“Emelia!”
“Hmm?” The brunette was focused quite speculatively on a smooth, white button that had previously been laying at her feet. She flipped it over slowly in her hand, running her finger lightly along the round edges. It was a perfect little button that reminded her of a collection one of the scientists at the academy had had. Dr. Wescott had been a bit of an erratic woman, and her button collection reflected that, but Emelia had always admired them nonetheless. They weren’t a particularly interesting object, especially for collection, yet each one seemed to have an enchanting sort of character. She extended the fastener out in front of her, meeting the flustered indigo eyes of her tailor.
“Why are you sitting down?” he huffed, matching the button to the others on his sweater and pocketing it for later. “Your fitting is nearly finished with,” the man seemed to be muttering around the pinpricked finger in his mouth.
“Oh. I’m sorry I have other things on my mind,” Emelia replied distractedly as she stood and fidgeted in her new dress.
She didn’t understand the absurd “dress code” that seemed to be in fashion in the northern European house she had taken up residence in. Trousers had always been her leg wear of choice, and she was not a big fan of the inconvenience of a skirt. Maybe it was a way to help keep her in line, she thought, vaguely amused at the idea of fighting with the risk of flashing your panties.
The tailor rolled his eyes and tapped between her shoulder blades pointedly with his forefinger. “Stand up straight. Mr. Ross would have an aneurysm if he saw you shlumped over like a rag doll,” he muttered, adjusting the waist of the woman’s dress just slightly and checking the hem for fly-aways.
Emelia rolled her shoulders back, exhaling at the chorus of cracks and straightening as he had suggested. He had always seemed to be a grumpy sort of gentleman, somewhere in his mid to late 60’s. His white mustache was always aquiver on his sunkissed face like a disgruntled walrus. When he stepped back to look at his work, his thumbs were always beneath the straps of his brown suspenders which he wore every day over a clean button-down shirt adorned with a knit jumper of some sort. That day the jumper was beige with perfect, round , white buttons that lay unfastened to the other side. The man was a human left over from the uprising years and years ago. Most humans had been spared when Emelia and the rest of the Adoni had risen to power. She even remembered the little shop the tailor had run on Golbury Road. Now he worked for the House. The man didn’t seem bitter, just perpetually perturbed.
“This is tedious,” Emelia deadpanned, “can’t you do this any faster?” It wasn’t her intention to be rude to her tailor, but she had other matters to attend to and she was restless and bored.
“I’m already done,” the walrus-man announced, waving her away.
“Thank you,” she sighed and stepped off of the platform, flustered once again with the absurdity of a dress.
“You’re very welcome.” He nodded, digging through an odd little floral hat box stacked upon an ancient vanity.
She watched him a moment from the door then ran a hand through her hair distractedly. The image of the man’s shop was stuck to the backs of her eyelids. Why? She didn’t know, but her memories of before her rise to power had been assaulting her as of late. They were not of the people she had killed, that didn’t bother her; it was the idea of equality amongst her and her nearly genetically perfected counterparts. In all honesty, she was superior to them. She was the very last Adoni to be created before “production” was put at a standstill due to some protestors. All of the kinks had been worked out of her DNA. She was better. The respect she should’ve received was different, compared to how it had been. She was wearing a dress for heaven’s sake! Somewhere at the top of the newly established food chain was an idiot with half-baked ideas and expectations and too much power. It bothered her that she shared a bed with him.
