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❅ —
— 43 AP
ELIDORA II
Elidora had been given a shared chamber with her sister in the Court's Tower, and her uncle a separate one three doors down from her own. And it had been a week since she arrived in Vilantis. Her uncle, Ser Jayme, was often missing from the King's Court, if he wasn't resting in his chambers, he was conducting the affairs to Elidora's marriage with Prince Deonidas.
In the meantime, Elidora made herself familiar with the ways of court. She would start the morning by sending off a letter to her mother and father, describing with such sweet words her admiration for Rosegarden, then bathe in the maiden bathhouse with her sister, dressed in much lighter dresses made of satin and velvet instead of the fur and wool she was used to, and after, she would tour around the castle. On her third day in Thronehall, she sat in the inner courtyard and made acquaintance with a girl named Ivery Rose, a bastard of Lord Harius Belarys of the Weeping Towers, a castle settled deep in the Weeping Woods.
Ivery told Elidora that her father sent her to Thronehall in hopes she would become a handmaid to the Queen. It only took six moons for her to achieve this, for Ivery claimed the queen favored the eighteen year old amongst her many ladies in waiting once she heard of the reason her father truly sent her away. Her bastardy wasn't something her father's wife wanted to tolerate, and her own mother being a bastard raised in Rosegarden led to this. Ivery boasted and praised the Queen.
The fifth day of Elidora's stay in Vilantis, she traveled with her uncle and a few of Thronehall's household knights, dispatched by Queen Idalia under Prince Deonidas's whims, into the city to visit the famous markets in the Streets of Satin. There, underneath Maesarys's hill and the Great Sept of Drakors, was dozens of alleys and buildings in winding streets filled with carts, vendors, and stalls of goods, spices, and silks in front of busy inns and taverns.
Her uncle brought her a handful of different red, deep purple, and green fabrics, and he got himself a flagon of Sand Brandy. Upon the mark of a week of her stay, Princess Amaryllis requested an audience with Ser Jayme Graveson and Lady Elidora. The girl could only speak to her sister and uncle about her upcoming wedding, and she hadn't seen Prince Deonidas since their evening in the garden, so, surely, it had to be news about the union.
In the solar adjoined to the throne room, Elidora waited with her uncle. She wore a chiffon dress a royal seamstress made from the white satin and sheer red lace her uncle brought from the markets, and styled her hair in the fashion Princess Amaryllis wore. Half of her brunette hair flowing down her back while the top was crowned with intricate, plaited braids filled with silver gems.
Jayme paced around the solar impatiently, whereas Elidora hummed to herself, playing with the red lacey belt underneath her chest. “ We've been waiting for over an hour,” Ser Jayme muttered, still pacing about like a mad rat stuck in a box. “ It's fine, surely, someone will come soon,” Elidora replied.
