Emilie of the Royal Heart

Chapter 39: The Tailor Thinks about Converting to the Temple of Nolais

 "Umm... my lady... did you request a new garment from your Tailor?" Ester lilted as she stared into the very back of Emilie's wardrobe.

"The last thing I requested were the Zuhian style dresses, but those are all complete," Emilie replied with a furrowed brow, "why?"

"There's a new... dress... here."

"What's the problem, Ester?" Emilie pressed her. Agatha was finishing up her hair and Minnie was clasping a necklace around her.

Ester paused for such a long time that the strangeness of her voice from earlier colored darker in Emilie's memory.

"Ester, what is it?" Agatha prompted herself.

"Perhaps, Lady Emilie, you should come see for yourself."

The other two attendants freed her from her seat and Emilie rose, taking quick strides over to the wardrobe. She couldn't imagine what could possibly cause any trouble from inside of it, but still her skin crawled as she stood next to Ester. The woman held her arms wide open to push back the other dresses so that Emilie could clearly see the dress hanging at the back of the wardrobe.

As soon as Emilie's eyes fell upon it, she shrieked. She fumbled back into Ester and then into the chaise, where she grasped the edge and leaned against it with weakening constitution. Her eyes were wide open in terror.

"What I'm gathering from this reaction is that this is not something you want to wear," Ester confirmed in a severe tone.

Emilie felt paralyzed, but she managed to squeak, "no."

"Very well then," Ester nodded, snapping into action. She grabbed the hanger with the dress in question and she bunched it up in her arms so that no one could picture its true form. Whirling around, she stated, "I will return it to the Tailor at once and inform him you will be reconsidering his position as a servant to the royal family."

"No, I will take this dress to the Tailor," Emilie leapt to her feet, her determination stoked by a rush of anger. Before anyone could protest, Emilie snatched the garment out of Ester's arms and stormed out of her bedroom.

The path from Emilie's bedroom to Cedric's fitting room was a winding one, but it felt like a two second march. To Emilie, she might've stepped out of her doorframe and stepped right up to his door. She knocked aggressively enough to hurt her knuckles.

"We are in the middle of a fitting," called back a woman's voice -one of the other palace tailors, "please drop off any requests or notes at-"

"Is Cedric in there?" Emilie cut her off with a vicious growl.

There was silence from the room. Tense silence. Emilie didn't think she'd ever caused so many people to be anxious before in her life, but she could feel it now, even on the other side of the door.

"... he is..." Cedric answered.

Emilie threw open the door and burst into the room. There was a woman up on the pedestal, holding her arms out to a 't' as another woman pinned around her. Cedric was watching with a tape measure draped around his neck. Emilie glared at him and he pushed off from the wall where he leaned.

"Good morning, Lady Emilie. How can I-"

"We need to talk. Privately," Emilie huffed.

She grabbed hold of his arm, cradling the dress in the other and her eyes scanned the room for someplace to go. With a target in sight, Emilie pulled Cedric along behind her while the two women watched. She saw the private changing booths and she stepped inside, dragging Cedric after and then she whipped the red curtain shut behind them.

Emilie held the hanger up in the air and let the fabric of the dress tumble down through the air. Cedric pursed his lips as he considered her, his eyes growing wide at the sight of it.

"What's this?" Emilie asked in a whispered snarl.

"A... uhh... very... sexy nightgown?" he gulped.

"Did you make this for me?" she snapped, unamused by his confusion.

"What?" he breathed, falling back a step.

"Did you make this for me or did someone ask you to make this for me?"

He gaped at her, but she didn't get his message, so he gasped, "no! This thing is practically lingerie! I would never make you something like that at anyone's request unless it was your own and even then I think we both know I wouldn't make it for you."

"Lingerie?" Emilie choked, glancing down at the dress and then glancing back up at Cedric in mortified horror before she muttered, "this is my priestess uniform!"

Cedric's eyebrows shot way up and he leaned toward her, a quiver in his breathy voice, "you went to temple in that?"

"That's not the point!" Emilie insisted, though her cheeks burned, "I found this in my wardrobe. Why was it there?"

"I've got no idea. Like I said, I wouldn't have sent anything like this to your wardrobe unless you knew it was coming."

Emilie dropped the dress and wilted against the wall. She laid her head in her hands and stifled a scream. Truthfully, she wanted to march out into the fitting room, grab a pin off the tailor's cushion, and jam it as hard in her arm as she could. She didn't do that. Instead, she lifted her gaze to Cedric with a frown.

"I must be rather stupid," she told him.

"Ah, why are we stupid today?"

"Today?" she glared at him.

"I mean why are we stupid only once in our lives?" he corrected with a grin.

She crouched down and picked up the gown, "here I am accusing you of fabricating my old priestess dress because of your knowledge about my past when Tiago has the knowledge and the malice to make this appear among my things. It was very rash of me to come down here like this. I'm sorry."

"It's alright. I only wish this booth was as soundproof as you seem to think it is."

Emilie slapped a hand over her face. Cedric laughed.

"I'll figure out something to tell those two. Go rip Tiago to shreds."

"Thank you, Cedric," she sighed, throwing the curtain open and striding past the women back out into the hallways with the dress clutched in her hands.

She walked down the hall, wondering what her next move would be when a gaggle of Keepers of Tradition turned the corner and stalked toward her. The man with the long grey beard and the dark pink coat that Emilie first met and later discovered was called Sir Tobberty hobbled on his cane out front of their group, with Sir Tiago on his left, and a woman called Sir Pinpot Sweebellum on his right, and about eleven other members that numbered the entirety of the Keepers of Tradition.

Somehow, Emilie got the feeling that it would be a bad time to flip through her vocabulary of vulgarities, so when Sir Tobberty locked eyes with her and all the Keepers of Tradition marched for her, she simply stood on the other end of the hallway and whimpered, "oh no."