One Word Prompts 2020

Shoes - Emery Vairten's Shoes

She stepped out of the bath, toweling off as much of the fast cooling water from her short hair, and back into her old bedroom. She hadn't looked at it much when she'd entered earlier. There hadn't been time between being chased into the bathroom by the steward and chasing out her overly fussy maids.

Not that she blamed the steward. She'd been caked in dirt and dust from the road. She looked nothing like the young woman who had left all those years ago. And the maids were only trying to do their job too. It wasn't their fault she no longer had all that hair that needed more hands to wash, dry, and style.

But, looking at the room now, it was clear it hadn't been touched. It was exactly as she had left it. Exactly as Lady Emery Vairten had left it.

The fourposter bed was still dressed in sheets of yellow and comforters of pink. Lace decorated everything that wasn't adorned with ribbon. Her vanity station still stood by the window, the large mirror surrounded with boxes overflowing with glittering jewelry.

If her comrades saw this, they'd never let her live it down. It simply wasn't the bedroom befitting Knight-Captain Vairten, Reaper of the South Glens.

All evidence of her time as a knight seemed to have evaporated in her time in the bath.

Her traveler's clothes (which had been even filthier than she herself had been) had been whisked away by one of the house's servants, perhaps to be washed, more likely to be incinerated as the unsalvageable mess that it was.

Her sword she'd left in the main hall with the house's master of arms, to be properly serviced and then stored. She wasn't to use it again with any luck.

Even her boots, mun-stained and well worn, had been taken. She hoped those, if nothing else, had been taken to be cleaned and repaired, rather than disposed of. They'd been her last gift from her father before she left, one she valued more than her sword or her armor.

She took a deep breath. This was the end of Sir Vairten. And that was a good thing. The war was over. The killing was done. Her role in it all was done.

She strode across the room to the closet, tossing her damp towel over the chair by the vanity as she went.

Her stomach flipped as she opened the closet doors and she saw the many gowns Lady Emery had once worn. That she got to wear once again. It was a sea of bright colors. Brilliant blues and greens. Luscious pinks and golds. Purples and reds to die for.

She reached out to take one, but her hand stopped short.

She looked between her muscled arms and the narrow sleeves of her old gowns. Those arms weren't Lady Emery's arms. Those dresses weren't Sir Vairten's dresses.

She shook her head.

Something in here had to still fit. She had to have ordered something that she never got around to tailoring to her then slender figure. There had to be something that her now muscled frame could leave this room wearing. She didn't care what color it was. She didn't care what style.

Anything would do.

She tore through the dresses, tossing them aside, one after the next.

She found it eventually. It was an old favorite, long out of style now, but something she'd kept anyway because she'd once favored it so. It was a garish pink thing with enough give in the lacing to fasten around her somewhere approaching acceptably and completely lacking sleeves. With a shawl for modesty, it would be acceptable.

She looked at herself in the mirror, the face so familiar, the trappings so foreign. She could hear the comrades of Sir Vairten already. They'd laugh at the pink dress. She picked through her old jewelry, each inspired new taunts in their voices.

Disgusted, she ran a hand through her short hair. She could hear the whispers already. The whispers of the other ladies, the old friends of Lady Emery.

She shook her head. Nothing she could do about it.

She refused to let it bother her, she told herself as she clenched her fists at her sides. Refused to let it, she repeated to herself, clenching her teeth.

She turned away from the mirror. Now, all that was left was shoes. She stepped back into the closet, digging past the dresses she could never fit back into, to the collection of silk slippers stored in cubbies in the back.

She picked a pair at random, half hoping these would just fit, half expecting to be forced to try on every pair in futile procession. It was a pale pink thing, coincidentally, also a gift from her father.

She slipped the first on, surprised to find so little effort was required to force her foot in.

Surprised to find no effort was required.

She put on the second. It went on just as easily.

She took a tentative step. They didn't pinch.

She took another. They didn't squeeze.

She smiled. If nothing else, at least her shoes still recognized her, whether she was Lady Emery or Sir Vairten. The rest would come around eventually, she knew. And for now, maybe, that was enough.