Redemptor Secret Origin

Neatherella (ii)

Last night, Neatherella found herself dreaming not of dresses, but of the vile General Gorchen sitting on his black throne, and Gorchen announcing a Black Banquet the next night, and that the following day, Gorchen would be sending out his Conquering Winds across the whole of Planet Fait. Yet, lo! Into this dream appeared such a hero, in purple and blue and orange, called Redemptor, who would stand up to the wicked wizard and dare to do something right about the wrongness. Neatherella recognized the fabled hero from pictures on the walls in the Sylva Dome from when she had visited the shinseon after her father had passed.

When Neatherella woke this morning, same as always, Neatherella prepared for her stepmother and stepsisters their breakfast, bathed them, combed their hair, and suffered their constant insults. Something was different inside Neatherella this time, though. She had hope. Her hope was like a little, tiny, precious, purple stone she had to keep hidden, stuffed inside a blue bag, locked inside an orange box, buried deep inside her heart, safe away from her stepmother and the shadows of the supertowers and Arachnor hanging in its dreadful spot upon the Black Gate.

Just as Neatherella was about to set to washing the breakfast dishes, there came a loud, rude knock on the door of the hut. Neatherella answered to find the leader of the Factory Guild standing there, scowling in his fine clothes with his nose in the air, and her stepmother went straight away to bowing and preening before him. "Is that a spider?" asked the Factory Guild Leader, aghast, pointing at the floor.

The stepmother shouted at Neatherella, "Kill it, you lazy girl." Neatherella hurried over to the spider, but instead of killing it, scooped it up with a scrap of blue fabric and tossed it gently out the open window. Neatherella curtsied to the Factory Guild Leader and said, "Apologies, my lord. How may I be of humble service to you?"

The Factory Guild Leader said that he heard of Neatherella's skills in designing and fashioning fine clothes, and he demanded she make him a new tuxedo and a new ball gown for his wife to wear to the Black Banquet to be held that night, for which he had received an invitation from a Siren that morning. The Factory Guild Leader said, "And of course I demand that we be the very best-dressed couple in all the Black Banquet. Nothing less than best for me and mine. And so, therefore and forthwith, I will return to fetch the garments this very evening at sunset precisely. Cannot you do this, Neatherella?"

Straight away the stepmother promised that Neatherella would make the clothes for the Factory Guild Leader and his wife, but Neatherella apologized, "My lord, I am very sorry, but I could not possibly finish a whole new tuxedo and a whole new ball gown by sunset this very evening."

The Factory Guild Leader guffawed and said, "You will have the whole day. Surely you are not a lazy seamstress. And if the garments are not the very best, if my wife and I are not the very best-dressed, handsomest couple in all Tetrapolis at the Black Banquet, you will die. Just put your mind to it, and simply do it."

The stepmother promised that, yes, Neatherella would most certainly do it, and the Factory Guild Leader departed. Neatherella sat down at her sewing station and looked in despair at her papers, fabric, quill, thread, and needles. What the Guild Leader demanded was, in fact, impossible. In a panic, Neatherella tried to draw ideas, but they were coming out all wrong, and she crumpled page after page. All the while her stepmother and stepsisters were laughing at her and shouting at her, "Hurry up, Neatherella," "Surely you are not a lazy seamstress, Neatherella," "Surely we don't want you to die at sunset, Neatherella," "Ha ha ha ha!"