LITTLE GRIM

04 GREED IS THE ONLY GOD

ACT SEVEN MUSIC, MONEY, MADNESS

Restless, unnerved, an endless writhing in the pit of her stomach; so many things did poor girl of divine feel when she was faced with her own reflection, gilded and almost more beautiful, would many agree, than the women in the lustrous paintings that hung on the vast walls of the castle. Round, soft hips and generous breasts embraced by a gown so delicate it seems destined for only the most fortunate bodies, in the lightest shade of pink there is. The gown showcases her youthful beauty very well, and her plump lips have been rubbed vigorously by the freshest strawberries fetched from the gardens - all the same as the apples of her cheeks. It makes her think of Juliette and of how sickeningly sweet her reddened lips often tasted against hers, but she suppresses the thought more rapid than it had galloped inside her mind. Instead, she looks in the mirror and witnesses the contrast before her.

Blooming, she is, otherwise muddled and unkempt. Now stands before herself a true lady, with her hair, for once, done up in a knot with dainty tousles of hair framing her face, silk fabric against her skin instead of filth and faint grime.

Always having loved sewing - be it with the least costly materials and merely for the children living near her whom once wore clothing torn at its seams but thanks to Pearl, donned attire that appeared as though new - Pearl knows her gown is a dress made by perhaps the finest dressmakers of all of the kingdom. She feels unworthy - almost guilty for having laid the faintest of a fingertip upon the delicate fabric. But the concealed leviathan succumbs easily under the look in Lady Pristines eyes. As naturally as the day gradually pulling the seams of the hollows of the night, a smile phantoms and dances and withers on her full lips, chocolate eyes fixated on the younger thing before her. Lady Pristine, it crosses Pearls whirling mind for a split second, is the spitting image of what she has always imagined the transcendent figure ruling the earths to look like.

  "You are truly a work of art, girl," Lady Pristine declares, her voice echoing against the faded floral paper on the walls. Her words cause Pearls heart to swell, and swell, and swell, and even more so when she, with small hands of an ethereal pearl sheen, brings a paw to her cheek - redder than before now - in a manner a mother would do with her cherished child. "Do never forget."

  Pearls pallor is fading quickly and there blossoms a small smile, one that is warm, upon her face, "thank you, Miss. You've been so good to me."

  Lady Pristine lay a mere finger over Pearls reddened lips to quiet her, with her other hand secures a wisp of rogued hair behind her ear, and then speaks, "Because you are such a doll of a girl. Now, let us go," the woman fixes that gown of her own, less grandiose than the one Pearl dons but no less beautiful in its simplicity, "You do not wish to keep the Queen, the Prince, the King - everyone waiting, do you?"

And so faint footsteps further built the anticipation inside the dining chamber: with its grandiose walls in red velvet and the doors no less impressive. All hearths blaze with sweet fervor, the sound of the wood soothing for some but unnerving for others, and chandeliers dance in the air, bedazzled, their diamonds glimmering brightly. Often times, the chamber is used for feasts of the wealthy. Then guests eat bread, pie, pork; a little wench spills pitch in a handsy lordlings lap; a rich man steals a chaste, clandestine kiss from the wife of another man who wears a gown so tight she cannot even eat; and above all are heard the saccharine strums flutes and harps and singers' voices. Now is no different, though when Pearl appears, all that is heard is quiet. Lips had mounded words of wonder and curio moments before, but when the slightest of a coup d'oeil of Pearl is caught, petals wilt like the ones in the gardens of pink and white. No man or woman rises from earlier position as they would have for a queen, but they - whom otherwise would have looked upon her with contempt in their eyes and would have spoken to her with venom nestled carefully amidst every word - nod to her with upmost respect. Pearl flushes.