Chapter 28: Intuition

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There are two types of crafters: those who create with patterns and those who create from emotions.

—Casandra Midori Rail

Lily worried her lip as she dragged the cutting blade down the length of parchment paper. She kept one finger on each side of the paper while working the blade kept in the "V" of her digits. As she concentrated on the straight line, ripples of color radiated from her fingertips. It made it easier to concentrate though, as she cut in time with the waves of reds and blacks that washed over the paper.

After a night of twisting and rolling over, she woke up dreading work but knowing she didn't have much time. The appointment with Djulian and Nirih was on Mumdei, a week of six days away, and she knew that Djulian would be brutally critical of the dress.

Lily wasn't sure if she could do anything to pass the approval of the cow, but she had to try. All that matter was that Djulian allowed Nirih to wear the dress, the response to the young girl's debutante presentation would be the true test.

She sighed and returned her concentration to the rippling paper. As she cut along the parchment, she could picture how the fabric would lay against Nirih's chest, shoulders, and throat. She realized she was cutting wrong and moved up to slice another thin piece before resuming her cutting.

The collar was one of the most important parts of the dress; the negative space of the girl's skin would draw attention from everyone. Too low and it would be scandalous, too high and it would turn away potential husbands who were looking for a young beauty.

She finished the cut and picked up the piece of parchment. It was the right size for the collar and exactly as she imagined. It was also rather large, which made her worry because it looked too low. She worried for a moment and then pushed it aside while she finished cutting a mirrored piece for the other side.

It took her an hour to pin the pieces together and then fit it on a dress form that she had sized for Nirih's measurements. The form already had the other parts of the dress hanging on it, the components that Lily felt comfortable adding after mocking up with a few stitches to hold the fabric together.

With every passing second, she knew the collar wouldn't work. She could see it on the corner of her eye as she pinned the parchment to the fabric. It was too low, too wide, and exposed too much.

It took a masochistic determination to keep working despite knowing she had failed. The collar design was what her intuition said would work. She had to know if it looked good because she hoped the knowledge would let her work on a dress that High Society would accept.

When she finished, she closed her eyes tightly and stepped back. She wasn't sure if she was ready to inspect her work. It took her a moment to open her eyes and look.

The dress was beautiful. Even put together with different materials including parchment, it would fit Nirih perfectly. It had curves in the right place, the lines were perfect, and it would steal the breath away from anyone looking.

It would also never work. Tears swam in her eyes as she stared at it. As much as the patterns fit together, the collar was far too low to be socially acceptable. Changing that would force her to come up with a different waist to keep the entire style cohesive.

The design would look good on Mindil. It would push up her breasts to any curious eye and tempt someone to reach in and stroke them. Lily could almost imagine herself stroking along Mindil's body, kissing the expanse of smooth skin. A flutter of excitement raced along Lily's skin and tickled between her legs before she could drag her thoughts back to the effort of inspecting the dress.

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