmas tree?
We used to be friends, Siena. What happened? How could you betray me like this?
To my dismay, Delayza had begun to thread another star-shaped bead through some strands of my hair, this time a gold piece. I guess you could say that she started without Delay-za. I'm not sorry.
I decided to just get it over and done with and sat still whilst Delayza continued to work. It took half an hour until we had finished. From what I could count, there were approximately 21 star-shaped beads pulling at my precious baby hairs. They were made from an array of gems, jewels and precious metals. Gold, lapis lazuli and diamonds were the most common.
However, it only took Mari a few minutes to pull the overly lavish dress over my head. It was dark blue silk with a few gold constellations around the hem. It was utterly beautiful but my hatred of the torture devices hanging off of my hair most likely clouded my judgment when I screamed 'no!' once more.
Once Marigold hurried to put on my black tights and shoes, each of the ladies let out a deep sigh. Each one was a sigh of relief except Siena, who let out a huff of 'thank all that is good that this child is finally fucking ready because I was heavily considering the pros and cons of throwing this kid out of the window.'
"We're almost done. There is just one last thing." Tinsley lightly pushed something into my hair. As I reached up to touch it, I quickly realised it was a tiara. The hand mirror in front of me also confirmed that. It also confirmed that I genuinely looked radiant, like the daughter of a deity of the night. "Don't you look pretty, princess Aria?" Tinsley beamed. For all of my lack of cooperation, Delayza did an astonishing job.
I let out a childish giggle that I would have never done back home and clapped my hands like the baby I was supposed to be. Despite being almost nineteen, these last few months have been relatively fun.
The door opened and in walked the housekeeper. A striking, dark-skinned woman dressed very differently from the ladies in waiting. She wore a simple dark grey dress but an array of golden jewellery, bangles and necklaces and dangling earings. Despite only being in her early forties, her shoulder-length hair, which had been styled into a single fishtail braid, was completely white. According to Tinsley, it was hereditary and almost all of the Sortis family had white hair, regardless of age.
Her bangles jingled as she walked. "Sorry, was I interrupting something?" She was remarkably quiet. Again, according to Tinsley, Alcuin was the fifth of eleven children. Her eldest brother had inherited the title of grand duke once her father had passed away and she never married, thereby keeping her title.
"No, of course not. The princess is now ready, my lady." Marigold said.
Alcuin only held a higher title to them by a millimetre but higher was still higher. Saying no more, and with a jingle of her wrists, Alcuin picked me up, nodded to the ladies and left the room with me in her arms.
I rarely saw Alcuin as she was technically not a lady in waiting. She ran the daily affairs of this palace, managing its budget, staff and such, from within her office. As we descended the marble steps, she gazed down at me. Since she held the highest official title within the palace, only by a millimetre, she was required to take me to the Semper palace, where the king lived.
Today is the day we have our annual royal family portrait.
Today is the day I meet the rest of the royal family.